the Marimbist

I’ve been here for a few days now and have figured out where I’m staying.  I’ve been invited to stay in what is basically a guest dormitory on our sister-school’s campus for this month.  It’s basically a hotel room with internet.  They got me a great deal on the place and I’ll do my best to help out the English students to repay their generosity–actually, I would have done this anyway, but this is a situation where everyone wins!

My friend (from St. Louis) Gene was in this room until he left on Friday afternoon.  He was telling me how exciting Hunan Normal University’s English corner is.  English corners happen all over China near the universities.  Basically, all the people who are trying to learn English go to one place and chat in English.  Foreign visitors are VERY popular at these things and Gene really enjoyed being in a mass of people who were all “fighting” to talk with him.  I’m not nearly the extrovert (read “ham”) that Gene is, and frankly the whole thing sounds like it’s going to be extremely uncomfortable for me, but I’m going to try it out on Monday night.

My local friend Wuyueyue and his family have kind of adopted me here.  I went to his house for two meals yesterday and got to see a bit of his extended family.  His Mother asked me to call her “Nai2 nai2″ which is a tender version of Grandma–I am flattered and really enjoy making her laugh–although about half of my humor is entirely lost in translation.  My Chinese is improving and (if nothing else) I’m relaxing and understand people who talk to me rather than feeling “on the spot” and not understanding even the words that I know–this was one of my major goals for the trip and I’m excited that it’s already happening in the first week.

Being a bit shy, I’m not really comfortable practicing my drums anywhere that people are going to stop and congregate.  Last night I figured out a great place to practice:  On the river walk.  After about 10.00 at night, there are very few people there and it’s cool enough to relax and be creative.  The few people who are still there at that time are mostly couples–and they aren’t generally in the mood for talking to me  The place where I’ll be practicing is almost an hour’s walk from  my room, so I’m also getting quite a bit of exercise each night.

Bonus Link:  Interesting, although I disagree that the English Corner is an impediment.  I think all his suggestions should be followed and reinforced by an English Corner.

Two months of language immersion in China.  No group.  No itinerary.  No advance plans.  My mind was full of questions:

• Where will this trip lead me?
• What friends will I make?
• How will I be able to get my questions about Chinese answered?
• What will I learn that I don’t yet even imagine?
• Will I want to do this again?  in Spanish?  in Japanese?

The customs agent asked me a question of his own:  ”Why are you visiting China?”  I told him, then he asked:  ”Are you meeting someone?”  No.  ”Where are you going to stay?”  I don’t know.

He looked surprised and puzzled.  Luckily, he just kind of shook his head and stamped my passport.  :)

I got my first Chinese lesson from the taxi driver on the hour-long drive from the airport to the part of town where I am wanting to stay.  At first, I thought he didn’t speak Mandarin.  He was having difficulty understanding me and his accent was THICK!  Eventually, we got to where we were communicating tolerably well.

The first thing he said to me was that the trip would be 150 Yuan.  I had no idea whether or not this was fair, so I told him that I wanted to use the meter, to which he responded that if we used the meter it would be about 200 Yuan.  Hmmm…  Clearly he has some interest in not using the meter, but I don’t know if his interest is getting a higher price from a foreigner or in keeping the money off the meter (for tax reasons or maybe he’s trying to short the company that owns the cab).  I decided that I would risk the embarrassment of being swindled (It’s only going to happen ONCE–and it’s only about $22. total, so the swindle couldn’t be too much anyway.)

It turns out that that price was about right.  Maybe I should have haggled–I keep forgetting that, but he was a nice guy and that ride was just a bit more than a taxi ride from my house to the St. Louis airport. (And that ride is all of about 5 minutes!)

The driver was very sweet.  Once we got started talking, he was giving me a number of pointers–especially on how Chinese in China differs from Chinese in Singapore.  Tai4tai4, for instance, is considered “old fashioned” in China and they generally use “Lao3po3.”

