June 2010 Archives

Over the next 6 months I will spend one month in one country five times - and in the middle of it all probably go to over 6 other new countries.
Exciting, you say? Tiring, I answer, with a smirk, and a wink.

I've been away from China for over one week now. One week is not long enough for me to have fully absorbed all that I've learned; nor is it long enough for me to have had time to put into practice all that I've absorbed.  Three years in a far off land is a long time and I am sure the way the experiences there have molded me will become apparent for some time to come.


Yeah I lived in China for 3 years; and one month does not hold a candle to three years; although one month - as was pointed out to me today - is a long time. A long time to learn things; make judgments; adjust, and more than anything - change. One thing I have learned, and have had to learn to come to terms with is: I am my only constant. And as I've said, home is where my computer is. No home, no support systems, no routine, running is my only form of roots. Well, I guess writing is too. Anyways, for the next three places I go, I've already been to all of them (Bali for June, Finland for July, and Canada for August). But regardless of having been there already, as a traveler and a lover of adventure and learning, I know that one month in one place - whether it my old home or the home of my new family - will still have me changing; ebbing and flowing; resisting and progressing. So before I embark on the next lesson, I want to make some last comments and tell a few final stories.
You know, just take a moment, and reflect.
I will accompany this with some of my favorite pics of the last 3 years of "chaos in opposite world".


To be fair, China taught me a few things I'd like to forget. Namely, asking very personal or rude questions like the first thing with everything is the cost. Or just being a little more bold or rude than I'd like to think I am. I am less caring of others and the environment than I was 3 years ago. I've gotten in the habit of operating more on "me" and my survival. You pick up many a things in these far off lands - and I guess it is inevitable that it isn't ALL good.
Regardless, as I've been decompressing here in Bali and adjusting to the general idea of not being back to China (to live, at least) I've been remembering some conversations and scenarios that for whatever reason seem to have left quite an impression on me. For better or worse. Moreover, I have found things here in Bali I'd forgotten. I have re-found (is that even a word?) things is hadn't even really realized I'd lost. For example, I am on route to reclaiming my emotional intelligence and spirituality - my silence, compassion, and reliance on yoga and meditation. All of these were lost in the noise and pollution of China. I knew this, but I was too busy exploring and trying new things to do much about it. Furthermore, Bali has reminded some of my LOVE of running and my passion for health. But China taught me a lot of great things too. Like understanding and accepting differences. Being able to conceptualize a 5000 year history and how it molds and develops a society, it's people and their language.


Anyways, there are three stories I've found myself telling the foreigners and locals that I've come to meet here in Bali when they ask me to "get down to the knitty-gritty" of China and Chinese people. People in Indonesia, unlike in China, get access to You Tube. And one thing they can't stop asking me is 'is that youtube video of the subways in Beijing real?" Yep, definitely. They push you in, shove you out, scrape you off the wall when the line ends, and don't even think about letting an old lady have your chair. it is man eat man out there. but there are a few other intricacies to the madness. And some of these values and prejudices that I have lived under for three years I am hoping to un-learn during  over the next while.


1. Weight story

Not to make excuses for them before I even begin to tell this story, but there is no doubt that China is a very analytical culture: both goal oriented and numbers focused. This can be a strength and a weakness, I suppose. For men, they are analyzed and weighed based on how much money they make. Everything in a successful, 'useful' Chinese man's life is about money. For women, it is how they look. And in an very number oriented society, this comes down most often to weight. A successful woman, regardless of age or height, must weigh less than 60kg. This is enforced even more when one goes shopping and the only sizes for pants in the entire mall are 26, 27, and 28.  Otherwise known as Small, Medium, and Large.

When I first arrived to China I was teaching a night class to engineers at a local computer company. We'd often get off topic and talk about whatever they felt like since I knew that was actually more helpful to their confidence in speaking English, and my theory is that it's all about confidence when it comes to learning a new language. They started the usual 20 questions, which in China is more like 3 questions. 1. Are you married? 2. Do you like China? 3. How old are you? Generally they might throw in a 4th. Where are you from? Or 5th. How much money do you make. Either way, these are the top 5 questions, I guess.

