blank

Closing the China Shop

As I prepare to leave China and reunite with my gal, I suppose I should come up with a few final words. Unfortunately, I cannot say that China surprised me as much as I thought it would. I know it sounds obnoxious, but really, much of what I've seen are stuff I read about long before coming here, and coming from a Chinese family, the culture wasn't unfamiliar to me, though it was in a far more concentrated dose. Besides, Chinese people aren't all restauranteurs, dry-cleaners, martial arts afficionados, bright-red commies, tragic freedom fighters, pointy straw hat-wearing villagers, or any of the steotypes used to categorize them into a safe and unthreatening mental corner. Rather, they're just regular folks like you and I, and they have their own share of kind-hearted, hopeful dreamers and curious, open-minded people, just as they have opportunistic, self-centered jerk-offs, bitter and constantly critical sourpusses, and impossible to reason with nationalists who have never been out of the country. It's simply that everything is done to a slightly different beat and backdrop, though admittedly, the odd, squeaky pop music and Beijing's constant dust storms can really make this place seem entirely unrecognizable from the West. Yet, pretty much everything from back home is available here, except they may not be packaged in a familiar way ( e.g., milk is sold in flat box-juice sized bags), or have the recognizable labels of comforting globalized brands...

...Ok, wait a minute. I believe I've had the part conscious, part subconscious agenda to use my blog to show the "real" China beyond all the preconceptions and all the misunderstandings I've encountered during my lively drunken conversations back home. Bah, to hell with that. Given all that's available here, people will come and find in China what they came looking for, should it be the magic of the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" experience, or the opportunity to plug themselves into the always expanding economy, or people to lecture to about the awe-inspiring greatness of democracy, or just a quickie post-college drunken binge in a cheap country far away from their parents. After all, it's their money and their gagillions of pictures and movie clips, so it's their entirely up to them-- not a disembodied, occasionally high-strung and critical blogger-- how best to experience China and what to take away from it and share with their friends and family back home.

What did I come to China for? I won't lie to you. I came to China with grandiose dreams of working in an environmental NGO to help poor villagers fight the pollution seeping in from vile, irresponsible industries, to come up with solutions for sustainable development that could potentially be applied to villages all over the country... and honestly, to eventually be accepted into the government as a major policy maker on conservation and development issues, to ultimately, y'know, change the world. Seriously. I abandonned two years of work into a doctorate for this, so you better believe I wasn't kidding around. Previous to my departure, I was even envisioning myself living in a remote village with no running water or electricity or any of the comforts a soft Westerner like myself had become accustomed to; and, in preparation, I had whittled all my wordly possessions down to two big ruck sacks and a suitcase, and sought to harden myself by sleeping on the floor and taking cold showers. The reality, of course, was much different. Not only was I promptly set up in a nice apartment only a week after I arrived, but I found myself working at a research institute as an academic editor and sometimes teacher, and also backed up by supportive and protective colleagues who showed me the ropes here and kept me from getting into trouble. Sure, it pretty much limited me to Beijing and its surroundings (plus a brief trip to Shanghai and Nanjing), but the trade-off was that it gave me the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really live as a local, not as a tourist or an expat.

So again, what did I come to China for? What did I take from it? As much as I hate to admit it, this trip was one of those soul-searching "discover-thyself-as-you-travel-around-the-world" romps. For almost a decade, China and everything Chinese was something of an obsession of mine, where I had convinced myself that my future and my true purpose in life was to be in China. Hilarious now that I think back on it. However, I suppose that mine was merely one of the many expressions of the confusion that plague children of immigrants, who, like myself, grow up white on the inside, and clash with their tradition-minded parents, but because they don't appear white, they never fully manage to escape the immigrant stigma either. As trite and cheesy as it sounds, my trip effectively put to rest my doubts and my desperate desire for an identity, but most importantly, it put an end to all the angst and bitterness that derived from my confusion and that I would occasionally take out on my friends. I can then very happily say that my long China chapter is over. Certainly though, given that I am still in many ways Chinese, I will never fully depart from it, just as I will never stray very far from my Quebecois roots.

I am content and quite pleased to be Jack, j., 邓家扬, Veon, Jackson Tango, or any of the names my family, friends, my colleagues, and of course, most importantly, my lover decide to call me.

GO HABS GO!

As I read the news of the Montreal Canadians (the Habs or les Habitants) squeaking into a playoff position by the skin of their teeth, I am transported to cloud nine… particularly as the points tally up and the very pleasant news sinks in that the goon squad that is the Toronto Leafs will NOT be making the playoffs this year, despite all their eleventh hour efforts. YEAAAAAH, BABY! YEAH! In your smirking, metrosexual FACE, Toronto!!!... all in good fun, of course. I'm actually not a fan of hockey at all, or of team sports in general; I never understood the purpose of repeatedly running from one end of field/rink/court to the other, especially when you're a scrawny geek like me and no one bothers passing to you. In the last few years though, I have learned to appreciate the game, to holler at unfair calls or uncalled underhanded checks, to nail-bittingly tense in anticipation as I see a perfect set up with beautiful click-click-click passes, and to leap up from my chair, sending my beer precariously spinning on the table, as I roar with joy when THE HABS SCORE!!!!

