Midterm in the Middle Kingdom

Hello friends-

Having made it half way through the semester, I think China has finally started being nice to me. Maybe that isn't the right way of saying it. I think I've finally figured out China enough to avoid most of the annoying bureaucratic situations, and I have decided that I am going to politely resist the urge to kick the cars and cabs that try and run me over despite the fact that I have the green light. I am motivated to learn again rather than dragging myself through the sea of Chinese characters that seems to taunt me as the April Chinese Proficiency Exam draws nearer.

Somewhere around midterms, I was inspired. I was inspired by a pedestrian.

As I was crossing the street one evening, the light turned green for my side of the street to cross. There was an old man crossing on the other side, and while he was crossing these cars clearly running red lights started honking their horns and attempting to plow through the people walking. Despite the motorized pieces of metal driving approaching the old man, he kept walking at his normal pace. The driver who was waiting behind the old man became more impatient by the second and started holding the horn down on his car. Angered, the old man turned to the driver in the car and blurted some Chinese obscenity. The man in the car jumped out in the middle of the intersection and started berating the old man with more Chinese obscenities and then hopped back into his car. Infuriated after finally passing the car with the irate driver, the old man turn around and kicked the car with all his little old man strength. The car drove away. The driver turned looked back and spat.

I guess on the surface this just seems like a road rage conflict, but there's so much more intra-Chinese cultural conflict going on. The first was the conflict between the old man walking and the young man that was driving the car. Not only did the young man violate the driving laws (which everyone does), but also he violated it against a person who he should have been respecting. The old man was following all the rules and this uppity young fellow decided that he was going to break the rules. Somewhere in that conflict, the traditional way of viewing life wrestled with the new generation that tries to separate itself from the slow moving ancien regime.

The second conflict was a class conflict. Here's how I think the technological/class hierarchy operates in china. If you're on the road, the more advanced your driving machine is, the more "rights" you have to demand that other people move out of your way. So here's equation.

Weakest ---- Pedestrian < Bicycle < Electric Bicycle < Vespa < Motorcycle < Car ----Strongest

*For those of you who have not seen an electric bicycle, it is a bike with an electric motor attached that allows you use the motor or pedal if your out of power.

In the US, we might comment on how "that person in the Mustang/Jaguar/ BMW thinks they own the road”, but at least in the US, 90% of the time you encounter an extreme aggressive driver, you are in a car. In China, the divide isn't between people who mutually own cars, but people who own cars and people who do not. Underneath it all, your car signifies your social/economic status and thus gives you more "right" to mow down a pedestrian. It's been a long time since the Great Leap Forward, and with China's rapid development such class conflicts are inevitable.

Anyway, this old man inspired me to study. I can't say whether or not he meant to challenge the Chinese social system, but if that old man can take on China, a Chinese Proficiency Exam should be nothing. So here I am, hunkered down and reenergized to take on the world. I guess it helped that I got to relax a little bit in this midterm period. I suppose it was also comforting to know that the native Chinese don't just accept the crazy streets as "culture." That old man reminded me that no, not all chinese people think alike, are the same, and are out to run me over with a bus. It's a comforting thought, really.

In other news, I've been having fun meeting all the other people studying Chinese in Beijing. My roommate and I were talking the other day, and we decided that study abroad in China could not be an escape; it could not be a vacation. China might be inexpensive compared to Europe, but you need to work. When you want to interact with the local population, you need to speak Chinese to them, because 90% of the people in China do not speak English, and if they do, they are often reluctant to. So, it's been fun talking to the other students here and hearing their stories of how they got to China.

So far, I've met a couple Canadians, two Norwegians, three Italians, a Singaporean, four Koreans, and numerous Americans. It's also been a bit frightening seeing how many people I've met in China that have connections to people I know back in the US. I even stumbled on a few high school classmates while wandering around the city. The world really is small.

At any rate, in order to get to know these people better, I decided that I would shamelessly throw myself a housewarming party, invite several people, and ask them to bring food. The idea was quite popular. People showed up, brought food, and my house was quite warm despite the fact that the winter is rapidly approaching.

