Mae day

A slow week at work, with most of the staff and students still on holiday, leaves ample time for students and teachers to get into more detailed discussions than normal. Not that the regular "where are you from?", "what do you think of Shanghai?", "can you speak any Chinese?" discussions aren't fun, but yesterday I had an exceptionally rare candid conversation with a couple of students. One in particular, we'll call her Mae to protect her identity (and because I forget her real name), astounded me with insight both new and old to me, but rarely discussed within the walls of EF.

Or first exceptional topic was philosophy, which is a pretty incredible thing to discuss with a group of Chinese. We were comparing the two 'fathers' of Eastern and Western philosophy: Socrates and Confucius. It was noted that Confucius is a fan of order and respect to elders, leading to students, sons and citizens asking less critical questions of their superiors, where as Socrates seemingly encourages systematic revolt in some students. At this point Mae chimed in that Confucius was one of many Chinese philosophers, but because his views supported the existence of whichever government held power, he had always been touted as the best. This insightful haymaker was followed by her rightfully calling Confucius a misogynist (in so many words). I was a little shocked, but honored to be present, for a student letting slip such candid opinions, especially because I can't help but agree with them.

The next topic was one which I felt slightly more uncomfortable about: Guns in America. Students often ask this, expecting reality to bear out their wild imaginations of gun crazed Americans waving firearms in the air as they race to be first in the supermarket check out line. I try as delicately as I can to dissuade this notion from my students minds (although my inner regionalism leads me to believe it may be true somewhere in Houston). After covering this initial base yesterday, the students asked about the gun laws and why they aren't changed, and I explained the lines of though (guns are dangerous vs. guns are for protection/protected by the constitution) as well as the politics surrounding them - ie the NRA. This was when Mae again chimed in with a though which seemed impossibly radical being made among a small group of Chinese and their American teacher. She said she though guns were good for people because if people had guns, they had the power, not the government. She proceeded to express her opinion that people in China have no real power, that the government holds it all, but if people were able to arm themselves they would be prepared to disagree with the government when the time came. She said this is why democracy in America works, because the people have the power. I don't know if I'd never thought of it that way before, or if Mae saying it just caught me off guard, but it hit me like a revelation.

The conversation was lengthy, and we certainly did discuss the mundane topics of the day - the meaning of toddler for example, but any conversation with a few wonderfully insightful ideas is a good conversation. It was memorable and surprising perhaps because they seemed such western ideas coming from such a Chinese woman, or perhaps because I'm not used to hearing this kind of talk coming from my students, but I think it struck such a chord because I agreed with Mae.

The Pastime

Much like anywhere, holidays are a time when people can relax with their families. In Boston, we huddle around the fireplace, in Australia they head to the beach, but in China they head to the park, which is where I went this week.

The park was jam packed with what seemed to me was half the city, but in reality was probably a just a fraction of the folks in the surrounding apartment towers. As I strolled through the park I came across people doing all sorts of recreation: from thrill rides to bumper boats, from old ladies doing tai chi to a rowdy crew singing Italian opera to the accompaniment of an accordion. My two favorite groups were the Chinese who'd learned African Tribal drumming, and were out burning a dance beat and the hoards of wanna be seamen who'd rented one of the motorized boats in the lake, and accidentally turned it into impromptu bumper boats - thank goodness for slow speeds and flimsy rubber bumpers. Truly everyone who was anyone was out and about, relaxing in the unseasonably warm day.

Yet nothing was as captivating as those engaged in one of China's favorite pastimes - kite flying. In a scene straight out of The Kite Runner, I sat and counted upwards of 25 kites in the air, with another half dozen in the stages of launching. Trying to figure out who on the ground controlled which sailing vessel proved to be impossibly fun. Some of the fliers were near professionals, with expensive bicycle-wheel-like apparatuses to pull and slacken their lines with. The best managed to put their kites so high in the sky they seemed little more than dark flecks on the rare blue sky. Most of the people, however, were armatures content simply to raise their kites to reasonable levels.

