Monday, February 26, 2007

Bad Language



I imagine that native speakers of Chinese enjoy a few laughs over the meaningless Chinese characters that are used to decorate t-shirts and cushion covers in the rest of the world. They are probably especially amused when people actually tatoo random words onto themselves: "wind" or "east" or "endurance". Similarly I love the mangled English language posted on signs and shopfronts everywhere in China. I mean really, there are so many native speakers here, many of them actually teaching English, that it should be possible to find someone to copy edit, especially when you are about to print thousands of brochures or make signs that millions of foreign tourists will read. But apparently not. So visitors to Du Fu's thatched cottage in Chengdu are given a "warm prompt" not to touch anything, and are offered a choice of trash cans labelled "recycle" and "unrecycle". And when I first visited the Great Wall in 1985 I came away with a souvenir ticket that stated "I have mounted the Great Wall".

Here are some of my other favourites and I will keep this post updated as I spot more.

Hairdressers shop: "Workmanlike Century Scissors"
Noodle restaurant: "Face Maintaining Noodle"
Sign on hotel step: "Caution the Stair"
Sign in hotel bathroom: "Please slip carefully"

Sign on pedestrian walkway:



This one is a boutique!
At an antiques market:
Some poor woman is going to buy this sweater and walk around town in it:


Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Food and Fireworks

It is now the 4th day of the year of the pig. I love the fact that at this time of year people here seem to work only on the lunar calendar and lose track completely of the Gregorian calendar. So if you ask someone when their restaurant will open again after the holiday, and say "will you be open by February 20?" or even "by next Tuesday?", they will really have to think about it and maybe consult a calendar before they figure it out, but they will tell you right off the bat: "we open again on chu ba" (the 8th day of the year).

We decided not to go travelling over the holiday, despite giving serious consideration to a trip to Cambodia and various options inside China. Then we thought we might go ski-ing at the nearest ski mountain, or even just to the wildlife park for the day. But the weather is too warm for much snow and we heard that half the animals at the park recently died.... Plus we decided that everything would be too crowded and too tiring so we ended up staying at home. This may sound unadventurous but it has actually been a very pleasant few days, in which the main attractions have been the food and the fireworks.

On New Year's Eve we went with a big group of friends to a restaurant just outside the city owned by our friend Yong. She bought the place in a scenic area of villages and countryside about 20 minutes drive south of here. The area has been restored and developed as a tourist attraction, with teahouses, artificial lakes, nursery plantations, cute village houses painted all over with giant flowers and other attractions. It is actually quite attractive, although nothing like any genuine village: not enough mud or garbage. We toured the area in a crawling convoy of vehicles, riding with friends who work at the US Consulate in their gigantic Ford 4WD, a vehicle so enormous that we could have driven comfortably right over the top of the entire scenic area without feeling a bump.

We reached the restaurant at around 6, in time for drinks and dinner, which included spit-roast lamb, but that was just a preliminary to the main attraction: noise! As soon as dusk fell the entire village exploded in a firework frenzy. This started with someone accidentally setting off a bunch of fireworks right in the courtyard of the restaurant, causing everyone to jump out of their skins and most of the kids to jump into their parent's arms. After that we nervously settled down to watch a massive display of noise and light that seemed to be coming from the house next door. Our friend Jonny went off to check and reported that this was in fact the case: some guy was lighting them out of his back door and he had 12 more boxes lined up to go.

It was a spectacular display, similar to what you see in New York on July 4th, only right above your head instead of miles away over the Hudson River. But it was too much for Sam, who quivered on my lap, wide-eyed with astonishment. Then people started handing out strings of tiny firecrackers to all the kids and encouraging them to swing them around their heads as they went off! Isaac preferred to hold his gingerly at arms's length, until a man helpfully came along and vigorously swung his arm for him, which ended in tears when a spark caught him on the arm. Sam was also yelping with alarm as the noise-level escalated, so we decided it was time to retreat. As we headed for the car, a small sweet-faced girl of about 7 was purposefully handing out firecrackers to everyone from a huge box.

The children were fine as soon as the noise was on the other side of a window instead of right in their faces. On the way home our friends Cindy and Dave told us that they had been sleeping in the basement of their house all week because of the noise of fireworks right outside their window until 2 every morning. The noise has not been so bad where we live luckily, because we don't have a basement we could retreat to if it was. But that night it was fairly constant, and at midnight the whole city seemed to explode! It's been a similar story ever since; from time to time we run to the windows to catch the latest spectacular display, but we have become blase as the days wear on.

