Sounds of China

After a long and eventful trip with my parents across Eurasia on the Trans Siberian, an insufficient breeze through Scandinavia , and a visit with friends in the UK, I am squarely back in Middle-America and a frustrating job hunt.

Before I left China, I jotted down a few sounds that I will likely not hear again unless I someday return. Sounds are difficult to capture in words unless you have experienced them. So, though the list may still be interesting to all, it will only trigger nostalgia among those who have experienced them.

Sounds I will miss:

1) Dried tea leaves pinging the bottom of a stainless steel mug on the way to the office water boiler
2) Clanging woks just inside open windows of low-rise apartment buildings at lunch-time
3) Walnut shells grinding together in the palm of a old Beijinger man strolling in the opposite direction
4) The militaristic count to 4 in the morning for various official events and training sessions
5) Women preparing a bed for a guest by beating the mattress with both hands
6) My roommate’s dramatic teeth brushing performance from one room away
7) A room full of shot glasses clanging against glass lazy susans in nearly perfect unison during banquet toasts
8) “Luo la” or “ Lao la” (My name in Chinese)
9) The single syllable “mmm” or “ahh” of agreement in conversation
10) The silence after someone sneezes (as in no “Bless you”)
11) Shameless public singing
12) Chopsticks being washed en mass by rolling them together between hands under water
13) Table tennis in the office hallway in the late-afternoon
14) Rubbish collectors on carts yelling upwards to open windows
15) The deep voiced guy that sells handmade blankets in my neighborhood, also yelling upwards to open windows
16) My Grandmother’s cheery voice through my cheap Nokia mobile at 4:30AM when she had mastered Skype, but not yet the 12 hour time gap!

To be perfectly honest about my feelings on leaving, I have included sounds I WILL NOT miss:

17) The pre-spit hawk
18) The post-hawk spit
19) Northeast or Beijing dialect ‘r’ outside my window at 4:30 AM
20) Alternating fast high-pitched and slow low-pitched voices of elderly neighbors bickering, muffled by not so well insulated walls
21) Loud ringtones of pop favorites
22) ‘wai guo ren!” (foreinger!)
23) ‘lao wai!” ( foreinger!)
24) “e luo si en!” (Russian!)
25) Poor quality pop music bumping from poor quality speakers at storefronts
26) The ubiquitous recording telling me that everything inside a store is only 2 Yuan
27) “Mei Banfa” (Nope, there’s no way to solve your problem / I’m not willing to help you)
28) Muzak magically emanating from fake logs and mushrooms in tourist areas and otherwise natural parks
29) Heavy plastic door flaps closing in your face

China's Quirky Mornings

I like China most in the early morning. Aside from the occasional official university event, all of which for some reason must begin at 6:00AM with loud speakers, mornings are relatively quiet. Breakfast food stands set up in back alleys selling fresh soy milk, fried dough sticks, and bite sized steamed dumplings to go. Vegetable and fruit markets present the day’s freshest produce to the most eager customers. And, mornings are hands down the best time of the day for people watching in China. It’s the only time/place one can see an old man in full Kung Fu garb after his morning training poking through vegetables at a market with a sword!

Through both direct and indirect comments, I get the feeling that Chinese consider themselves to be a nation of early risers. I also get the feeling that Chinese believe that westerners are late risers, dare I say lazy late risers. My landlord’s pride sneaked through his typically stoic face when he mentioned that he wakes up at 4:30 or 5:00 every morning to jog. The early morning hours are a time to be outside pursuing moderate exercise.

Mornings are a time for serious Tai Chi and Kung Fu classes in parks, as well as individual practitioners scattered about apartment complexes and university tracks. For men and women, mornings are also a time for walking; jogging (which is at the same speed as walking but with a jogging façade); waking backwards; leg stretching to lengths that make me cringe; rope jumping; table tennis; various routines of smacking legs, arms, backs, cheeks, and heads; and playing a hacky sack type game with a feathered shuttlecock. For men, mornings are a time for harder running, basketball, and pull-ups. For women, mornings are a time for traditional style dancing with fans and sequenced fabric squares.

While I understand the physical and mental benefits of these activities, there are a few additional exercises that leave me stumped. Many of these exercises overlap with Chinese traditional medical concepts, some of which also still bewilder me. Many exercise regimens involve repetitious patting/hitting, extreme stretching, and even yelling; all purport to maintain good circulation, flexibility, and expelling ‘bad air,’ respectively. Here are a few anecdotes for you to picture and ponder.

Once on a morning run by the ocean in Dalian, above the waves I heard the disturbing sound of people yelling. As I paused to watch, I found no one to be in danger, but rather 25 swim-capped heads bobbing about letting out generic hollow yells. Perplexed and slighted disturbed, I asked my doctor friend about this bizarre habit. He suggested that they were probably trying to force out ‘bad air.’ I guess this is similar to the idea of ‘running out’ a chest cold on the mend?

On a river ferry boat on the Yangtze River, I came up to the deck to greet the day only to see ten men halfway through their personalized morning routines of arm rotations, hip thrusts, and trunk twists. Feeling that my conventional hamstring stretches and jumping-jacks were insufficient for that crowd, I returned to my room.

Early one hot July morning in Beijing, I was jogging around a university track and every time I passed the 100 m mark I could not help but slow to watch an older couple in their creative routine. The women was bumping her back forcefully against a tree trunk and letting out a yell. The man held one end of a large linked chain over his shoulder. At the other end he had tied the chain into a ball about 10 inches across. He was slowly but rhythmically swinging the chain around his body and letting the chain ball hit his back side. I can only guess that the Mrs. had a case of the bad air and the gentleman was worried about circulation. I guess I could have asked, but they seemed occupied.

Other exercise routines are less perplexing to me and more impressive. Each public exercise area always has one or two super fit middle-aged men maxing out on pull-ups and dips. I have also seen men an women well into their 80’s with one leg halfway up a tree! I have seen fewer women demonstrating acts of strength, as I gather such activities are not in keeping with a woman's best health interests or overall image. Yet, I have seen some solid female joggers and jump-ropers.

My first encounters with these strange activities made me smirk with, admittedly, condescension. As an ex-400m runner, I tend to be slightly masochistic when it comes to exercise. What good is a workout if you’re not drenched in sweat, gasping for breath, and cramping by the end? I feel that America has a split personality when it comes to fitness. On one end are the marathoners and gym rats that guzzle Nalgenes of water and drink whey products. At the other are those who have resigned themselves to a life of immobility altogether. In this context, the Chinese seem to have it figured out.

So what if the lady walking backwards hitting his arms repeatedly has a little pot belly? At least she’s moving! And what if the guy jogging is getting lapped by the walkers? He probably won’t need knee surgery! Stretching for a half hour, playing table tennis, and yes even bumping one’s back against a tree, would likely benefit those who (for no other legitimate health reasons) have become immobile.

Neighborhood Watchdogs

I recently wrote a short “what to expect when coming to China e-mail” for a professor of my institute who was expecting two foreign summer interns. I included the detail that it’s not uncommon to see vibrant slums standing beside shiny modern luxury apartment complexes. She stopped me on the way out of the institute, and we chatted about the e-mail amongst egg-plants, carrots, and chili peppers spread over the sidewalk by vegetable vendors from the suburbs. She said that even after living in Europe, she had never noticed the affluence discrepancy. She explained that being poor was part of everyone’s childhood in her generation. So actually, she doesn’t notice the slums, period.

When I first came to China, the unkempt, cracking concrete soviet style buildings of no particular aesthetic value put me on edge. Having emerged from a bubble of small town USA neighborhoods, perfumed by an aroma of fresh lawn clippings and fabric softener sheets from dryer vents, I was trained to believe that “rundown” conditions of a neighbor probably equals crime, guns, murders, and packs of marauding males intent on doing me harm. But in China, rusty, discolored, and water damaged, well, perfectly describes my perfectly comfortable neighborhood.

It took me a while, but I stopped seeing the general sliminess of my neighborhood and started noticing the signs with which I associate safety, security, and community: familiar smiling faces; grandmas with their infant grandchild out for a stroll in the pitch dark at 1:00AM; harmless neighborhood gossip; food gifting; a kid practicing his trumpet, and general neighborhood nosiness!

I rest assured knowing that I have a brigade of retiree watchdogs keeping astute monitor of building 22. I can hear conversation in Beijing bravado during their voluntary shifts from 5:00AM to Midnight, while they play cards and mahjong, exercise, and wash and peel vegetables. They do take an hour and half break mid-day for lunch and a siesta. This must be the time when they tell secrets, because everything else they say can be clearly heard on the top floor of my walk-up flat.