But, beyond a basic, functional knowledge of the game and its rules, I know nothing about the sport itself, its teams, and players, except when it comes to the Montreal Canadians-- though even then, I mainly know that Koivu is the team captain who a few years back successfully battled a bout of cancer, and Huet and Aebischer appear to be vying to be top goalie, after Théo was unceremoniously kicked out for having something of a bad patch. Frankly, although I do occasionally watch a game, I would only watch a Habs game, and in fact, I tend not to even watch the game at all, as I'm perfectly content with keeping track of the points in semi-real time on Radio-Canada's website. I really do not give a rat's ass about fanciful displays of skilful skating or heart-warming teamwork, nor do I give a damn about whether a team put in a "strong effort" or had "spirit." My relationship to hockey is strictly utilitarian, caring only if teams win or lose, specifically whether the Habs win or lose, and even more specifically, whether the Habs manage to crush the Leafs.

I'm aware, of course, that my own fleeting feelings of joy whenever the Habs win are entirely irrational. Clearly, I wasn't the one who scored, or the one who put in the training to reach that level of physical fitness. Besides, it's just a silly hockey game, and, unless the whole point is to hang out with my buddies and catch up over beer and nachos between the periods, I've really got better things to do and a life to live. Nevertheless, I always eagerly wait in anticipation for a game's results…because, just between you and me, each Habs win is, to me, a small victory for the continuing survival of French Canada in Anglo-Canada, and also to a certain extent, ongoing proof of Montreal's superiority over Toronto. Vive le Québec libre!

I imagine in 2008 many people will be rooting for their countries in a similar manner, not really caring or even understanding the various sports themselves, but rather to satisfy some other motive, such as wanting to feel the small tingle of vicarious success whenever one of their countrymen wins a medal or breaks a world record. This is very true for Chinese people, as one of the stated goals of the 2008 Olympics will be to not only have the most flamboyant and shockingly expensive Olympic smoke and mirror spectacle, but to at long last surpass the United States in the total number of medals won, even if they should be won in such "sports" as pistol shooting. Unfortunately, team sports are rarely about the physical activity themselves, but tend to be always have some political subtext, should it be to represent the honour and glory of the nation, or to simply channel the excess energy of overexcited testosterone-filled youth through a more benign conduit, relative to say, forming revolutionary cells to overthrow the system. Indeed, part of the reason the Olympics irk me is that by definition it imposes a political context onto sports that are really about individual achievement and have nothing at all to do with the "nation" or the "people." Yet, as annoying as it is, I understand the need to constantly want to brand obscure achievements as belonging to this or that nation, or to be feel pride in their countrymen's success, as it's simply symbolic of a "win" for their overall "team."

Precisely what team am I part of though? When asked about my nationality, I used to reply that I am Chinese first, Québécois second, and perhaps as an afterthought, Canadian. However, if there is anything that I have come to realize from my trip to China, it's that I am clearly not Chinese, even though given my upbringing I obviously share many of their values and habits. And, as much as I like to cheer for the Montreal Canadians and basically everything Montreal and Québécois, it's been some time since I've lived there, and also, my French has been deteriorating at an alarming pace. No, Québec is no longer my home or my team, though I will always support and keep posted on Québécois and French-Canadian causes (i.e. sovereignty). Hence, whenever I cheer for the Habs, I am not really cheering for them, but only paying homage to my roots, and to the most formative years of my life. Neither do I particularly feel close to that farcical concept of the multi-cultural Canadian, except, as the cliché goes, in opposition to Americans.

Naturally, I do somewhat fit within each of those labels that I used to proudly slap onto myself, but more often than not, their irritatingly stereotypical melting-pot confines are simply inaccurate and frequently offensive. But does it matter at all? Do I really need to be part of a nation, a culture? Do I need to have an idiotic specially-tailored label, like "Chinese Canadian," "CBC (Canadian Born Chinese)," "Chinois Québécois," or "Banana"? The whole point of all of that hoohah is only to provide a sense of belonging and identity. For that, I see no need to look beyond my community, that is, my gal, my family, my friends, and my acquaintances; I would much rather be defined by my responsibilities to my community, not to some convenient and entirely arbitrary national or cultural narrative.

