Research: How is China?

Many friends and families have asked me the same repetitive question "How is China", it's hard to reach out to everyone so I will try my best to convey what I can in this post.

Before heading out to China there was an expectation. A sense of false ideology that I had encountered that I wanted to see for myself. Sometimes I was an observer, while at other moments I was very much involved in local life, and this combination of distance and intimacy was part of what shaped my first semester in Taishan.What I saw in China was a great deal of progress in work, which could be put into turning the abstract into reality.

At first, coming to China, one can be baffled by the sounds, noise and as something that I have discovered in my undergraduate studies- Chinese food. However, none of these noises bothered me. The early sounds woke me but that was fine because they were part of the routine of the university and hearing them made me feel as if I were also in step. Since my Chinese wasn’t yet good enough to talk with the people in town, which made the city overwhelming—a mess of miscommunication. In China, education was a game and students played it. Being a teacher and also a “freshman” in an area which puts education as it’s priority I felt like I should have been under pressure. But just like the instrument erhu, played well, makes haunting music.

If I had come earlier, I would have been subjected to the old ideology of China (to which I will not go into depth because it is not my concern for this blog). And the residue of Communist after classes still springs up at prestigious meetings and gatherings. I have been fortunate to see the spectrum of teaching styles back home with the additional insights from the UK. Teaching as a foreigner in China was a matter of trying to negotiate your way through this political landscape. 

 

When the view of beautiful Taishan is blocked by clouds or smog, and the city across is nothing but sound: horns and motors and construction projects echoing up through the heavy white fog. I was in amazement at how fast the progression of buildings and efficiency were conducted in local rural areas. From the view of my apartment often I’d gaze across the Tianping Lake at the maze of streets and stairways, listening to the distant hum of daily life, and I’d think about the mysteries that were hidden in the rural town. Although this hum would be disrupted by cars. They honked at other cars, and they honked at pedestrians. They honked whenever they passed somebody, or whenever they were being passed themselves. They honked when nobody was passing but somebody might be considering it, or when the road was empty and there was nobody to pass but the thought of passing or being passed had just passed through the driver’s mind. Just like that, an unthinking reflex: the driver honked.

For many of my time in China, it became difficult for me to learn “Chinese”. Chinese was whatever it took to communicate with the person you happened to be talking with, and this changed dramatically depending on background and education level. I was at time analysed and commented on by the locals; by Chinese standards, I was slightly fat, which meant that by British standards I was slightly thin. Over time you start to smile through the misunderstanding. 

Most of my time was routine while working in China. We drank tea while we gathered at the staff room—jasmine flower tea, the tiny dried petals unfolding like blooming lilies on the surface of the hot water. While writing this I watched of the teachers (laoshi). Before he drank, Teacher Jeff blew softly over the cup, so the loose leaves and flowers floated to the far side, and this was something else I learned in while watching. If he sipped a leaf by mistake, he turned and spat lightly on the floor. I learned that too—I liked being a teacher in the staff room while still being able to spit on the floor.

Another such lesson learnt was realizing that the key was finding places I went to regularly—it was no good just to wander around downtown Taishan because that way I attracted too much attention and the passers-by shouted at me. It was better to go to the same places at the same times every week, and then the people became accustomed to me and it was easier to have conversations. And I quickly learnt that in Chinese you can double adjectives for emphasis. I have been saved by the influx of miscommunication by simply using this emphasis couple of times.

Like many young Chinese, whose instinctive rejection of all things traditional has been more than amply complemented by school lessons, many would use “feudal” the way a British child would use “backwards.” When asked about Chinese culture many people reflexibility mention the “Qing Dynasty”, often what they seem to mean is: It’s very old, but not as old as many other things.

Sometimes when there is a moment of silence, there will a precession of fireworks exploding. The children clap and scream; the old people hold their ears and turn away. The young men remain calm—the fireworks erupt in a deafening roar, but each man holds the exploding string in hand until the flame leaps nearly to his fingers, and then, nonchalantly, he drops the strand and lights another. They do not plug their ears. They do not laugh or grimace. They make no expression at all; outwardly they are completely cool. This contrast within the Chinese culture often reminded me of heritage. It also seemed very Chinese that despite its original failure the Great Wall now had great value. It had become perhaps the most powerful symbol of national pride, and nobody connected it with negative qualities like isolationism and stubbornness. 

My morning filled with curiosity waiting for the bus has now turned into a routine. This familiar routine possesses a form of disorder within the mind. When the bus is two or three minutes late I would internally start to panic. Initially, without knowing a word of Chinese and not having an access to my phone, I had to rely on being punctual and playing by the rule. If there is any advice that I could give in a circumstance like is to relax. Easier said than done but you will see how beautiful things play out once the initial anxious behaviour resides. In China, I became a master of gesticulation. Although dialogues at times were mysteries that I didn’t have time to untangle.

Foreigners always talked about how difficult it was to understand China, and often this was true, but there were also many ways in which the people’s ideas were remarkably uniform and predictable. In the same line the Chinese could be hard on foreigners, but at the same time, they could be incredibly patient, generous, and curious about where you had come from. I felt I had spent my first week coping with the hard part of being a waiguoren, and now I enjoyed all the benefits.

If upon reading this you were confused by the structure and the flow. It’s okay. This is what China was also like for me.