I learned quickly that they keep track of everything, including me! They sit under the trees on a patio directly across from where I lock up my bicycle, meaning that I rarely enter or exit my building without a little chat. As I round the corner on my bike, I quickly calculate the ratio of their degree of absorption in their card games to length of my skirt and strategically time my dismount accordingly.

On my way in they ask if I have finished work, where I have been, what I have purchased, how much I paid, and then advise on where I could get it cheaper. Sometimes I even get my vegetables inspected. On the way out, they ask me where I’m going, what I’m throwing away, and if there are any recyclable bottles in my bag.

If I don’t appear to be in a hurry, they press on: “Have you found a new job yet?” “Where are you going,” “Are you going to play soccer, I heard you play soccer (with thumbs up because girls don’t play soccer in China).” “Don’t you take a nap after lunch?” “Did you bring an umbrella?” “Have you found a Chinese boyfriend yet?” “Where did you get your flat tire fixed on your bike and for how much? You didn’t ride your bike for five day you know?”

I judge that their involvement in my business is a manifestation of their concern at best and condescension at worst. Unfortunately, I interpret their questioning as the former or the latter based on my mood and how many similar questions I have endured that day. I have never tried firing questions back. I wonder how my lack of inquiry into their semi-private lives is interpreted. Thoughts?

The picture is of a few of these ladies when they were actually, officially, "on patrol" during the weeks of congressional meetings in China (as if any top officials would visit our tiny complex in a remote corner of Beijing.) But, they do the same thing all day anyway, just without the red arm bands.

Long Distance Bus Ride Blues in China

I can be positive about many things in China, but bus rides is not one of them.
I have taken a few long distance bus rides in the US, Vietnam, Cambodia, and China. I rank China as number one for overall sensory discomfort. Unfortunately, I do them so infrequently that I forget the physical discomfort between and book them again to save money.

First there are all the problems associated with buying a ticket. There is usually a small crowd around the door of a long distance bus station trying to or get passengers on another bus or car. Or, they are simply trying to get customers to buy the same ticket that you would buy inside, but from them. As a fair-haired foreigner, I get hassled more than the Chinese customer (or at least that’s how I feel). I have to nearly push my way through the crowd of gruff speaking, smoky, smelly, ticket poachers to get to the official counter. Once there I have to hold my place in line and try my best to ignore the chatter from black market ticket sellers, who have followed me from the front door. I tell them in Chinese, “You’re wasting your time, don’t bother me, and I’m not Russian” but to no avail. If the official ticket vendor is kind, she will tell them to scram.
My most recent long distance bus experience was on the return to my final trip to Dalian in July. I thought I would save some money and take the 11 hour bus trip back to Beijing instead of flying. Things started well. My dear friend got the ticket for me in advance and the bus was modern and relatively clean. My seat mate was a neatly dressed young woman, which I greatly prefer over the cigarette/booze scented male alternatives. The bus was not full when we left, so the driver crept through concentric circles around the Dalian station, honking insatiably, while his wing man yelled our destination out the door. This is just in case anyone on the sidewalk suddenly decides to drop his/her plans and go to Beijing. I guess it’s possible.

After a couple years traveling in China, I’m well inured to the excessive use of horns on bus rides. The real noise problems began once we were on the open road and the distractions of city driving had ceased. The music and video programs were switched on and I suddenly remembered why I should have taken the plane. Regardless of the genre, Peking opera, traditional comedy skits, the official Spring Festival performance (still showing in July), or mediocre pop singer performances, they are all LOUD! In moments like these I sit and look at the screaming speaker above my head and imagine a Chinese manufactured volume dial with only two settings: “shufu”(comfortable) and “bu shufu” (uncomfortable). I gauge that this time it was set at about three notches past “bu shufu.” I looked around the bus to find that I was the only one wincing instead of grinning during the canned laughter.

Next come air problems. I suppose anytime one boards public transportation she forfeits her rights to climate/air control. Yet I find that my need for a constant flow of fresh air to be more fervent than my bus-mates’ needs. We stopped on the outskirts of town to fill up on gas and take a bathroom break with the air-conditioning off and the doors and windows closed! Much to the amusement and interest of those around me, I pulled out my Chinese style fan to avoid both physically and mental meltdown. Again, no-one else seemed to sweat (pun totally intended) the dreadfully stagnant air of a July afternoon, which was further warmed by of 80 pairs of hot moist lungs.

Reminded of his habit by the no-smoking signs in the gas-station, the driver lit up a cigarette the moment we pulled away. As soon as he finished his torturously long cigarette, his wing man lit another, doubling the haze in the bus and my regret for not taking a plane. To his credit, he opened the tiny window beside him after lighting up. But at about 60 mph, this only rocketed the carcinogens to the back of the bus.

At this point, I had my shirt over my mouth and nose, my fingers in my ears, my cheek pressed up against the window to keep cool. And still no-body else seemed to be bothered about any of it! But just then, a man in the front row with a grandson in his lap asked the men to stop smoking. The wingman put up some protest that the grandpa refuted by telling him that he himself was also a smoker but would not subject his grandson or the rest of the bus to his smoke in such a confined space. God bless him and his grandson!

After countless unexplained stops, identification checks, bathroom/smoke breaks, and traffic jams, we finally rolled into a non-descript bus station parking lot in Beijing at 10:00 PM. I was tremendously relieved to be off the bus and to be reducing sensory stimuli one-by-one. But what would a bus journey be without a grand finale? Just then, we opened the luggage compartment only to watch two heavy eyed sluggish stowaways un-contort themselves from the spaces between our luggage and casually walk out of the station.
But, after all that I did save about 40 dollars!

Teeth Brushing in China

Ok, you think I’ve run out topics and have resorted to something as banal as brushing teeth. But really, for those who choose to keep dental hygiene habits, brushing one’s teeth is quite the event here.

I’ve noticed two puzzling traits about brushing teeth in China. First, it is occasionally a public event. Second, it is always done in conjunction with a cup.
By public brushing, I don’t mean like in a public office bathroom after lunch break. I mean public like in front of your business on the street! I recently went to a tiny Kodak store to get visa pictures taken. It was mid-morning and the twenty-something year old technician with a rattail and wispy bangs was apparently just beginning his day. He conducted the entire half hour exchange from photographing to printing to payment with toothpaste foam a half inch wide around his mouth and a toothbrush rolling around in his teeth as he spoke. The fact that I walked away with the right sized pictures at a decent price, I consider to be a listening comprehension victory!

I reckon that this young man lives in dormitory style living quarters with no sink. These kinds of rooms are tucked away in otherwise un-rentable basements and first floors of old apartment buildings everywhere. At night, when the lights are still on, one can peer in on the lives of single young men trying to minimize their rent, content to have a place to sleep after long hours of work at little pay. My multi-tasking Kodak technician friend either shared such a room with 15 other men with little or no bathroom access, or he actually lives in the Kodak store itself and I caught him in his morning routine. Either way, he joined others that morning along a line of storefronts for public face washing, hair washing, and teeth brushing.

My Kodak friend also had a cup for brushing his teeth. Why he did not bother to deposit the toothbrush in the cup while he spoke to me, I cannot say. Anyway, my observations on Chinese teeth brushing must start with an explanation of where I’m coming from on the matter. So, excuse me for a moment while I take you through the intimacies of my own diurnal routine. I wet my tooth brush and paste with a drizzle from the faucet to start, brush modestly, and finish by rinsing my mouth, toothbrush, and sink basin with the water from the faucet, directed by my cupped hand. If I am feeling extra responsible that day I’ll add in a flossing session too.

In contrast, all of my observations of Chinese teeth brushing sessions begin with filling a cup from the faucet, dipping the toothbrush into the cup followed by an extended furious brushing period, which unabashedly spreads toothpaste foam from nostrils to chin. The session ends with, what seems to me, an exaggerated amount of swirling, stirring, swishing, splashing, and tapping in a percussion show among mouth, cup, and basin. Again, this may seem a tedious topic…but it is nearly an art and diverged enough from my experiences to make me stop and observe. Watching my roommate brushing her teeth, I actually thought of writing to the alternative percussion group, ‘STOMP’ to suggest a new idea for their percussion performances. Oh and the flossing? Non-existent. I think only Americans do that after all. In fact, my current Chinese roommate reported that her dentist informed her that flossing actually damages your teeth and gums.

