How Did I Get to China? 為什麼流在中國

It's an interesting question that was asked on a discussion board I was recently reading. Why do people leave everything, pack up and go from home to another country in the world 離開故鄉? More specifically on this site, they were interested in how did people decide that they wanted to live in China? On resumes lives seem to be a tidy progression from one logical step to another, but reality is often much different.

I always did have an interest in China, but I was interested in many parts of the world. I certainly loved my course in Indian civilization 印度文化課 in college, and the dinners made by the husband and wife team that taught the course. They brought their whole family over to India for a year at a time every couple of years during their sabbatical year. I also took a year of Spanish 西班牙語, but I made a decision not to pursue it further though I really enjoyed my Peruvian 秘魯 instructor.

No, for me it was opportunity and laziness. My last year of college I applied to an internship program overseas teaching English and got accepted for a year contract一年的合同in Taiwan. I had an opportunity for a two year position 兩年的合同 in Japan, but having taken a semester of Chinese and being commitment phobic 承諾恐懼 at the time, this was not an option for me. It was either the internship in Taiwan or accept a position with a major public relations firm in Chicago. Not quite ready for the American corporate world yet, and more subzero winters, I decided on Taiwan and the journey that would change my life quite .

Short Stories 短篇故事

Well we attended a fundraiser 籌款餐會 for our church to raise money for producing video clips of short stories on DVD, the web and television. Nothing like a good story, everyone loves them. Story telling 講故事, being a bard is certainly one of the oldest professions in the world and the only way the happenings of a peoples were transmitted before most people were literate. Traditionally, the best teachers are also good story tellers, as we Christians know from Jesus teaching his disciples.

These 15 minute videos 十五分鐘的剪片, they vary in quality but some are really very good, give the extraordinary stories about ordinary people. If you click here, you can see some 請聽我說, My Story. You probably don’t know them personally, but they can tell you the story (sometimes complete with video visuals) of how their lives and the lives of people around them were touched. Some have gone to remote areas of the world, some have had a close brush with danger and death, yet others have had really unusual experiences in their careers that they would like to share. But the nice thing is that they are all verified and true 都是真正發生的故事.

Before the meeting, I met an old friend I knew as a single guy 單身的時候, the only white boy in a Chinese-language choral group. It was a difficult time in my life, but they really made me feel welcome. We practiced hard, arrived late, left late and traveled around together quite a bit in those days. With his sense of humor and his no-nonsense attitude, this guy was especially fun to be around. I later moved on, got married. When I returned years later most of the people I had known at that time, including him, were gone.

By now I had almost forgotten him. At the line for food a guy came up to me 排隊拿菜的時候 and said “do you remember me?’ I said yes hesitantly and smiled, because I remembered the face, just not where I knew him. By the time the right neural pathway had fired and I remembered fully who he was, he was gone. Well, I can’t live in the past, but it’s nice to have a reminder every once in a while.

Life of Eileen Chang 張愛玲的傳記

I think the most interesting stories come from a good observer of the lives of everyday people. We don’t need to live dramatic lives in order to have something poignant 令人家感動 to share with the rest of the world, just close observation and simple language to describe it. Having said that, some peoples’ lives are really dramatic and can come alive as a great story in the right hands. That is true of this drama we are watching about Eileen Chang 我從海上來.

It is a very well done drama 連續劇, that is done at just the right speed to give a feel for the times and how people were actually experiencing their lives without rushing viewers through. It starts with the scene in this photo where she is walking alone through the northern New England winter to a writer’s colony all the way out in the middle of the forest. There the story of her life, a prolific author 多產的作家 with a loyal following, slowly unfolds for the viewer. I won’t try to describe the whole story, but from other material I have read it seems pretty accurate.

Eileen Chang was a recluse 孤獨, especially toward the end of her life, the Greta Garbo of the Chinese literary world. The way it is portrayed in this drama, she seemed to have some of her mother’s loner personality. They do show her rejecting a relationship with her little brother 不理她的弟弟, 但是 but on the other hand she was (from what I have read) a devoted wife 忠實的太太 to both of her husbands. She was also good friends with a non-Chinese woman from her days in the university in Hong Kong.

