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Published: January 3rd 2006
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Christmas Day
I get to sing Deck the Halls and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with my K8 class in Wal-mart. It's been a little while since my last entry. Things here keep getting more and more normalized by the day. I just read my messages and while I don't really think Chinese are distant they do work their asses off enough that work becomes life. This is said in the most literal of senses. I've never seen people that work so hard as the Chinese do. They don't have time to celebrate or have fun they just work. The children work so hard that if you ask them what they do in their free time the answer is "eat and sleep" and that is literally what they do. They get up and do homework before they go to school (they may grab a quick piece of bread for breakfast) and then have school and other classes until the evening and then work their asses off doing homework again until really late at night (and I'm not just talking about high school kids I'm talking about everyone). I miss a country where you could actually have a decent conversation with a kid about what they do in their free time. I miss a country where holidays are actually celebrated and not just
Santa Craig
Wal-mart needed a Santa and Craig was good for the spot, so he took it. by everyone walking around doing their normal things but saying "Happy New Year" or whatever else. As I e-mailed a friend of mine:
No one knows how to celebrate like the Indians
No one knows how to dance like the Hispanics
No one knows how to cook like the Europeans
I know these are generalizations but to some extent they seem to take over the culture of these people because they are so obviously present.
I had a bad dream last night. There was some possibly Chinese boy - who was somehow my Aunt Debbie's son. He had received a toy as a prize and wanted to show Debbie (his mom). Once she saw the toy she immediately took it away from him without even thinking. Her comment was "I don't think you need to be spending time on Friday playing with this. You need to be spending time doing your homework instead. I'm going to take it." There was no tone in her voice that she was joking or taking it for herself to play with. Aunt Norma was also there agreeing with her. I felt like the boy was really my cousin and that Norma
New Year's Eve
Anothe blinker (Paul) but it's a great picture of Camillo. He's in the middle of drawing a picture of me. We are all at Noah's Ark (a primarily foreign bar in town). and Debbie were betraying my faith in them (or something like that) when they took the toy away and so I got really mad. I was shocked they thought he needed more homework than what he already had. This story depicts the transparency of what I've experienced of Chinese culture onto my father's side of my family.
We were sitting down to dinner on New Year's Day and I realized that there was nothing really special about the day. Everyone thought it was such a big day - and kids had one or two days off school for the occasion but no one was doing anything different. Kids were at home studying and doing homework, parents were off doing errands or shopping or at work and tourists were walking around doing their usual. There were some fireworks New Year's Eve but nothing really special. In the States we seem to actually celebrate a little when there's a holiday. Either the whole family gets together and does something special or there are special events going on all day or something happens that makes that day different from all the rest - whether or not it's a school day. This is definitely not the case for China. In fact the only holiday they really seem to celebrate is Chinese New Year. Craig reminded me that many holidays are religious and one isn't allowed to celebrate one's religion here but still there are other holidays that we celebrate in the states that aren't religious - just look at July 4th and Halloween - although it has a religious background there's nothing really religious about the given day. It's very strange and almost monotonous to go through the year and not celebrate anything.
Yesterday I had my first run-in with the culture police. Yang Dan had sent me a text message in Chinese while I was at the Salon and I didn't know all of it so I asked Yenson who almost immediately started texting her himself. I thought it was great that the two of them were texting each other - they're both really great people and I'd love it if they got together. So I just left them to it. But later Alex asked about it and started pestering me about getting him a girlfriend (as a joke). Yang Dan called a little while later and I said something that I didn't mean to but it translated as "Do you have Xiao Peng's phone number? Alex is looking for a girlfriend and I'd really think it would be cool if they met" (in America this is perfectly fine but in Chinese culture this is not okay at all). She told me to give the phone to Alex and told him to call 1861 (a phone number you call that tells you that the person who gave you the number is not intersted in you at all - there are a bunch of these kind of phone numbers in the States). This was an extreme insult to Alex even though Yang Dan was basically joking. It took the next little while for me to call Yang Dan back and get her to apologize to Alex (who didn't want to talk to her at all at first and then took the phone). Camillo got upset at Yang Dan for saying this to his good friend Alex. I got upset because Camillo should have been upset with me instead of Yang Dan because it was my mistake not hers. After talking to Yang Dan the second time Alex was okay but it took a little while for Camillo and I to be okay with things. It was a real mess.
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Dwight Morris
non-member comment
I guess it's the little things...
Interesting that you'd get confused by the cultural differences in the way you describe. I'd never have thought about it. This is part of the "learning process" that takes place anywhere, I suspect; although, it is more apt to happen in China or India than Costa Rica, for example. I wouldn't beat yourself up on it. Your intentions were good. Love, Dad