Life | The Culture Blend

Congratulations St. Louis Cardinals, 2011 World Champions . . . of the “World”

Oct 30, 2011 | 1 comment

Since I was 9 years old I have been a Cub fan . . . but not the disgruntled kind. I’m not mad that the team I pledged my lifetime allegiance to in the prime vulnerability of my pre-pubescent youth hasn’t been to the World Series since World War II (stupid goat). I’m not even frustrated that they haven’t actually won since the early 17th century. I’m not that kind of Cub fan. I’m not so petty that I can’t extend a congratulatory high five and a good, firm slap on the back to my unenlightened friends who root for our arch rivals and sworn enemies as they celebrate toppling the Rangers to win the Series . . . for the 11th time . . . since our one. I’m not bitter.

Really. I’m not.

My eight year old daughter has decided to be a Cardinal fan. I have chosen to love her anyway. That’s how not bitter I am. She is free to follow any team she chooses and like the majority of fans in the world she has taken the easy road. Don’t judge her harshly. She is young and naive and doesn’t yet fully understand that being a fan is not about winning . . . it’s about almost winning and never quite getting there. It’s about the faint glimmer of hope that someday, somehow your team will do something, anything good, dipped in the cold, unspoken reality that they just probably won’t. Being a die hard fan is not about jumping up and down when your team wins . . . anyone can do that. It’s about hollow dreams, misguided passion and freakishly stubborn resolve even when you don’t win . . . for more than a century.

All things considered, it was fun to watch game 7 with her all the way over here in China and cheer her Cards on to victory. Watching big American championship games in China is always fun but lacks the atmosphere and buzz of being back home. Superbowl parties generally begin around 7am and include pancakes but may not include commercials. We saw the Cardinals win about 8 hours after it happened but were still able to enjoy it without knowing who was going to win. Just me, my Card fan 8 year old and my 2 year old son who was cheering, “Go CUBBIES!”

I lost one . . . I will not lose the other.

So Congratulations Cardinals on once again winning the World Series . . . wait, I mean “World” (finger quotes) Series. Don’t for a moment let it steal your joy that of the world’s 234 nations only 2 are eligible to compete in this self proclaimed “world” event or that those two nations represent about 5% of the people in that world. Take heart redbirds because 25 million people tuned in to watch you win!! That is significant St. Louis. That means that on the entire planet only 99.6% of the human population were not watching. You are indeed world champions . . . in your own little way. And to you fans of the “World” Champions, hold your head high. Don’t let the numbers get you down because really . . . no one likes a bitter fan.

I would like to point out however that in real life a bear (even a baby one) would maul and eat a bird (even a red one with a big bat). Next year.

Thank You Adoptive Mothers for Getting Rid of Osama Bin Laden . . . Again

Oct 12, 2011 | 4 comments

This just in . . . A courageous band of mothers who have adopted from China have taken down Osama Bin Laden.I still consider myself a rookie when it comes to this blogging thing but I’m having a boatload of fun with it. I think the truest quote I have heard so far is “Blogging — Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few.” Still . . . I’m getting a kick out of writing, playing with the newest gadgets and watching the stats. However it has been just a little bit disconcerting that since May 4th when I posted “Turn Off the Light Stupid: What China Thinks of Bin Laden” that I have had a picture of said Bin Laden right over there on the right side of my blog (where my kids and the Angry Bird are now). Not entirely my fault, I just plugged in the gadget that automatically lists your top three posts and Osama got more attention than anything else (I blame my readers mostly). So there they have been . . . pictures of my perfectly precious daughter, my Obamish, beefcake of a son and the iconic face of global terrorism. Try as I might I just couldn’t come up with anything that would attract enough hits to knock him off of his perch (sounds familiar).

Then it happened. In one day a repost on China Adopt Talk.com drove more than a thousand hits (small potatoes for good bloggers but a big day for me) to my site and pfft he was gone. Nicely done ladies (gentlemen too . . . but mostly ladies). We salute you.

If you want to read about some very cool adventures of families that were brought together through the beauty and chaos of adoption in China then click here . . . and here . . . or here . . . and here too . . . or go to China Adopt Talk.com and poke around. And if you want some brilliant insight into what it is like to really live, really love and foster a beautiful baby in China then you should definitely try walking to China . . . the blog . . . not the actual hike . . . that would be silly.

One more thing — I’m realizing the irony of a post celebrating the removal of a picture of Osama Bin Laden which also includes the exact same picture of Osama Bin Laden but I read somewhere that irony tricks more people into reading your blog. I’m also realizing that if I trick too many people into reading this post then Osama’s picture will once again be in the top three and right over there with the angry bird which would be even more ironic . . . and trick even more people into reading my blog. I told you . . . this is fun.

