Shanghai 1990 vs. 2010

View of the Bund and Pudong in 1990 and 2010

The benefits of teaching conversational English

November 7, 2010

During my first year in Shanghai I was teaching a lot of  one-on-one “conversational English”. It was more lucrative than teaching full time at an English center or school, and I had to work fewer hours. I would meet with my Chinese students at their homes, offices, or Starbucks. I essentially just had to talk to these people and correct them when they made mistakes. The best part was that I could talk to them about whatever I wanted, so I learned the Chinese perspective on many things in which I was interested. The following are some of the things I learned from my students:

Students:

Yami, 24, female, business manager

Ms. Ru, 25, female, housewife

Andy, 27, male, business manager

Mark, 40, male, businessman

Jason, 31, male, business owner

Kevin, 42, male, businessman

Tong, 25, educated in U.S., businessman

Andres, 36, male, businessman, spent alot of time in Mexico

On education

Kevin – I want to send my kid to high school in the U.S.

Andy – I bought a house in Sydney so my daughter can go to school in Australia. When she is old enough, she can decide whether she wants to be educated in Australia or China.

On Mao Zedong

Andy- Mao was 70% right, 30% wrong. He did alot for China, but made some mistakes.

Tong – Mao created the China that we have today. China would still be horribly poor without Mao.

Jason – on Jian Guo Da Ye/The Founding of a Nation (about Mao) – That movie is made of lies. The government made that movie. It is all lies.

On the Japanese

Andy – If China decided to go to war with Japan, I would personally fund one war ship.

Jason – If you were Japanese, I would be civil to you, but I secretly wouldn’t like you, and I could not be friends with you. The Japanese have never admitted they were wrong in Nanjing. They never apologized.

On politics

Ms. Ru – I don’t care about politics. I only care about the health of my family.

Yami – I don’t care about politics. I only care about myself. I like shopping. I don’t pay attention to it.

Andy – There was an earthquake in Sichuan that killed 70,000 people. Many children died because it was during school hours and the construction of the schools was shoddy. Many parents were outraged and saddened by this. The government paid these families $8,000 each in exchange for their silence/not causing an uproar/uprising. Fertility specialists were sent to Sichuan and provided government funded advice so that couples could have new children and forget about the old dead ones.

On democracy

Jason – I think democracy is in China’s future. Maybe in 10 years. I want democracy. It’s good to be able to vote.

Kevin – Not enough of China’s population is educated. There are many poor people in China. We can’t have democracy until people are more educated. Maybe in 10 years.

Andy – People are not educated or wealthy enough for democracy.

Tong – There are too many uneducated people in China to have democracy. Leaders could buy votes from these people because they would rather have money or food than be able to vote.

On being the world’s superpower

Andy – Are you crazy? The U.S. is afraid of China?! The majority of China is so poor and uneducated! We will not surpass the U.S. any time soon.

On religion

Mark – I’m a Christian. I go to church and sing psalms with my family and Christian group. I don’t celebrate Christmas because I dont believe in it. I dont think it was possible for a baby to be born outside in December. Confucius is the closest thing China has to Jesus Christ. He shaped alot of our morals and ideals.

On work ethic

Andres – Single child policy has created several generations of spoiled whiners. They dont get along with one another. They dont care to cooperate. They are tattle tales. They only look out for themselves. They are terrible to manage.

On Taiwan

Andy – Taiwan is part of China.

Shanghai taxis

October 20, 2010

Almost all taxis in Shanghai are Volkswagen Santanas. When I first got to Shanghai, I had never heard of this car. Perhaps the Germans figured it wouldn’t be successful in America because there is already a mediocre Latino guitarist by the same name living there. Cars named after guitarists nor guitarists named after cars wouldn’t bode well in the American market.

Taxis here have a color system of quality. The car above is in the second best tier. I have only heard rumors about the color system, but from my daily experience in cabs, it seems accurate. The best taxis are the best because it is harder to get driver jobs for their companies. They are more selective.

At the top is teal. They are the most reliable, clean, and the driver usually knows where he is going. In the second tier is green (pictured above) and yellow. You usually don’t have to worry when you get in these cabs. The third tier is bright blue, white, and bright red. The bottom tier is dark red and dark blue; dark red being the worst. These cabs are usually the dirtiest and the oldest. Dark red and dark blue cabs are owned by the drivers themselves, so there are no real standards of quality they have to live up to. If you get overcharged via faulty meters or driving in circles, it is usually in a dark blue or dark red cab.