On this particular night I was feeling good about myself and therefore even more open than usual. They started chatting with me about marriage and why I wasn't married. They were truly, honestly, quire concerned that their pretty foreign teacher who was obviously smart and funny had not been married at the extremely seasoned age of 27. I took their concern for me as a compliment, so tried to go along with their concern. The answer "I don't want to get married" never satisfies a Chinese person. They do not understand that concept nor can they accept it. So the students on this particular evening were trying to figure it all out for me. Had I been divorced? Did my family have a history of bad luck? Then one girl piped up and asked, "How much do you weigh?"
"I'm not sure", I responded, honestly having not weighed myself for years after learning to trust my body and listen to it. But I kinda did the math and figure I'd give them an answer, "About 61, maybe 62 kg."
The class went silent. The girls in the front row all exchanged glances. Fear and surprise in their eyes. And that was the end of the conversation. It was official. I was too fat for marriage. 163cm and 61kg. Too big. And that was a fact.



2. Privacy story

The Chinese have a very, very different definition of privacy than I. In fact, I know the word in Chinese for 'private' but I have only ever heard it used in the context of 'private enterprise' or describing a 'privately owned store'. I don't think they have a word for boundaries. And if they do, they certainly don't know the meaning of it. This definition, or lack thereof, comes into play in every day conversation (like when the first thing a stranger ask you is how much money you make), to not so frequent events such as the 'salon' (see picture of me getting my under arms waxed with a crowd watching) and the dentist - um, out on the street as usual.

 
Literally everything is done right out in the open. And no questions are asked of it. As a westerner I think this is easily one of the most difficult things to not only come to grips with but then embrace in China. I don't think I ever embraced it. Any of it. I like my big, expansive, Canadian bubble. I like my large private home with a yard and private car, etc. Not only do I like these things, but I don't deal well without them. I don't like being stared at constantly; asked what I consider to be rude questions (and I know they just play dumb in these instances) or pushed, prodded, bumped and bruised, both mentally and physically, on a daily basis. All in the name of no semblance of privacy. The Communist Party does not believe in secrets. Yeah, right.


Shopping in China can be fun because there are bargains to be found. But as far as trying things on or asking for, heaven forbid, a size larger than a Western XXS, well, just watch the crowds gather. Or almost even more mortifying, the uninvited guests into the change room scenario. I was shopping for a bra in Shanghai recently. Already feeling quite self conscious since every single bra is a size A with padding, I thought I might have better luck in a department store in China's most international city. The store was a foreign (French) brand. With foreign (euro) prices, and, yeah! My size. But they certainly did not have foreign sales ladies. Nor had those sales ladies been taught about foreign privacy.

As I was looking at bras, one sales lady came up beside me and grabbed my breast and firmly sqeezed it. I think I jumped a little and might even have made a squeeking noise in surprise. But my face stayed in firm poker-face mode, and I looked at the woman with a blank expression, waiting for the verdict. "C you are not a D, you are a C." I figured she was wrong but nonetheless decided to try a few on. When I asked where the change room was she pointed to a curtain and then pushed me with her behind it. She not only forced herself into the change room with me but then proceeded to cup my breasts non stop while undressing me and then putting each bra I was trying on for me - even lifting and placing each boob into the perfect place in the bra for me. Apparently I was not capable of that myself. Or maybe their definition of customer service is our definition of molestation?


3. Tattoo story

All women must be thin and beautiful, then get married, have one child, and serve their husbands for eternity. Everyone knows everyone else's business. 'Face' is everything, and the secret to life is appearing as perfect as possible. Tattoos are a mark of imperfection. This is the current reality in China.

