Asia, Other

So it happens that I've returned to Asia. Not China at this point, grant you, but Asia nonetheless (I will note that my husband insists that we are not in fact on the Asian continent given the close proximity to Africa, however a convincing majority of maps support my assertion).

There are similarities in being here to being there. Most notably to me, a pervasive sense of simultaneous oldness and newness - an almost stubborn and indignant anchoring in an ancient mindset, complete with disregard to anything deemed otherness or anything not mentioned or not yet existent in the ancient texts or myths or spiritual guidance, coupled with an arrogant if haphazard integration of a technologically advanced globalization, in moments or Pollack-like splashes across a desert otherwise littered with bottles and paper wrappers and entitlement. All in all, lots of similarities so far, though my current view from the safety of a compound guarded with guns and barbed wire and intentional ignorance, is somewhat limited. We shall see how this adventure progresses.

Pretty awful

You know what else is an STD? The human race.

Flare of nostalgia

Caress the golden timeless rose Hold the picture, not the pose, Meet me on our private mountain Toss a dime into the fountain. Breathe the scene of ancient air and Make a wish to find me there, Revel in what used to be, Meet me in a memory. Embrace the thought with angst and passion, When resting fires and trees were ashen, But bodies flushed against the snow Pack up today, and we can go. Back when hands and values held Before the tears conceived and welled Sought to travel down her face Close your eyes and find this place Shielded, hidden from the now or Then, but frozen for an hour When all there was was there and we. Meet me in that memory.

So, something I hadn't really anticipated when beginning this blog, was the necessity of continuing to record my observations after returning stateside. Turns out, the reverse-culture-shock plays out in some rather unexpected ways, and I continue to find a need to envision subtitles to my daily interactions. Beyond the now instinctive gesture of handing or accepting cards and currency with two hands, and the tendency to say random phrases in Mandarin, I sometimes forget to wait in line or stay on the sidewalk. It takes me a few moments to remember that the people around me are in my time zone and when my phone rings, it's someone in this country. When I'm lucky, it's a friend rather than a stranger who has to remind me that I'm speaking English and people around me are more than likely to understand what I say. And I think it actually takes extra energy to go through the process of being stressed about an upcoming situation in anticipation of having to linguistically and culturally translate it, only to remember that I'm in my guo jia and don't have to translate, then calm myself down followed by gently chiding myself for not remembering to start with. Apparently, this also results in long pauses after someone asks me a question. I shall now take an abnormally long pause before deciding what to do next.

only the lonely

I walked down the street home from my Sunday brunch date with my computer and saw a pensive-looking foreigner in a red t-shirt, sitting alone outside at an Italian restaurant and whistling along to "No woman no cry" blaring from the crackling patio speakers. I felt a mix of offense and camaraderie with this person of unknown origin and his China experience. It inspired my relaunch into the thoughts I expect to become published in some way, if only through the little orange button in the top right hand corner of my screen. Commencer work on Generation Expat.

Gimme Gimme

I suppose it is a sign of my degree of China-fication* that I have ceased to use the word "please." I definitely stopped trying to use it in Mandarin (qing wen - please ask - is either difficult to say, difficult to understand, or simply so off-putting because no one uses it that it seems to have an opposite-to-the-desired effect when I try), and I'm pretty sure I don't even say it in English anymore. To my inner Southerner (I now feel the need to clarify "Southern U.S." though there's no simple term for that, so Southerner will have to do in the context of, er, text), this is appalling, but to the new, Chinafied me, it is simply a sign of my multicultural maturity. Manners have always been an important part of my upbringing, and "yes sirs" and "no ma'ams" decorated my every interaction with an elder well into my 20s. In fact, I'd even often extend this respect to my young students (modeled, I think, after a karate instructor who did the same), in whom I try to instill what I think of as "proper" social skills. But in China, perhaps I do them a disservice. I have recently learned that saying "please" and "thank you" actually implies a certain lack of closeness between the parties involved; why on earth, they think, would I thank my mother, brother, father, auntie, someone whose very purpose it is to care for me? What kind of statement do I make by implying that they must be thanked for such a thing? The very idea is apparently insulting on a level I only partially comprehend. The language echoes this, in fact; not only does the word please taste rather awkward on the tongue, but the words and phrases asking for things are so simplistic and demanding they hardly leave room for consideration of politeness. "Wo yao" and "Gei wo" are, directly translated, "I want" and "Give me." In American society - again, let me clarify U.S. as this does not necessarily include all American cultures - "Give me" or more popularly with the kiddies "gimme" is distinctly rude and a bit greedy-sounding. In China, not so. It's just efficient, and with little consideration for the feelings of the person doing the giving. In a country so concerned with saving face, this has posed some confusion for me, until my recent revelation that I, as an American, have a completely different interpretation of "face." I'm sure there's also a really nice little metaphor comparing the physical faces of Americans and Chinese folks, but that, I feel, is for another post. Xie xie. That's all. *I increasingly use this word now. Also, potentially a sign of my China-fication is my failure to post on this blog for over a year now. Perhaps independent thought had ceased for some period of time. Or maybe, I'm just lazy.

In other news,

My new computer auto-corrects "xie xie" to read "die die." In case you are wondering, these do not mean the same thing.