So why the cup? I have a hypothesis about this and did a little research to test it. I surveyed a set of randomly selected candidates as to their preference for using a cup when brushing (this really means I asked those friends who happen to be on G-mail chat or Skype at that moment.) I found that none of my native born American friends use a cup to brush their teeth. Yet, my first and second generation Chinese American friends do in fact use a cup. Actually, one does not, but upon further inquiry I found that her parents do. This only further supports my hunch that the cup habit is due to a lack of running water. While the majority of Chinese teeth brushers in my generation have running water, our parents’ generation (i.e. the models of all hygienic habits) likely did not have running water. Thus, while the cup may once have been a necessity, the habit has been passed down one or two generations merely by example. But, my research methods are shaky and open to peer review! Feel free to suggest other explanations for the cup brushing phenomenon.

The second reason for this practice, I believe, also relates to water supply issues. Reflecting on her own cup use habit, my Chinese American friend pointed out that using a cup simply saves more water than repeated bursts from the faucet; it is an environmentally friendly habit. I have observed a general frugality when it comes to water use in Chinese homes. My Chinese roommates have all used as little water as possible during showers, turning on and off the water throughout the shower. They have even used a basin in the shower so as to not loose water down the drain. However, while I credit my Chinese American friend’s water conservation to environmental motives, for many others here in China, these habits have little to do with environmental morals and everything to do with saving money. This is evidenced by my experiences in public bath houses, which have flat fees. There women take hours scrubbing every inch of skin multiple times under continuously gushing water. By the way, I also observed that even under the full stream of a showerhead, these women will still make use of the complimentary plastic cups to brush their teeth!

I recall yet another example while staying with a sick friend in a hospital in Dalian. The woman caring for the girl in the adjacent bed took full advantage of free water in the bathroom. By the end of the week she had washed half her wardrobe and two pairs of shoes, all of which were strung about the room adding to the humidity of the already clammy room. I liken this indulgent behavior to Americans at an all you can eat buffet!

Speaking of Americans, it is perhaps more appropriate to be astonished not by Chinese frugality, but by the global exceptions, Americans. Chinese are more in keeping with the rest of the world’s water consumption habits. Whereas, Midwest Americans in particular enjoy the luxury of cheap, abundant, clean water. I have watched dormitory mates brush their teeth with the water running the entire time. I myself am guilty of taking leisurely showers at home on my parents’ water bill…and of course… not using a cup.

Life in the Bike Lane

I've been copying my big brother since I was able to walk. So I thought I'd give a biking update too!

Beijing and bikes just seem to complement each other. Beijingers young and old, sporty and plump, chic and country, all ride. Bike lanes line most major roads. Promotional fliers and coupons are distributed in mass in bike baskets, rather than snapped under windshield wipers. Bicycle repairmen, found on every other corner, will patch your flat for 2 Yuan (and I probably even got ripped off). While biking then becomes quite the daily routine, it is never in anyway banal.

Traffic in China is generally right hand traffic. Yet, because it is often difficult to cross the street, the bike lanes and gutters on either side function in two way traffic for bikes, load bearing tricycles, and motorcycles. Strangely, on the these edges the traffic pattern switches to left hand traffic. So, if I’m riding on the right side, I should assume that the bikes riding on my side of the street, but in the opposite direction, will hug the curb, forcing me out into traffic. After much deliberation, I've finally concluded that this is because oncoming riders can actually see what is approaching. Accordingly, they take the safest position possible while I remain blissfully unaware of the dump truck behind me piled twice its height with tumbling fill dirt. My only other explanation for this reverse traffic pattern phenomenon is that when bicyclers "double," the person on the back typically sits side saddle, feet to the left. Thus hugging the curb lessens the chances of a car clipping the legs of the freeloader. This also spares oncoming bikers from being skewered by spike high heels on long legged wispy Chinese girls bumming a ride from their boyfriends.

There is the occasional hairy situation. A taxi may pull a U-turn with no warning. Or, a hubristic driver of a black Audi might unapologetically back off the sidewalk into the road, breaking the otherwise laminar flow of cyclists. In these cases, all the rules break down and it’s every peddler for herself. Yet there is one fundamental, irreducible law of bike riding in Beijing that never disintegrates: Play It Cool. It must be written somewhere! When in doubt, continue in the same direction at a constant speed. No quick movements, just expressionless fixed stares and the understanding that no one will pull a fast one.

Bikers in Beijing also contend with slow moving elderly folks, darting little children, loogies hawked from the sidewalk, crowds around street vendors, the occasional unannounced uncovered manhole, haphazardly loaded building materials on overloaded tri-cycles, and the occasional load of....ahem...from the power end of a donkey cart.

Yet beyond these perilous hazards, there lurks one final test of Beijing bicyclers’ maneuverability and nerves: young lovers! While all other traffic seems to flow in a kind of oxymoronic predictable chaos, young couples move like erratic moths! Beware; the innocent couple in matching pink T-shirts walking just ahead of you might actually do you in. The girl with feathered hair, knee socks, and a teddy bear back-pack may at any moment shriek, 'Tao yan!” [I totally disapprove of that disgusting thing you just said/did!] and retreat into an arm crossed pout and directly into your front tire. That slight framed guy, with 8 hair styles in one, carrying his girlfriend’s purse, might bowl you over as he dodges a swing from his pouting girl. It gets even more dangerous when one or both of them are holding “chuanr” sticks [pointy wooden kebab sticks], which simultaneously arm them and expand their striking distance a full foot on either side.

I once took a defensive driving course at the Mid-Ohio raceway where I learned how to handle scenarios like emergency lane changes and hydroplaning at 70 mph in an Ohio summer downpour. And yet, I feel completely defenseless against the emotional outbursts of young Chinese couples on a muggy spring Beijing night.

I have been riding a round with my camera bungee corded to my bicycle basket just to see if I can catch any of this in images. These are some of the results.

Silkworms: Fresher the Better

Mmm live silk worms in the market. I hear (from every one, every time they are mentioned) that one has as much protein as three eggs. Yet, everything about them just turns me off....

My Brother is hardcore!

Just in case you know Brian, or you want to, or you're thinking about biking across the entire US, check out my favorite brother's current adventure from San Diego, California to Charleston, South Carolina.

Seated at my desk in front of my computer, with one eye on his stories and one eye out the window at a smoggy Beijing skyline, I'm a bit jealous!

加油 "jia you" (add gas) Brian!

Unrequited Chinese Hug Affairs

Occasionally I feel that my China experience has been a string of awkward conversations and events. I romanticize home as a place where one does not often have to think about the proper reaction to, for instance, receiving an impromptu gift of a vacuum packed whole chicken; or, trying to read the awkward smiles in our dinning group as they explained that the soup I just ordered for us is traditionally only for pregnant women. While these these memories make me giggle, there are a few moments that actually make me physically cringe, the majority of which involved my very American custom of hugging.

With the exception of young lovers on the subway and in dark corners of parks, and perhaps grandparents with babies, Chinese people don't really hug. Greetings are typically a handshake or a nod and a hello. That is not to say there is no physical contact, quite the opposite in fact. Female friends walk arm and arm down the sidewalk, stroke each others' hair, and hold hands. Male friends might throw an arm around a friend's shoulder, or lay a hand a buddy’s thigh while seated. But the big, warm, welcoming, so happy-to- see- you- I -just- can't- contain- myself American hug, just doesn't happen.

I recall one unfortunate hugging event in Dalian when I was teaching. First let me say that considering the proximity of our ages, I was already informal with my students. We would occasionally eat lunch together in the student cafeteria and chatted informally outside of class. And since I taught at a branch campus nearly an hour away from my apartment, I rarely saw my students outside of that distant campus. So, one weekend when I saw this particularly outgoing (dare I say favorite) student in the middle of the Saturday shopping crowd in downtown Dalian, I was surprised. For a split second I lost my cool and gave him a big hug! He on the other hand remained rigid, neither concave to accept the embrace, nor convex to avoid it. His arms were clamped firmly to his sides and his face shown a look of sheer panic. The embrace lasted about a half a second, as I regretted it the moment I committed. This wasn't the first time one of these unrequited hugs occurred. I have had similar experiences with both females and males and I thought my past misfortunes had cured me of such moments of American caprice. In fact, I think this self restraint has seeped into my behavior with foreign friends, ironically making ME the non-hugger!

My friend has pondered the same cultural difference, but from the Chinese perspective. He speculates Americans' hugging custom is a function of our small population [in comparison to that of China]. He reasons that the tradition developed from pioneer days when two people might have come upon one another in the wilderness and embraced out of relief from solitude. Thus the hugging trend began. While I find this to be slightly oversimplified, I'll grant that we hug more than our crowded UK and European neighbors with whom we supposedly share other "western" customs. Even the French "bises" keep you at a greater distance than any style of an American body to body hug!