When taking a cab in Shanghai, it is a good idea to look at the driver’s identification number on the dashboard. These numbers are given out in order. Currently, Shanghai is giving out numbers starting with 31 or 32. Therefore, the older the driver, the lower the first two digits are. If you have a driver starting with 04, he has probably been driving for 20 years. He knows where every street in Shanghai is. If you have a driver starting with 30 or later, it’s possible you have to tell him how to get to your desired destination.

On the identification number card, there are also stars. Stars denote a better driver. 5 stars is the most a driver can have, I believe, but I’ve never seen more than 3. Drivers have to pay to take a test to get stars, so most drivers do not have any. The ones that do, are the best drivers in the city. They can usually speak very minimal English. And after you tell them where you want to go, they will tell you which way they will take to get you there and then ask if that is alright.

Flat head

September 19, 2010

The other day, I had a few friends over. My Chinese friend, Tong told my ABC (American Born Chinese) friend, Michael that he had the head shape of a white person. Michael’s head is round, and Tong thought it was unusual for a Chinese person to have a round head. Most Chinese people’s heads are flat in the back.

Michael said that other Chinese people had told him that before. I was of the impression that Chinese mothers lay their children on their backs often when they are babies, causing their soft, developing heads to flatten in the back. Western mothers might rotate their children more. Tong is of the impression that its just genes. Chinese people have flat heads. Period.

Jessica, another ABC, told us that when her mom grew up in China it was desirable to have the back of your head be flat. When her mom’s friends were babies, their mothers would put boards on the sides of their heads while they slept, keeping their heads in place, and forcing them to sleep on their backs, thus flattening the backs of their heads.

Fingernails

August 11, 2010

One day I got into a cab, and I noticed that the driver had a 3-inch long pinky fingernail. From that point on, I couldn’t stop staring at it. Wasn’t he afraid of breaking it? Maybe he does alot of cocaine? Why wasn’t the other pinky fingernail that long? It didn’t seem very easy for him to drive with something that long and sharp that close to a steering wheel and the exposed skin of his other hand.

A rumor I heard is that Chinese people like to grow out one or several of their fingernails in order to demonstrate that they do not do menial labor. Driving a taxi is not considered menial labor. There you have it: fingernail length as a demonstration of social class.

Touching the Japanese

July 7, 2010

It has come to my attention that Japanese people do not like being touched. At all. No touching. I don’t know why they don’t like being touched. I only know that I now really want to touch them, and it has become a goal of mine to touch as many of them as possible.

I have succeeded in hugging one Japanese girl and scaring one Japanese guy that was coming out of the elevator. No success in actually touching him, but I came close. My pursuit continues…

Ayi

June 8, 2010

Ayi is the word for aunt. It is also used as a term of respect for older women. It is also used for the women who clean houses in China.

Ayis are older women who are paid to do housework. They can cook, do your laundry, get your mail, pay your bills, and clean your entire house for you. Some ayis go to houses once or twice a week. The pay rate for these women is around 10-20 kuai per hour. That’s about $1.50-$3.00 per hour. Some ayis live in their employers’ houses in a spare room. They are more like nannies. I once tutored for a Taiwanese family who had 4 live-in ayis. I’ve also tutored for a family whose ayi was fired for stealing jewelry.

For expats and wealthy Chinese people, having an ayi means never, ever having to clean. If you speak Chinese, ayis love to give you advice and chat with you. They like to say: 

“You need to wear more clothing.” 

“Aren’t you cold?” 

“You’re going to catch a cold.” 

“You are sick because you have been eating too much hot.” 

“You should be wearing slippers.” 

“You need to stop smoking.” 

“You have a cough because you eat too much meat and too much spicy food.” 

“You’re Chinese is so good!” 

“You should eat rice with your salad.” 

“You got fatter but I think you look better this way.” 

“Don’t drink Coke. It’s bad for your health.” 

“You are too skinny. You need to eat more.”

Shanghai Nightlife

May 17, 2010

The Bund

Chinese nightlife is quite different than American nightlife. The Chinese do not like dancing. They like sitting at tables and paying for expensive bottle service and being seen.

