All right, I’ll come clean, that’s just an excuse for a new cartoon. The subject is the thought-process behind a middle-income, middle-aged Chinese male - yes, men only - choosing clothes. Just remember, peeps, this is to be filed under ‘cultural understanding’, not ’satire’. Ithangyou. The cartoon is one image, which will load below:

The book is about the events in the building to that June day in 1989, and told through the memories of a protester, Da Wei, who was shot in the head and is in a coma as the novel begins. His memories narrate the story of how he got to his present state.

Sounds interesting right? Wrong. It’s heavily political and reads more like a political history textbook. I’m a fan of Ma Jian and I loved his first three books, but I could not get past the first 160 pages of this book. He just got too political and he wanted to put all his problems and issues into the novel and just came out with a very dry text. The book doesn’t breath — I don’t feel like I know the characters, but I do know Ma Jian’s political views. And they’re a little too extreme for me.

I don’t want this review to sound like a total downer. I’m sure a grad student of Chinese studies will love this novel, but the casual reader or even the seasoned Old China Hand should avoid this unless they need to take a nap.

Picture this with me…

You are enjoying a quiet, peaceful morning at McDonald’s with two steaming hot pancakes and a beautiful cup of burnt coffee.  You’ve got the iPod in and you’re reading a book you’ve been looking forward to for weeks.  Then, out of nowhere, the guy who chose to sit three feet from you when the whole restaurant is empty decides that NOW is the perfect time to groom his fingernails.  In my world, this process takes about two minutes and it takes place in the comfort of my own bathroom.  Not in China.  Here, they clip those nails anywhere and everywhere and on this particular day at McDonald’s it took him 30 minutes.  Maybe i’m too American.  Maybe i’m too soft.  Maybe i’m just weird.  But i was so grossed out that i took one more sip of coffee and then i had to leave.

Then three days later it happened again, but at a different place.  What is with people clipping their nails in public?  Someone please, please, please explain to me what the deal is.  I’m a culturally sensitive person and i show a lot of patience when stuff happens that i don’t understand.  But come on, 30 minutes to clip your fingernails while sitting in a public restaurant?

Responses?

The YiLi ‘rebuilding trust’ campaign has been the most prominent on TV in recent days - here is the video of their ad - and centers on the idea of “Rest assured in Yili” (伊利放心奶粉大行动 is the whole catchline) with various supermarket managers pledging, by touching their hearts, that they are suitably “assured” in YiLi’s products. Here’s a still from the ad:

After the deaths of three toddlers, and the hospitalisation of tens of thousands of under-5s with kidney stones caused by the melamine in their SanLu, YiLi and MengNiu powder (to say nothing of the UHT and fresh milk tainting by numerous other brands) which affected pretty much the whole country, in products from milk to cookies, is it too soon for these companies to have any hope of earning the trust, all over again, of their once loyal customers?

I was expecting a bit more of a backlash against these companies from normal people, but perhaps the free healthcare offered by the government to those whose health was affected has effectively doused the flames of discontentment and resentment. I even naively expected a boycott of some of the major brands.

I remember boycotting Nestle products back in 1999 and 2000 in the light of their cruel and underhand business operations in Africa - getting babies hooked on free formula, and then later charging the mothers for it; that kind of thing - by refusing to buy any of their coffee or chocolates for over a year. And many others in the UK and other countries did likewise, in a show of force against unethical multi-nationals, by showing the people’s collective savvy to seriously hit the corporation’s profit margins.

But, in the name of ’social harmony’ that probably would not be allowed in the aftermath of the melamine tainting scandal. So, to end my post, here’s my own interpretation of YiLi’s new ad campaign:

My Chinese is not great by any stretch, but i know how to get around a city and i have a decent vocabulary.  But when i get in a taxi in Beijing they look at me like i’m making up my own language.  They don’t even want to try to understand.  And when we do get going in the right direction it is awkwardly silent the whole way.  My questions are quickly answered with short grunts that scream, “LEAVE ME ALONE!”  