Furthest Quick Observations, Unworthy of a Full Blog

What, what? What did I do?:
It never fails. As soon as I find myself going to a shop or a restaurant often enough, the owners will eventually muster enough confidence to curiously ask me with an odd, confused expression on their face, "You're not Chinese, right? What country are you from?" But dammit, I am (genetically) Chinese! I must have explained several tens of times by now, that my mother was born in Nanjing, and my father was born in a city close to Shanghai, so really, my blood's Chinese through and through. And yet, with a single glance, most Chinese can tell that I'm not Chinese. Even back home, my sis and I are either mistaken for being Korean, Japanese, or some kind euro-asian mix, just not quite Chinese. I'm not sure what it is. My theory has always been that since my maternal grandfather was from Henan, an area which historically had a large population of Muslim horse traders who had settled there several centuries ago along with the Mongolian Dynasty, my mother's, my sister's, and my own slightly non-Asian nose and eyes must have come from some long-forgotten intermarriages there (My aunt's theory is that we have Jewish ancestry, while my father thinks we have some Jesuits hiding in our blood, but I find both hard to believe as geographically the first doesn't match up, and for the second, there were comparatively very few Jesuit missionaries and besides, most of them were priests who had probably taken vows of chastity.) However, China is not only composed of Chow Yunfat look-alikes, but has a number of rather distinct "races," some of which actually appear Caucasian, so my very mildly non-Asian physical features shouldn't be enough to mark me as being non-Chinese, and as it were, blow my cover. I also thought it might be my clothes, as many Chinese people still wear drab faded Mao-suits or Communist era military fatigues; but, in major cities like Beijing, typically only the labourers are dressed like that, and they are increasingly outshined by the many Chinese folk in the know, who wear sparkly thingamajiggers and sport bright highlights in their hair-- to whom in comparison, I certainly look drab and very much outmoded. It could also be the fact that I like to keep my head shaved, though until recently, after an intolerable three month wait, I had left my hair long, and admittedly, before I shaved my head again, if I didn't speak too much, I could sometimes get away with looking like a Chinese national. Still, even with a full head of hair and ordinary-looking clothes, I somehow couldn't fully blend in, and inevitably always end up sticking out as the funny foreigner. I suppose the only possibility is something about my mannerisms. But I'm telling you, for the life of me, I can't figure out what the hell I'm doing that's so different. What I am doing? Should I be shuffling more? Should I be horking and spitting everywhere I go? Is it my facial expressions? What? No idea.

Not the comfy chair!:
I have just about travelled the wide spectrum of Beijing's public transportation: the large variety of new, spacious, air-conditioned buses to the absurdly small semi-legal fume-filled ones; the aging subway system complemented by a new fancy-pants sky-train; and, the fleet of colour-coded taxis, with complicated billing systems I can't be bothered to figure out. Recently, I've also experienced the Chinese inter-city train system, travelling on the night-trains from Beijing to Shanghai in the cramped "hard seats" where six people are stuck in an aisle shuffling about to get some decent ass space to fall asleep, from Shanghai to Nanjing on the slightly better "soft seats" where this time four people comfortably share an aisle, and finally from Nanjing to Shanghai, in the luxurious "soft bed" compartments, where in front of each of the four beds there is a television with continual English and Chinese movies, and right around the corner there's a perfectly clean lavatory with even a bowl of pot-pourri in the corner. As many will no doubt cynically note, if you're willing to pay enough money, you can get pretty much get anything you please in the new China, where the gap between the rich and the poor is getting flagrantly bigger. While it is true that the wealth isn't spreading evenly, and many are milking their Party contacts for all their worth, it is important to note that the lowest class wasn't absolutely intolerable. I mean, it's not as if we were sitting on wooden planks with a huge rusty nail jutting out of it. They actually had relatively comfy seats, even though they were somewhat cramped. It's the same for those insane miniature buses that always have room for one more no matter how packed they are; they too have pretty comfortable seats-- if you're lucky enough to get one that is. My point is simply that the bar isn't just rising for those who can afford it, but it's also rising from below, as practically all the services in China are being rehauled and modernized from virtual third world standards. Sure, lots of things won't meet Western standards, but they're a pretty damned good improvement on what was there before. In that sense then, I have to say again that I simply do not think that there will be "revolution" or any serious backlash against the government any time soon. It's not that the people wouldn't have just cause for it, but it's simply that the important red flag of any collapsing government is not there, that is, a decreasing middle-class. In fact, the middle-class is growing, creating an ever larger portion of the people more invested in the status quo and unwilling to lose their comfy chair.

How hard core are you?:
I've mentioned this before, but Chinese people eat a whole lot of weird-ass shit. I consider myself pretty resilient when it comes to food, and I'll basically eat anything so long as I don't have to challenge it to single combat with my chopsticks along the way into my mouth; however, I've encountered a few things here that have made me balk and try really hard to suppress my gag reflex. After this trip, I'll be damned happy to indulge in far less… exotic foods. Anyhow, should you wish to test your mettle, here is a list of things (some of them quite tasty!) in order of increasing hard coredness.

Duck blood soup: This shouldn't be too strange or gross for those accustomed to the wonderful delicacy that is black pudding, otherwise known as blood sausages. Don't worry, the blood isn't just swimming around like a nose-bleed gone dreadfully wrong. Similar to pig's blood, the duck blood is first congealed and cut into cubes or long rectangular strips, before it is thrown into a soup along with some rice vermicelli and possibly a sprinkling of cilantro. The flavour is actually quite nice and subtle, as opposed to pig's blood which sometimes has an overpowering taste of liver. It's really not that bad at all. In fact, most times, it'll just look like dark jello, so unless you ask, you may never even know it's blood you're unwittingly slurping down.

