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Ever lived where it’s really humid? The weather
here in Chengdu would be almost balmy compared to any summer in Central
California - except for the humidity. Eat breakfast, and work up a sweat.
Go for a walk to buy vegetables from the open air market down the road,
and work up a sweat. Play tennis under an almost always overcast sky,
and… Fortunately bike riders ace it again, as the cooling of the
motion is just about enough to carry off the sweat of the exercise - almost.
Speaking of which, it takes longer to get across town from my old school
to the new university by car than by bike, sitting in stifling heat and
exhaust, waiting - ugly. It’s about 50 minutes by bike compared
to over an hour by car. I don’t have to tell most of you that you
don’t see much in a car. Of course, you’re thinking America,
where there’s not much to see anyway. But here there is something
to look at and wonder about all along the way. Oh, hey, look at that little
shop that sells nothing but
toilet paper (yeah, I know you think I’m kidding).
New quarters, new things to get used to, new object of curiosity for everyone
else to stare at. Living situation much improved, I’m on the ground
floor but luckily there’s a courtyard to look out on just over my
computer monitor, kids darting around because it’s summer break,
else they’d be in school 16 hours a day (which is only a slight
exaggeration). I guess this is about as close to middle class as I’ve
ever been in China. American middle class: 2 bedrooms, 3 ACs, microwave,
video and DVD players, washing machine, etc. Actually, the standard by
which I judge all Chinese living situations is the size of the refrigerator.
You never see the large ones we have in the States, or even close. I do
have friends with very large apartments and have seen some large detached
houses, without the large yards you see in America, and no big refers.
Part of this is that the Chinese are used to buying almost all their food
fresh and often; someone in the household will go out every morning to
the vegetable market to get about a day’s worth of stuff, including
live animals (poultry, rabbits or fish), eggs, produce, tofu, pickles,
noodles, bread, almost anything. Sort of like having a cut-rate Whole
Foods on almost every major corner.
Nota bene: I just realized that in these rambling thoughts,
I’m usually talking about my life in the city but 80% of China’s
1.2 billion people still live as peasants in the countryside. There existence,
while slowly being elevated, is still a long way from what we would call
tolerable. They work hard, have little security, live humbly and maybe
dream of a better life. Some city people are little removed from these
primitive conditions and some of the students I see everyday are only
one or two generations away from the farmer’s life. To sum up my
own point of view, I sometimes imagine I could live on a farm with them
for a while. You know, the simple life. Then I think that probably I couldn’t.
Ok, here’s a short video of city life in China: I’m coming
back last night from visiting friends and playing tennis over at my old
school, just ambling along on my bike about 9 pm. It’s pretty safe
and I never think about being attacked except when I start swearing at
someone for nerving me. You often see single females out pretty late.
And I’m thinking about what I’m going to tell you about life
here, rubber necking at pretty girls or couples talking ‘intently’
in each other’s arms, trying to remember where I am, listening to
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on the Walkman, singing to myself and
whoever happens to be beside me, which isn’t many because traffic
has thinned considerably. And this girl cuts me off on her bike so I sort
of raise my voice a little and tell her to watch out (in a mixture of
Chinese and English) but not angrily and she sort of nods like, ok dude,
and then I’m closer to my place and I’m passing all these
little shops open late with red light in side and they have girls sitting
around doing nothing and they’re not selling any obvious merchandise
and then I do realize what merchandise they are selling. I have to keep
checking the street signs to make sure I don’t miss my street because
I haven’t come back this way before. At one point I ask a couple
of guys walking if this is Fuqing Road (jiege jie Fuqing Lu ma?) but they
say ‘bu shi’ (isn’t). Then I do find the right street
and have to negotiate the little side street near my residential area
along the river but they’re rebuilding the banks so the path is
torn up and it was raining in the morning so if I put my foot down it’s
mud-city but it’s dark because there are few street lights here
- in some parts it’s pitch black but I can make out the path edge
from the big tree shadows. Then I wheel onto my street where a bunch of
guys and a few girls are still out playing mah-jong (a Chinese friend
calls it China’s worst drug). Then into my compound where most of
the university’s teachers live and a nod and a ‘hey’
to the guard, who won’t close the gate until midnight (but he’ll
be there to let me in even if I stumble in early in the morning).