Today, after asking a driver to take me to the “dong men” (the east gate) of a particular location he looked at me like i was an idiot and literally begged me to get out of his taxi and find another one.  People who have been in China for one day know how to say “dong men.”  What was this guy’s deal?

I blame it on the olympics and all the dumb foreigners who yelled at taxi drivers with stupid crap like, “TAKE ME TO THE BIRD’S NEST”…. “TTTHHHEEE BBBBIIIRRRRDDDDSSSS NNNNEEESSSSTTTT”

So now, when innocent “locals” like me want to go somewhere we get treated like garbage because the drivers are fed up with dealing with arrogant foreigners.  I think this is terrible, i want the nice drivers who like to ask me what i think of Beijing, if i can use chopsticks and if i have a wife.  To which i promptly answer, “Beijing is great. Yes, chopsticks rock. And No, i don’t have a wife… Do you?”

© Rickenbacker

I was standing on the street corner the other day waiting for a taxi beside a middle-aged foreigner doing the same. This isn’t uncommon, I live in a rather laowai-saturated area of Suzhou. The corner also works as an impromptu parking spot for people looking to dash over to the bakery, or pick up a bit of food from the long line of restaurants.

As we were waiting, in our awkward expat silence, a car pulled up to park. The only open parking spot was directly behind the other foreigner, but he made no attempt to make way for the car. Perhaps he assumed that it could just go around and park in a different location, or that it wasn’t a proper place to park anyway.

In addition to the restaurants and “real bread” bakery, another benefit of my neighborhood is you tend to get a more courteous bunch of locals. It was for this reason, I’m certain, that the car neither honked nor hit the foreigner in front of it, but rather patiently waited for the laowai to come to his senses and get the hell out of the way.

He moved a couple feet, but not enough for the car to reliably get past without hitting him. The driver inched ahead. The man moved another foot. Still not enough room.

I was watching with a bit of a perplexed look on my face when the foreigner turned to me and said, “Why are they all so stupid?” - he must have wrongly assumed I was confused by the Chinese driver’s actions.

Nothing all that alarming, scandalous or surprising about the above story, I admit. However, that blanket labeling and blatant racism stuck with me the entire day. It got me thinking about my own opinions about China and the Chinese. About how those opinions were formed and go on to, in small ways, form the opinions of others.

I’ve heard the type of guy described above referred to as an “angry expat“, a foreigner who - despite choosing to live here - does nothing but complain about China. A laowai who generalizes an entire race of people with sweeping jugements and criticisms.

Hell, at points I’ve probably been called this myself. I’ve certainly bitched and complained about China and some of its occupants. In fact, for a long time I’m certain I earned the title.

But lately I’ve noticed I’m a lot mellower about things than I used to be. I don’t see Chinese as mindless clones droning about their simple lives, I don’t feel that there is an evil dark force in Beijing that maliciously controls and exploits the population for their own beastly gains, and I don’t think “they” are all “so stupid”.

So, what changed? Why did I slowly adopt a somewhat more enlightened attitude about China and its peoples? As much as I would love to think it’s just because I’m such an insightful and conscious person, I don’t believe that has anything to do with it.

I think that my ideology simply shifted.

To most foreigners who move to China, life here is inarguably extremely different than life back home. The people, the culture, the traffic laws, the quality controls, etiquette, language, and so on, are in striking contrast to the way we’ve grown to expect things to work.

Upon arriving, then, we meet other foreigners in our same circumstances. People who have been here longer, who can offer some advice, and who can act as guides to this chaos around us. Perhaps over cheap beers, a few sticks of chuar, or just around the hot water cooler; these folks offer their seasoned opinions and thoughts on life here.

In chapter seven of his brilliant book “Predictably Irrational“, Dan Ariely explains how ownership of something causes us to overvalue it. For example, a house we grew up in and have fond memories of may cause us to price it above market value when selling it. We are not just charging for the item, but also for the loss of that item.

He then goes on to say:

Ownership is not limited to material things. It can also apply to points of view. Once we take ownership of an idea - whether it’s about politics or sports - what do we do? We love it perhaps more than we should. We prize it more that it is worth. And, most frequently, we have trouble letting go of it because we can’t stand the idea of its loss. What are we left with then? An ideology, rigid and unyielding.

