October 5, 2010 Hangzhou 3:20pm

Perks of Being Foreign

Random Stories

Addicting Rice

More Funny Toilets


Many of you have asked me surreptitiously if I’m still blogging. I know I’m terribly slow at it, but here is an update. I do keep small notes to myself of stuff to remember to write about, but it takes awhile before I sit down and put it all into (hopefully) coherent stories.

Perks of Being Foreign

It doesn’t take long being in China to realize that here I am foreign. I don’t just mean that I look different than everyone else, or speak different, but the entire culture looks upon me and others ‘like me’ as foreigners, outsiders, people who are special and different than ‘locals’. Since I live here and speak a bit of the language, I like to imagine myself as somewhat of a local, however the people here will never see me as such, no matter how good my Chinese gets. But here it’s much different than race relations back home. Here it’s sort of a reverse racism, or a racism against their own race. What I mean is, instead of being looked down upon as inferior because I’m different, foreigners here are seen as exotic, interesting, rich, and to be given respect and in many cases ill concealed awe. Any foreigner (whenever I use the term ‘foreigner’ here I refer to someone who is not Chinese) who has even visited China for more than a day or two can probably tell you stories about people staring at them or trying to get their picture taken with them. Sometimes people will just simply stop and ask in broken English or in Chinese, or just with awkward gestures “Can we take a picture with you?” But other times they are more subtle. Countless times I have been sitting in a restaurant or walking down the street and see someone whisper to their friend, “go stand over in front of the foreigner so they will be in the background”, and then they will nonchalantly walk over and stand a few feet away from me and pretend to take a picture of their friend, but their whole intent was to get a picture of the foreigner in the background, but they were to shy or scared to ask. Here are a few anecdotes of the less subtle ones.

When my Dad came to visit a few months ago, we were walking through some gardens in Shanghai and came across one of those tourist places that are fairly common here where you can put on traditional Chinese clothes and get your picture taken. My Dad and I figured it would be a fun memory, so we went for it. As we walked out to pose for our picture, slowly a crowd began to gather of Chinese people taking our picture. We asked someone to help take a picture for us, and we walked away and struck a pose. Then the crowd starting rushing up and standing next to us so they could get a picture with these foreigners wearing clothes of the ancient Chinese emperors. Before long, (less than 5 min) there was a crowd of probably 20 or more people watching and taking pictures, and endless stream of ‘me too’ people coming to stand next to us to pose for their picture. We began to feel a bit trapped and literally had to pull ourselves away and half run back to the changing room to avoid being trapped there all day. Naturally the thought crossed our mind that if we had charged 5 RMB a pop, we could have paid for the picture fee several times over in that 5 min.

One day I went running with one of my Chinese friends near the West Lake, which is a big tourist spot here in Hangzhou. This causes even more stares as not only am I a foreigner, but I’m running, which is quite rare here, and wearing less clothes than most people (I find Chinese people usually wear much more clothes than I am comfortable in to assuage their deathly fear of being the slightest bit cold, more on that another time), and I was running with a cute Chinese girl. We heard several comments and received several quizzical looks and snickers, but among the countless ‘hellos’ in both languages, there were a few other comments that stood out. One young student (high school age) said in English “Wow you are so cool!” But my favorite was one comment that my Chinese running partner translated for me. Apparently someone turned to their friend and exclaimed, “Wow that tour guide has to run with her clients? She must get so tired!” Because of course if there is a foreigner with a Chinese person, the foreigner must certainly be a tourist and that Chinese person must be a tour guide. (that’s sarcasm in case you didn’t catch it) But I got quite tickled by that comment.

This past week was a 5 day holiday for Chinese National Day. An English guy, two Chinese friends and I went to one of their hometowns, a place called ZhouShan. (舟山) We were waiting in line to go see a really famous temple on Pu Tuo Shan 普陀山。 Now waiting in line is an experience in itself in China that I will save for another time, but this time I got a wonderful glimpse into Chinese culture. First of all, when the police who were there to keep the people in line in order (yes that is necessary here), saw there were two foreigners in line (we were the only ones there, then came up and let us through because we are foreigners. Then, my Chinese friend translated what the policeman had said to some of the other people in line her were a little bit pushy. He said, (and I paraphrase) “Look, there are foreigners here who are watching. Behave yourself in a mature manner and wait in line appropriately so as not to give a bad impression of our country to these outsiders.” Here was the policeman trying to tell people to shape up to look less chaotic or whatever to some random foreign tourists. (we were tourists that weekend. Actually, no matter how long I live here, I’m still partly a tourist) Fascinating! I wonder how much of that idea or public service announcements are other places that I miss because of the language.