I can’t shake the feeling, when I’m tooling around on my bike,
plugged into the music, that I’m taking you on a tour of my town:
stay over to the right; hey watch out for the taxi turning from the right
(you thought they were going to stop? -ha!) and keep your eyes open; I
think it’s down this street ‘cause it looks familiar; wait
to cross: wait, wait - NOW; oh, there’s a cute girl sucking on a
Popsicle; hey, let’s stop here and have noodles for lunch. And like
that. And amaze you with my really rather pathetic Mandarin and even some
local dialect.
You knew that there is great variation in Chinese speech,
nothing like the situation you see in England, unless you find someone
there who speaks only Scots or Irish Gallic or Welsh, and certainly nothing
like America where everyone’s speech is almost identical by comparison.
In China there are about 10 mutually unintelligible languages (like Cantonese
and Fujianese), not to mention the many minority languages, so most TV
broadcasts have subtitles - all use the same written characters. But even
the dialects of Mandarin are quite different from the Beijing / CCTV standard.
Mandarin has four tones but each dialect varies the tones somewhat, not
to mention very different vowel and consonant variations and the many,
many local expressions. As an example of which, to say that something
doesn’t matter (it’s not important, don’t worry about
it), in Mandarin it’s mei guanxi, but in Sichuanese it’s ma
dei si, which, when I say it, always gets a laugh from my friends mainly
because they know my Chinese is pitiful and it seems odd to hear such
a good expression come out of my mouth. Gotta have a good ear to develop
language skills in Asia.
Which reminds me, you have to have a lot of what I would
call survival skills when negotiating another culture. Sometimes I’m
proud of my ability to get along here, then something will happen to show
just how much of an oddity I am, often with me losing my already limited
patience and telling someone to fuck off. My limitations, while personal,
are also universal to any human being in a strange culture - not liking
to be stared at or constantly referred to as a foreigner. And, frankly,
I just can’t see the cuteness of the constant Hello’s you
hear in a sort of chirpy voice when wandering around on foot. If it’s
face to face I usually say something like, ‘hey, what’s up?’
or ‘whadaya say?’ which throws them.
Ok, another side note. I sometimes wonder why I bother
with these involved explanations to folks back home? It’s pretty
much a given that it’s impossible to share what you’ve been
through while overseas for an extended period of time. The best you can
hope for is the polite, ‘um hmm, how interesting or: Gene, I really
admire you for doing that.’ But to explain what it’s like
to be in China - out of the question. There’s too much adaptation,
too much getting used to things that at first are hard to deal with, too
many mental adjustments that must be made in order to just survive day
to day.
But you do survive by making those adjustments, and
learn to make the best out of things, meet people who come to like you
for who you are, form lasting friendships despite the incredible differences
of culture with forbearance and patience on both parts, see amazing things,
learn a hell of a lot about yourself and a little about the rest of the
world, stop thinking about America as the center of the universe (after
all, China calls itself the Middle or Central Kingdom). And you come home,
if you do come home, a changed person. Not that anyone can see it, which
is part of what I meant by not being able to explain what you have been
through to anyone back home even if they are genuinely interested.
Which seems somewhat sad to me because there is some
wasted quality of life about it all. It’s as though you had missed
out on something even though you are the one who has been through all
the changes. Your friends give you that cocktail party stare to show they
are interested in what you are saying (you can see I’ve been through
this before). I realize that I am the one who knows more about the world
because of my experiences here but it’s of little value to ‘America
the insular,’ America the world power and America that knows-it-all.
It’s not to say that we Americans are stupid (and I DO include myself)
but we are definitely ignorant of the rest of the world. Our physical
size and separation from other continents, our vast wealth and natural
resources, compounded by our lack of knowledge of other languages and
expense of travel in other countries, all contribute to this ignorance.
I have also reflected about what it is that sets expatriates,
like myself and the others I meet here, apart. Is it a different breed
of person that goes overseas to live, some sympathy that distinguishes
you but which unites you with all those that do go to live ‘elsewhere’.
It seems to me that it is partly a sense of adventure, which in my case
may have something to do with the fact that my folks lived overseas, in
Europe and South America, for many years when I was small. There’s
some curiosity in there, but not the ‘let’s-look-it-up-in-the-encyclopaedia’
kind of curiosity. It’s some quality of scepticism, of not taking
someone’s word for something, of having listened to someone many
years ago talk about another country and never really being able to have
gotten it out of your mind. There’s some boredom involved also,
of looking around yourself at home and realizing there must be something
more to the world. Maybe it’s just that when others were watching
the Lowell Thomas and Michael Palin types explaining the rest of the world,
we were not satisfied to sit and watch the tube but had to go out and
see for ourselves.
