A nice humor entry that does not revolve entirely around my own cultural and linguistic blunders; yesterday, Yazhen informed us that her roommate had discovered a mushroom in their bathroom. Mushroom is “mogu”, but Xueqin and I heard “mogui” which means monster or evil spirit (I also have a theory that this is the source of the name of the creatures in Gremlins). Knowing Chinese girls to scare easily and be superstitious about things like ghosts, we thought nothing of Yazhen’s matter-of-fact tone. There’s a ghost in your bathroom? Interesting… In fact when I came back from fall break unannounced and took a shower, I think Xiaojun got a bit of a fright, herself. Of course we figured out the mistake pretty quickly and alternatively laughed and cringed at the thought of either toilet intruder, sympathizing about the icky bathroom growth and wondering where to find a fungicide.
After a great day of no class and a few leisurely hours in a teahouse with a buffet, compliments of the school, five of us went out for Sichuan hotpot at a nearby restaurant. We ordered vegetables, meat, dumplings, tofu, potatoes and two kinds of mushrooms. We had a good laugh over the mogu/mogui story, and by then of course the wrong association was already cemented. Near the end of the meal, Huijuan took a ladle and started sifting through the pot, and after a minute declared that there were no more demons in the hotpot. I wish I knew the word for “exorcism”.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Boo? Bu
Most of the time in China if you want to say an especially foreign word or proper noun, like a brand name, celebrity, or place, you can approximate it in Chinese sounds and it is often right (there are official transliterations for almost everything) Example: ka-bu-ji-nuo=cappuccino, ta-mu-han-ke-si=Tom Hanks, fu-luo-li-da=Florida. Sometimes we can guess, but luckily I remembered this dangerous exception before using it yesterday; you can get a really close approximation to “Halloween”; ha-luo-yin, but this word does not mean a holiday where kids wear scary outfits and beg for candy; it means “heroin”. Yes, that was a word I learned over the summer (For anyone who’s curious, an-fei-ta-min is amphetamine). The word for Halloween is not transliterated, and is something like “Spirits Holiday”.
I read somewhere that a bar in town was having pumpkin carving and spiced wine, which sounded like a fun and relaxed thing to do, and several friends had planned to go. I invited my roommate, who on hearing the word “pumpkin” knew exactly what I was talking about and was eager to go. I set about figuring out whether or not I could put together a costume, settling finally on a candy corn, wearing various layers of white yellow and orange over a red skirt. The outfit was big and not really recognizable as candy corn, and about five minutes before walking out the door I changed into some rolled up jeans, threw a belt over my white shirt, took off one earring, tied my hair in a scarf and became a pirate instead.
Unfortunately when we got to the bar it was just a bar with lots of foreigners in strange clothes, and especially since my roommate isn’t big on the bar scene and I was in the mood for something calmer, I bought her a coke and me a beer, and we hung around but left about an hour later when things started getting rowdy. It was actually a really fun night, explaining to Xiaojun about Halloween and chatting with her and my friends. When we got back, since she’d let me pay for the cab and drinks, Xiaojun took me across the street for some midnight snacks: Sichuan barbecue (spicy grilled veggie kebabs), and some bready things. The snack was excellent, partly because for dinner I’d finished off the peanut butter and crackers I’d treated myself to and had a few handfuls of Xinjiang raisins, and we had some excellent roommate bonding time.
I read somewhere that a bar in town was having pumpkin carving and spiced wine, which sounded like a fun and relaxed thing to do, and several friends had planned to go. I invited my roommate, who on hearing the word “pumpkin” knew exactly what I was talking about and was eager to go. I set about figuring out whether or not I could put together a costume, settling finally on a candy corn, wearing various layers of white yellow and orange over a red skirt. The outfit was big and not really recognizable as candy corn, and about five minutes before walking out the door I changed into some rolled up jeans, threw a belt over my white shirt, took off one earring, tied my hair in a scarf and became a pirate instead.
Unfortunately when we got to the bar it was just a bar with lots of foreigners in strange clothes, and especially since my roommate isn’t big on the bar scene and I was in the mood for something calmer, I bought her a coke and me a beer, and we hung around but left about an hour later when things started getting rowdy. It was actually a really fun night, explaining to Xiaojun about Halloween and chatting with her and my friends. When we got back, since she’d let me pay for the cab and drinks, Xiaojun took me across the street for some midnight snacks: Sichuan barbecue (spicy grilled veggie kebabs), and some bready things. The snack was excellent, partly because for dinner I’d finished off the peanut butter and crackers I’d treated myself to and had a few handfuls of Xinjiang raisins, and we had some excellent roommate bonding time.
Culture Shock
I’ve mentioned before that Chinese people will often be very happy to help, whether or not they know the answer to what you’re asking; a ticket guy at the airport directed me to three different check in windows before grunting and telling me to go to the information counter. A related issue to this is the fact that Chinese people enjoy talking about their country to foreigners, though many Chinese people, especially college students, haven’t done much travel at all. When I was at the conference in Chengdu, one of the student volunteers, on hearing I was studying in Hangzhou, said “Hangzhou is very beautiful, especially West Lake”. This is about word for word what you’ll hear from anyone who knows Hangzhou. I agreed, “Yes, have you been there?” “No.” The thing is he didn’t say “I hear it’s beautiful there, how do you like it?”, his tone was as if he wanted to explain to me how great the city was, when of course I know it much better than he does.