Chinese clubs in Shanghai reflect this cultural difference. The clubs have a very small dance floor if any at all. They are filled with tables and stools. If you don’t reserve a table at which to sit, there is no place for you to stand. Waiters, ayis sweeping the floor, security guards, and other club-goers will be bumping into you all night. You simply don’t matter if you haven’t bought an inflated bottle of black label.

88

Once at a table, Chinese people like to order their favorite type of whiskey – Johnny Walker and Chivas are popular choices. The waiters will bring pitchers with ice and several bottles of cold green tea. The whiskey, ice, and green tea is mixed in the pitcher and then served. Whiskey lovers everywhere scoff disgustedly. While drinking, Chinese people usually like to play the dice game featured in Pirates of the Caribbean 2. They will also be served a platter of watermelon triangles and cherry tomatoes.

Phebe

The atmosphere of the clubs is incredibly loud and in-your-face. They are decorated to the max. There isn’t an inch of empty space on the walls. There are lights blinking and blinding you. The music the clubs play is almost exclusively top 40 pop and hip hop, and every song is played for about 30 seconds.

Another common sight at Chinese clubs is go-go dancers. Both boy and girl dancers will get up on stage with coordinated outfits and do choreographed or sexy spontaneous dancing. Sometimes they lip-synch to the music; sometimes they sing. Sometimes they are only wearing a thong.

Soho

Manpower

May 5, 2010

A domestic population that exceeds 1 billion people has several noteworthy effects on Chinese society.

1. The Chinese are INCREDIBLY fast at getting construction done. They simply have the man power to work around the clock with an abundance of workers. Here in Shanghai, when there was only one month left until Expo and nobody thought they would get it done, the Chinese miraculously pulled it off. My roommate arrived in Shanghai 2.5 years ago. At that time there were 4 subway lines. Today there are 13. Currently, Los Angeles plans on extending one of its subway lines from Korea Town to Santa Monica. That project is estimated to be completed in 20 years. Today is the two-year anniversary of the catastrophic earthquake in Sichuan province that killed 90,000 people and left 5 million people without housing. Since that time, the Chinese have built 250,000 new residential buildings in that area. What has the U.S. done for New Orleans thus far?

2. It’s dog eat dog. It’s every man for himself here in China. The large population creates an intense competition between people. That is evident in the way people push their way onto the subway without waiting for people to get off first, young people rarely get up to give older people their seats, everyone, including little old ladies, will push and shove you on the street without saying ‘excuse me’ or ‘sorry’, and there is a serious lack of standing in lines in favor of cutting in front of folks.

The competition has some benefits for consumers. Any vacuum that is found in the business market will be filled. Basically, if you are willing to pay money for something in China, you can get it. And you can get it delivered to your door. The Chinese ebay – taobao.com, sells everything from blue cheese to condoms to real live people. Delivery usually takes 1-2 days. If you want something mailed, you can call someone and they will come pick it up from your house or wherever you are, wrap or box it, and get it to the delivery address by the next day if the address is in China. We have a contact here that will deliver hard-to-find avocados to our door for 10 kuai each ($1.50) with no delivery charge. We know a person who will deliver copious amounts of ice to our door for the same price. Almost every restaurant has free delivery. McDonald’s has 24-hour delivery with a minimal charge. I have one friend who had her double cheeseburger meal delivered to the bar we were at.

3. Education. The education system in China is set up in such a way to crank out large numbers of students. Questions, creativity, and individuality are not valued. Students spend their entire academic careers studying and memorizing material for a test that is taken at the end of high school that will determine whether they can get into college. If they do not pass the test, they cannot escape a life of blue collar work. In addition, students that do not go to school in big cities are at a serious disadvantage to passing the test. Rural places do not attract good teachers so the education is worse. On top of that, I recently found out that Chinese people need a permit to live in Shanghai, and I’m assuming other large cities, which is expensive and difficult to obtain, and also another barrier to getting a quality education that would allow a student to pass this college-entrance exam.

If we were to compare the U.S. and China economically, I would say that what the U.S. has going for it is creativity and entrepreneurship. China has sheer man power.

