Sunday, April 4, 2010
(I switched from writing this in Word to writing this in Pages, because at page 50 or so Word starts to get buggy, so now my Insert -> Date & Time command is a little different from before. Not that you would've noticed or cared, but for that one guy out there who would have, here is your explanation.)
I can sort of speak Mandarin. It's official, I think. I just had a real awesome dinner, eating and drinking and speaking and whatnot with the family. No need for translators or anything. It's sort of amazing, the depth and breadth of communication I can cover. I mean, I'm rather short of being fluent, but I can sort of carry on a very enjoyable dinner conversation, which I think you'll agree is quite something.
Further chopstick notes: At first I was told that I used chopsticks "the right way," which I thought was pretty strange. But soon I noticed that a bunch of the people over here sort of improvise their chopstick strategy, and don't succeed all that much, in the long run. The "proper" way of going about chopstick-ing is to have the two kuazi (chopsticks) further apart at the back of your hand than they are in front of your hand, where they will be grabbing at food. This gives good leverage for all of food-nabbing needs, and is generally a good way to go about things. Most people, though, eat with their chopsticks closer together at the back of their hands, and further apart at the front of their hands, making for not-so-good leverage, and mildly poor performance (but, of course, by American standards, everyone is superb over here). For a while I didn't know what was the problem, but now I realize that the most common feature in my acquaintances' use of chopsticks is how they prepare to use them. There is the really cool, really quick gesture that everyone does, where they grab both kuazi with one hand, tap them on the table to even them out, and start eating right away. While this is a really quick way to position the kuazi in your hand, it tends to make people use them "the wrong way." While I, having never seen people do the quick, pre-eating tap, tended to use both hands to affix the chopsticks in the proper position in my eating hand. This takes rather a lot longer than it takes most people to prepare to eat with their chopsticks, and while it may be culturally not-so-common, it seems to have set me up to use chopsticks "correctly." I put "correctly" in quotes, because it many people are of the opinion that "whatever gets food in your mouth is correct," but I'm still complimented on the "correctness" of my chopstick skills. There is a "correct" way, and there is an even more "correct" way. So now I'm trying really hard to be able to just tap my kuazi on the table, and have the fall into the "more correct" position, though this is rather tough. Again, this is one of those things that may need to be gesticulated and demonstrated, rather than described.
So anyway, today. Jason invited us to a cool thing at Pudong (East of the River, a part of the city), which is apparently a really foreigner-heavy part of town. Someone described it as "the Disneyland Bubble," which was spot-on. It seemed like someone plopped a bunch of the gated communities of Florida in the middle of Shanghai. It was sort of creepy to be there. It was an Easter celebration sort of thing, at this weird little gated community, filled with really rich Ex-pats. We helped out with games for the kids to play, while the swanky adults ate and drank in the buffet lounge sort of thing. There were so many wai guo ren (foreigners, I think I broke this down for you guys earlier) there, I could hardly believe it.
For a while It was hard for me to distinguish what made this group of English-speakers in China worse than a Chinatown, for example, but I eventually hit on it. None of these people could really speak Mandarin. They were living in China for the exchange rate-induced lifestyle, mostly. There wasn't a upward-mobility sort of motivation for their emigration. Most of them wanted to go there because they had a decent amount of money back in America or wherever, which they knew would be considered a gigantic amount of money in China. So they moved over here, and somehow started living the lifestyle of kings.
But so anyway, I played with their kids, who were sometimes brats, and sometimes really fun and nice. I can't adequately capture all of the extreme emotions they inspired in me, but it was generally an interesting experience.
Jason said that in Melbourne, Australia, there was a street or two where you could go and speak Shanghainese, and everyone there would understand you. Which is almost an okay comparison to what was going on in the neighborhood. But all those people who could speak Shanghainese could also speak English. But not so for these guys, over here. There is this weird imperialist sort of streak among these guys. Someone said "where's my Mimosa?" and another said "where's my Chinese guy?" in reference to one of the works at the community. They can all speak a very little Mandarin, but very, very little. It's an odd, surreal sort of place.
I told them where I lived, and they were like, "ahh, you live in the real city." Really very weird and unsettling.
And then we (Malia and Jason and I) hung out with one of Jason's friends. Sexual innuendos translate tremendously well across cultures.
I think I mentioned this earlier, but Starbucks are exactly the same here. Comfy chairs still comfy. Americano tastes identical. The sweetener packets are slightly different, but I'll give them that one. (Another reason my dad wouldn't survive over here.)
I reflexively said "Zhen de a?!" (pronounced more like "Jen da?!") today. It means "really?!" I forget what someone said, but I was like, "serioulsy?!" and they where like, "yup!" It was cool. I don't know how to describe how well I can understand Mandarin, but it certainly seems like I can understand quite a lot. It's becoming reflexive and intuitive. Which is really weird and fun. I try really hard to overhear conversations, whenever I can. And I get lots of little grammatical, structure sort of words, like "then," "about," "if," "but," "because," and stuff like that. But my straight up vocabulary needs work. But that's cool.
I'm not sure whether to get further attached to this place, or if I should start get used to the idea of living in America again. I mean, the answer is obvious: "Live every second here to the best of your ability." But I'm gonna get such a huge whiplash going back. Like, gigantic. And really, when you get down to it, why should my environment inform who I am? But I'm no Dalai Lama or Gandhi or Emerson or whomever, so I really can't work like that. I know I'll function differently, to some extent, back in Needham. I don't know where exactly I want to go with this, but it maybe deserves some more mind-flailings.
Changing, as a person, depending on your environment, is rather not ideal, right? But growing as a person, as a result of your environment is a good thing, right? But how do you distinguish between the two? My experience here seems to consist of watching others find the distinction between these, while having absolutely no idea which camp I, myself, belong in.
Pretending I'm a Chinese dude isn't accomplishing anything, while appreciating their culture is. But it's such a fine distinction. I just don't know anymore. Living in the moment (mindfulness, as I think Buddhists and Herman Hesse might say), seems to be my temporary solution/defense-mechanism, but that always seemed like avoiding the fact of life, in the Modern World sense.
Maybe I've stopped making sense to you guys. Can you tell I had a big Existentialist unit in school before I came over here?
Everything requires more hashing out. But then something else new happens, and then I get behind in my conscious thinking and rationalizations and things. Which is probably for the better, after all. So many things come so hard and so fast, all I've got left are the feelings. What more can I ask for?
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