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Different in China?

Via my Facebook feed, I came across an article in the International Herald Tribune by a Chinese-American women whose biracial children were occasionally stared at during a trip to China. From this small sample of anecdotal evidence, the author muses about, in succession, the ethnic homogeneity of Chinese society, the “lack of privacy” in such a crowded country, and the general Chinese affection for children. She then concludes with a few tried and true suggestions for parents whose young children are the unwilling objects of attention.

I can’t complain much about the theme of the article: taking personal experiences in a foreign country and making sweeping generalizations comprises the bulk of several blogs, including this one. But think about it- is there anything particularly strange about racial minorities being stared at? The author herself grants that a biracial relative attracted curious stares in cosmopolitan New York City. Why should Beijing be any different?

As a rather tall, broad-shouldered, and fair-skinned man, I’m not unfamiliar with being stared at in China. I imagine that mixed Chinese/white kids face a certain amount of grief from bigoted racial purity fanatics. But I don’t agree with the implication that somehow the idea that people of different races occasionally breed is especially mind-blowing to the Chinese. The proliferation of Chinese/foreigner relationships (the subject of a friend’s recent sociology thesis) should put such ideas to rest.

Posted 07 May 2008 † matt_schiavenza § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (1)

Chinese Perceptions of the West- and Vice Versa

A bit of a thought experiment here. What perceptions (misguided or otherwise) would the average Chinese person have of the US? What perceptions would the average American have of China?

Of course, there are lots of people with a foot in both countries, so for the sake of this experiment lets cast them out. By “average”, let’s say a reasonably well-educated person who has never lived in the other country but follows the news and is susceptible to the biases in their respective media. Let’s further assume that the “average” Chinese or “average” American possesses no extremist political leanings and is generally patriotic and law-abiding.

What does the “average” Chinese person think of America? A few guesses:
-American concern for the plight of the Tibetans is a red herring, as the US government is primarily motivated by an a priori fear and resentment toward China.

-The American political system is neither inferior or superior to the Chinese one, just different. America, though, believes that its democracy should be adopted throughout the world, posing a threat to the sovereignty of countries such as China.

-American economic strength, while derived from exploiting the resources of other nations, should nonetheless be emulated in China.

-American cultural exports harm traditional Chinese values to a certain extent, but this effect is mostly benign.

-American criticism of China’s relations with other countries is hypocritical and unfair.

-Mao Zedong was a national hero who united China after a century of division and humiliation at the hands of enemies, both external and internal. His mistakes during his tenure do not diminish his constructive role in Chinese history.

-China’s problems are largely caused by malevolent foreign interference, not by internal governance.

-Americans are militant nationalists who are suspicious of foreigners due to its biased media.

-American hamburgers and French fries taste good, and American movies are cool.

And the American perception of China?

-China is very close to becoming a major economic and military power and poses a threat to American dominance of the post-Cold War world order

-China is rigidly controlled by a malignant government who oppresses the individual rights of the people and uses force to suppress any dissent. As a result, the Chinese are mostly unthinking automatons.

-China’s role in Tibet is nothing short of neo-colonialism. The Dalai Lama is a man of peace and should be allowed to govern Tibet unmolested by the Chinese.

-China plays an unconstructive role in world affairs due to its reluctance to pressure rogue regimes in Africa (Sudan, Zimbabwe, etc.) and Asia (Burma, North Korea).

-A new Cold War is possible, though not inevitable. Nonetheless the two countries are poised to become adversaries despite paying lip service to mutual cooperation.

-The Communist Party is unpopular, and is vulnerable to collapse in a popular uprising. The Chinese would prefer an American-style multi-party democracy.

-Mao Zedong was a villainous murderer on par with Hitler and Stalin who ruined his country through megalomania and economic mismanagement. The Chinese will not advance unless they repudiate him further.

-The Chinese are militant nationalists suspicious of foreigners due to its biased media.

-Chinese food tastes good, and kung fu movies are cool.

I don’t mean to endorse any of the above, and am just fleshing out what I see are common perceptions that citizens in each country have of the other.

What’s spot on? What’s off-base?

Posted 05 May 2008 † matt_schiavenza § China and World ‡ Comments (7)

How I Got Here…The Long Short Version

The other night I met a group of Peace Corps volunteers, all based in rural southwest China. They had come to Kunming to sample the nightlife and indulge in Western treats unavailable in their Chinese hometowns, and were playing cards and drinking beer. One turned to me and asked the usual question, “so how long have you been in China?”
“Going on four years”
“Wow, that’s a long time”.
I laughed and said that time has flown by, and that I knew people who had been here for far longer. Longer than I’ve been alive, even.
“So, how did you end up here?”