And it is cold. It’s going to be very, very cold. Beijing gets a taste of the Russian winter as it blows down from the North. I don’t really want to think about it yet.

Regarding another bit of completely unrelated news, this 40 year old Chinese business woman systematically analyzed my sexiness the other day. Apparently, I have a very nice knows, seductive eyes, and because the tops of my ears exceeds the height of my eyebrows, I am brilliant and destined to do great things.

I'm slowly getting lessons on how to be auspicious. I'll let you know what other body parts you need to rearrange to keep your Feng Shui in order.

Have a nice Fall season, friends.

The Coco Banana

So I've made friends with this one female worker at the Bridge Cafe.  Her name is Xiao jing (little Mirror). She's so cute. Every time I come in and she gets all giddy and comes over to talk to me. She's always interested in what I'm studying and frequently asks me if I need help and always smiles and says "study hard. study hard." Yesterday, after my exams I went into Bridge to get myself something sweet, and she was there, giddy as can be. But this time, she came up to me and asked me if I could read Chinese on my computer. I told her yes, and she directed me to a website that was her blog, filled with more than a 1000 poems, short stories, and notes written since her high school years. I also couldn't help but notice that she directed me to a collection of love poetry that she had written.

I started to fear that she was getting the wrong idea of me saying hi to her everyday, and the Chinese aren't the most expressive with their feelings, so when people do show warmth and interest in them, its often interpreted romantically (especially if you're close in age). After spending sometime reading her poetry, and her blushing every time I looked at her, I casually slipped that her work reminded me of a boy I knew back home. She was a little taken aback. She said, "but you could go look for a girl." I then had the fun time translating that my sexuality was not of my own choice. She innocently replied with a, "but you can still change!" I replied with broken chinese while pointing to various words that I would quickly look-up online like "depression," "suicide," and "repression." 

That being said. Gay culture here is still underground. You can find it. There are gay clubs and gay bars, and gay organizations, but they have yet to make a break into mainstream chinese media.

I told Xiao Jing that I was one of the 断袖之癖 (duan4 xiu4 zhi1 pi3). I told her that I was of the "love of the cut sleeve." She didn't understand. I told her that in in Western Han in Ancient China there was an Emperor named Ai-Di. One night, Ai-Di and his lover were fast asleep in bed. His lover had fallen asleep on the emperor's royal robes. Suddenly, the emperor's advisor rushed into the room begging Ai-Di's attention. Called to duty, Ai-Di had to leave his lover, but did not want to wake him from his sleep. So- in order to let him rest, Ai-Di cut his sleeve,giving birth to the phrase "the love of the cut sleeve."

Xiao Jing smiled. She said it was a very romantic story, but despite such history in China, she has only seen two openly gay couples in China. One, she said, was in a train station. The other was at a bus stop. Beyond that, she knew no one. China has a long way to go. On the bright said, the People's Congress has been having discussion about the legalization of same sex marriage and homosexuality has been unbanned for a while now. Though, after talking to a few other people, it's interesting to see that the Chinese stereotype of homosexuality is relatively the same as the US stereotype. Maybe it's US influenced, but homosexuals (men at least) are still considered weak, effeminate, afraid of anything dirty, and limp-wristed. 

We'll see how the rest of the year turns out for me.

Anyway,

After having a bonding moment with Xiao Jing, a couple A couple friends and I decided to go on an adventure and follow an ad in The Beijinger advertising this Aussie Mash-Up Duo weaving hiphop, funk, and techno at this place called the "White Rabbit Club." The place was small and and empty at 10:30pm on a Friday night. The Aussie Duo wasn't showing up until 1:00am at the earliest, and to be frank, it was kind of lame. Though, the owners were nice enough to refund our cover charge, and we went elsewhere.