AAND . . . the true irony? My son (who replaced Osama as #3 on the top three list) . . . his birthday?

(pause for dramatic effect)

September 11th. Whoa.

Thanks for reading

The Diarrhea Clinic and Why I Think It’s Funny

Aug 2, 2011 | 4 comments

This clinic is a short walk from our home. I laugh a
little every time I walk by (don’t judge me). I find it ironic
that “diarrhea” is spelled correctly in a country where the
rest of English is not. I only know because I have
spell check.

Know how to say “diarrhea” in Chinese? Want to?

Your answer to that question speaks volumes about you.

Some of you are saying “Stink YEAH I do! Tell me tell me tell me!” You’re the ones who have already skipped ahead in your mind to the people who are going to crack up because you can say a word that you can’t even spell in a language which you know zero other words. You’re going to say, “yeah . . . I speak a little Chinese” and they’ll say, “yeah me too, ‘ching chang willy willy bing bang bong‘” and you’ll be like, “no, seriously I know some real Chinese like the kind they speak in China” and they’ll say “oh yeah? like what?”

And then you’ll say it.
And they’ll say “what’s that mean?”
And you’ll say “Diarrhea!”

And you will laugh so hard your ears hurt. You know who you are.

Then there are those of you who are saying, “that’s disgusting and I cannot even believe that you would squander my valuable time and so desecrate internet space with such a juvenile, repulsive proposition . . . no I most certainly do NOT wish to defile my brain cells with such blatant and utter tomfoolery.”

You are sophisticated, refined and fooling no one but yourself. It’s time to take a look deep inside my friend. NO ONE doesn’t want to know how to say “diarrhea” in Chinese.

How we handle things like flatulence and diarrhea speak volumes about our culture (if you just made a joke in your mind you’re proving my point). Why are natural, normal, universally experienced bodily functions just plain funny? Is it inherent or inherited? Nature or nurture? Is it from repeated exposure to cultural cues or does it run in the jeans? (sorry).

I was recently standing in the vegetable market near our home. Just me, Lotus (our friend who runs the shop) and one older woman in a tiny little shack filled with fruit and veggies. Lotus knew that I had been sick and asked me what my afflictions were (she regularly does this because she likes to look after the foreigners who know nothing about which foods treat which ailments). I told her I had a headache and then in a quiet, embarrassed tone I waved my hand over my stomach, squinted and grunted as if to say . . . “eehhhh you know . . .” She looked confused for a single moment and then the light went on. “Ohhh” her eyes opened wide with understanding, “you have diarrhea?” She spoke in Chinese but I know that word so I shook my head to confirm.

Then it began.

She wasn’t quite sure which pickled vegetable or spiced root to recommend so she shouted to the old woman. “Hey, he has diarrhea, what should I give him?” And the old lady said, “Ahhh DIARRHEA . . . Hmmm.” While she was thinking it over another person entered the shack who was obviously a friend. ” Oh you would know . . . the foreigner has diarrhea, what do you eat for that?” The new lady was baffled and shouted out the door, “Hey honey! There’s a foreigner in here who has diarrhea! do you remember what’s good for that?” One by one they piled in and I swear (this is how I remember it) in less than three minutes more than 400 of my Chinese neighbors were crammed in a building the size of two Buicks to openly discuss my loose bowels. I could only understand half of the conversation but the part I caught loud and clear was diarrhea, diarrhea, the foreigner has diarrhea.

And no one . . . not a single person . . . laughed . . . but I was biting my lip because as much as I wanted to crawl under a rock and pretend that I did not, in fact, know the Chinese word for diarrhea . . . I wanted to laugh even more.

Volumes.

“La duzi” (Try pronouncing it “Lah doodzuh”). That’s how you say “diarrhea” in Chinese. Enjoy that.

author’s sidenote: when I wrote “does it run in the jeans?” I laughed so hard my ears hurt.

A couple of videos – just to prove my point. Millions of people have watched these (including you?). And they have all laughed.