Along a different note about being a foreigner, at our school I’ve slowly come to realize that there is quite a double standard for foreign teachers and local staff. I was astounded to find out things like fines of 100 RMB for being late to a meeting, 20 RMB for printing something onto paper that has not already had one side printed on, and a limited ability to take holidays. Now they sign contracts too, so I assume that all of that is in their contract, but still seems a bit childish to me. Also, apparently they can’t just quit their job whenever they want. I heard of someone who wanted to quit, but couldn’t because the boss wouldn’t let her. It seems as though an employee needs some sort of release or recommendation of some sort to get a new job, so if you leave your other job without the consent of your previous boss, you might find it nearly impossible to get a new job. Crazy stuff. I also learned that before, the mandatory contract between employees and companies was five years. The Communist recently shortened it to three years to try to assuage some of the complaints by employees who wanted to leave a company before their contract was up but couldn’t. Apparently this contract thing supposedly works both ways, and is in place to protect workers from unjust dismissal. It’s amazing how many more details about the intricacies of Chinese society that you learn when you have Chinese friends.

Random Stories

A while back I went to KTV with a large group of people from work. We had a large contingent of foreigners, and so decided to spice up the monotony of singing along to one-song-sounds-like-them-all Chinese pop songs blaring at full volume in a closed room for hours. We walked down to the convenience store and bought some plastic cups and began a ‘flip cup’ tournament in the KTV room. We even managed to get a few of the locals to play with us. It was one of those priceless mixtures of Western and Chinese culture. While it seems as though Flip Cup is of primarily American origin, it has spread a bit to the other English speaking countries. So naturally of course, we had a team competition of “America vs. The World”. You’ll be pleased to note that us Americans represented well, and the competition wasn’t even close. A side note on Chinese logic: When trying to set up our Flip Cup tournament, we tried to pull the tables inside our KTV room together. However they were of course bolted to the floor, one inch apart. Not far enough apart to even walk in between or make the space useful for anything other than spilling drinks or dropping things, but not close enough together to be of use as one large table. Why this odd arrangement you ask? I’ll answer with what my Chinese students love to tell me whenever I try to get more language out of them by asking why they like something: “Teacher, no why!” Many foreigners here can tell you that after months of wracking your brain and shaking your head at things here that just seem to have absolutely no logic, eventually most of us just give up and accent that there are many things here that either simply have no logic to them whatsoever, or whatever thought process went into their creation is far beyond the comprehension of any non-Chinese mind. Give the Chinese culture’s natural tendency to never ask questions or wonder ‘why’, its no real surprise that this is how things are. Many times when I try to ask one of my Chinese friends “Why…”, I get a puzzled look as if this is a very odd question and it makes as little sense to them as to why I asked it, as whatever caused me to ask it does to me.

While talking online to one of my Chinese high school students recently, he asked me a question in Chinese to test my language. When I answered incorrectly, he said, “your Chinese is pour”. Classic! Incorrectly insulting someone in one language about their lack of skill in another.

Addicting Rice

I think there is some sort of addicting chemical added to the rice in China. I find that if I begin to eat it several days in a row (I usually find ways to avoid this, but occasionally it happens) I actually find myself craving rice. And it’s even worse for locals. Several of my Chinese friends who have left the country have told me they have terrible cravings for rice after just a few days. Apparently the rice in other countries, even other Asian countries, doesn’t taste the same as Chinese rice. Rice is so ingrained here that the words for food and rice have become one and the same in usage. To ask someone “Have you eaten?”, the literal translation is “Have you eaten rice?” Additionally, until very recently, to ask someone “How are you?” people would ask, “Have you eaten rice?” I guess it comes from back when most of the population was really poor.

More Funny Toilets (see attached picture)

I’ve seen this sign hundreds of times over the urinal in the Starbucks that I frequent, as well as many other places in China, and only last week I got around to asking one of my Chinese friends what it meant. The answer was absolutely hysterical. The “one small step” refers to standing close enough to the urinal not to splash on the ground! I assume there must be or have been some issue with men not standing close enough, so the government or someone decided to try to make a public service announcement to improve the cleanliness of the bathrooms. This was their attempt to make a somewhat coarse request a bit more eloquent. I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between this and Neil Armstrong’s famous quote when he first stepped on the moon, “One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

ZhouShan with a Local Tour Guide

This past weekend as mentioned above I went with a few friends to one of my Chinese friends’ hometown. It’s actually a chain of over 1000 islands a few hours drive from where I live. It is absolutely gorgeous and peaceful, one of those hidden treasures in the world, for the most part untarnished by large crowds of tourists from all over the world. First off, her connections in her town were a bit impressive, and certainly made our trip there immensely more comfortable. She borrowed her friend’s car, and personally drove us around the whole weekend. This may not sound like much since it is normal back in the States, but here almost everyone I know just takes a bike, bus or taxi everywhere. Not counting taxis, I’ve ridden in a car maybe two times since I’ve been in Hangzhou. Its something that I really miss, and I never really realized is actually a fairly large part of American culture. I think we are likely one of the few places in the world where probably over 90% of the population has their own car and drives practically everywhere. Anyway, we not only had our personal driver, but she had a friend who knew the boss of this 4 star hotel with a private beach (see picture) and so we got our rooms for less than half price. For one night we paid around $50 for that room in the picture!