Luckily, some of my old Chinese roommates were with us, and one of them suggested that we go to this club on the "club street" Gongtixilu (workers street west). So we hopped in a cab and made our way to the Coco Banana. If there is anyway to describe a club in China it would be with the word "gaudy" and variations of the word gaudy. The outside of the club seemed like it was caged in golden neon lights and unlike the other places what I've been to, this place was filled with locals. We each paid our 50 RMB cover charge ( 7 dollars), and after being patted down at the security check, we crept inside. The music was surprisingly simple, but satisfying. They took a lot of p popular pop/hip hop songs and spun them with some simple techno dance beats. This was far more exciting than the Rabbit. It was also far more crowded. If there was a fire code, I'm sure this places was violating it. People were pressed up against each other, and to make it even more intimate, people were also casually blowing smoke into each other's faces. I swear everyone inside the club was chain smoking: one the dance floor, between drinks, between words, while walking, while sitting, while doing absolutely anything. It was pretty rough for me and my weak lungs, and for some reason. In addition to all this smoke, the place thought they needed a smoke machine. 

However, I can say I had a great time. Despite my clothes smelling like tobacco. I danced. I danced around the awkward Chinese boys, and I attempted to dance on this platform, BUT apparently, you can only dance on the platform if you're a girl. That was sort of disappointing, but the music was good and I let all my stresses out on the dance floor.

Now, I'm working again. I bought myself a fancy electronic dictionary. I can write characters into it. It's pretty sweet. I'll show you all when I get home.

Love,

me

Friday is wonderful

Because I can find a nice warm cafe, sip tea, read xkcd.

* * *

There are two weeks until the halfway point of the semester. I have gone into a very machine like mode of studying again. Reading, writing, and reading some more in an attempt to make everything stick. I occasionally get bouts of annoying discouragement (like today, when I pronounced like 10 things incorrectly in my speaking exam), but I will endure (忍住 ). It just feels so different than the latter part of the summer in which i felt so, for the lack of my ability to pump out better words, free and happy. I had time to think, I had time to run, I was at my peak physical condition, and had all the comforts of Seattle. Now, I'm afraid to exercise too much for fear of inhaling too much pollution, I don't have time to think, and I'm starting to fear the idea that I like sitting and studying characters. Economists weren't lying about opportunity cost. I hate having to believe them though, but the results are showing. I've lost all the muscle that I gained this summer, and now my clothes are slightly baggy. I actually feel like I'm in high school again--doing repetitive assignments late into the night and waking up early. 

I'm sure if I watch some cheesy disney film I'll be inspired again. Thats why I keep Mulan on my computer. It's not so I can have 1 gig of my hard drive taken up, but it's supposed to remind me of my need to uphold my family honor despite whatever odds may face me. Okay, so maybe I'm dramatizing this situation a little too much, but Mulan is a good movie, and if I can trick myself into believing that my working hard will somehow bring such honor to my family in the most Confucian of ways, then I will live in this fictional reality until I learn Chinese, and then watch some other cheesy movie to remind me of what the real world is like. 

This will be a very restful weekend.

I'm excited. I'm going to buy a fancy electronic dictionary that allows me to write characters into it and maybe save me a few hours of sleep every night. I've never been so thrilled to get a dictionary before.

thrilled.

Coming Along

Hello friends, I apologize for minimal posting lately, Beijing got colder and my teachers decided that they wanted to "Jia you" or "add fuel" to our lessons, so I've been spending many a night sitting in warm places staring at flashcards and memorizing characters, and trying to piece together sentences of this blog every now and then. I did get a chance to see the Summer Palace recently. It was named one of the UN World Heritage sites and was definitely a spectacular sight. It was by far the biggest "garden" I have ever seen. Not only was it a garden, but it included a lake and several temples. The only thing that kept me from appreciating it all was the 100,000 other tourists in the Palace. Every time i go out so some cultural site, I feel like I'm descending into the belly of an animal. Each attraction is always heavily attended by thousands of people. China just has too many people.

Tour groups with matching hats are fun.

my roommate was coerced into taking a picture with the chinese man. after this, the man took a picture of his son with her.

