Month: November 2015

Normal in China: Kung Fu in the Park

November 26, 2015 / the.mantis@outlook.com / 0 Comments

Militant Chinese Communists cowered whenever I mentioned the word “gun,” but they gave no thought to the daily sight of men carrying two-handed long swords over their shoulders on the way to go swing and twirl around in the park, or the groups armed with tai chi swords (called jian) carving the air in unison, or the student clubs of young men swinging metal nunchucks around the soccer field and tennis courts in the twilight dark.

Getting some pointers from a friendly spear-wielding stranger in the park.

It remained conspicuous to me, even though I brought a sparse knowledge of Chinese martial arts and exercise with me on my foreign stay. I knew there would be tai chi morning exercise groups, of course- what surprised me was just how numerous and common these groups were, being at every mid-sized park I went to in China, and how diverse and popular the practice was. There were tai chi groups with swords, with folding fans, and the various forms of empty hand and breath control tai chi, and there were individuals who brought out their imposing spears and pole weapons for solo practice, and there were dancing groups for uptempo line dancing and partner ballroom-style dancing, and various and sundry different styles of kung fu.

Aunt Fong’s father-in-law leads me through his daily tai chi routine.

Anyone familiar with Chinese language and culture might note that kung fu is a broad word that does not designate martial arts only. Kung fu (or “gong fu” in Chinese pinyin, which is 功夫), as I understand it roughly, refers to both skill and practice. A musician could refer to her piano playing as her piano kung fu, her years of piano practice likewise as kung fu.

Aunt Fong encouraged me to study “Chinese tea kung fu.” I couldn’t resist deliberately misinterpreting “kung fu” and sent her this doodle of “Kung Fu Fong.”

So, all the acrobatics and dancing and weightlifting and running and stretching and martial arts forms and competition that I saw could be summed up as kung fu. The stout old man in the riverside park that I nicknamed “Master Splinter,” who twirled two bo staffs at a time and juggled them by launching one into the air as he transferred the other from his left to right hand, and bellowing a high-pitched wail deep from his belly as he did so, was practicing kung fu. He was also doing kung fu when he led a small group of young students through handstands,flips, cartwheels, and splits.

Learning to spin the bo staff.

Aunt Fong was always telling me “China gong fu, very good!” I was practicing sanda, or Chinese kickboxing, already, which would count as a form of Chinese kung fu, but I think she wanted me to do something more traditional. In China, the more ancient it is, the better. And even though I remember telling her “Okay, I’ll try it” dozens of times, she seemed to sense my growing skepticism that “China gong fu” was “very good!”

I practiced two different styles of kung fu in the park. The first was with my aunt’s friend, Wei. Because he was such a big man, we called him by the Chinese word for big, da, and so he was either Da Wei or Master Da Wei.

Da Wei showed me a kung fu form that consisted of choreographed moves going forward and back in a straight line. Each week, we’d review the routine so far and then he’d add another line of moves onto it. By the end, I was going back and forth 6 lengths, kicking and clawing and elbowing and blocking. It seemed not at all practical from the perspective of martial arts as a means of self defense from real, stronger foes, but as a training method for body movement it helped me flow in a way I hadn’t done before. And while I was thankful to learn one-on-one from a teacher who was generous with his time, I have to say it seemed very dull to be doing such basic moves over and over, not the amazing flips, spins, and crisp, snapping techniques of Shaolin monks.

Going through the kung fu form with Da Wei.

The other kung fu style I got to try is translated into English as “push hands.” In push hands, two people stand arm’s length from each other and do as the name says: push each other until one loses balance. It might sound dimwitted, like an excuse for boys to play rough in the schoolyard, but in practice the skilled push hands players moved so smoothly in reaction to my attempts at shoving them that several times I lost my footing and had to step forward, off balance, because I had over-committed my forward motion. The look and feel of it was like Neo’s bullet-time back-bend fall in The Matrix. Any time I pushed their chest, they rolled their shoulder back, gripped my pushing arm, and pulled me forward. Try as I might, I couldn’t move them out of position without resorting to wrestling-style overhooks and underhooks (encircling and gripping my arm around their arm).

A few times, my opponent got aggressive and pushed into me with all he had, sending us both to the ground, me first. The goal of push hands was only to get someone to step out of their standing position, not take them down to the ground. I was more than used to being wrestled to the ground from my experience in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, so while the exceptional falls were unexpected, they did not catch me unprepared. I immediately latched onto my opponent’s exposed neck and, without squeezing, held them in a choke hold for a couple seconds to prove a point: while they may have won the push hands battle, I had won the war. In a live situation, me squeezing for a few seconds would have cut off blood flow to his brain and made him black out. And, while their kung fu was spent mastering how to push and react to pushes from a straight-on, standing position, my kung fu back in America was spent on martial arts- martial arts as a real method of combat and self defense.

Gathering an audience as I press in with my overhook grip. My back is dirty from getting pushed down earlier.

Another extremely aggressive opponent in the push hands group would look for opportunities to latch onto my fingers and bend them backwards. Bending fingers is so dirty that even early no holds barred/mixed-martial arts events banned it, along with other notorious moves like eye pokes, fish hooks, bites, and groin strikes. I was afraid for my safety, having this stranger in a strange land quickly go for this injury-causing move, and in that desperate moment, having no safe word or mutual unspoken ground rules to rely on, I had to hook my leg around his in a reaping motion to trip him backwards and release my fingers. Shockingly, his onlooking buddies in the push hands group made a commotion then, not at him for hurting an unsuspecting beginner, but at me for using a judo throw in a pushing game.

Even more surprising, when my malicious sparring partner righted himself back up, he again went for a grip on my fingers as soon as he was able. Looking back, I should have told everyone “Bu yao” (“No/ I don’t want”) waved it off and walked away. Practicing with an untrustworthy partner like that is a stupid way to get hurt or let bad feelings build into a real fight. But I pressed on for a few more rounds with him.

Getting arm-dragged in Communist China.

In a way, I felt like I had to prove myself. Aunt Fong had introduced me to this group on several occasions, and each time, instead of them coaching me through drills and new techniques, they all waited to take turns against me in a battle of China vs. foreigner. I really wanted to compete against them and better my skills. So, against my adversary, I had to be constantly on edge, yanking my hands away as if from a hot stove whenever I felt his grip begin to squeeze. To this day, I remember his hollow eyes and predatory smile the way crime victims in stories recollect their attackers even all the way back from childhood.

On the taxi ride back from the park, Aunt Fong could read it on my face but I told her anyway. I didn’t want to do Chinese kung fu any more. “China gong fu” was not “very good,” but fallen in my eyes.

The Real China: Trains and Travel

November 24, 2015 / the.mantis@outlook.com / 0 Comments

Throughout life, I have managed to silently keep my peace and meekly abide through many and various insults and indignities, my teeth often gritted, but my turned cheek being slapped without protest. Without this experience and temperament, I wouldn’t have been able to endure a full year in China. Its transportation rituals, however, had me at my breaking point. All of the buses and subways I used in local mass transit systems were fine and about as good as one could expect for each respective city in China. What I mean to discuss are my trying journeys: the train rides and my travels into major tourist areas.

A typical scene at a smaller train station.

China has built up its railway network so that most every city on the east coast is linked with all the others, and residents of one can conveniently buy a ticket to most anywhere at their local terminal. Not many people have cars, so the railway system functions as the alternative to the American interstate system. Major lines, like those travelling due east to Shanghai, also offer a high-speed rail service. China isn’t on par with the Japanese rail network (will any country ever be?) but it is investing heavily to make its own infrastructure faster and better connected.

I did make a few trips by car and bus on the toll-ways, which were not so unlike their American equivalent, minus the build-up of roads, businesses along the exits, and traffic jams (not that traffic jams don’t happen in China, just not on the toll-ways I traveled. In fact, China has made world news several times from its days’ long traffic jams). Buses are the number one method for long distance holiday travel in China, though I found that statistic hard to believe when comparing my bus trips to my experience in the very crowded train stations. There were times when I was in a ticket line or train car and I began counting the heads of people: “1, 2, 3…” then thought that there were so many people it would be faster to count down from China’s total population to find out the number of people in my train: “one billion, two hundred and ninety-nine million, nine-hundred and ninety-nine; one billion, two hundred and ninety-nine million, nine-hundred and ninety-eight…”

Like many mundane tasks in China, I always had an escort with me, a friend to buy my ticket for me. After waiting in line and showing my passport to the cashier, my translator would make the purchase- same as anywhere, except the business being done in Chinese made it especially boring, unknowable, and fickle. Buying a ticket for one trip might only take ten minutes and my friend would take care of the whole process while I waited near the building entrance. Other times, I’d have to dutifully follow someone back and forth between the self-service computer terminal and cashier line, watching them in their shared confusion and frustration, having nothing to do with myself except remember the times as a child that I had to trail behind my parents in a store without toys.

The train travel itself was where the real frustration began, far more hectic than the tranquil-by-comparison ticket office. Outside of the terminals, there was typically a plaza surrounded by retail businesses and dozens of food vendors (if you ever find yourself in China and you’re brave enough to try them, I recommend the hard-boiled eggs sitting in the pan of near-black sauce). The terminals- train and bus- were major gathering spaces in the world’s most populous country.

A great mess of humanity streamed in and out of the main doors, but to get in (sometimes out) required passing through narrow metal gates. The barriers were set up to direct the crowd through the ticket and security checks; being China, this meant the crowd would push and jostle their way into the single-file opening. In any country, waiting in lines to pass through security and gate checks is a ritual that ranks around a trip to the dentist’s office in terms of pleasantness, but as a consolation, at least the people in most other countries are waiting in line. Experience quickly taught me that the metal barriers were a necessity in a land without manners or respect for unwritten rules like waiting one’s turn.

In China, men with duffel bags slung over their shoulders barged past me without regard; petite female ticket-takers seemed to seek me out and palm-strike me in my kidneys as they cut through the crowd. However mellow I imagined my demeanor, funneling through the gates was a miserable enough experience to make me ball my fists and look for the next pusher to make an example out of him- or her- for all the rest.

Wading through those bottlenecks, sometimes over 20 rows of people deep (God help the fleeing crowds if there were ever a fire emergency), seemed like the worst thing, but it was only the first major hassle of a Chinese train trip. Inside the waiting lobby, all those swarms of people sprawled out in the many rows of seats, letting their outer coats, bags, seed shells, plastic food wrappers, drink bottles, and (it can be assumed) spit fall to the floor. A dowdy cleaning woman would shuffle around the people standing throughout the floor space, thick as insects, and use a straw broom to sweep up the refuse in a futile, never-ending cycle.

Outside a train station. Small shops and restaurants abound on the lower levels.

A large convenience store was usually located in the waiting lobby; the major terminals had small restaurants and shops like a modestly-sized airport. Browsing through the cramped shelves of food and buying a bowl of instant noodles was my only respite when the train was delayed, which it was by several hours on one occasion; I also had a bus trip that was delayed by over an hour, though it should be noted that those were single events and I don’t have any figures on the percentage of delayed trains and buses in China. That one evening when my train was delayed, the instant noodles had to suffice for dinner as the delay was indefinite, without an announcement about the estimated arrival time or cause of the problem. My friends and I waited outside the departure gate altogether for four hours until the proverbial watched pot- our midnight train- boiled.

