China Through Amy's Eyes

Girlfriend Amy’s here so the fun has doubled. The woman is an athlete, so the day is not complete without exercise and getting that fulfilled opens lots of possibilities. Her normal route is to run around West Lake, about 6 miles. She usually does that in the morning and the other day was so impressed by the number of people out getting exercise. “China is going to take over the world,” she told me after seeing the over-40 crowd taking care of their health. Later that same morning, she went by the numerous McDonalds and KFC restaurants and saw the places packed with under-40s, exercising gluttony and immitating our western bad habits. “China doesn’t have a chance,” she told me. Ah, China, the land of contrasts.
Amy’s also noticed the lack of organization. At the swimming pool, she stood near a lane to try and find the rhythm. In America, pools organize lanes between the fast and slow and people swim a tight oval. Here, there were at least four lifeguards, but anarchy in the lanes. Twenty people in a lane, each doing their own thing, none of which was the crawl stroke, stopping in the middle, whenever they felt like it or gathering up and plugging the ends of the lanes. She never touched the wall.
Some how, though, we always get what we need. Amy got her swim and the other day, while riding bikes, I got my first flat. We were visiting friends and I had to go to class, but with a flat tire, prospects were dim. I could grab a taxi and leave my bike. But instead, I just walked out the apartment gate and there was a bike repair guy talking on the phone. He pumped me up and I was back on the road, somehow the tire staying full long enough to get to the office. The next day, another guy removed the staple and patched my tire, while I waited, eight minutes, for 60 cents. Without getting his suit jacket dirty.
People do take time for family and others. Drivers and cyclists still yield to the slower travelers among them. Parents and grandparents come get their kids from school, riding with them on their bikes. But the same people who are patient with traffic seem to transform in the supermarket. Before taking produce to the checkout lane, one must first have it weighed and priced. When the store is crowded, it’s a veritable shoving match to get your bags weighed.

The Y+ office had its Christmas Party. The staff invited friends for the performance of the Christmas favorite Snow White. Mostly this was an excuse to dress up, but after class they emptied the studio and took their best shot. But in an office where nearly everyone is a woman, the seven dwarves were all female and I have to say what they lacked in sneezing, sleeping and grumpiness, they made up for in cute. The better show was a gender bent rendition of Red Riding Hood where a woman played the wolf and a guy named King played Red. For our part, Amy read “The Night Before Chirstmas,” I acted out the narrator’s moves and Ian played a dredlocked Santa. We finished the night by devouring 40 pounds of fruit piled in a huge Tupperwear box.

Christmas was not the usual affair either. For my birthday the day before, my acupuncturist friend Joseph Wang took Amy and I to tea where we sampled different varieties and had a nice fish ball and egg custard. I had to teach in the evening but after, Amy and I got sushi and foot massages. Joseph invited us to a restaurant called Yosemite but we declined. The day after, he told us of his disappointing experience. Not only did they not have the promised free table when he arrived, but the advertised western food didn’t appear and the tacos were quickly consumed by aggressive patrons. That left him with cold Chinese food and a tiny cup of complimentary juice. “Not even coffee,” he said. So much for dinner at the Hotel California.

Amy and I went to the Silk Market. The place is world famous and has all garments made of silk. I offered to buy her a dress or something nice for Christmas. She offered me a shirt but somehow, we’re both over consumed. We both know full well that while I might wear a nice shirt once in a while, she has precious few excuses to wear a dress. Besides, we both have plenty of clothes. Instead, we went across the street to the giant market of non-silk stuff and bought some combo laser penlights for her colleagues. They apparently run $60 at Office Max, but we got them for $2.50.

One of the visitors to the yoga studio invited us to her Christmas party. Lindi grew up in Georgia and after college taught at her old highschool for a year but cashed that in for China. That was several years ago, now she lives here, teaching music and Chinese. It was a nice mixed culture party and she made another bread pudding in her toaster oven. Her Chinese boyfriend Owen came with news that he’d just bought a new Volkswagon. He works for a company that sells blankets to Walmart, a company he agrees is challenging to negotiate with, but worth it as they order huge volumes. Enough for him to buy outright a new car for about $28,000. Sean says owning a car is a huge jump in status for anyone around here, but having both owned cars, we each agreed that we easily trade status for simplicity. Bikes are normally faster around here, at least for the short commutes we take. And although rain is certainly an annoyance, we’ll take the occasional storm over the daily traffic jams.

Let me leave you with one last vignette. When Amy and I were riding the subway in Shanghai, an older Chinese guy approached us. Here’s how the conversation went.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“America,” I said.
“Do you speak French?”

This question stopped me and I had to sort through several languages to answer him.
“Yes,” I said before reaching for Chinese. “Uh dui.” Followed finally by sputtering: “Oui,” it finally came. Then for ten minutes, we conversed in French, as people stood amused by our animated conversation. Like my friend He Yin, this guy had taught himself French by watching TV and listening to the radio. Now he worked as a translator. I never knew the value of learning other languages and in high school getting me to Spanish class was a chore. But having put in the time, being semi-lingual in a second language is a gas. I’m sure this is a common experience among the multi-lingual and I will apologize now to my Spanish teacher. Had I only known…isn’t it always like that?

Happy New Year! - John

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