In addition to enjoying the fireworks and hanging out with the children, we have been ordering Chinese take-out this week. This may seem obvious but it is not something we have ever done before here. We either eat at home, western food that I cook, or we go out, usually to eat Chinese food in one of the gazillion restaurants around town, but often to one of the western places. Both Ethan and I were a bit fed up of the western food on offer and hankering for some really good Chinese, but not really wanting to deal with Sam wriggling on our laps and crawling around the greasy floor of a restaurant. So on Tuesday Ethan went out on his bike and came home with a feast. This is what we ate:

- Chilli chicken with peanuts, an old favorite from our student days, hard to beat when it's done properly, although in Sichuan you have to manouevre your way among the Sichuan peppercorns
- chicken soup with gingko nuts, mmmmm, did you know the ginko tree is one of the oldest on the planet and the only surviving one of its genus?
- another chicken dish with mushrooms soaked in tea, sounds wierd but tasted fantastic
- dry-cooked grean beans, another old stand-by, hard to beat
- delicous crunchy green vegetables

It was all so good we decided that we have to make the most of being here and be more adventurous in trying new restaurants and dishes every week. So we did it again tonight, not quite as successfully as the duck was suffering from terminal Sichuan chilli pepper poisoning, but still mostly good! I am going to start a kitchen scrapbook of the best places and dishes we find.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Year of the Golden Fire Pig

Best wishes to everyone for the year of the pig, which starts on February 18. Not just any old pig either, but a Golden Fire Pig, something that only occurs once every 600 years in the Chinese zodiac. Apparently children born under this sign will live in comfort with wealth and luck always nearby, and as a result hospitals and clinics across China and Korea are seeing a 20-50% increase in pregnant women registering as patients. I was skeptical about this but it turns out that two of Ethan’s Chinese staff are planning to have babies this year! Interestingly, it is a very black year in the Tibetan calendar, one in which they predict terrible things will happen, leading to some discussion between Ethan’s Tibetan and Chinese staff. One of the Tibetans said, “what’s so lucky about pigs anyway? They just get fattened up to be eaten!” You can read more if you care to at www.firepig.com.

Perhaps because it’s a special year, or just because pigs are such a popular animal over here, China has really gone to town with the pig-themed decorations. The whole city is full of pigs: pink fluffy pigs, brassy golden pigs, 20 foot high inflatable pigs - there’s no danger of forgetting what year it is. But at least there are no actual livestock, so far. Two years ago many of our neighbours bought roosters to celebrate the year of the chicken, resulting in a dawn chorus of crowing that gradually diminished as the birds went into the pot. Last year the number of pet dogs around town seemed to increase as well, some no doubt ending up in the same place as the roosters. This year we are assuming the process will not be repeated with pigs as they are not so easy to keep in an apartment, not to mention the possibility of swine fever. Although, that is one of these health scares which, like bird flu, seems to have faded away without becoming the world-wide epidemic it was predicted to be. Fingers crossed. But I do see a pattern emerging here: perhaps these health scares are actually linked not to Chinese farming methods but to the Chinese zodiac? If so, be on the look-out for a rat-related health scare next year …..bubonic plague perhaps?

We are staying here in Chengdu for the holiday and it will be nice to have a quiet week at home. Very quiet in fact as many people leave the city and go home to the countryside. However, the people who do stay in the city will be setting off a lot of fireworks, so when it's noisy, it's really noisy. The streets are already noticeably emptier, especially compared to the hectic bustle of the past few weeks, when everyone was frantically shopping for gifts and new clothes to take home. It's traditional for everyone to have a new outfit for the new year, although Xiao Long's daughter is only having new sneakers this year because she did not do as well as usual in her end of term exams. She only scored 85% on her mathematics exam, which is apparently bordering on disgraceful.

Xiao Long has gone home for two weeks. At the beginning of the week I felt a bit overwhelmed to be back in full-time housework and childcare mode, but I am really enjoying hanging out with the boys. They are still getting along great guns, despite the odd territorial skirmish. Sam has just started walking and staggers along with both hands held out in front like a miniature Egyptian Mummy in a horror film. Isaac has taught him to respond to the question “where’s Mama?” by sticking his finger up his nose, which Isaac thinks is the funniest thing on the planet, and that makes Sam scream with laughter as well. Of course he responds to “where’s Dada?” or Isaac or Ayi by pointing at the correct person.