Smelly tofu: Definitely an acquired taste that many Chinese won't even dare approach. I assure you though, that once you get past the horrible odours you will learn to love and seek out, you will be rewarded with several consecutive food orgasms that only the ripest and stinkiest cheeses can bring. The principle of smelly tofu is actually very much akin to making cheese, as it consists of allowing the tofu to ferment with a dark bluish mould… ah, the glories of fermentation, without which we would be left with a sad. uninebriated, cheeseless, breadless world. After the tofu is suitably fermented, it can be either deep-fried, which doesn't smell half as bad, or, to really enjoy the exquisite delights of smelly tofu, it can be steamed to perfection.

Sparrows on a stick: You can find all sorts of things as you're walking around the night market food stalls. Quails, squid legs, and strips of tofu are common enough fare, and all come with a dousing of soy and some hot sauce. Very nice as a midnight snack. One of the stranger things would have to be itty-bitty plucked sparrows, their heads sometimes cut off, or still dangling, with several skewered lengthwise on kebab-sticks, almost like miniature pigs with wings. Not that spectacular at all, though a little unnerving the first time you see it. However, once it goes through the miraculous process of deep-frying, it pretty much looks and tastes like anything that's been heavily cooked in oil. I have to say, though, it's a little crunchy on the inside, without a whole lot meat, and would have been quite bland and non-descript were it not for the generous slathering of hot sauce.

Duck heads: This is a very common snack for many Chinese people, though I still haven't gotten the hang of it. The trick is to figure out how to slowly and delicately pick off each of the slivers of edible skin, then the bits of flesh, then the tongue, and then you're supposed to dig in with your teeth, slurping out the soft, moist brains and eyes, while breaking apart the brain case and methodically spitting out perfectly clean pieces of bone… Yeah, when I saw that done, I was about to hurl too. The other thing is that the heads are usually not deep-fried into a relatively inoffensive piece curled flesh and bone you can close your eyes and toss in your mouth. These duck heads tend to be slowly red-braised in a pretty nice sauce consisting of dark soy, star anise, and wine, which unfortunately means that to properly eat it you have to go through the process I just described. In itself, that wouldn't be so bad, except that these duck heads tend to be served cold or lukewarm, and for your eating convenience, they're split in half to make the glistening brain within easily accessible.

Aborted chicken eggs: This is very much as foul and disturbing as it sounds. I ate it once, just to give it try, but the flavour isn't all that spectacularly different from a normal egg or a chicken to justify my eating that weird nightmare-inducing crap again. It's essentially a fertilized chicken egg, left to develop for twenty-one days, after which it's tossed into boiling water and served. I knew the principle of the thing and I knew that I'd be eating a half-formed chicken, but as I peeled away the shell, I wasn't prepared to find fully formed eye staring at me from within a skull covered with yellowish hairs. Still, I steeled myself, closed my eyes, and took a big munch out of the thing, and found that bits of it tasted surprisingly like a really rich egg yolk, while other bits tasted like an ordinary chicken-- though as I inadvisedly looked at what I was eating and saw the dangling guts, I had to struggle hard to swallow. All in all, it was pretty tasty, but a little on the dry side. The only problem was that later on, I was still picking out yellowish hair from my teeth. Pretty fucking hard core.

Standing Tall Over a Mound of Dust

My colleagues, relatives, and other immigrant Chinese acquaintances have often mournfully sighed about the degeneration of Chinese culture in the last few decades, typically in the context of those unruly, strangely clothed Chinese youth, all shockingly ignorant of their history and disrespectful to their traditions. Since much of this is blamed on China's exposure to the West, I was curious to see this for myself in Shanghai, China's most Westernized city (excluding Hong Kong).

Though I clearly was not suddenly catapulted into a land of obnoxious gas-guzzling drivers migrating to and from their carefully contrived boho home or razor-wire gated communities, à-la-Toronto, Shanghai is indeed a highly cosmopolitan city, sparkling with a crown of new and ever-proliferating skyscrapers, a beautiful new opera house, and a sophisticated subway system that rivals anything back home or at least equals the best I've seen in Europe. In some places, you can almost forget that you're in China and think that you're in any affluent city in the West, as you're walking along Shanghai's immense and astonishingly clean dedicated pedestrian shopping-street, lined with every conceivable posh or tacky store, or as you're wandering about in the ridiculous ten-storied mall-complexes humming to the sound of cheesy ambient music and excited teenybopper giggling-- almost forget, that is, if it weren't for the inescapable crush of people characteristic of China's overpopulated coastal cities. Shanghai is still a Chinese city, despite all the familiar Western trappings, and as carefully masked as it was, the poverty was still evident, from the food stalls scraping a living off the random customer, to the legions of panhandlers and street vendors hovering around anyone who looks vaguely well-off, but constantly being chased away by the police determined to maintain the city's monopoly on the crap being sold to tourists.

But did I see any apocalyptic signs of China's collapsing culture? Well, it's hard to tell what people mean when they mention that, or even what they're referring to by "culture." Do they mean that their kids are just not being as respectful as they would like, kowtowing to their every whim and blindly listening to everything they say? Or, are they concerned about their kids' seemingly crazy, irresponsible behaviour, much like their own youthful indiscretions, so very long ago, when they too were teenagers without a care in the world (remember that, dad?)? Of course, there is an aspect of generational misunderstandings mixed up in this, but more often than not, even on the end of foreigners, the complaints usually refer to the effects of China's rampant commercialization that crassly slaps adverts everywhere, roughly discards historical relics because of ill-conceived modernization schemes, and restores temples and monuments so shoddily that they no longer look "authentic".