In lieu of a bonus link today, I’ll relate two anecdotes from my trip so far:

#1:  The compound word for computer in Chinese translates directly as “electric brain.”  I discovered that I had been (accidentally) telling people that my wife died of cancer of the computer.  (I forgot to separate the compound word.)  Oops.  I wondered why no one seemed to understand that sentence…

#2:  Someone taught me the word for “widow” and I put it into a sentence, saying “I am a widow.”  Instant (and loud) laughter erupted from the entire dinner table.  I was surprised to say the least, but when they realized that this was only accidentally a laughing matter, they quickly stopped and (a bit embarrassedly) explained that the term is not gender-neutral in Chinese and that I need a specific term for “widower.”  I still don’t quite understand this one, but I also thought it was funny once I understood what had happened.

There is a delicious local food in Osaka that translates as Octopus Balls.  I should clarify that these are balls of dough and octopus meat and NOT the testicles of Octopi (There seem to be three acceptable plurals here, the other two being:  Octopuses and Octopodes.).

Inside the tent.

While walking around in the late evening in downtown Osaka, I saw a small tent with a flap half covering the door.  Inside was a man cooking these delicious little treats and a few businessmen who were drinking, eating, and laughing heavily!  One of the men (the one on the far right of the picture) told me that he had worked in Mongolia as a real estate consultant and that he was doing the same work now in Osaka.  His English was very good and we were able to converse a bit without an interpreter.  This was a very unusual experience for me:  hanging out with business men is not something that I get to do very often and the food was excellent!  Also, I don’t really drink, so it was interesting to see the way that alcohol cemented (or maybe fermented) the business bonds between these guys.  They said that they meet here most evenings on their ways home.

A "wafer thin" topping.

A common topping for the octopus balls can be seen in the second photo.  This appears to be dried bacon shavings that are so thin that they are blown around by convection currents caused by the difference in temperatures between the cooked food and the room air. (The shavings are added after the balls are cooked.)  I wish I’d had a video to show the movement of these shavings.  At first, I thought that the heat was shriveling them up like cellophane thrown onto a campfire, but (on closer observation) they were simply moving and were not damaged at all.

(Note:  The photo is not of the octopus balls, but another Japanese treat that is more like an omelet that is cooked at your table and has lots of cabbage,  noodles, and other veggies in it.)

Bonus Link:  (Some of this is not for the faint of heart.)

(It’s been a few days since I’ve had a chance to write, but I’ve got a few topics in mind.  I’m in the Hong Kong airport again and am transiting to Changsha, China where I’ll be staying for a couple of months.  I’m not sure of my internet connectivity for the next few days, but I should be back soon.)

I spent one afternoon in Japan alone while my local host was at work.  It is a bit nerve-wracking walking around a large city in which you don’t speak the language.  One of the things that you need to do in that situation has always fascinated me:  Bring a business card for your hotel.  This is interesting because it’s a very small thing that you need to do, but if you don’t remember to do it, you can’t get back to your hotel if you get confused—and I just about always get confused about something in that situation:  You can’t read street signs, subway signs, can’t ask a taxi driver to bring you to your hotel (that’s what the business card is for), etc.  The business card is an elegant solution to the problem, but I shudder to think how easily someone with my memory might start walking away from the hotel BEFORE asking for a card.

So, the first thing I did was to go see a movie. I had been to the theater once before I had been very careful to take note of the directions and landmarks at each step along the way.  It would have been easier to walk there, instead of taking the subway (underground, it is VERY easy to get lost when you can’t read the signs), but I didn’t learn that until a few days later when I had started to learn my way around the area.  I watched the movie Prince of Persia and enjoyed it pretty well.  I’ve only played a bit of the video game, but I remember it as being a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to revisiting it when I get back home.