Right now Sam can say about equal numbers of English and Chinese words, a handful of each, to the immense pride of our housekeeper or “ayi”, Xiao Long, who gives him intensive coaching on the Chinese side. He can’t pronounce ‘m’ so he calls me baba instead of mama and this confuses the heck out of everyone because it is Chinese for Daddy. So we get a lot of conversations like these:

Xiao Long: "Sam, say Mama"
Sam: "Baba"
XL: "No, not Baba, Baba's not here, say Mama"
Sam: "Baba!"
Isaac: "Sam, where's Mama?"
Sam sticks finger up nose. General hilarity.

It’s interesting to see how the first words differ in the two languages. Leaving aside mama and dada, in English Sam can say dog, bee, apple, moo and Buddha (see below!). In Chinese he can say ayi (aunty), che (car), yu (fish), ge-ge (older brother) and jie-jie (older sister). Note that three out of the 5 are terms of address for people. This is important because from birth children here learn to address other children by one of four terms: ge-ge (older brother), jie-jie (older sister), di-di (younger brother) or mei-mei (younger sister). This is not just for family members but for every child: friend or stranger. When your child meets another child you are supposed to say “call her mei-mei” or “call him ge-ge” and the child learns to dutifully pipe up “mei-mei” or whatever. The same applies to adults: you teach your child to address them as aunty, uncle, grandma, grandpa etc. But I find the terms of address for children especially interesting because they require the child to look at the other person and decide whether he or she is older or younger, and that determines the nature of the relationship. You have to think: is this person an “older brother” who is going to look after me and I have to show some respect to, or a “younger sister” whom I have to look after? It’s all part of the Confucian social hierarchy and you carry on doing it all your life, to some extent. Although of course rules are made to be broken, even in China.

You may be wondering why one of Sam’s first words is “Buddha”. We are as well to be honest. He says it many times a day: “booo-daaaa”, grinning and staring up at the bronze Buddha statue on top of the bookshelf. Now, there are two interpretations of this. One is that it is an easy word to say and he enjoys the enthusiastic reaction it gets from us. The other is that sometime soon a big Tibetan Lama is going to walk in here and declare him the reincarnation of another big Tibetan Lama and whisk him off to a monastery for the rest of his days. I’ll keep you posted.

Friday, February 09, 2007

Old Foreigners: Exceed the Birth Quota and Own Too Much Stuff

After two and half years we feel very settled in Chengdu and have made good friends. The ex-pat community is small enough to be very friendly and it feels like whenever we go out we bump into people we know. The ex-pat community is important because no matter how long we live in China, or how many Chinese friends we have, we will always be foreigners. This is how they see us, as much as how we see ourselves. Depending on the day and the nature of the exchange, the differences can seem interesting and amusing, or significant and divisive. The foreigner thing used to annoy me because I was translating it into a western context and imagining us calling out “foreigner!” or even less polite terms in English whenever we saw someone from another country at home. I’ve decided that it doesn’t really translate like that, it’s just part of the Chinese habit of stating the obvious. Just as they say “you’re going out” if they see you on your bicycle, or “you’re eating dinner” if they see you in a restaurant, so they say loudly to each other, “there’s a foreigner” or “haloooo old foreigner” or “there’s an old foreigner with baby in a backpack” whenever they catch sight of us.

Similarly they just cannot stop themselves from commenting on our children. Usually this is “two boys! Aren’t you lucky!”, an attitude which does not seem to have changed much with modernization. Often it’s: “you’ve exceeded the birth quota!” although that is usually said tongue-in-cheek. In fact in the part of town where we live there are many wealthy people who run their own businesses or work for private companies and have more than one child. They are fined but happily pay up. It is really only government employees who will lose their jobs if they have a second. There is often a large gap between the children, 10 years or more, as if it took that long for the parents to change their jobs or become financially secure enough to have another.

The subject Chinese people have most to say on, however, is whether the children are wearing enough clothing. It’s some kind of reflex with them. They approach Sam, say how cute he is, then feel his hands or feet, or his leg to see how many layers he is wearing, then they have to say something, no matter how warm the day or how happy he seems, they just have to say: “his hands are cold, he isn’t wearing enough” or “he’s only wearing four layers!” or “he should be wearing woolen pants”. I mean, everyone worries that perhaps they are not doing the right thing by their children, but it’s a bit much when 1.2 billion people seem to be telling you so.