China proved too much for this boy, so he left with his student friends on a midnight train to Hefei.

Inside the Chinese train cabins, the ride varied considerably depending on the class of ticket and destination, but it was always crowded to full capacity at least. The nicest ride, the high-speed G trains, were fitted with new, reclining individual seats, and they could cut the travel time by more than half. This expensive service was exclusive to major city routes, which in my area meant I could take a G train to Nanjing or Shanghai. But keep in mind, it was still China, so the high-speed ride, while smooth, was far from leisurely. Passengers talked, chewed, littered, had phone conversations, watched portable DVD players, and played music through speakers- not headphones- all at full volume. Yes, believe it or not, somehow the littering was at full volume too, but to be fair the noisome litter did not remain on the floor throughout the whole trip. A cleaning woman would come by to collect trash and bark at you to lift your feet so she could sweep. Plus, in addition to the noise of the passengers and their devices, the overhead television screens would be flashing commercials, programs, and movies at a soft volume that was loud enough to be distracting but impossible to make out over the clamor of the car. A tease if you were interested in the program, a bother if you were trying to enjoy quiet while you read or napped.

The typical train carriage, not the elite G train car, was crowded too, but beyond crowded were its straight-back benches and well-worn cushioned seats, overflowing with people so much so that extra passengers- those with a seat-less ticket- gathered in the connecting space between cars or sat in between their friends’ seats, if possible. Shoeless souls set up buckets between the rows of seats or slumped over on top of coats and bags to try and sleep in an unsightly pile. Not since riding in a mud and trash-covered bus on my way to detassel corn fields in Iowa had I seen people so indiscriminate about the conditions they slept in.

Waiting to board the G Train.

One convenient alternative to the lousy rest on these basic cars were the sleeper cars. Traveling to Beijing, which is located far up in the northeast near Inner Mongolia, I had booked an overnight trip on a sleeper car (that is, I had the trip booked for me). Shortly after midnight, I boarded the train and tottered through the narrow walking space of the cabins and found my bunk inside the darkened interior. My room had four bunks, two on each side wall, one above and one below. I was up top, and I was lucky that none of the other passengers had used my bunk for storage space, so I was able to hoist myself up and lay myself out without having to try and negotiate with inconsiderate passengers to move their bags in a language I didn’t really speak. Even though I was well over the average height the train bunks were designed for, I managed to find a sleeping position and slip away from consciousness until around seven o’clock, when daylight filled the cabin and passengers and porters started making a commotion to disembark. I managed to get a fair night’s sleep and get a long trip out of the way at the same time- not bad.

The flip-side of the sleeper car coin was what I experienced when traveling to Shanghai, not half the distance to Beijing from where I was staying. My escort for that trip, Uncle Jiang, insisted on the sleeper train either to save money or because he illogically thought it would be a sensible trip to make overnight. I don’t know. Again, I was an illiterate, childlike observer when the tickets were being purchased. Sometime after one in the a.m., we boarded the train and made our way to our bunks. Less than five hours later, we were woken by the porter. I followed my escort as he tried to navigate the pre-dawn streets and bus terminals of Shanghai, feeling doubly grumpy from poor sleep and having to wait on my guide for unendurable amounts of time as he studied the wall map in desolate, not yet open bus stations. I suppose Uncle Jiang’s brain was just as foggy as mine was after our tease of a sleep.

But that sour experience was nothing compared to the worst long-distance travel I suffered not only in China, but so far in my short life. I have to preface this by saying I realize persecuted people around the world have been rounded up for train trips to prison camps and death camps, far worse than what I endured, so take my complaint for its relative worth. My description is vivid, not hyperbolic, and it was a truly awful experience, though not comparable to the worst trips ever suffered by human beings, as I admit. What makes this awful trip of mine noteworthy was how very typical it seemed to the Chinese people crammed into that train car with me, and how it wasn’t a cause of anger and outrage.

The pace and conditions of this car ride reminded me of news reports about jet planes grounded on the tarmac for hours on end with no food service or air conditioning, or cruise ships that lost engine power and became stranded at sea. Yet those instances are exceptions to otherwise fair to decent service. This fateful train trip of mine was routine, repeated by thousands every week as the only means of access to a famous tourist town in China. As passengers, we were jammed in like swine, but the rail company was transporting us for profit, under a pretense of customer service. None of it was forced; the passengers weren’t on that train as punishment. A business, generously subsidized by government funds, offered this terrible service, and the passengers took it because it was the only option they had or because they were so beaten down, made powerless by life in China, that they accepted it as an unchangeable inconvenience of life. I become so angry just thinking about this trip that I have to calm down and compel myself to write so that you, dear reader, might hear the full story.

For months, Chinese students and friends had been asking me if I had seen Yellow Mountain (Huangshan), “the most famous mountain in China.” I had never heard of it before coming to China, but every time someone queried me about what I had seen in China, they always asked about and recommended Yellow Mountain. “China has five famous mountains. But we say, ‘If you see Yellow Mountain, you do not need to see any other mountains.'”

A famous “waving tree” greeting visitors at Yellow Mountain.

Strangely, many of its advocates had never themselves been to Yellow Mountain, and I even spoke to several young residents of the town of Yellow Mountain (Huangshan City) who had never ventured to the nearby mountain range. I say strangely, but after living in China for a year it was the type of answer I came to expect.

“Have you seen Huangshan Yellow Mountain?”

“No. Have you?”

“No. I have no seen it.”

“But you live in Huangshan City.”

(Grinning silence)

Yellow Mountain, although a big regional draw, was connected to the rest of the Chinese railway system by a single rail line that ran only the slowest trains. I heard that Yellow Mountain was beautiful and scenic all year round; I chose to go in June, right after the spring semester had ended. Two eager students of mine arranged everything and accompanied me on the long weekend trip.

Boarding the train, I wasn’t clear how long the ride was supposed to last. I walked on and shimmied past all the people lounging in the entryway and by the bathroom (a hole in the floor, or more accurately a hole in a metal basin that emptied directly onto the tracks below. It was against the rules to use it while the train was stopped in a station, and I think it was one of the few rules obeyed by all). My student friends told me we had seats on our tickets (not everyone was so lucky), so we budged through the thick tangle of people standing in the aisles and took our very cramped seats on the bench seating. We were arm to arm and hip to hip in steamy summer weather. I battled the urge to panic. I was trapped with a table top pressing against the top of my lap, sitting tightly between two bodies, with no way out. I couldn’t move an inch in any direction.

Every time a new person sat down in the window seat, they tried in vain to push the window up higher. It had a catch so that it could only be opened a maximum of four inches. The train, I would estimate, moved at a top speed of 30-35 miles per hour and made twenty-minute stops at the many stations along the way, so the breeze filtering in from outside was hardly a relief.

One of the only ways to pass the time was watching the passing scenery. Here, a very common sight in China: multiple cranes at a high-rise apartment building project.

Whenever we made one of our frequent stops, vintage fans of wire and metal would oscillate overhead, failing to counteract in the slightest the combined summer humidity and body heat. It was a vain show of providing desperately desired relief. As passengers boarded and disembarked, luggage was hoisted and dragged through the compact network of bodies that irksomely flowed around the moving passengers, then those riding on settled back into their standing positions.

On the way to Yellow Mountain, we began with an over-full load of passengers that slowly dwindled away at each station until we had a reasonable amount of space right before we reached the end of the line. To reach Yellow Mountain City took all day- we started before lunch and arrived after dark- and so we searched for a taxi to our hotel in the dark, pouring rain.

The mountain and surrounding areas were lovely and scenic as everyone intimated, though I wouldn’t agree with the boastful Chinese proverb that once a man had seen Yellow Mountain, he need not see any other mountain in China. The trip was filled with rainstorms, views of waterfalls, steep stone-stepped inclines that brought the legs to a halt, tea sales pitches, and winding bus rides.

A view of a stream running down a mount of Yellow Mountain. A scene from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was filmed here, so I had to repress thoughts of the badness of that movie to fully enjoy the scenic beauty.

Huangshan in the rain. I really wanted to buy one of these extra wide farm hats, but the thought of shipping or hauling something that size prevented me.

The tea sales presentation proved too much for my friend, Maxwell, to sit through.

Exhausted from climbing in wet shoes, sitting in wet shorts, and walking through shopping streets, my student friends and I made it back to the train station for our return trip, same as the first, but a whole lot hotter and a whole lot worse.

This time, my students hadn’t been able to procure seats. The train, being the only train out of Yellow Mountain, was too much in demand. But the cashiers don’t turn any buyers away, so we were one of many surplus passengers who would sit in a seat until the car became too full and a seat holder came to evict us from his spot. Then, we stood up, pressed together, holding our bags in hand, and leaned against the sides of the bench seats to balance ourselves. I had purchased a folding fan as a souvenir from Yellow Mountain (Huangshan) City’s shopping street; I used it to try and supplement the faint, scant breeze from the rotating overhead fans. I couldn’t stop waving the fan, the heat was so intense and there was no relief from the steamy summer heat by way of fresh air movement or the opening up of free standing room space.

Eventually, I realized my fanning was futile, and besides the sweat from my hand and the strain of the vigorous fanning were wearing out the fabric until it was close to tearing, so I gave up the battle and holstered my puny folding fan. Sweat streamed down my face and my shirt became plastered to my body. I was too hot and crowded to feel embarrassed, and it was clear that everyone else was suffering in that summer heat trap, too. It was like being in a sauna on a low heat setting and having the door handle break off when you wanted to exit. The only thing on everyone’s mind was the suffering. There was no comfort. We were reduced to our basest elements, physical bodies cooped up like animals. It would have been a dream to do as they do in India and ride on top of the train to feel the rush of the wind outside.

Or was the suffering on everyone’s mind? Throughout the trip, I noticed others chatting away, watching TV, or looking passive like a typical passenger.

I spent that trip as restless as an infant with an earache, unable to take my mind off the misery. I brought my e-reader along on the trip, so that was one small relief over the daylong journey. In my irritation, I struggled to keep my eyes on my reading, and for a half hour I distracted myself by watching an episode of “Friends” on my friend’s laptop (old “Friends” episodes were fashionable and popular in China, at least while I was there). Eventually, thankfully, that trip did end. It would be the worst of several terrible travel experiences in China.

Like I said, people have suffered far worse travels, so the only thing I consider especially remarkable about the overly-crowded, slow-moving hot boxes is that the people in China expected it. To them, it was normal.

“Maxwell, let’s never ride that train again.”

The Real China: Sing a Song for Me

November 18, 2015 / the.mantis@outlook.com / 1 Comment

Most every student I met was part of a talent show or school holiday performance.

The last time I was asked by someone to sing a song, I was part of a Sunday School Christmas program. Of course, that was before China.

