at home… in China

Funny thing.

If you go by what you hear, even in the midst of the reports on China’s economic growth, it doesn’t sound like a place to be: pollution everywhere, except maybe in those places which are truly backwards, without too much in terms of medical care or other amenities; traffic that is even more lethal than the air and water – and those are not exactly safe; (more…)

The thing about foreign countries seems to always be, well, that they are foreign, strange – or, once you are able to switch to a point of view that does not have you yourself at its center, that you are the foreigner, the stranger there.
This is the well-clichéd problem behind many issues: from culture shock to society’s acceptance of outsiders (or lack thereof), from the instant mojo of the new hire from far-away great countries to the aura of leprosy that sometimes seems to surround the stranger.

So, what does it take to feel at home; does it make any sense for me to be writing a blog entitled “at home in China”? (I realize one issue with the latter is that I haven’t been the most prolific writer; it’s my unmade new year’s resolution to write regularly.)

Let’s get to two quotidian, and at the same time central, issues first: language and food.

Chances are, when you go to a foreign country, you are and feel like an adult, but you are also rather like a small child. After all, you can’t talk yet. Even having studied the language, you talk differently, in ways that are not quite conventional and probably don’t (immediately) understand all that much. In China, in particular, there are different regional variations of the Chinese language, and even more dialects. Of course, one can still live comfortably in many places, knowing just the basics – if that. Thinking of deeper issues, however, the importance of language returns with a vengeance.

In my case, being here as German teacher, there is way too much contact with languages I already know, and far too little need to go beyond the bare essentials of Chinese. I am working on it, and noticing more and more just how appropriate the Chinese way of learning (which seems to be one of the main impediments to foreign language studies in China) is to the study of the Chinese language. There is a very strong need to sit down and practice writing, review and practice by reciting, go on – and review, then repeat…

The other major issue one encounters more than once-a-day is, of course, food. There is no coming home in a different place if it is not accompanied (or, more likely, preceded) by a liking for the food. In a place like China, this can be particularly striking.

Much non-Chinese food is hard to come by outside of the bigger cities in China, and when it can be found, it’s very expensive in comparison to normal food.

Tastes are also, of course, noticeably different; Chinese sweets are oftentimes decidedly not-sweet to the European palate, meats on the market are oftentimes so fresh, they could still run (or fly, or jump, or swim) away, and people actually like to see that meat is not grown in a vat – so, of course there are bones (and fish heads, and chicken feet).
Meat is also a more-expensive ingredient, and therefore oftentimes used as more of a spice, cut very small, in as many dishes as possible. The importance is best illustrated by the variety of fake meat dishes one often finds around Buddhist temples. No meat in them, but at least the taste of it – surely, you wouldn’t want to do without that, would you?

Then, there is the issue of the rather peculiar tastes and things one may encounter. Hunan’s chile pepper-laden dishes are not a problem for me, they are a reason I’m here; but, of course, not everyone would concur. At the beginning of my time here, I was decidedly not fond of chou doufu (“stinky tofu”). To the uninitiated, it’s a great dieting method: sniff, and you don’t feel hungry anymore. Except, I recently noticed my mouth watering upon a waft of freshly frying chou doufu…

Lastly (at least for now), there is the matter of conditions and orientations: Speaking as an ecologist and anthropologist, this is particularly fun for it is, in a way, a matter of environment and adaptation; the bread and butter of my disciplines.

As for environment/conditions: living in China makes it obvious that China is, in most respects, still a developing country. Most of the time, the accusations which are leveled at the country don’t play much of a role. Youtube and Facebook are blocked, but basically all news sites can be accessed; you have a one-party government, but usually what counts is that the situation is stable. Still, it is cold now, and of course there is no heating, basically no insulation to the houses; electricity sometimes gives out, and so on…

Not least, the country’s opening has not been far enough back for foreigners to have become a truly normal sight. Thus, and also given that further socio-cultural aspects make for a society that manages to be rather closed and over-accommodating at the same time, one is not usually integrated too well.
Still, it is possible to work with cultural competence, and be made to feel very well at home. The language, of course, is a major influence in this regard.

