From: Ozy
Bcc: Everyone
Subj: Culture Gaps, AKA Why Meryl Streep No Longer Impresses Me

Hello, Dear Friends and Family!

It’s been a bit since my last post. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’ve been traveling quite a bit my first month here in China – I slept in a hotel a total of 24 nights of the first 30 I was here. Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a complaint and was actually quite fortunate because I ran into (another of) what I like to think of as “culture” moments – where you accidentally bump into some aspect of your own life and culture that is a baseline assumption about how the world works – and then you find out you’re wrong. I had several I wanted to share with you and it ties into some of what I’ve been complaining about with food. But first, let me tell you about Dale’s version of “The Princess and the Pea…” and partially encapsulate my first month in China.

When I first got here on February 12th, I stayed at a place called “The Dragon Hotel” in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, PRC (baby!), a lovely western-style hotel with king-size beds and pillows just the way I like ‘em. It took a few days to find an apartment, but eventually my man Liang found one right around the corner from my hotel and not too far from where he lives. Jackpot! Because I don’t have a car, this makes it very convenient for Liang to come get me whenever we travel together. It also means I can schlep with him to his gym every morning and get in a workout – which has been great for my ankle rehab and overall conditioning. I think I’m averaging about 5 workouts a week.

The day I got my key to move in, we were scheduled to travel to Beijing for 12 days because Liang had back-to-back seminars. Sometimes he is solely a translator, other times he is both a translator and an instructor for our seminars here in China. I only had time to drop off my luggage in my new digs, re-organize my bags into what I needed for Beijing, and then off we went. Liang had to order a washer-dryer unit for my apartment and that got installed while I was gone, so the timing of going on the road was perfect. It meant that I didn’t have to be in an apartment without certain essentials… like a coffeemaker, which I ordered while we were on the road, and the usual sundry household items you need for everyday living (silverware, anyone?)… and which I hadn’t brought with me in my luggage, for obvious reasons.

After our time in Beijing – and at the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, etc. – we came back and I got a look at my apartment. Liang was there with me to inspect it and ensure everything was all set. As we were looking around the single, rather sparse-looking room, I noticed that the bed seemed to be missing something… namely, a mattress. There was a boxspring, so I walked over and sat on the large stiff-looking rectangle on the bedframe. Yup. Just as I thought – metal coils, hard wood, and stiff plastic. I made a note to Liang:

“I’ll need to order a mattress,” I pointed.

“A mattr- mattrecks?” I could see the pronunciation was kicking his ass, so I tried to sound it out slowly.

“MAT-TRESS.” Pause. “Mattress.”

“Mat-tricks.”

“Almost.”

A lot of our conversations are like this, and lest you think I’m the asshole here, you should see what it’s like when I’m trying to pronounce his language, Mandarin, on the way into the gym every morning.

“Zow-shang how?” I said brightly one morning, a proud smile on my face when I saw Liang pull up in front of my apartment. I picked this up on my own while studying the night prior, instead of my usual “Nee how ma?” (Nǐ hǎo ma? – How are you?)

“What…?” He says back at me in English. “What are you trying to say?”

Shit.

“I was trying to say ‘good morning,’ but now I’m not so sure…”

“Oh.” He flips the car in reverse, backs out crazily, then off we head to taunt Death in traffic.

“How do you say good morning?” I ask tentatively.

“早安。”

Only one syllable of that sounded vaguely like anything that came out of my mouth. 

In Mandarin Chinese, you don’t raise your voice to say a question like we do in other (mostly western) languages. That rising tone is an integral part of the word in tonal languages – which is to say that the same “syllable” can mean something very, very different simply by the way the (seemingly identical) word is intoned – like “ma” with a high-pitched but constant tone, means “mother.” Like you were singing the note “fa” at the top of “do-re-me-fa, etc” HOWEVER, if you pronounce it with a neutral tone at the end of a sentence it makes the sentence a question. Nope, I’m not kidding. And there are four different tones, although not every word-sound in Mandarin uses all four tones. And as I’ve noted previously, it’s actually five tones, but they lie and say Mandarin has “four” – they don’t count the “neutral tone,” so it’s “four plus one!”… or, as I learned to call that in arithmetic, “Five”, but whenever I say that I get an argument with Mandarin speakers, so I just leave it alone. They’re supposed to be the math geniuses.