Frankly, what do they expect? Although it would be wonderful to preserve things precisely as they were, and for everyone to lead idyllic lives in pastoral villages tending to their sheep and weaving bamboo baskets, most Chinese now crave the comforts that only a prosperous city with a vibrant economy can provide… bringing with it all the potential ills and abuses of unconstrained development and intrusive advertising, and unfortunately making history a casualty to rushed paint jobs attempting to maintain the ooooo-aaaaa tourist effect. Another common complaint is how the old traditions and arts are gradually being forgotten as fewer and fewer young people are interested in practicing a time-consuming and impractical art that would only earn them a life as a curiosity. Sure, the kids ain't doin' or sayin' what the old folks are doin' and sayin' no more, but you get that complaint in every era; I'm sure as all the "verily"s and "thou"s shifted into anachronistic oblivion, there were a bunch of bitter old folk angrily chewing on the cud, muttering about those radical, incomprehensible kids using all that modern-speak.

Like all cultures, Chinese culture is not an unchanging monolith. In fact, the culture has greatly radically changed over the centuries, absorbing and integrating foreign influences, until it became what it is today, unrecognizable even to those a mere century ago. Whatever is worth maintaining will be kept alive and well in everyday practice, like say, fighting over the dinner bill, while others will be forgotten, perhaps to be rediscovered at later time, or purposefully rejected because it is no longer relevant and represent fundamental social inequalities. Maybe some things can be encouraged and nudged in the "right" direction by well-intentioned policies, but I'm not convinced anything about a culture can be forcibly preserved, short of killing it. What's happening in Shanghai and the rest of China is not a loss of any culture or any hogwash like that. It's merely a normal evolution, though accelerated by its recent exposure to the West.

Interestingly enough, when it comes to the basic preservation of historical artefacts and relics, I would have to say that Shanghai does a much better job than Beijing. By far, the Shanghai museum is several orders of magnitude better than Beijing's National museum. Not only were the exhibits organized in a much more intuitive and easy to follow manner, there was easily twice as many pieces on display, in an obviously superior condition. They even had English captions that made sense and had all the correct verb tenses! Incredible! The superiority of Shanghai's museums, though, has to do with something else entirely.

Shanghai is just rolling in cash. Even though Shanghai is relatively young at about 150-200 years or so, Shanghai rapidly became the epicentre of China's wealth, due in no small part to its strategic location at the mouth of the Yangtze River that allowed it to be not only one of the heaviest ports for international shipping, but also the ideal transit point for ships laden with goods bound for China's interior. As a result, everything about the city reeks of wealth, and nothing more so than its lavish and well-funded museums. All the exhibits were donated by private collectors. All of them. Added on to that, the huge cauldron-shaped building was dominantly built by private donations, not public funds. Indeed, Shanghai has the reputation of being a city filled with ceaseless go-getters and innovators-- though other less wealthy Chinese call them selfish opportunists-- producing the richest people in China and making the city at once the country's most envied and the most hated city, much like Toronto or New York. Again, much like the nouveau riche back home, the Shanghainese variety sought to buy their way to respectability (and tax breaks) by portraying themselves as great patrons of the arts and all-knowing scholarly connoisseurs straight out of the Confucian mould. Presumably, after stock-pilling a whole bunch of Chinese antiques, they got bored of seeing the same thing everyday, and eventually donated it in a grandiose gesture captured on film with big toothy smiles, only to move on to indulge in more fanciful and expensive pastimes.

Well, that's not entirely fair. The wealthy aren't the only ones who use "culture" as a shield, and claim to be champions of "values" and "tradition," in order to give themselves instant credibility and respect. (Sound familiar?) There has been an annoying trend lately trying to credit practically every invention or discovery on the face of the earth to Chinese people and by extension, its culture. Yes, I used to be one of those people, but now even I get annoyed and more than a little sceptical when yet another bright eyed Chinese person starts waxing nostalgic about how back in the day China was the one who first circumvented the globe, or China was the one who invented this or that. While some of it may be true and somewhat believable, chronologically at least, who the Hell cares? I'm sure if you dug deep enough, and massaged the data well enough, someone may "discover" that the ancient Pygmies were the first to create romantic comedies. And precisely why would that even matter to romantic comedies in general, except in an academic sense? I'm pretty sure writers of romantic comedies the world over won't start acknowledging Pygmies in all their works.

It's as if the longer history one's culture has and the more speckled it is with dubious achievements, the better it reflects on the speaker, personally that is, or on the government claiming to be its sole inheritor and protector. I imagine the logic is that by associating oneself to something that appears vast, nebulous, and grandiose, it automatically imbues the speaker with unquestionable authority and respect, effectively making cultural catch-phrase shields to avoid the trouble of having to demonstrate their own merits... much like name dropping during a conversation at a party, hoping to sound pretty damned clever, but also hoping very dearly the person doesn't know the name, and will instead be too awed and embarrassed to ask about it for fear of revealing their own ignorance.