Choose an English name

April 20, 2010

In China, there is an abundance of Chinese people who have given themselves strange English names. I’m not sure if they don’t know what a normal English name is or they just find a word that sounds good or translates well from Chinese and use it for a name. Here is a list of the weirdest ones my friends and I have heard:

Men

Fox, Sword, Metal, Golden, Yoyo, Tennis, Running, Adidas, Fish, Snake, Aloho

Women

Rain, Cinderella, Hello Kitty, Ding Ding, Juju, Bobo, Ripple, Cleopatra, Apple, Cherry, Seven, Rainbow, Nanny, Little Punk

Yin Yang balance in food

April 15, 2010

A few days ago I had the flu. My Chinese friend, CK called me. I told him I was sick and had a fever. He told me, “It’s because you have too much ‘hot’ in your body.”

The Chinese have a philosophy when it comes to food consumption that is very different than America’s conception of “healthy eating”. Chinese food therapy, as it is referred to on Wikipedia, is the delicate balance of yin and yang when eating. Yin foods are considered ‘cold’. Yang foods are considered ‘hot’. One should strive to not eat too much of either food. Hot and cold are not related to temperature. For instance, ice cream is considered hot.

This philosophy is a division of Chinese medicine and is used for the treatment of any ailment, although Chinese people try to maintain the balance at all times. If you have zits, a Chinese person will say you are eating too much hot. My friend’s Chinese mother tries to maintain the balance on a daily basis. If she is eating something hot, she will add vinegar, which is cold, to cool it down. There is a hairy crab season in China when it is very popular to eat hairy crabs. Chinese people always pair these crabs with Shaoxing wine because the crabs are a very cold food, and the hot Shaoxing wine balances that cold.

Wikipedia says, “As a generalization, Yang foods tend to be dense in food energy, especially energy from fat, while Yin foods tend to have high water content.” I really can’t tell the difference between hot and cold foods. For example a mango is hot, but an apple is cold. Lamb is hot; snake is cold. I tend to like hot foods more. Maybe they are tastier and fattier.

Another interesting thing I’ve heard about about Chinese food philosophy is the reasoning behind eating spicy food. The cuisines of the Sichuan and Hunan provinces are very spicy. Chinese people have told me that the reason Sichuanese and Hunanese people eat such spicy food is because these provinces have very wet climates. The dampness seeps into their bodies. They eat the spicy food to dry their bodies out. It another example of a yin yang balance.

Here are some examples of hot and cold foods:

Hot:

deep fried food, chilies, pineapple, cherry, lychee, black tea, squid, chicken, apricots, barley, grapes, olives, onion, walnut, celery

Cold:

watermelon, cantaloupe, green tea, bean curd, banana, duck, cucumber, eggplant, lettuce, mung beans, oranges

Seoul has hills, Shanghai does not

April 6, 2010

I just got back from a 5-day trip to Seoul, South Korea. Here are a few things that I noticed about Seoul:

-Seoul has hills. It feels like it sits in a sort of valley. The hills make it charming and dynamic. Shanghai does not have hills. It is very flat. I didn’t see any bicyclists in Seoul. There are tons in Shanghai.

Have you seen the Korean movie, The Host? You should!

-People in Seoul are soft spoken. When sitting in a restaurant or cafe, I couldn’t hear other people’s conversations. Chinese people yell and yell often. They especially love to yell on their phones.

-Many people in Seoul can speak some English. This is not the case in China.

-Seoul has very large boulevards and highways. Shanghai has small and winding streets and raised freeways.

-Koreans love coffee, and there is an abundance of cafes in Seoul.

Banchan for days

-Koreans are GORGEOUS. They are easily the most beautiful race I’ve ever seen. Men and women.

-Some may attribute their beauty to the popularity of plastic surgery in the country. There are literally vacation tours where women will go to Korea to get plastic surgery.

-Seoul has hipsters. China does not. These hipsters like vintage fashion and they have great style. They really nail it.

-Seoul has street performers including rock bands, tap dancers, and break dancers. I noticed that people were more outgoing and daring in Seoul than in Shanghai. While I was there I went to a risque dance performance. Seoul has an appreciation for the arts that I don’t see in China.

-Seoul has lots of western food. They have On the Border and will soon have Taco Bell.

-There is an area of Seoul called Itaewon, which is considered the foreigners’ district. Its right near the U.S. army base. It was a very strange place to be.

