My Chinese Wedding

Due to some serious desire to gain face, wealthy Chinese will hire you pretty much for the color of your skin.  It's nothing like slavery ... except for the racism.  You're supposed to have some sort of talent - in our case, musical ability. That's right, I just got home from two piano gigs - one at a wedding, another at an Audi Car Show.  Those of you who know me fairly well might say, "But Jake, you don't play the piano." And you would be correct.  That's pretty much the extent of that conversation.  No "however," no "but."  The last time I played piano was around the age of 8 or 9.

I can't remember my piano teacher's name, much less how to play both a chord and melodic line simultaneously.  My nine years of saxophone did pull through for me.  I could keep a rhythm and play the tonic of any given chord, maybe the 5th and occasionally a 3rd.  (For the musically illiterate among us, this about the skill of a beginner pianist after 2 or 3 months.)  So my performance was to subsist of 50% skill and 50% dramatic presentation.  That's right, they want White Musicians, and they want them to act like Jack Black in School of Rock.

The Judgmental Orchestra next to my keyboard

Gig number 1 was the wedding and while I set up my keyboard, the Chinese girls in the orchestra next to us laughed at the stickers I had put on the keyboard, indicating each note.  The band leader had told me to hide it from the boss who had hired us - it had to do with something about losing credibility as an apparently aspiring pianist.  However my masking-tape-sticker, cheat-sheet couldn't save me from the total absence of power going to the keyboard.  My performance plummeted to 0% skill and 100% dramatic presentation.

Random enthusiastic vocalist.

So I sat there waiting for some groomsman to finish a speech and thought WWJBD - What would Jack Black do?  I looked to my band mates who were aware of my precarious situation.  And in the words of Jack Black, we proceeded to "rock their face off."  I've never known someone to play piano as intensely as I did today, but there's a good chance you might if you turn the power off.

The second gig was a little more eccentric.  There was a professional foreign artist, drawing cartoon characters of children that were patient enough to sit for him, until a hilarious man from Israel, dressed as a clown, would scare everything right with them, right out of them, until they fled to the young model who had missed one meal too many but was happy to have pictures taken of her with whatever Audi on display.

From Left: Me, Pete on Bass, Chris on Guitar.

For our part, we were to play 5 songs, with a "piano-focus."  We chose:

John Denver's "Take Me Home Country Roads"
The Beatles' "Hard Day's Night"
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"
Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower"
Bob Marley's "I Shot The Sheriff"

This experience was a little smoother however the soundboard staff managed to change any volume we had settled on.  Chinese people like their music White, and they like it Loud.  1400 Kuai ($200 USD) and some delicious, delicious Eggplant later and we were back home.  We each made half a month's wages in about 9 hours, primarily off the color of our skin.  If that isn't reverse discrimination, I don't know what is.

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.