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Published: March 18th 2008
As we write this blog, our neighbours are trying to control a fire they just started in their backyard/junkyard. About 20 minutes ago, they brought over a dozen or so bales of hay from a truck, sat them in some bushes, and then lit them. I assume that they are trying to burn away the bushes - they've been removing old bricks, scrap iron and other junk from other parts of their yard for a couple of weeks now, and planting vegetables in the cleared ground. Their toddler kids having been doing their part too, going out in the morning to pee in the veggie patch, and often helping to pull away smaller bits of wood and rubbish for mum and dad.
The entire family is really terribly cute. Every time we walk past to go to the shops, we say 'Nǐ hǎo' to each other, smile and wave. Dad and mum push the kids around on toy plastic carts, and chase the the little tykes when they make a break for the street. In the morning, mum draws water from the well with a yellow plastic bucket, and then puts the wooden lid back on top of the well.
Woopsy Daisy
Even the best laid plans can go astrayNow though one of the children is crying and another is lifting a bucket of water as big as he is. The adults are running around dousing the flames with buckets of water, the city view has disappeared behind a thick blanket of smoke, and we are...... taking photos from our window. There only appears to be mild pandemonium, so we're not too concerned.
Never let it be said that there is no entertainment available in China.
The Beautiful People Have Arrived
The Chinese people like westerners (or at least those that we've met do). The Chinese teachers and kids at our school have been so hospitable and friendly, it makes you wonder if we'd be so well treated anywhere else in the world, simply for being foreigners. Perhaps we've been fortunate in choosing to settle in Jiāxīng - a city which is not really on the tourist map. I think we get to see the real China here, not just the places which cater for tourists and buffer you from talking to locals.
Having said all this, you don't always know how to react to people who seem to just
like you. Emma
is told on nearly a daily basis that she is beautiful. Before we started teaching, one of the Chinese teachers told her class that they would have a beautiful English teacher. After they had their first lesson with Emma, they came back to the Chinese teacher and said, "She is beautiful...she is like a doll... but longer.....” The Chinese teachers have also given me the Chinese name Yīng Jùn
(as a joke) which means handsome. Some of the teachers are just the loveliest people you've ever met - all they want to do is talk to you and get to know you.
Which brings me to my next point: the people here are very tactile. Boys walk around the school grounds holding hands, fingers interlocked. When teaching a class the boys often have an arm around each other, or they're wrestling, lying on their friend's shoulder, or prodding each other with their fingers. Girls are similarly affectionate with each other, but you expect it a little more of them. Strangely though, the boys and girls that we teach (who are 14 and 15 years old) generally don't like to sit next to, talk to or interact in any
way with the opposite sex. It reminds me of kids in Australia when they are about 10, being scared of getting 'girls germs' and arguing about whether boys or girls are better. Inevitably when pairing boys and girls together in a class, you end up having to drag someone to their partner, while they struggle. I tend to think that some of their struggles are just for show though... the hormones have got to kicking in for some of them.
Lost in Translation
At the moment we get taken out for dinner with the Chinese teachers at least once a week. So far we have eaten: chicken feet, ants roasted on a bed of pine nuts, duck tongue (with part of the beak still attached), frogs, cow's lung, stinky tofu and probably a few other things we didn't know we were eating at the time. Disappointingly, none of this really gets a reaction from us anymore. I think we might be going native.
A few days ago we went out for dinner with three teachers and some of their friends. Perhaps we were naïve, but we didn't realise that we would be the focus of the evening.
Newer style building in the centre of Shanghai
* Ooops! Actually an older style building :) Thanks for the comment pointing this out. The teachers' friends were businessmen, one of whom didn't speak English. They had lots of questions about where we were from, before our first curve ball: 10 - 15 minutes of compliments in Chinese about Emma's elegance and beauty (translated for us by one of the teachers). This was then followed by invitations to visit the businessmen's factory, their home town in Hunan, the birthplace of Confucius, Beijing and anywhere else in China we'd like to go with them.
Not being accustomed to being the center of attention for a long time, we sort of stammered our way through thankyou's, but didn't quite know how to respond to this avalanche of compliments and generosity. We thought that we would love to travel around China with these guys, but would probably need to know them a little longer than 30 minutes first. The sheer quantity and insistence of compliments and offers totally caught us off guard though: what are you supposed to say?
What we didn't know though was that you're not
really expected to take these invitations seriously. It is a Chinese cultural practice to invite acquaintances to their house, place of work, favourite karaoke joints, supermarket, dog
Streets of Jiāxīng
From one of our wanderings kennel or whatever other place they can think of. To show that you are hospitable in turn, you respond by saying that you would like to come, if only you had the time, but that you also have work or other engagements in the next few days. Then after the meal everyone declares that they would love to meet again, they swap details and promise to see each other soon before going their separate ways. People may not then meet for a long time, if at all, but this is the way it's done. How do you know if an invitation is an actual invitation? By whether the invitee sets a date. If a date is mentioned, you can consider it a real invitation.
