johannainchina
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November 2003
Chinese Dating
Another way I have discovered that effectively removes the slightest trace of any winter blues is to engage in some bizarre form of Chinese dating. The thing that makes it so bizarre from what I can gather is that there is no actual “form” to it. From what I can gather you are introduced to a person. If you like each other you go on a date. If, after that first date you like each other, then maybe you are girlfriend and boyfriend. Maybe due to the quantities of alcohol I was consuming I may have this a little mixed up. I will give a case example.
I have a good friend here in China who is a Chinese teacher in one of the local middle schools. She is about 21/22 and although she originally appeared as a random she is what we Brits call “Sound as a Pound!”. She is absolutely delightful to spend time with. It became the case, after she had visited us a few times that we had to ask her when she wanted us to visit her school, rather than the other way round. She herself, being a Chinese teacher, has little to gain from our company, besides our company, improving her English, and being seen with foreigners, which for many Chinese people in the city has equally negative consequences as it does positive. Her and Nancy have become quite good friends (for which I am very happy, seeing as Nancy has very few friends in this city and many people see her as a sort of traitor when she spends time with us). Basically she is a really nice person who I get on with very well.
So it was a surprise when she told us last week that she had a boyfriend. Dating in China is a weird concept. I had my first boyfriend when I was 7 years old. His name was Gavin. He wrote a little note to me in class with a decent picture of a lion on it (its strange the things you remember!) and for the next month or so it was known that we were boyfriend and girlfriend. We were 7 and that was as serious as it got, but to have a relationship, even at that age is not uncommon. Going on to a convent school, it was another few years until I was 14 and had my “first kiss”. A year later I was a regular at the local pub. Seems such a long time ago!
Things in China are different. Back home boy/girl relationships are seen as natural, and from 16 or so, natural. The problems which arise are not from the fact that you have a boyfriend, but that your parents don’t like him/ he is too old/ not popular/ a minger. In China the questions are more concerned with “have you finished your education?” and “does he earn lots of money?”. Shallow? Noooo!
Anyway, my mate has her first boyfriend. She was introduced by her headteacher to a guy that has lots of money, as his family is rich. She went on a date with him, and came to have a “girly chat” with Nancy and me about what a wonderful bloke he is. We were invited out for a meal with him on Thursday, which, naturally started badly. The restaurant we were going to go to was very busy (it’s a popular hotpot place) so we went to another restaurant, somewhere Nancy swore never to go to ever again after the last time we went there and the service was slow/bad, etc. We had a nice meal there anyway and were getting quite merry on ginger beer (none of that poncy stuff – real beer with real ginger taste!) and her boyfriend seemed quite nice. Now, I don’t really have much time for Chinese men – I find a lot of them quite offensive in many ways (although many are lovely) and finding a good looking one is a near impossibility! Anyway, her blokey seemed quite nice. Its always nice when, stuck with a table with foreigners on it they make an effort to communicate, despite the language barrier and we were all having a laugh and decided to carry on the evening elsewhere.
We ended up going to a hotel, which had a room where some people were dancing, a couple of people were taking turns at karaoke and other people were sitting in booths talking and drinking. We found ourselves in one of these booths – us girls having a chat, the Dave trying to politely refuse the prostitutes that were being sent for his approval. This place was full of hookers, as are many places in China. We were trying to work out why this guy had brought his girlfriend to a place crawling with them. I was invited to dance a few times by a few men in the big “ballroom’. The problem is, despite my mother taking part in many dancing competitions when she was younger, my aunt and uncle running a dance school and my cousin being a professional dancer, the fact that I have no idea how to dance. Also, when you are dancing with a strange man who is at least a foot shorter that you (and I am only 5’4!) it is not even as if he can “lead”. I only really got offended when K’s (new) boyfriend asked me to dance a second time, without having even asked her once. That, to me, is rude. Oh well, up for anything, off I waltzed!
After some more alcohol (why do they always insist on “Gambei”ing everything/) we went to one of the rooms upstairs where we could sing karaoke to our hearts desire, try and dance to bad music and drink some more. Dave and I dueted when we discovered the Cranberries on the machine. I LOVE the Cranberries, but on Chinese karaoke? Very weird. Anyway, needless to say, we all got very drunk and my head hurt the next morning, but blues? What blues?
