just so you know

In case you aren't lucky enough to actually live here like I do, you might not know that...

Everything good in the world is orginally Chinese, everything bad Western.

For example, there's capitalism (bad) - forced on China in the Qing dynasty (1800's) by the eight foreign powers, who after using military might (or GUNS, which we must remember, were NOT invented by Chinese people though they had long before invented gunpowder) to force their way into China's market, proceeded to post signs on the land they had stolen in Shanghai that read, "No Chinese or dogs allowed". It's hard to argue that capitalism hasn't been fully embraced here, but we'll argue that we never wanted it, never chose it.

And the all-inclusive, "openness" (bad) - immodesty, loose morality, and sex on TV, in movies, in young people's lives, is learned, of course, from the West, and mainly from "America", where everyone knows people wear as few clothes as they can get away with and divorce, sleep around, and in general assert their (scarily-extreme) independence as easily as they deposit their parents in an old folk's home.

Anais Mitchell sings (I think) about being a "westerner" in a place other than the "west" in "The Belly and the Beast" and I understand the general feeling ...

I, in my longing, fly out in the night
unveiled and irreverently dressed
I'm lipstuck and liquored up, pickin' a fight
I'm the wicked, wicked witch of the west

See, I want to complain about how I'm misunderstood, but really, I work with amazingly open people who understand relatively much about where I'm coming from and the mutual misunderstandings that we're all mired in and, best of all, they like to talk about it with me. We're all thinking a bit more politically these days; even my poor, very apolitical roommate is aware that something is going on because of the unavoidable buzz about boycotting Carrefour because we've been having these hours of conversations about politics and culture. I really think I understand a lot about China. I say to my roommate, "I really think I understand a lot about China," and then add, "but not enough."

"That's right, a little humbler!" she admonishes jokingly, and I know she's right, but I also wonder if "understanding China" for her doesn't meant holding the same views that every "good girl" is supposed to, 'cause I don't think I'll ever get there. Today we conclude our lunchtime lecture saying peacework is helping people in China and the west to understand each other more. I agree, I agree.

We pick up later with why the officials can't engage in real dialogue, because they have no "culture". (A related article about why officials shouldn't read, and I read the other day that the Pope can speak ten languages, and thought, "Now that guy deserves to be a leader!") . I mentioned this article, which offers China suggestions on "Putting the PR into the PRC" .

This was sort of the author's summary advice to China on how to come across a little more positively to the rest of the world.

Be confident and honest, not defensive and secretive

The outright denials of the obvious, the virulent rhetoric, the strained historical arguments, the paranoid claims that foreigners cause your problems - all make China look bad. And China does not need to look bad. Moreover, the world needs China not to look bad. China has a great deal to be proud and confident of, with an unprecedented record of poverty alleviation, phenomenal economic growth, glittering new architecture, high-levels of education, a space programme, trillions in foreign reserves, a savings rate that is the envy of spendthrift Americans, and what is likely to be a rich harvest of Olympic gold - not to mention a long history and glorious culture.

Sure, China has problems - who doesn't? But no one is going to take Tibet or Xinjiang away from China. If you respond to disturbances in these regions with restraint, with a statesmanlike air "more in sadness than in anger", and demonstrate an interest in attempting to resolve, rather than deny, the economic, cultural and political problems underlying these disturbances, you could earn world understanding and sympathy rather than looking like a bully.

I like this article because what he's saying is true: China has a lot going for it, and if it weren't so frustratingly defensive and secretive about everything, and stopped thinking, acting, and talking as if it's AGAINST the rest of the world rather than dealing with a lot of similar issues (a giant rich-poor gap, environmental issues, a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society, etc), things could be so much prettier. SW agrees, but there's little chance of that happening she seems to suggest, "The problem is that the officials lack confidence to really openly engage" even this country's own intellectuals, much less the international community. They have too much pressure - they're clinging tight to their power because it's not just power, but their means for survival (they're not lawyers or businessmen that changed professions, they're peasants that fought their way into these positions). You can think of China like a person, she says. They've had all this trauma (fuedalism, invasion from the west, from Japan, the cultural revolution). What China's people need is healing, and a real understanding of all the good that China has and is ... that can slowly grow into real confidence.

