China – Words & Things

Kaleidoscope

“Give me highs, give me lows,”

When I came to China, my apartment was on the 33rd floor and the view was stunning.

Now, I’m on the bottom floor and my view is… stunning. I guess it’s trendy to emblazon Hello Kitty on your undergarments here.

The view of my community through my bedroom window.

In part, variation is natural. Seasons; cycles; our circadian routine. The light would be blinding were there no night. I love exploring new places, but sometimes I need to take a break. Touring China all winter vacation was a ball, but I had to follow it with days in bed binge reading and rearranging my home screen icons.

On other days, though, the lows are simply lows. Like having to move out of a great apartment to a world of grandmothers hanging laundry so close to my window I could literally touch it from my bed.

There are days when I feel great about my Chinese. Days when the isolated bits of the language solidify into structures. I grow giddy with excitement when I understand banter and can even catch the odd joke. But then someone asks me the simplest question and I second-guess what they’d just said. As I flounder for words, I lunge at these newly formed structures only to find their delicate features not solid, but ash that disintegrates as I grasp for it.

There are days when my writing feels natural and days when I read it and think gosh, I’m pretentious.

And days when I publish it anyway.

I decided this semester to pick the most interesting classes regardless of their difficulty or inconvenience. It was going to be a great semester. Then classes start and the way I’m understanding them, they may as well be in Chinese.

I meet amazing friends here and then I’m afraid to talk to them. Group messages are terrifying. I hole up in my room even though it’s the last thing I want to do.

“Give me thorns with my rose – I want everything.”

The Chinese have an aphorism for every situation. There’s even a saying that they’re reminded of whenever I mispronounce my metro stop.*

There’s one that comes to my mind when the lows sink in. It’s actually a poem, and I don’t think any of its English translations quite do it justice.

横看成岭侧成峰，
远近高低各不同，
不识庐山真面目，
只缘身在此山中。
– 蘇軾

From side: cliff walls; yet a peak from base.
Far, near, high, low: never the same place.
Since I stand here within its midst
How can I know Mount Lu’s true face?
– Su Shi, Translated by Su Tong (some punctuation mine)

Sichuan, China (I never made it to the Lu range, unfortunately). Photo taken by Max Li.

Su Shi writes of his experience in the Lu mountain range. The most common allusion to the poem is the phrase “knowing Mount Lu’s true face,” used to describe a profound understanding of something. But there’s another piece of the poem: the idea that an insurmountable cliff and an attainable peak can both describe for the same mountain viewed from different perspectives.

Over winter break, I met my housemate Max’s parents (who were the sweetest! They treated me as their own and showed me all around Sichuan). They didn’t speak English, so it was a golden opportunity for me to practice my Chinese. I struck up conversation with his mother. And it was hard. Without even broken English to fall back on, I faltered and fumbled. At one point, someone laughed and told her not to bother – I didn’t have a chance. Which was true. I had to make her repeat everything, try different words, and re-explain. But she said no. She said no; this boy is hungry for Chinese: True, he doesn’t understand everything, but he does understand some things, and if I work with that, he’ll understand more things. I tucked away that sweet memory of someone choosing to see my Chinese from whatever angle it took to believe in me.

The view of my community from the rooftop: How it was meant to be viewed.

So I try to make the most of the lows. This laundry-strewn public housing project? A tour of Chinese fashion I’d probably never have gotten elsewhere. My writing? A journey – I’ll never be any good if I’m afraid to start. And I made it through these courses and texted those friends and had awkward moments and laughed about them. These mountains are beautiful, but it sometimes takes a believer to help me remember what they looked like before I plunged into them, to recall the last summit I stood on, or to imagine the rush I’ll feel when I reach the peak instead of cowering with fear at the cliffs ahead.

Breathing in the gusts from Dragon’s Back Ridge in Hong Kong.

“Fire, rain – the whole kaleidoscope.”

*The area I lived in is called Tang2Lang3, but tones are not my forte, so sometimes I pronounce it more like Tang2Lang2 (see English // Chinese for an explanation what the numbers mean). Which is be beginning of the saying 螳螂捕蝉黄雀在后: The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the finch just behind. The English equivalent: “There’s always a bigger fish,” or perhaps “Don’t lose the forest for the trees.” I think the latter translation better captures the intended meaning, but I’m too attached to the imagery accompanying Qui-Gon Jinn’s use of the former.