This leads me to my next awkward hug experience that recently occurred with one of my Chinese roommate's suitors. After an evening out of barbecued meat, beer, and banter, "Old Zhao," as my roommate affectionately calls him, said that he heard that Americans hug. Then he asked me if I could teach him HOW to hug! It was only then that I realized the complexity of this custom. Who can you hug, under what circumstances, and how? The answers are something like: definitely not your boss, not the first time you meet, and .....there are many options.

How to hug? Who goes under? Who goes over? Do you cross? Pat or no pat on the back? Squeeze? How tight? Where does you chin go? When you think about it, hugging can get slightly mechanical for us too. If you linger a moment too long in a hug, it could be misinterpreted as an advance. There are best friend hugs, family hugs, lover hugs, and sweaty sporting event hugs. Girls often do the one armed side hug at formal events so as not risk wrinkling or smudging all that they've prepared. Guys do that slick handshake into a hug and slap on the back combination.

I chose not to attempt to explain all this to Old Zhao at 11:00 PM on the sidewalk outside the rowdy smokey restaurant. Instead, I taught him the crisscross, slight squeeze, with a pat on the back hug, and added the caveat to not use it the first time he meets someone.

Safe?

Spring Festival Was a Blast!

Though I have spent two years in China now, this was my first chance to experience the entire Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) season. This post is delayed because, as the title demonstrates, I have found it impossible to come up with an original way to describe Spring Festival. If you are living in China, this is old news. But for those who have never experienced the tumultuous weeks of Spring Festival, read on...

Spring Festival shares a common quality with Christmas in that the expectation is to return home to pass the holiday season one's family. And as the capital, Beijing is much like Washington D.C. in that holidays mean a mass exodus from the city. Yet, while D.C. drains via freeways and airways, Beijing's population gets pumped out one train full at a time. According to the Chinese Rail Ministry's numbers, (as reported in China Daily) nearly 5 million of the China's 1.3 billion people are on the move via rails in the first 10 days of the holiday season. You can imagine the fear/anxiousness/dissatisfaction related to buying train tickets that pervades the holiday season. For example, when two friends/acquaintances run into each other, a common greeting is, "Have you eaten yet?" Yet, in the weeks leading up to Spring Festival, the question changed to "Have you bought your tickets yet?"On the street, in grotty noodle shops, and around the office, I could count on overhearing conversations about buying train tickets. I heard accounts of marathon queuing sessions, counterfeit tickets, black market tickets systems, fights at the ticket counters, and even confessions of general discontent with the country's governance, precipitated by these travel troubles. Most of these conversations end with everyone shaking their heads and grumbling, "tai ma fan," meaning "too much trouble/hassle."

After witnessing all this, I became terrified to even attempt a trip during the height of this period. Instead, I stayed in the ghost town university district of Beijing. Part of me assumed that I would pass the most significant Chinese holiday with Chinese people. But, by the time the big day arrived, any Chinese friends I had made in Beijing had returned to their home towns. I had a couple of offers to return to home towns to pass the holiday. However, one was impossible because it necessitated plane travel and my passport was locked up in the visa office over the holiday. The other was from a dear male friend who said that, though he would like to invite me to his home, doing so at Spring Festival would send the wrong message to his family! So, while I regret not being able to give an account of a family celebration, I can describe my enjoyable experience with some great foreign friends as we celebrated our version of Chinese New Year’s Eve.

We were set on eating dumplings, the traditional food eaten at New Year’s celebrations. I was never sure why this was so until a friend's uncle explained that in traditional Chinese folklore monsters ate everything except flour based foods. Thus, the tasty meat and vegetables are encased in protective unappealing dough to keep for humans only. (Though, the story was in Chinese, so I may have missed some details. Please feel free to set me straight.)

After stuffing ourselves with dumplings at a modest restaurant and celebrating a bit with the owners, we took to the streets with fireworks and "baijiu" (see the previous posts to know why this is actually a terrible combination). The atmosphere outside the restaurant was frigid and fanatical; explosions of light and sound came from every direction. Taxi drivers hauling inebriated passengers dodged erupting roman candles placed in the middle of the street. Pedestrians took cover in alleyways as rolls of firecrackers hung from trees fired without warning. Yet despite the peril and noise, I met no Spring Festival Grinches. There must be something about the power to create minor explosions that makes for inquellable smiles for even the most experienced merry makers. Through the strobe effect of firecrackers I watched childrens' expressions flash between glee and horror as they clasped their hands to their ears.

We made our way to the Drum Tower square and set off our own fireworks along with hundreds of other jovial Beijingers (including a surprising amount of foreigners, whose presence I attribute to the one line in the English events magazine article suggesting that the Drum Tower district was the place to be for New Years. If it was a conspiracy to keep us all in one place, it worked well!) The tradition of lighting fireworks at New Years stems from the now loosely held superstition that racket scares away monsters and evil spirits making for a clean start for the new year, void of hassle from ill intentioned ancestors lurking about.

The highlight of the evening came at midnight when Beijing citizens simultaneously lit their most expensive fireworks and the whole city spewed bright colors and sulfurous smoke in unison. Our crew was separated in the confusion and chaos but rejoined at club to dance away our numbness from the cold and take shelter from the explosions that continued for the rest of the night.

While setting off fireworks is technically only legal on two nights of the holiday season, the noise in my apartment complex continued day and night for two weeks straight. Here are a few video clip, just to show you how close to buildings, people, trees, cars, these big explosives are being lit.

Here are two clips from midnight. Notice the nonchalance of.....everyone about getting scarily close to these explosions.


This is a clip from my apartment window. And yes those sparks are really falling that closely.

Baijiu and Obama back to back

Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) has arrived. Heavy duty fireworks and firecrackers are exploding everywhere day and night. The university through which I ride my bicycle to work every day is eerily devoid of students, with only broken suitcase handles and wheels littering the ground as evidence of their mass holiday exodus home. And, restaurants everywhere are hosting Spring Festival banquets for companies and institutes all over Beijing. The need for these events can be compared with the obligatory company Christmas parties in the US. In the US, these company parties are awkward. People are forced to dress up and talk to each other about non-work related things, drink, but not indulge. The whole thing is a tightrope walk between business and pleasure. However, with all the lines of “professional” behavior slightly skewed in China, I got the feeling that these banquets in China are actually enjoyed!

Our institute’s celebration was a family affair that began in a banquet room filled with balloons, confetti, and plates of sunflower seeds and candy on the tables for munching. Staff members brought their wives/husbands and children to watch performances of our institutes’ own employees in a kind of talent show. One researcher joined his daughter in a magic show complete with a release of a parakeet (which then took 10 minutes to catch). A five year old boy showed the crowd of 100 his Taekwondo moves. A group of male post-docs performed a skit with jabs about how little money they made. Their female counterparts performed a dance routine in cut off jean shorts and tall black boots. Others sang Chinese pop songs on a Karaoke screen or performed a more traditional poetic story in the style of San Ju Ban (Three and a half sentences). The top prize went to the administrative and research staff that performed a Spanish conquistador partner dance with costumes and recorded blaring brass music. After the performances we were invited to play Chinese chess and word puzzles and then make our way to a nearby restaurant where the real party began.

Our group occupied about 20 round tables, which amounted to half the restaurant’s open first floor dining room. I sat with some of the researchers' wives and their children. The kids continued their song, dance, and martial arts performances throughout dinner despite reprimands from the adults! After a half hour of eating, the higher-ups began circulating the tables toasting their colleagues with “baijiu” (white rice alcohol that tastes like paint thinner ) and things started to get rowdy. You see a toast in China is not a sweet speech followed by a sip of champagne. Rather, it is a boisterous demonstration of thanks or good luck followed by a shot of 60 proof alcohol.

Lets again picture the stuffy holiday parties in the US where everyone is holding it all in. If someone does accidentally loosen up after a few trips to the bar, stories of their rowdiness and dirty dancing will float around the office in whispers for weeks. Now, imagine a party with no pesky Puritan roots to hold you back! Chinese drinking culture is such that one loses more face by turning down a challenge to drink than by getting completely blitzed and making a fool of himself/herself. (I say herself, but actually I do not fully understand how women fit into drinking culture in modern China.) In his book Rivertown, Peter Hessler recalled (hazily I am sure) a similar banquet with his English department where he and a friend felt no regrets about diving over tables and shooting each other with rubber band guns!

When my boss and another important staff member circled round to my chair and poured me a glass, I found myself caught in a tangle of tacit cultural expectations. I knew that it is disrespectful and even condescending to turn down a drink. Yet, I also knew that it is common for Chinese women to shy away from alcohol and toast with tea or soda instead. And finally, my Midwest roots were telling me that I should probably not be taking shots with my boss, period. I made a split second decision to file myself into a totally different category of “only foreign girl in the room” and threw one back. In the after burn I caught a thumbs up from my boss as he moved on to the next table. Whew.