All that to play an elaborate charade over the silly mounds of dust that are the decaying relics, monuments, and temples infesting China. And yet, these "defenders of culture" continue to stand proudly in their dust bins arguing away, even as people actually living the real thing zip by.

Wherefore My Liberal Guilt?

I have never been comfortable with paying for massages. It's not that I dislike them. Not at all. In fact, I am always enormously grateful to anyone patient enough to attempt to undo the constantly recurring, painfully sensitive knots in my back. It's just that massages have always struck me as requiring a certain degree of trust, if not intimacy, as opposed to a doctor's cold, impersonal pokes and probes, so that forking over cash for a massage leaves in my mind the lingering and slightly seedy feeling I'm paying for physical intimacy-- ya dig? Yes, yes, massages can be therapeutic and very much necessary; I've been to a massage physio a couple of times, and hot damn, it certainly made the recovery from my climbing injuries a lot more tolerable. Of course, I know people go for massages all the time, they don't mean a thing, and they're entirely acceptable. Yet, the Spartan in me still decries this shocking luxury, this obvious show of weakness and inability to suffer a little pain that may be resolved by some disciplined stretching and some better sitting habits. However, in the last few months scrunched in front of my computer, trying to make sense of mind-boggling Chinglish and horrible sentence structures (even for academics!), my back has become more wound up than usual and has been desperately craving relief. On my roommate's advice, I decided to visit a parlour that he often goes to, and that, he assured me, was entirely legit, though apparently many massage parlours in China are fronts for brothels. The price too was a little hard to pass up, 60rmb (10$) for an hour, compared to anything between six to ten times that amount I would expect to pay back home.

…and, as I was brutally pounded and whacked by the "masseuse" (more on that later), I could not help but think about the cost of that massage, indeed the cost of everything here relative to the West, and how everything is so inexpensive that any Westerner could easily afford to live like royalty as they magnanimously scatter pennies to the ever-grateful commoners. I'm honestly not an airy-fairy unaware of the global economy or the many consequences of the currency market. But, am I exploiting these people? What I'm paying is fair relative to their salary and the living standards here, but why should I be paying so much less for something that, to me, is worth much more? Why should I be benefiting from the inequities in the global markets and development, which are themselves the result of a long history of exploitational economic practices and unfair subsidies? Sure, like any visitor, I can console myself in the knowledge that I'm helping their (tourist) economy by bringing in my precious foreign currency, but does that mean that they would be perpetually dependent on their third world status? Why should I have so many privileges, just because I'm a Westerner? Why should I get a higher salary than any of the people here, just because I speak lingua franca of the dominant superpower? Am I just another filthy foreign imperialist? …yeah, I know. I'm a slightly oversensitive liberal, saddled with the guilt and responsibility for all the hand-wringing sufferings of the planet.

As one of the many expats in China, I too have a higher salary than the average Chinese person, or most of my grad student colleagues for that matter. Fortunately, my salary isn't exorbitantly higher, but is the relatively reasonable wage of a Chinese post-doc-- much lower than minimum wage back home, though still more than enough to live on comfortably here. For many other expats though, particularly in specialized fields like finance or consulting, they're able to command the same salary they have back home, making more in a week than many Chinese make in several years. But why? I can understand the necessity of bringing in foreign workers (i.e., native-English speaking workers) to get businesses and institutions familiar with the lingo and with the many unwritten rules and practices that come with the territory, and to basically get them up to the par of international standards; these high salaries are simply necessary to attract them in the first place. On the practical side, I can also understand that bringing in those guys end up building pretty handy contacts and partnerships that may be useful for long-term ambitions. I can understand all of this, but still, the expat system bothers me. The main problem is that the system can be badly abused. Instead of getting a foreign "expert," the firm or institute may get some yahoo with all the right contacts and a well-doctored CV, but who's just looking for a little fun in a foreign country, and ends up spending more time jaunting around the country or partying in every expat pub, instead of contributing anything of value. Unsurprisingly, this causes quite a bit of resentment among their Chinese counterparts (or local counterparts anywhere in the world) doing practically the same job, and getting paid chump change in comparison. (For the record, in my own chest-beating attempt to retain some sense of integrity, I've tried to do my best to prove that the boss didn't hire a dud, working as hard as my colleagues and postponing my plans to visit Shanghai and Nanjing until this weekend, when my work load seems to have somewhat decreased.)