I told him the usual story….graduated from college, didn’t know what I wanted to do except live abroad, thought about Peace Corps, decided to teach English, thought China would be interesting, took a job, and voila! Here I am. That, of course, only explains how I got to China in the first place, not how I ended up in Kunming as a language student and part-time tutor. But I doubt anyone wanted to while their evening away listening to that whole tale.

Far more interesting are the little coincidences and accidents that played a deterministic role in my China experience. I was certainly never destined to go to China. I trace my ancestry to the fjords of Norway and the vineyards of Italy, not to the Yellow River plains. I was never one of those white kids with an Asian fetish, either. I never cared for martial arts. Nor anime. And while growing up in the Bay Area I had a lot of Asian friends, my knowledge in China was limited to General Tso’s chicken. If you had told me, as a college senior in 2003, that within eighteen months I’d be calling Lianyungang, China home, I’d have dismissed you as a crank.

But there I was, in the fall of 2004, standing in front of thirty teenaged Chinese kids suffocating in the Jiangsu heat. How did it happen?

The simplest explanation was that about a month prior, somewhere in Australia, a young man bound for China had his car stolen. He had been hired to teach English in Lianyungang, and the trauma of the theft so soon before his departure date left him mentally unprepared to handle the move. So he withdrew, and the company (WITT) that hired him was left scrambling for a replacement. Their usual requirements (experience) went out the window, and I was offered the position.

I was informed that my arrival was urgent, and given a week or so to make up my mind. Lianyungang? Where the hell was that? A solitary English-language website offered no clues. Few people had heard of it. In desperation, I asked a friend who worked with Chinese students in the laboratory to supply me with information. He didn’t bring back much. “One guy said it’s a port”. Great.

I thought of holding out for something in a bigger city, like Shanghai. I spoke to my recruiter, who discouraged that idea. “If you go to Shanghai, all you’ll end up doing is getting drunk with other foreigners. Go to the smaller place, you’ll have a more authentic experience.”

These words elicited a romantic series of imaginations, and I excitedly saw myself tilling rice fields while listening to old men swap stories from the war. This would be great. I said “what the hell” and agreed.

Little did I know that getting drunk with foreigners, in fact, was exactly what I do anyway that year.

For one thing, I was totally unprepared to teach English. My TEFL course provided a basic education in how to convey the language to non-native speakers, but I had no conception of how China or Chinese people would be any different than, well, anyone else. The urgent nature of my arrival left my company little time to orient me, and so it took me weeks before I realized the actual objective of my lessons. Prior to that, I was gasping at straws, inventing lesson plans on my walk to school.

I had assumed that learning Chinese would be a breeze, given enough immersion. What I didn’t expect was being confounded by the simplest concepts months into my stay. My original goal of learning enough Chinese in one year to use it seemed laughably optimistic. In taxis, I pointed when I wanted to go straight, jerked my arm when I wanted to turn, and held up my hand, palm out (like a cop) when I wanted to stop. Five-minute excursions to buy bread turned into incommunicative nightmares. No wonder I preferred the company of pirated DVDs and jaded laowai.

At around Christmas, I thought: “Fuck this. I’ll just travel, have some fun, and then go home. A year is enough.”

That was three and a half years ago. If I never imagined coming to China in the first place, I certainly never imagined staying this long. And I have traveled, and I have had fun, but I’ve also met more than my share of amazing people, learned a tremendous amount, and, through a series of coincidences no less deterministic, found myself happily studying Chinese in Kunming.

I’ve never met the Aussie fellow whose job I took, nor do I even know his name. I sincerely hope it worked out for him in the end. And as for the thief, for the decency of society I hope he’s stopped stealing people’s cars. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer a quiet “thanks”.

Posted 05 May 2008 † matt_schiavenza § Me § Reminiscence ‡ Comments (5)

A Joke (or Two)

Here’s a joke my Chinese friend taught me:

A stutterer (结巴) walks into a shop to buy a bottle of beer. When he asks the merchant how much one costs, he is told “20 yuan”

Shocked at the high price, the stutterer says “开开开开开开开。。。”

Hearing this word, the merchant does as he’s told and opens the bottle.

