Feb 23, 2011 |
Do they really eat dog in China? This is a question that we are seldom asked and yet is often alluded to when we are speaking with people from home. The allusions most often come packaged in a valiant stab at cross-cultural humor such as, “Hey honey! Hide the dog, the Joneses are here (pause for comedic effect) and they live in China.” This is followed by obscenely loud laughter (usually restricted to the jokester) and an awkward moment of silence. When the comedian senses the joke is bombing he generally goes for the gold with his absolutely original attempt at speaking Chinese. “No seriously, Ahsooo. You riv in China. You speaka da Chineez. Ah ching chang willy willy bing bang bong.” To which my favorite response so far is “Really? You should have a doctor look at that.”
So the failed attempt at comic relief still leaves the question unanswered. Do they?
Oh if it were only that easy. There are so, so many cultural dynamics surrounding this powerfully loaded question that it becomes a challenge for most Westerners who have lived in China to answer without biting a hole in their lip. This generally leads to complete avoidance of the question and the types of people who might ask it or even worse, allude to it. It’s not that we wouldn’t love to give a simple “yes” or “no” it’s just that we know where this is going. More bad jokes. Unbearable. Must avoid at all costs.
Ok but do they?
Nice try but not so fast. I have yet to hear of a single instance of dog for dinner in the States. Scratch that. I have heard of a few, but only in the context of someone making brilliantly clever jokes about a Chinese restaurant. In good conscience though I can’t count those because I’m not sure if they meant to say “wing ching dilly dolly dong” or “bing ching dilly dolly dong” which, as we all know, means something completely different. So no verifiable dog dishes to my knowledge. Why? This is the least considered question surrounding the topic but it could be the most valid. Why don’t we eat dog? Answer: (say it with me) “Because that’s disgusting!!!” This surfaces another completely different question . . . “Why?” Why are we so disgusted by the thought of eating dog? Immediately thoughts rush our brain. Lassie, Benji, Max (my best childhood friend). Poodles with their Brady Bunch perms and those big monstrous dogs that carry a keg of beer around their neck to rescue skiers who have been lost in the Alps for weeks (evidently with no beer). Dogs are friends. They are family. They are heros and in our culture we don’t eat friends, family or heros. Why? Because that’s disgusting.
Just answer the question! Almost there.
So where does our concept of disgust come from? (said the writer, attempting to spark the most pointlessly philosophical discussion on dog meat ever). I believe it all started with the things in your nose. You heard me. You were three years old and there was something in your nose. You didn’t know what it was or how it got there but you did know you wanted it out. Now. “Oh look, I have a finger!” It’s as if God had specifically and strategically designed a special nose cleaning tool and placed it right on the end of your hand. He even equipped it with a little scraping mechanism for greater functionality. So you picked. Maybe you even ate. And your mother said calmly, “please child, don’t do that.”
“Why mommy?”
“Because it’s disgusting.” And there it began. The seed of disgust was planted and from that moment on it was watered and fertilized.
“Johnny ate a bug!”
“Ewww! Disgusting.”
“Billy kissed a girl!”
“Awww! Disgusting”
“Chinese people eat dogs!”
“Oooooo! Dis – gus – ting!”
The plant was trimmed and pruned until it grew into the fully blossomed, fruit bearing tree that has it’s roots buried deeply into the very fiber of your being. We don’t eat bugs or dogs. We do kiss girls. This fell off of the disgusting tree when puberty was allowed to do the pruning for a bit but most things stuck. So eating dogs is quite frankly . . . disgusting.
But do Chinese people eat them?
Maybe a better question would be are Chinese people disgusted by the thought of eating dog? In the interest of not speaking ignorantly on behalf of a billion and a half people I chose to discuss the topic with our assistant who is, in fact, a real life, 100% authentic, Chinese person and will therefore (for the purposes of my research) represent and speak definitively on behalf of all Chinese people (and possibly all Asians).
The conversation was rich and lively and funny and led us to an unexpected ending.
We discovered a list of thirteen meats that I had eaten and she had not (some in China, most in America). Here’s the kicker . . . some of them, she found absolutely disgusting (most likely because she also picked her nose when she was three). Evidently disgust goes both ways and I can’t help but think that somewhere in China there is a painfully unfunny, self appointed comedian cracking bad America jokes.
Here’s the list and yes . . . they do eat dog in China. Tastes like beef.
