Daily Life in
China: August 9th morning
Notes Made During a
Busy Web-Queen Week
Whatever it is, it is
not what I thought it would be, then that is the essence of adventure. Because
I live in Shenzhen, my great adventure will be patronized by those call our
town Westernized. Hah! That is a laugh for behind me as I
write, two illiterate peasants from North China heat a typical breakfast, hot
reheated food from last night¡¯s dinner, meat and vegetables and rice. There is no fluid accompanying this
proper meal, no water, and no tea.
All our
meals seem to be rice, well-cooked vegetables, meat and fish, sometimes more
rarely tofu and noodles. There are
no fluids, no fruits, no sweets, and no dairy. There are eggs cooked in great batches, the Chinese do not
stop at two eggs, if twelve will do. These meals are well done and should be
for they consume great quantities of our household time, one to two hours for
lunch, and the same for dinner. It
is only breakfast that is indifferent.
I am tired
of the emphasis of food on explanations of the Chinese people. The Chinese love to eat. A stupid saying, as most people
do. There is a great variety of
food. True, yet the same things
repeat, wherever you go. The bland
rice, the over-cooked vegetables, the long green string spinach, which is hell
to master when you first begin with chopsticks, the ample scrambled eggs, the
rice gruel. They fall back on formula cooking, as we do.
There are
the famous dumplings, which we all make together as a family every Sunday, and
I am coming to enjoy. We roll the flour on the table, cut it, and shape it -
when they are finally steamed, we serve the unaccompanied.
Mercy and Oliver and I
are the younger generation, and we work unusual hours. Oliver works at Shenzhen Airport and
presently does two twelve-hour days, then two days off. Mercy alternates three shifts at the
near-by Nanshen Hospital. I work doing short-term contracts as an English
teacher.
Before the
Old Folks came, the young couple spoke happily of the time that would be saved
by having the Mom cook for the household.
I have referred to the Western practice of making cold meals during hot
weather, yet still the three to four hours of daily cooking continue: this is a
deeply entrenched social habit.
Now they
have finished eating, and I catch the Dad wiping the floor around the table,
with a black cleaning rag, an Asian staple, around his foot. I want to buy a new white mop, except I
know that the Mom will probably consider it to be mine, and it will end up in
my small room, and we have a storage space already.
They are
always around the house, and enjoy television very much, as it introduced
Chinese history and culture to them, and I see how important this learning tool
could be, to the illiterate. They are cosseted and comforted by the largesse of
the son in hosting them for six months now. This is the most powerful difference between the Chinese
household and our own. The control of the Old, and more happily, the respect
shown to them.
I wonder
about the speaking lessons they seem to be doing since they came, set up at a
table in the corner of the living room by their attentive son, since
realistically, it seems a little too late for them to become big book
readers. I thought they were
learning elemental bus signs, traffic directions, since just like me; they
could get lost going anywhere! The
grunting beside me over numbers and letters ends when they pick up the phone,
and I realize with amazement they have needed lessons just to use the
telephones. There are all the
instruction books here that come with washing machines, cleaning solvents,
channel switchers for televisions, etc.
They are as ignorant as I am.
The Mom has a droll
personality and rarely smiles, in fact, never at me. The Dad is more tender and rushes to open doors, and help in
his way. What is striking here is
the fact that the young married woman is not the mistress of her own
household. Asians simply accept
what would not be tolerated even for one week, maybe even one day, in America,
Canada, or England.
I cannot
decide who is the ruler in this form of household. The old man, the young man, the old parents, or because she
never smiles at me, the old woman?
The Mom has the strongest voice.
We are all somewhat self-effacing, have tolerant and flexible
personalities, take things too much upon ourselves, and sweep things under the
carpet: I sometimes feel I am living in one of the most unusual households ever
created, and yet no publishers beat a path to the doorway.
It was
unusual before I came, for the New China it describes. Young Oliver is attempting what is
impossible, except that all the young high-tech men and women here seek the
same dream, and therefore it will become possible. He seeks the two-generation success story, not knowing we
call this the three-generation success story in the West.
His parents
are complete peasants, yet he wants to have his own aviation consulting
business. His wife Mercy is from a
Canton business family, and they tactfully refer to their family differences as
being regional, not of social class.
This is a virtue of all the Mainland Chinese, a real lack of social
snobbery that appeals to me.
This brand
of Chinese is loaded with moral character. These New Chinese have the mini-fridge and no stove, just a
gas plate, the mini-washer and no dryer, the large colour television, the cell
phones, the computer, and most important, a serious, studious, intent
lifestyle. They buy no junk, read
no junk, and eat no junk. They long to own a car, and to travel more.
The one
clich¨¦ that is true is that they are obsessively oral. I have just listened now to a one-hour
telephone chat by the Old Folks.