My impression of China, and much of Asia, had been formed by the formality of Japanese culture and its intricate social politesse. I knew the Japanese liked to sing, but only in karaoke bars, and often only with close friends or when drunk. (Maybe that sentence should read “and when drunk.”)

Like the Japanese, the Chinese, I knew, also thought in terms of group harmony and saving face. But what about bowing, avoiding eye contact, speaking indirectly, and other characteristic Oriental traditions?

Chinese people, I would come to find out, don’t bow anymore. They shake hands vigorously like exuberant salesmen. As I quickly grew out of my ignorance, I learned that Chinese hardly spoke in hushed, indirect formalities. No, they tended to speak loudly, without prefacing their meaning with polite phrases or mild hesitation. From the basic Chinese language I acquired during my stay, I could already tell that many of the exclamations I heard used the barest words possible with no trace of complicated grammar to modify tone or expression. Example: “Come! Come! Come!” instead of “Come over here, please.” (I write exclamations and not statements because it was so common to hear Chinese call and cry out). Basic commands were the name of the game. Like a whistle and whip-equipped animal trainer, their sentences sprung out like an interjection, brusquely.

How about public reserve and spectacle? Saving face versus seeking attention? Were the Chinese demure or eager to mingle, to show off? Well, that answer is a two-sided coin, as are most coins. The young students tended to be modest and routinely refused to take credit when praised. Also, just as Americans are all good-humored, smarter, and better-than-average drivers, all my Chinese students considered themselves shy and did not want to be the one to stand out from the group. But I found a glaring exception: give them a microphone or goad them to sing a song and then step back. Chinese people love singing. It is their pleasure to sing a song for you.

Peng Liyuan, the wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, is a popular icon known for her singing of super-patriotic military songs on TV.

In America, it is always the attention sponge with the acoustic guitar seeking romantic influence at social gatherings. In China, practically any one of the party guests is willing to be singled out to share their favorite song. When the soloist steps forward, everyone eagerly claps and sits in delight until the final note, then thanks him with a round of applause. Variety shows, where one person after another takes the stage to sing or play their instrument, are very popular on Chinese television, and they follow an unpretentious and schmaltzy style in tune with a tamer era of American television.

I witnessed Chinese enthusiasts singing in the park, singing in the car, singing in their homes, singing in talent competitions, in English speech competitions, singing in the private rooms of restaurants, performing a solo at their own wedding, and of course, I heard dozens of people sing at the KTV rooms, which is the Chinese term for karaoke clubs. The filthy streets were alive with the sound of music.

After the glitzy wedding ceremony, the bride changed into an eye-catching skirt and worked the catwalk with her singing skills.

In a nearby riverside park, early in the morning, when groups would gather to practice tai chi choreography and line dancing together, I would always see one old kung fu teacher expelling his lungs in a shrill bird call. My aunt explained to me that he was releasing his chi or building his chi power- I don’t know the difference, only that it sounded like an animal dying. I tried to imitate him: “AAAAAAIIIIIHHHAAAAAHHHEEEEEAAAA!”, but my aunt told me I was doing it wrong. not enough agony, I suppose.

At night, in the same riverside park, a few enterprising individuals would bring in speakers, a television, a microphone, and plastic lawn chairs so that anyone who found it too troublesome to walk or taxi to a KTV club could come to the park and sing pop songs in the open air, more conveniently and cheaply.

At almost any time, someone would be willing to break out in song to entertain the group. Whenever Aunt Fong and I were with her friends, she would prompt me during, say, the car ride, and ask me, “Would you like… sing a song for me?” I would bashfully decline repeatedly until she pouted or persistently begged me for several rounds. She didn’t understand that I came from a jaded American generation that eyed everything cynically with ironic detachment. Singing out of glee? Who does that? My culture only expected someone to sing if they were on stage with a microphone or if they were a very extroverted personality. Singing for delight to share happiness with others in the group was, to me, charming and refreshing, but to American eyes it seemed so simple-minded and naïve. If you’re going to sing with friends in America, at least have an acoustic guitar and make the song a rock standard.

All right, I admit, that generalization is a bit narrow. I’ve seen American girls singing favorite pop songs in high school hallways and joining in on Broadway musical choruses, and I think everyone has sung along to the radio in the privacy of their own car. But the pleasure is often a guilty one, a hidden treat, not a performance. When I rode in the car with Aunt Fong or Uncle Jiang (when I accompanied them anywhere), they would try and show me off to their friends, or Uncle Jiang would put in his mix CD of Celine Dion, Richard Marx, Lionel Richie, and Michael Jackson, and we would sing along together. He knew those songs from memory, and he had me teach him the lyrics to one of his new favorites, Simon and Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair.”

After observing Uncle Jiang and the rest of China’s infatuation with song and Michael Jackson ballads (their favorite MJ song was “You are Not Alone;” pretty weak), I used their love of singing against them. My teaching arrangement at the local middle school required me to go in front of a class of 50 bored, uncommunicative students and humiliate myself 9 times per week. The students hardly understood me and hardly cared- except when I first walked into the classroom and they applauded at the sight of a young foreigner- so after wearing myself out trying to compel them to talk every week, I finally resorted to the winning strategy of writing song lyrics on the board. Most of the class would follow along, and those who didn’t were drowned out by the singing voices. All I had to do was be a ham and sing repetitively in front of a whole room of onlookers.

The only way to maintain order in this chaos was to lead them through “Over the River and Through the Woods.”

In my university class, I never led a sing-along, but there were a couple times when a lone student stood up to showcase his singing abilities. The soloist might be shy at first, but after a wave of encouragement from his classmates, he would pipe out a few lyrics. Outside of the classroom was another story. When I invited students over to my apartment for a Christmas Party, several were more than willing to line up and have a turn serenading the party crowd.

Guests take turn singing at my Christmas Party to End All Chinese Christmas Parties. That’s Aunt Fong in the Christmas colors sitting on the left.

I think this performing instinct is why Aunt Fong was always urging me to sing for her friends. She wanted to entertain them, and what better way to show me off as a foreign novelty than to have me sing? I don’t mean to say I was only treated as a pet, though being made to sing for strangers by my aunt did make me feel, again, like a child. Aunt Fong genuinely enjoyed listening to me sing, and she would often request me to sing hymns that I had previously shared with her, and she even had me record a song so she could listen to it on her computer.

Aunt Fong insisted I record a song with her nephew, Ja Ja’s help.

Aunt Fong was very modest about her own singing abilities, but I thought she had no need to be so. She had a lovely, dulcet voice. I think her lack of confidence was from being around the operatic Uncle Jiang, her vocally talented nephew, Ja Ja, and other amateurs with well-honed voices. Ja Ja could rap and hit high notes for Backstreet Boys’ songs, and he even produced his own music. Uncle Jiang, when amplified through a KTV sound system, nearly blew out my ear drums as he bellowed Chinese patriotic and pop songs from yesteryear. Sometimes, he would hand me the second KTV microphone and we would sing “My Heart Will Go On” or one of the Chinese songs he taught me (e.g. “Dong Fang Hong,” which praises Chairman Mao for being as radiant as the sun and starving- excuse me- serving the people). Other times, Aunt Fong would encourage me to make selections from the KTV computer library of hits, and Uncle Jiang would impatiently delete my choices when they came in between his songs. The KTV experience could bring out the zeal in passionate crooners like that.

For those who have only experienced karaoke in an American setting- one brave (or shameless) soul singing from a monitor in front of an entire barroom- I will briefly describe the highlights of KTV. One thing to first understand is that the KTV clubs were everywhere. Every commercial district had several KTV buildings decorated with bright signs and elaborate, gaudy, multi-colored lighting. Even in my home base, which was considered tiny by Chinese standards, there were still three different KTV clubs to choose from.

Inside the clubs, more bright lights and mirrored walls decorated the lobby. A clerk at the front counter would book a room for guests as they shouted back and forth over the pumping music beats. After passing a snack bar with popcorn, candy, chicken feet, soft drinks, and beer, guests could walk upstairs or take the elevator to the their floor (there were no expansive, single-story structures in China besides the Forbidden City). Employees functioned as bellhops in the world’s loudest, brightest, and most kinetic, if not obnoxious, hotel, leading guests to their rooms. The KTV rooms were dark and loud, the volume left on max by the previous occupants. A large, vinyl couch hugged three of the walls, so a big group of about a dozen people could crowd into one room. There was a big screen on the opposite wall for music videos and scrolling lyrics, and a touch-screen monitor for selecting songs (sometimes Uncle Jiang would choose American songs for me and I would look at the screen, mute, and eventually communicate that I didn’t know this cross-cultural English language hit).

As the hours went by, the microphone would be passed around, everyone would sing their favorites and impress the rest with their voice, while fruit, nuts, snacks, and drinks would be consumed in a big mess on the table. KTV turned out to be a fun experience, most of the time. It brought out the performer in people, and it was a chance for friends to relax and have fun together. KTV was the go-to choice for an afternoon or evening outing, and it was also a way to cap off a night after an important business deal or special dinner.

So often in America, I have found myself after a dinner out with family or friends when, after an hour or ninety minutes tops, there is a palpable feeling that the affair is over and the restaurant, it is tacitly understood, would like you to move on to open up a table for the next diners. Even if Americans, contrary to custom, wanted to sit around a restaurant table for hours, the atmosphere would not make them feel at ease. The noise of the dining room, the servers constantly stepping in to ask if they can “get those plates there, for ya?”, the bare table, and the open floor plan with a busy crowd buzzing around impinge on people to leave. Then, with a few hours left before bedtime, the group is left to either go to a bar or part ways and go home to watch late-night TV, or scroll through their phones, alone.

In China, I found that big, private dining rooms for parties of six to ten people, followed by a couple hours of KTV together, was the time-filling solution to this social activity dilemma. It was one of the few treasures of Chinese life that I thought Americans should adapt, but knew never would.

The Real China: My Pet Chicken

November 17, 2015 / the.mantis@outlook.com / 0 Comments

Every time I saw a chicken in China, which was about as often as days ended in “Y” (or, in Chinese, when they began with shinchee), I would take a moment to observe it with bemused glee. With Aunt Fong, I would point out the bird and tell her, “Look at that! That chicken is strutting around the parking lot like he owns it!”

Or I’d ask, “What’s that chicken doing in the street?” She never understood much of my words, but she definitely grasped my bewilderment at seeing live chickens walking around parks and sidewalks, or tied by the foot to a cage on the street.

“Yes,” she would laugh, “chicken.”

Well, knowing that I had a fascination with all the filthy street fowls in her country, Aunt Fong called up a friend of hers and arranged us a visit to her chicken farm. So, one Saturday in November, a couple Chinese men came by in a pick-up truck and drove us through the criss-crossed residential streets of the city, then onto the high-speed roads and into an industrial zone at the very outskirts of town. Either we were going to be kidnapped in a factory warehouse, I thought, or escorted to a small farm property that was dumped next to the warehouse. Luckily, we made it to the latter. I could never be sure in China. In a foreign culture and language, my only option in new, strange situations was to wait and see.