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International AIDS Day
China has a problem with AIDS. Every country has a problem with AIDS, but as a nation China is not what you may call the most open of society, especially when China and some of its policies are at fault. So although many people in China are afflicted by the HIV virus, I doubt many people in China see it as a “Chinese” problem – it is something that happens to other people, in other countries.
Problems with this theory –
1 It is a problem everywhere
2 It is not only “immoral” or “poor African people” who are affected, but both rich and poor Chinese alike.
3 Prostitution is so rife here that whereas back home men go to the pub to escape their wives, men here go to find “entertainment” with hookers in the evenings.
4 It is not an issue that is talked about openly in China.
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For these and other reasons I have been pleasantly surprised by the efforts of pop stars over the last few days to bring the issue of AIDS and HIV. Last night I was trying to find something on TV that was watchable (the closest thing I could find was some International Volleyball Championship, never good). I did however pause when I came across a televised concert, surprised to see the person singing with his little red ribbon. Somewhere a charity concert was being held in support of AIDS, with lots of “top international artists” (well, some Chinese people) up on stage.
I was just eating my lunch with the TV on when I came across one of the weirdest “programs”. It was like a televised Andrew Lloyd Webber musical in Chinese.
Since it had English subtitles I thought it was an advert for Ferrerro Roche (the chocolates for which the “Ambassador’s” receptions are always noted in society), but stopped to watch out of interest. It was an all singing, all dancing, all star (allegedly – I really have heard of very few Chinese pop stars, but they had names like “Twins”, “BoyZ”, etc.) performance explaining how we should love all people, whether they have HIV /AIDS or not. Surprisingly informative on how you couldn’t become ill (they had people singing/ dancing in the cleanest public toilets I have ever seen anywhere, let alone in China! - to explain that you couldn’t get infected from public toilets, mosquitoes, eating together, coughing etc) they even mentioned that you could get AIDS from sharing needles, from mother to baby, and my favourite - you should “be cautious”. Well, as long as we are passing the safe sex message along!!!
My favourite line spoke of how although there was no cure, people could live happy lives by taking medicines available. How they can afford the medicines is anybody’s guess – especially to the lost people of the “blood selling” fiasco of the 1980s!
I am not quite sure which surprised me more – the fact that they were talking about AIDS on TV or the fact that the subtitles made sense.
On Monday I get to do my own take on the AIDS theme when we give lectures to the students. Some of them are so innocent that they start giggling when you talk about “kissing” a boy. I wonder what the Chinese is for “condom” – it could take some explaining!
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A night on the box
Last night Andy, David, Nancy and I all gathered around TV to watch the debut performance of Dave and me on TV (Andy was on TV Monday night!). We managed to get an “exclusive” look at the lives of foreigners living in Suzhou with Andy’s performance a few days ago, but nothing can quite prepare you for the cringiness that is involved when you watch yourself. Listening to yourself on tape as a child/ on the radio has nothing on it! All the little movements and gestures that you do are magnified 20 times and you start to wonder not only “Do I really look like that?” but also “When did I start to twitch?” etc. Of course, the high caliber editing and photography work were outstanding – cable TV/ The Shopping Channel/ Adverts in Australia start to look really high quality in comparison. The problem is that you do not become excited at the prospect of it making you a mini celebrity in the city or having your friends/ family all talking about it, as being the only white woman here I have that status whatever I do. I can’t go for a walk around the campus without some stranger wanting to know all about me. Yes, it is annoying, but yes, that little part in the back of my brain that is really vain does still love it. Some of the time.
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Doctor Jo
Still not feeling great after some kind of bug made me ill last weekend I decided to play “Doctor Jo” online and find out what is wrong with me. Going to www.hypochondriacs.com or some similar site I typed in my symptoms and narrowed the options down to being one of five things –
1 – Severe lead poisoning. This had me in a quandary for some time as the symptoms matched, before I realised that I haven’t been licking the walls of late
2 – Constipation. I tested this theory out and realised that this also was not correct.
3 – SARS – hope not!
4 – Typhoid. A possibility, especially with the general quality and cleanliness of the food and the places we eat here, but having had far too many injections in my life I doubt it.
5 – Living in China syndrome.
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I think I can quite safely say that the final option is the one I decided it must be.
Severe headache – that would be the constant car horns and the wails of the trains at all hours of the night (never the day, for some reason?) accompanied by the constant “haalloooooee”s on the street.