English // Chinese

My Chinese has been improving, but it’s still got a ways to go. I’ve focused more on the oral language than the written, so my knowledge of characters is limited. I *usually* receive what I try to order in restaurants, but it isn’t always pretty. The picture-menu is my hero, but even when faced with a wall of foreign text, I’m often in luck. Waiters are usually quite willing to read out a few dishes for me and answer the important questions (“Does this or does this not have shrimp?”).

On the streets and in shops, though, I don’t have the luxury of these friendly waiters. Accordingly, I am ALWAYS appreciative when English translations are provided, regardless of their imperfections. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t chuckle with amusement at some of them.

#EnglishInChina

… And on top of that, when those darn dryers took office they washed away my unemployment benefits too!

So of course, we gave it a try. It about lived up to its name.

There are so many ways I could read this but all are quite unsatisfactory.

Okay, this one was in Japan, but still, for some odd reason I don’t trust them.

It makes me happy to imagine myself carefully sliding, keeping a close eye on the steps. Then cautiously trying not to hurt any of the eight people laying side to side to form the platform I’m standing on.

I guess the ancient emperors ordered these by the thousand?

In the spirit of good-natured amusement at the difficulty of foreign languages, I thought it would only be fair to note my difficulties with Chinese as well.

#ForeignerInChina

Learning Mandarin is fun. However, learning Mandarin is also dangerous. You’ve probably heard me rant about tones (the vocal inflection with which you say syllables in Mandarin). What English speakers would consider the same word can mean vastly different things in Mandarin. As a foreigner who’s not exactly an expert at pitch (have you heard me sing?), this is a bit troublesome.

Oh, says the barista at Starbucks, you’d like a large STD without sugar, would you? Mmhhmm, says the pandas’ caretaker, you think those chest hairs are very cute? I have to pause and think before I say oatmeal.

Here’s an excerpt from my collection of unfortunately similar phrases.

(For non-Mandarin speakers: I’ve written the Mandarin words below as each syllable followed by its tone, represented by a number. 1 means the preceding syllable should be said with flat pitch; 2 means it should be said with rising pitch, 3 indicates a falling then rising pitch, and 4 indicates a falling pitch. And in case you were curious, the “x” is pronounced like the English “sh”.)

Xing1bing1: Frappuccino
Xing4bing4: STD

Xiong2mao1: Panda
Xiong1mao2: Chest hair

Fang2huo3: Prevent fire
Fang4huo3: Set on fire

Cha2: Tea
Cha4: Bad

Mai4pian4: Oatmeal
Mai3pian4: Buy a (dirty) movie

Lou2ti1: Stairs
Luo3ti3: Naked

There are more, but I don’t want to dissuade you from learning Chinese! It’s a fun language, made all the better by the countless friends and acquaintances who’ve corrected, encouraged, and made fun of me along the way.

Miss

I miss talking to my sister in Spanish so our parents wouldn’t understand. I miss telling her anything and hearing her infallible recommendations.

I miss arguing with Alec over who had dibs on our name. I miss trying to make Anthony’s girlfriends feel uncomfortable about how comfortable he was with me. I miss the lazy mornings turned afternoon talking with Mom, and the fact that I can still sit on Dad’s lap as he quizzes me with engineering questions.

As thrilling as living in the Eastern Hemisphere is, sometimes I can’t help but think of the people on the other side. I miss Chris’s unabashed goofiness. I miss the way Laureen would say Alexander. I miss Andrea’s disparaging comments about kale and quinoa. I miss agreeing with Connor about the evils of flirting.

And the moments; I miss all of the things we’d do! I miss speeding through the mud-and-water rollercoaster better known as Loxahatchee with Collin. I miss picking out date spots I knew I’d never use with Christine. I miss pretending I liked coffee before I actually liked coffee with the squad on a crap-I-bungled-my-plane-tickets trip to NYC. I miss playing exhausted Egyptian Rat Screw with tenacious Leandra.

I miss swimming through every pool on our street with Eric and Jenna, Neddy style; I miss shivering in the cold while Drake cut my hair; I miss Alvin’s entourage of insect glamor shots; I miss driving around roundabouts ad nauseum with Ty.

I guess, what I mean to say, is I miss you.

Question

I could be talking to a friend, a relative, or a stranger. I envision dramatic conversations, canvassing the foibles of utilitarianism and the merits of Arminianism; discussing Fermi problems and dissecting ecumenical rationalism. But alas, in reality, conversation tends more toward the concrete. We chat about what we’re doing in life, where we live, and what the culture is like there. And really, that’s a pretty close second to the dialogues conjured by my fanciful imagination.

