Chinese conversations

This conversation happened a while after I told my friend about a new teacher that was coming to work at our school, a university friend of one of the foreign teachers from Nottingham, Dan.

Chinese person:       When does the new African teacher start working?

Me:                             What new African Teacher?

Chinese person:       You said there is a new teacher starting, and she is from Africa.

Me:                              No I didn’t, but there is a new teacher starting soon,she’s not                     from Africa, she's Dan’s friend.

Chinese person:        Yeah, Dan’s friend.

Me:                              She is from England, not Africa.

Chinese person:        Then why did you say she was Black.

Chinese people have very funny ideas about nationality, as this conversation shows.  It’s hard for them to imagine that a black person can be English.  I think this stems from their ideas of Nationality regarding their own country.  They think of China as pure, and foreigners clump together in to ‘not Chinese’, so when they see whites, blacks, Middle Eastern of Southern Asian people they simply label them a non-Chinese.  I find it funny coming from such a large country with a broad mix of ethnicities, a quick walk around a city here you will see a very eclectic mix of Chinese people, a product of the greatest migration in human history of peasants from the rural countryside to the cities.  This means each city contains people who have come from the freezing cold Russian north as well as the Boiling hot south and the Muslim East, all mixed together in massive east coast cities.  Even so, Foreigners do stand out quite a lot and despite the fact that they may have lived here all their life, their ancestors haven’t lived here for five thousand years, and that means they are not Chinese.  So when they think of somewhere like England they think of white people, Kings, the Industrial Revolution and David Beckham, and although their geographical knowledge outside of China is pretty bad they still know that England and Africa are quite far apart.  Therefore they assume that black people from England are just Africans who are living in England. 

Of course this isn’t always the case, the Chinese are now the biggest travellers in the world, ninety million went abroad last year, and more and more Chinese people are getting a better understanding of foreign culture.  It used to be very difficult for a Chinese person to travel, but now it seems that everyone is getting away.  Especially students, I am forever bumping in to young Chinese who can speak decent English and then say they have been studying in England or America, or bump in to people who say their children are studying abroad.  And they are not always wealthy looking people, it’s quite easy to discern someone’s wealth by just a simple look here, as if a Chinese person has made money they generally like to show it, and the kind of people who say their children are studying abroad aren’t always rich.

Even so, ninety million people going abroad still isn’t that much in China, maybe only one in fifteen people.  The vast majority of people I meet here have never left China, most people have barely done much travelling around China.  And in a smaller city like Xuzhou with only one thousand foreigners most of them barely see foreigners, or get to speak to them, and if they do hardly any speak Chinese.  This combined with their education, which is massively focused on Chinese history and culture, and TV, also only about China, would no doubt lead to them being slightly ignorant about foreign culture, and what nationality really means.  As well as leading to some very funny conversations.

A Western Style Chinese wedding

I have chosen this photo of the wedding lunch as I think it represents just how ‘Western’ the wedding was.

A while before the wedding, my girlfriend told me that I had been chosen to be one of the Groom’s best men, I was a little surprised at this as I had never actually met him, and wasn’t that well acquainted with the Bride either, but as she was one of my girlfriend’s best friends and I though it would be fun I accepted.

On the morning of the wedding I had to make my way to a hotel, where I was to meet someone who I didn’t know who was going to take me somewhere unknown to do I don’t know what, which was all I knew.  I met him outside the hotel at the ungodly hour of 6 am and followed him in to the hotel room where he and his friends were getting out of bed, I had seen a photo of the Groom and didn’t see him there but the guys I was with told me we will first go to his house, then to the Bride’s house, then back to his house, and then come all the way back to this hotel, because this is where the reception will take place.  There is no ceremony or church to go to because Chinese actually get officially married months before, which is a walk in two minute procedure to the registry office.   So after a while they all got dressed and we made our way to the Groom’s house, which is the new house that the Groom has to buy for the wedding.  It is a prerequisite of marriage here that the Groom has to buy a house, or at least have a house fully paid off.  Which seems a bit ridiculous in a country where house prices are astronomical and the average salary is £700 a month, but the Chinese are very good savers, as they have to be- no money saved means no marriage or healthcare.  And they are also very good at getting rich, like this Groom, who is what the Chinese call a “rich second generation”, a child who’s parents has profited from the explosion of wealth in China by setting up a business and making big money fast.  And what better way to show off your wealth than buying a fancy new house in a fancy new neighbourhood, filling it with big TVs and Apple computers and getting everyone from the wedding to come and see it.  As I walked in and met the Groom’s parents the first thing they said to me was “hello, go and have a good look around”, which I did, very impressive, although a little tacky.  The Chinese don’t personalise their houses very much, apart from a few photos everything is kept very clean and simple.  And something that I have always found strange coming from the home of fengshui is that the arrangement of furniture is always very bad, maybe that is just fengshui, but it seems to be that everything is arranged neither aesthetically nor practically.  There were lots of people at the house and I finally met the Groom.  We stayed for a while and then left, for the Bride’s house, her family house where she has been living until now, now she is getting married and leaving her family to move to become part of her husband’s family.  About 20 or so of us left and outside waiting was a big yellow Hummer and 5 Chevrolet Cameros, I got to ride in a Hyundai.