Personal orientations, in the end, play at least as much of a role as the host societies’ openness: Some (many, actually) expats apparently come to China for the adventure, feel quite at home in the bars, and think they have experienced China; some (maybe) want to be accepted and treated as absolute equals, without any cross looks and comments about the “laowai.”

My personal attitude, maybe due to personal factors, definitely also a side-effect of my professional training, is that there needs to be a second socialization into a host culture, and that – as long as it is open enough for that – it is always possible to reach a point where one is culturally competent enough to be a functioning member of that society. So far, I’m definitely just at the point of being able to take (most) things as they are, go on, and feel at home notwithstanding the downsides and paradoxa there are.

I happened to virtually run into Ellis of plateofwander.com when I had just found my way of getting to China, and she seemed to not find a way after all. Since then, as her plans worked out too, we have been comparing our impressions of (being in) China.
Recently, she posted about the way Chinese approach foreigners, and it got me to remember that I had wanted to write a bit about this issue, but hadn’t yet done so.

What issue, really?
Well, that of feeling at home in a foreign country is a little bit of it, the main part is simply that of being easily recognizable as a foreigner, and the way people react to foreigners.

In China, this is a particularly interesting issue. Both because one does stick out, and because people react in very specific ways: Comments of ?????? (“foreigner”)?and in a case like mine also ?? (“foreign teacher”), sometimes accompanied by pointing and stares, are very common.
It can be quite funny with schoolchildren trying out their English, it can be quite annoying when people check out your supermarket cart wondering what the foreigner is buying.

(I must admit to having done the same thing, wondering what other foreigners or Chinese are buying…
And actually, I must admit to having become so accustomed to having Chinese faces around, I sometimes almost want to point and exclaim that this face really looks different when I suddenly see my own face reflected somewhere.
While I’m at it: I have to say that I felt more foreign and vulnerable when I was walking around Harlem.)

What can get under your skin a bit more (just check out Ellis’ post…), is the Chinese propensity for commenting on someone’s looks. Such comments, especially to a person’s face, are pretty rare in America and also in Central Europe – in Northern Europe, I hadn’t really noticed; in Southern Europe, it’s just a part of normal speech.
Well, China is a bit like Southern Europe when it comes to that, except strangely gender-equal in this respect: guys also get comments of ?? (handsome). Yesterday, just after reading Ellis’ post, I heard the first “lovely” which was ever directed at me…
Well, it can get somewhat annoying. I have become rather too good at recognizing such comments even at a distance. At the same time, I must say that I just shake them off… seems easier for a guy, and a foreign teacher mainly meeting students: I certainly don’t get the innuendo, rarely even get asked for my number.

Actually, in thinking and talking about it, I found that I can take this very easily:
I just consider it a part of customary Chinese ways of chatting (I’m not quite sure it is, but I have heard quite enough comments by Chinese, about the looks of another Chinese, to think so).

What I have more trouble getting a grip on is actually the American habit of greeting somebody by “asking” “How are you?” It is almost always used instead of “Hi,” without any interest whatsoever in the other person’s state of health. So, I know it’s also just customary, but not even giving somebody the time to say “Fine, thank you” just seems very wrong to me – and I would not want to give that answer when the truth is probably a bit more complicated.

Being the foreigner can also open up a very different perspective on immigrants to one’s own country: The often-criticized refusal to integrate into the host culture is suddenly something a person has to consider for him-/herself.

In the end, I personally mainly find that my anthropology teachers were right: They suggested that the best students of cultural anthropology are those who don’t quite feel at home in the country they are supposed to be a part of, being too aware of the artifice that goes into the supposed naturalness of any culture’s basic tenets.
(Basically, it’s like the state of “reverse culture shock” – the culture shock one can get when returning from somewhere else and noticing, for the first time maybe, that one’s own culture can seem pretty strange. But as a state of mind.)

I’d rather be the foreigner, suffer some downsides, get conscious of my own cultural baggage and decide which parts of my heritage to uphold and which to discard, and learn to fit in somewhere else to the extent to which I find it feasible and want to do it.