Anyway, Liang and I have become very comfortable correcting each other. It’s kind of the essence of our relationship. He wants to learn better English (his is very good, by the way) and my Mandarin is an abomination, so we’re pretty constantly (lightly) teasing each other about our languages and cultures. Yes, we joke about all manner of “lacist” stereotypes to each other all the time and giggle about it. (That’s “racist” pronounced with a bad Chinese accent, because the “r” in Chinese is more closely pronounced  like an “l” sound, Mom, in case you missed that joke.)

Which reminds me of this great moment when we were getting off the train at the big train station nearby and I yawned – and he said something that I guess is a Chinese phrase about yawning – a rough translation is that “you’re singing an opera.” Except that while explaining the translated Chinese phrase, he pronounced the short “o” in “opera” as a long “o” like in “soap”, so what I heard was Liang say that I was “Singing like Oprah.” And since we hadn’t been talking about music at all, in fact, we had just disembarked from a train, I had no context and in my head I was thinking, “what in the holy hell does Oprah have to do with anything that is going on around me??” I wish I could have recorded the two of us working that mess out; it was worthy of the best of Abbott and Costello without intention.

So, there we are in my apartment staring at my box spring. I’m telling Liang I need a “mattress” and I see this look on his face as he’s staring at the bed…

“What is wrong with, um, a… bocks-spring?” It’s instantly clear to me that he thinks I’m nuts. “This is what I sleep on.”

“This!?” I kinda laugh. “No, this is a box spring, Liang. I need a mattress…” Still puzzlement. And then I realize, he’s not joking. He really sleeps on this thing.

“You sleep on this?!”

“That is what I am saying!”

Eventually, I managed to learn that among all of the great crimes of Mao Tse Tung – the 5-year plans, the theft of property, the starvation, struggle sessions, re-education camps, etc. – one of his less-well-known Crimes Against Humanity, sadly underreported, in my opinion, was selling the Chinese some bullshit that they needed to be a “hard” people, and thus to sleep on these… slabs for beds. I only had to spend six days of backbreaking misery on it before we were back on the road and I got to snuggle down into my western-style “mattricks” at the Sheraton.

In the meantime, I managed to get Liang to order something approaching comfortable, although even now I believe the mats I use for jiu jitsu and judo would be safer to be thrown on than my bed. It’s too hard to break-fall on… it would hurt. Seriously.

Now, lest this seem like complaining, let me make it clear: I love it here. In fact, I love these moments when I find out that (a) the world doesn’t have to be the way we’ve grown accustomed to, and (b) the Chinese are (generally) still living a relatively “harder” existence compared to us and it gives them a certain… durability. Like we used to be in the States just a few generations ago.

Now, please let me diverge (seemingly) for a moment to make an observation about economics. We tend to think of individual country economies as somehow being “uniform” for its people. We even assume it as a matter of our political and moral discourse; you hear people talking now about “equality” and nonsense like the federal minimum wage, as if the economic conditions that pervade in segments of the country like rural Montana or Idaho can just be magically normalized to some standard conceived in the stupidity of DC or NYC. Well, when you’ve got 1.4 billion like the Chinese do, they kinda understand that not everyone is going to be living the same standard of living – and it pervades every aspect of life, including….. FOOD!

Which brings me to cultural observation number 2. I’ve made a lot of jokes with people about the “menu” here and how it conflicts with my own personal palate, but truth be told, it’s largely because I – and many of us – have been spoiled by generations of bounty. In the U.S., there is virtually nowhere that is more than a 30 minute drive from some kind of grocery store, Walmart, or other place where processed food can be purchased. And now with Amazon and the like, there are conveniences like food delivery services. One can afford to have a rather discriminating palate under such circumstances.

China, on the other hand, is vast – it has the Gobi Desert and the Himalayas, as well as a huge swath of coastline, giant rivers, massive forests, and multiple mountain ranges… And it’s also got almost 1/5 of the world’s population, which is a LOT of mouths to feed. In fact the Chinese compound character for “population” is made up of the two characters for “people” and “mouths.” That is not a coincidence. Feeding its population is a non-trivial matter in China.