Our Home in Guangzhou 廣州的家

Some people think of houses or specific buildings or even a piece of land when they think of a home, but I agree with those who say that home is where you make it. It is the sound of a family moving around, making noise or even just perhaps a place where you come back to where you don't have to move on. It's that feeling that everyone needs 歸屬感, whether they live in a 5 bedroom house or a room with a bathroom attached不管是山莊或小房間.

Well, these are some photos of our home in Guangzhou. In the first photo, our children are playing with a toy doctor's set 玩具聽診器 we bought for our daughter in the living room. It was a nice place and very clean. We have a daily ritual at the end of the day of climbing up the stairs, taking a shower one after another and then sitting down to slice up whatever fresh fruits are in the market (新疆西瓜, 山竹, 黃皮) for a late night snack. Read some bible stories and watch some Mandarin or Cantonese drama / cartoon before heading off to sleep in the night.

Toys are very cheap in Guangzhou and it is fun shopping around in their toy district 海珠廣場. We also bought radio-powered toys for our sons. Our little one got a radio-powered car and the older one a radio-powered helicopter 無線電 控制系統, which you can see in the 3rd photo. The 2nd photo is a hand-held shot taken at night near the Pearl River 珠江 in a nearby district. No one can say Olympus DSLRs don't take good photos in low light!

Trails 步道

This past Saturday we just went on a short hike to a birding area around here. The weather was warm, in the high 80s and as you can see there was a clear view. The first photos is of a peaceful lotus pond 荷花池 there, reflections in the sunlight. The second photo is of what are probably the remains of a car crash 60 or more years ago 六十多年以前車禍的殘骸.

I have always enjoyed hiking on trails. Probably it was the exploration of it 好奇心. Sometimes one never quite knows where they are going. These types of trails are more fun to go on near cities where it’s hard to get really lost than out in the wilderness. I still prefer trail signs and to know where I am going in real wilderness 曠野 where getting lost may mean days of wandering. I can still remember thinking I was going gradually going downhill on a mountain range, when I came upon a 10,000 foot marker 海拔一萬尺的招牌 and realized we were actually hiking upward.

We really enjoy hiking in Taiwan. It has some nice trails all over the island and surprisingly few wild animals 野獸 ready to rip apart unwary hikers. The mountains in the center of the island, such as 玉山 and 阿里山 or farther north such as 合歡山 are green and have quite a bit of biodiversity as elevation increases.

Guangzhou Countryside 廣州城外的鄉下

I know you are saying, enough of this boring text! I want to see photos! Well, I am going to to take you through some of our photos in steps as we have lived in Guangzhou for a while recently. The first is of the countryside outside of Guangzhou. Think of a long time ago when you used to go fishing 釣魚 or a walk in a park 在公園裡散步 on a lazy summer day.

Well, when my wife was little she used to go to the countryside outside of Guanzhou with her grandmother 外婆 and meet her uncle there. Her uncle took then took her this little girl on a boat through the waterways 小運河to his house. She has fond memories of these times and so one weekend we went back to visit and he took her (well, us this time) on a boat ride just as she had remembered it.

It was relaxing. After the din of traffic and noise of Guangzhou, it was a relatively peaceful place 平靜的地方. In fact, in some places, the countryside close to the coastal cities is actually nicer to live in than the cities themselves. The houses are quite big and some have courtyards. Others have gardens where people grow vegetables. There are also waterways that ring portions of the community.

Fall Harvest 秋天的收穫

Fall has many different implications. It can represent decline or increasing darkness, but in many cultures it is a time of harvest. The best time of the year. I can remember from my childhood, back to nature types would store vegetables in jars for the entire winter I guess in imitation of what people had to do for survival in earlier times. There are also the various harvest festivals. The Moon Festival 中秋節 that just passed is one. Thanksgiving 感恩節 is a later celebration of a harvest and the Harvest Festival 豐收節 that is celebrated at churches in the place of Halloween is yet another. In past times, people were really happy that they had enough food for the winter, but even today there are some things like pumpkins that just aren't eaten at other times of the year.