My mental vision of a chicken farm had been formed by images of American farms with long, white-roofed buildings housing thousands of overstuffed hens in small cages. That idea was nothing like this Chinese chicken farm. This was a chicken paradise. On the steep, gravel ascent up to the farmhouse, in the ravines sloping down from the road, on the cinder blocks and assorted debris filling the valley, in the open spaces around the farmhouse, on top of the farmhouse itself, in, on, and around the chicken coops, and throughout the woods behind the property: chickens, chickens, chickens. This place was to chickens as China was to people. A variety of tawny, dapple-gray, white, and rust-colored birds swarmed over the landscape, with roosters issuing calls in a never-ending chain. I have no idea how those chicken farmers ever got a full-night’s sleep. Or, how they ever went into town without filling up every interior space they entered with foul chicken stench.

Chickens for sale on a commercial street.

We had some time before lunch (in China, going to someone’s house is a big invitation, and a meal is expected), so I explored the grounds of the chicken farm and curiously examined all the nooks and crannies these birds had staked out for roosting. I don’t know what those chickens did with themselves besides gawk about all day from one place to another. But I saw the way they timidly gave way to me, and I knew what I was going to do with myself.

At first, I walked confidently forward, thinking a straggler would fall behind the crowd and fail to notice me. But chickens had to earn the reputation of being chicken, and as soon as I made way for a group they lived up to their name, clucking in panic and flapping away as fast as their dumpy bodies could carry them. I picked up speed and changed strategies. I would make for the flock but furtively keep my eyes on one lollygagger off to the side. Then I would break hard left or right, stoop low, and pump my legs in pursuit of my quarry. I tried this tactic out several times, working up a light sweat in the cold, fall air. It was no use though. The birds’ caution and quickness outdid my cunning and foot speed.

One time, I backed a few chickens into some netting. Most shot right back out as fast as they had pressed into it, but one stumbled and struggled to get back to its feet. Pinned underneath the netting, it panicked, trying to flap itself upright, and it clucked such a racket that I felt sorry for it. In my brief moment of hesitation, the chicken was up again, and it doubled back out and around the net, evading my grasp. Although I aimed on catching one of them, I had to fearfully compel myself forward because I had no idea if chickens would bite at me or scratch me when I tried to pick them up. My grandmother used to tell me that chickens were mean and they sometimes pecked at her when she gathered eggs as a child. But I didn’t gather any chickens that morning, and after many fruitless pursuits, it was time for lunch.

Country cookin’ in China (at a different farmhouse than the chicken farm).

I got to enjoy lunch at a couple different farmhouses in China, and the experience was about the same at each. The house itself was a simple, rectangular structure made of concrete blocks. The inside was partitioned into rooms that were separated by lengthwise walls, meaning people couldn’t walk between rooms inside- doors had to be entered from outside. Furnishings were at a bare minimum. They had beds and a large dinner table with stools, and a desk and a cabinet, maybe, but nothing on the walls or on the floor to soften the cold look of concrete. Maybe a Chinese calendar or a red paper symbol for “blessing” on the front door.

The farm houses I visited reminded me of my Boy Scout days, camping in a meagerly equipped shelter or cabin. Outside blended in with inside and the tools and accommodations inside were for function, not comfort. Dinner itself was like most of the other home-cooked meals I had in China. Cold meat dishes with bone in every chopped-up bite, and plates of limp vegetables swimming in oil. After the customary nap after lunch (the farm family offered me one of their beds to sleep on), Aunt Fong roused me awake to head back home.

But before we left, I watched as two workers fed the chickens with scoops of seed from a big barrel. The chickens were no longer shy, and when a few of the more audacious birds hopped up near the mouth of the barrel, the workers grabbed them around their ankles and tossed them aside, flapping to the ground. The one worker knew I wanted to hold one of the chickens, so after he seized one by the wings, he called me over and handed it off to me. Then, a moment later, he was clutching another, and so he transferred that one to my other hand. With one pinched by the wings and one by the feet, I held onto the chickens firmly as they flapped and struggled, and when they settled down for a moment Aunt Fong took my picture. Their behavior when I held them was like what I saw from the chickens and ducks in the street markets. Whether they were bound by the ankles or being carried upside-down, they would occasionally jerk to try and right themselves or get free, but mostly they just held still, resigned to being held in an awkward position as they looked around at everyone from an inverted angle.

I’m looking very drowsy after just having woken up from my post-lunch nap.

As a special treat, the farm owner gave us a live chicken, packed in a box, to take home.

Back at Aunt Fong’s apartment, on the ninth floor of her building, she took some red, plastic string and tied one end to the chicken’s leg and one end to the handrail in the stairwell. I had a Sanda (kickboxing) workout that evening, so I got my gym bag ready, amusingly watched my new pet chicken roosting on the stairs, then took the elevator down and ran to practice. Aunt Fong picked me up around 8:00, and when we made it back to her apartment building, I stepped out on the ninth floor and expected to find my chicken. It was gone and so was the red string.

“Where’s my chicken?” I asked.

Aunt Fong conveyed that her husband didn’t abide with having a chicken in the stairway. Anything goes in China, but people still have their personal preferences. Aunt Fong laughed and told me to, “Ask Uncle Jiang:
‘Where’s my chicken?’”

I never did learn what happened to my pet chicken. I don’t think we ate it. I assumed Uncle Jiang either gave it to someone or let it loose to roam outside with the other feral chickens in the apartment complex. Yes, wandering chickens were a not uncommon sight in the apartment complexes of China, as well as the other spaces of the towns and small cities. Live, vagrant chickens were just a fact of life that none of the natives seemed to care about. The only thing they seemed to take notice of was the delight I had in spotting chickens in strange places. To them, it was nothing. Those places weren’t strange. Why did this foreigner care so much about chickens?

Chickens with red, plastic strings around their ankles.

From then on, every time I saw a chicken with a red, plastic string knotted around its ankle, I would point it out to Aunt Fong and say, “Maybe that’s my chicken!”

She would laugh and tell me again, “Ask Uncle Jiang: ‘Where’s my chicken?’”

The Real China: The Chinese Classroom

November 13, 2015 / the.mantis@outlook.com / 1 Comment

As a foreign teacher in China, I was only expected to teach oral English. Grammar and reading were the domain of the Chinese English teachers. My expertise, coming from an English-speaking country, was speaking and teaching Chinese students how to speak. My native English ability made me valuable to the university- enough that they would pay for a good portion of my flight costs and provide me an apartment for the 11-month term of my contract- because I could not only model proper pronunciation, but take this language that students had been studying in grammar books and speak it. Yes, grammar and language knowledge (and especially knowing how to teach) are important for teaching English as a Second Language, but if you can form new sentences in English, at will (this is the test for language fluency), then you are an expert. Growing up in English-speaking culture and speaking this language from childhood will alert you, naturally, when a Chinese student asks, “Where are you come from?” and grant you the authority to correct him, “It’s ‘Where do you come from?’” No grammar credentials needed.

But I had studied English in college and taken an English language teaching course, so I had some ideas about how best to get students to work through the language. The zeal of naivety is a powerful substitute for real experience.

I had a real problem though that every language must face: no one can learn to speak by watching a native; they must be guided to attempt speaking for themselves.

I had gathered from Chinese students and from their English teachers, both foreign and Chinese, that the oral English classes followed a regular pattern where the teacher would give a topic at the end of one class (e.g. “Where would you like to live in the future?”), and during the next class the students would speak (i.e. read or recite) what they had prepared. I could see the benefit in that: the Chinese classroom is all about following precedent, and speaking extemporaneously terrified most pupils with the dread of embarrassment in front of their peers. I might not know what word to use and then I’ll be standing in front of everyone like a fool, without anything to say!

Also, if the right topic were chosen, the students would be eager to share (in my experiences, an eager class response did occur a few times, but it was rare. The dead look on students’ faces usually said, “You expect me to talk about what?”). So if I chose to follow this method, the students wouldn’t balk at something new, a good portion of the class could pretend that they were really speaking English, and a few bold adventurers might actually wade into new conversational waters.

I decided not to do that though. Speaking is its own language skill, and real speech and conversations follow conventions and patterns that occur in real time. Speech has many forms, and even though public speaking on prepared topics is one of those forms, I wanted my students to practice speaking spontaneously in real life scenarios. So, for my lesson structure, I would introduce and explain the speaking topic of the day (e.g. “Asking for Information”), then demonstrate an exercise for the first scenario (“You are trying to find the school library, so you ask a professor for directions.”). After that, I would tell the students to role-play this with a partner, and after about five minutes- more or less- I would call for everyone’s attention and have a couple sets of partners repeat their role-play conversation for everyone so that we could review the exercise as a class. A sensible plan, perhaps, but there were some inherent problems of the Chinese classroom I could not overcome.

I mentioned that Chinese students follow precedent and avoid speaking up to prevent loss of face. This is not just a natural temperament shared by many. It is a near-universal disposition, a product of the culture that has been built in by all the small things that shape the students’ everyday experience. In contrast, American students are expected to speak up and they are rewarded for it. When I was a high school student I dreaded having to raise my hand to earn my “Participation” grade. Shyness and reserve are either mildly disdained or avoided. Many American classrooms today are shaped by expectations for open discussions. The theory is that student and teacher interaction is best facilitated through a circular or U-shaped seating arrangement where everyone can see each other’s face and the teacher is about equidistant from every desk (lecture halls are different, of course, and not every classroom is set up this way).

In China, every classroom I taught in was a large, long room with a chalkboard and podium in the front, facing rows of long, narrow desks and benches- bolted to each other and bolted into the floor. I saw no exceptions to this. Some classrooms had better furnishings- that is, they had a computer and a projector or a better chalkboard or a podium that was sturdy and didn’t fall apart when you set your bag on it.

A typical classroom at my university. The back chalkboard was always painted on with writing and pictures, usually some kind of slogan. In this case, the large characters say “Teacher’s Day,” which is celebrated on September 10th in China.

From my teacher’s vantage point, it looked like Venetian blinds laid out, with 30 to 50 students crammed in between the slats. The desks were only a bench top with (maybe) some cubbyhole space beneath to hold pens and a couple books. And the seating was very narrow and uncomfortable; there wasn’t enough room to stretch out, so most students would hunch forward and lean into the desks with their chests. Try sitting side-by-side with someone on a constricting bench and carrying on a conversation with them. This, and being asleep, is why people don’t speak up in church. And it is why Chinese students, having spent their young lives this way, will not speak in class. Goad or coax them as I would, they would not. They would not speak up in my class, they would not speak up for a pass, they would not speak up here or there, they would not speak up anywhere.

Add to the seating arrangement the Chinese reverence for the teacher, who usually lectures, and phones and other various distractions, and you have the ingredients that prevent interaction. Seating might seem like a small, surmountable thing, able to be overcome by planning and will, but its dominant effect is subtle and psychological, shaping the teachers’ and students’ ideas on classroom learning. It physically inhibits social interaction between students sitting in the desks by directing their eyes forward, and without an environment conducive to social interaction there is no conversation. Students believe the teacher doesn’t notice them individually, they disappear into the block of seats. No one wants to speak up and break the anonymous silence. That would put everyone’s eyes on them.