The only people back in the 30's in America with tattoos were sailors and jailers - or so I've been told by my grandparents when they saw my first tat. Well, right now, in China, the only women with tattoos are xiaojie, or, prostitutes. They are tattooed by the Mumma, who claims rights on them and the tattoo is meant for all to see who manages them. It just so happens that this specific tat is always on the right hand - and it is more often than not a flower. And who here has a flower tat on their right wrist? Yep, that'd be me.



More often than not I saw this prejudice as an opportunity. From baffling people that I was 29 and unmarried to completely stopping their programming in it's tracks when I explained I was a vegetarian. The only response is a blank blue screen: does not compute, does not compute. beeeeeeeeep. power off.

In the nail and hair salons, many of the girls getting work done instantly connected with me on a jiemei (sister) level - assuming we were cut of the same cloth. To be more blunt - assuming I was, like them, a prostitute (from Russia). This allowed me both an opportunity to practice my Chinese and also to learn a lot - about the sex industry in china as well as about these women as individuals and the choices they are basically forced to make.

Mostly the bolder young girls who are attending University in Beijing also get their nails or hair done in these places now. They, in typical no-respect-for-privacy, are interested at staring at me only one centimeter from my face, and in asking plenty of inappropriate questions while getting their nails done too. A very classic conversation is as follows (I have been a part of this exact dialogue about 20 times): 
"Wow, your eyelashes are so long, are they real? Wow! your nose is so tall! Is it real? Are your breasts real? Ah, foreigners are so lucky."
But the funny thing is, they don't mean any of it. I mean, they can't possibly. From here on, the odd very bold uni student, who probably had a foreign boyfriend at some point, or at the very least, would have been brazen enough to try for one, will move on to more interesting and possibly dangerous topics - my tattoos.  This conversation, I have taken part in at least 5 times.
First, of course, they ask: "How much?" then, "Did it hurt?" Then I have even heard a few say to me that they want one too but their boyfriend/mum won't allow it.
And again, I'm not buying it. This 'face' this facade.
Becasue when you do not speak the language as your first language, you learn to watch for other things. You learn to rely on body language, facial expressions, etc and that actually becomes what you hear. Not the words.

And so I know what they really mean. They look at me with pity. I have no chance now. I've ruined my chances for a normal life - a perfect life - a life that looks perfect. They look at me like a zoo animal and then a lot like the girls that night in the classroom when I was, oh my god, 61kg. I was not married because I quite obviously was a XiaoJie, a prostitute. Though they are certain I am far too old for that now. So maybe not now but certainly in the past. And therefore, polluted - broken. In fact, the character for wife in Chinese is the character for broken and woman - one on top of the other. I'm as good as broken.

As I sit here in one of the twenty or so of Nanjing Xi Lu's Starbuck's, (like the 72nd Ave of New York) I can't help but feel a massive cloud above my head. Maybe I am over dramatizing this, but I feel as if I have been given a death sentence in a way. I am leaving China in a week. I am leaving this place that I have been obsessed with since my first pair of silk jammies with their Chinese bird embroidered on the front at the age of 5. I am leaving this place that has, over the last three years, allowed me to grow into the adult I've always wanted to be: adventurous, bold, thoughtful and caring.
All I can think as I walk through the hutongs, watch the old people do tai chi in the parks, and bargain with the storekeepers at the night market is "Wow, I love this - crap I'm leaving - this place - my home."
 
I mean, where else can you buy de-feathered whole chickens for sale on the street at 7am?
I really am being too dramatic about the whole thing. Aren't I?  After all, I am leaving for something EVEN BETTER! So I guess not as much as it is a death sentence for me. Let's say it is more like I've been told someone close to me who has been sick for sometime only has a week left to live. Like, I know it is for the best. I know... but somehow that logic is overridden by emotion. What I am saying is I feel more heart break than excitement in this moment. Yeah, that is me trying to see the positive in it.





My second last week in China was spent in Shanghai. Albeit not on my own accord but left to the fates (and as is everything - it was a blessing in disguise) of Chinese Trains. After blowing China away with awesomeness, the two crazy McGrew sisters were separated again - and thus, I again became just one crazy McGrew gal, lost in this even crazier country.  But, as to be expected, I made due. Even better, I made history.

