The China Factor

It's been some time since my last post and I apologize for that.  It seems like I'm finally getting settled into the apartment.  You might think this would be easy, having little more than a suitcase and a backpack, however when you toss in the China factor into it all, everything changes.

The China factor is the floors that are dusty and dirtied regardless of however many attempts at cleaning.  It's the heater never being on no matter how cold your restaurant is.  It's the grime you find on your fingertips if you touch the leaves of a tree or bush.  If you come to China and find that a certain smell seems to permeate the air no matter where you are, my roommate will eloquently point out to you as he does to me, "It's China."  Those few syllables are the cure-all for any symptom that ails us, any question that comes to mind.  So when I tell you that I've been a little busy with carving out my home, I mean it.

My first interaction with the China factor came in the form of a city block-wide power outage.  This came upon us at around 8 or 9pm immediately upon my plugging in a desk lamp.  My light shined for but a second before my window instantly lost its light pollution glow.  I looked out and could see nothing but the lights of cars - their horns had grown louder with the darkness.  I admit I felt quite guilty until our fuse box blew out three times on separate instances.

Some rewiring later and we haven't had any power troubles since.  (Neither has our city block - just sayin'.)  The bathroom on the other hand, had meanwhile maintained a steady downpour from the elevated platform where the shower resides to the step down where the second of two drains work whenever I showered.  One might think that the first drain, placed directly under the shower head would have a slight advantage in its draining capabilities.  But this is not so.  Two visits from the plumber later and we no longer have a lukewarm kiddie pool, but a fully-functioning drainage system (never mind water temperature and pressure).

The most recent home-repair related endeavor stemmed from a misplaced key.  Due to some error in communication, we arrived at our apartment for the first time with 2 keys between the 3 of us, roommates.  After jumping through hoops and tracking some people down, we finally located the last key in the set.  This key however, apparently had a knack for the disappearing act and quickly it was lost to us.  Ultimately we resorted to a locksmith.  The locksmith forged a copy from my key for my buddy Spencer and from there he insisted that he come to the apartment to test it - something about fitting the right end cap on it.  Despite my suspicion of his trying to find our home so he could later rob us, we showed him.  After he did in fact confirm the right end cap, we were to taxi back to his shop by the school.  Spencer, for whatever reason decided he needed to change and caused us to wait before taking the taxi.  So there I stood, with my limited knowledge of Chinese, entertaining a Chinese locksmith in the living room of our apartment.  He told me my apartment was big and I attempted to explain we were fortunate to have such a nice place to live.  I didn't know how to say that so I settled for, "Thank you."

But as the seconds turned into minutes and Spencer took his own sweet time with changing, the pressure mounted.  My thoughts raced, "How do you host someone in a different culture when you don't speak their language?"  I looked around, grasping for anything to make an easy topic of conversation.  I had nothing.  Finally, I saw one of our third roommate's beer.  It was a long shot but I offered him a beer and more surprisingly, he took it.  Later, after my friend, my locksmith, and I taxied back to his shop, I wondered about the cultural implications of my actions - if it had any alternative meanings about me or what it meant about me as a host.  But in the end, I shrugged my shoulders and thought, "eh, that's China."

The Piano Boy

Today in language class, our topic of dating-related vocabulary digressed into a discussion of the differences in Chinese and American courtship.  My classmates and I explained to our Chinese teacher the concept of chivalry in it’s more or less entirety – holding open doors, paying for meals, seating dates: the works.  In China it’s not as standard for the man to pay for the woman at all times.  I imagine this stems from the desire to promote gender equality – as if a trickle down dating system could really take effect.  (In actuality, it probably can in China as their Confucian-inspired academic curriculum cultivates following orders at the price of creativity.)

But while they won’t hold open doors for ladies, or always pay the bill, one thing is beyond prevalent in Chinese society: guys carry purses.

A guy carrying a purse equivocates to his having a girlfriend or wife, and the less manly the purse, the cuter the girl.  Walking on the street, you’ll see men from adolescence to almost old age swinging their pink pouches back and forth with a big grin.  My teacher tells us that this practice originally acted as a preventive against thieves stealing the girl’s purse since the girl is dainty and apparently defenseless.  She then went on to say that the man is expected to hold the purse in whatever way the woman would – therefore if she would have a cute bag hugged to her side on top of her shoulder, so would he; a messenger bag should be as a proud sash draped across his man bosom.

I’m not quite sure when the dating age comes into play but from what we’ve been told, the Chinese stereotypes regarding study, study, study, are apparently accurate.  Kids go to school in some cases for upwards of 12 hours until they graduate high school.  They go back home to study, do homework and in some cases help out with the family business.  I can’t fathom them having time to have hormones.