Then, the stutterer finishes his sentence: “开玩笑”

Explanation:
In Chinese, 开 means “open”. The verb to open is usually rendered 打开, but 开 gets the job done. “开玩笑” means, in this case, “you’re joking”. A bottle of beer in a shop should cost around 3 or 4 yuan, so 20 is a ridiculous price. So, translated into English, the stutterer meant to say “you’re joking” but instead said “open”, forcing him to pay for the beer.

Here’s another one:
Deng Xiaoping plans to travel to the United States on a state visit. Embarrassed by his non-existent English, Deng asks an aide to help him prepare for a press conference. The aide says, “OK. The first question they’re going to ask you is “What’s your last name?”. The second question will be ‘What’s your first name?’. The third question will be, “Where do you want to go in America?”. Deng nods and prepares his answers.

Upon arriving at the press conference, a reporter asks Deng: “Where will you be staying in the United States?”. Deng, not understanding, remembers that the first question would ask him for his last name. So he says: “我姓邓” (Wo sheeng dung). “Ah, Washington!” someone cries, and the reporters dutifully record his answer in their notebooks.

Then, a reporter asks Deng: “What would you like to do during your stay in America?” Deng again doesn’t understand, but remembers that the second question would ask him for his first name. He says, “小平” (Sheeow Ping). “Ah, shopping!” someone says, and the reporters write his response down.

The third journalist asks Deng: “In your opinion, what will be the most pressing internal matter for China during the first years of the 21st century?” Deng is startled by the length of the question, and forgets his aide’s words that the third question would ask him where he’d like to go in the US. So, in his native Sichuan dialect, Deng says “什么？(sar zuh?). “Ah, SARS!” someone cries, and so Deng managed to impress the reporters without ever understanding a word they said.

There’s actually a fourth part to this joke involving a president of Taiwan, but I’ve forgotten it.

And finally, here’s an aphorism a Chinese guy told me months ago:
“喝酒对肝坏处， 抽烟对肺坏处，不喝酒不抽烟对心坏处”
(Drinking is bad for your liver, smoking is bad for your lungs, but not drinking and not smoking is bad for your heart)

Posted 01 May 2008 † matt_schiavenza § Language § Daily Life ‡ Comments (2)

What’s Hard About Languages?

I met an interesting Canadian guy the other day who has studied both Chinese and Japanese. I asked him which language he considered more difficult, and he said that it depended. “On what?” I asked. He replied:

“Well, in Chinese it’s difficult to get even decent at the language. But once you’ve reached a certain level of competence, getting very good isn’t all that difficult, because the grammar is relatively easy. In Japanese, getting decent is pretty easy, but if you try to get really good, it takes an enormous amount of time and effort mastering complex grammar rules.”

I’ve never studied Japanese, but what he said about Chinese strikes me as plausible. In the beginning, learning Chinese is a nightmare. The characters are inscrutable. The vocabulary has few cognates with English or other European languages. Learning to write well takes a lot of practice and maintenance. And even when you think you say the right words in the right order, using the wrong tones can make it impossible for others to understand you.

Eventually, though, you get the hang of the characters, and the tones, and the grammar. For me, as an intermediate student, the biggest challenges are vocabulary, idioms and other expressions, and dealing with regional accent variations. These have and will continue to take up a lot of my time. But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. I know it’s only a matter of time before my vocabulary and command of the language improves to an extent that I can express pretty much anything I want.

Romance languages are different. Vocabulary isn’t really a problem, since so many words are related to English. Pronunciation (particularly in Italian) is very straight-forward. The grammar, though, can be difficult to master. In this way, perhaps learning Italian or Spanish is similar to learning Japanese.

What about other languages? I’d be interested to hear from those of you who have studied Slavic, Germanic, or other tongues. How does the learning curve compare to Chinese?

Posted 01 May 2008 † matt_schiavenza § Language ‡ Comments (1)

No Movies in San Francisco?

Four years ago, after boarding a flight from Milan back home to San Francisco, I discovered that the in-flight movie was The Princess Diaries. “Great,” I thought, “why can’t they ever have anything I want to see?”.

But, as one does on a flight, I watched because there was nothing better to do. To my delight, I found that the film was set in San Francisco, and contained a number of pretty shots of the city. I remember feeling very excited that within hours I’d be there myself.

Alas, moments like these may become rare in the future. As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, high costs have deterred filmmakers from shooting in the city, instead opting for less expensive states or Canada. In the past year, the only film made entirely in San Francisco was Milk, concerning the assassination of the openly gay city supervisor in 1978. Along with Zodiac, the recent film about the Bay Area’s most notorious serial killer, the only movies being made in San Francisco these days seem to be specifically about San Francisco history.