After a ride across a very busy town filled with lots of other wedding cars- that day an auspicious date apparently.  Numbers are very important in China, there are good ones and bad one, 9 for instance sounds like the same word for ‘long time’, so that’s a good one.  4 however, sounds like ‘death’, so that’s a no no.  So if you can pick a date with some good numbers like 9 for your wedding, you will be married and happy for a long time.  Later this month May the 21^st promises to have a lot of weddings as 5 21 (wǔ èr yī) sounds like (wǒ ài nǐ) which means ‘I love you’, ahh.  Anywho, we arrived at the Bride’s house and everyone piled out of their cars and started cramming their way in to the stairwell excitedly following the Groom, who has to knock on the front door and persuade the Bride’s mother and father to open to door, they are reluctant as this represents the Groom coming and taking their daughter away, but then this is actually what he does so they’re right to be reluctant, it is the Grooms job to tell them how much he loves their daughter and will wait outside that door forever if he needs to.  Knock, knock! “delivery service” he calls out, everybody laughs.  For a good few minutes he continues knocking on the door and asking for permission to be let in, finally they open to door, and there is nothing stopping him from getting to his wife.  Apart from the bedroom door, and all of the Bridesmaids who also don’t want to open the door and give away their friend, they put up more of a battle, and here the Groom has to be a bit more cunning “open the door and I’ll slide you in some money” he says.  After negotiating a price the door is opened a little, and then pushed open fully by the Groom and the tide of people trying the see in.  The Bride is sat ready on the bed in her dress and only the sweetest whispers of her husband’s sweet nothings will persuade her to get up and leave with him, which she does.  And then even more people pile back on to the street and back in to the cars to go to the Groom’s house.  At the Groom’s house the Bride knocks on the Groom’s door and asks for permission to enter, she has a much easier job than the Groom and is let in fairly quickly.  After this it’s back in to the cars and off to the hotel.

At the hotel the Bride waits at reception and greets all the guests, there is a counter where people give their money, how much depends on how well you know the Bride and Groom.  For my girlfriend, being a best friend it’s £200.  You pay your money, and then you get to sit down in the hall and get ready for the show!

I walked in to the hall just as things were about to get started, the Bride and Bridesmaids were standing outside waiting to enter.  I stood to the side of the room, at the front of the hall was a stage, and protruding from the stage through most of the room ran a catwalk.  All the lights were off apart from a line of spinning spot lights running along either side of the catwalk.  Very loud music made conversation nearly impossible, drum beats built up and up the tension, at semi climaxes big puffs of smoke spurted out from either side of the stage.  The drum beats keep building up faster and faster, louder and louder, the spot lights spin like crazy and flicker through the dark room.  I look to the stage, what’s going to happen? To the door where the Bridesmaids are waiting, back to the stage.  The music keeps building, the smoke machines puff and suddenly the music climaxes with a massive beat of the drums.  Then silence, I look from side to side, where are they going to come from? Who is going to come out? I hold my breath but still there is silence, nothing happens.  Then suddenly the drums start again, but slowly, the CD has started again.