-South Koreans do not want to go to war with North Korea. They want reunification. Right before I got there, a North Korean ship “accidentally” hit and sunk a South Korean ship with a torpedo. 46 died. South Korea does not want to go to war. In this situation, the U.S. probably would.

-Most Korean food has that red, spicy vinegar flavor of kimchi. By the last day I was a little sick of it. I’m still not sick of Chinese food.

Sundubu

-I went to the Korean War Memorial Museum while I was there. It was surprising to see how easily the North Koreans were willing to kill their South Korean brothers in the name of communism. I was also surprised to find out that when the North Koreans first attacked South Korea, the South Koreans were armed with essentially spears, while the Northerners were provided with Soviet guns and tanks. At the time when Japan left Korea, the north was much more industrialized than the South. The South was mostly farmland. I went to the museum with my Chinese friend, Tong. He thought it was weird to be at the museum because he is on the North Korean side and we, Americans, are on the South Korean side. Tong was taught in school that the reason the Soviets beat the Nazis was because communism has a bonding effect between people. In capitalism, you don’t care about your brothers. Its every man for himself, so how could you fight alongside each other successfully? He attributes the success of the North Koreans to this same principle. He also believes that communism is the best system for a developing country.

Passion 5 in Itaewon. Totes amazeballs.

-Restaurants and cafes in Seoul have a niceness, a classiness to them that is not yet found in China. The Chinese right now have so much disposable money that they throw it at things that might seem nice or look expensive but end up looking cheesy. We went to a dessert emporium called Passion 5 in Seoul that was just incredible. I asked my Korean friend, Min about this. He said 10 years ago Seoul was just like Shanghai. Shanghai will get there soon. When I talked about this in front of Tong, he said that I only think this because my standards of “niceness” or “classiness” are American-based, and Seoul is similar to America. Maybe the Chinese have different taste. He is right. I see the world through U.S.-colored glasses.

-Koreans can pay for things with their cell phones. Their cell phones get scanned in stores or taxis like credit cards. Brilliant.

-Koreans like dancing. Their clubs are not crowded with tables of people flaunting their money with bottle service like in Shanghai. There aren’t tables in clubs in Seoul. They like dancing. And they sing. They know the words to many American hip hop songs. It’s so great.

-It is incredibly hard to find public trash cans in Seoul. Apparently, Koreans are afraid of bombs being dropped in trash cans, so they simply do away with them. If you have trash, you can give it to a convenience store owner, and they will dispose of it for you.

I don't care how cheesy this is. We look fantastic!

Beans

March 31, 2010

Red bean soup. Yum! Dessert!

I took my friend, Alex, from home, to get hot pot. Hot pot is China’s version of fondue. At the restaurant we went, Dolar Shop, each person gets their own personal boiling bowl of broth with a variety of flavors to choose from. You then order off a menu of raw vegetables and meats. There is a sauce bar. Once your bowl is boiling, you cook the crudite and raw meat and then dip it in your sauce. It is quite fantastic.

At the end of the meal, everyone was served a red bean pudding. Zach, who has been in China for 2 years, devoured his. Alex looked at hers, then looked at me.

“What is this?”

“It’s red bean.” I looked at Zach, slurping his down. 

“Do you guys remember when we didn’t think beans were a dessert?” Refried beans flashed into my head.

Red bean bun

Red bean is just something that is part of Asian desserts. I suppose it sounds very strange to people who have never encountered it. “Ugh you want me to eat this paste made of beans?! For dessert?!”

Chinese people do not have the same palate as Americans or other Westerners when it comes to dessert especially. They don’t like anything too sweet. Many desserts are rice-based and can be quite sticky. They usually have a very diluted sweet taste, or may not be sweet at all. I’m wary of ever making cookies for Chinese people because they usually turn them down unless they are accustomed to western desserts.

Another place that beans are prevalent in China is in soy milk. One of my students was explaining to me that he makes a drink made of beans every morning in a machine designed especially for this purpose. He asked me what this drink was called. I was so confused. I said, “I don’t know? Bean juice?” It only came to me much later that he was making soy milk. I had never heard of anyone making soy milk before.

When I went to Shaoxing to celebrate Chinese New Year, Tong’s dad made us soy milk every morning. He makes it from a bean mixture that he picks himself. He first soaks the beans for an hour or two, then puts them in a soy milk maker, which I assume boils them and then mushes them. The resulting soy milk is not like anything I’ve had before. It is very thick and purple and hearty. It tastes really great though and seems healthy. Its very filling.

