I Love This Gaem: NBA Jersyes on Sale Just in Time for Plyaoffs

Apr 28, 2011 | 1 comment

This is probably one of my favorite snapshots of China.  Not because of anything it represents culturally or politically or socially.  It just cracks me up.  Every single NBA team is misspelled EXCEPT the Houston Rockets, home of China’s pride and joy, NBA superstar, Yao Ming. 

You know you want one.  Especially you Laekrs fans.

 

China Bans Michael J. Fox

Apr 27, 2011 | 4 comments

Marty McFly’s time warping DeLorean has been impounded by the Chinese government along with Bill and Ted’s phone booth and Dr. Who’s  . . . what was it that Dr. Who drove?  China recently banned time travel (not the real kind, that would be silly).  Movies and shows including “time travel, bizarre plots, absurd techniques, fantasy and mythical stories” (or as we say in America – “everything”) have all landed on the China “do not watch list”.  We haven’t actually heard anything about this from anyone in China but the Western media is on it like piranhas on a capsized meat boat.

There is sooo much Culture Blend content here.  I could go at least 50 different directions with this but I’ve been reading about what makes blogs awesome.  Turns out 50 points about stuff nobody but the writer cares about didn’t make the list.  So here you go . . . short and punchy, to the point, three quick thoughts on this fascinating story that you should all be more interested in.  Slackers.

1.  East is not West:  You heard it here first.  One thing I’ve noticed in the Western uproar against this blatant censorship (present blog post included but only to make an ironic point) is an oblivious outcry against the unthinkable banishment of, wait for it . . . Western time traveling heros.  As if the travesty is that 1.4 billion Chinese people cannot have a Back to the Future marathon at their church youth group lock-in.  Two newsflashes – One, 1.39 billion Chinese have never heard of Back to the Future and Two, the ones who have can still buy it for a dollar at the neighborhood, pirated DVD shop or download it for nothing on the neighborhood, pirated internet.  The government move was actually a response to a whole new (wildly popular) genre of Chinese drama in which modern people travel to ancient times and fall in love.  Censors worry that heritage is being disrespected and (more realistically) may be concerned that modern life leaves something to be desired.  Not so much a Communist plot to crush Quantum Leap (I loved that show).

2.  Values Vary:  This is where I could write a book but people don’t read books anymore.  They read blogs.  It’s true.  I read it.  On a blog.  Freedom (or at least the appearance of it) is the highest value in many Western countries.  We live it.  We breath it.  We rename our junk food after it and go to war for it.  In our minds freedom is the most important thing and in that context censorship is deplorable.  In contrast, the highest value in China is harmony (or at least the appearance of it).   Collective symbiotic, unitarian well oiledness.  Everything works together and authority is the glue that keeps it from falling apart.  In that context censorship is a non-issue.

3.  It was a Police Box:  That’s what Dr. Who drove through time and if you knew that you are a nerd.  Don’t worry though, if you are indeed that much of a nerd you can probably figure out a way to travel back in time and become cool.

Unless you live in China.

Then you’re stuck.

Watch this.  It made me laugh.

My Mother the Felon or The Many Misspellings of Adidas™

Apr 19, 2011 |

My dear sweet mother never once in her entire life smoked a single cigarette or sipped a single drop of alcohol.  To my knowledge she never even said a cuss word except the one time she read a Van Halen t-shirt out loud which doesn’t count because she was asking me what it meant.  She married the only boy that she ever kissed and kept her vows until death did they part.  She taught Sunday School and took meals to sick people and visited little, old ladies and wrote books for her grandchildren and crocheted (not joking here) Christmas cards every year for everyone she knew (and some she didn’t).  She was the supreme epitome of absolute uncorrupted purity, selfless compassion and life-long humility.  But she had a dark side.  A dark side that could have landed her in prison had the feds caught up with her.
 