The first night we went to see the sand sculpture festival, where people make larger than life sand sculptures on this one beach. Each year they have a different theme; this year it was Africa. Actually the largest sculpture was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest sand sculpture in the world. One of her friends also treated us to a really nice seafood restaurant which had fresh catches of the day at the front and where you could choose your own dinner. It was located right on the water, and we enjoyed some berry liquor, a local specialty. The next day we woke up early to watch the sunrise from the balcony in our hotel (see same picture). Stunning. Then we went to a beach that instead of sand was full of small black pebbles. We took a short boat trip through the bay where you can catch your own crab. The last day we took a ferry to another island and saw one of the four famous mountains in China called Pu Tuo Shan 普陀山。 The large lady Buddha there holds her hand up against the sea in a pose so as to say ‘stop’ to the typhoons. Apparently since it was built there hasn’t been a typhoon that landed on the island. On the bus back to Hangzhou that evening, we were treated to a beautiful sunset, closing out a great weekend. We saw a sunrise on the beach in the morning, and a sunset over the mountainous islands that same evening.

The entire place was incredibly beautiful and peaceful, untainted by pollution and overpopulation as so much of China is. My friends’ village was a small town of like 200 people. Overall it was a wonderful, peaceful, and relaxing weekend.

As always, thanks for reading, and keep in touch.

August 10, 2010 Hangzhou 4:45pm

August 10, 2010 Hangzhou 4:45pm


Learning from Students

Random (or not so) People

Racing Interview



Learning from Students


I guess its about time for another update. As I haven’t finished writing about a lot of old stories from last year, this will combine stories from my time in China, not necessarily in chronological order, but just ones that I found interesting.

As any teacher knows, I have lots of interesting experiences with students. Here are a few that stood out enough for me to remember them, although I’m sure there are others that I forgot.

In teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) to teenagers, one of the key issues is finding something to motivate them to use English. It’s a challenge to get teenagers of any culture motivated, but even much more so ones in a culture where they go to classes 7 days a week for 10 hours a day with 3 to 4 hours of homework every night, and if they’re lucky maybe a 2 week long summer holiday. So I figured that I would get them to roleplay a conversation between their parents or teachers where they could take out all of their frustration and they would get really excited to complain about how trying their lives are. To begin the class I started trying to elicit some things that made them angry. I spent an hour suggesting ideas and trying to pull anything out of them that I could, but there was no anger or emotion. Just passive acceptance of their fate. I asked them what they were angry about, and they said nothing. They agree that their lives are really rough, but they just accept that that’s the way it is and there’s nothing they can do but grin and bear it. I couldn’t get any anger out of them. I was quite astonished, but I guess this is a good example of cultural differences. If people’s lives are terrible in the West due to the ‘system’, what do we do? Get angry, complain, and go try to change the system, possibly through democracy. Here what do they do? Nothing. They can’t. They have no outlet or resources to enact change on a system they think is flawed. So they just bury emotion and accept it. It was sad, and I thought a great analogy to the culture in general. I then had my students write a paper on what they would want to change in their lives. Almost everyone of them mentioned they wanted to change the education system and that it was an endless wheel of tests and study, with no end result or net gain. Sure makes you wonder about the future here.

On a lighter note, younger students (6-10) can be much more fun and light hearted. I asked a low level student one day “How are you?”. He replied “I’m not good”. When I asked him why, he responded by saying “My Mom is a…” and then standing up turning around and pointing to his butt. I think I lost it laughing. Another low level student, while I was passing out a test, said “Teacher, my” and pointed at her chest “is” and she made a motion with her hand pounding her chest. I love the rare instances where I see intelligent children use the few words they know and lots of body language to communicate things they don’t know the words for. It’s also quite cute.