The Changing Face of Communism: Seeing My America through Their Chinese Eyes

Jul 2, 2011 | 3 comments

Beijing: A worker cleans a portrait of Mao Zedong,

the founder of the People’s Republic of China, at

Tiananmen Gate

Photograph: Guang Niu/Reuters

When I moved to China I had big dreams of being arrested by Communist soldiers just for being an American Christian. They would tie me to a wooden chair in a gray, dingy room and demand that I say bad things about God and George Bush. I would squint at them through swollen, purple eyelids and with my best Clint Eastwood grin break into a chorus of “God Bless America.” Then (cue music) B.A. Baracus would smash the black van through the block wall and the A-Team would shoot all of the Communist soldiers (in the feet of course), pull me to into the van, crash through another wall and drive off into the sunset leaving a room full of angry, hopping bad guys shaking their fists and shouting Chinese (prime-time approved) obscenities.

Ok, I threw in the A-team for dramatic, blogging effect but suffice it to say my expectations of China (especially Communist China) were painted and tainted by both incomplete, historical facts, and action packed, Hollywood fiction. Walking through Chinese customs the first time was nerve-wrenching. I braced myself for the trip to the back room for questioning and light torture. I resolved in my mind to go peacefully as long as they did not harm my family. I handed the uniformed “soldier” our passports . . . heart pounding . . . sweating profusely. He opened each one carefully, studied the pictures and looked back at each of us . . . one by one. This is the moment. Will this Communist let us in to Communist China or send us to a Communist re-education camp? I’ll never forget what he said . . . “thank you.” He returned our passports and motioned for us to move on. It was only then that I noticed the “please rate my service” buttons on his desk. I pressed “very satisfied”.

“Arise, all people of the world, to topple Imperialist America!

To topple Soviet revisionism! To topple the reactionary parties

of all nations!” (Chinese poster, 1969)

bold text corresponds to blackened characters

Last week I made a quick trip back to the States. Checking in at the Beijing airport I noticed an older Chinese woman. I know she was Chinese because she jumped in front of the entire line . . . and she spoke Chinese (I have finely tuned skills of deduction). It was obvious that she was not accustomed to airport protocol and I assumed (right or wrong) that this was her first trip to America. I could only imagine what she was dreaming of and I pondered what facts and fiction had painted and tainted those dreams. She had obviously lived through the Cultural Revolution, a time when America was projected as enemy number one and a vicious, Imperialist threat seeking to overthrow the world and destroy the noble values that her generation was dying to uphold. She had also lived in a China where, for many, the highest aspiration has been a new life in a Western nation. Was she anxious? Nervous? Excited? Afraid? Did she have the Communist Party A-Team on speed dial?

I didn’t see her again until we landed in Chicago where I made the rookie mistake of using the restroom before getting in the customs line. When I came out the end of the line was in Iowa. Armed police officers were moving everyone to the back by loudly and bluntly insisting,

“Everyone move to the back of the line. This is not the line. Please move to the back of the line quickly. The back of the line is no longer in Illinois. It’s in Iowa. Please go there now!”

Everyone settled in for the long march and immediately began striking up conversations with total strangers so we could vent about the rude police and the long line. Then the police (still armed) returned and began yelling again,

“Visitors! Any non-U.S. passport holders, please come with us. There is another line for non-U.S. passport holders only.”

We were jealous and continued venting.

One at a time they herded foreign passport families and marched them away. That’s when I saw the Chinese woman from the airport. She was completely dazed and confused, as was the rest of her family. The officers approached and asked to see their passports. When they didn’t respond the officers grabbed the passports from their hands and said “come with us.” They were even more confused. (I could tell because I have mastered the “I have no idea what you are saying” look over five years in China [and I have finely tuned skills of deduction]). I jumped in to help and told them in Chinese, “You can go with them.” They were obviously still confused so I repeated myself, “You can go with them.” And so they did.

It wasn’t until later that I had time to process the whole scene through her eyes. This poor woman understood nothing that was happening. All she saw was people being pushed to the end of a long line by loud, demanding “soldiers” (with guns). Then the “soldiers” singled her and her family out, looked at their papers and said, “come with us!” which sounded like “flooby shooby doopie poo!” until a big white guy with a thick American accent said, “you can go with them.” It sounds like a scene from Schindler’s List. What was she thinking at that very moment? Back room? Interrogation? Light torture? “Is this Imperialist shipping us to an Imperialist re-education camp?” And so went her first twenty minutes in America.

Honestly . . . that was more of what I thought China might be like. I’m hoping the customs agents were nice to her and that she got a chance to rate their service.

Three statements and I’ll shut up.

1. The gap between assumption and reality is often broader than it need be.

2. Seeing yourself through the eyes of the people you are looking at (no matter how Communist) . . . couldn’t hurt.

3. Little, old Chinese lady: If you ever stumble across this blog and you have learned to read English (or use Google translate) I just want you to know that I am truly sorry for not being more reassuring about where you were going and I hope that once you got in you enjoyed my country as much as I have enjoyed yours. God bless America. God bless China.