This is the Chinese classroom, and sitting in this environment for the large majority of their day, for most of their life, has shaped those students to the degree that I could ask them if 600 RMB ($100 U.S.) was the typical monthly rent for an apartment and repeat myself, rephrase the question, ask loudly, “Yes? No?” and still not get an answer from anyone. It was infuriating. Over and over I experienced that you can bring a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. When lesson planning, if I came to a part where the students had to give their input, I would ask myself, “Can they be creative? Can I trust them to participate and move the flow of the lesson?” Having learned quickly from classroom experience, I knew whenever I asked myself this question that the answer was no. I would either start my lesson plan over or work out an alternative for when the students would sit in stupefied silence.

I met four students who lived in this UNFINISHED off-campus apartment.

This is their kitchen. I hope they weren’t paying $100 a month for this.

Really, the way things worked out, I learned that during the role-play time a small number of students would do the exercise I asked them to do, most might mumble to whoever was sitting next to them and kept an eye out for me, keeping their voices so low that I couldn’t hear them no matter what they were saying in whichever language they were saying it in, and a good number made little effort to conceal themselves doing math homework, reading for another class, taking my picture on their cell phone, sleeping, or text messaging. I had to accept the bad and work with it. Discipline is tough to maintain period; across languages and cultures a novice like myself stood no chance.

In my teacher training prior to China, I was taught to walk around, listen in, and offer correction or answer questions as needed. But when the students are huddled together in a block of long, narrow desks, I could only look on from the outside (that’s not a bad metaphor for China: a mass of humanity crowded together, indecipherable and impenetrable from the outside). So I would pace up the aisles and shimmy sideways, banging my knees, as I passed through the last row of desks, making a pretense of listening in and observing the students’ faces and behaviors.

I noticed all the little details that they had in common. How they would twirl their pens compulsively, each one fluidly repeating their favorite motion and passing the pen around their fingers. As a student, I was a compulsive doodler, but I never noticed any artists in China, only dexterous pen acrobats. And when they wrote, they all used their right hand- no exceptions. I asked a Chinese teacher if I observed that correctly, and she said yes, all students are taught to write with their right hand. I had to infer that this was because of the complexity of the Chinese writing system, where each word has a precise way to be written and the stroke order must be memorized.

When I watch Americans write, I sometimes notice people who invert or reverse the stroke orders I learned in school. That is, they might write the letter “e” starting clockwise from the tail and spiraling in, opposite the way that I do. But handwriting is sloppy in America. It’s very common and trite to hear people joke that they can’t even read their own writing. I always questioned what the purpose of handwriting was if it was illegible, even to the hand that scribbled it. Why not scratch whatever symbols come to mind if the writing doesn’t even look like English script? But that’s America, where anything goes, and being casual and nonjudgmental are unimpeachable virtues.

Not so in China, where students are still expected to meet a standard other than being diverse or tolerant. With Chinese characters, if a writer painted with the ink brush in the left hand, it would look slightly different; every stroke would be off because the hand would have to push the brush instead of pull. Plus, every Chinese word must be memorized. There are no phonics to make learning new words easier, the mnemonics are not at all intuitive, and everyone is expected to learn to write the characters the same way. Repetition is the only way. When each word must be memorized, and universal literacy is on the line, that demands that everyone studies hard, using the same method.

Strangely related to my classroom handwriting observations, I recoiled at the sight of the long fingernails that some of the girls and a lot of the young men grew out on their little finger. I never learned the real reason for this style. One friend told me it was convenient to have one long nail to scratch things and handle things and whatnot. Perhaps. As an observer, I can say that it was effective in raising the hair on the back of my neck in mild disgust.

Not the best picture, but it’s the only one I have where you can see the long pinky nail. Look closely at my stylist’s right hand.

I would scan the students’ shirts and smirk in confusion if I saw English words misspelled or words arranged randomly. If the clothing companies wanted to use English, I thought, why don’t they just copy and paste text they find online? These companies copy everything else. Occasionally, one student might have had on an American college sweatshirt or a sweater that read “Nebraska.” I would always ask those students, “Have you been to Nebraska? Do you know what that means?” Of course, they had no idea, and I usually had to point at their shirt and tug at mine to indicate to them that I was asking about their shirt.

I became used to seeing variations of the same five basic hairstyles for girls (four of which had bangs that stopped even with the brow line) and the same three styles for boys (buzzed short, combed across, and the popular “poof”- a tangled mess of hair that stuck up as if they woke up and never combed it). When I saw a male university student with long strands down to his shoulder blades, it shocked me. I’m sure it was the same reaction middle America had to the first longhairs of the 60’s. So, bored by the interchangeable bobs, I differentiated the students by character traits and fashion choices; things like brightly colored eyeglass frames, over-sized frames on some girls, or even frames worn without lenses. I thought that it was foolish, if not pretentious to wear frames without needing vision correction, but those who wore them defended the fashionable practice for its “cool” style.

Most of my female students’ hairstyles conformed to this.

Every so often I would see some sort of English reading material on a student’s desk space. I would ask her if she was reading the book for class or pleasure, and maybe try and milk some questions out of it if I thought the student was friendly and able to handle a bit of small talk. Some students, though, I knew to just walk by. Either they would clam up with embarrassment and fail to respond audibly, or I had learned from past experience that there was no way they were going to put together a complete English sentence. One student, when I asked her a question related to the class exercise, looked me right in the eye and quietly but coldly told me, “Please, leave me alone.” And that I did, for the rest of the year.

In the middle school I taught at, more so than at the university, I noticed a lot of calligraphy practice books and pens with special writing nibs. Throughout China, I observed brushwork and fanciful writing fonts far more often than images and icons. The Chinese writing system is what the people grew up learning, what they practiced, and hence, what they loved. It is always on the Chinese mind. I even acquired the Chinese habit of breaking down the characters I saw into brush strokes and practicing their stroke order with my finger on my palm or thigh.

And speaking of writing, I have to note the absence of pencils and erasers. The Chinese didn’t write with them (not that, in America, pencils are preferred over pens for writing purposes, but they are more common in my observation). So whenever the students made a mistake, they would pull out a thin wheel of tape, run it over the section they wanted to remove, and peel away a thin layer of paper from their sheet. This mandatory school supply could be spotted on most desks, and during a written test the tape wheels would be passed back and forth as students nervously tore away at their paper.

These weren’t for white correction tape. They had clear tape meant to pull off the top layers of ink and paper.

One unsightly thing I could not help but notice was the soft black hairs on a few girls’ upper lip, and my occasional glimpses of coarse leg hairs and underarm hair. I hesitate to mention it, I don’t mean to shame any of the young women, but body hair was a not uncommon part of real life in China. Most of the Chinese I saw grew hardly any body hair, but when it did sprout up, it was obvious against their light skin. I don’t know how the Chinese view it, but it always startled me whenever I saw girls with leg and armpit hair. Please note, this was not the norm I saw, and on average I would say that most had fair features and smooth skin.

But the truly disgusting thing I observed among my students, the feature that both sickened and infuriated me, was the sight of red, purplish, puffy hands. I’m sensitive to the shape of hands, and by that I mean that I notice the look and character of individuals’ hands, which probably began from my love of drawing, so when I first saw a girl with fat, square fingers instead of slender curves, I passed it off as a physical anomaly that I would not want to hold hands with. But then I saw it again, and then again on another girl: the skin was past red and now had the deep purple color of a contusion. What was wrong with these girls’ hands? I had never seen this before. Skinny girls with fat, square hands.

The question had an obvious answer. Just as my face was sore and red from constant exposure to the cold, these girls had chilblains on their hands from sitting in unheated classrooms throughout the winter, taking notes with un-gloved hands. Yes, because we were south of the Huaihe River (the geographic dividing line), the Chinese government did not allow central heating in buildings, except for department stores and some hotels and restaurants. Because we were right on the southern edge of the Huaihe River, that meant our city was as far north as one could get in China and still not have central heating. So, all winter long, from dormitory to dining hall (or “canteen”), from the classroom to the library or anywhere else, everyone had to wear layers of winter clothing, but either finding it superfluous or an unnecessary expense, most students went without hats and gloves. Perhaps the circumstances could not be helped, but seeing how inflamed those girls hands became, and seeing how normal they thought it, how overlooked it was, how assumed it was, was a small detail that swelled my indignation.

We’re wearing coats because there was no heat in our classroom. Side note: my student, John, in the purple coat in the upper left, wore glasses just for show. They either had no lenses or non-corrective lenses

The Real China: “No! This is not a potato!”

November 10, 2015 / the.mantis@outlook.com / 0 Comments

Either to make conversation or as a language quiz, Uncle Jiang would often ask me, “Dustin, what is this?” He was not the only one.

Usually, he asked it when we sat down for dinner. He would pick something up with his chopsticks and ask for its English name. I didn’t know who was supposed to be “the grasshopper” and who the old sage in this situation. Many times, my answer was simple. “Porridge. This is porridge.” In America, we would probably call it Chinese porridge or just use the Chinese name, as we do for Kung Bao chicken and all the other mainstays on a Chinese menu, but the basic vocabulary word Uncle Jiang was looking for was porridge.

Other times, I was surprised when he asked me for an English word and then disagreed (!) with my answer. I held a piece of sweet potato in my chopsticks once, and Uncle Jiang asked me, pointing at the purple tuber, “Dustin, what are you eating?”

“This is a sweet potato,” I replied without thinking twice.

“No!” he said, “This is not a potato!”

He looked indignant, even shocked. I had no idea what to tell him. Maybe appease him by calling it a yam? I stumbled, trying to explain in simple English that a potato is a potato and a sweet potato is a sweet potato, two different things. I supposed he thought I meant it was a sweet-tasting (normal) potato, and I had to infer that the two vegetables do not have similar names in Chinese or occupy similar categories in Chinese thought. Well, why not? I cannot imagine any object more similar to a potato than a sweet potato.

The source of the controversy. I don’t know what else to call it besides “purple sweet potato.”

When I brought one of the boiled purple sweet potatoes to have as my breakfast before class, it was the same routine. My students were surprised by my breakfast, a vegetable grown in their own soil, and asked me, “What is that?”

“A sweet potato,” I told them.

“No! It is not a potato!” they argued, as adamant as Uncle Jiang.

Then why did you ask me? I wanted to counter. Or Fine. You tell me what it is. It’s your vegetable. I have never seen a purple sweet potato like that in my neighborhood of the US.

I was befuddled that they could disagree with me on a term from my native language. How was that possible? I was considered the expert, so they would ask me questions about English vocabulary and acceptable grammar, but they wouldn’t accept my answer if it conflicted with their understanding of what a “sweet potato” should be in Chinese terms.

At the dining hall (or “canteen”, as the students called it) I had a plate of silver noodles once. Or so I thought they were called from reading labels at Chinese buffets. Once again, my students asked me for the name of the mystery item I was eating.