I had a 17 year old student who was headed to high school in the US, and he had lots of unorthodox ideas about China. He told me Chinese people drink too much, and that the air is much better now than a few years ago, when it was almost unbreathable. He said Americans and Japanese work hard very hard compared to Chinese and they have a mentality where they try to improve things and be creative, whereas Chinese just go to work and come home apathetic toward the status quo. He said they have no motivation, just as long as they have a decent salary to provide for their family, that’s all they want. A general lack of ambition. He though Americans were quite blunt, but he said when friend went to America he was shocked when they asked him for his ID to buy cigarettes and they told him he was too young (17). Apparently even if there is a law here, its not enforced at all. It’s the same with beer, there is no drinking age really, so even my 13-year-old students said they have drank beer.

When I taught adult students in Tianjin, often they would want to take me out to dinner after class. This provided not only free food, but a precious glimpse into Chinese culture. One student told me that the Chinese government tells people that Chinese are friendly but Americans are cold and unfriendly. When I asked him what he thought after having met an American, he said he thought Americans were very friendly. Then he asked me not to look down on Chinese people. This wasn’t because he thought I personally looked down on them, but because he was taught that Westerners look down on Chinese people, so he asked me not to. Somehow it came up and another student realized some of the problems of the one child policy – i.e. they wont be able to support their parents/grandparents. This is a similar thing to the Baby Boomer issue with Social Security in the States – just multiply by a few hundred million. Also, I took a poll of one class of adult students and most students thought the recent (~50 years old) new simplified characters were better than the older traditional ones that are still used in Hong Kong and Taiwan and that mainland China shouldn’t go back. They liked the older ones, but said they were more aesthetic than useful. Even the simplified take countless hours of mindless repetition to memorize how to write them, and its not infrequent for my Chinese friends to forget how to write a less commonly used character. My students are easily as much of an insight into Chinese thought and culture as my Chinese friends, sometimes more so. A valuable resource – the adage that the teacher learns more from the students than the student do from the teacher is certainly true in my case here.

Random (or not so) People

In the winter in Tianjin, the lake near our school freezes over so we went ice-skating on it. It was my first outdoor ice-skating experience. Oddly enough there was a decent size group playing a pickup hockey game so I went to join them. I happened (or intentionally) to be wearing a Texas A&M beanie (hat) and a man approached me and told me that his son went to A&M! He was some kind of engineering graduate student, but he recognized the logo on my hat. Small world huh? That was the closest that I came to meeting another Aggie in Tianjin. But in Hangzhou I did one better. On one of my extremely rare Sundays off, I went to the local International Fellowship. After the service a lady came up to me and said “I saw your ring, are you an Aggie?” So I went to lunch with her and her family, although they live almost 2 hours from me and I haven’t been able to keep in touch with them since. There really are Aggies everywhere!

Also, one of the teachers that arrived in Tianjin just as I was leaving was from Houston, somewhere near Bellaire area. I also met one of the summer teachers at another EF school in Tianjin that was from the States. Somehow we got to talking and turns out he and I were both at the A&M Sweet Sixteen basketball game in San Antonio. Really random.

Racing Interview

On to some more recent news. Last weekend I did an open water swimming race with some Chinese friends I met at the pool. As soon as they realized that I actually knew how to swim well, they invited me to this race. I was very unsure what to expect, but it was actually quite legit with sponsorship by Red Bull, parachute and water skiing performers, and naturally in China, close to 1000 participants. There were two categories, a non-competitive and competitive race. The non-competitive participants had to wear an attached ‘floatie’ device to ensure safety. It looked exactly like the little bright orange blow up ‘floatie’s that little kids where to the pool who are too young to swim. I was quite thankful I wasn’t in that group. The competitive race was quite normal compared to the triathlons I have done – a triangle swim 1500 meters (1 mile) long. I didn’t realize until afterwards that they were giving away cash prizes (my friends neglected to inform me) and I just missed out on 1000 rmb by 3 places. I came in somewhere around 15th – I say somewhere because there was no chip timing system, clocks, watches, or even a dude with a stopwatch. I asked all my Chinese friends what their time was, and none of them knew. How did they know who won you ask? Well a guy just stood on the edge of the river and when the first guy came out of the water he handed him a paper that said 1st – and this process continued through 12 places. Then these papers were redeemed for a trophy and the cash prize. A bit dubious, but it worked without any major hitches as far as I could tell. I was quite out of shape, but judging by how far ahead the winners were – I could have won the thing if I was in as good of shape as my last triathlon. Anyway, the kicker was that I was the only foreigner (i.e. non-Chinese) out of several thousand racers and spectators, so as soon as I exited the water, a tv camera and microphone were shoved in my face along with rapidfire questions in Chinese. So I can now say I have done my first television interview in Chinese! I understood about 90%, and when I didn’t understand one question, he translated to English for me. I know what your’e thinking, where is a copy of this fabulous interview? I have no idea. I don’t have Chinese tv at my house, and I was working when it was airing anyway. Perhaps someday they will contact me and I’ll be sure to pass it along.