I Miss You America

Jun 29, 2011 | 2 comments

Dear America,

It was great to see you again and even though we didn’t have much time to catch up I realized how much I have missed you. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder and frankly . . . I think that’s bunk. I am convinced though, now more than ever, that being away for so long has opened my eyes to a whole load of qualities that I never knew I loved about you. I love your baseball and apple pies but who doesn’t? I miss your purple mountains majesty and your fruited plains but China has those too. Ok, I’m not sure they have purple mountains but to be honest I haven’t seen yours either I was just saying that. Where are they exactly? I bet they’re cool. Point is, I’ll always miss your big stuff but it’s your cute little quirks that really got to me this time.

I miss your gas stations. I really miss driving a car but it’s more than that. I feel at home in your filling stations. We have a bond. I know that whether I am traveling your highways or trolling your cities I am not far from a giant, well lit sign with removable numbers that inexplicably add an extra decimal point to your currency. Three dollars and forty three point nine cents for a gallon of gas? You don’t see that in other countries. I also know that I will be warmly welcomed by at least eight different flavors of coffee, a shining wall of refrigerated carbonation and multiple thousands of bags and boxes of sicky sweet, uber-hydrogenated, ultra-processed, slickly marketed variations of corn, wheat, meat and chocolate surrounded by t-shirts and fake license plates that offer brilliant wisdom with proverbs like “There’s too much blood in my alcohol system” and “Did you eat a bowl of stupid for breakfast?”. I miss you America.

I miss your waiters and waitresses. I miss that little speech at the beginning of a meal that goes something like, “Hi, my name is Alan and I’ll be taking care of you tonight.” You know why I miss that so much? Because I really believe that Alan will indeed take care of me. He frequently asks me if “WE”RE doing okay over here” even though I am the only one at the table. Why so plural Alan? You know why? Because Alan is in this thing with me. We’re connected he and I and he is genuinely and deeply concerned about how I am doing over here. And if I am not doing okay then WE are not doing okay. I miss that. Some people say it’s about the tip. Cynics. They don’t know Alan like I do. He told me as he gave me the bill (and I quote), “if there is ANYTHING else I need” just let him know. That’s a true friend. Out of respect for Alan I refused to cheapen our relationship by leaving a tip . . . or should I say a bribe? Alan would never take money to be my friend . . . I know because as I walked away he waved and though I could not read his lips he gestured, “you’re number one!” No sir my friend. You are. I’ll miss you Alan and I miss you America.

I miss your loud mouths. I have a confession to make America. On previous trips I have been overwhelmed and even annoyed by your news anchors, your “investigative reporters” and your radio talk show host. Your obsession with presenting the conflicting argument no matter what the original argument is has, at times, seemed to be spinning out of control. Maybe it was the brevity of my trip but this time I found myself chuckling and even entertained. In China the news is accepted with little public outcry but not in you America. You accept nothing. You expose it and crush it and beat the living daylights out of it and when there is no daylight left in it you hoist it on a stick and march it through the city streets. Sure someone fed homeless people but how much did that free soup really cost the taxpayers? Sure someone’s pet goldfish dialed 911 and saved an elderly man who was having a heart attack but should the price of fish food be covered by medicare? I miss you America.

It was good to hang out again America. It was good to be reminded that a nation is not the sum of its stereotypes. It was nice to remember that you are so much more than the face I see on the news and the conversation I have with Chinese taxi drivers.

Hang in there. You are missed.

Royal Schmoyal – Now THIS is a Wedding!

May 31, 2011 | 1 comment

Did you watch the Royal wedding a few weeks ago? BOOORINGGGG!! No fireworks. No marching band. No confetti cannons. And in all of the pomp and circumstance, among all of the Dukes and Duchesses, Mickey and Minnie Mouse were noticeably absent. The nerve.

China knows how to celebrate a marriage. Caught this one with my cell phone last week coming in the front gate of our apartment complex.

Waiting patiently
I always had a hunch that Mickey was Chinese but I had no clue that Minnie was a man or that Tigger was a chain smoker. Live and learn.

A Confused Groom

I have no idea what is happening here. I can only assume that the groom has been drinking and thinks this is Daisy. This marriage can’t last.

Engaging the Senses
A deafening marching band standing in a smoldering fire started by leftover firecracker gunpowder and confetti. Do not attempt this at home (as if you’ve got a confetti cannon . . . or a tuba)