The compliments though, are different to the invitations. Chinese people tell their guests that they are beautiful if they literally think they are beautiful. It's not like when western people pick an aspect of a person's appearance and compliment it, like a womans earrings or shoes. Though westerners usually like that part of the person's appearance, often it is said out of politeness. Though we didn't know at the time, you should respond to Chinese
Fisherpeople
Making their way up one of Jiāxīng's canals. compliments by saying “Nǎli, nǎli”, which sort of means “Don't mention it”.
It's one of the mysteries of the Orient as far as I'm concerned, but fascinating nonetheless.
Free Chinese Lessons and Bubble Tea
Since we only live an hour away from Shanghai, we recently spent the weekend there with two other foreign teachers. It is a city where the ultra-modern sits next to the relics of another time (Note: that time is circa 1800's, which the Chinese consider recent history, and Australians consider it ancient history). It's where the Porsche dealership is down the road from the Mercedes dealership, which is 20m around the corner from a slum. The contrast of rich and poor, old and new is nowhere more apparent than in Shanghai. Though there are a lot of warnings about looking after your possessions, and not following strangers, the Chinese people we met and talked to were their usual beautiful selves.
For those that are interested, Shanghai also has a very rich and sordid history. The Chinese emperors conceded lands to foreign powers in Shanghai when they lost the Opium Wars, and as a result the British and French had areas of
Check out the Ferrari
Yes, the ferrari dealership is really down the road from the slums Shanghai which were all their own, upon which they constructed banks, hotels, merchant houses, opium dens and brothels. On these lands Chinese law did not apply, and they were policed by expatriate police forces. This was the case for a few hundred years until after the communists gained control of China, and China shut its doors to the rest of the world for three decades. As a result, in Shanghai about 100,000 Chinese opium addicts went cold turkey overnight.
Now Shanghai is an ultramodern shopping Mecca. You can get western stuff there, which is partially why we went, because I needed an Aussie football ('gǎn làn qiù ' or 'olive football' is the Chinese term) which we couldn't find in Jiāxīng. We couldn't find it in Shanghai either, so Mum's going to send me one (Thanks Mum).
The weather wasn't superb when we were there, but we spent a very pleasant couple of days wandering the streets, visiting 'the bund' - home to the famous Shanghai skyline - and of course, indulging in some snacks from the street vendors. One of our favourite things to drink is something called 'Bubble Tea'. This is a very sweet, very milky
My first Chinese Haircut
No English required, and all for $1.50 AUS. Yes I still have my ears. tea served with some kind of chewy dough pieces in the bottom - hence the bubbles. You drink it warm in a plastic cup using an extra wide straw.
We decided to try to order everything in Chinese (Mandarin) in Shanghai, but were a bit limited. I could say "I want this" and point at something, and also say "How much is it altogether?" but that was about our limit. Of course, I also have my favourite all-purpose phrase "I don't speak Chinese very well" which always gets a smile. So it was when I ordered our bubble tea, and the Chinese storekeeper said some words I didn't understand with "Duōshǎo" (which means how many). I said "èr" (2) and he repeated something incomprehensible back to me. I told him I didn't speak Chinese very well.
Next I got a free Chinese lesson on ordering Bubble Tea. He pointed to a cup and said "Nǎichā" (bubble tea). I repeated. He then held up one finger and said "Yī bēi" (one cup). I repeated. He then held up two fingers and said "Liǎng bēi" (two cups). I repeated. I then said "I want one cup of bubble tea" (Wǒ
yào yī bēi nǎichā). He gave a tremendous grin, nodded, and started making bubble tea for me.
It was the start of another great day in China.
This has been a not uncommon occurrence during our time in China. The people are willing to help out with anything it seems. Hence the title of the blog "It's Asia Jim, but not as we know it". Emma and I have been to a handful of Asian countries now: Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan and China. We expected China to be most like the neighbouring Vietnam and Thailand, and less like the more developed Singapore, Japan and Taiwan, but what we've found is a place that is unlike anywhere else we have visited so far. The people here all seem to be tremendously friendly and open. We haven't been anywhere where you can be better treated as a foreigner, particularly if you speak a little of the language. In Australia, you often hear about the criticisms made of China as a country, but I think that meeting the people has given us a more balanced view. Perhaps we are just in the honeymoon period, but I think China certainly
has a lot to offer the world.
Note: The third tone in Pīnyīn does not always display on this site yet. We're working on it 😊
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wiley
non-member comment
Way to Go!
Another Chinese lesson....Actually,Na icha means milk tea. The way to order bubble tea may be ZhenZhu(pearl)-Na icha, you could try this way, see if it works as in Taiwan. Btw, excellent school life,eh!? All the best