That’s all for now folks. More to come……sometime.

Old and New

Wednesday March 10, 2010 Hangzhou, China 10:34 am

“So did you eat anything normal?”

McDonald’s Debate

Illogical Toilets

Back Stories

China’s Birthday

A Traditional Chinese Wedding

“So did you eat anything normal?”

The other day we had a pot luck at work to celebrate a few people’s birthdays. It was pretty fun to have different foods from different places and all share together, although many people just bought some Chinese food and brought it. Some of the other Americans made some macaroni and cheese, and it was a big hit. As my cooking skills are certainly nonexistent, I brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Although I knew it would be the first time the Chinese staff had eaten one, actually I learned that most of the Europeans and Australians had never eaten one before either. Turns out the Chinese staff loved them! It was one of those classic cultural moments I will never forget when I looked over and saw several of them eating a PB&J sandwich with chopsticks!!

McDonald’s Debate

While McDonald’s is mostly the same everywhere you go, there are actually large differences in the menu depending on the tastes of the local customers. But another thing has surprised me in my experiences at McDonald’s in China. When in line to order (there are no drive thru’s) many people will often have a several minute discussion/debate with the person behind the counter trying to decide their order. Now don’t get me wrong, the menu is still set up the same way. You can choose from a set number 1-10, or just get single things from the list. I have no idea how you can be that confused on what you want at McDonald’s. The menu doesn’t change. You can decide what you want before you get there. Why do you need a 5 minute explanation of the menu when it’s all in pictures in front of you? Another China thing I haven’t figured out yet.

Illogical Toilets

I’m sure many of you have heard about the Asian squatty pottys. I’m not going to get into that here. Actually something about the urinals has confused me. I have noticed it at many many locations all over China. So back home I know everyone has seen the automatic flush toilets that are becoming ubiquitous. Well the urinals are that way many places here, with one small, but I think significant, difference. Here they flush as soon as you walk up to the urinal – before not after you have done your business. Explain how that makes sense? It can’t be a technological problem because they can just copy/buy it from the same company we do. And I’ve noticed it just about everywhere. Any explanations are welcome.

Back Stories

China’s Birthday

A Traditional Chinese Wedding

(written October 1, 2009)

Today is the 60^th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Chinese are very superstitious about numbers, and ‘6’ seems to represent eternity or longevity. Hence the importance placed on the 60^th anniversary.

A side note about Chinese and numbers. Perhaps you didn’t realize that the Beijing Olympics started on 8/8/2008 at 8:08 pm. I didn’t either until discussing it with some locals. This was intentional and extremely significant to Chinese people because the number 8 represents prosperity. Four is extremely unlucky because in Chinese the pronunciation is the same as the word for death. Many buildings don’t even label a 4^th floor, but go straight from 3^rd to 5^th. When I checked into my hotel, my Chinese friend made them change my room from 904 – very unlucky, to 906 – lucky.

The government put on a massive military parade in Tiananmen Square in Beijing today to show off its prowess and successful ‘rise’ in stature and wealth. Since I’m in Lanzhou for my friends wedding, I watched the parade at Tracy’s parents house. They seemed interested, although not overly so. But they did say they felt proud to be Chinese and were proud of China’s display of power. The thought struck me that we don’t really do military parades, which begs the interesting question why. I’ll leave that debate for your own discussion. It appears that none of the military equipment in the parade was really that special, its unique factor being that it was domestically designed and produced, not bought from abroad. (Although there is some debate as to how much of is was ‘designed’ domestically or reverse engineered) I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t watch the parade with English commentary, but it was interesting to watch my Chinese friends’ reactions. Most of them said they were proud to be Chinese and felt that China was very strong. I did notice that in the civilian part of the parade, where 100,000 Chinese civilians marched and danced, that when they gave a float to each province, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan all got to have a float. I didn’t notice a Tibetan float, but there was one. (side note added March 10, 2010: I ended up seeing the float from Shaanxi Province when I went to Xi’an last month, really cool) Even more interesting though was later I overheard some of my Chinese friends discussing it, and one asked that exact question, did Taiwan and Hong Kong have a float? That night there was a massive Gala in Tiananmen Square which was a beautiful spectacle to watch. At first I wanted to go to Beijing to see it, but then heard that the security was so tight they weren’t even letting any local Chinese within miles of the Square, much less foreigners. My Chinese friends didn’t seem too bothered about watching it, as we were at dinner during most of it. But all they have been showing on TV since is reruns and highlights of the parade. I caught the last bit of the Gala in the English station and it was actually a bit moving to see a country so excited and proud of itself and its heritage. The whole thing resembled a closing ceremony of the Olympics. However, as someone in the English speaking news noted, it was a propaganda parade put on by the government, albeit spectacularly, that seemed to show that everything in China is just wonderful, at least if you are in the government or upper classes. I couldn’t help but grin at shots of the Chinese president and politburo on the streets of Tiananmen dancing with Chinese ‘commoners’ dressed up in the different traditional clothes of the 56 ethnic minorities in China. Later, I did watch some of the commentary on the English Chinese news station, but I could only take the oozing of China love for so long. It was endless commentary about the ‘miracle’ of China’s rapid development and improvements since the Communist takeover in 1949, and particular since Deng Xiao Ping’s opening and reforming of the economic policies in the 1970’s.

