What a Character!

A fair few years ago I worked for an advertising agency. It was a crap job in a pretentious, jumped-up, happy-clappy company and, well, I didn’t last long in such a phoney environment.

One day however, us mere juniors were given the task to go out and spend one minute counting the number of advertisements we saw in that very short period of time. It was to inspire and awaken our senses, and it certainly worked. I was amazed at the number of adverts all around us; every space seemed like an opportunity to plug something. From that day on I have been acutely aware how much we are literally just bombarded by adverts and as much as I am a consumer happy slight shopaholic retail junkie (and really, which self-respecting 28 year old girl isn’t?!) I try to rationalise and remind myself that I am being brainwashed as my mind never switches off.

In many ways my life here in China is very unrealistic. I don’t do the humdrum things expected of me back home such as cooking, cleaning and ironing, and my diet consists to a large extent of cocktails. I wear fun clothes, get weekly manicures and paint my nails radical colours and sometimes when I can’t be bothered washing my own hair, I get someone to wash it for me. This is not a normal existence for a European and the novelty of this will wear off eventually, if it hasn’t already started to do so… It’s a bubble.

Add to this the fact that I don’t watch TV here, never listen to the radio and can’t always access the web-pages I would like to see, and it really does feel like I am living in a parallel universe where my own thoughts consume me a lot more than the thoughts of others.

One could argue that that the big group of people ruling this country (a bit fearful of the C word) do shove a bit of propaganda down our throats every now and then, and that there is a fair bit of brainwashing going on as to China’s importance in the international sphere. The reality, however, is that I never read the one newspaper in English readily available that spouts this stuff… and the rest is kind of cut off from me anyway.

I really do live a fake existence here, but what really makes me feel foreign and distant (and I mean really foreign in an alien come down from Venus kind of way!) is that I am blissfully ignorant to everything around me. I don’t have a clue what 99% of signs and posters that surround me actually mean and am missing out on the brainwashing I have become conditioned to expect.

It’s kind of nice in some ways because I can make my own reality, which is often much more fun, but I do miss being able to read things!

Learning the characters of Mandarin and how to put them together is a whole other language or art form in itself and I made the executive decision way back when that I would learn to speak Chinese with merely the help of pinyin and not bother with learning how to read or write. I am an audio learner anyway and do a great deal of mimicking others’ accents more than absorbing from reading… but what I forgot to bargain with was that I actually liked reading.

I miss out on so much in my own little bubble and as much as it is nice to no longer be part of the number one target group for advertising, I miss living the full experience and being aware.

I miss being able to read the bus routes, to know what adverts mean, to be able to read menus that don’t have pictures, to read half the things my colleagues write, to understand what my bills say, to read the signs around the city, to decipher receipts easily when doing my expenses, to know which button to press to get in the right queue at the bank, to pick up any magazine and devour each and every word, to know which is the shampoo and which the conditioner and all of these really banal things that we take for granted in our normality.

There are a handful of characters I do know however, and the most important one for me means I don’t end up somewhere I don’t really want to be. It’s a survival technique. My Chinese lesson of the day is: 女 – which is the sign for the little girls’ room. No pinyin or sound clip today, to prove my point that the two are very abstract separate things. See how you like that…!

The Bottom Line

They say that a picture speaks a thousand words and in order to explain today’s China lesson I had a lot of fun trying to capture this photo to illustrate my point. It was quite a task, since it is a sensitive area, I had to be discrete (hard task when you’re as bright and white as I am!) and I didn’t want to be seen as some crazy weirdo pervert… Keep reading, this will make sense in a while!

As seems to be the theme with this blog, there are so many differences East to West and the majority of which are something that I deal with quite well, I’d say. Sure, sometimes I do want to jump on the first plane out of here and head to the ‘normality’ of Europe, but on the whole I do not too badly and am always a good sport trying to acclimatize a bit.

Perhaps though where I feel very western, a bit prudish and really uncomfortable being in China is anything to do with bathroom behaviour. Squatties not potties, footprints on toilet seats, witnessing people do their business with the door wide open, lack of paper, disregard of hand-washing and very loud, honest and open farting (for lack of a better word) are all things I have had to just deal with. We are all human and we do all have to go, so I guess the Chinese openness kind of makes sense once I get my head around my upbringing and ingrained manners.

The vast differences in all things toilet here in China versus my very prissy, conservative and reserved British ways, starts from a very early age. It starts indeed with babies and I am amazed and ever so slightly in awe at what can be seen in the photo. Chinese babies, or rather the ones not yet ‘westernised’, do not wear nappies.