Oh, well. If movies stop being made in my American hometown, I suppose a film industry in my Chinese home of Kunming will have to do.

Posted 28 April 2008 † matt_schiavenza § Film § Media ‡ Comments (0)

Torch Gets Some Peace…in North Korea

After the controversy in Paris, London, San Francisco, and now Seoul, the Olympic Torch finally found itself in a friendly port: Pyongyang, North Korea.

China, of course, is one of the hermit kingdom’s sole allies in the world, providing Kim Jong Il’s regime with the bulk of its international economic aid. What China gets out of this arrangement is less clear. Due to North Korea’s extreme poverty, thousands flock across the border into China each year in search of a better life. Those caught are returned, and those returned are subjected to heinous punishments for desertion.

This policy, little known outside East Asia, played a large role in the demonstrations in Seoul. Apparently, a large number of the anti-China protestors were North Korean defectors angered by Beijing’s cooperation with the Kim regime. Others were South Koreans sympathetic to the defectors’ cause.

The West would like Beijing to apply more pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear program and implement economic reforms- ones that have been so successful in both China and Communist Vietnam. The Communist Party has shown some willingness to do so, but has mostly stuck behind its ideologically-similar neighbor. The reception the Torch received in Pyongyang showed that, at least in the eyes of one country, China can do no wrong.

Posted 28 April 2008 † matt_schiavenza § Current Events ‡ Comments (0)

Safe in China

Given the recent surge of anti-Western sentiment in China, I’ve been asked by a few people elsewhere whether I’ve noticed any changes in my daily life here. The answer to that remains no.

Being a foreigner in China is, and has long been, a pretty sweet deal. By virtue of being a college-educated native English speaker, I’m very employable and comparatively well-paid. I can dress however I want, go wherever I want, and feel little restraint when interacting with Chinese people. Friendships and relationships between Chinese and foreigners occur naturally and fluidly. Travel restrictions, with the exception of Tibet, are very mild. Until recently, obtaining a lengthy Visa stay was not difficult. Entering and leaving the country is far less of a hassle than it is, say, in the United States (even for American citizens).

I was able to rent an apartment with no strings attached. There are Internet restrictions, but they’re annoying rather than prohibiting. I don’t feel like I have to censor myself when talking to locals, even about political issues. Physically, I’m safe. I don’t worry about walking in the city alone at night. Pickpocketing and petty theft exist, but are not rampant (in my experience).

I do, of course, have my issues with China. The air pollution can be stifling. The noise and traffic give me headaches. There are a lot of people, places, and things I miss from back home. And while I’ve improved dramatically, language barriers can sometimes make simple tasks somewhat challenging. I also find Chinese nationalism troubling, as well as the general lack of creativity and independent thought. But nationalism exists everywhere, and China is far from the only society to preach conformity as a supreme virtue.

So for anyone worrying that I’m living in a Stalinist hellhole, under siege by a thuggish government, feel at ease. Things are fine.

Posted 28 April 2008 † matt_schiavenza § Current Events § Daily Life ‡ Comments (0)

HSK Post-Mortem

Well, that was fun. My first (and hopefully last) go at the HSK exam is over, and in a couple of weeks I’ll find out how I did. Overall, I’d say I didn’t do any better or worse than I had on the most recent practice exams, which would mean I’ve still got quite a bit of progress to make before I get my desired result. Oh well- there’s time!

On the HSK (or any standardized test) there are three types of questions: ones to which you know the answer, ones that you don’t know but can make a reasonably educated guess, and ones that you have no idea how to answer. My goal over the past two months has been to reduce the third category to nil while raising the proportion of the first to the second (got that?). I still haven’t gotten there. Yesterday, there were still quite a few questions in each section that totally befuddled me. Gotta learn more characters.

Some other observations:

- There were fifty-odd students in my test room, and all but three (counting me) were Asian. Before the exam I took an unscientific survey of which Asian countries these students came from (mostly from listening to their chatter) and discovered that the vast majority were Thai or Vietnamese. There were a few Koreans thrown in too. The other two non-Asians were both Italian.

-Two Vietnamese boys sitting directly in front of me chatted throughout the test and took turns looking at each other’s answers. Finally, the proctor came over and told them to knock it off, but by that point the exam was nearly over.

- The HSK takes about two and a half hours, and there are no breaks in between sections. By the end, my brain was fried and I could think of nothing else but the burrito I was planning to eat for lunch.