The music starts it dramatic drum beat again but I don’t pay much attention this time.  About half way through it stops, and three pretty young girls walk on to the stage and start dancing.  After they finish the Groom gets up on stage with his friends and they start singing, the Groom then breaks off from his friends and the music goes romantic, he walks down the catwalk looking longingly towards the door where his wife will come from.   As he reaches the end of the catwalk, she enters, followed by the bridesmaids they walk to meet him.  An MC starts talking loudly and then the 3 dancing girls come back, this time dressed in rather revealing outfits and carrying a chair. ‘loosen up my buttons’ by ‘the pussycat dolls’ starts playing and the girls start dancing around their chairs. I look around the room and see lots of children and old people and wonder what they think of this erotic dancing, but no-one really seems to be paying that much attention, just watching casually.  After the dancing the husband and wife get on stage and the MC talks for a while, not much really happens and then they get off the stage.  Next food starts getting served, and as you can see from the main photo despite it being a Western wedding there was definitely no western food, but then there wouldn’t be.  Chinese people love their food culture, and consider it to be the greatest in the world.  So they wouldn’t want to spoil their tables with awful western food, and here western food truly is awful so it’s a good thing really.  And most of the food is edible, and quite tasty, I didn’t touch the pork face though.  The dishes come out one by one and eventually start piling up on the table, each table gets about 30 or so different dishes and not one of those is finished as there is only 8 people to a table.  As the meal goes on the food just keeps coming and plates get emptied on to other plates and eventually there is a little mountain of plates stacked atop of each other in the middle of the table.  Just about every kind of edible food imaginable is served, and quite a few you wouldn’t imagine edible all spin around on a big lazy Susan, a bottle of Chinese spirit, some beers and a few packs of cigarettes are also put on the table.  After a while the Bride and Groom come around from table to table to drink with their guests, a big glass of Chinese spirit of carried on a tray and guests take turns to take a sip with the couple.  After this the couple goes to their private rooms to eat with their closest friends and family, otherwise they would just have to sit in the hall with everyone else.  And we stay at our table and enjoy the food and show, which continues with the dancing ladies, a magic show, a traditional face changing mask dancer, and singers.  A male singer is introduced by the MC as a famous local singer and sings a few Chinese songs and is followed by a Chinese girl who sings ‘Rolling in the deep’ by ‘Adele’ very loudly, and then rather fittingly the show is over, and then with lunch finished and no more entertainment people start to promptly leave. 

Ted from the gym

Ted is a nice fellow from the gym who came over to talk to me one day while he was half way through getting changed.  As he approached me stark naked and said ‘hello’ I though he was another Chinese person who can speak English and wants some practice, but after I while I realised he was just a friendly guy and approaches everyone for a chat, whether he’s wearing clothes or not.  We had a good chat and when I complemented him on his English he said that he likes to listen to English music, and learns through the lyrics.

A while later, as I was jogging he came and stood next to me with his phone in his hand and asked me, “do you know‘love me for a reason’by Boyzone?”, As I replied “yes I do, but I am not a big fan of Boyzone” he said “here listen” and held his phone up and starting playing the song.  As I was jogging he stood next to me for the whole 3 minutes and 39 seconds and watched me listen, I felt a bit awkward and so kept jogging and kept my eyes straight.  When the song finished before I could say thank you he began to ask me “do you know ‘Always come back to your love’ by Samantha Mumba?”  I could see where this was going so I decided to take swift action, “yes, I know it but I don’t like that song very mu-“ but before I could finish my sentence he said “here listen” and played the song.  Then followed another 3 minutes of me jogging, with a man I barely know standing next to me holding up his mobile phone watching me listen to an out of date pop song.  As the song finished I slowed the machine down and was about the tell Ted that I am trying to jog, and don’t want to listen to bad music when he said that he had to go and didn’t want to disturb me.

As I continued to go to the gym I would see Ted nearly every time, and sometimes have a chat or play a game of table tennis, I even recommended him ‘the Who’ when he asked for some good music to listen to, just in case there was a repeat of the jogging incident so I could actually listen to something I like.  My plan failed.

One day as I was Doing some weights on one of the machines when he sneaked up from behind and gave me a shock as he started “do you know..” my hopes were high as I got ready to reply “yes, I do know ‘pinball wizard’ and I think it’s a very good song, in fact I wouldn’t mind listening to it right now” My hopes were dashed as he finished his sentence “do you know… ‘You Raise Me Up’ by Westlife”.  My reply “Yes, but I don’t like Westlife” was completely ignored and answered with “here listen”, and this time he had earphones and continued to place them in my ears himself.  I took them out of my ears and said “no, really I don’t like Westlife, thank you”, he paused for a second and I thought that maybe I had offended him, then he pulled the earphones out of his phone, took a step backwards, held up his phone and said “here listen” and played ‘you raise me up’on speakerphone.  I looked at him with stupefaction and then began to laugh.  As I laughed he looked at me strangely and I could see that he though I was very odd for laughing at such a nice song.

I had a nightmare after that, I was going for a jog around the lake, it was a beautiful day, and I was enjoying the fresh air and peace and quiet when suddenly I hear “do you know…” from behind me, it’s Ted, he’s found me. He carries on “do you know… ‘My Heart Will Go On’ by Celine Dion?” My screams of horror and pleas of mercy are ignored as I hear the dreaded words “here listen”.  He plays the song, I try to sprint away but no matter how fast I run or which direction I go I can never outrun him, and the worst thing is he’s got the song on repeat.

I still see Ted in the gym, I didn’t tell him about the nightmare though as I don’t want to give him any ideas about Celine Dion.

how to dry clothes when it's 4 degrees in your house

 4 degrees centigrade is how cold it got inside my house mid winter, that's bloody freezing, and with the AC turned on full blast I could get it to about 10 degrees, still hardly warm but fine when you're wearing one of these bad boys.

