Spending Money: Observations of Chinese and Western Differences 花錢的概念: 中國與西方

Sometimes little differences like shopping can have a big impact on a relationship. Typical example is the apocryphal 虛構的 story of the husband / wife difference in buying flowers. A husband buys a dozen roses for his wife and tells her that he got them for a bargain price. She’s upset and he doesn’t know why….differences in the value of money that can cause problems.

I have found that Chinese value bargains and seem to enjoy looking for the best product at the cheapest price much more than Westerners. When my wife finds a bargain, say a peddler comes to her workplace 去她的辦公室賣批發產品 and she finds a good looking pair of shoes 鞋子 for a dollar or two in American money or inexpensive socks 襪子 or some other item, she enjoys it and tells me about her bargain. Going out to a restaurant, she is very happy (me too) when we dine well for a cheap price. I am the same way, but I am by no means typical of Westerners. Both of us enjoy going out to markets like the one in the photo.

By contrast, in Western culture people just do not get as excited about that sort of thing…at best. No one seems quiet as happy as I do that I paid $3 for my pair of genuine leather name-brand looking shoes. At worst, in some social contexts it is considered a faux pas to talk about inexpensive prices, something that pegs one as lower class 沒有 水準的人才會這樣. “You get what you pay for” probably sums up how people feel 一分錢, 一分貨.

Beaches 沙灘

Just in case you didn’t already know, I’m not a surfer type and I don’t like to sun myself on the beach, but I love the ocean. There is nothing like finding a quiet spot by the ocean on a sandy beach away from it all and wandering around to the sound of the surf. Maybe I was also raised on stories of pirates 海賊 on tropical islands with beautiful sandy beaches so that inspires me as well. This is a photo of a beautiful beach we went to this past weekend. It is in a very isolated spot 遙遠的地方 that has many more sand dunes than people 沙丘比人多. Some of my favorite beaches are in Taishan 台山 and on Taiwan’s northeast coast between Iilan 宜蘭 and Hualian 花蓮.

It seems that the Chinese and in fact people in many parts of the world are not as crazy about beaches as Westerners. In the West, beaches are prized and the most expensive houses are right up on the beach where they can be destroyed by tidal waves 海嘯. There are people, surfers 衝浪的 and others, who build their lives around enjoying the ocean. That does not seem to be as true with Chinese. They go to the beach, but they do not have to possess it by living there. It doesn’t have the same allure as in the West, especially the isolated beach. People there are also not as likely to spend large amounts of time sunning 曬太陽 themselves on beaches as I pointed out in my post on differing ideals of beauty.

Chinese Medicine versus Western Medicine: Honey 中藥與西藥

On Friday we went out to a bee farm, one of the largest we have seen. We tasted 品嘗蜂蜜 all sorts of honeys, some made from things I never thought honey could be made from. There are all different wildflowers, high mountain flowers, lychees 荔枝, longan 龍眼, cactuses 仙人掌, etc. My favorite was a type of wildflower honey you can see in this photo. It’s also nice to get away to farmland once in a while to relax and enjoy the peacefulness. There was not a car or a person around for a while.

We also bought royal jelly 蜂王漿 (2nd photo). It is very popular in China as a medicine for reducing cholesterol 膽固醇, with hormones 激素 for maintaining skin beauty and even fighting off some types of cancers. I admit that I am a skeptic about such things, but I have seen the effectiveness and in this case it is backed up by research. One of the biggest differences between Chinese medicine and Western medicine is that Chinese medicine works to cure by natural methods bolstering a whole system in the body. By contrast, Western medicine is focused on a specific cure for a specific ailment. That is why something like long-term consumption of royal jelly or treatment from bee stingers 蜂針 is a part of Chinese medicine.

Thanksgiving 感恩節 2006

I normally write my posts more in English, so I’m going to switch this time for part of the post.