Thus, when you have those kinds of concerns, what’s “on the menu” may well open to a lot more things than we find particularly “yummy,” but when you get up against survival, you find that the human palate “adjusts” to the circumstances. For example, when I was in Beijing, we had frog one night alongside our Beijing duck (older folks know it by the old mispronunciation for ‘Beijing’ – i.e. ‘Peking’ duck). I’m not a big fan of eating reptiles, yet one of the “joys” of being in the military is the opportunity to be occasionally starved where you will learn how to catch lizards, and eat them, to survive. I’ve had snake – and I know some of you on this are old enough and from remote enough areas to appreciate these things. Pigeon is also on the menu in Beijing. One night, much to his chagrin – and after a lot of uncomfortable needling by one of our other L1 Staff who is a country boy and heard Chinese people eat dog, so he wouldn’t leave it alone – my boy Liang sheepishly admitted that yes, he had in fact eaten dog. You could tell he was sensitive to what it meant culturally to Americans.

It’s considered a delicacy in the north of China and rarely eaten, but it still happens. They’re “trending” away from it culturally, but my suspicion is that’s a fact of their economy reaching a point where wild dog no longer HAS to be on the menu. I have attached a picture to this email of the tank of turtles in my local Super WalMart. As I told my girls when I sent the picture: “No kids, it’s not the pet store, nor the aquarium… I’m right near the Produce section!”

Not at the pet store or the aquarium, kids!

How…delightful.

If this sounds horrible and even immoral, consider that you can find a lot of things that can be both pets and dinner even in the US, still: like rabbits. When you’re in survival training, they teach you how to trap, kill, skin, and dress out ol’ Thumper and his brothers. Many of you on here have probably shot squirrel or other (cute) furry rodents, but if you really think about it, you would notice that squirrels as a species tend to be rather plentiful in city parks, residential neighborhoods, and college campuses – because we don’t hunt them. You get out into the wild and I have some news for you, they’re not nearly as plentiful because they are “on the menu” for a lot of other critters in the food chain (especially hawks and other birds of prey) and in a pinch, yep, they’ll hold you over until you can get to more “civilized parts.”

So, as much as I’ve been poking fun at how the Chinese need to stop serving me all of my meals with the heads still attached because I don’t want to stare into the lifeless eyes of my meals – including shrimp/prawns –  I am offering a defense of their culinary habits. The way China eats isn’t simply a cultural oddity. In some places, sure, it preserves a tradition, but it still has a very physical reality to it. The more wealthy folks in southern provinces and along the coast look down (a little bit) on their more northern-situated and interior countrymen who continue to eat in these ways – because in the southeast they can get fresh seafood at any moment. For other parts of the country, however, there are still 700 million people living in “rural areas” – outside of the big cities – and what’s “on the menu” is a very different reality from life in metropolitan areas. If you really think about it, we still have places like that in the States, in the bayous or Appalachia – where they have a rather different palate because the human animal can adapt to a wide variety of circumstances. That includes eating lizards and the like if that’s what’s readily available.

I’ll close this with two final stories regarding some other culture “moments.” I have been trying to learn how to write Mandarin and for all who know me, the only academic endeavor I have ever straight-up failed was second grade penmanship. Learning Mandarin is like learning calligraphy, so I was discussing this with Liang and his own experiences. (Mom, you’ll appreciate this.) I was pointing out that my mother has lovely handwriting, which is quite an accomplishment, because “my mother was actually born left-handed, but way back when in my country…” I sheepishly went on, “the nuns would crack your hands with the ruler for trying to write left-handed, so my mom actually had to learn to write with her right-hand.” I was about to make some joke about the nuns when I was brought up short by the look on Liang’s face:

“That is here.” Whoops.

“Wait, no one can write left-handed??” He shook his head from side to side.

“They tell you it is so that you do not cover over the characters as you try to write from left to write.” Now, I’m in my infancy of learning Mandarin, but one thing I do know is that it can be read or written in either direction. I pointed that out and Liang laughed.

“Oh, of course it is booshit, but that’s what they tell you in school. And they give you a—.” Then he made a little chopping motion with his hand, as if he were rapping a kid’s knuckles with a ruler.

“Do you know anyone at all who writes Mandarin left-handed?!” I asked incredulously. He looked down and thought for a second.