This matter did become clearer to me, however, after we went to Xiao Long’s home for lunch recently. I realized talking with her family that Sichuan people are used to living without any heating as it is a very recent addition to their lives. In the north of China people have always had heat but not here. Even if they have a heater, they don’t turn it on and they like to keep the windows open, so it is actually colder inside than out: a damp, bone-freezing chill, like a foggy English winter morning. That’s why they eat everything laden with chilli and wear so many layers of clothes - it’s the only way to stay warm. This applies especially to small children, who are wrapped up in layer upon layer. To the extent that several people told me in the autumn that Sam would not learn to walk until the spring when we started to take some clothes off him, because in the winter he would be wearing too many layers to stand upright! I have actually started to put more clothes on him that I think is really necessary, just to keep people satisfied, though not enough to prevent him from learning to walk. I just hope this doesn’t mean he will grow up needing to live in thermal underwear all year round. Anyway, now I’ve accepted that this is just something they have to do, I am less irritated by it. I think perhaps it is even a way of trying to be kind and show concern. So now I just shrug and smile, or sometimes ask if their children’s backsides aren’t cold, seeing as they are hanging out of their 10 layers of clothing?

The other thing the lunch with Xiao Long brought home to me is why she so often comments on how much stuff we have. She is always sighing, shaking her head and saying “too much” and I never really understood why. I mean we have much less stuff than at home because we only shipped a limited amount, although we have added to it. But at her home I understood: it was pretty much empty. I mean, it was furnished with beds, closets, tables and chairs but there wasn’t any clutter, nothing else lying around, no books, no toys really in her daughter’s room, no pictures, no decorations apart from the rather forlorn looking candle-holder I bought her for her birthday. No wonder she thinks we have a lot of stuff.

Last Sunday we went out for the day with friends of ours, the Dallas family, to visit their ayi Xiao Yang and her family in their village about 20 minutes drive out of the city. They are in an interesting position because they are still farming their land even though they all have jobs in Chengdu, but they are poised to become fully urbanized, or sub-urbanized very soon as the area is scheduled for construction, and within two years it will be absorbed into the rapidly expanding cityscape. Where Xiao Long lives is several stages along, it’s an area that has been developed but still has uncompleted roads, tracts of wasteland and small plots of farmland scattered around. As a result its not too safe and in fact she was burgled not long ago when two guys climbed up the drainpipes on the outside of the building and onto their balcony, then sneaked into the apartment and stole cash and cell-phones from the living room while they slept. Her husband tried to give chase but they got away. Apparently they targeted the apartment because the air conditioner suggested the family were relatively well-off. In that situation it's useful not to have a lot of stuff.

The family we visited last weekend doesn’t seem to own any stuff either, not even much furniture, although they also doing relatively well. Their home is a concrete block with 4 or 5 rooms, and the 2 or 3 we saw were actually empty, maybe a chair or two but nothing else, although they had moved the dining table and chairs outside to eat because it was a nice day. the family were extremely hospitable and we ate a delicious lunch, sitting outside on the grass looking at a sludge pit surrounded by weeds and trash. You should come here in the spring, they said, when the trees are out it's even more beautiful. They were serious, and the funny thing was that as the day wore on and we went exploring around the village and fishing in the sludge pit (atually an aquaculture pond, although no fish were biting!), it did start to look attractive in a dusty kind of way. We went home at the end of the day laden with enormous flat cabbages they had grown, and feeling like we’d had a really great day out in the country. It’s sad to think it will all be gone soon, along with much of the agricultural land around the city. A Chinese friend of ours owns a restaurant in the next-door village and that will not be destroyed because the government recently invested a lot of money in renovating it as a leisure destination for city folks. This same friend said that she thinks China won’t be an agricultural country for much longer at the current rate of urban expansion, although goodness knows where they will import all the veg. from.

Yes, we do have friends who don’t work for us! But I have written a lot about Xiao Long and the other ayis because their lives are typical of the average family, and they are in the process of transitioning from rural to urban life, like so many others in China. I continue to enjoy Xiao Long's company although she has become much more direct with me. Like all Chinese people she is very forthright and recently she has started lecturing me about how much stuff we own. She told me last week that we spend as much on fruit each month as her entire salary, which is definitely not true by the way. She also said that Isaac owns more toys than all her family’s belongings put together. Now that I’ve been to her house I think this one might possibly be true