You see these little rugrats with trousers with slits up the back, bare naked bottoms exposed to the world and at the ready to be held by their parents to relieve themselves in parks, in street gutters or even (and I kid you not!) on the grass at the Olympic stadium in Beijing. I was totally freaked out to see all these bare bottoms and kids randomly peeing everywhere and felt it was something I had to get to the (pun unintended) bottom of.

Talking to Chinese friends and colleagues they’ve enlightened me that it’s better for the baby’s bottom to be aired, it’s better to train them as soon as possible, it is the way things have always been done and it’s Confucianism at it’s purest. Perhaps though the reason for this is more financial than anything what with diapers costing a lot of money. Regardless of reasons, it’s amazing.

I’ve babysat enough kids throughout the years to know that potty training is a nightmare so this really makes you think ‘how on earth is that possible?’ There’s a whistle and a grunt noise involved apparently and babies are laboriously trained to go on demand, but am not really sure how it works to be honest. Feel it is worthy of note though, and if we could get over our prejudices against anything toilet related in the west, just imagine how eco-friendly, cheap and convenient this would be?!

Am stunned every time I see this, so my Chinese lesson of the day is: 褯 jiè – which means diaper, or nappy.

Spot the White Kid

No stay in China would be complete without a visit to Xi’an – the cradle of Chinese civilisation and home of the world famous Terracotta Warriors. It’s been on my ‘to do’ list since arriving and I took the May 1^st long weekend opportunity to jump on a plane and come and see what this place is all about.

Stepping off the plane I realised that I was stepping out into real China. This isn’t the international metropolis that is Shanghai or the capital city spruced up beyond recognition to please visitors to the Beijing Olympics. Here was the China I had heard about - smoggy, bustling, chaotic and very, very foreign.

Xi’an is a lot smaller than other Chinese cities I have been to. It only has a couple of million inhabitants, the majority of which seem to be students. Being a little out of the way I guess not many international companies have set up shop here and so not many foreigners would come to live and work here, but rather just pass through to see what this city has to offer. On top of this, although the enterprising few have outdone themselves in catering for us tourists, this certainly isn’t Disneyland and the city still feels very untouched by western influences.

What is funny about the Chinese is that they have no qualms about staring and pointing and making a scene whenever they see something they think is funny or different. It is quite refreshing that they are so open sometimes, and in a way this kind of innocence and lack of ‘play it cool’ nonchalance that we have in the west is a treat. Simple things I merely take in my stride and glaze over become a big adventure, and how much fun must that be?!

Walking down the street in Shanghai people will occasionally stare at me, but the only time I really get hassled is when I keep it real and ride on the buses. Little old ladies will try touch my face, little old men will stare until their eyes almost pop out and children point unashamedly. In the weekly grind of office to cocktail bar to home, I don’t go on the bus that often so I am not faced with this intrusion enough to annoy me. It is very much still a novelty and admittedly quite flattering to be so funny or different.

My experience here in Xi’an is that the novelty would soon wear off. I still find it charming but the patience of my two 2m tall travel companions may be exasperated. The pointing and giggling is ok but yesterday we were asked to pose for goodness knows how many photographs and people come up and try speak the pidgin English they know, which is a bit of a busman's holiday for me and ever so slightly exhausting.

There I was minding my own business in my true western way, walking between excavation pits at the utterly mind blowing Terracotta Warriors Museum when this mad little Chinese man comes running up to me with his baby. “Beautiful lady, beautiful lady… Please hold the baby for a photograph!” The baby was shoved into my arms, perhaps not very amused and a bit freaked out by this white freckled thing holding him. I wanted to just placate him, to give him back, but had to pose first of all. Bizarre. What they will do with this photo of a random white person (ie me) is a mystery and I don’t know if I really see the point in it, but that is what makes this whole place so foreign.

A new day awaits anyway, and I should go put on some make-up to star in some random Chinese people’s photo albums. My Chinese lesson of the day is: 老外lǎo wài - which means foreigner, and is exactly what I am.

China - One big Pyjama Party

Over the past ten days I have had a visit from my little sister. Like me when I first arrived, it was her first visit to China and so I did my best to bring her up to speed and let her experience as much as possible of what I go through by being here. It has been a whirlwind trip for her, filled with tourism and indulgence and hopefully she’s had a good time and got something from being here (other than lots of new handbags, tailor made clothes and massage, of course).