I believe this is how “angry expats” are created. I don’t believe the majority of these laowai are walking around back home complaining about everything. Nor do I believe that if they visit an equally as chaotic a place as China they will find everything they can to rant about.

However, when arriving in China, fresh off the boat as it were, they have no real idea of the place, so they pay studious attention to other expats and see what their ideas are. And once that void is filled with new ideas, the new arrival begins to take “ownership” of the ideas, making them harder and harder to reverse.

Now of course China does its part to solidify these views, giving the idea owner plenty of “proof” to help foster their growing ideology. Add to this the exponential effect that co-complaining has, and it’s not difficult to see how easy it is to become bitter and choleric in nature.

Soon you are in the circular problem of having your experience here dictated by this ideology, and the ideology strengthened by your experience here. You’re invested in the ideas, you’ve shared them with others, giving them further credit and value in your mind.

Speaking for myself, this ideology was sparked by the friends and acquaintances I made when I first arrived in China, and grew when, while making new friends and acquaintances, I repeated these ideas.

So, why has my cynicism and criticalness of China lessened over my time here?

Again, tragically, it’s got nothing to do with any sharpness of intelect I may wish to attribute to myself. It is simply that I’ve made new acquaintances - many of whom I’ve never met, and some who don’t know me at all - that have helped expand how I view China and its relationship to me and to the world at large.

Unlike when I first arrived in China as an ESL teacher, now much of my day is spent in a virtual world (I work as a Web designer). I spend hours online, and as such tend to read a lot of blogs, and interact with many people on Twitter from across China, and around the globe.

Because of this I tend to associate, virtually at least, with an exceptionally insightful group of people (here, here and here). And it is them, along with a handful of cool real-life friends, that have helped shift my ideology - helped me buy a new set of ideas.

Of course I still get pissed off at things in China. Situations still crop up to support the stereotypes, and I’m not shy about calling it how I see it. However, I think I’ve moved past that initial mindset that kept me thinking and feeling a certain way about this country long past its usefulness.

I’m sure China will always be littered with angry expats, just as I’m sure they also exist wherever the term “expat” can be applied. But it fills me with a sense of awe that through the dissemination of information and ease of access to ideas, the world, or my world at least, has been made a better and more even-keeled place.

“So why is this form used for “apple”?”, a student asked.

“Uuhhm.. I don’t know. It just is…”, said I, feeling ignorant

The way that many European languages tend to change their nouns according to numbers and verbs according to time is something that can confuse Chinese language learners, since there is nothing similar in their mother tongue. On the other hand, something that confuses many European learners of Chinese is the simplicity of the Chinese grammar. During my first period of Chinese studies I was constantly getting myself lost in overlong sentences, where I used loads of complicated expressions to make sure the time of the actions was expressed in detail. Then I realized that most of the time you can do fine without them.

Well, if the Chinese grammar isn’t complicated for a European language learner, the words themselves are. This is partly because many words lack a counterpart in the learner’s native language, but I also think is because many words express so much. Just a two-syllable combination of Chinese characters can describe an action that would require half a sentence in most Indo-European languages. Granted, English has a few of these words as well, “regicide” and “defenestration” being my personal favorites, but in Chinese they are everywhere.

One example of this kind of expression is “承重孙” (cheng2zhong4sun1), which in my dictionary translates to: “eldest grandson replacing his dead father as chief mourner at his grandfather’s funeral”. Try to say that in a short way in English. Or how about “解菜”,(jie3cai4); ”to abandon a vegetarian diet”.

So far, my all time favorite is an expression that I came across in a friend’s Chinese textbook,: 遛鸟 (liu4niao3), which had been poetically translated as “To go for a walk in a quiet place carrying a bird”. My suggestion for an easier translation of this activity would be: “to go birding”. Nice and simple.

There are two topics I’ve been thinking about: i) Having Tattoos in China and ii) Getting Tattoos in Foreign Languages (especially Chinese or Tibetan).