Thanksgiving seems to be a unique holiday 獨一無二的季節from the Americas, but maybe some of you out there can help me with this. There are other 'harvest festivals,' such as the Moon festival, but a Thanksgiving is only found in the Americas. We visited my wife's friends in Toronto right on the Canadian Thanksgiving加拿大的 感恩節 in mid October and had a wonderful Vietnamese BBQ dinner with ice wine 冰酒 outside in a garden surrounded by flaming red and orange maple trees 楓樹.

This year, my parents came over for dinner and brought the turkey 火雞, stuffing火雞的餡, potatoes 馬鈴薯and pumpkin pie 南瓜餅 with them. We found a place nearby that sells live turkeys to be killed and plucked to order. My mother’s potato dishes are really good tasting as I guess is to be expected from someone of German descent.

You can see the results after the family thanksgiving dinner. Grandpa is there getting his hugs from a granddaughter and a grandson. Of course we cannot forget the family portrait minus the photographer.

今年的感恩節我很:

感謝信耶穌基督
感謝可以感覺到神在我們的生命當中
感謝有家庭, 妻子, 孩子
感謝有工作
感謝身體好
感謝可以去聖靈充滿的教會

Small Painters 小畫家

Artwork has always been something I can appreciate but never really been able to do 一點都不會畫畫. For the most part, I cannot draw anything more complicated than stick figures. I did a self portrait a while ago for a class, but thankfully that has been long since lost….I think. On the other hand, I can appreciate art. Mostly, our children have been taught art by a teacher at a local art studio 畫廊的老師 or by my wife’s father.

These two pieces of artwork are from different artists. The top one is a spontaneous work done by our 3 year old son 三歲的兒子. You can see it is quite accurate for his age and done without any help.

The second is a self portrait 自畫像 our daughter completed not long ago as part of a home school class assignment. It does look like her physically but I can especially see her in the smile. That is definitely her smile. At least it is done on a better background than her earlier artwork. One night when my daughter was 4 I came home to find that she had painted a picture of herself and our family on the wall. She looked like a beautiful girl. Her brother looked like a Mr. Potato Head 馬鈴薯頭 and my wife and I looked a little like pigs 有一點像豬頭.

Sha mian 沙面

This part of Guangzhou is different for several reasons. The architecture is European style 歐洲式的建築 from the pre-1949 days. In the first photo if you look carefully on the side of the wall, you can see writing on a plaque describing the building’s original inhabitants. (a good exposure I might add considering the contrast in light.) Since the area is old and there has not been a lot of redevelopment, there are a lot of trees as well, which makes for some nice shade 因為有樹蔭所以沒有那麼熱. The second photo is a typical street scene in the area, but very atypical for busy Guangzhou.

Although it is the area probably most visited by foreign visitors to Guangzhou, we have only gone here 2 or 3 times. The American consulate 美國的領事館 is here, probably the biggest in China since I believe it deals with the bulk of visa, status and adoption issues. Also, the famous White Swan hotel 白天鹅宾馆 is here. It is not new. It was a fancy hotel when my wife left China, but they have kept it up quite well. It is still quite nice with a dim sum buffet.

Interracial Marriage in the United States 美國的跨種族婚姻

When I read articles attacking cross-racial couples I find it amusing. Sadly, they are quite common these days in some of areas of the media in the West. These ideologues have their names to label each type of cross-racial couple they don’t like. The labels serve to impose their own ideology 看法 and motives 動機 onto why these people of different race get together. So, I would have “yellow fever” and my wife would be a “sellout” in their terminology. They also have lots of supposed anecdotes 所謂的趣聞 to back up their prejudices. Of course some cross-racial couples are more correct than others, it just depends on which race or gender the writer hates more.

While these stories are slathered with a coating of fact and ideology, I believe that most of them arise from either envy or maybe a bad experience. Either way, interracial couples are much like same race couples, except maybe a little sweeter on the average 甜蜜一點. Romeo and Juliet, West Side Stories….there are lots of examples of couples who cross ethnic or other boundaries to become one, and they are stronger for having overcome opposition. Fortunately churches often seem to be at the forefront of cross-racial marriage, providing a supportive environment.