The only child I have spoken to in China, I met in a coffee shop-style Western restaurant, complete with library.  He was playing the piano when I walked in – a true champion of the instrument and a boy after Beethoven’s own heart.  After he played a few tunes, he made his rounds to each party to introduce himself.  Being three Americans, our couch was of special interest because he could practice his school-mandated English.  At 8 years of age he was far better at piano than I am at anything in life and his comprehension of English is years ahead of my understanding of Mandarin.  (We can tell ourselves that it’s not our fault – children naturally learn language faster than adults but personally that makes me feel about as much better as a pat on the head and a pinch on the cheek.)  As we hammered out our ages in belabored Chinese and explained that we were studying at University.  This was followed by exchanging names, which is a favorite in Chinese-to-American introductions.  This is because anyone Chinese studying English adopts an English name and vice versa to avoid confusion – not unlike in middle school where my Spanish teacher would awkwardly dub each student with a new name like, “Pablo,” or “Margarita,” as if we were at a group knighting ceremony for prepubescents. 

My Chinese name, which I give out sparingly should I find I want to change it, is 节课 pronounced “Jie kuh,” similar to, “Jake.”  Clever, right?  But literally it means “a class,” which is sort of boring.  However in Chinese, the same exact pronunciation can have several different meanings, so it’s possible the pianist thought it was some different, cooler meaning. But I know.  I know it’s lame.  So when he asked our names, we told him, and when he asked for our Chinese names, we told him.  He told us his Chinese name, which was semi-indecipherable.  And then he told us his English name and I can safely say, I now no longer am self-conscious about being called, “a class.”  The little boy, this master of piano at the age of 8’s English name … was “Elephants.” 

Rare are the times when I smile so wide that it hurts, but this was the first time that I had met someone whose name was both an animal and plural.  I began to think of what this Elephants’ life would look like.  He was on his way to becoming fairly bilingual, and a piano rock star.  Before I left, I took one good look at him because I knew it wouldn’t be the last time I saw him.  Elephants was on his way to glory, to riches, to fame; he was going to be on the cover of magazines and you know what?  Even if that falls through, one thing is certain: Elephants will be able to hold any purse he wants.

If You Build It, They Will Come

So here I am in China for a semester.  A friend and I had the foolish belief that maybe we could pick up one of the more complicated languages of the world in a matter of months.  Two stamped visas and more money than I’d like to admit later, and we were there in the thick of it – walking the streets of Chengdu, Shanghai, and Beijing; staring and being stared at; dodging the defecating 3 year-olds only to get hit by a careening taxi or bike.  The language revealed itself to be more of a challenge than Rosetta Stone and it’s respective salesmen might have let on.  Amidst our dismayed attempts at acquiring the Mandarin dialect, we recalled that we were, in fact, in China.  For the less informed among us, China is home to a variety of foods – most of which you don’t want to eat, and the rest you definitely ought not to – as well as attractions such as the Forbidden City, the Three Gorges Dam and of course the Great Wall.  

           

So in our attempts to fully utilize our visa and pricey plane ticket, Spencer and I recently found ourselves busing to the outskirts of Beijing where we might see the Great Wall.  The guidebook seemed to skimp out on the details of how exactly to get there and as we soon found out - for good reason.  Our bus stopped 45 minutes into the trip where a strange man boarded the bus, shouting “Huairo! Huairo!” as many times as the driver would allow.  Spencer and I looked to each other, noticing that Huairo was the name of the city where we were to get off.  But it couldn’t possibly be our stop as the bus ride was supposed to take two hours before we arrived.  After much convincing with unintelligible mutters and grunts, in addition to the glares from our Chinese bus-mates for dillydallying, we made our exit onto a glorified patch of dirt where three men lay in waiting.  An old man with a camera had followed us – a fellow tourist.

           

The next twenty minutes were cold and complicated.  The men were trying to explain to us that to get to the Great Wall, they were our only means of transportation.  Between their broken English, and our comparatively decrepit Chinese, we managed to understand that this was a black taxi and that we practically had to take them up on their deal lest we be cast astray into a backwoods hamlet in northern China.  The service was agreed upon, and after debating the fare, we got into the car along with the tourist and one of the Chinese drivers.  To assure us of his legitimacy as a cab driver, he flexed his coat, as if we could read what it said, or be convinced by it’s authenticity.  The next hour of driving was awkward and at all times, uncomfortably fast.  The streets were winding and sloped up the sides of mountains; iced in most places. But our driver was true to his coat – he was always in control and knew when to go fast and when to go exceedingly fast.