Sadly yesterday morning it was time for L to leave and so at 4am we were up and out to find a taxi to whisk her off to the airport. After just ten days of observing me in another country, she turned to me and pointed out that I had perhaps become a little Chinese, or taken on a few foreign (to us anyway) habits at least. Sure I eat Chinese food and try and speak Chinese if and when I can etc… but what made her squeal yesterday morning was my attire.

So what exactly, you may ask, was I wearing?! Quite simply: my pyjamas.

Yup, be it a status symbol (to show that you don’t have to rush to get dressed in the mornings) or be it just a crazy fashion statement, the Chinese are all about their pyjamas. It's a daily occurence that I see someone outside of the confines of their bedrooms, and even homes wearing pyjamas. And I'm not talking about the beautiful emboridered silk pyjamas you may expect from China, rather fleecy, flannel or padded numbers with cartoon prints in various shades of sickly colours.

At the time of the Olympics, Beijing’s Spiritual Civilisation Committee issued numerous edicts with the aim of governing citizens’ behaviour and trying to ensure it was more in-line with what foreign visitors would expect and not find ill-mannered. This ranged from instructions on how to queue to things such as how to apply make-up and comb your hair and to detailed advice on clothing; including the pyjama issue.

The Powers that be here in Shanghai have followed suit and tried to discourage the ‘visual pollution’ that is people wearing their PJs on the street. Boohoo.

Personally I think it adds a bit of charm, or certainly makes me giggle anyway. I live very centrally here in Shanghai, a neighbour to some five-star hotels and luxurious shopping centres galore. It’s a very Chinese area with fruit sellers and crumbling buildings, yet a stone’s cast from some seriously swishy, swanky sky scrapers and even swankier shops. That in itself is one big juxtaposition, but take the little old lady in her Mickey Mouse padded pyjamas walking in front of Louis Vuitton, Cartier and Hermes and it’s enough to make my head spin.

Yet there I was myself, a mere 24hours ago, in my pyjamas on Shanghai’s Nanjing Road. Refreshing that anything goes, liberating to not have to get dressed and pyjamas are clothes in themselves, I guess. My Chinese lesson of the day is: 睡衣 shuì yī - which means pyjamas.

The rat race

What struck me a lot when I lived in Russia was that everyone seemed to have a job, or at least there were so many jobs there that didn’t exist a little further to the west. Fall out from communism perhaps, but I remember trying to figure out what the point of some jobs was. I was always mildly amused to see people sitting in boxes at the bottom of each and every escalator in the Moscow underground just watching the drones of people go up and down all day long, day after day. Yet the people sitting in those boxes, uniformed to the hilt, seemed to do their job with a great sense of pride and satisfaction. Or at least that is what I took from it. They may not have smiled outright, but who ever beams with happiness in that city?!

I get the same feeling here in China. It seems that everyone has a job here and work is something to be taken quite seriously. There are uniforms, there are morning meetings (or dictations) and assemblies and again there are jobs here which just wouldn’t exist out back west. There are attendants who sit on the streets and watch over your parked bike, there are people who take your order before you reach the counter at fast-food restaurants, there are random people in uniforms sitting in boxes in parks… You get the idea. Despite the odd beggar and ruffian, everyone has a part to play. Everyone is a cog in the giant system that is China, and that in itself is great.

What is perhaps not so great is that this seems to breed (perhaps unintentionally) a ‘jobsworth’ attitude. Everyone knows the part they should play and they don’t and won’t go above and beyond or take the bull by the proverbial horns. Just why is unknown, but it was interesting to observe another class this week and watch one of my teachers launch a lesson on decision making. The way this lesson was to work was that said teacher would draw from past experiences to get conversation going. The problem here was that this group of students didn’t make decisions. Ever. Given the same job title in the US or Europe and for sure, decision making would be part of the job but here all decision making was passed on to the next person, the one ever so slightly higher up the career ladder… and this was absolutely fine by them. They were quite content to just do their bit and nothing on top of that.

I came across another fine example of this the day I went to get my medical when I first moved here. It was a rather eventful day with stripping off, stray boobs, underwear incidents and lots of cattle-like prodding but essentially we were shepherded around from one room to the next for various different tests, just to make sure we were good, clean and healthy enough to stay in China. Finishing off one [ever so slightly degrading] test, I instinctively wanted to know what was coming next. I asked, but couldn’t get an answer. Language barrier was not the problem here as I was with a friend who spoke excellent Mandarin, but the fact of the matter was that they didn’t actually know what the next test was. They sat in the same room every day and performed the same tests and didn’t need to know what went on in the next room as they had been given a job to do and that was their focus. Nothing more, nothing less.

