When in China
The Chinese I meet here are always asking me what I think about Chinese culture. The question seems a bit premature since I haven't yet reached the two month mark. When faced with a question like this, I do what any responsible cultural ambassador would do - I lie. "It's great!" I say, with a genuine smile. I also nod my head rhythmically in order to emphasize the extent of the greatness that is all around me.
When I say that this is a lie, I mean that I'm not really qualified to comment on the culture of a 5,000 year-old country with over a billion inhabitants. I mean, I know I've eaten a lot of food here, and that I am physically located in China, but asking me what I think about Chinese culture is like asking your dog what he thinks of Seattle (presupposing that you and your dog don't live in Seattle. And that you have a dog).
On the other hand, while I am basically ignorant, this minor fact doesn't prevent me from making observations about the things I see on a daily basis. After all, what better way to form an uneducated opinion about a culture than to observe its customs and mores directly? Indeed, should you ever choose to travel to China, you might ask yourself - how should one behave? How do these Romans do? Fortunately for you all, I am here to enlighten you. Here is a brief accounting of what is and isn't acceptable in China:
Unacceptable:
-Unprovocated murder.
Acceptable:
-Everything else.
While I feel the preceding is comprehensive, for those of you with more time to indulge me here follows a more detailed summary of etiquette in China.
The first place one notices a real difference is in dining establishments. Many restaurants will cover their tables with luxurious disposable plastic sheeting. Why, you ask? Because it is a common custom to dump anything you don't want to eat directly onto the table. While eating in the cafeteria I will often look over to see a fellow diner scooping the better portion of his meal onto the table in front of him. One supposes that this is a commentary on the skills of the chef. Bones and other inedible bits are likewise spit onto the table or, failing that, the floor. Personal effluvia is also ejected at random intervals, hopefully onto the floor, but in some cases a spray effect is inevitable.
On the topic of service, it is important to recognize that all service people are sub-human, and should be treated as such. This includes waitresses, street cleaners, postal employees, bus drivers, taxi drivers, pedestrians, cafeteria workers, store clerks, and children. Whenever I say "thank you" to a Chinese service person, they light up like the town Christmas tree. This is because they never ever hear these words. [Side note: I have asked several Chinese people if there is a word for "please" in Chinese. This produces a lot of "uhhhhh"ing and apparent soul searching. There is a word used to make general requests but apparently no word that means, simply, "please".]
Here is the typical exchange between a cafeteria worker and student:
[student approaches]
STUDENT: Two scoops of rice!
WORKER: Okay.
STUDENT: This dish!
WORKER: Okay. [scoops food]
STUDENT: That dish!
WORKER: This dish?
STUDENT: Correct!
WORKER: Okay. [scoops food. Hands food to student.]
[student walks off without saying another word]
As brusque as that is, perhaps the most miserable people in China are the poor old folks that are hired to pick up garbage off the streets. They actually do a pretty good job of it, but it's obviously not a highly regarded position. Once when I was walking around downtown, I saw a well-dressed young woman strolling along, drinking her bottle of tea. By and by she finishes her tea, and starts looking around for a garbage can. Unable to locate one, she spots a nearby street cleaner wearing his dayglow orange street cleaner vest. Apparently she can't be bothered to approach the man and simply place the empty bottle in his trash bin, so she throws it at him. Now I don't mean that she whipped it at him or anything, but she casually and deliberately flung it on the ground at his feet.
Now be honest with yourself - if somebody tried to pull that stunt in the States, they would earn themselves a well-deserved slap in the mouth, or at the very least a profanity-laced haranguing. I don't care who you are, there are limits to what you can get away with in America. This old dude just kind of looked at her, and then silently picked the bottle up and dropped it in his bin. I get the sense that there is a definite hierarchy in China.
Near the top of this hierarchy are people who own cars. Although car ownership is rapidly increasing in China, cars a still a luxury that only the wealthiest citizens can afford. In order to reinforce this point, motorists tend to announce their presence by honking their horns all the goddamn time. Seriously, a car will just be rolling down a street with pedestrians on either side, and the dude will just be laying on the horn the whole time. Doesn't matter if there's people in his way or not. Chinese drivers love their car horns like a dog loves toys that squeak. They'll keep working that thing all day long, just for the sheer pleasure of it. I think if the horn on a Chinese person's car ever stopped working, they would consider it totaled and abandon it.
Finally, Chinese people need to work on their indoor voices. Seriously. You can never tell if they're angry or what because they pretty much discuss everything at maximum volume. I mean actual shouting. Holy Christ you're right next to each other.
I know it probably seems like I have a lot of negative things to say about China, but these kinds of observations are typical of this point in the "culture shock" cycle. I don't have it nearly as bad as some of my colleagues (I've been through it before), so I'm really able to take a lot of these things in stride. To be honest, I actually like Chinese people, although I couldn't exactly explain why. Maybe I'll work on that for a future post. Until then, if you decide to travel to China, if you smile and stand up straight you can pretty much do whatever the hell you want. Just like everybody else.
When I say that this is a lie, I mean that I'm not really qualified to comment on the culture of a 5,000 year-old country with over a billion inhabitants. I mean, I know I've eaten a lot of food here, and that I am physically located in China, but asking me what I think about Chinese culture is like asking your dog what he thinks of Seattle (presupposing that you and your dog don't live in Seattle. And that you have a dog).