So when I say that I’m living in China, I get the question: What’s it like there? Is it the same as it is back home, or is it wildly different?

I pause for a moment, confounded by my limitless options. I look up and think: You likely aren’t in the mood for an exhaustive list, replete with photos and equations (yes, I have those). But you’d probably like more than the half-sentence summary. Should I tell you it’s the same, or should I tell you it’s different? Because it’s both. Should I share the highs or should I share the lows? So I give my Magic 8-ball a good shake, and pick what I think will best entertain my hapless listener.

Fortunately, you, dear reader, are not a captive audience. I’ll never know if you hit the back button. But if you’re still around, enjoy the medium-length version as it resides in my memory: as a series of vignettes.

Welcome to China. Welcome to a land where folks reach far out of their way to help you, even if English is a real struggle for them. A land where people are genuinely curious about what it’s like where you’re from and more than happy to let you practice your Chinese with them, but more often than not end up practicing their English with you. A land where shiny Bentleys glide by sweating street vendors, a land where you dump tea over your utensils to clean them, where it’s easy to make friends with strangers, where it’s normal for your electronics to shock you, where without hesitation, friends welcome you into their home for two weeks, and where crowds form oceans of faces, expressionless features lit by the eerie blue glow of the digital world.

Bike rental: $0.00 (killer promo)

Steamed pork bun (baozi): $0.25

To-your-door delivery: $0.50

10 gigs of 4G data: $3

Starbucks drink: $6

Talk about overpriced coffee. Value is strange here in Shenzhen. Property speculation has driven real estate prices sky high – we’re talking well over $1500 / square foot for these no-frills high rises – but rent is still relatively inexpensive. The opulent and the opportunity-less rub shoulders, and it shows: You can pay as little or as much as you want for a meal.

This is great on the wallet, but less so for planet earth. With delivery prices like those, everyone under thirty orders most of their meals online. To Shenzhen’s credit, they’ve banned motorcycles so these countless deliverymen swarm the streets on electric bikes, but the food comes with so much packaging I fill a dustbin every meal. When dining in, it’s customary to sanitize your utensils and dishes before eating on them with boiling water. But instead of just boiling water, they give you a pot of tea – so after dribbling it down your chopsticks you can drink the rest of the pot. You’ll catch them using the words “water” and “tea” interchangeably. And then, they bring out these dishes served on a bed of peppers or bean sprouts. You’re not actually supposed to eat that – it’s there mostly for flavor or maybe presentation – but for some of these dishes, it feels more is meant to be thrown away than eaten!

That aside, I’ve really enjoyed the food here. I’ve tried some spicier things and oddities like fish eye, chicken stomach, sheep lungs and the like. One of the wilder foods that I tried, though, was snake. My trusty roommate Max took me to an upscale snake restaurant. It was surprisingly quite enjoyable, once I navigated my way around the phalanx of bones bristling through every piece. I imagine the meat-to-bone ratio is better in the big snakes, but those snakes are a bit pricier.

If you think the Western world is leading the payments industry with trendy new things like Apple Pay, think again. In China, everyone from the poshest hotel to the vendor selling bananas on the side of a mountain accepts WeChat pay. You open the app, point the camera at a QR code, and just like that you’ve paid. As long as you’re not bothered by the Chinese government tracking your every purchase, then there’s no reason to carry cash unless you actually enjoy the feel of a walletful of coins jutting into your pelvis.

There’s a lot that doesn’t faze the Chinese. You have to boil the water before drinking it, and since the specific heat of water is unfortunately high (for my non-nerds: this means water takes a long time to cool) everyone here is stuck drinking lukewarm water half the time. But it doesn’t bother them. Online, most locals don’t use their real name or picture for WeChat (their messaging/calling/payments app), but this isn’t an issue for them. There’s a suspicious, ~ 50 hertz buzzing you feel when you touch your electronics, but it’s “normal.” Drivers and cyclists are aggressive, but don’t seemed perturbed when they have to dodge through oncoming traffic to avoid taxis parked in the middle of the road. Not everyone is like that – I had one driver who made it his duty to honk at every slow vehicle he passed – but it’s nice to see people just work around obstacles instead of grumbling about them.