However, my impression is that the expat system is progressively changing, where the mad rush to get English-spouting whiteys of any kind into China has toned down, to be replaced with a calmer, more selective eye on who they would like to invite or not. A few decades ago though, shortly after it opened up its creaky communist doors, China had a wild period of being enamoured with the West and everything that had to do with it. All that was Western was good, and therefore, had to be emulated, from the food, the culture, the style, and of course, the conspicuous wealth. Having your very own authentic Westerner to learn from was the obvious way to go. As time progressed though, the reality of the Western world and the difficulties of the dream it offered gradually became apparent, as people realized the solutions it pandered were not all-purpose panaceas, or even accessible to most people, certainly not to most in the developing world. In particular, people heard stories of their compatriots who had fled China to claim their own share of the wealth in the West, and who were instead told that their university degrees, should they be engineering or medical ones, were worthless, and that they'd best open a restaurant or dépanneur like all the other immigrants. It's a good thing then, that soon after, the benefits of China's growing economy began to trickle down, improving people's lot and prompting many to seek the new opportunities in their own backyard instead of fleeing with Monty-Pythonesque cries of "Run away! Run away!" And so, instead of fawning over every foreigner to come their way, many Chinese came to view them with a little bit of a cynical detachment, seeing them less as tickets to freedom and windows into the promised land, but more as assets to be squeezed dry of anything useful, such that they and the country may also become as successful as the West.

A strong sense of nationalism does seem to be pervasive in China these days, that is, beyond the normal state propaganda. I do not think though that it is the particularly irritating (and potentially scary) brand of blind nationalism where all things Chinese are great and fantastic and infinitely better than the West. There is an element of that, of course, and I've encountered a few extreme cases who tend not to be particularly well-informed about the West anyway. But, although they may be annoyed with a government's foreign policies, specifically Japan's and the States', most people do not harbour any ill-will to the West (or Japan), or wish to compete with it in any way. In fact, many have a very favourable impression of it, admiring the culture and the people, and hope to one day visit places like Canada or the States, and try all the funny foods they heard about (What!?, cry my astonished colleagues. They eat a big chunk of meat that isn't cut up and stir-fried with vegetables?). I believe the nationalism in China is simply the strong desire of any people in any country to not be yet another starving, backward disaster-ridden country begging for handout, but instead be a country that is independent, self-sufficient, and treated as equally as any country (theoretically) should. China is still a developing country and far less affluent than the West, but it has no more and no less inequalities, corruption scandals, and human rights issues than most other Western countries. China is a just a regular country, not a place to be pitied or defended.

So, wherefore my liberal guilt? It may have been a little misguided along the flower-power path of hippie peace and love. Hell, China and Chinese people can fend for themselves. I'll bet you that whatever perceived injustice that my oversensitive liberal streak sensed was already widely known, and some enterprising Chinese found a way to gain from the deal, instead of suffering like some tragic martyr. Therefore, I have no guilt when I say that yesterday was one shitty massage, and I should have paid 10rmb not 60. I've been told that I received a medical massage, so it's normal for it be as painful and unrelaxing as it was, but if I wanted to be tossed and pulled about, I'd have enrolled in a judo class-- at least, I'd have learned something. Maybe it's a question of style. But what style involves roughly pinching and pulling my skin, while pressing into every one of my blasted pressure points without any warning? The only style I could think of would involve more leather and chains. Frankly, as much as I believe pain can be a good thing, yesterday was not a good thing. I mean for heaven's sake. He could have at least cut his goddamned nails.

Don't Waste (or The Inner Accountant in Every Chinese )

Perhaps the most formative experience a young Chinese lad or lass will have is over the dinner table. At one point or another-- rather, on numerous, uncountable occasions over every meal--, their parents, their siblings, or relatives would have pointed to a sadly languishing meal left half eaten, and angrily shrill in a horrified admonishing tone, "不要浪费！(bu yao lang fei)", or "Don't waste!", burning in their minds the fierce and unyielding cardinal rule to never ever waste food. Never. Ever. Well, as much as humanly possible, anyway. It is a lesson that is so conditioned into me that I still can't bring myself to waste anything, not even the decorative pieces of twirled cucumber slices or the soggy wilted lettuce leaves left as the last brave souls lying prone upon the battlefield of my plate. Not finish my plate? You must be kidding me. Hell, I'll even finish your plate if you're not careful! Many a time, I've found myself eying my dinner companion's cold leftover fries, their half-eaten burger or steak, their carefully whittled slivers of gristle and fat (yes, I'll go that far), or their little corner of pasta that may have been just a little too salty or peppery, or may have had a little too much butter or wine in an otherwise palatable white sauce, or may just have been left unfinished to leave room for desert… and as the conversation around me would continue, the food on their plate would beckon louder and louder to me, until I'd finally crack and ask my surprised companions whether I can finish their meal. I really can't help it. As long as the food isn't downright rotting or absolutely inedible, I will do my utmost to finish any meal, even though in the eyes of many of my repulsed Western friends, I appear to be a half-starved scavenging refugee.