It’s not that we don’t feel the effects
of culture shock and frustration at times. It’s not like we don’t
complain. Frequently, newcomers will have ‘why I hate China’
sessions, but it’s done more as a sense of gaining temporary balance
in an intrinsically unbalanced situation. And even long time expats nurture
deeper discontent, prejudices and grudges which are hard to dislodge.
This is probably because these feelings form the necessary barricades
against the constant onslaught of an alien culture.
I have a Canadian friend married to a Chinese woman, who has a little
girl now, and he’s been here many years, rarely travelling outside
the country. He’s not rich but has a nice home and comfortable life
here. When we get together, the conversation usually comes around to something
ugly about things here - politics, corruption, cleanliness, electric bicycles.
And because of his connections and business dealings, he knows of what
he speaks.
Or a long time Canadian teacher who has often been available
to me when I’ve had problems at school, who simply says that it’s
just ‘Chinese way’ and there’s nothing you’re
going to do about it so you might as well just accept it. It’s like
when your biking in the bike lane and a taxi swerves in front of you to
pick up a hailing citizen, as though he were on a bike also and not controlling
a several thousand pound death machine. At first you kick the fender and
swear. Later you just swear and then you just swear under your breath.
Finally you just brake and pass on the left, even if you have to go out
into traffic because everyone is so used to this situation, anticipates
it and deals with it. It would be useless to get worked up which would
just slow you down anyway and raise your blood pressure.
HOWEVER, recently I was coming up on a huge military
bus inching out into the traffic so I, and everyone else on bikes or walking,
went around on the curb side. Then the bus reversed - no brake or reverse
lights or signal or any other kind of warning, even from the guy guiding
him on the street. I came that close to being squished between his rear
bumper and the curb. I guess I could have jumped out of the way but my
bike would have been toast. Even the Chinese were squealing and looking
worried for me as they saw what was happening. When I pushed my way by
the other bikists from behind him, I let the driver know in clear terms
he was an ass (the f-word was prominent ?which is understood by all here)
but didn’t make the mistake of taking it to his face, which would
have gotten me in a huge explanation with the police as to why I had leaped
onto a military bus to beat up the driver. Spy would have been the first
accusation.
As long as I’m regaling you, I once set off with
the other cyclists after the light changed to green but there were still
cars in the huge intersection under the overpass. I rode on after the
others but got off a little slowly and so I was trailing them by a few
meters. Anyway, this guy just kept coming slowly on, against the light,
and smacked my front wheel before braking. No harm was done except to
knock the stuff out of my basket. At first I shouted something like ‘what
the fuck’ pointing to the light which had changed. But when I looked
at him (everyone in the car was wide-eyed that they had hit a foreigner),
his sheepish and apologetic look cooled my anger and I just shook my head,
picked up my stuff, with them all looking at me, and went on - no harm
done, like I said, more or less.
In the general area of complaining, I am very lucky to
be a teacher because my students are a huge support group, even when they
think I am wrong, because they provide me with a forum from which to vent
some frustrations and just speak out what I am feeling and going through.
It even allows me to pontificate about American culture. After all, who’s
going to disagree with me? We can often laugh at our own follies.
I finally realized that ranting about things Chinese,
while feeling good at the moment, was not helpful to my well-being and
ability to survive, so I have pretty much shut up - except now I’m
talking to you so it’s ok. Oh, I do hate Chinese pop music and this
is no secret to my close friends. I hate the traffic here but I keep my
mouth shut, mostly, and just use my brakes and pedal power to get around
situations, just like the Chinese. My attitude is best summed up in my
reaction to Chinese TV and movies. I simply say that it is dreadful, almost
as bad as American. And while I love American movies, most of what Hollywood
produces is junk, or pablum, or rehashing. Tune in to HBO or Star Movies
(Fox/Murdoch in Asia) if you want an accurate sampling.
My biggest complaint, though, about China and Chinese?
They don’t complain. They don’t tell the store to give them
their money back because the damned product they were sold is a piece
of junk, or the food they ordered is not right, or the work done on their
apartment is not proper, or people are talking too loud in a restaurant.
But you know my biggest admiration for Chinese? They can accept things
the way they are, not losing their cool when confronted with the idiocies
of life. If that’s not ambivalent, I don’t know what is. In
fact, that should be my epitaph - he was ambivalent. And that’s
a good place to end my tale.
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