She was a bootlegger (not the moonshine kind).  A knockoff artist.  A copyright infringer of epic proportions.  There was a time in my life when I wanted nothing more that a pair of Nike’s™.  Those were the days when black and red Air Jordan’s™ broke the lid off of what retailers would dare ask for a pair of shoes.  I didn’t dare ask for those.  All I wanted was something, anything with a swoosh™.  It was reputational suicide in the fifth grade to wear anything but Nike’s™ and I wore Traxx™ . . . from K-Mart™ . . . with suction cups on the bottom that popped when I walked down the hall at school (which I now call the Green Mile™).  I begged and pleaded and I’m pretty sure I even prayed for a pair of Nike’s™ but my tender, compassionate mother’s only solution was, “Let’s just get the plain white Traxx™ and I’ll paint the Nike™ swooshie™ thing on them.” She had no grasp of how much that would NOT solve the problem.
Had it been an isolated incident I’m sure any judge would have been lenient considering her otherwise pristine record.  But it wasn’t.  When she discovered fabric paint at Joann Fabrics™ she jumped headfirst onto the slippery slope of brand replication.  By the time I was in high school I had a Chicago Bulls™ sweatshirt, a Cubs™ cap, a crocheted Nerf™ basketball hoop and a hand painted t-shirt with my name and basketball Jersey number on the back which bore an uncanny resemblance to the shirts that the rest of the team (the cool kids™) wore . . . until you looked at it with the lights on.  Her illegal endeavor to trip the retail system was relentless but her reasoning, I believe, was solid.  Although she never quite articulated it quite this way her position was simple.  The real travesty is a society so consumer driven that shoes cost more than a small car and fifth graders would sell their siblings to wear them.  Not a bad point really.
My mother would have truly connected with China.  Not so much for the constantly growing presence of Gucci™ and Prada™ and Louis Vuitton™ and the thousands of young Chinese consumers who can now afford them.   On the contrary she would have instantly bonded with the producers of Guppi and Praba and Louise Vutton.  She would have proudly associated with the multiple millions who either remain too poor to buy the real thing or quite frankly think it would be downright stupid as long as there are stores that sell perfectly good fabric paint.  China takes the heat for their lax enforcement of copyright infringements, piracy and cheap knockoffs which is only fair if they want to play on the global stage.  But mom would have loved Abibas™.
 

 

 

 

Foreign Devil, Foreign Monkey

Apr 12, 2011 |

Maybe you’ve heard the term “foreign devil”.


The Chinese word “guilao” can be literally translated as “ghost man” and it dates back several thousand years to a time when European barbarians invaded China and made a really bad first impression.  The term has been carried down through generations as a candid description of unwelcome outsiders.  It is certainly still in circulation today but China is changing rapidly and with the changes comes a shifted view of foreigners.  We have rarely heard (or felt) the term “foreign devil”.  However, there is a newer term that better describes the opinion of the outsiders like us.

“Laowai Houzi”  or “Foreign Monkey”

The general idea is that the foreigner goes on display and draws a crowd.  You don’t have to live in China for long before you get to play the monkey.  It’s generally well intentioned, much appreciated and often an opportunity to show that you’re a good sport and build a relationship.  Westerners, however, often let their arrogance cloud their vision.  “Wow, these people really like me, I must be a superstar!”  They haven’t yet learned that these people also really like monkeys.

We haven’t seen a lot of real monkeys in China but when we do we are sure to snap a picture.
Originally posted in our now retired family blog: Keeping Up With the Joneses 


Monkey on her back
Trainer gets 10 kuai (about $1.50).  Monkey gets a piece of popcorn.
We get  a beautiful, lifetime reminder of the one moment that my
wife let a real, live furry beast climb on her back without screaming.
I think we got the best part of that deal.
Monkeys for Charity
This was a three man, two monkey operation
that we saw on the street in Qingdao.  The trainer
fed (and whipped) the monkeys while they did tricks.
Notice the disabled boy on the side who watched the
show.  The third man was in the crowd with a tin can
making sure spectators paid for the pictures 
they took. 
Monkeys on Motorcycles
This was a show on Monkey Island.  A short ski lift ride from
Hainan island in the south China Sea it is inhabited with literally
thousands of monkeys and is a popular tourist attraction.  It comes
complete with monkey shows, monkey swimming pools, monkeys
chained to the ground and a monkey prison for bad monkeys who
attack guests and steal their bananas.  

