Jan 26, 2011 |
Lotus, the lady who runs the veggie shop at the front gate of our apartment complex, told me today that Judah looks more and more like me everyday.
That’s exactly what every dad wants to hear even if their children are adopted. And a different race. She could have stopped there but she felt compelled to explain. “In the summertime, his skin is so black, now he looks more like you.” Again. Good place to stop. But no. With a big smile on her face, and the pride that comes from knowing she is giving us both a huge compliment she said, “now is much more better.”
I thinks it’s funny how disconnected the head and the heart can be when it comes to deep cultural issues. I know what she was saying. I know the heart behind it and the thoughts connected to it. I grasp the social and economic dynamics that have shaped and honed and fine-tuned the stigma into its present form. I teach this stuff and still . . . I was immediately offended. My mind, in a split second, flashed through every racially charged concept I had ever understood. Martin Luther King Jr. and Amistad and Kunta Kinte and Bobby (the single African American student in my small town high school who was treated really poorly) all hit me like a water balloon in the face and for that split second, I wanted to rise up and fight oppression and hatred and prejudice and the man. When the second was over though I saw Lotus smiling again and I smiled back.
It’s changing (as is everything) in China but for years, maybe centuries dark skin has been associated with involuntary exposure to the sun, which is associated with hard work outside, which is associated with being poor, which is associated with low education, which is associated with not being smart, which is associated with . . . this keeps going for a while. In my culture it’s offensive to attach a stereotype to a person based on the lightness or darkness of their skin and thank goodness it is (it’s been a long time coming). But jokes about people with red necks are just plain funny. After all red necks come from over exposure to the sun, which comes from working hard outside, which comes from being poor . . .
My perspective: “What a narrow-minded, bigoted remark. How dare you insult my son.”
Her perspective: “What a beautiful boy and I wish for him a prosperous, healthy, secure life. Here, have an orange.”
Jan 26, 2011 |
When I first came to China I loffed and loffed (that’s a laugh with a scoff) when I found out that some phone numbers cost more than others. My Chinese friend tried to explain that 8’s are auspicious (although I don’t think he used that word), as are 6’s but 4’s sound like death so you want to stay away from them. Also, easy to remember numbers are good so the ultimate phone digits would be 8888-8888. Loffing I asked, “How much for that one?”
“You couldn’t afford it.”
The longer I live here the more I am amazed at the cultural impact of things like 8 and red and cabbage. However, I’m noticing I loff less than I used to. Loffing involves a thought process (conscious or not) which inevitably arrives at a conclusion that we would never do things that way and therefore frees us up to laugh. . . and scoff. Pay more for a phone number with 8’s? Seriously. Give me all 4’s if it’s cheaper? Plan your wedding to land on the 8th? Um. No. Start your Olympic opening ceremony on the 8th day of the 8th month in the year 2008 at 8pm (only because the television networks wouldn’t go for 8:08pm)? Not my Olympics. We would never be so swayed. It is to loff.
Last year I was back in the States when the woman standing in front of me at the convenience store nearly passed out when her total was $6.66. She bought an extra pack of gum.
July 7, 2007 (7.7.7.) was a record setting day in America for weddings and lottery tickets
Ever been in an elevator and noticed a missing 13?
I told some of my Chinese friends about these things. They just loffed.
Jan 24, 2011 |
micMAC was privileged to partner with Kellogg’s and International School of Qingdao (MTI) last week to share some fun-filled, goodie packed boxes of love with a group of amazing countryside school children. I am never not blown away by the “turn table” effect of events like this. I get geared up to do something humble. Helping impoverished children who may have never received anything like this and will no doubt light up to see a big, happy foreigner with a box full of sweets and cheap toys. This must be what it’s like to be the Beatles. Or Justin Bieber. Or Santa. Feels so good to do something nice for the less fortunate.
Then I meet the kids and the teachers and the parents and pretty much anyone within 5 kilometers of the school and a new layer is added to my understanding of fortune and poverty. I can’t begin to speak as an expert to the socioeconomic dynamics of China’s rapidly diminishing countryside population or the long term implications of massive urbanization which seems to be threatening the very core of the nation’s ancient agrarian roots and chipping away at its rich cultural heritage. I can however, speak with authority concerning this isolated fact. It’s nice there.
Not nice in the Gucci sense. Or the Maserati sense. Or the “we have heat in our homes to protect us from the bitter cold winters” sense. No, those are the luxury items you find all over the new China cities but not the countryside. There is a niceness though. It’s a purity and a warmth among the people. It’s an apparent lack of stress that seems to come with a lack of stuff and a lack of status. It’s an absence of pretense and bling that opens the door for sweet, smiling frost bitten faces (see above) and a lesson in true humility (see below).
Jan 24, 2011 |
I love that youtube viral, phenomenon series “Will it Blend?” Have you seen this? The virtually indestructible Blendtec Blender reduces anything and everything to powder. Light bulbs? Powder. Glow sticks? Powder. iPad? Yep. Powder. It’s the pinnacle of internet brilliance. Feeding on our mindless hunger for anything destructive millions of viewers watch over and over as the guy in the white coat asks the same question every time. “Will it blend?” And every time (well, almost), it does.
That’s kind of what this blog is about. Only instead of reducing one thing to powder this will be an ongoing experiment in mixing stuff together. What happens when you stick two cultures together and push liquify? How about three? Or ten? Add a marriage. Some kids. Then a business. Throw in some stereotypes and misconceptions, maybe even some prejudice and top it off with a few scoops of insecurity, pride and bumbling awkwardness. Will it blend? Oh I am confident that it will. Maybe a better question is “How does it taste when it does?”
So here’s to my youtube heros and the sheer genius of cramming things in a blender and pushing buttons. You inspire me.