Did a bit of sightseeing in Lanzhou today with one of Tracy’s cousins. We went to see a temple on the mountain and the Chinese waterwheels. It made me wonder, “who invented the water wheel?” They really have signs in Chinese that call the Yellow river the Mother River of China. We could see from the mountains how bad the air was, and even my local Chinese friends commented how dirty their city was, both the air, and the Yellow river (which is brown) and the streets. I tried to make the joke that the Yellow River wasn’t yellow, but it didn’t seem to translate well I guess.

(October 2, 2009 – written March 10, 2010)

A Traditional Chinese Wedding

Chinese weddings are an all day affair. The bride gets up at like 4 in the morning to get all dolled up and dressed in all her wedding dress glory to be ready for the arrival of the groom at 7am to her parents house. I was supposed to be at her house before then since I was ‘with the bride’, but I overslept and was a little late. As I was walking the half mile from my hotel to her parents house I notice a huge caravan of cars with a bright red convertible all decorated in the front. “Wow another wedding today” I thought, before I realized that the man in the front car was Tracy’s fiancée! So I sprinted past them just as they were pulling into her apartment. The reason it was so critical that I arrive before him is that the bride locks herself in her parents house with some of her male cousins or brothers. So I had to make it in before the locked the door. I made it with about 15 seconds to spare! Once the groom has arrives, he and his groomsmen pound on the door shouting and screaming to persuade them to open. (all in good fun) They must say things to persuade the bride’s family to let him in. Often times this includes ‘bribes’ of red envelopes (called hong bao) filled with money (usually a relatively insignificant amount ~ 5 – 10 RMB, or ~1 USD. These are considered payment to the bride’s family to let him in, and to show he has the financial means to take care of her. As I was part of the posse protecting the bride, they gave me my share of the red envelopes too.) After maybe half an hour of poking fun, jesting, bribing with hong bao, and asking the groom to do ridiculous things like sing love songs to his beloved, the bride will finally give the okay and allow the groom to burst in. He gets down on one knee with some flowers and says a few words to her. But he’s not finished yet. She is not wearing any shoes. One shoe is next to her on the bed, and the other is hidden somewhere in the room. The groom and his ‘goons’ must find it and place both shoes on her feet Cinderella style before she will leave with him to the wedding. In Tracy’s case, the shoes were hidden in the washing machine. The couple then comes out to the living room and must eat a porridge and noodle type dish that the mother of the bride prepares. However the tradition is that she puts something in the grooms bowl to make it terribly disgusting. Tracy’s husband almost fell on the floor after the first bite, but was required to finish it before he could leave with his new bride. Everyone piles into the caravan of expensive cars rented for the occasion, and the bride and groom enjoy a ride around town in the convertible before heading to the hotel. The whole affair took about an hour, and was full of shouting, laughing, singing, banging, noise, pictures, video, and a whole lot of fun.

Then it was off to the hotel for the actual wedding. Here weddings are always done in hotels, not churches. They don’t seem to be tied to religion at all, just a ceremony with family. The ceremony is performed by some sort of hired emcee. Their clothes were the same as us back home: white dress and suit. They did a sort of walk down the aisle thing, but it was together arm in arm, not the bride alone. But it did include throwing of rice – somehow that seemed much more relevant and poignant here than at home. Once at the front, both sets of parents were called up and sat in front of the couple. Here the emcee instructed them to say a few words of blessing to the new couple, and also give them each another hong bao, however these I’m sure are filled with quite a significant amount of money. Then the couple says their vows, however I don’t believe it’s a standard set – it seemed more as if they wrote their own. The rings are put on fingers, then the couple pours champagne on a tower of glasses, and cuts the cake – which involves some exploding candle/firecrackers. Then all the family heads upstairs to our reserved tables, as the bride and groom make the rounds with the ‘less close’ attendees, who have already eaten.