This is an offshoot of a much bigger phenomenon in China, which I believe comes from a combination of a propagandizing culture and a strong history of rote education and straight memorization of quotations by famous scholars and historical dates. A newspaper article detailing the outcome of the 17th National Congress will repeat in summary everything that Hu Jintao spoke about, but offer no discussion on the substance of the material, past policies, etc; it seems what matters is knowing what was said. People rely on set associations and generalizations to form their opinions, and at times this can be uncomfortable for study abroad students.
When my roommate thinks of an American, she thinks of a white person. This is true for most people I’ve met; Americans are white and rich, and because white is beautiful and rich means you must be smart, Americans are better than other people. Because it is the most developed country, America is better than China. These are sentences I have heard, word for word, from roommates, shopkeepers, taxi drivers, random people on the street. In Kashgar I was approached by a man asking where I was from. He asked if America or China was better. I said I couldn’t make a comparison between the two, hoping he’d let the conversation drop, but he insisted that America was better, because it was the most developed country in the world. Others have encountered “all Americans are smart”, “Americans are taller and whiter than Chinese people, so they’re better”, etc. Last night I was getting a snack with my roommate and the vendor commented about all Americans having money. I called him on it, saying “not necessarily”, and proceeded to mention that though Americans make more money, things also cost a lot more, and there are plenty of poor people. This ridiculous idolization of things American is frustrating, especially since it’s so single-minded and widespread, especially among some college students who love American culture. I think next time someone asks I’ll say I’m Canadian or English, see what different reactions I get.
The race thing is big, and a lot have people have commented on how strongly a lack of diversity has influenced people’s thinking. Some people here have just said point-blank that they hate black people, and hate Japanese people. Having studied a bit the emotional wounds a culture can suffer and the extent to which past violence can feel very real to people in present day, I’m willing to be a bit understanding on the Japanese thing, but it’s really hard for the Asian-Americans in our program. Bamu is Japanese-American, and when people don’t assume she’s Chinese and our guide, they often give her a hard time for being Japanese. If people ask where we’re from and we say “America”, they then point to her and ask where she’s from; of course these white girls look American, but you don’t. My roommate asked me if I saw someone like Bamu or Shushan on the street in America, would I assume they were foreign? Partially because of the culture, it’s hard for some people to understand that a Chinese or Korean or Japanese person growing up in America would consider themselves first American and then something else; you are ethnically Chinese, and therefore you are Chinese. I asked one of my teachers over summer school, who teaches at UCLA, where she was from, and she said that it’s really hard to answer, because she grew up in Taiwan but her parents or grandparents were originally from somewhere in mainland China, which culturally would be considered her “老家” or her home town, though she’d never been.
This is an offshoot of a much bigger phenomenon in China, which I believe comes from a combination of a propagandizing culture and a strong history of rote education and straight memorization of quotations by famous scholars and historical dates. A newspaper article detailing the outcome of the 17th National Congress will repeat in summary everything that Hu Jintao spoke about, but offer no discussion on the substance of the material, past policies, etc; it seems what matters is knowing what was said. People rely on set associations and generalizations to form their opinions, and at times this can be uncomfortable for study abroad students.
When my roommate thinks of an American, she thinks of a white person. This is true for most people I’ve met; Americans are white and rich, and because white is beautiful and rich means you must be smart, Americans are better than other people. Because it is the most developed country, America is better than China. These are sentences I have heard, word for word, from roommates, shopkeepers, taxi drivers, random people on the street. In Kashgar I was approached by a man asking where I was from. He asked if America or China was better. I said I couldn’t make a comparison between the two, hoping he’d let the conversation drop, but he insisted that America was better, because it was the most developed country in the world. Others have encountered “all Americans are smart”, “Americans are taller and whiter than Chinese people, so they’re better”, etc. Last night I was getting a snack with my roommate and the vendor commented about all Americans having money. I called him on it, saying “not necessarily”, and proceeded to mention that though Americans make more money, things also cost a lot more, and there are plenty of poor people. This ridiculous idolization of things American is frustrating, especially since it’s so single-minded and widespread, especially among some college students who love American culture. I think next time someone asks I’ll say I’m Canadian or English, see what different reactions I get.
The race thing is big, and a lot have people have commented on how strongly a lack of diversity has influenced people’s thinking. Some people here have just said point-blank that they hate black people, and hate Japanese people. Having studied a bit the emotional wounds a culture can suffer and the extent to which past violence can feel very real to people in present day, I’m willing to be a bit understanding on the Japanese thing, but it’s really hard for the Asian-Americans in our program. Bamu is Japanese-American, and when people don’t assume she’s Chinese and our guide, they often give her a hard time for being Japanese. If people ask where we’re from and we say “America”, they then point to her and ask where she’s from; of course these white girls look American, but you don’t. My roommate asked me if I saw someone like Bamu or Shushan on the street in America, would I assume they were foreign? Partially because of the culture, it’s hard for some people to understand that a Chinese or Korean or Japanese person growing up in America would consider themselves first American and then something else; you are ethnically Chinese, and therefore you are Chinese. I asked one of my teachers over summer school, who teaches at UCLA, where she was from, and she said that it’s really hard to answer, because she grew up in Taiwan but her parents or grandparents were originally from somewhere in mainland China, which culturally would be considered her “老家” or her home town, though she’d never been.
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