I took a breath. “These are noodles.”

“No! It is not noodles!”

This time I vigorously tried explaining myself. I told them that anything that fits the shape- long, stringy, and noodle-like – is a noodle. If it looks like a noodle, if it tastes like a noodle, it is a noodle. I think they disagreed because this noodle was made from a different flour than the noodles they knew as “noodles.”

Even the rainbow-colored Funnoodle is a member of the noodle family. (Sorry, no silver.)

“It may be a rice noodle,” I bargained, “But this is a carbohydrate in a long, thin shape. IT IS a noodle.” I don’t think I had them convinced. Really, the English language did not have appropriately nuanced food categories to satisfy them.

Besides noodles, Chinese cuisine is big on dumplings, each type with its own name, and so they were crestfallen when, one after one, I would answer my questioners, “Dumpling. Dumpling. That is also a dumpling. Yes, this is a dumpling, too.”

Their furrowed brow seemed to say, “But this one is sweet and is made by rolling a ball of rice flour! That one is pork inside a boiled wrapper. This one has shrimp and is fried in oil. They are different!”

One time, Uncle Jiang changed the game on me. He wasn’t going to wait for me to give him a none-too-specific vocabulary word, he would supply it himself. Over breakfast, he called the golden sweetener “bee honey.” I gave him a doubtful look. He held out for a second, then asked, “Bee honey, or honey?” As I told him it was the latter, I wondered what kind of honey these Chinese had been keeping secret from the outside world that they would need to specify “bee” honey. Surely, Marco Polo would have reported on a non-bee creature also capable of producing honey. And, if this mystical being could do it without regurgitating nectar, it would outsell the “bee honey” tenfold.

I guessed that the Chinese word for honey was a typical Chinese compound word, probably combining “bee” plus a word to indicate the fluid product of honey. (Yes, the Chinese word for honey is a compound word that translates literally “bee honey.”) China did have a multitude of honey varieties (hardly any peanut butter on their shelves but ample honey sections in every grocery store), and canvas roadside tents where a vendor would hang out all day napping and apparently selling jars of honey he had supposedly harvested himself, from bees.

(Here’s an interesting link from a beekeeper with insight into Chinese honey and an encounter with a street beekeeper… er, a beekeeper selling honey on the streets.)

The most egregious battle over appellation came after dinner at my friend Ma Chao’s house. (Ma Chao’s family name means “horse.” I would like to meet an American named Tom Horse or Tom Yellow, two common Chinese surnames, instead of Tom Butler or Tom Cooper.) At the dinner were Ma Chao, Aunt Fong, a kung fu teacher, an English-speaking Director of Foreign Relations at a local university who went by Mike for his English name, one of Aunt Fong’s friends, and me. We made it through dinner without arguing over potatoes, dumplings, or noodles. Then, after dinner, when everyone was all liquored up (as Chinese dinner guests are wont to be), Ma Chao brought out his weapons (as a few of my Chinese friends were wont to do).

Like many kung fu enthusiasts, Ma Chao was a collector of swords and polearms. Ma Chao, Mike, and Aunt Fong’s friend, Lily all wanted to handle them and pose for pictures. I thought that the inebriated swinging blades at each other was a stupid idea, but as the saying goes, when in Rome, disregard personal safety. At their urging, I came over to the living room to take some pictures with them.

Ma Chao and me, handling his weapons.

Ma Chao handed me his sword, and Mike, as my translator, informed me, “That is a knife.The Chinese name is dao.”

The sword I held required both hands on the hilt, and the blade was around three feet long.

“No,” I told him flatly, “this is a sword.”

“No!” Mike riposted, “It is a knife.” He pointed to the cutting edge and said, “See? It is only sharp on one side.”

I explained, “It doesn’t matter if the other side is dull, that only means it is a single-edged sword. But it is a sword!” In my flustered state, I rushed my words, not caring if I lost my listeners over technical details.

“No,” Mike insisted, “sword is for a different word. This is a dao, it is a knife.”

“A knife?” I exclaimed, “Look how long it is!”

That sword could have severed limbs in one stroke. “If it uses two hands and the blade is longer than my forearm, it is a sword!”

I wanted to ask him how he would classify a pointed rapier without a cutting edge. Or, hand him a dictionary and have him look up broadsword. I’m sure it would have been of no use.

Lily pretends to behead me with a Chinese “knife.”

His stance, like that of all my vocabulary quiz masters, was fixed and intractable. I had experienced the same stubborn reaction by enough people that I could tell it was a phenomenon of culture and language, not a personal idiosyncrasy. Somehow, a people that had been raised in rigid classrooms, taught to copy and repeat everything they heard, became skeptical and as combative as a wild donkey when my foreign authority told them what was what in English.

I was left to question what kind of argument would persuade them of a vocabulary word’s legitimacy. What I wouldn’t give to see Uncle Jiang and Mike on a Webster’s usage panel. “No! It is not a transitive verb! It is a noun.”

Mike’s opinion would carry a lot of weight at Webster’s so long as he was carrying this Chinese pole weapon (guandao) with him.

The Real China: Jobs, James, and Chinese Names

November 5, 2015 / the.mantis@outlook.com / 0 Comments

It is customary for Chinese students to choose an English name. Not every student does so, but many use their English name as a nickname among friends or as a profile name online, and, of course, for use in English class. There are two major factors involved in this name selection that collide and, while not quite forming a perfect storm, do spread a spattering of bizarre and comical English names.

First, there are the inner workings of Chinese culture that guide students’ thinking and, when it comes to selecting a name from a foreign source, quite often lead them wrong. It is not as easy as an American using Juan for John in Spanish class. Chinese as a language has no common ground with English, so translations between the two cannot maintain the spirit and sound of the original language. (There are a few exceptions to this, like using the English name Lee for the Chinese family name Li).

Added to that, Chinese names follow an old rubric of traditional conventions that are embedded in their culture and family. Unlike Americans, Chinese parents cannot simply flip through a book of baby names and choose Ethan because that name is fashionable now and they like the way it sounds. A Chinese baby will have a family name followed by (traditionally) a generation name and a given name. (A “generation name” means that a brother and sister might both have the second name Ming or “Bright,” followed by their unique given name.)

Once, I had a student ask me to help her choose an English name that was related to water and meant calm. With the vast collection of meaningless names in English-speaking culture, that was not an easy task. Lacking an encyclopedic knowledge of names, I focused on “calm” and suggested she use what came to mind: Serena, but she sifted through some possibilities and settled on Delphine. An unusual name; when I looked it up I found one site that said it was associated with dolphins and one site that said the name meant “calmness,” so this girl got what she was looking for. Now, I think Delphine is a pretty name and her choice worked out, but she vetted quite a few candidates first and asked a native speaker about the soundness of each.

Now, imagine the pitfalls awaiting those who would strike out independently to choose their own name. If the shoe were on the other foot, imagine you tried choosing your own Chinese name. My guess is that it would be some variant of a famous Chinese actor’s name, or you might just tack “Lee” onto the end of your real name. And by the way, did you know that Bruce Lee’s full Chinese name translates to Lee (Li) Little Dragon? I knew his nickname was “The Dragon,” but I found that in Chinese culture, not only are children named after objects, but with dragons being as popular as they are, children can be named Little Dragon. American parents anymore seem to go for an even ratio of traditional to made-up/nonsense names, but Little Dragon Hansen would still make the “News of the Weird” section of the newspaper.

My first Chinese name was given to me by my friend and Chinese tutor, Caili Ma. She asked what my name meant, then listened to the pronunciation of my surname, and came up with Li Da-Sen (李大森). I think the written characters are beautiful and the name has a good sound, but my Aunt Fong told me it was no good based on Tai Chi naming principles (e.g. Make sure the written name has a good number of horizontal strokes), plus it was the name of an evil character in some kind of story or myth. I insisted that I wanted to keep the name to honor my friend, Caili, but Aunt Fong insisted that Caili would be fine with the change, and her friends all echoed that it had an unpleasant meaning and persuaded me to go with Le Da-Sheng (乐达声), which means “joy” and “to pass on.” In my opinion, the name looks ugly on paper and doesn’t sound much better, but it’s not my language, so I had to defer to Aunt Fong on this one.

At my house with Caili. She probably considered calling me “White Giant.”

This brings me to the second factor in poor English name selection: the naïve or ignorant preference for favorite words and names heard in English language popular culture. Chinese students often like to watch foreign television shows and films online. Many like the serials from South Korea and Thailand, the anime from Japan, and popular dramas and comedies from America (I mentioned this before, but I was told on multiple first meetings that I looked like the Michael Scofield character from Prison Break). Even though Friends was big in China, I never met any Ross or Rachel’s. So while the English language media has its influence, I don’t mean to suggest that young Chinese students made a custom out of naming themselves for their favorite fictional character. Although this does happen a fair amount and “Elizabeth” was a very popular name for girls due to the popularity of Pride and Prejudice in its film and novel forms. And one girl, a very good student actually, had chosen Wasabe as her “English” name (go figure) because it was the name of a character in one of her favorite movies.

So what were the names chosen for English class and online profiles, both popular and ridiculous? Well, the most popular names were the most sensible: Leo and Lily. This was a simple switch from the Chinese surnames Li, Le, and Liu (pronounced “Lee”, “Luh”, and “Lyo”). There were also quite a few traditional names like James, John, and Amanda. In one class, a couple students even added English surnames, so I had the very plain John Smith and the Batman villain-inspired James Riddler. James was an odd duck, and yes, I made a point of calling these students by their full names in class because I got a kick out of calling Chinese students John Smith and James Riddler.

Speaking of ducks and other animals, in that same class I had a student who went by Monkey, another who went by Koala, and of course following Koala there was a student named Bear. These guys didn’t have much explanation for their names (“Because I’m a monkey! He, he!”), but I remember Bear said his was a nickname donned him for his temper. Bear was really pleasant in class; the first day I thought he was a member of the faculty or somebody’s parent because he had a dark, strong complexion that made him look 20 years older than everyone else. I would have believed him if he told me, “I’m Koala’s dad, and that’s why my name is Bear.”

From l-r their names (used in English class) are Maxwell, Sun Xue Tao, Monkey, Bear, Li Wei Ying, and Goofy

I had a student with the name of Jobs, and I asked him, “You mean like Steve Jobs? Why not go by Steve?” Well, I had several classes do an exercise where they thought up interview questions for famous people like Steve Jobs. To a person, every student began their question, “Jobs, may I ask you such and such?” And I kept correcting them, “You can’t just call him ‘Jobs.’ If you’re speaking to him, you should call him Mr. Jobs.” This surname convention confused me when students would ask me about the ever popular NBA and if I liked James. “Do I like James? James who?”

Then they would ask, “Do you like James or Kobe?”

And it would dawn on me, “Oh, you mean LeBron James. Everyone just calls him LeBron.” Well, not in China they don’t.