Eye Pain – that would be an allergic reaction to all the chemicals, dust, dirt fumes and shit (quite literally) that is in the air in this city. Maybe I need new glasses?
Loss of appetite – too long eating the same Anhui / Sichuan food that’s available here. And watching them prepare/cook the stuff in their hovels of “kitchens”.
Stomach pains – see above. The food inspectors would have a field day here. Maybe lots of Qinjiang wine wasn’t really that much help.
Tight chest – cold weather / dirty air.
Fever – “You are not wearing enough clothes”/ “You should soak your feet before you go to bed”/ Going between the one room in my flat that is nice and warm and, um, anywhere else.
Nausea – see above and add to it the sight of all this dirt.
General feeling of being unwell – lack of sunlight/ blue sky, lack of anything productive to do, aside from speaking to Chinese people/ learning Chinese.
Prescription – To accompany my self diagnosis, I also have taken on the liberty of prescribing a remedy.
For the short term, the last supplies of Lemsip sufficed and copious amounts of whining in weblog.
Mid term – escape is required. The sanity of Beijing and a weekend of heavy drinking should kill off any remaining bugs. Getting away from this dirty city and being able to see other people may help lift any clouds.
Long term – grin and bear it – when in China, do as the Chinese.
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Suzhou TV rocks!
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In the time since my last email I have become and international superstar, got married and had three children. Well, not quite – but does a local celebrity count? I suppose I have been a bit of a celebrity since I arrived here, being the only western woman in the city, but now I have been on TV, which I think just completes my rise to stardom. Newspapers are old hat – today, Suzhou TV, tomorrow: The World! Maybe.
I haven’t really been up to anything out of the ordinary since coming back from my weekend in Shanghai, although for the final yesterday we did manage to get access to Talk Sport on the internet and could actually listen to the rugby. Me and Andy were crowded round his computer, shouting our heads of every time the stream went down and I don’t think I have been quite as tense in a long time. It sounded like an exciting game, but not having watched it we were not able to laugh and shout at the players when they made all their mistakes and talk about how we would do much better. Oh well!
After the excitement of the rugby on Saturday night I went to bed and read a book in celebration. Have no life? Me? Never! Since I was up half the night reading the book I was not very happy to receive visitors this morning at 8 o clock. Why they always decide 8 on a Sunday morning is an optimum time to visit people, I do not know, so I saw who it was through the hole in my door, ignored them and went back to bed! Rude? Moi? Never. I figured if it was important they would try again later, but they never do. They go and knock on Andy or Dave’s door instead and get equally ignored! Twenty minutes later the door goes again. I look again (it might be someone important!) but it is the same guy who came around yesterday morning. I have no idea who he is – he is not one of my students (I recognise all my male students – there are only maybe 30 of them – it’s the 300 girls I have difficulty recognizing!) but mentioned yesterday that he was from Anhui University. Yesterday I told him to come back later when he called at 8-30, so he came back at 9. Since I had spent most of Friday night in the ravages of a random fever, accompanied by a horrendous migraine and lots of vomiting (food poisoning?) I wasn’t in the best of moods and told him to sod off! I still have no idea what he was after, bless him, but at least I spoke to him. Dave and Andy have just given up on answering their door! So it hasn’t been the most uplifting of weekends.
The whole week has been a bit of a drag, and I can’t work out why. Maybe it’s the weather – inside my house its about 10 degrees and outside, much closer to a constant 0 or lower. I miss the sunshine!
My computer has also decided to go on strike. I don’t actually have any idea what is wrong with it – only that after half an hour (max) on the internet, the connection abruptly closes and I have to restart the computer to go back on the internet. So much for broadband 24 hour connection! Oh well1
Less than 6 weeks to go – hooray! (And one of those will be spent on “conference”– i.e., drinking session). Looking forward to coming home again. Don’t really know why – I just think that for some really unknown and weird reason that life back home will be so much better than when I left. At least I will be able to go to the chippy and not eat Chinese food everyday. It’s yummy, but not everyday.
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The Dead Dog Day
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I mentioned a while ago to Lee (my co-teacher) that I wanted to go and get a massage here in Suzhou. What’s the point of being in China if you can’t get a Chinese massage? Thought I, despite the agony of the last time I went for a foot massage with 5 others in Yangshou where nearly everyone was in tears of agony after 20 minutes yelling “Stop – if I want agony I’ll watch mid afternoon Chinese costume dramas!”
