‘Eleven questions about China’

And “beer” … that’s another one. It wasn’t all that long ago that the phrase “Chinese Beer” sounded as incongrous as “Jamaican Opera” or “Japanese Rodeo”. Now, they’re getting quite a bit of respect in that arena and seem to be making up for lost time. What happened?

Okay, I couldn’t not look ‘at the train wreck’.

My mantra for today, value other’s perspectives, do not judge, say this over and over. …but keep in mind, anyone living in the following quarters:

Our company pays for our rent which here is 5000 US dollars a month. In Shanghai our friends are paying 10,000 US dollars a month for a big, very nice apartment.

…has very special views of the world. Time for dinner, see ya. 走吧，吃饭！

Aunty Sue,

As I was placing my Bowler hat neatly on the hatstand and putting the umbrella back in the rack, I wondered if you wrestle Aligators every day in Australia or just once a week?

Some of the questions I have been asked by my Chinese Skype friend have been right on the Money, however others have been just plain wierd .

I’ve accumulated my wealth of knowledge about Chinese culture entirely from watching Western movies (eg: Charlie Chan), and so I consider myself an authority in this area.

1. What are the people like?

The men are excellent martial arts fighters and spies. The women are beautiful, submissive, polite and dressed in silk. Most own laundry businesses.

2. What kind of food do you eat? Is real chinese food a lot different from our Chinese restaurants?

They will basically eat anything that moves (sivet cats, dogs, etc) and are experts at turning these into delightfully exotic dishes. No, the Chinese restaurants here in the West are “imitation only”. In fact, one of the owners told me he and his wife get a good laugh after they serve Western people these “authentic dishes”.

3. Do they still use rickshas?

Yep. Now that family planning has become more accepted, the ricksha (rick = prevent; sha = knock-up) is a standard product in all drugstores in China.

4. What is the exchange rate? Do they use paper money?

No paper money, strictly a barter system involving people, precious objects and tea.

5. Is it true that the Chinese can only have one child?

Yes. They have been genetically re-designed by Mao’s scientists to produce only one child per lifetime.

6. What are your living quarters like?

Like I said before, they don’t use quarters or any form of coin or paper money.

7. Can your children play outside safely? with other Chinese children?

Chinese children don’t have any concept of play. They “compete” safely with other Chinese children.

8. Are there Christian churches available for people to attend?

Are you joking ? Religion has no place in Chinese society, unless you belong to Falun Gong, but then you get executed by the authorities before you can really get your religion “off the ground”.

9. What’s it like to be a woman with four children in China?

Not possible. See question #5.

10. What do the Chinese children do for fun? Watch TV? play computer games? play with action figures?

They don’t have fun. They memorize mathematical equations all day. Also, until recently, there were no words for “romance” and “humor”. A real tight-ass society.

11. Do the Chinese people really wear those straw sun hats all the time?

Not only during the day, but also at night and while they sleep. It is a 24-hour duty to wear these, although no one can remember why this tradition evolved. It is the Chinese version of a burka, meant to ensure conformity.

Aunty Sue, I lived in Sydney for 4 years, and absolutely loved it. Australia is the most beautiful place on the planet, I reckon. Anyway, while there the AmCham gave my company data on expats and their re-patriation levels, all across asia. In a nutshell, they had data that said a higher percentage of americans re-patriated earlier than their contract periods than in the so-called “exotic” countries like China, Malaysia, and India. At first I didn’t believe it, but later, I sort of understood why, even tho myself, I adjusted almost instantaneously. When you live in a place like China, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you are overwhelmed by the chinese-ness of it – you go outside to take a taxi, you’re in China. You go to the doctor – you’re in China. It’s an entirely parallel universe, in some ways. You steal yourself for the obvious differences. But if you are posted in say Sydney or Melbourne – you let your guard down a bit, since it’s a western society. But in subtle ways, culture shock hits you even harder. For example, an american man wakes up on Sunday, and wants to turn on the t.v. to watch some football. He’s thinking Chicago Bears, but he gets Sydney Swans or the Parammetta Eels. Shock ! Or he goes to grab a cup of coffee, but he can’t get just a cup of coffee – he has to get a long black. Shock ! Or his child is sick, and he wants to go to the pharmacy to get a prescription from the doctor, but he cant’ – he has to go to the chemist. Or he want’s to grab a six pack of Budweiser, but instead has to settle for VB stubbies. Shock ! I guess the data suggests that sometimes it’s not the obvious blatant differences that drive some people crazy, it’s the subtle ones.