Lunch was long and drawn out – a couple of hours, and included lots of drinking by all the males. It seemed that the tradition was the males from each family had to drink together competitively to seal their new family ties. The bride and groom as well as both sets of parents made the rounds pouring shots of ‘bai jiu’ (Chinese liquor) to everyone. Each person had to take the shots (the usual number was 4) and give a toast or a blessing to the new couple. I managed to escape only drinking the minimum required to be respectful. Despite all of the young males desperately wanting to play drinking games with the only foreigner at the wedding, I declined. But they all were very respectful of me and seemed quite honored that I was there. Even though we couldn’t speak much, they all kept calling me their ‘hao peng you’ – good friend. It was an enjoyable time.

After the hours of drinking and eating were complete, everyone retired home to change clothes, then head where else, but to KTV. This was at about 6pm and we didn’t leave until after 2am. Eight hours of blaring Chinese pop songs, chain smoking, binge drinking, all in an enclosed room. Needless to say I felt nauseous even though I was sober. I say a few English songs at their request. We had food brought in and of course had more obligatory toasts, stories, and laughs. All in all is was quite a fun and fascinating cultural day.

(originally written October 3, 2009)

Today I went with Tracy’s cousin Jia jia to another mountain temple. Apparently the one we went to on October 1^st was a Taoist temple, and today we went to a Buddhist temple, though not being of either religion, I couldn’t really notice the difference. She said Buddhist monks are more friendly. There was some sort of ceremony going on when we arrived, which was really cool. Some monks were chanting and banging a drum, while a crowd of people, about 90% women and all over 40, chanted along with them for almost 20 minutes or so. It wasn’t’ Chinese, but apparently some language they use only in the temples. I think she called it ‘nian jing’ or something like that. Reminded me of times before the Protestant Reformation when all churches in Europe were in Latin, even though no one spoke as their own language. She said there are many different kind of Buddhas, so depending on your problem you can pray to different ones. She said she is a believer, and she knelt and said her prayers while we were there. I wanted to say something, but I wasn’t really sure what to say. Later I asked her if she knew about Christianity, and she said her father is a Christian. Although he doesn’t go to the one Christian church in Lanzhou, apparently he often reads the Bible. The rest of her family is Buddhist, particularly her brother. Apparently he always comes to the temple on Christmas, which I thought was quite interesting, but she said it was more lucky to come then. She said she felt all religions were true. I tried to say they can’t all be true, but left it at that. We also saw a statue of Confucius, and she told me that apparently many people pray to Confucius. I brought up the fact that he is dead, but she said some people think he can still answer prayers. Outside the temple was a shop where you can ‘buy’ a Buddha and other paraphernalia for your house. She said they don’t use the word ‘buy’ because you can’t ‘own’ Buddha. She almost bought some bracelet bead things that are apparently somewhat similar to Catholic rosary beads. Later we went to another temple that is now converted into a market of old Chinese things. She said to be careful because many people lie saying ‘This bowl was used by Emperor So and So’ and therefore they charge an arm and a leg for it. But this is all inside an old temple. The story of Jesus and the money changers couldn’t help but come to mind. She bought me some old coins used in some dynasty long ago as a gift. I was touched.

We had dinner w/ Tracy and her new husbands family. Apparently Tracy couldn’t come with us today because it is custom that she spends the entire day after her wedding at her new in-laws house. It was fun, and we laughed a lot over cross cultural and cross language things. Towards the end of the meal, suddenly Tracy’s husband jumped up and bolted from the table. I was surprised, then at the same time Tracy’s dad got up and tried to follow. It took Tracy and her husband’s father’s physical restraint of her dad to drag him bag to the table. Apparently this was the traditional fight over the ‘honor’ of paying for the bill. I had heard about this, but was surprised at its vigor.

Tracy’s parents are musicians and have their own little band. So before I left they played a bit for me. He said “I’ll play an American song for you” and proceeded to play Jingle Bells on his saxophone. I really enjoy Tracy, her family, and her new husband. I talked to him in Chinese some after dinner. They are a great couple – good people.

New Beginnings of the Same Old Things

February 25, 2010 Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China 10:01 am

“So did you eat anything weird?”

Welcome to Hangzhou – where everywhere is a bathroom

Checking off the list

So as I’m sure you have all realized by now, I’m terrible at blogging. At least terrible at being consistent and up to date about it. Here is an update, albeit incomplete and quite delayed. I’ll start with current events, and backtrack to previous ones as time allows.