The waiters brought bottle after bottle of baijiu and the noise level of our side of the room rose. I sat uncomfortably as I thought about how much we must have been disturbing the other customers sitting a mere ten feet way. Just when I thought about asking my friend if we were being too loud, the director picked up a bullhorn to announce the top prize winners of the raffle! The other customers seemed neither surprised nor offended. I guess by now I should know that hot, loud, jovial places are just where Chinese people would choose to be for the holidays.

A few students and staff stopped by my seat to chat in a mix of slurred English and Chinese. Whether it was the alcohol or the freedom that comes with speaking an opinion in a foreign language, one man felt free enough to explain the significance of this night to me. He claimed that one could “lose” oneself for the night. He described this as the one time a year when all is forgotten and forgiven. “You can say anything!” And most importantly, by drinking with his staff, the boss shows a bit of humility allowing him to reconnect with his employees.

Slightly buzzed from the cultural overload and the baijiu, I looked at my watch and remembered that the 44th US Presidential Inauguration was to take place in two hours. Being an hour's subway trip away from where I said I would meet my friends to watch, I excused myself from the party, which I later learned had continued on to a Karaoke bar. As our group walked to a bar promising a CNN live feed, we realized that while we all shared excited feelings about the big event, I was actually the only American in the group.

The bar was packed and just as loud as the Chinese banquet. But, instead of bullhorns and toasts, it was Beijing x-pats competing with each other and the CNN commentators for a bit of air time. An old Chinese man in a Mao cap circulated through the crowd selling his handicrafts and took a moment to watch the screen himself then confirming with those around him that the event was somehow connected to “ow – ba – ma.” The crowd quieted a bit at the sight of Carter, booed at George W. Bush, and cheered with the emergence of Michelle Obama. I stood beside Italians and English during the oath, an American for Aretha Franklin’s song, and Canadians during Obama’s speech. It is not until one spends an election or an inauguration abroad that one realizes how closely the rest of the world follows US politics.

I fell asleep at 4AM trying to process it all.



Here is a video just to give you a taste of the political and social vibe of the (mostly young) Beijing x-pat crowd. The second video is just proof that not everything is censored in China. This was the bit of the speech that was edited out on the Chinese stations but came through clearly on CNN.

Latest language gaffe/near miss with humiliation

As an intern, anywhere really, one is constantly anxious about how to slip into the social scene at the office/company. If you have an intern, know that he/she is over thinking every action so as to avoid being both completely overlooked or in the spotlight. This internal tension (no pun intended) increases when the job lands the intern squarely in a foreign culture where he/she cannot even rely on gut social instincts. While I am constantly strategizing about how to ease into the social scene here, I am never actually confident about how my actions are being interpreted. With such deliberation to say and do just the right thing, you can imagine what affect one major gaffe might have on my psyche.

While my Chinese vocabulary continues to grow, I am still very capable of making grave and humiliating mistakes. I had a close call during a series of email exchanges with a PhD student here at the institute. We bumped into each other outside the institute and he invited me to the public oral defense session of his thesis. There is a specific word for oral defense of one's thesis, "da bian" (答辩) which was new to me when he spoke it. I attended the session and managed to comprehend only the gist and not a single detail of his extremely technical presentation. Afterward I confidently typed up an e-mail thanking him for including me and asked him how he thought his "da bian" had gone.

However, due to my dearth of Chinese character recognition, I used the characters "大便," which is also pronounced "da bian" but with slightly different tones and unfortunately means..well... excrement (to put it gently)! I was one mouse click away from thanking him for inviting me to his defecating session and asking him how he felt about it had gone.

I swear Chinese is a code not a language!

Beijing Roast Duck (all of it)

A visit from important foreign guests to the institute warranted a trip to eat the all famous, “Beijing kao ya,” or Peking Roast Duck. Our group of ten headed to a famous roast duck restaurant near the Olympic village. The place was packed with waitresses in Qing Dynasty costumes with walki-talkies and headphones. The walls were covered in pictures of foreign guests and dignitaries that had dined there during the Olympics. I noted that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo represented the Philippines as well as one could with a whole naked duck in the foreground. We were ushered to the private “Putin room,” complete with Chinese and Russian flags as the table centerpiece and pictures of Vladimir Putin and his entourage enjoying roast duck. We ordered two entire ducks prepared with the “Putin” menu.

This restaurant was obviously still riding the Olympic theme. First to arrive on our table was a small plate of fried duck skin intricately woven into the shape of the neighboring Olympic bird nest. Next was a simulacrum of the Olympic aquatic center which took the form of duck skin chunks suspended in a rectangular mass of translucent gelatin. The jiggling mound was set atop a base with a blue twinkling light bulb making it glow aquamarine. I tried a cube as it glided past me on the rotating glass Lazy Susan. It tasted exactly like what you might expect if you ate a big spoon full of the semi-hardened grease that pools around your turkey a few days after Thanksgiving.

The waitress announced the name of each in Chinese as she placed them on the table. First was the usual, duck meat served with sweet hoisin (thick dark and sweet) sauce and spring onions all to be rolled up in thin crepe-like pancakes and eaten like tiny burritos. Undeniably delicious! Then, a plate of fleshy floppy “duck feet” arrived. With a little encouragement from my boss, the other American at the table and I lifted the wilted webbed bits of flesh from the plate with chop sticks, dipped them into mustard sauce, and plunged them into your mouths with a cringe. We both reached for our beer and gulped to forget the soft crunch of flavorless cartilage. I understood the next few dishes as announced, “duck liver,” “duck hearts cooked in Chinese white liquor,” “duck neck,” “boiled duck head,” (which was split in two for ease of eating I suppose). But then there was one dish announced that was beyond my vocabulary and visual identification. I turned to my boss and said, “I don’t’ know that one.” He laughed out loud and said, “And nor can I tell you.” There was an awkward silence as he thought for a moment and then said in English, “The Chinese have a special word for this too, “Duck Precious!”

I tried everything and at the same time tried not to think about what effect the layering of such new cuisine in my stomach might have later.

One version of a Beijing Christmas

Holidays are slightly daunting here. I suppose they are daunting anywhere if you don’t have a family on which to rely to fill that day on the calendar. But as a foreigner in China, to celebrate is more of a decision than an expectation.

China has picked up on the marketing potential of Christmas. While a Beijing Thanksgiving could have passed without my knowing, the reminders were everywhere for Christmas. Shopping malls have 60ft decorated Christmas trees outside and Holiday season sales. Though, these sales are overlapping and muddled with sales for the quickly approaching Spring Festival (Lunar New Year). Since both holidays are dominated by red it is slightly unclear what is being celebrated. Western restaurants, cafes, bars, and hotels put up English signs featuring their set menus for Christmas dinner and the servers pressure you to make reservations. Businesses of all genres decorate their storefronts with paper Santa Claus cutouts, tinsel garlands, and even fake spray snow in a can. Supermarkets sell fake Christmas trees that come pre-decorated if you want. I am sure that here in Beijing one could also buy a real Christmas tree for a price. Christmas music is common in establishments and unfortunately on cell phone ring tones, but not nearly as ubiquitously as in America.

All this hype gives one a sense of urgency about making some kind of plan. My choices were: shell out 1000 Yuan ($150)a head for a luxurious dinner, pay 200 a head for a Japanese buffet, join some friends for drinks at their apartment and then go out on the town, make dinner at a friend’s oven equipped apartment, or eat dumplings with my Chinese roommate. I chose to spend Christmas Eve out on the town and Christmas day cooking and baking in the much coveted oven.

Chinese don’t spend Christmas with their families and most foreigners don’t have families here, so Christmas has become an excuse to hit the clubs and bars. After all, what’s Christmas without a Rudolf character piloting a Congo line of scantily glad, glow stick waving, Chinese girls around the dance floor to a blaring remix of “Celebration?”

Christmas day, on the other hand felt much more wholesome. My English friend brought his mother’s Christmas recipes and three of us worked together to create a feast of stuffed apples, stuffed peppers, roast potatoes and carrots, salad, and half a turkey. The other half apparently went to another foreigner at Wal-Mart who also seemed overwhelmed at the idea of a full-sized turkey in her toaster oven. We added mulled wine, cheese, and apple pie to the menu and ate and drank ourselves into that familiar holiday digestive state somewhere between fulfillment and misery. The night finished with a scrabble game and a Skype call to my family to share in their real-time holiday.

Just before going to bed on Christmas Eve, I put Santa Claus hats stuffed with goodies and chocolate outside my Chinese and Italian roommates’ doors. My note in Chinese said that it was from Santa Claus (literally “Christmas old man”) but I think my poor Chinese calligraphy must have given me away. My Chinese roommate saw right through it and put a note on my door in English that read: “thank you, nice is young santa claus. I hope you next year more beautiful." I have no idea what that means, and it might be an insult. But, I think she liked the chocolate.