Fortunately, here in China, I'm no longer the only wacko hard-wired to avoid wasting food. Just yesterday, Xiaopang was systematically picking out all the green peppers from his lunch, apparently because they were slightly overdone and no longer suited his always difficult taste buds. All at once, my colleagues practically fell over each other to rescue the poor discarded peppers, evenly dividing them among themselves, but also making sure that Xiaopang would not be left hungry, by replacing the peppers with another veggie that Xiaopang would eat. In the same vein, my figure-conscious female colleagues usually give me a huge chunk of their rice, claiming to be trying to slim down by going easy on carbs; however, if I or any of my male colleagues don't want the rice, they would still heroically force themselves to finish it, rather than see it thrown away. Quite simply, neither I, nor any Chinese person I've met, can bring themselves to waste food. The mere thought of consciously wasting food that could easily be given to someone else or saved for another day, just boggles the Chinese mind. It's food! You're throwing food away??! But…but… but… it's FOOD! And, if a Chinese person did ultimately have to toss something away, because this time, after several rounds of asking, no one has the room for it, or because the food really did go off, they'd drop it in the garbage in the same tragic, sorrowful way a captain would bid farewell to their sinking ship, and with a scornful twisted expression on their face, they'd mutter, "浪费 (lang fei)", or "What a waste."

Chinese people's obsession with making every scrap of food count is deeply rooted in China 's perpetual battle with limited resources. As large as China has been, the population has always somehow been slightly larger, constantly leaving the country on the brink of disastrous famines, frequently initiated by chronic flooding or droughts in the most important food producing areas. In fact, especially bad famines tended to trigger major social upheavals-- if not minor rebellions, then flat out civil wars and an entire dynasty changes--, leaving Chinese people with the strong association of food security to stability and peace. Not surprisingly, the importance of food and therefore the importance of never wasting it progressively became ingrained into Chinese culture. Eventually, this abhorrence of waste came to apply to not only food, but to all things, especially anything that involves money, should it be the itty-bittiest purchase of a cheapo ticket, or a major investment, like a house, a kid, or a university degree. In a very real sense, no Chinese person is complete without an ever-calculating accountant their head, constantly wondering if they're getting the best deal, if they're getting the most out of what they bought, and most especially if whatever that's theirs has not descended into the terrible, constantly to be avoided label, 浪费. But, again, as I've mentioned before, this is not to say that Chinese people aren't wasteful. If it ain't theirs or if don't come off the sweat of their backs, they'd never think twice about taking advantage of someone else's resources, and wasting anything with wild abandon. Anything, that is, except food. That's would be just plained wrong.

There is only one situation when not finishing the food on the dinner table is acceptable: when people are eating out or have been invited to someone's home. In that case, the host purposefully prepared or ordered one or two dishes too many to make sure that all the guests would not possibly leave hungry, and they would certainly have had their share. Actually, this raises another label to be avoided at all costs, 过分 (guo fen), that is, to exceed one's share. The concept of one's share and one's portion is extremely important to Chinese people, and intimately related to the avoiding waste. Again, I suspect that the importance of obtaining or giving the proper share also finds its origins in China's historic resource limitations, as the only way to maintain some degree of social harmony was to make sure that everyone would get their fair share rather than be gypped… which helps explain why my colleagues made a point of replacing whatever they took from Xiaopang with something of theirs. However, where浪费 is used to describe the potential waste of an object or of something that has been paid for with hard-earned cash, 过分 is used to describe someone's inappropriate behaviour. Often, you can hear it used to admonish overly petulant children, or, when in private company, you might hear it uttered through clenched teeth and lips curled in disgust to describe some vulgar boor. Indeed, for Chinese, it is probably one of the most insulting things to be called, as it implies not only that the person is ill-mannered, but that their family is so inept and irresponsible that they would raise an uncivilized spawn who barbarously tumbles through decent society like a rabid beast in heat.

Of course, making sure that one doesn't overstep their bounds or dips into someone else's territory is the basis of all politeness, but with Chinese folks, the practice of it can sometimes get a little baffling, where occasionally saying one thing may actually mean the opposite, or may require a well-rehearsed and established response. For instance, during dinner invitations or when hosting people in general, courtesy tends to be expressed by the host going to extreme lengths to offer the guest much much more than necessary, where the proper response is not to gorge yourself to your heart's content, but to politely refuse, and insist the opposite, leading to an oft-repeated see-sawing dance, which eventually settles and leaves all parties with what they're entitled to, and with the satisfaction that they went through all the proper motions. Then, as a properly behaved guest, you're supposed to eat enough to show that the meal is good, but not too much to avoid overstepping your bounds and taking advantage of the host's hospitality. Viewed in that light, leaving food unfinished is the polite way of saying that the host was more than generous, and that really, it's bloody high time the host stopped constantly trying to offer something else, when they don't really mean it. Well, yes, to certain extent they do want you to be full, but no, they clearly don't want you to eat them into the poor house. So really, when, at the end of a highly satisfying meal, the host keeps on saying, "Eat! Eat! Eat!" they're really saying, "Tell me you're full already, so we can stop this dance and chill out over some tea." Don't worry, it's not that complicated. Just never be the first to dig into anything, follow what everyone else does, and you should be fine.

Hence, every Chinese person's inner accountant tends to be busy pulling double-duties, not only constantly calculating how best to get the most bang out of their buck, by never wasting the bits of flesh clinging to the most pitiful of apple cores, or even the slimiest of left-over juices at the bottom of a dish that can be easily poured over their last rice, but also always updating a complicated balance book that keeps track of what they may owe to whom, or when it may be their turn to treat people to dinner. Maybe this is why many Asians are so good at math!