           

Horseshoes and hand grenades (and English)

During the trip, we began to chat with our fellow tourist who apparently also spoke broken English.  He was from the Czech Republic and had two grandchildren.  We asked him what brought him to China and he in turn answered proudly, that his camera was 15 years old.  The car stopped in an even less inhabited village.  The Czech, my friend and I exchanged looks as if we were each an animal, so accepting of our demise that we awaited it almost eagerly.  We waited for him to pull out the handgun with the slender silencer we saw in movies.  After nothing happened, I cautiously asked the driver where we were going next.  Spencer conveniently recalled the 40-minute hike up to the wall that the book had spoken of and the driver pointed to a path impatiently.  We were not going to die.  I pointed to the sign above it which read in big letters, “WALL CLOSEO FOR RECONSTRUCTION.”  We were not going to die yet.  The driver shook his head with confidence, which incidentally looks the same in all languages.  

           

120 RMB later and we were on our way.  The trip up the mountain was fairly uneventful.  The Czech twice offered to take my bag whenever I was lagging behind.  I declined.  We found the Wall.  This was my only experience with the Great Wall but I expect that were I to go to a non-prohibited portion of it, there might be some sort of ramp or ladder for ascending it.  Our method of getting atop it consisted of climbing over the collapsed portions of it, testing rocks and bricks for security in their placement.  Occasionally I would find a lighter brick and throw it off to the side so as to later be able to brag that I had helped destroy something as mighty as the Great Wall of China. 

The Czech leaving me in his dust

Otherwise, it was pretty much that: a wall and a great one at that.  Interestingly enough, we had two options once we were on it – left and right.  Left was slightly dangerous but was a decline so it would start at a nice easy pace.  Right was downright perilous – an eroded stone ladder of sorts that quickly shifted from a sharp incline to a 90 degree, vertical climb.  Once I was outvoted, we proceeded right.  Most intimidated and subsequently complaint-inclined, I went last.  Hand over hand and leg over leg, I slowly made progress.  Spencer, at the front of the group, shouted words of encouragement and I reciprocated equally choice words back at him.  The Czech again offered to take my bag – that son of a Czech.

We arrived at the top of some evidently God-forsaken tower of old where soldiers might have teetered between life and death at the hands of invading armies from the north.  We commemorated it with granola and knock-off Pringles.   Deeming the climb back down too dangerous, all three of us agreed that the only option was to continue forward.  The next climb up was similar except instead of protruding bricks, it had sharp, jagged rocks, like small, untrustworthy daggers, hungry for your hand.  On this second summit, my friend asked if I suffered from acrophobia - a fear of heights.  I answered no, I subscribe instead to a very rational fear of heights – the fear that falling from them means I will painfully die.  A fear of stickers is irrational, a fear of pickles is equally absurd – but a fear of heights?  That is incredibly rational, more so than a lack of a fear of heights.  Rather, I told him, I have a fear of people who irrationally lack a fear of heights.

The next leg of our journey was more of a descent.  Going up is always the hardest part until you realize you have to go down.  Going up means you can’t look down, lest you become scared.  Going down lacks such niceties – you are required to look down to find your footing.  But becoming scared on the way down means one of two things: you fall off – either to your death or safely and painfully onto your back – or you tense up.  Tensing up is the worst, because then the fear compounds with time.  However undesirable the end result might be, falling down is still tempting in its degree to which you find yourself committed – you make one a quick decision and gravity takes care of the rest.  The simple solution is to fail to look down.  When it comes to finding your footing, you hope for the best and in the end, I continued in the monotony of descent in such a manner that would make Finding Nemo’s Dory beam.  

In addition to the adrenaline rush I was to receive should I drop a thousand feet or more – time enough for several lives to flash before my eyes, let alone my own – I had been operating on a time limit.  The three of us were to meet our driver at the base of the mountain where he allegedly would return at 2:30.  As the cowardly lion of our ridiculous trio, I was the last to clamber down and despite their best attempts to throw supportive lines of encouragement my way, it was vastly too far down for the words to hold meaning.  My foot slipped and the first identifiable word in ages was a curse from Spencer who would have to drag my mangled corpse back to America.  And Customs frowns upon cadaver-related contraband.

Spencer wasn’t about to do that.  There would be too much explaining to do in a language he didn’t know well enough.  And since he didn’t know my PIN number, even if he could recover my ATM card, he would still have to pay for my travel-related expenses himself.  He could only get reimbursed upon finally delivering my – by then – rigor mortis-ridden body back to my parents.  And asking someone for a reimbursement check for various travel-related expenses of their deceased loved one during the mourning period is untimely at best, and insensitive at worst.  No, I couldn’t do that to him – too much pressure.  And besides, what about the Czech?  People die in random climbing accidents all the time; but in China, on a forbidden section of the Great Wall, with a Czech you’ve known for three hours?  No, nobody does that, and I wasn’t about to be the first.   

I’d like to think it was adrenaline that got me down the Great Wall that day.  It’d be even cooler to think it was a random surge of divine strength or a joule of energy I’d been saving for a rainy day.  But to say that, would be kidding myself – I just wasn’t about to let that Czech’s grandkids ask him about that stupid American he saw fall off the Wall.