So many everyday situations are complicated by the fact that there are so many people, and that there really isn't a culture of standing in lines. I don't know why people from the cold war generation talk about communist countries and how all they do is stand in lines, because I have yet to see a group of people in this country willingly stand in a line on their own. It's gets annoying after a while. After a long day of working, everybody has to fight with everybody else because no one trusts anyone else. To clarify that confusing sentence, take this example. If a group of people are standing in a line, there will be another group of people that come and cut into the line because they don't actually believe that the people standing in line are willingly submitting to a form of order that forces them to submit to being behind somebody else. That being said, I have been trampled by many a old woman moving her way up in line. I don't exactly know what to do when something like that comes up! I mean, I'm supposed to treat older people with respect, at least when I speak to them, but does that mean I let them trample me as they check out at the store? Apparently, yes. Because if I stand stiffly, I will get some crack about me being a young whipper snapper in chinese.

But thats the least of my worries right now, and the least of the Chinese's worries. The Chinese have to worry about the job market right now. My last homework assignment was to talk to a couple of college students about finding a job after graduating. I figured that if I was studying at the harvard of china, even students with degrees in Medieval Chinese Chopstick Carving could find jobs. Apparently, this is not so. It's gotten to the point where if a percentage graduates from a school in a particular major consistently do not find jobs within 3 days, the government will shut down the major completely. Moreover, many a job still have "male applicant only" signs. I thought the job market was rough in the United States, but with such a large population and people willing to move across to country to do jobs even in the service industry, competition in china is beyond rigorous. That feeling of being not so special comes really easily when one lives in a country of 1.3+ billion. I now understand why the Chinese use the word “努力” nu3 li4 to describe a persons ideal work ethic. Nuli means hardworking and there is no easy job that comes in China. One does not have the comfort of being able to fall back on a "fast food" job, there just aren't that many around.

Though, speaking of fast food.

KFC and McDonalds are totally upper class bourgeois places to eat here. Only the rich can afford to eat there, and apparently, its where you go to flaunt your status. Rich families will often get dressed up to go to KFC, McDonalds, or even Pizza hut to enjoy a "Sunday Brunch" or whatever the chinese equivalent is.

Other than having the time to make these observations, I am busily working away. I feel like I'm in high school again. I dont like this idea of having morning and afternoon classes everyday with lots of homework. My brain gets tired, but I guess thats expected because Chinese forces you to use both sides of your brain. I think thats why Chinese people live so long and have such a lower rate of Alzheimer's. Their brains get constant workouts from just speaking. (As i read on the BBC website a while ago), it's because people who speak chinese need to coordinate their left and right sides of the brain in order to match the tones of the words with the ideas of the words. In this way, speaking chinese is like singing a song. Reading characters out loud adds even more activity to the brain. So yes, my brain is tired, but I must 努力学习, or study hard, as the chinese say. There is no shortcut learning here. There is only force of will.

nerding out

Hello world.

As of today I have yet to obtain a massage. Unlike the other cities in China I travelled to in which massage parlors seemed to be on every corner, I only know of one in my area. Either way, the massages here are wonderful. Most of them are acupressure massages that churn you into a whole new person. I had an acupressure foot massage in Kunming and swore i started feeling my stomach and arms twitch when they pushed on parts of my feet. It's also interesting, because many of the massage parlors in China are places for blind employment. It's nice to know that China has some niche in society for the blind, but at the same time to know that because one is blind and might be confined to a life of foot massaging is also dismaying. Nonetheless, those who give massages do a wonderful job of realigning my Qi.

Other than reliving memories of past massages, nothing really exciting has been happening. Oh- well. I am getting kind of excited for my slowly being able to read. That's sort of nice. What's fun about learning the characters is that the visual etymology that one must practice in order to write the characters. When describe a character, they don't say its definition. They give a series of examples that use the word or explain the words "radicals" or root words. I have spent much time laughing and the history of the words coming to life as i learn them. For example. The characters for direct (the adjective) are 直接。The first character's root word is an eye. But the second character's root words are a hand with a man standing on top of a woman.

So apparently when one makes eye contact with a woman and stands on her with his hand raised, this IS direct.

That being said, it's also been really interesting to see how allegorical language is, especially chinese. Even abstract ideas like "directness" are rooted in historical examples of what one would be considered direct.

Fun huh?