Merry belated Christmas all and Happy New Year!

Apartment Hunting

My employer paid for my first week here in a in a modest hotel until I could find an apartment. I used the entire week apartment hunting within a 3 mile radius of the institute. My criteria were simple: close to work and subway, clean, and at or below 1500 Yuan (~200 dollars). I began with the help of a Chinese friend at the institute. We looked at Chinese versions of Craig’s List and also expat websites like Beijinger. Though all the listings were advertised as individuals’ posts, we quickly realized that they were actually “middle companies.” The way my friend spit the out the word, “zhong jie,” made it sound like they were something obscene and abhorred. We scheduled a few visits on a Saturday and hit the neighborhood on foot. After just two calls, my name and number was out. No sooner had we finished one visit when my phone would ring with another company offering to show me a room. The mystery voice on the phone would instruct us to meet him at a certain corner/bus stop etc. We would arrive at the corner and locate a slightly sleazy looking man wearing a cheap suit jacket and black leather shoes. Upon seeing a lost looking blond, he would jump up from his resting squat and lead us to the next room, chain-smoking all along the way. As we walked I struggled to stay close to my friend and the middleman, bobbing and weaving around cars, carts, people, trees, and various gross things smeared on the sidewalk. The first day I mostly listened, memorizing the standard conversation as I knew that the rest of the week would be a solo adventure.

Over the course of a week I looked at about 20 apartments. These places ranged from disgustingly dingy first floor slums, to dazzling newly refinished hotel-like rooms. If the other renters were home I tried my best to size them up quickly. Some were foreign students: Italians, Japanese, Kazakhstanis, Americans, and one German. All of those places were either too expensive or meant speaking to much English. Other prospective apartment mates included an older bachelorette with a hyperactive three year old niece (that told me I was beautiful and then threw candy at me), a young family that swore they would never be home, a middle-aged couple with a chain-smoking husband, and two young Chinese guys with a bio-hazard for a bathroom. One middle company sleaze-ball took me to an apartment and then admitted that he didn’t actually have the keys. He said he would see if anyone was home and I expected him to make a phone call. Instead, I watched in disbelief as he scaled the barred windows and peered into the second story apartment to get someone’s attention. I told him to forget it and left him hanging.

Finally, I met one middle company guy at about 9:30 on the last night of my free stay in the hotel. As we walked he suddenly stopped and pointed to a Jeep Cherokee that seemed to appear out of nowhere, suggesting that we ride to see the apartment. I hesitated; I hate these judgment testing moments! It’s a little like when an unleashed barking dog charges you in a public park while the owner runs after yelling, “He won’t bite!” You think, I don’t want to overact, but I don’t want to get mauled either! I was thinking, I don’t want to freak out and offend these guys, but I also don’t want to lose my internal organs tonight!

I peered in at the driver, a geeky looking college kid with glasses and a friendly grin. He addressed me in Chinese and explained that he could give me a lift to his friend’s apartment with the spare room. “I know where it is…it’s just down the road… I can just walk,” I said. “Suit yourself” he said, “But it's cold and I can’t park here.” A response with any more pressure to get in the car would have blown the whole deal for me. But, that was just enough indifference to make me try it. I got in, one hand on the door handle ready bolt if need be and at the same time thinking that if they were really going to steal my kidney tonight they would have found a way to keep me from jumping out [insert mother’s cringe here].

The young guy turned out to be extremely nice and he was indeed actually helping his friend. The three of us talked about the global financial crisis, NBA stars, and how cold it gets in Beijing in winter. He drove through a security gate and deep into low rise apartment complex to the foot of building number 22. The front was lined with hundreds of bicycles ready for the morning commute. The balconies were decorated with laundry, cabbages, sausages, leeks, and garlic braids, all hanging out to dry. The stairwell was normal for this price range: dirty, dark, unmaintained, and like it might lead to a prison cell. I was comforted that we stopped to get keys from the landlord on the first floor. The door opened to a warm, spotless, well lit, newly refinished, sizable three bedroom apartment that smelled like someone had recently cooked something tasty. The current renter, a young Chinese woman, was away. But a quick glance at her shoes, kitchen utensils, stocked refrigerator, and absence of filth was enough for me to think we might be more compatible than the screaming child or the stinky Chinese boys. The landlord couple came up to visit from their apartment on the first floor. He was a cute reticent old man with a Mao era hat. She was a typical middle-aged, plump, ruddy faced loud mouthed nosey woman, who I am sure would push me out of the way on the bus any day. They asked questions about my experiences in China and complemented my Chinese. They explained that they were “lao Beijing ren” (Beijing born and raised) and their old neighborhood was in the same place before it was leveled to make way for this apartment complex. I took it all hook line and sinker and put down a couple hundred Yuan for the key.

I left feeling a sense of achievement for independently securing a decent room, under budget, and all in a foreign language. I celebrated with a bowl of noodles and a chocolate bar. But, when I contacted the folks helping me at the institute to tell them the good news, my pride and satisfaction turned to angst and dread. They wanted to come and help with the contract signing, meet my landlord, check on the apartment, and barter yet another lower price. I knew what was going to happen. My bubble of ignorant trust was about to be popped! They would tell me that I was paying too much, these people were cheating me, my future roommate was probably not even living there, and I should not have made such a hasty decision. All these things passed through my mind too, but I was tired and trusting and went with my gut.

As predicted, what seemed to me like a simple six month agreement to exchange money for a place to sleep and a hot shower turned into hours of discussion. Voices were raised, teeth were sucked in dissatisfied, and the smiling faces of my landlords were twisted into disgust and distain. But, I know that all this is necessary. Nothing in China is ever as simple as I feel that it should or could be. My friends know this system and can predict the 110 ways I could be taken advantage of later. I know that this flagrant display of skepticism and distrust are normal in these negotiations. But, after almost two years it still makes me uncomfortable! As I followed the fast loud conversation, I wanted to scream, “I don’t care what you think! This location is convenient, the place is clean, I’m under budget, and if things get ugly at least I’ll have something to write about!” But, I kept respectfully quiet until the contractual negotiation/shouting match subsided and I got the cue to sign. I felt somewhat vindicated in that after all that the landlord wouldn’t come down on the price. My friends were not satisfied, but were luckily too busy to insist that I keep looking for something cheaper.

While I am truly thankful for their help and local perspective, I recognize that our objectives are different. I am personally willing to pay a small premium just too keep the pleasant and polite comfort bubble intact. When I see my landlords playing with their grandchild outside, they will smile and ask me if I have eaten yet. And, I can smile back and continue to think of them as a sweet “lao Beijing” couple that may actually have my best interest in mind.

What is Midwest Culture; A call for your comments

All this moving around has sparked some new observations and has me wondering; what is it about trying to maintain a Midwest character in China that is so exhausting and futile?

During college I was convinced that the Midwest was the most generic place on Earth: flat, no wilderness yet no cosmopolitan areas either, strip malls, K-marts, gray skies for half the year, corn fields. Picturing it? If you grew up in rural or suburban Midwest you were stuck being aware of all the extreme hobbies and cultural scenes of the rest of the country, yet had to make do with what the region could provide. You could only go so far into these interests before you either had to settle on something else or bail for one of the coasts or Rockies.

My friends were all from places that I imagined to be more . . . authentic. I listened to my friends' hometown stories with envy. In Marion, Virginia they had southern accents, bluegrass, and hometown doctors that cross-country skied to the office in the winter. I am sure there were grassroots revolutions started in the coffee shops and vegetarian joints in Amherst, Massachusetts. High school students in Seattle, Washington knew how to deal with both glacial crevasses and inner city scuffles. And in the tiny hamlet of Pultneyville, New York, old ladies will interrupt your long run to taste test their homemade cookies. I spent my summers in Alaska, Idaho, and Washington, hoping to gain some kind of character that I thought the Midwest had shorted me on. So, I was surprised and even delighted in China when a friend from California paused after something I said and exclaimed, "God you're so Midwest!"

That got me thinking. What exactly is that Midwest character? I thought there was none. But, the Beach Boys Sing about it: "The Midwest farmers' daughter's really make you feel alright..." So, there must be something distinct there right?

Here are some undeveloped thoughts:

Is it for better or worse, that the Midwest feels a bit generic?
In her song entitled Iowa, Dar Williams sings, "Way back where I come from, we never mean to bother; we don't like to make our passions other people's concerns. We walk in the world of safe people and at night we walk into our houses and burn."