After the movie, I went to a McDonalds and ordered what I thought was a fish sandwich, but on my first bite, I discovered that it was actually a type of shrimp-burger that I’d never seen before.  (These things happen when you’re pointing to the menu pictures instead of ordering with words.)  It looked like they had laid a bunch of whole shrimp into a circle, then poured the breading around them, forming a patty-shaped burger that was then fried like a fish sandwich.  It was really good.  To drink with my meal?  Iced Earl Grey tea!  Delicious and refreshing J  I stood at a counter without chairs to eat my meal—which is something else that I’ve never seen in the US.  I don’t eat at McDonalds when in the US (or much fast food in general), but I really enjoy seeing the variety of food and cultural differences in the most American of institutions.

I found my way back to the hotel without getting lost and was still an hour or so too early to check in, so I decided to take a walk around the area.  I found a tall building nearby that I would be able to see from anywhere I was likely to walk—which turned out not to be the case—then headed out to see what I might discover.  I got up on a walkway next to an elevated highway so that I could see the area a bit better and saw a beautiful building off in the distance.  I started heading in that direction and found that it is called the Umeda Sky Building.  It was surrounded by stunning beautiful gardens, fountains, and even a little man-made forest.  I didn’t take the time to go up to the roof garden, but I will try to do that next time I’m in Osaka.  There was a small park across the street where I sat down to read for a little while, then I headed back to the hotel.  My landmark building got hidden from me by all of the tall buildings that were closer than it was, but after about 45 minutes of looking (being lost), I finally spotted it.  When I tried to navigate to my hotel based on the location of the hotel, I found that the hotel wasn’t there anymore.  J  I later discovered that I was more lost than I thought I was and that I was on the opposite side of the building.

Overall, it was a great day and I developed a hunger for learning Japanese.  As soon as I return from China, that’s going to be my next big goal.

Bonus Link

The most common answer to this question is that it is the best way to learn about other cultures.  In general, I don’t disagree with that fact, but I do believe that there is another important reason to travel—it’s doubles as the best way to learn about your own culture.

Everyone grows up surrounded by forces that are trying to teach about the “truth” of the world.  These forces are not generally malicious—in fact they are often quite nurturing.  Some examples of these forces-for-good are:  Parents, Religion, School, Government, and Popular culture.

N.B:  Some readers may be surprised to see that an Atheist would list religion as a force-for-good, so I’d like to clarify what I mean here.  I do disagree with a number of the principles of organized religion (including, obviously, the existence of God), but on the local level—the actual interaction between church leaders and the congregation—there is a lot of good that happens.  The secular part of the fellowship that happens there is something that I have missed in my departure from belief.   And…back to the topic at hand.

The trouble with learning these “truths” is that—while “keeping an open mind” is encouraged—few (if any) opportunities are available to interact with people who have a different sense of truth.  These people are (almost by definition) considered to be dangerous or weird.

The first thing you learn when in another country is that in most of the important ways, the people you meet overseas are very similar to the people you know from home.  They love their families, most of them are generous and kind to strangers (you), and a few of them are jerks.

These are experiences that taught me as much about my own culture as they did about the place where I had the experience.  Have you had any experiences like these?  What did you do?

Have you:

1. Been served a meal with its eyes looking back at you?  (Hikari just read this in draft form and she said, “What’s weird about that?”)
2. Been a guest in the home of someone who is extremely poor?
3. Been a guest in the home of a man whose Wife was not allowed to be meet you for religious/cultural reasons?  (She had to eat after the men were finished.)
4. Been kicked in the face (Taekwondo) and needed stitches in your eyelid from a hospital in a foreign country?
5. Been stopped and scolded (in a language you don’t understand) by Muslim Religious Police?
6. Gone to a public bath (au natural) with your soon-to-be Father-in-Law?
7. Gone to use a toilet and found that you didn’t understand how it was supposed to work?

The lesson that I learned from each of these experiences was that many of the things that I thought were basic human solutions to life’s problems were actually culturally-learned norms.  I wonder how many hardcore Conservative Christians have sat down with an Atheist for a meal?  How many bigots have ever sat down with a member of their hated race for a conversation?  I hear wonderful stories about a children’s circus that allows Israeli and Palestinian children to perform together—after which, the children begin to see that their “enemies” are not so different from themselves.  Beautiful!