It’s all silliness to me because, regardless of race, they are all Americans. It is really culture and socialization that matters. That is why I still savor the memory of that white guy of Irish descent I met in Chicago’s Chinatown 芝加哥的唐人街 during college. His missionary parents died when he was just a baby before the revolution and he was raised by Chinese parents 他被中國父母領養的. He only left China and started learning English when he was 23 or 24才出國去香港開始學英文. His Chinese (Cantonese) was much better than his English. But for those who look at race he would not be Asian, just another white guy.

Nightscapes: Evening in China 夜景

The beauty of the night. I admit that I am a night person 夜貓子. I firmly believe that if man had been meant to see the sunrise it would have been made later in the day. There is something about the cool and quiet of the evening that makes it a great time for exploration, quiet contemplation or prayer.

This first photo is of our dinner table last night. There was a blackout 停電 and so we lit whatever candles 蠟燭 were handy. The pumpkin one 南瓜的 was from my parents and the others were from a Christmas crafts faire held at our previous church where our children helped make candles手造的. Turning the lights out made for an intimate time around the table dipping bread into our beef and daikon 白蘿蔔stew.

This other photo is of a night landscape in China, the silver and gold pagoda 塔, near the center of Guilin. There is something fun about night landscapes in China and throughout most of the Far East. Whether it is neon or night markets 夜市, there is a reason to walk around after dark to see what is down the next street or path. It makes me want to explore on foot. I usually feel fairly safe 比較安全 or at least not as if I am taking my life in my hands as I might in some places in the world after dark.

飲茶 Dim Sum

Dim sum is probably the most commonly known type of Chinese food in the West. If you live in a large coastal American city美國海岸的大城市, you know what I am talking about. They are the large restaurants with a lot of noise 熱鬧 and lots of good food going around on carts that people can choose from. But these restaurants definitely have a place in Cantonese society.

These restaurants are definitely used as a third place, where people can go out and meet friends. They serve the same function as coffee houses 咖啡店 in some places or pubs 酒吧 do in others. Space is at a premium so a small party will just get a half a table 自己的人數少就要跟別的客人一起坐. For special guests, or if someone really has a lot of money, they reserve a room. Apparently, they started out as tea houses, as the name suggests in Chinese, but later all sorts of appetizers 點心 were added so that they have become the banquet houses they are today. 餐廳的客戶

We like them though I admit that they seem too lively to be a place to take friends for a quiet conversation. The meal first starts with a choice of tea, as is shown in the second photo. Then the dim sum is ordered from a menu. One of my favorites is the 榴蓮酥, or durian crisp. This place that we took my parents out to is quite elegant, complete with these two throne-type chairs you see in the background.

Chinese Characters Part 2: Why Written Modern Chinese is an Easy Language 閱讀: 中文還是英文容易?

And now to all of you who have put up breathlessly waiting for 2 days for the second part in this series, here it is and no I haven’t lost my mind in saying that Chinese is easy. After having studied Chinese for a long time, I recently fully realized that written Chinese was not a phonetic language是沒有字母的. “It took you years to figure that one out,” you say? Well, it took me years to figure out the implications of it. Most people of us with alphabets tend to think of languages with pictures in them as a crude throwback to the days of hieroglyphs. Not so.

First, as many of you may know, Chinese characters can be read using any pronunciation. So, the character for 林 can be read as ‘lin’ in Mandarin or ‘lam’ in Cantonese and ‘hayashi’ in Japanese. I’m sure there is also a pronunciation in Korean, but I don’t know it. The characters can be read in any one feels like since they are not an alphabet, so that they can be understood in different languages. I made my way through the Japanese rail system this summer using my rudimentary Japanese and an ability to read their Chinese characters, 漢字 you’ll remember that from my last post, called ‘kanji’ in Japanese.

Another reason Chinese is easy, once we get past the initial time investment, is that they use meaning compounds to make new words, specialized terms 專門術語 and the like. Unlike Japanese, which borrows sounds wholesale from foreign languages, ‘terebi,’ ‘ cupu,’ and the like, Chinese uses the character meanings to form words. So, that computer becomes ‘electronic brain’電腦, and television becomes ‘electronic vision’電視. That means that learning new words is much easier than with an alphabet-based language.

