Cultural Heyday

I do apologize for my prolonged silence. Country-hopping around Asia kept me preoccupied for quite some time; after that, it was readjusting to life in America. So that’s the biggest news – I am safe and sound, back in Columbus. However, as I mentioned earlier, I am not quite done with this blog yet. I would like to put up some posts about my travels as well as one or two more posts concerning China. Today’s topic: the influence of culture on our daily lives.

Our lives are so intricately shaped by culture that most of us don’t even realize it – and continue to be oblivious until we see an entire other culture doing things differently. Much of my experience in China this past semester revolved around this idea; as it turns out, far more is cultural than I had ever thought.

Consider money habits. When counting money, Americans tend to shuffle the bills from hand to hand. Go grab some bills and try it out – I’ll bet you didn’t even have to think about it. Chinese people, though, count money differently; they fold the bills in half, hold them in one hand, and in the other hand unfold each bill one by one as it is counted. Like so many cultural habits, neither method is superior – just different.

Also, when cashiers give you change back in America, they usually hold onto one of the shorter ends of the bill with one hand and extend it towards you longways. In China, however, they use two hands, one on each of the corners of a long side. I always felt like I should accept the change the same way, but somehow never remembered and only used one hand. Old habits die hard.

Chinese people also give you business cards in a similar fashion. In fact, Chinese business card etiquette is very specific and must be followed exactly to prevent insulting the person you’re talking to. They hand you the business card the same way change is returned; you accept it in the same fashion and stare at it for thirty full seconds; then, for the duration of your meeting, you put the business card out in front of you in plain sight.

Even facial expressions are cultural. Some are innate, to be sure – smiling and crying transcend cultural boundaries. But the subtler expressions, like displaying pleasure, these are the ones that are shaped by the culture you are immersed in. For example, when Chinese women are pleased, they tend to hide their smile behind a hand, as though they know they’re taking more pleasure than they should. I have also been told that, say, when I speak French, my facial expressions change – I forgo the American facial expressions and use French ones instead.

And, believe it or not, the way people run in public is also cultural. Chinese women do a little shuffle-run that I have never seen anywhere else. When Americans run in public, it tends to look a little more natural to my eyes (for lack of a better, culturally-neutral expression). That is, it’s more along the lines of how someone would run if they were going to be running a long distance. But Chinese women only run for very short distances in public – thus the shuffle-run.

In fact, our lives are so dependent on culture that I feel very little is actually innate. I mean, think about it. Where does cultural influence end? Even many ideas people have are cultural. The opinions many Americans express about things like respect and independence are different from the ideas many Chinese people express about the same topics. In China, family is everything; in America, it’s important to strike out on your own. So how many of your thoughts are actually your own and not part of the culture you were raised in? Does this affect free will? That’s not to say we don’t have free will, but the actions we are free to take are also shaped by our cultures (as well as other factors, such as gender and religion).

I suppose the whole point of this is to suggest that far more is cultural than most people think.

Price Comparison

In my bag everyday, I carry a cheap watch. I say cheap because it is cheap by American standards; $25 is not much to pay for a watch. It does what I want it to, in that in keeps the time accurately and has a stopwatch so I can time myself when I go running. In America, as we all know, the currency is the dollar; in China, it's the RMB; in Thailand it's the baht; in Cambodia (where I am right now) it's the riel. There are approximately 7 RMB to the dollar, 30 baht to the dollar, and 4000 riel to the same dollar. Now consider the price of a bottle of water. In China, the average cost of a bottle of water is 1.5 RMB. In Thailand, it's 6 baht. In Cambodia, they use the dollar anyway (since their own currency is so unsteady), so it costs $.25, or 1000 riel. In America, to be optimistic, I could theoretically spend $1 and get a bottle of water. However, I have been told that prices have sky-rocketed while I've been away, so I cannot claim that my information is current. Here is what I have concluded. In Thailand, my watch can buy me 125 bottles of water. In China, my watch can buy me 116 bottles of water. In Cambodia, my watch can buy me 100 bottles of water. In America, my watch can buy me absolutely no more than 25 bottles of water. On a good day.