“No. I do know a few people who do some other things with their left hand, like… badmitton, or table tennis, or maybe basketball… but not write.”

“Culture” moment the last – and my final food story. And it helps explain the subject line of this whole email.

The first night we landed in Xiamen, our local host wanted to take us out to a special dinner that would showcase the great food of Xiamen, which is a beautiful city on the southeast coast and home to one of the more prestigious univeristies in China. As it turned out, there was a place not far from our hotel that was, “Exceptional! And you will not know this if you’re not from around here!” beamed Ming, our local friend. I could tell he was excited to take us as we zigzagged down a couple of alleys. At some point I realized that this was a place that was unlikely to have seen many round-eyed lao wai, so I wanted to make a good impression.

It’s at this point that I would like to refer you to a Jerry Seinfeld award acceptance speech in which he skewers his own industry, including actors. Link is here and worth the five minute watch for a laugh (I consider it the Greatest Award Acceptance Speech Ever). Everyone who knows me, however, knows I “inherited” my mother’s love of movies. I’ve always thought Meryl Streep among the best actors of mine or any generation, but after watching Seinfeld’s video – and my dining experience – I kinda have to agree with Jerry Seinfeld: actors get any number of “takes,” time to “get into the role,” as well as makeup, and pre-written lines – I’m no longer impressed. Let me ‘splain…

As I walked up to the restaurant that night in Xiamen, I was starting to get a little nervous about what might be on the menu and I was doing my level best to ensure I had a poker face on now matter what was served. We stepped into the doors of the family restaurant and – as the honored guest – I was ushered in first. I started to look for a table in the large room and noticed immediately to my left what could only be described as a bank of aquariums on the wall, as well as water running through a bunch of tables at waist level. In all of these tanks and basins were a variety of sea life – none of which looked in the least appetizing. As I stood there, I felt an arm on my shoulder and our host announced:

“The menu! Only the best! Whatever you want!!”

There was a man in a little chef’s outfit behind the trays of water with a stick pushing around these various sea creatures; the hostess and wait staff were there and I could feel that the entire restaurant had its eyes on me. There would be no “second takes,” no makeup, and no “getting into role.” With every ounce of sincerity I could muster, I plastered the biggest smile on my face and beamed, perhaps too loudly: “It all looks so good! Any recommendations?”

I could tell by his response and expression that wasn’t going to get it.

“Whatever you like.” And he gestured expansively at the various swimming and crawling and slithering things. I was in full-panic mode looking for anything that resembled something I had previously eaten in my life. Mind you, I grew up in New England and I like seafood, but these things looked like the slimiest, most bottom-feeding fish and creepy-crawly things I had ever seen. And just what the hell are those things? I thought as I looked around and saw some crawfish looking things crawling around in a tank. There were some water snakes too – eel, which I’ve run across scuba diving and never once did I think, “Mmmmmmm…YUMMMMM!!!! Sure wish I had some time to stop and grab a couple of those to eat!!!”

Not the aquarium, either!

Not too dissimilar to dinner that night

I was in full bullshit mode, so I started pointing like I owned the place. “Definitely some of those!” I said, gesturing at a pretty good analogue for clams. Next to them looked like a kind of scallop, so I pointed at those, too. Seemed safe – I mean, how different could the taste from the similar-looking shellfish I occasionally ate back home….right?? Was there nothing floating that looked like it would be a flaky, white fish?!? A-HA!!! I spotted a lobster and turned to my friends: “We gotta have some of those, right?!” I bellowed. Everyone nodded in agreement.

By now, I had apparently shown enough gusto and everyone joined in, discussing my picks and other choices to compliment the meal. I made sure some local beers made their way to the table…LOTS of beers, because I was definitely going to need a few of them to consume some of these things.

In the end, I did it. I completely faked my way through dinner, pulling the heads off of my prawns like everyone else did and ignoring the eyes staring up at me from my fish…. And yet there will be no Oscar in the category for “Best Performance when Your Personal and National Honor is on the Line and Your Food Selection Looks like an Episode of ‘Fear Factor’.”

But as far as I’m concerned, Meryl Streep doesn’t have squat on me.

Until next time…

(And I promise, that’s my last Chinese food story.)

The Princess and the Pea

Upon my return: Ahhh… mattricks!