Tattoos in China

Even though in recent times tattoos have become slightly more acceptable in the Chinese mainstream, tattoos still carry a social stigma.  This article from China Daily showcases the growing trend of tattoos among China’s young people, but also hints at the slow-changing tattoo-wariness shared by the traditionally minded.

The wariness is easy to understand given the sordid history of tattoos in China. In his article “Street Scenes of Subalternity,” Michael R. Dutton explains some philosophical and historical background about why tattoos remain subversive in Chinese culture:

The body, it is commonly said, is a temple. In traditional China, it was thought to be an unmarkable altar to family and lineage descent. To mark the body was to mark the family out. Employing this taboo for their own ends, successive dynastic governments used the “ink punishment” (moxing) to stigmatize both criminal and family. It was a punishment that transcended life itself for, in the afterlife, even one’s ancestors may have difficulty recognizing a body that was marked. To mark the body, therefore, was a serious social transgression.

Dutton continues by describing how gangs of criminals adopted tattooing as a way to forge group identity and to “mark [themselves] outside the society.”

To sum up, tattoos have traditionally been the mark of outcasts and organized criminals. I’ve also heard it said that prostitutes also favor having tattoos, possibly as group identifiers or, more innocuously, as preferred ways for covering up unsightly scars.

That being said, here are the two most important tips for the newly inked or the new-in-China-and-previously-inked:

1. You’ll receive your fair share of unwanted (or wanted) attention if you’re visibly foreign.  Visible tattoos will only make local people stare more.
2. Greater China is not a Reflector show or a Tattoo Convention.  Most Chinese probably still associate tattoos with seedy underground activities.  Be aware of what image you might be projecting.

Tattoos in Chinese/Tibetan: Not Just Stupid, Also Potentially Offensive

Our friends at hanzismatter have done an admirable job documenting the woes of getting tattoos of Chinese characters.  Besides the obvious blemishes of getting an incorrect tattoo or not being able to pronounce your own tattoo, people really need to consider the ramifications of getting a tattoo inspired from somebody else’s culture.

I don’t have the time or energy for a full rant about the commodification of culture inherent in a non-Chinese person getting the character for “strength” tattooed on their bicep.  But I will sum up with an argument that I first heard on the student film “Yellow Apparel: When the Coolie Becomes Cool”:

If you are a Westerner with a Chinese tattoo you are not only wearing a Chinese cultural symbol as a fashion statement, you are also wearing the evidence of a long-existing (though potentially changing) un-equal power dynamic.  This is troublesome because you are adopting this cultural symbol without acknowledging this power dynamic or, and this is crucial, the racial discrimination present in your home country that is directed at people of Chinese descent.  You get to cover up your tattoo or laser it off when it suits you.  Chinese Americans (or Europeans or Australians) cannot cover up their Chinese-ness, change their phenotypes, or erase the legacy of anti-Chinese sentiment or legislation that they’ve been dealt.  Think about it.

Besides being swayed by this argument, I’ve also been kind of shocked at how mindlessly people tattoo themselves with potentially offensive or politically charged tattoos.  If you MUST get a tattoo in Chinese or Tibetan or Mongolian or whatever, please consider the political message you might be advertising.  You might think “om mani padme hom” looks sweet in Tibetan script, but people who see your Tibetan tattoo might mistake you for a separatist sympathizer or agitator, regardless of your political leanings.

Lastly, do some research about the appropriateness of your tattoo choice.  I have a good friend who tattooed the above Tibetan Buddhist mantra on his shin, only to move to a Tibetan area of China and realize that Tibetans think it’s insulting to mark holy words on the lower half of your body.  Whoops!

Parting Shot: I think people have the right to tattoo whatever the heck they want to on their own bodies, but just because you can or “it looks cool” or “it has deep personal significance” doesn’t mean you should.

Full disclosure: Ligaya has one tattoo from a culture that is not her own.  She’s glad it’s pretty much unrecognizable, even to those from said culture, but she wishes she had thought more about it before she went to the needle.