Of course, we are like that too, but the obsessions with spitting,
belching, and the speed with which the men are taking up smoking, the constant
chattering of the men, they are more oral than we are. Of course, when I see Western men now,
I find them slow to speak, throwing out bits of sentences to one another in a
drawling, controlled way.
We work, the Mom cooks, and then we all
study. Mercy and Oliver hunch over
English lessons, I listen to over seventy Chinese music records and fruitlessly
study website design on the computer.
The lunch and dinner fall like clockwork whether or not we are home to
eat. There is sometimes a small
fish, head on, curled in a little bowl, there is the white rice, one plain meat
dish, some vegetables almost always green with bits of meat, a fine thin broth
with turnips, cabbage, or potato slivers.
Because of the heat, I eat little, less than a thousand calories many
days.
There is a
trip to buy water for the water purifier, gas for the gas in the bathroom and
kitchen since the landlord is no help.
Every few weeks a friend, either male or female, usually male, will drop
over for a few hours. A friend or
relative calls every few days from long away in China. The parents go out for a walk in the
late afternoon, and Mercy and Oliver and I sometimes all get home around
dinnertime.
We talk
about work, Oliver had a plane with some type of leakage problem a few days
ago, and this is very serious.
There was a brutal murder in our neighbourhood, which disturbed
Mercy. The father was a gambler
whose wife refused to lend him more money. He killed the eldest daughter with a
knife, and then turned on the five year old girl and the mother. He is in jail, waiting his inevitable
end, and the mother and baby girl recovering under the care of my friend.
These people live near
us somewhere, or did. The wife
worked at Carrefour, the famous French superstore, and I feel sad to think I
may have passed her, even been irritated by her staring eyes. What the whole neighborhood must be
talking about this, I say to Mercy. No, she says, the papers and the TV are not
allowed to print this. But why, I
wonder, in the West this story would distract people from political news.
Mercy gave
some money to the young mother, Mercy is so kind and good, what an irony she
has called herself Mercy, or perhaps no irony at all. When I have a hard time with a Chinese woman, I think of
Mercy or Tracy, pure, fresh, young Chinese woman, innocent and hopeful. I know a lot about the world, said
Mercy to me when I first came to her city, because I work a t a large
hospital. Now I see she was not
just talking. She has seen the
knife wounds on the neck and the head of the little girl whose sister was
murdered in front of her, and she tends them stoically, professionally. I keep
drifting away from the day at hand.
That is
because I have too much to say, and am not keeping my diary daily, since I have
been putting up my first multi-page websites all week. The thought of editing these notes and
diaries a year or two from now when I have a publisher is too exhausting even
to think about. There must be ways
I can organize right now. Parents just
went out for their morning walk. Good, I can stretch my legs, put on some
Buddhist chanting, and make my French filter coffee on my mug since I have no
pot.
We had some fun a few
days ago, when it was the birthday of Oliver; the parents conveniently
disappeared to their bedroom. I
walked in from teaching, and Mercy had her head thrown back, quite drunk. A most unusual sight. Oliver was in his cups, and her brother
seemed more controlled. When you open a bottle of real Chinese booze, it
doesn¡¯t take long. The stress of
the in-law visit is never referred to, as Chinese people understand little
psychology, unless it is in the classic mercantile sense of getting the other
side down to the lowest price, and liver jokingly referred to his pretty wife
as crazy.
We recalled
the night she scrunched the computer printer cord. Even the worst male chauvinists in the West would have
compassion for a young wife not in control of her household, having to share
and to submit politely to the older generation. And the old parents are also quite good; they try to get
along with everyone. Oliver too is not as spoilt as the situation implies, with
a wife and a mom to fuss over him, for likely he is at the hub of the busy
family situation, himself trying to please all of us. I am fond of Mercy, and she lolled her head back in her
chair, wanting more booze. I had a
bottle of yellow wine, like a port, I had bought on the way home, to celebrate
finally getting my websites to spider, after a year of failures.
I am seeing
the vast amount of time, money, energy, I will save as Net Queen, the freeing
of ourselves as artists from middle-men who are bloodsuckers, the community
work emphasis of helping friends and being helped by them with useful
information flow, and the mental acuity I will gain from being in touch with
hi-tech types I never would have been formerly interested in. We revealed various true thoughts while
drinking, and Mercy and I teased Oliver for being a Leo, for trying to run us
all as the Fire Sign in the group.
Mercy went running
into their bedroom to retrieve a bottle of 30% booze, with Chinese Medicine
labeling on it. She had picked this up at the hospital! This caused me to
laugh; you have to love a people who could come up with a name like THE
SHANGHAI BREWING AND MEDICINE COMPANY.
Arielle Gabriel,
reporting from the
land of
THE SHANGHAI BREWING AND
MEDICINE COMPANY,
August 9th, 2001, 10.28 a.m.
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