Last night when I couldn't stand to look at Chinese characters any longer I went out for a walk in the misty rain. When I handed my vegetables to the malatang guy so he could stew them in the pot of savory broth, he asked what country I'm from. It's such a common question, but weightier these days, so after I'd said "US", I asked, "but if I were from France, what would you do?"

He didn't hesitate an instant. "不卖!" (he wouldn't sell me the soup!) and a big head-thrown-back laugh. I laughed with him, but couldn't resist a mini-speech about how he should know that the government isn't related to us common folk.

"Look at the American government, I said. They're bad, but I'm good!"

"I'm good too!" he said, and I said I knew. When the soup was done he brought it to my table, and welcomed me to come back again. When the girl at the table beside mine got up to leave she put the napkins from her table onto mine, and met my eyes with a smile. I was moved. Daily, I try to remember to worry less about these big things and go about the more important business of creating my own life.

My yoga instructor sweetly came to English Island on Friday night "second to practice English," she told me, and "first, to see you." She asked if I'd been busy recently, and I said I had (though not busy enough to explain why I haven't been to yoga in a good month). "I think you should practice more," she said simply, and I promised I'd be there tonight. Now that's love like it's supposed to be done.

spring resolution

I’ve gotta stop listening to other people. If you take other people’s words of cautions seriously, I’ve decided (especially in this country), you’ll never do anything. Getting to the yoga place is a perfect excuse to buy a bike – I’m sure I could fly there in half the time it takes the bus at rush hour, and with spring here*, it makes me want to cry to get on a bus when I could be riding.

When I needed a new iPod to PC connecting cord in the fall, I bought it online, with some help from my colleagues . . . and a whole lot more discouragement. They were sure that it would certainly be a fake, if it actually got here at all, and that I was an idiot for marching to the bank and depositing 22 kuai in the account of a "LuckyHarry", who had only assured me online that he'd send the cord as soon as I made the deposit. My students told me, however, that they do almost all their shopping on Taobao, which is the Chinese version of Ebay (with plenty of it's own unique characteristics), so I was determined to give it a try. A few days (and twenty-two kuai later), the little box with my cord arrived at our office, and I was glad I had.

I would have bought a bike long ago if it weren’t for the advice from my colleagues. I saw a decent one just around the corner, that, though a bit overpriced, would have been fine. It was pink, with the swooping up handlebars that are so fun. I would have gone back and bought it in the afternoon but at lunch my bubble was burst.

“You can’t buy a used bike!” they said. “It’s stolen!” (which I knew) . . .“which means that it’s more likely to be stolen again!” (huh?) At least one line of that logic had to do with the old owner stealing it back, which to me seems less likely than just another thief getting the bike. They told me to go to Wal-mart and buy a bike. I went and looked at the prices and wondered how I was supposed to test them out when the tires were all deflated and there was no attendant (for once) to help. I left Wal-mart. I still have no bike.

Next week, after Justin comes, Zhang has promised to take me to the used bike market. I will choose a bike that I like, and I will buy it for a price that I like, and I will not care what anyone else thinks or says. Then I will sail through the traffic (laughing at all the car owners) to yoga class and next week I will tell beautiful dark-skinned girl, the one who said yesterday that she carries a swimsuit in her bag at almost all times, that the next time she goes up to the lake on the mountain, the one that has the name that sounds like “suicide”, where all the locals swim, that I want to go too. And will she please call me, because she looks like the kind of girl that I would like to be friends with.

But the lake is deep. People drown there every year. There are swirling cold water pools that will suck you down. As ominous as this sounds (and it gives me the shivers) I have decided to ignore well-intentioned cautionary advice, and go on living my life, and go swimming at the earliest opportunity.

Tomorrow I’m headed to Shanghai (my first trip ever! scandalous, considering that the fast trains take two hours) to meet Justin. Justin is going to spend a month in China hanging out with me. That still kind of shocks me when I let it roll through my head. How did it come to be that I have a friend that would fly to China to visit me? for a month? Granted, he is escaping cold weather, and I know China itself does pull a bit, but still, I’m pretty humbled by the undeservedness of the gift.

* I said this last week too, about spring being here, and a day later I got a killer headache from the wind and a lecture for taking off too many layers too early)