That's certainly true in our yard as you can see in these photos. It has been a long season for all of our fall-bearing fruit, 1 and 1/2 months, but it is almost at an end...maybe a week or 2 more. Then no more for a whole year. Two baskets of strawberry guava 草莓番石榴 can be seen in the below photo to the left. There are also yellow pomegranites 石榴 in the basket to the right. In the photo above, there are jujubees 紅棗 in the basket to the left that have already been eaten.

Mythic versus the Real 神話與真理

This is one of those great photos that happens almost by accident. We were about to rush out the door and I thought that the females 美女in the family looked so beautiful this evening (not that they don't usually look that way) that I should take a photo of them. Fortunately I didn't use flash, just high ISO. The afternoon light 下午的陽光was perfect. It comes streaming in from the background and almost seems to glorify their beauty and parody the mess in our living room 變成諷刺性的照片.

Another thing to notice though is the photo in the wall in the background. That is a real staged (faux) photo 全家福 done in Taiwan. People pay to try on different sets of costumes and take family portraits. If you look carefully, we almost look like a family of movie stars or perhaps influential people out of a "Who's Who" guide. I guess all of us like to pretend that for a while, to try on different costumes and roles. 真正的我們... The reality, and why I like this accidental staged photo best, is always quite different as the warm glow of afternoon light highlights us for the flawed people we are.

Meetings 開會

Meetings are a part of our lives, especially where we work and they come in all shapes and sizes. The best meetings are those that are swift and action packed. I attended one of those recently. The moderator had a brief and dramatic talk by an outside speaker. (Blood and guts talks or films 恐怖片 like Red Asphalt that they have in U.S. traffic schools are also appreciated.) Then we got down to the business of dividing out the work and we were out of there. Congratulations and my heartfelt thanks非常感謝.

The worst are long and drawn out meetings. You know, you’ve been to them before. They are the ones where people are droning on and on just to hear themselves talk自己喜歡聽到自己講話. “Excuse me, but I have another good idea that will never be put into practice and no one is interested hearing, but let me take the next 45 minutes going it over in detail.” I’ll read the paper version later in a tea or coffee house thank you very much.

I suppose in this respect all cultures have them. Chinese and American firms both have them. The Hong Kong firm 香港公司 I worked for was pretty good about meetings. We only had meetings when serious work had to get done, such as the VP laying down the law of the land for us about something. I have heard Japanese firms 日本公司 are notorious for long and grueling meetings where internal power struggles 內部鬥爭 take place and lots of time is wasted, but I mercifully don’t have first hand experience with this.

中秋節2: 包餃子 Moon Festival 2: Dumpling Rolling

On Saturday night we met with our friends from our cell group at church and had a dumpling rolling party before our weekly meeting. Dumpling rolling is one of those things I have never been good at. 我笨手笨腳. One will be big, another small. Sometimes I'll put too much filling in and sometimes too little....but the ones I rolled were all eaten up. Like sushi rolling, I'm just not coordinated enough to do it well, but they do taste good when I make them. You don't want me as your brain surgeon, but maybe I can mash potatoes or taro your next catering event!

The meeting was great. We had a good time of sharing 分享 of bible verses and stories, going over last week's message 信息 and prayer 祈禱 that just seemed to fit together with what was happening in our lives. Bad things such as a death in the family and good things such as births have happened to those in our group, but through it all we are trusting in the Lord and people in our midst are coming to faith in Christ. This no doubt was what the 1st century church experienced.

In the first photo here you can see one of our experts wrapping the filling of pork, shrimp and other ingredients into the dumpling skins 餃子皮. His hand is moving so quickly, it blurs in the photo....no, actually that's what happens at low shutter speed no flash indoor photo at night. I like the colors better than when I use a flash. In the 2nd photo, some of us are taste testing the results. Can you find the crude paste-in of the photographer tasting a moon cake? The third photo is of the moon cake slicing after the meeting.

Happy Moon Festival 中秋節快樂!

Yes, I know it’s a day or two late but we just celebrated the Harvest of the August Moon 八月, by the lunar calendar 月曆 that is. It was October 6 by the solar calendar 日曆. Traditionally, families get together from all over during this holiday, dress up and have dinner together. The roundness in the moon serves as a symbol of the wholeness of the family as it gets together. It serves a very similar function for the family that Thanksgiving 感恩節 does in American culture, as a celebration of the harvest.