-The test itself? For people who haven’t taken HSK before, there are four sections: listening (听力), grammar (语法), reading comprehension (阅读) and comprehensive (综合). These sections are further divided into sub-sections: three for listening, and two for the rest. For me, the easiest parts on the practice exams have always been the first two parts of listening, all of grammar, and the second part of reading comprehension. The harder parts were the third part of listening (long passages followed by a few comprehension questions), the first part of reading comprehension (heavy on idioms or 成语), and all of comprehensive, of which the second part (fill in the blanks) I’ve found next to impossible.

On the test, I found the third part of listening remarkably easy and the fill-in-the-blanks surprisingly doable. The second part of reading comprehension, though, was really, really hard: the passages chosen were dense and full of vocabulary I haven’t learned, and the questions seemed trickier than usual.

Now that it’s over, I feel relieved. Even if my results aren’t as good as I hope, I’ve learned quite a lot just by intensely studying the language, and I’m pretty confident that with the same amount of persistence I’ll find the exam far easier if (when) I take it again later in the year.

Chris I’m sure kicked my ass, by the way.

Posted 28 April 2008 † matt_schiavenza § Daily Life ‡ Comments (1)

What Have I Been Doing Lately?

It’s been awhile since I’ve written a personal update, so here goes:

- For the past two months I’ve been enrolled in two Chinese classes at my language school, one an “comprehensive” (综合) course at the intermediate level and another a class specifically designed to prepare me for the HSK exam, which I take this Sunday. The exam, needless to say, will not be easy. Although I’ve lived in China for more than three years, this is only my third semester of formal study and there are a lot of gaps in my knowledge. In order to get the results I want, I have to get at least 55% of the answers correct on each of the four exam sections, a rather daunting task.

The preparation has been equal parts frustrating and encouraging. I do feel frustrated when I botch a reading comprehension practice exam, or fail to comprehend the gist of a three-minute monologue spoken in rapid Chinese. But recently I picked up a newspaper and discovered that I can understand quite a lot, something I couldn’t say for myself as recently as this February. I’m also confident that, barring failure this time around, I’ll pass with flying colors should I have to re-take the exam in November.

- In late March, the cold, wet winter stopped and spring finally arrived: Kunming’s best season. For the past three weeks, we’ve enjoyed nearly non-stop sunshine and temperatures approaching 30 degrees (high 80s) without undue humidity. As a result, I’ve been enjoying the great outdoors more than before. I’ve taken two separate trips to beautiful Fuxian Lake, located about 140 kilometers south of Kunming. I also accompanied my friends on a decent bike journey (26 kilometers round-trip) to a reservoir located near the city’s western hills. For a native Californian, being able to go swimming again has been blissful. I can only hope the good weather will continue up until the inevitable arrival of the rainy season sometime in early June.

-Two friends of mine received a pregnant cat, and as happens, a litter resulted. I offered to adopt one of the kittens, a springy little dude I’ve dubbed Chairman Meow (yes, unoriginal, but I couldn’t resist. I mostly call him Chairman). I haven’t had cats around since I was a small child and on both occasions the little buggers ran away. I’m hoping to make amends this time around, though I fear for the upholstery on my sofa.

- Been watching a lot of movies lately. The best I’ve seen has been Juno, a comedy about a teen pregnancy that’s fresh and funny. I also really enjoyed Persepolis, an adaptation of the graphic novels of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian who grew up during the revolution and later emigrated to France. Fantastic graphics, and a touching story.

I’ve also seen two films that managed to combine vulgarity with sweetness, with varying results. The first was Clerks II, the sequel to the mid-90s vintage Clerks, a film I found hysterical when I was a teenager. The second version is largely the same, but the jokes are mostly raunchy for the sake of raunchiness and I found the romantic bit contrived and sappy. I usually don’t criticize unrealistic pairings of mediocre men with gorgeous women (movies are a fantasy, remember), but the pairing of the lame, unattractive, and miserable Dante with the stunningly sexy Rosario Dawson just…wasn’t…convincing…enough.

Superbad was much better. I love high school teen comedies, and this is one of the best I’ve seen. Like in Clerks II, the dialogue is risque but for some reason it seemed more natural, perhaps because I was in high school less than a decade ago and can definitely relate. Also, the story had a sweetness that didn’t feel forced, and I liked were the film’s female protagonists: they weren’t twenty-seven year old supermodels but normal looking teenagers, and I liked how they were just as irreverent and sassy as the boys who were chasing them. Highly recommended.

Posted 23 April 2008 † matt_schiavenza § Film § Daily Life ‡ Comments (4)