This massage was very different. We arrived with little mishap at this Chinese doctor’s house/ office after getting a little lost. We ended up on a different road, but by a big pile of sand, which we had been told was nearby. The only problem is that since nearly every road has a number of buildings, if not the road itself which are being built/ rebuilt there are huge piles of sand everywhere (which also double up as the closest thing many of the kids have for a park or playground in the city!). We go down a couple of streets and finally by the third pile of sand find the correct place. In usual Chinese fashion, the place was an open fronted ground floor room facing the street, and I was told to lie down on this couch while a group of twenty or so random people who had seen me enter, all crowded around the window to see what I was doing. Very relaxing. Via Lee, I was asked what was wrong, and I explained that I had twisted my knee a few months ago. Expecting a “proper” massage, the doc asked me to roll my trouser leg up and was massaging my knee with all these observers. It was quite nice, but weird and more stressful being in such a zoo than relaxing.
Then came the electrocution! This guy hooked up these electrodes (with cotton wool soaked in bijou on the ends) to my knees, plugged them into a machine and suddenly all this electricity was flowing through my body. It was very, very weird, with the expectation of ending up like Wily Cayote after he has been hit by ACME TNT – electrified with hair on end. In the end it was very ticklish and reminded me of the last few times I walked into an electric fence, but this time there was no escape. I am still confused as to why he was electrocuting me. Was it supposed to help, or is it something that he likes to do to all foreigners?
I am one of those people who walk around with my eyes closed. There is no point in me ever going whale spotting on a boat, or going to a start –studded celebrity bash (invites always welcome though!) due to my inability to ever see what’ in front of my face. Maybe its because I simply choose to see what I want to see, so I was quite shocked to see my first dog on a rack. I am sure I must have seen them before, and although I don’t think I have eaten dog while I have been over here, the sight of the dead creature wasn’t the most pleasant thing I have seen this week. Walking along the street I noticed these really cool skulls in a street – vendor’s “trolley”, so took a second look. It took a while to register that they were not sheep. Maybe it was the huge canine teeth gave it away? The three skulls corresponded to the three skinned bodies hanging up nearby. Without the fluffy fur coats, they are not a pretty picture, but also very un-dog like at the same time. I began to get curious as to how much an entire dog costs, as previously I had thought they were more of a luxury product – why was this woman selling them along a mostly residential street and why hadn’t I noticed them before? Any positive relaxed “Suzhou / China is a delightful place” feelings the massage/ electric shock treatment had instilled in me disappeared quite quickly!
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How to cook Chinese food
How to cook Chinese food – lesson one
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I have been here nearly a year and still, until this evening had no idea how to cook any of my favourite dishes. This was based mainly on two things – I was (and still am) petrified of going to the local market and I never got around to asking anybody to teach me. Bear in mind that it is so cheap and convenient to go out to eat most days and it is still baffling as to why it took me so long.
Here I explain all the essentials in one easy lesson.
1. Grab a Chinese person (I used my Chinese teacher and some of her dorm mates. A random student, or even a random stranger is probably just as effective).
2. Go to the market with aforementioned Chinese person. Be prepared to be ripped off by every single person in the market. (HINT – a good chance to brush up on your bargaining skills and to use new language, such as “I laugh in your face!” For some reason they never believe me when I tell them they should charge me the same price as everyone else as I am a Suzhouren” or “Zhonguoren” – a local, or Chinese person!) It can be more convenient and cheaper to go to the local supermarket – the choice is yours.
3. Prepare vegetables exactly as you would expect them to be prepared, or would prepare them back home.
4. Get yourself a wok and put loads of oil into it.
5. Put some more oil into it.
6. If you don’t have enough oil to fill the wok to the brim, add some more!
7. Put the food in.
8. Add some salt
9. Add some vinegar – type stuff and MSG
10. Add some more salt and MSG.
11. The heat should be high and you can stir the food with your choice of instrument. Chopsticks or basic metal stirring object will suffice.
12. After a maximum of three minutes, pour onto a plate and serve.
13. While the first dish goes cold, you can repeat the above process for as many dishes as you choose to cook.
14. Eat the food.
One simple lesson in Chinese cooking. And I thought there was some magic behind it. The great thing with getting Chinese students to cook for you is that they will often wash up and clean the kitchen for you afterwards leaving it cleaner than it has ever looked in its life.
Give it a go. Only 2 more steps than conquering alcoholism! Enjoy!
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