On the other hand, while I am basically ignorant, this minor fact doesn't prevent me from making observations about the things I see on a daily basis. After all, what better way to form an uneducated opinion about a culture than to observe its customs and mores directly? Indeed, should you ever choose to travel to China, you might ask yourself - how should one behave? How do these Romans do? Fortunately for you all, I am here to enlighten you. Here is a brief accounting of what is and isn't acceptable in China:
Unacceptable:
-Unprovocated murder.
Acceptable:
-Everything else.
While I feel the preceding is comprehensive, for those of you with more time to indulge me here follows a more detailed summary of etiquette in China.
The first place one notices a real difference is in dining establishments. Many restaurants will cover their tables with luxurious disposable plastic sheeting. Why, you ask? Because it is a common custom to dump anything you don't want to eat directly onto the table. While eating in the cafeteria I will often look over to see a fellow diner scooping the better portion of his meal onto the table in front of him. One supposes that this is a commentary on the skills of the chef. Bones and other inedible bits are likewise spit onto the table or, failing that, the floor. Personal effluvia is also ejected at random intervals, hopefully onto the floor, but in some cases a spray effect is inevitable.
On the topic of service, it is important to recognize that all service people are sub-human, and should be treated as such. This includes waitresses, street cleaners, postal employees, bus drivers, taxi drivers, pedestrians, cafeteria workers, store clerks, and children. Whenever I say "thank you" to a Chinese service person, they light up like the town Christmas tree. This is because they never ever hear these words. [Side note: I have asked several Chinese people if there is a word for "please" in Chinese. This produces a lot of "uhhhhh"ing and apparent soul searching. There is a word used to make general requests but apparently no word that means, simply, "please".]
Here is the typical exchange between a cafeteria worker and student:
[student approaches]
STUDENT: Two scoops of rice!
WORKER: Okay.
STUDENT: This dish!
WORKER: Okay. [scoops food]
STUDENT: That dish!
WORKER: This dish?
STUDENT: Correct!
WORKER: Okay. [scoops food. Hands food to student.]
[student walks off without saying another word]
As brusque as that is, perhaps the most miserable people in China are the poor old folks that are hired to pick up garbage off the streets. They actually do a pretty good job of it, but it's obviously not a highly regarded position. Once when I was walking around downtown, I saw a well-dressed young woman strolling along, drinking her bottle of tea. By and by she finishes her tea, and starts looking around for a garbage can. Unable to locate one, she spots a nearby street cleaner wearing his dayglow orange street cleaner vest. Apparently she can't be bothered to approach the man and simply place the empty bottle in his trash bin, so she throws it at him. Now I don't mean that she whipped it at him or anything, but she casually and deliberately flung it on the ground at his feet.
Now be honest with yourself - if somebody tried to pull that stunt in the States, they would earn themselves a well-deserved slap in the mouth, or at the very least a profanity-laced haranguing. I don't care who you are, there are limits to what you can get away with in America. This old dude just kind of looked at her, and then silently picked the bottle up and dropped it in his bin. I get the sense that there is a definite hierarchy in China.
Near the top of this hierarchy are people who own cars. Although car ownership is rapidly increasing in China, cars a still a luxury that only the wealthiest citizens can afford. In order to reinforce this point, motorists tend to announce their presence by honking their horns all the goddamn time. Seriously, a car will just be rolling down a street with pedestrians on either side, and the dude will just be laying on the horn the whole time. Doesn't matter if there's people in his way or not. Chinese drivers love their car horns like a dog loves toys that squeak. They'll keep working that thing all day long, just for the sheer pleasure of it. I think if the horn on a Chinese person's car ever stopped working, they would consider it totaled and abandon it.
Finally, Chinese people need to work on their indoor voices. Seriously. You can never tell if they're angry or what because they pretty much discuss everything at maximum volume. I mean actual shouting. Holy Christ you're right next to each other.
I know it probably seems like I have a lot of negative things to say about China, but these kinds of observations are typical of this point in the "culture shock" cycle. I don't have it nearly as bad as some of my colleagues (I've been through it before), so I'm really able to take a lot of these things in stride. To be honest, I actually like Chinese people, although I couldn't exactly explain why. Maybe I'll work on that for a future post. Until then, if you decide to travel to China, if you smile and stand up straight you can pretty much do whatever the hell you want. Just like everybody else.
posted by Devin Snow at 12:58 PM
2 Comments:
Love the post bro...just arrived at school and enjoying the tranquility of no students yet! ahhh...the joy of teaching. Other than that, it's the same in the Middle east with horns! Once, in Saudi, this taxi driver was so addicted to honking his horn, he kept on pressing it even though it was broken! It's like some sort of physical addiction....i guess all cultures that are 2nd and 3rd world seem to have that lack of human dignity in them.
Stay safe.
(oh yea... Yuko, don't translate this...) There was an article in the paper today about a woman in Heilongjiang Provence posted a video in the internet of her (wearing stiletto heels) cuddling a kitten before putting it on the ground, driving the heel through its eye, and crushing its head. Since there are no laws aboutanimal cruelty in China (kinda going along with what you said about acceptable vs. unacceptable) people took the matter into their own hands. They set up "wanted" posters around the internet, and with everyone's cooperation, they found the woman, posted her name address, phone number, email address, and ID number for anyone to use and abuse.
"The people's party": 0
Court of public opinion and a justice system operated by the population: 1
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