(This is my daughter's practice notebook as she is hard at work, once in a while, doing her homework.)

Chinese Characters 漢字

For all of you out there who are hunkering down to study Chinese characters (or Japanese kanji) after a long night of heartbreak or glee from the recent elections depending on your political bent, there is light at the end of the linguistic tunnel. It is true that study of written Chinese is all downhill after the first 2000 characters 頭2000個字最難. A short note for tonight, but something I have thought about a bit as I have recently been in the midst of a spurt of studying and learning new vocabulary.

Chinese characters are really only combinations of a limited number of parts called radicals 部首. One part gives the meaning and another part suggests the sound. What this means is that after a while it becomes easier to remember a character because you can say to yourself, “hey, I’ve seen that character somewhere before, but it had a gold radical 金 rather than a wood radical 木 so this one must sound somewhat like it but it is a type of tree rather than a metal!” It is much quicker to remember characters this way than to look at them as the jumble of lines as it seems to the uninitiated eye. At this point I can look at an entirely new character and remember it without writing it down.

Another way in which they are easy is that Chinese words are meaning combinations rather than sound combinations like English 比英文生詞容易, which makes learning new words much much easier. Tune in later and I’ll explain.

Girls' Birthdays 女孩子的生日

These are two photos from two very different birthdays of friends' daughters 朋友的女兒 we celebrated recently. Birthdays are rituals 儀式we celebrate that mark milestones in our lives. Of course it’s much more fun for parents to celebrate their childrens’ birthdays than to celebrate their own. It gives parents a chance to get together. The top photo is a 3 year old girl and the bottom is a 7 year old.

Needless to say, children think of birthdays differently 小孩子對生日的看法不一樣. Most of them our daughter’s age look forward to birthdays all year long and wonder why they can’t have 2 or 3 each year. They start off with running, screaming and jumping, preferably with as much noise as possible while the adults congregate in another place and talk. At one point, everything stops and everyone gathers for the blowing out of the candles 吹蠟燭 and cutting of the cake 切蛋糕. Then the real fun begins when all their friends sit on the floor ready for the opening of the gifts 開禮物, in open admiration of each present. I guess we all love gifts, though, there is something of that fun around Christmas time as well.

Tai Shan Hot Spring 台山溫泉

I have taken photos in all sorts of conditions with my weather-sealed Zuiko lens but humidity is tough 如果很潮濕, 攝影比較辛苦. We went out to this hot springs in Tai Shan and as you can see the humidity was quite a challenge. It made a nice photo in this lavender hot springs pool.

There were 40 different pools 水池 altogether and each pool had a slightly different set of temperature and or herbs or minerals. The temperature differences were natural but the medicinal herbs were placed in there. My favorite whenever I visit hot springs, though, is the large pool. They are always warm but not hot. I just don’t like swimming in cold water 不喜歡冷水 so it’s fun swimming in these large hot springs pools late at night. There are also the hot rocks that as you can see are nice to lie down on to dry out.

We also went other places, like this coastal spot and a small village near the hot springs where we had the Tai Shan台山 dish 黃鱔飯 or yellow eel rice. I reluctantly went white water rafting 漂流, for some reason popular on tours right now, and as you can see I didn’t even kill myself in the process. We started in a bus traveling to the top of a hill in a downpour 傾盆大雨 that signaled the beginning of a large storm, traveling like prisoners to the POW camp…well, maybe more like kids to a summer camp but since I am more risk averse to death and injury I’ll set the tone here. We were with a large group of college students 大學生 and a family from Korea 還有一個從韓國來的家庭. I figured if they could do it, I could as well. My older son and I were in one boat. We went down one at a time being pushed out of tough spots by guides along the way. One time we were trapped in a whirlpool with the guide’s boat before being smashed out by a third boat with the heavy set kid who liked to use his helmet as a water gun. Almost 20 rapids and 3 serious water fights later, we arrived at calm waters where we rafted our way to 2nd place!!