Is it that people are friendly, or that they keep to themselves?
After a flight of unwelcome chatter on a plane, my sister-in-law's friend said that he appreciates Ohioans as seatmates because Ohioans will always say hello, but still let you read your book.

Or, is it some obsession with a constant hyper-awareness in social interactions. With tedious utterances of "Sorry" and "Thank you," a good Midwesterner is continuously aware of how to help others while simultaneously staying out of their business and never, ever, inconveniencing.
Author Jonathan Franzen captures this in The Corrections, as he describes his main character's visit to a museum in St. Jude. I did not bring the book to Beijing so I cannot quote it directly. He explains perfectly the constant awareness with which everyone moved about the exhibits. Each person will pretend to view the display even after they have lost interest, so as to not pressure those ahead of them. If those ahead of them are also good Midwesterners, they have a guilty fear about lingering too long which becomes activated by the tacit signals from the people behind them. The whole system works very well.

Or, does it have something to do with a balance of restraint and indulgence. My friend told me that is his father, a good Midwestern man, could never bring himself to give his cat straight kitty treats, but rather mixed them with the other less decadent cat food.

Here is call for your thoughts and suggestions from Literature/music/films/comedy and your own musings. I need some material. So please, give me Garrison Keillor and the lot. What's your Midwest description? You can email or comment.

Beijing Beginings

After a longer than planned, but wonderful summer and fall in Ohio, I finally made it back to China in early November. I can say with relief that the contrast between the first few weeks here in Beijing and my first weeks in Dalian are positively disparate. I shudder to think back on how I began my first experience in China: heartbroken, friendless, speaking zero Chinese, illegally hired, and having lost my luggage. Any situation here will have to be an improvement on those first lonely and confusing weeks.

In contrast, this time I was met at the airport by some friends of a Chinese friend in America. They drove me to dinner (which was spicy boiled duck heads, duck liver with sour garlic sauce, and beer) and then on to the institute where I will be working as an intern. Still waiting for me there at 9:00PM were two researchers who took me to a nearby hotel. The whole 48 hour travel experience ended with all five people escorting me to the door of my hotel room, and me feeling ridiculous and guilty for all the undue attention.

The institute where I will be working is a full hour by subway from the cultural epicenter of Beijing. But, I am solidly in the university district which makes the place feel alive and young. The street on which the institute is located I have deemed as “recycling row.” It's chaotic traffic is dominated by second hand furniture vendors and recyclable collectors on load bearing tricycles. If it were not so cold, I could stand out there and watch the impressive loads of cardboard, old box springs, Styrofoam, and plastic bottles go by for hours. This stark contrast between the new research complexes with their million dollar budgets and the old neighborhood where it’s still worth one’s time to collect waste materials, seems to encapsulate developing modern China in one city block.

Thus far everyone at the institute has been exceedingly welcoming and helpful and I am breathing a huge sigh of relief! Let the Beijing chapter Begin.

New Perspective on the Midwest

I have been home for nearly two months and had some time to write up stuff that I started but never finished. While home, I've noticed a few bizarre things about Americans as a whole and the Midwest in general.

As I drug my dehydrated sleep deprived body into the Chicago airport, the first thing I noticed was that people were sitting on the ground! In China, the ground is considered dirty. Inside or outside, no one pretends that it’s clean. If you put your purse or bag on floor in a restaurant, there are is immediately a server there to help you move it to a chair or hook. In China everyone squats instead of sitting, or if they must sit, they grab a newspaper or a plastic bag to place below them. And, most importantly, Chinese remove their shoes before entering anyone’s home. I became sensitive to these standards and also feared whatever it was that the locals feared about the ground.

People were not just sitting on the floor, well dressed business men were sprawled out taking a snooze on the floor - where thousands of shoes had passed that day! Outside was no different. A mother was allowing her daughter to sit on the sidewalk while she ate an ice-cream cone! Unimaginable!

While I will be the first to recognize that the ground is cleaner in the U.S. than China, it has made me second guess our comfort with the urban surfaces. It has also made me reconsider our custom of wearing shoes all day, in parking lots, public restrooms, through the yard, through the garage and then into our homes where we eat, sit, lay, and play on our own floors. Just a thought.

Other cultural things to note: We eat raw vegetables that taste like nothing and expect children to like them. I think more children and adults alike would eat more veggies if we fixed them as in Chinese cuisine style.

We stop at red lights regardless of if there is anyone around.

We stop for pedestrians. A woman rolled over the crosswalk line as I was crossing the street, saw me, backed up, rolled down her window and gave me a big Midwestern, "Sorry!" I'm not complaining about this one. Just caught me off guard after the daily battle crossing streets in China.

Chinese Medicine Neophyte

Western medicine and Chinese medicine appear to co-exist in modern Chinese culture. Dalian is fortunate to have one of the most contemporary Western medical hospitals in China. It has all of the normal machines you would expect to see, a pharmacy that deals out pills and injections, plus a ward just for traditional Chinese medicine. Yet, there are also hospitals solely for the practice of traditional Chinese medicine.

These were, as far as I could tell, just as popular. I accompanied one of my Chinese friends there for a check-up on her asthma treatment. The moment we stepped out of the bus I could the smell distinct odor of boiling herbs. Once inside, I sat and waited with my friend in the small office of her doctor while other patients received treatment and consultation a mere five feet away. This was slightly uncomfortable for me, the American who is used to a clear cut beginning and end to a private doctor’s appointment. Instead, as my friend was being seen other patients lingered in the room and continued to ask questions as they thought of them.
The doctor took my friend’s pulse on both wrists and thoroughly inspected her tongue. He listened to her symptoms and complaints and began writing a prescription. She took the slip of paper to the herb center where they keep thousands of varieties of herbs, fungi, and dried animal parts. She had the option of taking her prescription home in a bag of dried mixed herbs to boil herself, or she could wait a few days and they could boil the concoction for her. Having no kitchen in her apartment, she chose the latter. Later she showed me her set of smart sealed glass pipettes filled with a thick black bitter liquid that she drank three times a day. When I asked why she didn’t go to the Western medicine hospital, she answered rather frankly, “Because those medicines can hurt you.” I couldn’t really disagree.

My only other experience with traditional Chinese medical thought was in a combination beauty/health clinic, which are as common as noodle shops around the city. This was a small operation run by one Beijing native middle-aged woman named Ms. Liu and two apprentices. I began going there about once a week for facials (don’t judge me, they were cheap). But, I really went to practice my Chinese with these terribly patient women who doted over and pampered me. Often these visits would last hours while these matronly women sat holding my hand, serving me tea and fruit, giving me life advice, and reacting with great enthusiasm to even the simplest of jokes I managed to crack in Chinese. I could always count on them to bluntly tell me if I had gained or lost weight too! It helped that they were never particularly busy!

During one of these routine visits Mrs. Liu set up a large monitor on the wall and asked me to wash my hands. Never sure what is coming next in China, I did so willingly. She showed me a pen with a lit microscope lens at the end that when rolled along the skin could project the image on the screen. She grabbed my left hand and rolled the pen along the surface of my palm and began narrating. She gestured to the chart on the wall that illustrated the points on the human hands that coordinated to various internal organs (thank goodness I had learned the names before in my first hospital experience). As she rolled over my thumb she commented that I was extremely bright because of something about the quality of lines on my thumb. She moved the magic pen to the pad of my middle finger and commented that my “small brain” was also clever. Continuing to the base of my middle finger, she exclaimed that my lungs were exceptionally healthy! But as she moved closer to the middle of my palm, she saw red spots. She grumbled that my stomach was not healthy and warned me against eating or drinking cold substances.

On this particular visit I had brought my friend along to share in the experience. He was also instructed to wash his hands to be checked out. Mrs. Liu took his right hand (being male) and repeated the process as a mirror image of my hand. All checked out as healthy until she reached the outer edge of his palm. When she saw red spots she sucked her teeth with disapproval. She warned him that his liver was in poor condition and that he should drink less alcohol. My friend protested, blaming the red spots on a scar from a recent motorbike accident. Mrs Liu was having none of it.

I dodged the bullet when they asked me if I believed in Chinese Medicine saying, “I’m not very clear on it.” I was dying to ask if the magic pen worked reciprocally. That is, could you look at my organs to assess the condition of my hands? I bit my tongue fearing the sarcasm might not traverse the cultural gap before us.

I have a rough understanding of a few other medical beliefs that both baffle and fascinate me. Many of them center on wind and cold. For instance, for fear of catching a cold, my Chinese roommates refused to sleep with a running fan. Additionally, despite the stifling heat they always slept with a blanket covering their stomachs and balked when I did not. Later another Chinese friend confirmed that it is commonly believed that cold or exposed stomach will result in internal discomfort in the morning.

