Expatriates in China 流在外國

I recently finished a book called Foreign Babes in Beijing 洋妞在北京, which is one of those books that, with the title and the cover, are a little embarrassing to read around others. I’m not one of those who refer to women as “babes” and the photo on the cover gives an entirely different impression from the book’s content. I had to explain to my wife that, no I was getting into reading porn. (All this has nothing to do with these photos which are a test of my DSLR's software update on an upcoming storm.)

It’s a book about a woman, Rachel DeWoskin, who played her part in East-West relations as the ‘wild foreign woman’ in a Chinese television drama 連續劇 by the same name that she later gave as the title of her book. It was interesting to me because we are of the generation of Americans who could move over to the Chinese-speaking world after graduation from college to start our careers and form life goals. Our generation was the first one that has been able to do so because of expanding economies and reduced restrictions.

DeWoskin talks about foreign expatriates who either loved China or who hated it. I agree with her that there does not seem to be a middle ground. Either people seem to love their experience and hang around with mostly Chinese friends or those for whom everything is annoying and who hang around the expatriate bars and clubs. Those who loved it were transformed by the experience. Those who hated it came home after their tours of duty and resumed normal lives in the West, thinking little or not at all about their overseas experience.

In some ways, DeWoskin lived the life of her drama character in Beijing. Reading this book made me think of another book I had read last summer about another American woman, Emily Hahn in China to Me, who lived a similar lifestyle in a bygone era of pre-war Shanghai 上海. A colorful though not always likeable character, Hahn is involved heavily and personally with some of the major characters in China of that era. It was an incredibly rich world with a former generation of expatriate Americans, our grandparents’ generation, many of whom loved China just as much and were just as sophisticated or adventurous as we think ourselves to be today…maybe more so.

Organizing 整理

Space is always difficult. People have their own mental mapping of how to put things. That is why although as a family we share a common space, but each one of us has a little bit of space that is inviolate. If someone moves what I have put in one place, as happens all too often with 7 pairs of hands 七雙手 around, I cannot find what has been ‘reorganized.’ I never quite know where the item will turn up, a toy box, a bag with “my things,” etc. Moving 搬家 complicates the situation even more.

Packing 裝行李 seems to be something that women need to control. (In Chinese culture, the woman is the decisionmaker in things regarding the home, but I suspect this is true to a lesser extent in American culture as well. ) Some of you will no doubt correct me about your personal situation, but for almost every couple I have known in every culture the man stays out of the way while the woman packs......very much as I am doing right now as my wife packs. I have my personal things that I need to pack accordingly, but the rest is my wife’s decision. Women often know exactly how they would like space to be arranged and how it should be reconstituted once the family is at their destination. Men are for moving all the boxes and suitcases once they have been packed.

Pacific Surf 太平洋的海浪

Got these great pictures of the waves off of our coast. There is a storm a bit out and it sent huge waves crashing in, which unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of but I did get the tail end here. Ah the Pacific Rim, volcanoes 火山, tall mountains, blue waters, surrounding the beautiful Pacific ocean that to me is so much more fun than the Atlantic Ocean I grew up around.

Speaking of the Pacific Ocean, we just went to a Hawaiian restaurant 夏威夷餐廳. It was very authentic with lots of hungry expatriate Hawaiians there as well. Strangely, we always feel right at home when we are in a Hawaiian environment. Most of the people in the islands are mixed race in one way or another and they have a very laid-back friendly attitude. Multi-lingual family with children stamping all over each other while wolfing down hearty portions of lau lau (用芋頭葉子包的, 裡面的馅是焗豬肉) and saimen 麵…no problem. We even got their delicious strawberry coffee cake made there, they started as a bakery in Hilo, to take home and star in our photo.

Hapa混血

I just saw a streaming video film on growing up hapa. To its credit, the video deals with the subject of mixed race children in a balanced and non-political way.

The name always rings of Hawaiian夏威夷 and Japanese日本 cultures to me. I think of the many wonderful mixed race peoples on those beautiful islands and memories of beautiful scenery. But many people, at least on the Pacific Rim of Canada and the United States, apply it to mixed Asian and White children.

Our children are of course mixed race and there are always a variety of reactions of people to them. In Chinese culture, they are viewed as ‘beautiful,’ which I won’t argue with, but that is their perception of mixed race children in general. In American culture, they are seen more generically as Asians亞裔.

Most of the time though, there is no reaction 沒有反應 in either American or Chinese culture. They are just treated like other children in a setting. Both our daughter and our older son seem to easily play with children of different races and cultures. When she brings up the subject, our daughter refers to herself as being from both cultures rather than thinking of herself as ‘mixed.’ I was happy because that is the way we would like them to think of their background, as having the choice of two cultures.

This is our little one, only 2 1/2, posing for an official photo I took. It was hard to get him not moving or smiling.

Baby Shower 嬰兒送禮會

We just recently celebrated a Chinese-style baby shower with our friends from church, though baby showers are not really Chinese custom. Americans celebrate a baby's arrival before he or she comes. We throw a party, set up an account at a local store to let people know what we need and end up with many crates of diapers 尿布and useless knick knacks anyway. The idea is to celebrate and help the new parents to prepare for the coming baby.

On the other hand, traditional Chinese culture celebrates babies one month after they are born 滿月. In fact, mothers do not often even go out until after the month, but I'll talk more about that in a future post. There is a big feast and everyone comes and celebrates the newborn.

On this occasion, we had all sorts of group games 遊戲, including tasting dabs of baby food to guess the flavor 味道. A good friend of mine did well (2 out of 4) on this. There was also measuring the size of the future mother's stomach with pieces of toilet paper and other challenges.

Father’s Day 父親節

Father’s Day can also be written as爸爸節 or Ba ba Jie, which is a homonym for August 8th 八月八日. We went down to the ocean on a beautiful Father’s Day with my parents and my in-laws to have seafood by the harbor. It sounds like a nice idea and so seemingly 1000s of other people had exactly the same idea.

But strangely, I liked the experience. Maybe it was the challenge. First is the task of finding a table. We waited like vultures in a certain area by the water for the first table to open up. It is part sales technique and part good old-fashioned patience. Finally, a woman who spoke no English at all (my parents discovered this) had pity on us and decided that we were the ones worthy to inherit the table as they left. Then we got our fresh BBQd fish, octopus 花枝 and oysters 蠔 and sat down by the water for the show.

There are always a variety of sea life. We have seen sea lions海獅 and porpoises 海豚. This time it seemed to be bird life. We saw pelicans 鵜鶘 and a type of bird which is rare to me and hopefully someone out there can identify.

Homemade Ice Cream 冰淇淋

It's one of those things that people don't do much of anymore, but it is well worth the time especially on a hot late spring evening. We made vanilla ice cream with the fresh vanilla we bought on our cruise destination. Making ice cream requires a little planning ahead, all the heated ingredients need to cool down and gel before they are put into the ice cream maker. The ice cream maker itself needs to be put into the freezer for a while. The flavor when it is finished is much better than anything I tasted in a store.

One nice thing about ice cream is that it is popular around the world, with some allowances for differences in flavors and types. The ices 刨冰 with fruit, beans and sugar cane juice 甘蔗 汁 are one of my favorites from the Chinese speaking world.

For those of you regular visitors, I'll try to update on a more regular basis but busyness with writing kept me preoccupied the latter part of this spring.