I went to The World Expo for a day. It was HUGE. And I could easily have come back for the following three days and still not seen everything. And I'm sure all of you out there have hear great and wonderful things about it. But have you actually HEARD about it? (thanks, Alex, for the following pics)


I had returned to Shanghai from the depths of both poverty and natural beauty in China's South West. And to me at first Shanghai seemed so modern - clean and new even - and, dare I say, sophisticated?!
But...then I ran 20 minutes out of town - "Helloooo!",  "Laowai!",  honking, squatting, a boy peeing in the middle of an intersection, people yelling into their phones on every corner; the smoking in the stores; split pants;  general oblivion for privacy or there being other humans around - it all smacked me in the face.... 5km from the city centre. Twenty five minute into my run, I was reminded, as China likes to do to me without an ounce of sympathy (as we might recall, there was a blog post Title Oh, yeah, This is China almost 3 years ago) - that, Oh yeah, I was in China.


Regardless of what they show themselves to the world to be, the Chinese are still Chinese - and they always will be. One of many traits that encompasses their "Chineseness" is the stunning ability to create a façade; a veil of which everyone sees only the outter surface . But I'll be honest with you, I, my friends, have lifted that veil - and it ain't pretty! (nor does it sound or smell good). Ignorance is oh so blissful.

Getting back to the World Expo - Expo 2010. Alex, Erik and I basically did a Pub Crawl of the Pavillions that had booze and no lines...and Erik's GuanXi got us in the back door of both the US and the Finnish Pavillions - which we otherwise would have had to wait two hours in line to see, and, in other words, would not have seen as they would not have fulfilled are booze and no line strict standards.

Erik is trying really hard here to be excited about the Canada pavillion. he's doing a pretty good job for an American, I think. Apparently it had the Cirque du Soleil. Which brought with it a three hour line up. Pass! But not without a picture first....now onto the cheap drinks and no waiting.

The lines were another matter and a good example of Chinese logic and desire to learn about the world. They stand in line for 2+ hours just to get a stamp on their passports. The longer the line for the pavilion, the more desirable of a stamp it is. And so it goes, umbrellas in one hand, passports in the other, chatting and spitting sunflower seeds all to enter and leave within a few minutes. But they can tell their friends about it. I guess it is a blessing we are all different.

Needless to say, based on our strict boozin-no-waitin guidelines, we didn't go in any of the good ones. I didn't get to see the the robot exhibit in the Japanese Pavillion, and the  ...uh....  But I did get to drink a few Mojitos at the Cuba pavilion, a 'true' Budweiser at the Czech Paviliion...and the rest is a bit fuzzy.


Regardless of the fuzziness. I felt quite a part of history there. And was particularly happy to see all the Chinese people being properly educated. In fact, I knew full well less than1% of the people I saw that day would ever leave China. Which makes something like the Expo all the more important in Countries like China....even if they are there just to get their passports stamped, I am sure they learned a thing or two - if nothing else that white people can speak chinese - which Erik and I were sure to try to educate the masses about.

Speaking of this, I also got to meet some really cool China geeks while stranded in Shanghai (who knew we could be found outside of Beijing?) and see some great China geek stuff and talk some great China geek talk. Erik took me to a museum in some rogues basement of Communist Party propaganda from the last 70 years with slogans like "strike down the  American imperialists" and "Kill them Japs". Yep, I bought all the anti-American sentiment stuff I could find...under the furrowed brown of my American companion. But we made up when I told him I love Budweiser later in the evening (he actually believed me!).

 






So I arrive back in Beijing today. I take a train that goes 328km/hr. And then I am here for one more week. One last week with what became the love of my life. One last week to close this chapter and allow for the transition into the next. Yeah, it's exciting. But it's scary too.

Oddly enough, much scarier than arriving to this unknown land is leaving it.
What did I come here searching for?
Will I leave having found it?
Will I remember all that this place has taught me?
Will I be able to move on?