There is definitely a love hate relationship with air-conditioners here. There was a mother-daughter couple that attended my weekly Tai Chi class. One day, only the mother came to class. When I inquired to the whereabouts of the daughter, the mother answered, “She has diarrhea.” “Oh,” I said awkwardly, “she must have eating something spoiled.” “No,” she corrected, “she slept with the air-conditioner on.”

I fail to see the causal relationship between cold air and unhealthy bowels. Yet, I am sure that each culture has its share of wildly accepted yet loosely proven health beliefs. For instance, is there any scientific evidence to justify the belief that swimming just after eating will actually result in cramps? Not sure, but without fail someone brings it up while snacking next to the pool or on the beach. Or, how about the magic sponge and water in Europe? When I played on a soccer team in France, a girl was injured and everyone started screaming “de l’eau, de l’eau!” A teammate ran over and dumped water on her hurt leg. If anyone can think of others, please let me know.

Other rules that I heard (but don’t fully understand) throughout my time in China are: Don’t drink water before bed or your eyes will be puffy, staying up late is bad for specifically WOMEN’S health, you should not expose your lower back to cold air as the cold temperatures can cause kidney problems, don’t walk while you are eating or you will get wind in your stomach, and eating cold things in general will give you indigestion.

Exactly how does Chinese work?

The Americans I meet ask many questions regarding the Chinese language. For those of you who have an inkling of interest in how the Chinese language system works, I will as succinctly as possible walk you through it. I will try to draw comparisons between English and Chinese throughout the explanation. However, the dissimilarities occasionally make it difficult to draw these parallels. I will put in a disclaimer that there are many exceptions to these rules. So if you are Chinese or you are studying Chinese please understand that this is just for the gist!

First, the Chinese language has “characters.” People often ask me, “Are characters letters, words, or pictures?” The answer is that they are a mixture of all three! But, to think of it like that would be selling short an amazingly intricate 2000 year old language system. Chinese does not have an alphabet in the sense that English has an alphabet. Instead, it has characters which are made up of even smaller pieces called “radicals” which have loose meanings and sometimes phonetic associations. Radicals are similar to our roots, prefixes, and suffixes (e.g. chrono, aqua, or anti). These radicals are made up of “strokes” which are a very specific set of pen (originally brush) strokes that are standardized. Strokes are similar to your understanding of standard English handwriting techniques. For example you know the precisely where to curve the second pen stroke so that everyone comprehends that you meant to write P instead of D. One character itself can be a word alone. Or, it can be combined with another character to make a compound word. Let me summarize. From most simple to most complex it goes stroke – radical – character-compound word. Here is an example with the character for mother.

Basically, think of characters of having some combination of meaning and phonetics. The character for woman is 女, pronounced “nu.” The character for horse is 马，pronounced “ma.” The word for mother is also pronounced “ma.” The character of mother needs to show the meaning of a woman with the phonetics of horse ma. So, the character for mother becomes 妈。Notice the woman part on the left and the horse part on the right.

Let’s try again with the word for fry, like to “stir-fry” as we call it. The character for fire is 火 pronounced “huo (hwo).” The character for a small amount or an amount is 少 pronounced “shao.” The character for stir-fry is 炒 pronounced “chao.” As a beginner in Chinese, I might possibly be able to work this out. I could see that the fire radical meant that there was heat and fire involved, and I might already know the 少“shao” on the right. So, I might be able to guess that the entire character together. Maybe.

Most characters are not this simple. In learning Chinese one rarely has enough time to go through all the radicals in each character and derive a meaning. Because there are 6500 characters, memorization starts early! For instance, the character for electric or elecricity is 电 “dian (deean)” and the character for brain is 脑 “nao (now).” I memorized these cold during separate study sessions. So I was delighted to know that the Chinese language combines the two into a word. That’s right 电脑 “dian nao” means electric brain aka computer!

However, don’t expect to see too many of these simple characters in your local Chinese restaurant, any US China town, or a fortune cookie. “Traditional Characters” are still used in all of these locations, whereas mainland China has since adopted the use of “simplified characters.” While there has always been a history of simplified forms of some characters, the official government driven simplifications occurred in two rounds. The first occurred in the early days of the Communist Revolution (1956 and 1964) to improve literacy. The second further simplification occurred later towards the end of the Cultural Revolution (1977). The final list was adopted as recently as 1986 to be taught in schools. Generally traditional characters have more strokes and are in my opinion extremely difficult to write. Modern Chinese characters are derived from their traditional forbearers but have been stripped down for ease of use.

Now, you may ask, “Ok so if Chinese uses characters, then what are those Roman Alphabet like looking letters in the explanations?” That’s called “Pin Yin.” It is the phonetic representation of each character. That’s right the characters are only loosely phonetic. If you are trying to compare this to English, imagine if you wanted to make a complex code with a forbidden lover. Maybe you two agree that agree that:
˄ = I
˫ = love
* = you

Then you could look at a note from your secret lover that said “˄˫*” and know the meaning without ever having to consider the English phonetics associated with the meaning. In fact if you used it enough, “˄˫*” would become phonetic in your head! Chinese children begin associating the sounds with the characters in the same way. They start early enough that they don’t really need pin yin spelling at all. In fact, I have met some older Chinese people who cannot use pin yin at all because they never learned it in school. They only operate on the sounds for characters based on pure memorization and association. They have no need for a third step of phonetic representation in between.

The problem with thinking and writing only in characters leads me to your next question. “How do they use computers?” I know what you’re thinking. If there are over 6500 characters, how could there possibly be a keyboard that big? Well, the techy geniuses of China have found a more efficient way. They use Pin Yin along side when working with word processing software and even text messages on cell phones. When they are using Microsoft Word for example there is an extra piece of software (made by Google of course) that allows them to type Pin Yin and then change it to a Chinese character.

This leads me to your next question. You are thinking, “Hmm Pin Yin looks a lot like an improvement on those complicated characters. If you have to change to Pin Yin to use the computer, why not change the language for good and forget those confusing characters all together?” Funny, in my moments of illiterate frustration I have wondered the same thing! But, it’s not that simple. Remember 马? If you have already forgotten that’s “ma.” But, it turns out that there are a lot of “ma” sounding words out there. Each has a different meaning and thus a different character. When I type “ma” I a list of choices pops up: 妈 马 吗 嘛 骂 码 麻 玛 么 抹 etc. ALL of these are pronounced “ma” but very have different meanings. One means mother, one means horse, one signifies a question, and one is one half of the word “what” etc. When using the computer each character corresponds to a number that the typist must select thus “typing” the character on the screen. That is, assuming that I, the typist knows which character has my intended meaning. So the only way is to either memorize characters or get comfortable with illiteracy.

Finally in the spoken language (adding one more layer of complexity), Chinese is “tonal.” If you have been reading my updates, you will know that I, the monotone American speaker, am constantly battling this one. Mandarin Chinese has four tones (sometimes five) and the meaning of the word you say changes depending on the tone of your voice. We have this only minimally in English. It is similar to the difference between “a record” and “to record.” That is, the noun “record label” is pronounced differently than the verb “to record.” But, the divergence in meanings due to tones in Chinese is exponentially more dramatic. For instance, consider all of our “ma” words. If you say “ma” with your voice high and steady like you are singing, then you are saying 妈 meaning mother. If you say “ma” and your voice goes down a note or two and then back up (like Tarzan) then you are saying 马 meaning horse! Here’s another one. If you say the word “mai” and your voice does the Tarzan thing then you are saying 买 meaning to buy. But, if you say the word “mai” and your voice goes brusquely down (like you’re scolding your dog), you are saying 卖 meaning to sell. Factoring in the tones in pronunciation gives yet another reason that simply switching to Pin Yin would not be sufficient. Characters wrap up meaning, pronunciation, and tone, all in one package – something that a simple alphabet system cannot handle. Again memorization is the only way out!

If you are overwhelmed don’t let me discourage your dreams of learning Chinese! There is one attractive and endearing feature of this language for the neophyte. The grammar is a piece of cake! There are no plurals, no subject-verb agreements and not really any verb conjugation at all. If you forget your grammar terms in English, that means that you don’t have to worry about when to say “I am,” “you are,” or “she is.” And, you don’t have to worry about when to say “drink,” “drank,” “drunk” or “swim” “swam” “swum.” There is no past or future tense like we know it! In English you have to say, “I had eaten,” “I ate,” “I am eating,” “I will eat,” or “I will have eaten.” But in Chinese you can just say, “I two days ago eat,” “I yesterday eat,” “I now eat,” “I later eat,” “I tomorrow eat.” How’s that for simplicity and efficiency!