Chinese Changes

There are certain mannerisms and habits we have acquired during our 2 years in China that we often don’t notice until an outsider picks up on it and points it out to us.  For example, I was sitting outside of the café yesterday, chatting with Chen (part owner of the café) and Ralf (friend, foreigner, and fellow resident of Beilun for the past several years).  As I was talking to Chen in my broken Chinese and her broken English, Ralf interrupted me, “Maybeeee…” and chuckled to himself.  I gave him a strange, questioning look…what’s that about?  He was amused that I had picked up saying “maybeee” as a kind of space filler when speaking to the Chinese, as many of them do this when speaking English.  I laughed aloud…did I really do this?  Nooooo, I don’t do that.  So I continued talked to Chen and sure enough, the next sentence out of my mouth had a “maybeee…”.  I caught myself and we had a good laugh.  Maybe it seems like nothing too out of the ordinary, but there are plenty more.  While we haven’t worked our way into the public urination habits, Erich and I find ourselves doing plenty of other “Chinese” things that we rarely did two years ago.

One: Being pushy.  In a crowd here, you have to be aggressive.  Push through, make room where you want it, and have no concern for personal space.  If you don’t, you get left behind and end up more frustrated than you ought to be.  Yes, we still have manners and encourage queuing at the cash register or scales to weigh fruits/veggies, but it hasn’t quite caught on in China, so when in Rome…we’ve learned to hold our own, let’s just say that.

Two: Noises.  To tag onto the original story here, there are a lot of noises that the Chinese make to mean things like “yes”, “no”, “I’m listening/I understand”, etc that are just noises, not actual words.  I find myself and Erich using these in mid conversation with others.  I guess you could equate it with the “oh”, “okay”, “uh-huh” and “hmmm” in the States.  I also have adapted some of these noises that are used when confused, excited or surprised from my Korean and Chinese middle and high school students who are quite animated and can communicate an alarming amount of information by noise rather than words.

Three: Eating Habits and Manners.  There really are none here.  The only no-no I’ve experienced is not to place your chopsticks vertical in your food (it is a symbol of death).  Other than that, spit your food (peels, bones and other inedible parts) on the table, place your mouth to the bowl and shovel in or slurp, and eat from anyone’s plate…eating is extremely communal here.  We really enjoy the sharing of food and have come to like the practicality of the Chinese style of eating.  Erich has also come to use the Chinese style of toasting when out with friends.  Say some kind words and a thank you, clink glasses with everyone at the table (making sure the rim of your glass is lower than the person who you are toasting with…a sign of respect), then move on to another table and toast them…or if with a small group, continue toasting at regular intervals.  The local beer here is usually about 2% alcohol or less, which lends to high quantities of toasts and drinking until you actually feel any effect.

Four: Gift Giving.  It’s a very simple but important part of this culture.  People are very giving, but you have to do the same.  Someone comes to the café and brings a huge bag full of local fruits to share.  You pretend not to accept, say “no we couldn’t possibly take them”, compliment the gesture and after some time of this banter, you accept and eat and share with anyone around.  But then you must bring that person a gift of the same equivalent in the future.  Making sure it is not more extravagant or less significant.  Gifts are given for attending events, holidays and just because.  We’re still working on being better at this since we hate buying “stuff”, but fortunately fruit and food in general is a very acceptable and common gift in China, so we’re not bad at that.

Still having another year here, we’re sure there are more habits to come, some more noticeable than others…some that we will see and some that others will point out to us…some that will become more apparent when we leave the country and they don’t seem so “normal” anymore.

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

A day to mark in history: the day we unknowingly stumbled onto a Chinese naval base while on a bike ride and were detained, questioned, and locked down for 6 hours.  It’s like something you’d see on “Locked Up Abroad” but this time we really didn’t do anything wrong.

It all started when Erich, Matt and Kari (fellow teachers) and I decided we wanted to take a bike ride to the coast and try to get onto an island we saw on Google Earth.  It was a beautiful, sunny day…the first we’ve had in weeks without rain and I have the sunburn to prove it.  As usual, we quickly got off of the main roads to wander off the beaten path, through local villages…getting lost, turning around often, and problem-solving our way around highways and waterways.  We stopped for lunch at a mom and pop shop around 2pm to fuel up for the last stretch of the ride.  We could see the bridge to our island in the distance and confirmed with the restaurant owners the directions to our destination.  As we approached the water, we couldn’t figure a way to the island that didn’t involved a heavily trafficked highway/bridge that meant sudden death.  So we ventured toward a hilltop to try and find a good view and another possible way across the water.  After huffing and puffing our way to the top of the steep hill, we had to make a decision at the top: do we go back down and circle around the mountain to see what’s there or do we park our bikes and take a dirt path to see the view of the water and island from there.  This is where our day turned around.  Had we decided to go with option #1, we would have ridden halfway down the hill and seen the huge military base entrance that was there.  Instead, we locked the bikes up and began wandering through patch after patch of farmland before coming to an opening with a great view of the water, shipping ports and island we were scheming to visit.  We stood and talked and enjoyed the view for about 10 minutes, during which time we saw a farmer and waved to some guys looking at us from their window (remember these guys…they are why we encountered our next friends at the bottom of the hill).

Anyway, then we descended the hill back to our bikes only to be met by a black car and about 5 gentlemen in uniform telling us to please come with them.  HUH?  We looked to the left to see about 5 more men in uniform running towards us with shovels raised and ready to attack.  Really?  What was going on?  So we really had no choice but to be escorted by these men down the other side of the hill and into the military base.  The first man to talk to us had limited English and was polite but curious about who we were.  At this point, we knew what had happened and why we were there…we had been hiking on private Chinese military property.  It was like we were the people who had hiked over the Iraq/Iran border and were accused of bring spies/journalists in a classified area.  Not really that serious, but it’s the closest thing I can think of for now.