Yet observing the scene was remarkable because it was not static like I imagine it would be. Like any good scene, there was humor in the children running wildly to hopelessly raise their kite as they meanwhile tangled their short strands in the lines of far more advanced fliers, whose kites were indistinguishably off in the distance. Yet tangles did happen, and when adults tangled, watching them maneuver on foot to steer their kites out of danger, discussing with other fliers the best direction to go to avoid entrapment, the scene took on a social level I've never considered kite flying to have. Needless to say, I'm rather eager to get a kite and fly one myself now.

Perhaps we don't fly kites on our major holidays. We don't even go outside for our biggest ones unless you count the shiveringly dangerous game of tackle football many play on Thanksgiving. Yet it was unmistakably familiar to walk around that park - families with families, doing simple things that give them joy.

The War of the Ox

Sunday night at the stroke of midnight, Shanghai ushered in the new year a month later than the rest of us. The Chinese year of the Rat was over, hello year of the Ox. It should come as no surprise that littered around Shanghai's financial districts were honorary giant golden bulls resembling the one flexing on Wall St. Rumor has it there is no Chinese year of the bear. This most important holiday is celebrated a far cry from pretty trees and carols about silent nights, with the locals instead opting to throw a firework show to end all firework shows.

First, imagine the best firework show you've ever seen. Most of you, being from Boston, would muse that the Boston Pops accompanying the millions of dollars of pyrotechnics on the Esplanade would be your pick. That show was a highly condoled burst of explosives choreographed by professionals, detonated almost a quarter of a mile from where you stood, leaning out from underneath a tree to get a better look. In Shanghai, a city of 17 million people, everyone lights off a box of their very own fireworks... in their own backyard.

These fireworks are no humble sparklers. Some, designed for noise, look like someone stole a role of bullets while Rambo wasn't looking and wrapped them in red paper before lighting it. Others, designed to fly into the sky and explode into pretty colors (the one's we're used to), come in 1'x1' boxes, armable by a small battery driven fuse in the corner. Somehow, either brilliantly simple or mindlessly stupid, these baby war toys have been made accessible to the masses.

And people do not seek clear areas, or at least what in the west would constitute a clear area. No, the Chinese are more than content to set them off on the walkway between apartment buildings, with sparks splattering the windows of residents on floors 8-20, with the noise echoing between the complex walls, as a gunshot through a canyon. Standing inside the bedroom, watching awestruck as fireworks exploded beneath me, a dread fascination to view the experience from the balcony gripped me. As I opened the door, I was hit by a wall of noise, a crushing physical blow of sound waves to my body; I hesitated. It was like stepping into war. Between the bursting shells in the sky and the ground being littered with the rat-tat-tat of the noise makers, the only thing to do besides stare in awe and cover my ears was to be thankful I was in China, and not someplace else.

Eventually the mayhem died away, visibility was reduced from miles to meters by smoke, families retreated inside. The government gives all employees 3 days off work, but only the first and last are big firework nights. Technically fireworks aren't legal inside the ring road, but that doesn't seem to stop too many people. I've talked to other expats who've been here for new years past, and they seemed to agree it's been bigger (making it harder to sleep) in years past. Perhaps the reduction in firework boom corresponds to economic boom, but if my past week has been any indication, China still has plenty of boom to go around.

Home for the Holidays

Today marks my last working day before the start of the Spring Festival holiday, better known as Chinese New Years. The school has mostly emptied out, as most people have travel outside Shanghai to visit their relatives. The city is perhaps more crowded than ever, with people filling the malls and storefronts to bask in Shanghai's new old-fashioned recreational activity - shopping. I wasn't in Shanghai for the new years last year, but in sleepy Yangshuo. This year I expect to be treated to a shockingly loud (and dangerously close) firework show, the likes of which I've never seen before. It should be a memorable week.

Nothing makes people seem more human and similar than discussing important holidays. Having just spent Christmas back home with my family, I now realize just how similar all nations traditions are. People visit family. People eat traditional food (the Chinese eat dumplings and spring rolls instead of turkey and gravy). And people give children gifts (or as they do here in China, red envelopes full of money). Things are pretty similar.

One thing America has, which is rather special, is two major holidays: Christmas and Thanksgiving. Many American families will spend Christmas at the husband's family and Thanksgiving at the wife's, or vice versa. The Chinese and most of the rest of the world, however, are stuck with one major holiday to split between all branches of the family. The closest solution the Chinese have to this problem is a longer holiday, hoping that the two sides live close enough to each other to allow a visit to both. I get the feeling from my students some would rather visit neither...