One more time… One more time… One more time… One more t…

I’m currently in Thailand but way behind on my posting, so I’m still talking about China. Not to worry, I will definitely tell you all about Thailand, but probably not until I make it back to America and have a chance to upload my photos (seriously, Thailand without photos? That just wouldn’t be any fun at all). One of the things that I find very interesting about Chinese culture is how deeply engrained the concept of repetition is. Everything is repetition. Any kind of physical or mental exercise is centered around repetition. For example, there was a little park by my apartment complex and every morning when I woke up, I could hear the Chinese version of “Livin’ la Vida Loca.” And I do mean every morning; not a day went by without being graced by a Chinese Ricky Martin. The same people were doing the same dance to the same song every single morning. At the gym I went to, there existed a similar phenomenon. For all the exercise classes, they listened to the same music and repeated the same moves over and over again. I remember this one particular hip-hop routine – I think the instructor even wore the same silly clothes to all of the classes (you know, red warm-up suit, some bling hanging around his neck, one pant leg rolled up, baseball cap worn at a 45-degree angle; all this and he was still a terrible choreographer). In any case, they would play the same song over and over and over again and do the same dance. If the class was lucky, some moves might be added on to the routine they had already learned. It was interesting, though – they never would work on specific parts of the routine. It was just the whole thing, again and again. Another example is how all my Chinese classes have been structured. Class can be a bit boring because of the mind-numbing amount of repetition. We read the vocabulary out loud, twice for each vocab word; we read the whole dialogue out loud two times; we do similar exercises for every chapter; we write out each new character at least five times so we memorize it. The focus is on reading and writing. Oral speaking tends to be kept to a minimum (which has always bothered me). Every once in a while we’ll go around the room and come up with examples using some particular grammatical structure. Mostly, though, we focus on what is on the page in front of us – which requires no independent thought at all. It gets you thinking. First of all, if those dance classes were happening in America – well, they just wouldn’t. All of the dancers would be bored out of their minds. Dance is by nature a creative process and so each week you listen to different music and do different exercises than you did the week before. But then education in America is largely about learning how to be creative and thinking for yourself, whereas in China I feel like you’re learning to be just like everyone else. It seems to me that the Chinese educational system does not encourage creativity. I suppose with such heavy governmental censoring, that’s a necessary by-product. It’s hard to feel free to think for yourself if you’re constantly afraid the government is going to exile you for it. So anyway, my theory is that the reason there’s so much repetition in everything people do in China is that that’s the way the educational system is structured. In a sense it has to be; the writing system is so complicated that if you don’t practice the characters over and over again until you want to lose your mind, you won’t be literate. So repetition is the heart and soul of everything. I have heard previously that all of the well-known Chinese-speaking pop stars are Taiwanese – from what I’ve seen of China, I believe it.

Safe and Sound

A quick note to everyone: I am alive and well here in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I am still upset about the earthquake in China, especially since it was so close to where I spent the past four months of my life. I have friends in Chengdu that I still haven't heard from, despite sending messages as well as I am able. However, I heard phone lines and such things are down, which is probably why I haven't heard from them. I also heard that the tremors could be felt as far away as Bangkok, but by the time the earthquake hit, we had already left Bangkok and were in Chiang Mai (despite being closer to China, we didn't feel a thing). In any case, again, Sofia and I are fine. We didn't even know there had been an earthquake until we read the news.

An Update on Rebekah

This is Rebekah's sister. I'm sure by now you've all heard about the quake in Chengdu. As you know, Rebekah left Chengdu a few days ago, and she's totally fine - she's currently in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Despite the news reports that buildings in Bangkok were shaking from the quake, she didn't feel a thing. I wanted to leave a message here so that you all knew, since we haven't gotten any blog posts lately.

The End

Well, this is it. This is The End. Tomorrow night I will be leaving China, ne’er to return (truth be told, I highly doubt that will be the case, but at the very least I won’t be coming back for quite some time). Quite soon I will find myself in Thailand. After Thailand, I’m going to Cambodia. My last stop before returning to America is Japan. Stay tuned, though – I’m not through with this blog yet. I’d like to write up posts about all the countries I will soon be visiting, and I have some more posts about China that I’d still like to put up. As the time of my departure draws ever nearer, I find myself more and more melancholic. Don’t get me wrong – I can’t wait to go home. I miss so many of the American commodities that can’t be found in China. I miss being able to breathe clean air and see the sun shine in a sky that is truly blue. I miss walking barefoot in the grass and not being yelled at when I sit in it. I miss ovens and running outside. I miss being able to drink fresh 1% milk and eat fresh fruit like strawberries, grapes, blueberries, and apples with the skins intact. I miss my delicious British tea that I used to drink every morning. I miss seeing the stars at night. I miss swing dancing. I imagine I’ll even be happy to drink water out of the tap. Most of all, I miss the people that make America worthwhile to me – my family, my friends, my cat. But despite how much I’m looking forward to all of these wonderful things, I know I’m going to miss China terribly. Truth be told, I’m tearing up even as I write these words. This country has been my home for the past four months. It’s seen my ups and downs. I’ve made friends and deepened my understanding of Chinese language and culture. I’ve fallen in love with the food. One by one, the people that make up our little community of expatriates are leaving. Mario left last week; Sol leaves tonight; I leave tomorrow. These people have been my lifeline, my friends, my companions for the past few months. It makes me sad knowing that we are all going back to our old lives and we may not see each other again for a very long time. I lived with them, cooked with them, shared meals with them, studied with them, hung out with them on the weekends. We shared birthdays and the novelty of being in a foreign country together. I can’t believe this time has come already – it seems just yesterday I arrived in China, totally unaccustomed to life here and reveling in the umpteen new experiences that came with each day. Every day that passes brings me closer to home, and I become more and more elated. At the same time, though, I feel terribly heartbroken. I am leaving China. I am leaving the home and life that I have created for myself. In a sense, I am leaving my home. 中国，我爱你。我已经想你了。