In the olden days, people got together, got drunk and admired the moon while composing poetry. These days people get together, get drunk sometimes and certainly admire the moon but there isn’t as much of the composing of poetry 詩. They say the moon is at its biggest in several years this moon festival.

Of course the most visible symbol is the moon cake 月餅. They have been compared to the fruit cakes given out at Christmas but they are much much better. I can still remember the artificial neon glow fruit on top of those things…yech. My favorite moon cake is the standard red bean paste with a single salted duck egg yolk 豆沙單黃. The one in the photo here is lotus paste with egg yolk (click for larger size), but close enough. I also like durian fruit moon cakes sent by friends in Thailand and I have heard rumors of rich chocolate ones from Singapore.

Stay tuned for photos and an update of our Moon Festival weekend tomorrow.

Chinese and American ideals of Beauty and Skin美與皮膚

There are many differences in ideals of beauty between cultures. In fact they even change in cultures over time. One of the biggest differences in beauty I have seen is related to skin.

Americans and Western Europeans like to tan skin. A pale person is considered a sickly person. Tanning 曬太陽has long been considered a sign of health and beauty. The fashion now is for as much skin to hang out as possible which means that people are getting tanner than ever.

With Chinese, whiter skin is better. Some attribute this to lingering effects of colonialism 殖民主義 or Hollywood 好萊塢 or some other such nonsense, but there is no evidence to suggest that is true. Women will avoid going out in the sun and go out of their way to lighten their skin. My wife regularly rubs watermelon 西瓜 on her face which she believes will whiten it. That part is fine. I believe that too much exposure to the sun is definitely bad and that Chinese women have nicer looking skin because they avoid it.

However, even freckles 雀斑 are considered bad. I told my wife that freckles are considered a sign of beauty in some places, but she just does not believe me.

Life and Death 死與活

Life and death are hard to understand for little children. Our daughter is fortunate that she still has both of her grandparents 爷爷,奶奶,外公,外婆who are alive and well. But she had her first taste of death with the passing away of a goldfish her friend had given her on Sunday evening.

She brought a "friend" over for our daughter's goldfish and we put him into the bowl. He seemed to be doing well for a while, but passed away late the next morning floating on the top of the bowl. Unfortunately, the deceased was tossed into the garbage can by mistake, but I helped her make a marker to stick in the ground outside for her fish. The 2nd photo is a closeup of the 1st where her writing "魚(fish) friends with (heart) 魚 (fish)" is clearer. At least we could help teach her a little something about the grieving process.

侮辱 Insult

What a topic you say, but I was just thinking about this tonight. 外在: In the West and especially in the United States 美國 any mention of a person's physical features is considered an insult提出外表容易得罪人家. We don't dare talk about about anything relating to a person's race. But then again we don't talk about someone's weight or their hair or other aspects of the appearance for fear of offending the person. But appearance matters a lot in the U.S. in how we are actually treated by others.

By contrast, physical features are commonly talked about in Chinese culture. It is not an insult to comment on someone's weight, their hair or even their skin color. There are common nicknames for people that would be considered quite insulting in Western culture. 燒餅頭 'Bean cake head,' 'darky' and even 'Fat Fat' 肥肥 are quite ok. That is why I can stock up on my tubes of "White Man" Toothpaste in Taiwan whenever I need it, but would be hard pressed to find a Western manufacturer who would select this same brand name. But my observation is that, despite open talk about physical appearance, it doesn't matter as much in how someone is treated in Chinese culture as in American culture.

內在: With personality, the roles are reversed. This is where the Chinese are more sensitive than Americans. In some parts of America, "hey stupid," just means "hi." It certainly is ok for newspapers to comment on someone's personality, more so than to comment on their apperance. In Chinese culture, it is not acceptable to comment negatively on someone's character. That is why my wife was so insulted when a neighbor said she was stupid like a pig 笨豬 when she was little. It didn't seem insulting to me and I told her that pigs seemed quite smart, but somehow she wasn't buying it. It would be the same insult as someone saying a little girl in the West was as "fat as a pig."