So as I prepare to hunker down for what I expect to be the loudest holiday I've ever celebrated (the Chinese invented fireworks and don't want you to forget it), I can't help but smile and relax knowing that this is just how we would celebrate it back home... just that Christmas doesn't have fireworks. Maybe this should change.

Heart of Shanghai

Just like any box office smash hit, I've returned to China for a second tour of duty. My stint at home was a wonderful mental rest, allowing me to recharge, reboot and generally mellow out about all those stressful 'China-related' things. It's much easier to approach this year than last, as I now have not only a social structure on which to hang my hat, but a level of mental preparation with which to deal with any potential cultural divides.

My United flight, complete with a stop over in San Francisco, felt a little like my own personal version of Joseph Conrad's book (without me killing Marlon Brando at the end). We were first served Chicken Teriyaki, followed a few hours later by pot noodles - the meals became more and more asian, less and less western. When I ventured to the bathroom, I made a humorous discovery which I'd never noticed before. On either side of the toilet, presumably on almost every style of aircraft, there are two small platforms. They're too small to be tables or anything, and they are located on either side of the walls cramped in next to the toilet. What are they? They're footholds for Asians who refuse to use western toilets like westerners do by sitting down. Instead, an squat toilet fan can hoist themselves onto these footholds above the toilet and do their business in their own traditional way. I even confirmed it when I arrived here... next time you're on a plane, check it out in the bathroom.

After arriving I have had 2 days to adjust to the culture, but more importantly to jet lag, before I start teaching on Friday. For some reason I always believe I'm better than the jet lag, that it doesn't effect me, or that I can tough it out. However, as my 1 hour nap stretched into it's 4th hour, I realized jet lag has complete control over me. Thank goodness the cultural adjustment is easier the second time around.

Christmas

The Chinese have managed to absorb most western holidays into their culture in some way or another, so that Christmas music and decorations were everywhere in December should come as no surprise. The curious thing about the way China adapts western traditions, especially religious traditions, is that they choose to pluck the superficial aspects, and leave the significance and meaning out of the holidays. The result is that Christmas, an already over commercialized holiday in the US becomes even more commercial driven in China.

Decorations line the stores, fake trees tower above commercial squares and Christmas carols echo through the coffee shops and malls - it's undoubtedly Christmas. Yet this is a country where religion is slightly more than frowned upon, so the songs lack the meaning behind some of our favorite carols. Sure they play 'Silent Night' on muzzak, but lyrics concerning the birth of Christ are most definitely not allowed. The effect of this unholy mandate was the music in my office was a repeating list of "Santa Clause is coming to Town", "Last Christmas", and "Jingle Bells". For someone who loves Christmas music, it was a tough month.

And just like home, Christmas sales were everywhere. I asked my students if they went out shopping and they all said 'you bet'. I asked them who they were buying gifts for and they said, "no gifts, just buying for ourselves." Pressing the issue, my students confessed to me that Christmas is not a time of giving in China, but merely a time of discount self indulgence. Amazingly my students don't buy gifts to give, but rather use Christmas sales to buy things for themselves.

China does Christmas, and they do it big, but just like spicy tofu, it's missing the meat. They try, they play carols, they decorate trees, they string up lights, but in the end the maybe it doesn't feel enough like Christmas because it isn't home.

Home

I came home for Christmas. Lasting a year in China was my original goal, and upon its completion I was permitted to return home to visit friends and family for one month. I'm going back to Shanghai soon, but sitting at home, having finished a make up Thanksgiving Dinner my mom prepared in honor of the one I missed, I'm slowly forgetting what China is like. It's nice.

People ask me constantly, "Do you have reverse culture shock?" I thought I would. I don't. Lexington has been the place I called home for my entire life, no matter if I lived in London, Sommerville or Shanghai. Plus everything makes sense now - things are just a little more difficult in China, but here they're a little bit easier. I don't know if its just because of the language, my familiarity with the culture or if America just is more efficient, but I feel like a yoke of hassle has been lifted from my back and the constant preparation required to fulfil mundane tasks has slipped by the wayside. In short, I live a life of complete relaxation.