One student went by Jet, after Jet Li, which I thought was pretty cool but not very practical or respectable if he ever found himself living or doing business internationally. Respectability, though, was not usually a consideration for Chinese English names.

As for other movie and television characters, one girl went by Sherry (this name was used quite a bit because it is not too distant from the sound of several Chinese names) who wanted to change her name because another of her classmates also went by Sherry. So she opted for Conan, her favorite anime character. I tried to convince her otherwise, but she loved the name so much she didn’t care that it was for boys. See what I mean about the absurdities of choosing a pet name or word?

I pleaded with Conan to go by a different name, so she eventually went back to Sherry. Also, China: not always bad

Disasters could still happen when sticking close to the original Chinese name and trying to adapt it. Although I had a student with a Chinese name that meant “Little Moon” who aptly went by Luna in English, I also had a student who went by Goofy because it sounded like his Chinese name, Gao Fei, and he readily admitted that he was a goofy person. Goofy was a fluent English speaker with a broad knowledge of English speaking culture, he just liked using a strange name because it was a suitable nickname for him and that’s how friends knew him online.

And there were real names that were just awkward or antiquated, like Queena and Hyacinth, which I find to both be lovely names, but do strike me as peculiar. As a side note, I do wish I could have met a Tim, Gary, or Al (I did meet a Bill and a Rick), with a run-of-the-mill American name.

The most shameful, unknowingly stupid names, though, came when Chinese speakers chose objects- words with literal meanings- and declared them to be their English name. Now, for women this can work. There were Lily’s, like I mentioned, and other plant names like Daisy and Ivy. Nature names like Summer also work to an extent. I met a girl named Spring and I told her, “Summer, Autumn, and Winter are all women’s names, but I’ve never heard of Spring as a name, and I can’t explain why.” I still don’t understand why not.

One girl covered every base by going with Season (at least I think that was her intent, she may have been a big fan of nutmeg). I also met a Snowy and a Rainbow, who was a sweet girl, so I had to stifle myself from blurting out to her, “Rainbow is not a name!”

One male student went by Sky. Not short for Skyler, simply Sky. He was probably the most entertaining student I had; whenever I called on him (and believe me, I made sure to “randomly” call on him at least once per class) the whole class would react with anticipation and start cracking up as he formed sentences through convulsions of laughter. He was responsible for the third funniest moment I had in the classroom, which went like this: I was leading a discussion about Chinese perceptions of America and American perceptions of China, and the students were quiet and unresponsive as usual, so I was repeating myself, “What’s famous in China? Come on, what’s famous in China?” A murmur started to build and I asked, “What?”

The class responded, “You!”

I said, “Well, maybe I’m famous here in this town” (a small city where I was the only white foreigner). Then Sky, with a big, sideways grin across his face, spoke up and said, “You are famous in my heart!” Everyone lost it for a moment and I had to wipe the tears away from my eyes and laugh it all out before I could regain my composure.

On the last day of class, I insisted on taking a picture with Sky. I should have insisted on using a tripod.

Other odd literal names included Key, and pet names like Cookie and Cherry. One student was called Loose, and that sounded too stupid to be true- surely I misheard that- so I called him Lewis until I saw Loose written down on the attendance sheet. Loose himself never corrected me because A) he never showed up to class, and B) he couldn’t understand a word of spoken English. The mixed bag of nonsense was filled with names like Effil, Vienen, Disie (Disie was a middle school English teacher and ought to have known better), and Songsux (“My Chinese name is Song, so my English name is Songsux. It has no meaning!” I didn’t have the heart to burst his bubble).

All of these bizarre names are neither the exception nor the rule, but a farcical phenomenon when meeting Chinese English speakers of any ability. This sampling does not deny that there were plenty of good choices like Amy, Emily, Peter, Paul, Jenny, and the (sigh) Twilight-inspired Bella. I think my favorite of all was Milton, the name chosen, fittingly, by the head of the university’s English department.

I have saved my favorite stupid name for last, a run-off between two outlandish competitors. The first was from a middle school boy who came up to me and shouted in that Chinese way of speaking, “My English name Beyond.”

“Beyond?!” I said, and I didn’t know whether to guffaw or bridle so I did both. “That’s not even a noun, it’s an adverb.” It is a preposition, too. I think the kid was excited with his choice, and I didn’t mean to crush him by being far less than impressed, but that name was just too much.

The other unforgettable, infamous name shocked me when I was out to lunch with a group of other foreign English teachers and a few Chinese students and teachers. One Chinese owner of a small English school, a little pudgy and maybe a couple years older than I was, came up to me and shook my hand with a look on his face and such conviction in his grip that I felt like I were a national hero who had just returned from a rocket trip to the moon. “Hello, I am Hamburger,” he said, “I really like to make a friend with you.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Hamburger, I really like your name.” Hamburger was one of those who became a little obsessive of me and wanted to be possessive of my time. I met a lot of “really like to make a friend with you’s” in China.

One last thing I’ll mention on names. My Aunt Fong had chosen the name Rose for herself, and her husband, my “Uncle” Jiang, asked me for assistance in selecting an English name and told me he liked the name Jack. That is what he ended up choosing, so it was Jack and Rose. It was unplanned, and it inspired a few sweet giggles, but it was romantic nonetheless.

The Real China: 20 Questions

November 4, 2015 / the.mantis@outlook.com / 1 Comment

Teaching English class in China got stale quickly, not unlike steamed rice. (I promise, that is the only bad joke in this post.) So, I had to find ways to fill the classroom silence besides answering my own questions. Too many times I opened class by asking, “How was your weekend?” or “How was your holiday?” and then watching every face turn away and pretend I wasn’t talking to them. In that crushing void of interaction, which could last up to a few minutes depending on how foolhardy I was in pursuing my goal of English small talk, I would sigh and lower my gaze to the chalk dust-covered podium before me, muttering to myself, “This is going to be a long two hours.”

Even games excited no enthusiasm- they were just another silly burden in my students’ eyes- but I gave them a try in hopes of building classroom chemistry and, let’s be honest, to fill dead class time.

20 Questions should get the students talking, I thought, because they would be forced to form yes-or-no questions and think of clever ways to narrow down the secret person or object. I drew a simple diagram on the chalkboard to make the game’s rules explicitly clear, then gave my first-year college students an example using “Kobe Bryant” as my mystery person.

I asked myself questions like “Are you Chinese?” No.

“Are you American?” Yes.

“Are you a famous basketball player?” Yes.

I spent a few rounds thinking up straightforward mystery objects and fielding student questions, which came ever so slowly as I pulled them out of my inert pupils and fed them new lines to quiz me with. Once I felt that the students were bored of me and themselves approaching lukewarm on the classroom chemistry meter (and lukewarm was about as hot as that class ever got) I boldly raised my voice and called for a student volunteer.

Hesitantly, my student, whose English name was “Bear,” really, came forward and whispered in my ear, “I am a bear.” I nodded, smiled, and stepped aside.

Question 1 from his classmates: “Are you a man?”

“No.”

Question 2: “Are you a bear?”

“AARRGH!” Bear ground his teeth and shuffled back to his seat in shame. His classmates were roaring with laughter. It was the fastest game of 20 Questions I’d ever witnessed.

In another class, with around 45 female students and 5 males, I had an equally brief game that I had to cut short myself. I had finished the main lesson with a little less than 5 minutes of class time left over. College classes don’t let out early in China, and the one time I accidentally ended a class early a couple students objected that there were however many minutes left.

So, since my fourth-year class of mostly female students was pretty sharp and I could tell they comprehended most of my English, I quickly explained the rules of 20 Questions and said, “Okay, now ask me a yes-or-no question.”

Probably just one game, I figured, and then I can let them go.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” one girl instantly called out.

“No,” I said, confused. What does that matter in a game of 20 Quest-

“DO YOU WANT A CHINESE GIRLFRIEND!” someone else blurted. The rest of the class practically erupted.

“Wh-?” I stammered. “All right!” I said, flustered, “No more 20 Questions!” I hid my red face by turning my back to the class as I swiftly erased the chalkboard. “Class is over.” I heard a lot of giggling as they gathered their books and scurried out the doors.

This class was usually my best class of the week. I had them on Friday mornings, they were always in a good mood, and they were always active. Plus, it wasn’t so bad to feel like Professor Indiana Jones with a class of cute admirers.

This class was usually my best class of the week. I had them on Friday mornings, they were always in a good mood, and always active. Plus, it wasn’t so bad to feel like Professor Indiana Jones with a class of cute admirers.

The Real China: Pretend Culture

November 4, 2015 / the.mantis@outlook.com / 1 Comment

Walking through a country, as opposed to skimming over it in a textbook or magazine, will reveal the little things- the things you had always assumed and never noticed in your home culture. The magazine version is great for a broad overview listing the distinctive parts that make China China, but the man-on-the-street view shows you the real points that locals would never give notice to in print, and even points that they are not even able to notice themselves.

Some things are just too embarrassing, or taken too much for granted.

The boasted value of China, the one they paraded before the world in Beijing’s international debut at its 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony, is harmony. This is supposed to be the cement that holds the Confucian society together, and the highest ideal that people everywhere were supposed to maintain and strive for.

“Harmony” at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

But how observable is harmony? Could a foreign guest, like me, detect it? Would Chinese people typically show more politeness or deference to others than I would normally expect elsewhere? Would public order amaze me in China as it so often amazes outside visitors to Japan? Would the famous collectivist mindset wordlessly cue everyone in on how to fit into Confucius’ hierarchy and give their attention to the group welfare? When they sang in that howling cat voice along with their one-stringed guitar, would it be multi-part or just one melody?

Would China, chief among all preachers of harmony, stand out to me as the epitome of harmony?

In my experience, just the opposite.

Public order in China is about the worst I have ever seen. Even contrasting the grimiest places within American shores- say, a smelly, trash-lined New York City subway station- with an equivalent in China- a stop on the Shanghai metro, which looks so much whiter and more modern in its architecture- China comes out the obvious loser in the chaos contest. (Or would that be the dishonorable champion of the chaos contest?)

As wild as the crowds are on a given New York subway train, everyone is still expected to follow the flow of unwritten rules. When it is time to board, people stand to the side as the people exiting the train shuffle off first. And, crowded as it can be, riders are still expected to keep their own personal space as much as possible- no fully-opened newspapers, for example- and conspicuous things like cooked food and music speakers were frowned upon, though of course anyone with experience publicly commuting through New York knows how loudly, madly, and sometimes entertainingly these mores are violated. But, in the middle of all the madness, blocking the way or bumbling over the local manners would bring down a quick scolding in that bossy New Yawk! accent.