Bing sha covered in red bean, boiled peanuts, and sweetened condensed milk

Foot massage

March 29, 2010

My friend, Alex, recently visited me in Shanghai on a business trip. One of the things I did with her was get foot massages from a very upscale massage parlor. The masseuses were well-versed in reflexology. From feeling our legs, necks, and feet, they could tell these things:

Me: I have a knot in my neck that is making me more tired than normal. I need a good night’s sleep. At one point, the masseuse pressed on a certain spot on the bottom of my foot, and as I writhed in pain he said, “Oh you must like drinking. That is your liver.”

Alex: She likes eating meat. She is very tired and needs to sleep more (jet lag). She never wears socks (she is from LA). She likes beer. She needs to drink more water.

All of these things are true.

Fear of fours

March 2, 2010

A Chinese elevator - no fours

In Mandarin, the word four, 四 sì, sounds alot like the word death, 死 sǐ. Because of this, it is considered bad luck to live in an apartment on a floor that has the number 4 in it. 

As you can see in the photo, floors 4, 14, and 24 have been changed to 3A, 13A, and 23A. I live in apartment number 704. When we were looking for apartments, several of them had 4s in their room numbers or were on the 4th level. That was probably because Chinese people prefer not to live in those apartments. 

It is also considered unlucky to give away money as a gift in an amount with four in it. For instance, we could not give our ayi (housekeeper) 400 RMB as a Chinese New Year gift.

Fan death

February 27, 2010

There is a widely held belief in South Korea, and possibly North Korea (though no one knows because they have no contact with the outside world), that leaving a fan on at night in a closed room will kill you in your sleep.

One theory I’ve heard is that when a fan is blowing at your face, it blows all the oxygen away from your nose, so you have nothing to breathe, so you suffocate. Another theory is that your body will get too cold, and you won’t be able to tell because you’re asleep, so you’ll die of hypothermia.

I’ve asked one Korean friend about this. He says that if he leaves the fan on, he will point it at the wall, so the breeze will have to bounce off the wall rather than hit him directly. Korean fans, and our Chinese fans, are equipped with timers, so the fan will turn off after a set amount of time. At first I thought the fan timers were just nifty energy savers, but now I realize that they are saving my life every night.

For more theories: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

So long, naïveté

February 25, 2010

Two days ago I was tutoring my 5-year-old Taiwanese student. She is just beginning to read and write English and has discovered that she can Google Image certain animals. She was able to type in foxes, pigs, fishes, and bugs.

“This is cute, this is cute, this is not cute. What is the best cute?”

“What do you want to look up now, Mandy?” I ask.

“Hens!” Mandy types in hens and several photos of chickens pop up. Then, she looks at me with wide eyes and says:
“Did you know, Mai dang lao (Chinese for McDonald’s)…” She points to the hens, then makes a severe chopping motion with her hand.

I say, “Yes, I know.”

“Why?!” She stares at me with wide eyes.

“Because you have to eat them.”

“I very don’t like!”

Mandy then shows me that some of the Google images have an ‘X’ mark, so we cannot see them. She asks why. I tell her because China won’t let us see them. She asks why. I tell her I don’t know.

“I very don’t like!”

It’s Mandy's first exposure to animal slaughtering and internet censorship.

One year mark

February 25, 2010

Today is my one year anniversary of living in Shanghai!

新年快乐！Xin nian kuai le!

February 25, 2010

First course of New Year's Eve dinner. Next course included turtle soup.

Buying fireworks

I am sitting at my friend Tong’s house. Its Chinese New Year’s Eve. The whole family just finished a large meal, which included but was not limited to, the finest bai jiu in the land, Californian red wine, and turtle soup… my first time eating turtle. We are now sitting in the living room watching a traditional 4-hour-long variety show that includes singing, dancing, skits, and comedy acts. Its been really fun celebrating Chinese New Year with Tong’s family. His parents are incredibly nice and accommodating. I feel forever indebted to them and Tong for having me here and treating me like a princess. They won’t let me pay for anything and every time I try to do dishes, they shoo me out of the kitchen. Last night we went out to dinner and drank copious amounts of Shaoxing wine. I ended the night on the verge of vomiting.

