Now that’s what I call “instant noodles!”
A Wedding in Jiangxi
I recently had a special treat. I was invited to the wedding of one of my former students in Jiangxi Province. The bride’s family came from a far-off province, so they stayed in the same hotel in which I was a guest. In Chinese tradition, the groom must coax the bride’s family to let him in. The groom must answer several questions as well as offer many small gifts of money in red envelopes (hong bao) slipped through the crack of the barely-opened door.
Please open the door!
Sweeping the bride off her feet!
After sweeping the bride off her feet there was a motorcade to the groom’s house.
Filed under Travel, Culture
China’s Schizophrenic Relationship with Foreigners
Guest Blogger:
Michael Udel
I Love Lao Wai
China’s feelings toward foreigners frequently change from acceptance and curiosity to fear and rejection. For instance, during the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the seven great naval expeditions of Zheng He brought China into contact with foreigners in Southeast Asia, India, Arabia, and the East Coast of Africa, but in the following decades, Chinese were forbidden to travel abroad. In subsequent centuries of European colonialism, outsiders were only allowed to enter China through specific ports like Guangzhou, where I live now. Today there are still some European consulates within these remnants of colonial architecture on tiny Sand Island (Shamian Dao) along the Pearl River (Zhu Jiang) in the middle of the city.
In more recent times, during the Mao years, foreigners were forbidden and reviled while Chinese children were taught that America was their arch-enemy. A couple of years after Mao’s death, America was suddenly a friend, just in time for the early phases of globalization through GATT, the Lima Declaration (1975), and of course later, the WTO. All of these brought technological advancement to the Middle Kingdom, a society that was as underdeveloped as any Communist system in the 20th century, due to decades of radical cultural change and impoverishment.
Chinese born in the early or mid-70′s seem especially schizophrenic toward foreigners, having been exposed first to anti-Western, and then immediately afterward to pro-Western propaganda. Their feelings of attraction and curiosity are followed by obvious signs of fear, and nearly all of them say they are nervous around me or other foreigners, an admission that confirms the love-hate attitude.
Another example lies in the various appellations outsiders are given by residents of the largest cities of China. Within these cities, these examples of the apparent material advancement resulting from the above mentioned treaties, inside these expansive beehives, whose chief products are suffering, soot, and another less polite word beginning with ‘s’, I have witnessed their residents—those with whom I’ve worked for years as an English teacher—pointing at me as they instruct their two-year old children whom to fear, declaring in a voice only a bit less urgent than the cries of the pod people in one of those body snatcher films when a human is discovered amongst them: “Laowai! Laowai!!” At such a young age, the children are responding even more to the emotional content of their parents’ voices than to the specific words, which translate in English to outside person. They also call us ghost people, or black ghost people if your skin is much darker than theirs. In Mandarin, it’s transliterated as gui lao into the official pinyin system of Romanization.
Just this week, the Chinese have forbidden the mixture of English words or acronyms into Mandarin sentences, and who can blame them for trusting their instincts and fearing our influence, linguistic or otherwise? From the Treaty of Nanjing (1842) to the Eight Nations Gathering (a.k.a. Boxer Rebellion of 1900) and beyond, colonialism and imperialism have been felt here, and perhaps are still at work in the form of the WTO and financial bubbles. In spite of a history of transgression by foreign devils, fair-skinned outsiders are given automatic social status by their Chinese hosts. The status we receive in the guest-host relationship is so great that agencies exist to employ us as temporary figureheads for imaginary companies in order to impress locals, who think their firm is somehow bolstered by its association with one that is foreign-owned or operated. Because of this questionable status, we are hired to speak in our native English for just a few minutes to uncomprehending Chinese audiences in order to give some mundane speech that will only be understood after the verbiage has been interpreted back into the Mandarin from whence it came. How do I know? There’s a CNN article and video news report to this effect, and I was also hired for this purpose one week ago.
A Chinese teacher in the university where I work earns a commission by referring people like me to an agency for light-skinned foreign speakers. She asked me to appear in my best suit and tie and give a one-minute speech to some unknown group of people in a hotel downtown. The money was good, I could leave after I spoke, and door-to-door transport would be provided from my apartment, so off I went. The place was completely decked out for a party and resembled a Chinese wedding. There were about 25 tables and each of their ten chairs was covered in a gilded, form-fitting fabric wrapper. There were gift bags, toys, trays full of peanuts and sunflower seeds, noise-makers, and lots of booze for each table. Balloons and waitresses were abundant and some extremely loud music was blaring non-stop to prevent any troublesome cogitation by those whose brains were not sufficiently lubricated by the strong-smelling rice wine. I was given a scrap of paper with a very short speech in English, my escort’s was written in Chinese, and it would take us less than a minute to alternately recite them. From my paper I learned that I was congratulating sales representatives of a cosmetics firm for being connected to companies from both Hong Kong and France. Double prestigiousness!!