1. Deer
2. Frog
3. Alligator
4. Snake
5. Squirrel (highly protected by Chinese law)
6. Silk Worms
7. Shark
8. Bear
9. Moose
10. Lobster (she owned as a pet)
11. Veal
12. Chicken Fried Steak
13. Bologna (Ironic this doesn’t hit our disgusting scale)
Feb 18, 2011 |
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Sweet Valentines made by my Valentine Sweety
for her Sweet Valentine Sweety (that’s me)
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Like most other Western holidays, Valentine’s Day has landed in the Middle Kingdom and planted it’s flag of sticky sweet, chocolate covered commercialism. I was excited this year, one because I didn’t forget it and two because my wife and I were actually getting to go on a real date. After a lovely afternoon foot rub (one of the perks of living in China) and a quite pricy dinner at one of the city’s finest Italian restaurants, I found myself feeling woefully inadequate and riddled with guilt (which everyone knows is the underlying conspiracy behind Valentine’s Day that fuels the sticky sweet, chocolate covered commercialism). In the five minutes that it took us to find a taxi after leaving the restaurant we saw 37,000 young Chinese women carrying massive, gaudy bouquets of multi-colored roses decorated with sparkling sequins and glitter. Each stomped with a catwalk confidence and was followed by a pompous young man grinning with the pride that only comes when you get it just right. My wife, on the other hand, had very clean, relaxed feet and a full stomach, neither of which could be seen by the crowd’s of flower toting, love struck gloaters who were now laughing, pointing and high-fiving each other because the Western guy (who should know something about Valentine’s Day) didn’t even get his wife the massive, shiny bouquet. I was completely assured that China understands Valentine’s Day.
However, explaining the word Valentine is not so easy.
My Chinese friend asked me a simple question. “What is Valentine’s Day?”
“Well, it’s a special day for . . . umm ”
She helped me out, “It’s just for people who love each other, right?”
“Yes. It’s a day for people who love each other.”
“So what does it mean, ‘Will you be my Valentine?'”
I had never considered this to be a confusing topic but the more I tried to explain the more I learned otherwise. “Will you be my Valentine is kind of like saying I want you to be my girlfriend or my boyfriend but I would still say it to my wife who is already my wife so obviously she doesn’t have to be my boyfriend or girlfriend because she already is . . . my girlfriend . . . or was . . . before she was my wife . . . a long time ago, but she’s still my girlfriend, it’s just that we’re married now. And I can give my daughter some chocolate and a card, which I would also call a Valentine, that says “will you be my Valentine?” because I love her but obviously not in the same way that I love my wife but it’s still ok for me to give her a Valentine and be her Valentine. Also, she will take Valentines to her first grade class, that say ‘will you be my Valentine?’ and give them to all of her friends but not because she wants to profess her love for them or ask them to actually be her Valentine because she is not allowed to have a Valentine (in the boyfriend sense) until she is 28 . . . but she can have Valentine’s in the card and chocolate sense now, so in that respect a Valentine is just a nice thing to share with friends. So it’s not only for people who are in love but it’s still a special holiday . . . for people . . . who are in love . . . or love each other . . . but not always . . . sometimes . . . kind of.
I was glad to be able to clear that up for her. After further confusing discussions with others on the same subject it was my Valentine (the one with the clean feet, full stomach and lack of roses) who cleared up the dilemma of defining a Valentine.
What is a Valentine?
“It’s a noun.” Enough said.
Feb 11, 2011 |
So who had 17 months in the “How Long til Judah Gets Stitches” pool? Congratulations. You win.Another trip to Qingdao Municipal today for my son’s inevitable first stitches. Two to be exact, after a headfirst dive into the corner of the coffee table. It seems you don’t get to live in China long without having a painful and sometimes humorous health care story to tell.
Thankfully, this one is not ours. However, just a month and a half after the ER doctor sewed my wife’s nerve to her tendon with no anesthetic we walked in a bit apprehensive
(that is our painful health care story by the way). On a tip from a friend we discovered that the ER surgeon was not the only option for stitches and asked to go to the Dental Clinic section of the hospital (not sure why we didn’t think of that before). There we met a delightfully skilled surgeon and following a few brief moments of horrific screams (see above) Judah was stitched good as new (see below). Now we’re trying to figure out how to keep him from rubbing bananas in his bandage.
Sidenote – the whole trip cost about 20 US dollars which is five dollars less than our copay in the States (the upside of Chinese health care).
Other Sidenote – Our Stateside copay is about one one hundredth of the cost for my wife’s stitches factoring in three trips to Beijing and a surgery to fix the first, botched attempt (the downside).
Feb 9, 2011 |
I may quite possibly be the biggest fan of Chinese New Year in China. Ironic, I know. You would think the biggest fan would be an actual Chinese person but it’s not. It’s me. The fireworks display at midnight is completely unexplainable to those who have not experienced it. Massive explosions literally shake the air around you. Countless bursts of color and fire fill the sky in every direction. Children twirl their sparklers while grown men light washing machine size boxes just a few meters away. Deafening strings of firecrackers pause only long enough for someone to light another. Chest pounding with every boom, eyes stinging from the smoke, nose burning with the smell of gunpowder, ears ringing, every sense is overloaded. When 1.3 billion people play with tightly packed gunpowder at the exact same moment it is awesome.
The element of danger enhances the experience. The thought of how ridiculous it is to be standing directly beneath a display that dwarfs my hometown’s fourth of July (which was ignited from a mile away by trained firemen surrounded by emergency medical professionals) somehow makes it even better. When canons aimed up tip over and shoot straight along the ground, everyone grabs their children, scurries for a safe spot and when it is obvious that no one is hurt, there is a relieved “whoa!” followed by an amazed laugh and an instant retelling of what just happened by all parties involved. The reality of danger is occasionally present but conveniently easy to ignore.