Chinese New Year is like a combination of Christmas, American New Year’s, and the 4^th of July. During dinner it sounded like a war zone outside from all the fireworks people were setting off. If all of China wasn’t gathered around the television right now, I’m sure the fireworks would still be going off. The holiday is a time when everyone goes home to their families. Since Shanghai is about 90% immigrants from other provinces, the city is really empty right now. Spring Festival, another name for Chinese New Year, is a holiday for spending time with family, eating incredible amounts of food, and drinking heavily. After trying to pay for a meal, Tong’s father told me that the only thing his guest has to do is drink as much as they can.

Today we decorated the house with lanterns and other red decorations. Before coming here, I asked many Chinese friends what would be appropriate gifts for Tong’s family. My Chinese tutor asked if Tong was my boyfriend, and when I replied no, she said ‘that’s kinda weird.’ Apparently celebrating Chinese New Year with a  family is serious enough to warrant a romantic relationship with a family member. I’m so grateful and lucky that Tong and his family have had me here for this special week. Tong has been introducing me to friends and family as his peng you, which means friend. His mom told him it would be better if he said tong xue, which means classmate. Peng you sounds too close to nu peng you, which means girlfriend. For gifts, I finally decided on getting apples and oranges, which represent health for the new year, and bottles of Californian cabernet sauvignon and Italian prosecco.

(February 13)

At midnight when the variety show was done, we all went outside to light fireworks that we had bought ourselves. To our delight, it was snowing lightly and about 2 inches of snow covered the ground and trees. It was gorgeous. Tong and his cousin started setting off fireworks and firecrackers. I hid behind a post. Tong called out, “Lindsay, what are you doing!?” Oh, nothing, I’ve just been taught since the age of 5 that fireworks are death machines. What do you think this is? Nevada?

The way to Shaoxing

February 20, 2010

Mr. Zhao - This was about the time I was interrogating him about the Cultural Revolution. You can see the Shaoxing wine surrounding him.

For Chinese New Year I went to Shaoxing with my friend Tong from high school. I spent 5 days with him and his family, mainly eating and drinking. Shaoxing is a smallish city about 2.5 hours away from Shanghai. It is home of Shaoxing wine (huang jiu), which I came to know very well in those 5 days.

On Friday, January 12, Tong’s dad, Mr. Zhao, picked us up to drive to Shaoxing. On the car ride there, Mr. Zhao, translated by Tong because my Chinese is still too poor, asked me what I studied in college. I told him political science. He then said, “Lindsay, I want to talk politics with you.” At this point, I realized how much Mr. Zhao’s haircut resembled Mao Ze Dong’s. A little scared, I said “Ok.”

Tong had prefaced the conversation by telling me that there is tension between the U.S. and China right now because the U.S. has just sold a ton of weapons to Taiwan, a ‘province’ of China that sometimes wants to secede. I personally think of Taiwan as its own country, which is not something I usually tell Chinese people. It just seems too different from mainland China. I might think like this because I spent a year with a Taiwanese nationalist roommate. Another cause of tension is that President Obama is meeting with the Dalai Lama, who is seen as an enemy of the state here in China. Tong told me that when the Dalai Lama was in power in Tibet, they basically had slavery there. I found that hard to believe. He seems like a very gentle person. I later asked my friend, Colin, who I ask any worldly question I don’t know the answer to, if this was true. Colin said no. In some parts of Tibet there might have been a feudal system, but China mainly used this “slavery” in Tibet as an excuse to invade. And now, with religion suppression, an exiled leader, and occupation by China, is Tibet really better off?

I digress.

Mr. Zhao told me that despite the fact that sometimes China and America do not agree politically, on a whole, Chinese people like Americans. He believes we have the same or very similar value systems. We believe the same things are right and the same things are wrong. I asked him what he thinks of Obama. He said he likes him. He believes Obama must have faced much adversity, and it must have been very difficult for a man like him to get where he is today. He believes that American people are very tolerant and open-minded for electing a president like Obama. He thinks Americans, on a whole, are very open-minded, nice, generous, and tolerant people. I told him that the sample of Americans he has come in contact with in China are probably these things because they are world travelers, but I think the majority of Americans are not so tolerant of others.