After a long wait, the festivities finally began with a troupe of 10 faux-Shaolin performers, all of them male Cantonese in their mid-50′s, their faces exhibiting an obligatory dusting of white powder and eyebrow stenciling, and all looking extremely fit and virtuous for their age. They were clothed in silken white kung-fu uniforms with frog buttons and green-striped collars, and I imagined such clothing might be what a martial artist would wear if he died and became a guard at the gates of the Jade Emperor’s royal dragon and phoenix barn. The men ran about waving plastic swords while smiling broadly and one of them distinguished himself from the others, so he was eventually given center stage during the finalé in order to display his skill. After the swordplay, 10 female Cantonese counterparts, aged the same as the men, emerged in red chiffon outfits that exposed their bellybuttons whenever they reached for the sky. They performed a dance often seen at Cantonese outings that includes stepping gracefully in vivacious circles while making gestures and postures in unison. I noticed they all looked much stronger and brighter-eyed than most of my twenty-something English students, and as soon as their time was up, both men and women disappeared behind partitions, quick-changed into street garb, and were out the door before the next group had all shuffled onto the stage.
These were a set of eight youthful girls, all exceptionally pneumatic, some wearing white tennies, the rest barefoot. They proudly exhibited two-piece cheerleader outfits of shiny yellow material with sparkles and red trim, form-fitting in all the necessary places. They bounced a lot, the most coordinated girl was placed in front, and the ones in the back row were accomplished somnambulists. After what seemed like a very long time of standing in place with one hand on their hip, the other hand pointing upwards, and their knees generating a rhythmic motion spreading throughout their bodies, several men aimed long, slender tubes of confetti and shot multi-colored paper above and onto the girls, covering them suggestively just before they exited the stage.
During the performances of both groups, six or seven stout men in police outfits were standing next to the high-powered loudspeakers and manically blowing whistles with one hand while covering their ear nearest the sound equipment with the other. Waitresses were employed to flap toy clappers constructed of a stick with a hinge holding three, child-sized plastic hands that swung into each other, which they banged as rapidly and loudly as possible. The toys were given to as many of the guests as would accept them and training was immediately provided in the application of the devices in order to achieve the highest decibel level.
After the the warm-up was complete, the stage was set for the guest of honor, the foreigner who would bring big face to everyone present. Bizarre as the first two acts had appeared to me, I wondered how I fit into such a mélange of peculiar entertainment in the eyes of the audience. Before I could figure it all out, I was led to my place by one of the attractive hostesses in a minimal white dress, handed a large bouquet of fragrant flowers, and given a microphone. Multiple spotlights were upon me, I could barely see anything off stage, and I began to speak. I paused for interpretation, there was applause and raucous noise-making between sentences of a fairly meaningless paragraph of text, and after 60 seconds I was gone, the whole thing to become a memory. I never learned who they thought I was, probably just another laowai.
Michael Udel
Guangzhou, China
mikeudel@gmail.com
Copyright © December 26, 2010
Filed under Travel, Culture
Free the Glutens!
Note: This article was begun nearly two months ago as I was en route to China. I will recount my exploits and attempt to explain my temporary absence from the Blogosphere in my next post.
Pop Quiz!
Glutens are:
A. an up-and-coming punk rock accordion band.
B. the oppressed citizens of Glutonia.
C. a protein composite in foods processed from wheat and other grains.
D. all of the above.
E. none of the above.
Easy, huh? Everybody knows Glutonia became an independent state following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Duh.
This week I’m in Portland. The one on the Left Coast. I am mooching off my offspring while I wait for my return flight to China. I feel I have a right to do this because (A.) I am their father and (B.) I am a Portlander by birth.
Portlanders are, uh, a quirky people. As my future son-in-law says, “Portlanders are like a bunch of kindergarteners whose mother allowed them to pick out their own wardrobes for the day.” You can take the Portlander out of Portland, but you can’t take the Portland out of the Portlander. I wear my Portlanderishness proudly wherever I wander.
On this particular trip I’ve managed to pick up two new food buzz phrases: agave syrup and gluten-free baking. I was already familiar with agave for different reasons. If you don’t know already, it’s a vital ingredient in the production of Tequila. Which is a vital ingredient in the production of many Country and Western ballads, both in the writing and the singing thereof.