Mythbusters: All Chinese People Look the Same

Apr 6, 2011 | 3 comments

Originally posted in the now retired “Keeping up With the Joneses”

Be honest (no one will know) – have you ever said something like, “All Chinese people look alike”?

Now be honest again.  How many Chinese friends do you have?  Wait – Don’t count them unless you know their name (without looking at their nametag) AND they know yours.  Don’t worry this is not another guilt trip or an effort to shame you into being more globally alert.  Living in China, however, has given us the opportunity to get the inside scoop on real live Chinese people.  What I’m about to share is sensitive and may not be suitable for everyone.  Are you ready?  Are you sitting down? Chinese people are  . . . people.

It’s true.  You can check Wikipedia.  

We have absolutely fallen in love with so many of our new friends.  We have also learned that you can’t apply a lone characteristic to an entire nation full of people whether it be how they look, how they act, how they think or what their agenda is.  People are vastly and beautifully different and yet somehow all very much the same.  

So here are some pictures to bust the myth once and for all.  Chinese people do NOT all look the same and if you look closely you even get a taste of their unique personalities.  These are from our first year in China and feature some of my favorite and funnest students.  And friends.

And I’m Both: On Being Chinese (but not really) in China

Apr 5, 2011 | 4 comments

As we were leaving McDondald’s this week Rachel had her “I’m about to confess something” look (she’s recently decided to come clean on every single white lie, stolen cookie or minimally rebellious thought she has had since conception).  “Dad, that lady asked me if I was from America.”  She paused and switched to her “I’m a little afraid this might get me in trouble” look and finished with a shaky voice  . . . “I said yes.” Me, being the predictably dense father with no clue what lurks beneath the surface of the female mind, said something profound like, “hmm, grab your nuggets and let’s go.”“But Dad,” she stopped me, “I’m not sure if that’s true.” 


Rachel’s daily existence is confusing for mere mortals.  She was born in Western China and obviously looks Chinese (even when she’s not doing the finger thing with her eyes).  However she was adopted by white people from middle America and lived there for two years.  Then she moved back to China (only to the South this time) where she lived for a year before moving to the Northeast for two years.  Then she spent a year in the States in the back of a Buick driving north, south, east and west and finally landing on the southernest tip where her white parents adopted her half caucasian, half African-American brother (see “On Being Black in China).  Now we all live together in Eastern China where people daily ask us questions with no clear cut red, yellow black or white answers.  Tough questions like, “where are you from?” Ok, simple for us, but a bit confusing for our little TCK.

I’m realizing that my reading audience  is split right down the middle here.  One of you is saying “aw geesh, if I hear another thing about TCK’s I’m gonna puke” and the other one is saying “a TC what?” For both of your sakes, I’ll be brief in the explanation.  A TCK (Third Culture Kid) is the kid who isn’t fully connected to his or her parents home culture because they don’t live there but they’re also not fully connected to the culture in which they live because they are not from there.  They don’t fit neatly into a box of one or the other so they develop a “third culture” with unique characteristics that they share with the millions of TCK’s growing up cross culturally around the world.  One of those unique characteristics is not knowing how to answer the question, “where are you from?” There are many more.

I could drone on for days about the depth and insightfulness of Third Culture Kids and maybe I’ll post some more about that later but what I really want to say is – Rachel is awesome. I love watching her face get all scrunched up while her brain processes the complex dynamics of multiple cultures in a blender.  Her response to the daily inquisition is sometimes frustrated, often confused but always honest (even if she’s not sure she’s telling the truth).  Our hope and prayer for her is that she loves and embraces her Chineseness and her Americaness and her TCKness and her adoptedness and her freak show of a family because all of them play a role in molding her into who she is . . . awesome.

We were proud yesterday when the lady selling turtles on the street asked her where she was from.  She responded in perfect Chinese. “I’m American . . . and Chinese.”

Here are some brilliant resources for and about TCK’s for both of you:
wikipedia on TCK’s:  good place to start
Libby Stephens:  super wise TCK expert and speaker
Interaction International:  tons of resources
US Dept of State on TCK’s:  interesting facts and some good links 
tckid.com:  social network specifically for TCK’s
Denizen Magazine:  online mag designed for TCK’s