I give my roommates credit for teaching me the majority of my Chinese, but it works both ways: I teach them English too. A day or two after meeting Yanhui, he told me that he didn’t have an English name yet and needed help deciding. Plenty of people pick their foreign names to sound like their original name, but that’s becoming less popular these days. Plus, I wasn’t about to name this poor guy Yankee. So after going through a variety of different names, we settled on Alvin. A friendly name. The next time I’m picking a name again I’ll probably have a pregnant wife (gasp).

In other words, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Yeah, it’s hard sometimes. There are days when the streets could be streets from any city, just littered with rude cyclists and stinky tofu vendors. But I dwell on the days when instead I see a thriving community full of sixty year old women dancing together in the streets and men practicing tai chi. After all, who knows when I’ll get to live in China again.

Excerpts from Grad School: Chapter 1

If you’re reading this, you probably saw the link I posted and took the trouble to click on it. Which probably means you’ve taken the trouble to read a few of my other Woooh-I’m-In-China! posts, or maybe I’ve already given you the lowdown. But no matter: In case you haven’t, here goes.

I am in China! (Actually, flying over international waters now, but we’ll get there). I’ve been blessed enough to get to travel a good bit with my parents and work, but aside from a month stint living out of a hotel room in Vancouver, the longest I’d been in another country was less than two weeks. While this sort of travel is an awesome way to see the world, it’s a whole lot less effective way of knowing the world. I’d talked to people on most of the continents, but that’s nothing like living with them. And so the dream was born: I wanted to study or work in another country. I decided that’s what grad school would be for: Two semesters in China, officially studying electrical engineering and unofficially studying Mandarin.

I have too many stories to write about all at once, so for now I’ll start with random excerpts of my last ~3 months.

August 16, 2017: Tomorrow’s the big day! Storage units are overpriced and my parents are good to me, so I turned my bedroom at their place into a living room too. It’s sort of like a studio apartment. Trendy, right? They could totally Airbnb it out.

August 17, 2017: Quick, Jenna, I’d like to come back alive, can you teach me how to tell them that I’m allergic? (Spoiler alert: I’m not dead yet.)
Also, fun fact: I’m writing this on the plane, and the Chinese woman in the seat next to me can’t read what I’m writing, but she looked over and read this and said something to me in Chinese. And I think she affirmed my well-rehearsed apology about my bad Chinese with a friendly yes, your Chinese is very bad. But alas, my Chinese is bad, so I don’t know for sure.

Wow. Look at the view from my (first) apartment. My roommates are great – more about them later – and rent is way cheaper than America.

Roommate picture 1! First dinner in China on Yan Hui’s birthday. He’s is one of the nicest, most considerate people I’ve met. I got to help him pick his English name: Alvin.

IMG_9149 copy.jpg — Roommate picture 2: Max teaching me all of the Chinese words I shouldn’t accidentally say. Chinese is a tonal language, which means unlike English, sounds we would call the same word that differ only by pitch, or tone, can mean totally different things. It’s hard. You’ll make funny mistakes. Whatever you do, don’t mix up your tones when asking for strawberries.

Max and Alvin are Chinese Chinese – they learned English as a second language in school. I’m duly impressed at their ability to not only take highly technical engineering classes in English but also crack hilarious jokes in English too. I can only imagine how funny Max is in Chinese. It makes me realize that us lucky/spoiled Americans rarely even consider the possibility of having to take classes or do business in anything but our native language, while a multilingual world is completely the norm in other places.

Shenzhen is so close to Hong Kong it would be a tragedy if I didn’t make it out there at least once to visit relatives there (they were INSANELY hospitable) and hike some trails. Above: the view from my first such trip, featuring a vivacious Chinese stranger-made-travel companion (closest), a very helpful local (center), and my roommate Shipra (not pictured) who obligingly put up with all of the mountain climbing I forced her into.

Classes are tiny. Like, 3-6 students tiny. That meant that I could actually get to know my professors outside of class. This is the entirety of my management class, including our professor (my right, your left). I love the personal-ness: You learn a lot, talking to professors outside of class.

SONY DSC — Alright, I can’t end on a sappy note: I risked life and limb putting my trust in the internet and went looking for some waves, armed only with my bad Chinese and a cell phone. OK, fine, I had internet and maps and China is super safe (more to say on that in another post), so “risked life and limb” is a stretch, but it did cross my mind that I may not be able to find my way back. So there I am, prominently featuring my butt (or lack thereof). Shoulda taken the left. Leave it to the Florida kid to find a beach on the other side of the world.