Agave syrup, or nectar is sweeter than honey (I feel a song coming on) and a popular alternative to sugar or honey, especially in Vegan diets. It’s not as thick as honey and will dissolve easily in cold beverages such as iced tea.
The nutrition label on a popular brand of agave nectar indicates 60 calories in a serving size of 21 grams. It also indicates 5 per cent of the daily value of carbohydrates and 4 per cent of dietary fiber based on a 2000 calorie diet. Thank you, Mr. Science.
In the evolution of our civilization (such as it is) a key turning point was when some guy (or girl) realized plants come from seeds. Which meant that he or she could finally settle down and stop his or her wandering ways.
Development of agriculture led to the science of plant breeding and domestication and refinement of cereal grains. As with any advancement, there is a down side. Celiac disease is one example. Celiac disease is the result of an intolerance to gluten present in grains such as wheat and barley. It is estimated that as many as 1 out of every 22 people is a potential celiac sufferer.
Here are a couple of links to Wikipedia:
Filed under Health, Chinese Medicine, Travel, Culture
Encore!
The following is, by far, the most popular post I’ve written to date. If you missed it, here it is again:
How Do Chinese Use An English Computer Keyboard?
Business cards in China are offered and accepted with both hands. It’s a sign of courtesy and respect. After a couple years of exchanging cards, I’d managed to fill a rather large desk drawer with them. One day a fit of efficiency overtook me and I decided to go in search of a Rolodex or business card organizer. It took longer than I expected; most things do in China.
It wasn’t until I’d made my purchase and returned home that it dawned on me – there is no Chinese “alphabet.” At least, not in the way we think of one. Hence, no way to organize most of my cards. Duh. Which brings me to today’s topic, “How do Chinese use an English computer keyboard?”
Firstly, there are such things as Chinese computer keyboards. However, they’re not standardized and not widely used. There are also writing pad interfaces that work well for Chinese characters. However, most Chinese rely on software to change their keystrokes into Chinese text.
- Chinese and English Keyboard
Perhaps the two most common software transcription methods in mainland China are Wubi and Pinyin. Wubi means “five pen” or “five stroke” and is based on the idea that Chinese characters can be categorized with five fundamental pen strokes. In contrast, the Pinyin method is based on pronunciation of Chinese “syllables.” Each method has advantages and drawbacks.
In it’s simplest form, Wubi could be input with just the number pad of the keyboard: one for horizontal strokes, two for vertical strokes, three for downward right-to-left strokes, four for dot strokes or downward left-to-right strokes, and five for all other strokes. To utilize this method, users must be familiar with the correct order of strokes, which is actually fairly easy to learn.
Once a user has input the correct strokes in the correct order, Wubi software presents a number of possible Chinese characters from which to choose. This method is probably most suited to individuals with Chinese language background.
Pinyin, on the other hand, is a method more suited to individuals with an English language background. Pinyin breaks Chinese down into “Romanized” syllables. However, because Chinese is a tonal language, the user must also be able to select the correct tone for each syllable.
Mandarin Chinese has four basic tones. They are: first tone – “high and level,” second tone – “rising,” third tone – “falling then rising,” and fourth tone – “falling.” There is also a fifth tone which can be thought of as “neutral.” Cantonese is more complex, with between 6 and 9 tones depending upon the dialect.
A classic example of the difference tones make is with the syllable “ma.” With first tone the word means mother, with second tone the word means hemp, with third tone the word is horse, with fourth tone it means scold, and with the fifth tone the word becomes an interrogative often used at the end of a sentence. Here is an example of a “silly sentence” using the word ma.
- Pinyin: māma mà mǎ de má ma?
- English: “Is Mother scolding the horse’s hemp?”
- (source: Wikipedia)
Filed under Education, English as Second Language
2010 In Review
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!.
Crunchy numbers
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,400 times in 2010. That’s about 6 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 41 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 63 posts. There were 112 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 10mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was November 1st with 176 views. The most popular post that day was Photos.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were blogcritics.org, en.wordpress.com, taste4travel.blogspot.com, mail.yahoo.com, and WordPress Dashboard.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for chinese keyboard, how do chinese use an english keyboard, how to make scrambled gee, china great wall wine, and how do chinese use english computer.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
1
Photos October 2010
2
About September 2010
3
How Do Chinese Use An English Computer Keyboard? November 2010
4
Media October 2010
5
Maps November 2010
Filed under Uncategorized