Unfortunately, even the diehardest of diehard fireworks lovers, like myself, must at some point admit that ignoring the danger doesn’t change it’s reality. Below is a picture of a five star hotel just a couple of blocks from where we lived in Shenyang. It was taken around 12:30 am this New Year’s. Thankfully everyone got out safely but obviously tremendous damage was done and this was not an isolated event by any means.
This Year in China
- 11,800 reported fires (up from 7480 last year)
- $8.5 Billion (56 Billion RMB) in damages
- At least 40 fireworks related deaths
I think fireworks in China are representative of the much bigger picture of living cross culturally and possibly just life in general. They are wonderful and dangerous and beautiful and harmful. They create awe inspiring displays and overwhelming challenges all at the same time. One side doesn’t cancel other. Seeing one side and not the other (depending on your choice) can either get you hurt badly or cause you to miss something really good. Learning to live in paradox on the other hand, can give you a deep appreciation for the beautiful and a sobering respect for the challenges. That’s kind of how I feel about living in China.
Jan 31, 2011 |
If you have never lived in China be honest. Ever heard of Shenzhen? Tianjin? Guangzhou? (please don’t attempt pronunciation without help). How about New York? London? Tokyo? There are around 400 cities in the world with a population of more than one million and 160 of them are in China. Compare that to America’s 9. Rumor has it that there is one new Chinese mega-city on the horizon that you shouldn’t be able to ignore.
City planners in South China are laying out plans to create a massive new city that will be, hands down, the largest in the history of the galaxy. By merging 9 cities located around the Pearl River Delta the new monster-city will cover a huge portion of China’s southern manufacturing center that accounts for about one tenth of the Chinese economy. How big you ask? Great question. 16,000 square miles with a population of 42 million. Just to put it in perspective.
- 52 times the size of New York City and more than five times the population
- More people than live in Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nevada, Utah, Kansas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Connecticut, Guam, The U.S. Virgin Islands, The Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa combined
- Nearly twice the population of Australia
- 26 times the size of London
- 3 million times the population of my High School Class
Jan 28, 2011 |
It’s common knowledge that the most frustrating experience in the world is trying to find a taxi anywhere in China at 5pm. It’s a dual force at work. A billion people are getting off of work and need a taxi and the other 350 million (or as we call them here, taxi drivers) are right in the middle of a horribly placed, strategically annoying shift change. Supply and demand explodes and available drivers switch into hyper-selective mode, only accepting passengers who are on their route. The result is a pile up of wannabe passengers waving at every taxi driver who in return offers one of three responses: 1. The complete ignore 2. The “no no” wave or 3. (and this one is the worst because it offers such hope and then crushes it) the window roll down “where to?” followed by the “no no” wave. Add cold weather, heavy groceries or small children to test your ability to survive lethally high blood pressure.
Another natural result is that drivers (who are now holding all of the cards) will “double up.” That is, even though you have finally landed a ride they will stop, roll down your window, lean over your lap and ask other potential customers where they are going. On the way? “hop in, I just have to drop off this foreigner first.” Not on the way? “no no” wave.
Tonight I was rejected only a few times before a compassionate cabby told me to hurry up and get in. As we passed through an area that was completely saturated with dejected passenger hopefuls my guy slowed down for two sets of young ladies to offer hope and then crush it with his “no no” wave. This was the conversation that followed:
Quick Chinese Lesson: One of the terms for taxi driver is “siji” however, foreigners (like myself) often use the wrong tone when pronouncing and inadvertently call the driver a “dead chicken.”
Siji: (elbowing me) Did you see those girls? They were very pretty.
Me: (laughing and thinking, “You leaned over my lap to talk to them through my window, how could I not?) Yes I saw them.
Siji: I was hoping to give them a ride.
Me: So if they weren’t pretty you wouldn’t have stopped?
Siji: Exactly right. Chinese girls are very pretty.
Me: (thinking, since we’re in China couldn’t you just call them girls) hmmm.
Siji: Yeah, foreign girls are too fat.
Me: hmm.
Siji: (showing me with his hands) They have really fat legs.
Me: (biting my lip) Yes. Yes I suppose some of them do.
Siji: Is your wife Chinese?
Me: No. She’s American.
awkward silence
Me: She’s not fat though. She’s also very beautiful.
Siji: hmmm. . . You speak good Chinese.
Me: No, not really. Just a little
awkward silence
Me: So . . . this is my stop (exchange money)
Siji: Good night.
Me: Good night Dead Chicken.
Do they really eat dog in China? This is a question that we are seldom asked and yet is often alluded to when we are speaking with people from home. The allusions most often come packaged in a valiant stab at cross-cultural humor such as, “Hey honey! Hide the dog, the Joneses are here (pause for comedic effect) and they live in China.” This is followed by obscenely loud laughter (usually restricted to the jokester) and an awkward moment of silence. When the comedian senses the joke is bombing he generally goes for the gold with his absolutely original attempt at speaking Chinese. “No seriously, Ahsooo. You riv in China. You speaka da Chineez. Ah ching chang willy willy bing bang bong.” To which my favorite response so far is “Really? You should have a doctor look at that.”