They walked us into a room and allowed us to sit together for about 5 minutes, finding out if we had cameras (I did but luckily hadn’t taken any photos all day), and then separated us into different rooms.  This is the fun part.  We sat isolated in these rooms until 9:30pm.  That’s about 6 hours of sitting alone with a variety of military guards standing at attention in front of you…just staring.  Occasionally, someone with a little English would come in and ask some questions.  Medial things like where are you from or small talk about being a teacher, having kids, and your hobbies.  We were told just to wait a little, wait a little and when we thought something might happen and there was talk or commotion among the guards, we were told to wait some more.  To avoid falling asleep and to make time go a little quicker, I practiced my Mandarin with the guards who would listen and reply, looked for Chinese characters I knew in a newspaper laying around, and stared out the window to the going’s on in the lot outside of the building.  At one point, I asked to go to the bathroom to stretch my legs.  On my way being escorted to the toilet, another military man handed me a drawing and told me that my husband had drawn it (in Chinese).  It was a sketch of one of the guards standing at attention.  It was actually really good and he asked if he could keep it…”sure, yes, of course, it’s your’s” I assured him with a smile.  At least I knew Erich was being entertained by drawing his captors.

At about 6:30, I was told I could eat dinner.  Really feeling like a prisoner now bring told when I could and could not get up, sit down, drink and eat, I told them no, I wasn’t hungry but thanks anyway.  He insisted and after a few minutes, he added “your friends will also eat with you”.  I quickly agreed.  It seemed like I had been bored to death for too long and after being alone in a room for 3 hours waiting for something to happen, this sounded like a better option after all.  So he led me into their kitchen where 4 separate tables had been set with feasts of Chinese food and seats had been placed strategically so that when we sat, no one would look at the others.  I sat at the table that seemed to have the most vegetables and waited to see a friendly face.  As Kari and Erich filed in, we laughed at the rediculouslness that we had gotten ourselves into.  Kari and I started to joke about the situation and were quickly told by one of the soldiers to be quiet and eat.  OK, roger that.  We just wanted to leave…so your wish is my command if it wil expediate the process, whatever that may be.  At this point, we still had no clue what was taking so long and when we asked, they only said “Wait a moment, Sorry”.  When Matt came in to join us, he hadn’t heard the warning to not talk, so he began chattering away.  Making jokes, asking questions and enjoying other English speakers.  He must’ve thought we were being rude to him because all we could do is muffle laughter and try to stay quiet while momentarily glancing at the guard to guess when Matt would get the same warning we did.  It never happened, but I think it was because no one responded to Matt.

At 7:00, one guard came in and said the translators were here and they needed to interview us individually.  I volunteered first…let’s get this over with.  They walked me into a room, closed the door and began asking questions about who I was, what I did for a job, who my husband was and what he did, the names and contact information for my boss, my boss’s boss and pretty much any other Chinese friends of mine, all of the places I’d been in China, why we were here, did we know where we were, did we know that this area was restricted military zone, did we regret our decision…the list went on and I answered easily and honestly.  After all, it was a genuine misunderstanding and we had nothing to hide.  I did suggest that they should have a sign or a fence where we entered the hill from the road.  The path looked like a hiking path and there was only farmland in view.  How were we to know?  They didn’t seem too receptive to the idea.

Later, I found out that they had also asked Kari similar questions, but had been more stern and serious with Matt and Erich, asking questions like, Who is your leader on the tri today?  Are you in the FBI/CIA?  What is your role in the military?  Why don’t you have a job (Erich)?  How do you live without income (Erich)?  Apparently women can not be spies so there is no need to take them seriously or consider their ability to be an FBI agent.  I was a little offended yet still relieved that I didn’t get these questions.

An hour later, I was taken to another room where Kari was and she was taken to be interviewed.  The new guard in this room was either much more friendly or as bored as we were and willing to bend the rules to make the evening more comfortable.  He initiated conversation with me, wanting to talk about America, sports, my job, and at one point (with paranoid and frequent glances down the hall to make sure the coast was clear), he asked me to teach him some yoga poses and we had a little class together.  Haha.  Much more calming and relaxed.  He let me get out my phone and I texted some friends about the insanity of my day.  He also gave me pen and paper (which I used to do some school work and write student narratives for report cards as I waited more).  But he always straightened up when another came into the room.

I got texts from Erich and Matt who were in the other rooms, apparently with other guards who decided to loosen up on us.  It was becoming more and more amusing as hour after hour passed, but also more and more alarming as we all began to come to terms that we’d likely be staying the night at this military base.  But at 9:30, our knight and shining armor arrived.  Lisa, our Chinese financial manager at the school pulled up in a school bus and they quickly shuffled us out of the building and onto the bus with our bikes.  We apologized one more time and thanked Lisa profusely for coming to help.  They had contacted her, among other Chinese staff at our school to find out more information about us.

And so ended our epic bike ride to the coast to visit the islands.  Best story I’ve had in a long time and we’re fine other than some lost hours of daylight sitting in isolation, jumping to conclusions about our fate in China.  I have a feeling it’s not over yet.  Our School Board director has already called me into her office for an early morning meeting and I can guarantee we’ve been red flagged in the Chinese system.  Our emails, phone calls and every move are under surveillance (more so than before even), and who knows what else.

So does this story make up for not blogging in over 2 months?