I told Tong that yes, we both might have very similar value systems, but the way we see the world is also shaped by politics, history, and economics. We sold weapons to Taiwan because we have no money right now. China views this move as wrong. We view it as right. We need money. If Taiwan really is part of China, then why does it matter if we sell weapons to them? Maybe we should have gone through Beijing, but somehow I don’t think Beijing would have let us sell weapons to Taiwan. I compared this to when China was selling weapons to Sudan in exchange for oil. China has a huge population that needs oil. They got it from a country that was harboring genocide, and in doing so, supplied weapons directly to the people committing the genocide. China needed oil. They viewed this move as right. We viewed it as wrong. I know these two examples might not be on the same playing field, but it illustrates how the way we think is influenced by more than what is right and wrong; politics, history, economics, and national security play a huge part.

During the car ride, I found out that Mr. and Mrs. Zhao’s grandpas were both generals in the military. Mr. Zhao’s father even fought in the Korean War, on the North Korean side. Both men were transferred to Xinjiang province during the Cultural Revolution. Since universities were closed, Mr. and Mrs. Zhao also decided to join the military, which is where they met in 1968. The Cultural Revolution is one of the most fascinating subjects in Chinese history. When I was intoxicated at dinner later that day, I asked Mr. Zhao what that time was like and whether he was mad that he couldn’t go to school. He wasn’t mad. He is a Communist Party member. But he said that the Cultural Revolution is something that he and other Chinese people are ashamed of. I wish I could remember more of that conversation.

馄吨 hun dun wonton

January 9, 2010

As a precursor to Chinese New Year, our ayi came over and taught us how to make wontons (hun dun). They were really delicious!

The Date

January 23, 2010

My date with Sword was interesting. Sword is a friend of mine who I have known for about 10 months. His English is good but not great. We went to a pretty established Taiwanese restaurant called Charmant. Then we went to a really awesome rock show at Mao Livehouse featuring some bands from Beijing, including 24 Hours and PK14.

Here are some of the things Sword said to me over the course of the dinner:

“I dont understand why the director of James Bond hasn’t contacted you yet to be in his movies.”

“Colgate toothpaste should hire you for a commercial.”

“I watch The Hills and think to myself, ‘This must be what Lindsay’s life was like when she lived in LA.”

“Do you know why the earth is lively? Because you are the Princess of the Earth, and when you open and close your eyes, you spread fresh air into the world, and you allow everyone to live and breathe.”

He could also relay to me the first, second, and third times he saw me in Shanghai before he met me.

I spent the entire dinner smiling uncomfortably.

Sword

January 22, 2010

Tonight I have a dinner date with a Chinese guy named Sword.

Kimchi Western

January 20, 2010

Let it be known that on this day, Wednesday, January 20, 2010, at around 1:15 pm, in the Ajisen Ramen restaurant in Long Zhi Meng mall, in the Zhongshan Park neighborhood of Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, I came up with the term “Kimchi Western,” by myself and free of any outside influences. My friend, Victor, was talking about a movie starring Song Kang-ho, an actor from two fantastic Korean films, The Host and Thirst. The movie he was talking about is of the western genre and called The Good, the Bad, the Weird. The first thing that popped into my head was Kimchi Western, just like the Spaghetti Westerns that were directed and produced by Italians in the 1960s. My friends suggested I write a paper on Kimchi Western, so that I could really own the term.

Of course, when I got home to the soon-to-be-endangered-in-China Google, I found that Kimchi Western does, in fact, already exist. Bollocks! Korean online news writers have been using the phrase to describe this very movie. However, the term does not yet exist on Wikipedia, and we all know that if its not in Wikipedia, does it really exist at all?

So, I decided to buy the domain. Take that, you chumps!

I pondered on the name of this blog for about 15 minutes with my friend, Jessica. I thought, well, I’m in China, not Korea. Maybe it should be a more Chinese name. We thought. Xiaolongbao Western. Zhongzi Western. Peking Western. Kung Pao Western. Kimchi was just the best. I love kimchi. I inhale the stuff. And, if and when I own a dog, his name will be Kimchi. Or Gus.

And I want this blog to be not only my musings on life, but also an East meets West sort of thing. I’m an American living in China. I’m half Filipina, half Scandinavian. Let’s face it: my life is East meets West.

Through this blog, I hope to foster cross-cultural understanding and empathy. I want to help others learn about China and the Chinese from an insider’s perspective.