You can only imagine, therefore, what Chinese management styles are like… but I’ll save my ‘boss is God’ stories for another day. Phew.

As an extrovert I can be quite (there's the understatement of the year) forthcoming and am always spreading my wings, especially at work. This does get me in trouble as I can easily take on more than I can chew and I do have difficulties saying no, but am working on it and to be honest I don’t think I’d have it any other way. I’m always looking to try new things and want to be pro-active, hands-on and self-sufficient. We’d all be liars if we didn’t say that our own way of doing things was the best. China with its ‘jobsworth’, ‘think inside the box’, ‘don’t rock the boat’ attitude can thus drive me to frustration… and it does! Things take that little bit longer, you inevitably waste time talking to the wrong people and you regularly come up against brick walls [which you want to bang your head against].

I understand that it is systematic in a way and that the Chinese work ethos is all about working hard, working late and doing your bit with pride, which is all very well… but showing up for work and putting in copious amounts of hours within a restricted frame work of what you can and are willing to do does also strike me as incredibly inefficient.

My Chinese lesson of the day is: 工 gōng - which means work. It is my reason for being here in China, and is incidentally also the reason for the slight hiatus in my blog-writing. There has been an awful lot of - sometimes efficient, sometimes totally inefficient - work of late.

Like a Fish out of Water

The search for the most obscure Chinese name continues and I’ve been collecting them mentally as I go along for this little competition I am having with myself. They’re just cluttering up my brain, warping my mind with the 'male or female?' question, and are of no use to you in there... So without further ado it’s now time to share a few of the crackers I’ve gathered over the past few weeks:

Coal - The man who agrees with China’s energy policy.

Rocky - The man with an inflated ego who watched way too many bad movies from the 80s.

Calvin - The man who named himself after his [fake, bought down Nanjing Road market] pants.

Wolin - The man who just stuck random letters together to make a name.

Boggy - The man who wanted to be Irish, or likes toilets perhaps.

Smile - The man who aspires to work for Colgate.

Phoenix - The man who rose from the ashes.

Magical - The man who rates himself a little out of this world.

Black - The man who felt the world was a bit too colourful.

... But my all time favourite has to be... Fish. Why oh why?!

You’ve no doubt, therefore, guessed what my Chinese lesson of the day is: 鱼 yú – which means fish.

Reality Bites

Reality bites, the truth hurts and ignorance is bliss. It’s very easy to live in cloud cuckoo land and go through life as if everything is ok. There are always diversions to take your mind off of things and only the very brave (or insane) will confront you about your problems or deepest darkest concerns.

This week I did a classroom observation. It was more of an open drop-in debate session where students at this specific company can just show up and speak English, normally some kind of topical debate. Generally I don’t like such classes and consider them a bit of a waste of time, space and money as there is no real focus, but I have to say that this particular class struck a chord. The topic was East-West and cultural differences, which is something I think about all the time, and there was one particular point which sparked a momentous debate.

Popular belief would have it that in the West, in Europe, we take a problem and we stare it straight in the face and deal with it head on. In China, on the other hand, a problem is something that is walked around. Problems are not something that people talk about.

OK, this is vast stereotyping but in many ways I would, sadly, have to agree. The reluctance to admit to problems and deal with the hard stuff causes me a great deal of grief at work. There is frustration, there is back-stabbing, there is so much inefficiency. Naturally a problem solver, it can really wind me up when people don’t say what they are really thinking and don’t have the guts to bring up a problem. There are constantly elephants sitting in the corner of the office and it regularly drives me mad having to pussy-foot around problems and never knowing what people really, honest-to-God, deep-down think.

But just when you think you are starting to comprehend things in this very different society then… boom… something else pops up to make your head spin. The dichotomy in this case is that although my Chinese colleagues can often dig their heads in the sand, not talk about problems and issues and generally keep their feelings to themselves about burning issues, they can be brutally honest about everything else. And when I say brutal, I mean BRUTAL.

Quotes from colleagues in recent times include: “Fiona. I like your hair, but I liked it better before”, “Fiona, you look so unhealthy and thin these days”, “Fiona, you’ve lost all the colour and happiness from your face.” I kid you not. They can let rip about how you look and prompt you to think about your wellbeing in a very upfront way, but talk about the nitty gritty of work and they run for the hills (or in the case of Shanghai, skyscrapers).

I have a problem. I am confused. I don’t know how I’ll deal with it, but am facing it head-on. My Chinese lesson of the day is: 困难 kùn nan - problem.