So I’ve been in Hangzhou now for about 6 weeks. I’m actually really enjoying it. The people I’ve met have been great. Interestingly, almost all of the teachers here are close to my age, in contrast to my last school. So that provides for lots of fun. Also, I’ve made several friends among the local staff, which has not only really improved my Chinese, but has been culturally insightful and lots of fun.

Some things of note.

Welcome to Hangzhou – where everywhere is a bathroom

My first day in Hangzhou, some of the other foreigners took me to lunch and showed me a bit of the city. They were quite friendly and helpful. In the taxi home, we stopped at a red light and the taxi driver opened the door and got out. We were a bit confused, but his intentions quickly became quite clear. He stood next to the bushes in the median and nonchalantly proceeded to relieve himself in the bushes as if it was as normal as drinking water. The three of us foreigners stared at each other in amazement then instantly burst out laughing. Living in China for a year you see lots of people relieving themselves in all kinds of public places that are not bathrooms, but this one might have taken the cake. Attached is a picture of his back while we are in the cab. What a wonderful welcome to my new city!

“So did you eat anything weird?”

What would a blog about China be if it didn’t include stories about eating exotic and thoroughly unappetizing foods? Upon a discussion with some of the local teachers about weird foods in China, the idea of eating pig brains came up. Apparently it is quite normal around here. Naturally I was quite exciting and jumped at the opportunity for them to take me to eat pig brains. So two of the local teachers and I went to a hot pot restaurant to try it out. Hot pot is a common Chinese cuisine where a boiling pot of broth and spices is placed in the middle of the table and all the food is brought out raw. Then you cook your food yourself in the pot and eat it as it finishes cooking. It is a bit tiring, but one of my favorite Chinese dishes. I was the only foreigner in the restaurant, and when we ordered pig brains the waitress gave me a quizzical look. When she proceeded to deliver the pig brains to our table, several of the surrounding tables began to share her curiosity at a foreigner eating this exotic dish. As seen in the picture, the brains are served raw, then cooked in the hot pot. Uncooked, they look pretty much exactly as you would imagine brains look: soft, pink, mushy, and bloody. Once cooked they turn a white gray color. The taste actually wasn’t too bad, but the consistency, almost like jello, was a bit unappealing. Still, I ate my share and it was good fun. I figured you can’t spend a few years in China and come back without a few stories for when people ask you “So did you eat anything weird?”

Chinese New Year down here was pretty much the same as in Tianjin. People shoot of fireworks willy-nilly in the streets while cars drive by trying to avoid the sparks. I got some good video of us watching fireworks directly underneath them. And although these are sold in streetside stalls like back home, they are by no means your typical backyard family variety. Full blown professional style fireworks. The sound of explosions so close in every direction made me imagine it was similar to what it sounds like in a war zone. A friend and I bought some to play with and as we were shooting them off, two girls our age came out of a C-store (think 7-11) to watch. They were working at 11pm on New Year’s Eve! We felt sorry for them so we let them shoot off most of them. They seemed to enjoy it. We went looking for some kind of big party or something equivalent to Time’s Square in New York, but alas that’s not a tradition here. Chinese New Year is more like Christmas, everyone just stays home with their family, eats, and watches a big Chinese TV production that is vaguely similar to Saturday Night Live. So there really is nothing to do but play with fireworks if you don’t have a Chinese family to go to. But it was fun anyway. In Xi’an we did light the Cong Ming lanterns, which are paper lanterns that act basically like hot air balloons. You light a little candle in the middle, and the hot air makes them ride up into the sky. It’s really pretty when you can see hundreds of them floating around in the night sky.

Checking off the list

The next day I left for Xi’an to meet some friends to see the famous terra cotta warriors. It was pretty interesting, but honestly they look exactly like they do on TV. It was good to check it off the list, but I felt not really all that impressive after already seeing pictures and knowing the background behind them. The one interesting thing was that we met (supposedly) the actual guy who discovered them back in the 1970’s. He was autographing his book. We weren’t allowed pictures (go figure) but it was quite fascinating to see his expressions and mannerisms. He was nonchalantly puffing on his cigarette while casually jotting down his John Hancock every few seconds as a book was laid in front of him. He didn’t speak or look the least bit interested in anything but his cigarette. We asked our tour guide if he was rich and famous, thinking that anyone who discovered what some call “The Eighth Wonder of the World” would have to be immensely rich. She said he is not rich at all, in fact he made no money from his discovery, or the sale of the books. It made us wonder if they even pay him to sit there all day and autograph books (which were quite expensive by Chinese standards). All of us foreigners were a bit taken aback at what seemed to us to be the government exploiting this man without any sort of compensation. But it didn’t seem very strange to our tour guide. Another interesting comparison of ideas and ‘norms’ between here and home.