Personally, I’ll just add that Carlton Crown Lager is the nectar of the gods, and I’ll take rugby over american football 8 days a week…

I posted this link because I personally do get asked questions like this from tiem to time – while home on vacation, for example. “What’s China like?” is obviously an impossible quetion to answer unless you have 6 hours to talk, but it doesnt’ stop people from trying.

I guess you have 2 possibilites when you get the question – the differences or the simailarities. If I had posed the question, I’d probably find it unhelpful to have someone simply point out the similarites. I’d feel I hadn’t learned anything. There are cultural universals and human psychology doesn’t change that much, but it’s the differences that make for convesation. I think a few juicy cultural anecdotes can come in handy. Maybe it’s time to talk more about this a bit nore in the blog.

Ken Carroll

What’s Aussie food?

There’s a typical cheap takeaway up the road from me, with a small number of little tables outside. I don’t know how long it has been there, or its earlier history, but here’s what I remember of its last few years. I hope I’ve got the details right, but you’ll get the idea.

Ten years ago when I came to this town it was a BBQ chicken shop. I think it also made hamburgers and fish and chips originally, but the next owners emphasised them more and sold less chicken. They also started making sandwiches for lunch for the surrounding workers.

A Polish family took it over, and added a bit more good home cooking, warm friendship, nice coffee, real milk shakes, and tidied up the premises a bit.

The business was sold again, and the new owners cooked and sold various types of Turkish fast food, along with the plain sandwiches, hamburgers, fish and chips, chicken, and so on. After all, existing customers wanted the same foods they were used to, as well as the new offerings. I don’t know where they were from, but they weren’t Turkish.

Next it was taken over by a Greek family, who refurbished the place, put up way too many big signs for a little shop, and renamed the place Acropolis Yeeros Takeaway. They sold food similar to the Turkish food. They also had home cooked Greek baked dishes sometimes, and alongside the chicko rolls and so on you could usually choose huge pieces of various baked vegetables, and there was a section up one end with Greek sweets. Of course they still sold the fish and chips, sandwiches, fantastic hamburgers, milkshakes, but the chicken almost disappeared, and I think they stopped the fish entirely.

A couple of years ago it was taken over by a sharp Southern Chinese family. This little town is more xenophobic than the big cities, so they did their homework. Absolutely nothing changed. Even now the signs still have the words “Acropolis Yeeros” thrusting forward theatrically between ancient columns drawn at each end. There’s no more Mama’s home baked Greek dishes, but all of the other food is identical: sandwiches, hamburgers, chips, falafel rolls, Greek salads, oozy Greek cakes, baked potato, … but the faces are Chinese. Then after people got used to the change of personnel, they gradually started cooking a little Chinese food, without deleting anything from the previous offerings. They also added a huge cooked meaty breakfast, or a stunning cappucino with raisin toast.

It took a while for word to get around, but now the Chinese section has expanded because it is well known for the quality of its Chinese food. On the counter beneath the Yeeros sign there is a small pile of simply run off pages with a word in Chinese characters and a list of fairly tame Chinese dishes in English. All of the other foods are still as popular as ever, but now, in the evenings, rich people drive for miles to queue up with the factory workers for Chinese takeaway at this humble little fast food joint with the ricketty little chrome tables and spotless lino floor. And they still make the best hamburgers and tabouli on the Central Coast.

This is typical Australian food.

It’s sounding more and more like the kind of thing someone might write on the web if they wanted to get people talking about and linking to their site.