Permission to Leave

It’s official. I am now allowed to leave China since I have climbed the Great Wall.

For the International Labor Day holiday (May 1), a couple friends and I made our way to Beijing. Let me just say – I know Chengdu is polluted, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Beijing. I read in my Lonely Planet that breathing the Beijing air is the equivalent of smoking seventy packs of cigarettes – a day. The plane landed in a haze of smog so thick that despite the cloudless day, nary a shadow was to be seen. Also, when you blow your nose in Beijing, it comes out black. The same is true in Chengdu, but the particular shade of black is less striking.

Although the city is putting a huge amount of effort (and expense) into cleaning Beijing up for the Olympics, there’s no way they’ll actually have clean air. I’m very curious to see if the pollution will affect the athletes’ performance and if the Chinese athletes will fare better since they’re more used to it. I’m also interested in whether Chinese athletes perform better than average when they’re in other countries.

Anyway, that aside, we only had a few days, so we pared down what we wanted to see to a handful of the most famous sites. That is, the Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Summer Palace. I was a bit disappointed in the Temple of Heaven since it was impossible to get a good look at anything. There was no interior lighting and you weren’t even allowed inside any of the buildings (which is a shame, since the ceiling of the Harvest Temple is what everyone goes to see).

The Great Wall was everything I imagined it could be – except for the weather. Again, the smog was so intense that the sun didn’t seem to make it down. I found out later, however, much to my dismay, that smog does not block out UV rays. So even though I couldn’t see the sun, I still got a sunburn from it. Bah.

The Forbidden City was quite an adventure, with weather to match. That day we rose plenty early so we would have the whole day to explore. Tiananmen Square is attached to the Forbidden City (which, by the way, is where the emperors lived), so that was our first stop. As we crossed the street to the Forbidden City, though, one ominous roll of thunder sounded from the clouds above. Aware that we were about to be caught in a deluge, Traci, Shay, and I made a quick purchase of cheap ponchos. We made our way to the ticket booth, and I kid you not, when we turned around, it looked like the middle of the night. Clearly we were in for a nasty storm.

As soon as we crossed the threshold into the actual city, the rain started. And oh, did it rain. Regardless of the precautions we took, we were all soon soaked through. It didn’t help that the ponchos were even more cheaply made than what we bargained down to. My bottom button wouldn’t stay buttoned, so I had to hold it with my hand. On top of that, I very quickly developed a large hole all the way down my arm – Traci had to tie the plastic in a knot so that my clothes didn’t get totally soaked. But still, every time I took a step, water squished out of my shoes. My hair was so wet it looked as though I’d just stepped out of the shower (and yes, I did have a hood).

Eventually the rain abated, so we were actually able to explore a bit. But almost immediately the temperature dropped about twenty degrees and the wind started blowing so hard that it buffeted and pushed us along on our way. And then it started to rain again. We ended up cutting our visit short so that we could throw our shoes in the dryer (and prevent ending up with hypothermia).

Our last few hours in Beijing were spent at the Summer Palace, when we were actually blessed with the first nice weather we’d seen in Beijing. The sun shone, the sky was blue, and the heat was delicious. Mostly as a result of the favorable weather (finally), the Summer Palace was our favorite place we visited.

In conclusion, I like Chengdu better. The food is better and the pollution is less intense. On the other hand, it was nice to actually understand what people were saying for once (by way of an explanation, the dialect spoken in Beijing is considered the standard, and it’s what all foreign students learn).

Chairman Mao once said, “You are not a real man until you’ve climbed the Great Wall.” At least I can rest easy now, knowing that I am indeed a real man.

Photos:










1. The Temple of Heaven, the outside of the Harvest Temple

2. Did I not tell you it was as dark as night? This was taken at about ten in the morning.

3. The Forbidden City

4. The largest rock carving in... some area... not really sure. Anyway, the steps were beautiful and that huge rock carving got rolled halfway across China (remember: no cars).

5-7. The Great Wall of China!

8-9. The Summer Palace