Of which I am the proud owner of a pair.  But mine aren't the grandpa colour of this chump, mine are red, with pictures of monkeys and stars and writing that says 'best fneomome.

Anyway, one thing that really bothered me last winter was how long it took to dry laundry, about 3 days.  But this year I had a brainwave, and devised a way to dry my laundry in a couple of hours,and warm up the living room, without having to hang my laundy up on the drying rack in front of my AC, which blocked the doorway to my kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, spare bedroom and living room, so really got in the way.

Quite simply, place a nice warm radiator under a drying rack.

 Hang the clothes up.

And cover with a duvet sheet to hotbox the clothes, dry in no time.

photos of cold winter

This is the river near my house, that I go for a walk along every night, at the coldest point of winter, for about a month, it froze over.

This is Lucy, who accompanies me on my walks by the river every night, enjoying the snow.  Funnily despite being freezing cold this is about the most snow I have seen in two years here.

This is the park next to my house after the snow!

Wrapping up warm for the ebike on a cold winters day, ear warmers and handlebar bags keep extremities warm in speeds of up to 20 miles per hour!

Chinese and weather

The weather in Xuzhou varies very much from season to season, winter is cold and summer is hot, not to extreme, but verging on the point of unbearable.  This may sound like a good thing but is actually rather bad.  What this means is that in winter it is freezing cold, but not so cold that you can't live in your house without any proper heating, if you wrap up many layers and super thick house (or outside the house) pajamas you won't be too cold, the ac turned on to 30 should do the trick.  But still, your house is cold, getting out of bed is hard, showering is bone chilling, the olive oil in your kitchen freezes and is unusable, just you didn't die of cold.  If you go any further north, it gets colder, and to compensate this they have central heating.  Go south of Xuzhou and it doesn't get so cold, no problem there.

The same problem arises in summer, it's very hot and stuffy, but ACs aren't turned on everywhere, you quite often have to sit down to dinner and be careful not to let sweat drip in your dinner.  Yet go north and it's not so hot, go south and it's so bloody hot that everywhere has AC.  What makes this problem worse is the Chinese, at least in Xuzhou have a deathly fear of cold, strange then that so many places have little to or no heating during winter but that's just the Chinese.  According to Chinese people there is a direct link between cold and illness, if you get ill, it IS because you were cold just now, if you are cold now, you WILL be ill.  Cold doesn't just mean ‘cold’ either, it can be ‘colder’, or ‘not so hot’.  If it was 35 degrees in the day and it drops down to 30 at night with a breeze god forsake you if you don't wrap up in your thick blanket and drink only but hot water.  Having this mentality when raising kids means that Chinese people grow up nearly immune to heat, from small, they have been forced to, despite boiling hot humid weather, to sleep with a thick blanket, to have a hot hot shower, and wear extra layers.  Chinese people can afford to do this easier than westerners for a couple of reasons.  1, Chinese people don't have BO, no smell, no matter how hot and sweaty they get there is no odour, so there's no nasty, awkwardness of being smelly and having to take a shower just to stop making people sick when you get close to them.  2, the only thing Chinese people fear more than the cold is the hell spawned vitamin d producing ultra violet rays of satan, aka sunlight, so wearing a sweater or jacket on a boiling sunny day is no problem, and hey you're not going to get too hot and smelly.  But let that sunlight land on the beautiful pasty white skin and it will turn a horrible healthy brown colour, and people will see you and say "hey, look at that guy, he looks like he hasn't moved from an undeveloped country where people have to work in the fields to get food to a developed country where we live and work in cities and agricultural work gets done on a large scale by machines and then sent in to the cities for us to eat as we sit in our offices and homes avoiding the sun".  And you wouldn't want people to say things like that about you because you would totally lose face.  And losing face is probably more fearful than even direct sunlight or a light breeze on a spring evening in the park. 

So Chinese people hate the cold, yet don't have heaters, love being warm, yet hate sunlight.  Are terrified of getting a tan because it make your skin unfashionable, yet fine to wear pajamas out and about.  Very paradoxical, but that is China, there are so many things here that are ridiculously self contradicting and blatantly stupid, but perfectly normal to Chinese people.

The reason I highlight this is because it's one of the most in your face cultural differences you experience being a foreigner in China.  I say in your face because if it's only 20 degrees outside and you are only wearing a T-shirt there will be Chinese people ‘in your face’ warning you of how you are you are going to get ill soon, and need to wear more clothes.  And this is something that, like the heat of summer, or the cold of winter, is bearable, but quite annoying.

I think I'm getting old

because even though the Lion King was my favourite childhood film I can't remember this character for the life of me...