In Shanghai, while the modern fire doors prevent passengers from contemptuously throwing their garbage onto rat-infested tracks Big Apple style, I once shared a car with a man who had taken a giant bag of garbage onto the train itself. I reflexively pulled away in my posture to give him all the space he needed around the center pole in front of the car’s double doors. He was wearing drab-colored pants and a jacket, typical for all kinds of Chinese factory workers or laborers, only his outfit was blotted with dark stains, and his hands were covered from fingernail to wrist in brownish grease. With one hand he held onto the neck of his sagging plastic bag, and with the other he held onto the circular pole overhead. I leaned into a corner of the car and pitied anyone who would hang onto that pole next- they would retract their hand and find it covered in smelly garbage grease- but then again from the look of the dirty film-covered floors and surroundings, and from the sparse cleaning crews I had encountered in China, with their soggy, old, denim-colored mops that they would listlessly drag over the pitted concrete-colored flooring, anyone holding onto the rails in a crowded Chinese subway car should be pitied.

And, I think that this is not news to anyone familiar with scenes from a slum country, but when the subway car’s doors open, the people inside and out immediately stream into each other like two opposing fire hoses. The same goes for elevators in China. Every time I tried to get off an in-demand elevator, some old woman with flat, curly hair and a dusty cotton jacket would walk straight into my chest, without flinching, unless I circled around her like a slippery matador. Now, I don’t think it was the same bossy woman walking into me every time, but this is hard to confirm because I never got a good look at her face. She always had a downcast brow and avoided eye contact as if she were a dim-eyed beetle furiously crossing the sidewalk. Plus, I stand over six feet tall and the elevator raider barely cleared five feet, and as soon as the doors opened she was palm-first into my sternum, so the angle did not allow for a good view of her face.

Even though in every subway station there are helpful floor stickers reminding people to stand to the side to clear the lane so passengers getting off the train can file through quickly first, which opens up the space for incoming passengers, and even though in it is in a land dominated by iconography when you consider Chinese written symbols, no one cares about the obvious floor signs.

What we in the West call “arrows” is Chinese for “EVERYONE AT ONCE.”

In the passenger trains, where long-riding passengers had a chance to take their shoes off and kick their feet up, they did so. They would sprawl out on each other’s laps, across rows of seats, on the bags and buckets and blankets they brought in, and if the train was crowded enough then people would spend the ride standing or squatting in the space connecting the cars, in between the bathrooms and luggage racks. Consistently, from the cheapest, slowest, most crowded train I rode in China all the way up to the high-speed G Train, people would dump their trash and spit their seeds and leftover food out all over the floor- leaving a poor, wearied cleaning lady to walk through and collect the piles as she lagged behind the accumulating mess. Alternatively, a berserk woman would stomp through and screech at people to hand over their plastic wrappers and paper bins.

Also, more obnoxious than the trash on the train, it was universal for people to play their portable TVs, radios, computers, DVD players, and speakers at full volume. Few saw the necessity of using headphones when there was no concept of keeping one’s music to oneself. Or one’s voice- loud talking and boisterous behavior pervaded the moving cavern on rails, just as it did in every other public gathering place in China.

Which brings me to my point: harmony is not a real Chinese value. It is an imagined ideal. The real values that stood out in my eyes are those that scoffed at manners like keeping quiet in public, keeping one’s hands to oneself, and all the other things supposedly learned in kindergarten. While harmony is not observable, or only obliquely so, the constant boisterousness is definitely apparent.

Cute motivational posters, while possibly made in China, are not sold there.

Boisterousness is a value of the real China, as are the (actually expressed) saying “To get rich is glorious,” and the idea that self and self’s inner circle are all that matter. The true ethic underlying all the little things in China is “every man for himself and push the strangers out of the way.”

I started to see it everywhere, in details as small as the little tissue packets everyone carried with them.

In America, practically every restaurant has napkins on the table, either in a holder or wrapped around the silverware, and public bathrooms have toilet paper and an electronic hand dryer or paper towels, so living my whole life with these conveniences made me notice the glaring absence of napkins and even toilet paper. In China, you bring your own.

In restaurants and cafeterias, the tabletops were bare. Only in the nicest restaurants- those connected to a hotel- were there napkin holders. Even then, the napkins were thin squares folded up into a triangle, and the table is so large that diners have to wait for the napkins to make their way around the lazy Susan every few minutes. Thankfully, these hotel restaurants would provide a plastic-wrapped wet cloth napkin that was thick enough to last throughout a whole dinner. Having that made me feel like I was living in luxury compared to other napkin-free homes and businesses.

If you were lucky, a small café selling noodles or dumplings might have a roll of paper streamer sitting on the table (the kind of party streamers that are used to decorate a high school gym) for you to wipe your fingers with. Other restaurants might occasionally have napkins, too- it wasn’t forbidden- but customers were generally expected to bring their own.

It took me quite a while to catch on and plan for this; many of my meals were eaten with greasy hands. Often, I was spared from learning my lesson the hard way (that is, going without tissues). Friendly students would do the polite thing and offer me one of their own.

Eventually, I tired of being offered tissues or having to ask someone for assistance every time I had messy hands or a runny nose, so I went into the store on campus and picked up my own pack of tissues. A big pack held a dozen small pouches- the convenient size that are kept in purses or pockets. I would have liked to have set an example and defied their cultural norms if I could have found a large cardboard box of tissues to bring into the classroom, but no store had them for sale. The small pouches were all that was available for personal napkin and tissue needs; they were stocked in every department store and convenience shop.

These bulk-size packs go fast when you consider that they are your sole napkin, tissue, and toilet paper supply away from home.

People wanted the small tissue pouches because they knew they needed them. If they were stuck out and about and they had to use a public restroom, the communal paper dispenser at the bathroom entrance would likely be empty, and it would be left to them to provide their own tissues to use in the stall.

Bringing one’s own tissues to every situation, needing it daily like a billfold, phone, and keys, was, I believe, a small indicator of the cultural mindset. I heard Chinese people lament how selfish everyone was, how people in China only wanted to make money for themselves and didn’t care about the condition of anyone outside their family, and while bringing one’s own tissues was not a direct reflection of epidemic selfishness of callous proportions, it was a result of a culture where every individual was left to fend for himself.

In the land of the free and independent-minded, by contrast, Americans have a big reputation for generosity. Americans will give freely to relief efforts half a world away, and that is in addition to their charitable giving to local churches, clubs, and benefits. There is still much thought for the self, obviously, and America is just as famous for being a land of competition and pursuit of wealth. Like any country, those on the outskirts of society have a very difficult time finding employment and sustenance for themselves, and more than ever, this generation of Americans fear for their jobs and worry how they will provide for their families.

Still, before the growth of the American welfare state, before the widespread breakdown in society and public morality, the Protestant American ethic, while expecting everyone to pull their own weight, had very generous and charitable habits. There were and are, in a far-fetched sense, napkins on the table. Public bathrooms were, and are, expected to have toilet paper, hand soap, and hand towels, and there is a reasonable expectation that a fair number will be fairly clean, depending on the location (gas stations not included). When they are not clean it is accepted as a common fact of life, but not as an unchangeable rule of life, as it seemed in my experience in China.

America is a real country, with real problems, and I do not argue that it is a model of virtue or a utopia. No, while seeing Chinese society has predictably made me more thankful for the blessings of American life, it has more so made me perceptive to the problems of my home country. It is well known in America that public trust and consciousness can be pretty dismal depending on what part of the country you live in. Living in dog-eat-dog New York City for a short time was a shock to my easygoing Midwestern sensibilities. My point though is that the prevailing beliefs and practices in America are still very empathetic toward neighbors and strangers. I would argue this is because many in today’s generation have been trained by cultural precedent and the familiar words “Do unto others” and “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

These exemplary American attitudes I speak of were starkly different from the popular thinking I encountered in China. The Chinese believe in receiving good fortune and luck, and working with indefatigable diligence to earn a high salary for your family. Their precedent was: if you don’t work for it, if you don’t cultivate the rice crop, your family will starve. The fears and selfish drive for survival have carried over from the generations living under famine. Chinese people of the past didn’t expect others to feed them or provide for them. They didn’t expect public charity to provide for their food or housing (what charity is there when everyone is starving in communes?), and they didn’t and still don’t expect access to timely, quality medical treatment and government services unless they know the right people.

The positive side of China’s harrowing history is that an industrious, self-achieving work ethic has become practically universal. People take individual responsibility because they have to. Every area of life depends on personal diligence. They scrupulously watch their health, meaning they scrutinize their diet and get daily exercise. Every food ingredient is chosen for its health benefits (if you trust the folk wisdom). Many rely on diet, daily tai chi, and Traditional Chinese Medicine shops as their health care plan. They know they can’t fall back on the government’s system.

Trying out Traditional Chinese Medicine. I seriously recommend cupping for muscle aches.

Aunt Fong’s father-in-law leads me through his daily tai chi routine.

The great downside of China’s universal work ethic is that managers, companies, and institutions often expect employees and underlings to live, eat, and even sleep on the job site, going all week without a day off. Also, the part that most often disgusted me about China’s selfish, starved-animal mindset: unruly crowds and near-sighted drivers and pedestrians. Whenever they encountered another person or a group, everyone had to be first. They had tunnel vision, and as a matter of course they would run into people and push them if they got in their way. No looking over the shoulder, no checking one’s blind spot. No yielding way, no stepping around. No “sorry’s” or “excuse me’s.” If this sounds like a trivial thing to live with, I challenge the reader to swap the manners of home for the law of the street in China.

In Communist China, right of way drives YOU!

Other examples of the selfish culture would be the bartering merchants who attempted to cheat people as their business model (not that this is rare among marketers elsewhere), and also the widespread littering. Roadside ditches and creek beds became reservoirs for stray trash, and any vacant or run-down property became a de facto dumping ground. The unspoken shrug was “Why worry about it? Trash is someone else’s problem, so drop your wrapper and let ‘someone’ clean it up.”

The culture of B.Y.O.N. (Bring Your Own Napkins)- and culture-wide ugly behavior are admittedly only tenuously connected. After experiencing life in China though, I started to connect the two, like a small twig connected to a branch of the selfishness tree. The twig itself is not significant, only a distant extension of the root, and if examined in isolation it would not attract special attention. However, if the root and trunk are known, then a trained eye can recognize any twig and identify its genus and species.

The question I am asking then: why do some countries provide public conveniences that are unavailable in other countries or which must be provided by the individual? I believe it is more than a case of developed versus developing countries. France is developed, but I was surprised to run into pay toilets there, and I heard of snippy store clerks getting snippy and telling foreign visitors that providing bathrooms is not their responsibility. Japan is developed, but their restaurants don’t give away the freebies of American restaurants like soda fountains and ketchup pumps (expect only one ketchup packet at a Tokyo McDonald’s).

My takeaway lesson from life in China: unlike the Confucian cultural value on everyone’s mind- harmony- B.Y.O.N. and “every man for himself” were real, actual cultural practices. Confucian harmony- the smooth, peaceful interworking of society- was an unrealized, imaginary ideal. Each individual person was on his own, and public behavior was anything but harmonious. Likewise, Mao and the communists of the 20th century said their revolutionary state was for the people, yet they could not teach the people to look out for each other, to love their neighbors as themselves.

How many other ideals, in China and elsewhere, are merely imagined? What real practices, like B.Y.O.N., are taken for granted and largely ignored? The ignored practice, and not the imagined, is what is most indicative of a culture.

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