Maggie in the Middle Kingdom

Talking Politics with Charlie

For the Spring Festival, aka Chinese New Year, aka Chun Jie, I went down to visit a friend's family near Mengla, a city in Xishuangbanna near the borders with Laos and Myanmar. This part of Yunnan is tropical in climate, with rainforests, tall bamboo trees and that hazy, lazy feeling that makes you want to take a nap at 3:00 every afternoon.

My friend lived in a village that, like many in China, was basically a company town. Everyone worked for the local rubber company. Rubber trees grew everywhere, and they're actually quite pretty—tall and slender, spitting out profitable black spirals of sap. My friend's family lived less than 50 yards from company headquarters, in one of many rows of two-story cement buildings.

At dinner the first night, I talked a little bit with her parents about their past and my friend's childhood. Her father was very proud of what he'd made of himself, "Life was hard," he said. "We were very poor. We were four people on one bike." This was a reference to a common site all over China—poor families (though certainly not the poorest of the poor) who can only afford a bicycle or scooter and ride around on it together. It's remarkable (and of course completely unsafe) how they do this. You might see Dad driving, a toddler sitting on the running board, an older child on the seat in front of him and Mom sitting sidesaddle on the back. Now he owned a Kia automobile, and had sent at least one of three daughters to university. I also happened to know that one of my friend's grandfathers had died of starvation during the Great Leap Forward. The distance that so many families have traveled in such a short time here is amazing.

My friend's father mentioned that his career began in the army, helping Vietnam in the war against the United States. "That's history," he was quick to say.  And I believed that he felt this way.  The Chinese can sometimes be very reasonable when it comes to leaving the past behind. He was more interested in talking about the present.

"Who do you think will win the United States' next election?" he asked.

"I don't know," I answered. "Who would you like to see win?"

"The black man," he said. "America needs change, and that woman  is from the old guard. America also needs someone who can fix its problems with minority people."

It later occurred to me that he might be confusing the Democratic primary with the national elections. I also regretted that my limited knowledge of Chinese didn't allow the conversation to go any further. In any event, I appreciated the fact that I was sitting in the dining room of a Chinese man who had managed to pull his family up from poverty, getting his start by fighting against my country four decades ago, and now we were discussing my country's politics. His reasons for his political preference may have been superficial, but he clearly had more than passing interest in the contest.

Help Wanted: Free Accomodations

For lots of Chinese workers, when the workday is over, you don't have to go home and you can stay here. It's common to see a bed attached to a workplace. My building has bunks for our security guards that go unused and many shops have little lofts in the back the size of a truck's flatbed. Often, the poor souls who operate public toilets have tiny living quarters attached to the W.C. I'm guessing the bed-included phenomenon has a little to do with the socialist tradition of providing shelter and food for workers, a little to do with the  large population of migrant workers and a lot to do with things about China that I still know nothing about.

In some cases, as (I believe) that of the shopkeeper and the public toilet, it's a matter of entrepreneurs getting a two-fer—a home included with the price of their place of business. And that is something I'm sure a lot of hustling Americans, especially New York–based ones, can understand. In fact, I have a personal trainer friend who operates a gym in Soho which also happens to be where he sleeps. If he had to pay rent on both a home and a gym, I'm sure he'd be priced out of that swanky area, and finding clients for his specialized services in the Bronx could be hard.

But unlike one family that lives next to my apartment building (I live in the very comfortable quarters for government human resources employees), my trainer friend doesn't live in a garage that doubles as a small car parking business. This family hangs their laundry out on a large fence in the street, and they wash their hair and brush their teeth in basins outside. The garage floor is made of dirty cement. Sound like an awful way to live? Maybe it is, but these people host more dinners than Martha Stewart. On most evenings they have a crowd of friends over sharing a meal over a coal-burning stove, playing cards and drinking tea and baijiu.

Jesse Wins!

I had my first visitor last week, and we had a great trip. We went to Lijiang and Shaxi, and spent most of the week hiking. It was awesome to see an old friend, especially one who I could be attached to by the hip for a solid week with no problems. Pictures and stories coming soon.

RIP Jake

When I was packing for China, one of the few clothing items that I decided to keep stored back in the United States was a purple T-shirt I bought when I was 12. It has a photo of a dark-skinned black man in oversized shades, a wide-brimmed straw hat, sport coat and scarf, showing off a guitar with a Mickey Mouse sticker. Over his head, it says "I Brake for Jake!" Today I found out that Shakey Jake, nee Jake Woods, died a few days ago at the age of 82.

Shakey Jake basically hung around Ann Arbor "playing" his guitar and singing, since the beginning of time I think. His favorite song went like this "He-ey-ey-ey. Hey-ey-ey-ey-ey." And no, you're not missing out on the melody. There was none. Jake couldn't really play the guitar. But he was a bluesman to the core—nothing you'd expect to hear at B.B. King's, but if you can't believe the blues coming out of a man like this, then you don't know what the blues is about.

Jake wore great outfits—always a coat, hat, shades and a funky pair of shoes, whatever the weather. He had a ready smile and a sense of humor, but also an an air of mystery that was intoxicating to the 12-year-old girl who bought that T-shirt. Jake wasn't born in Ann Arbor, but that just added to the mystery. Where was he from? Where did he live? Did he have a family? He added to the legend with outrageous tales about himself: I was born in 1900. I've been around the world dozens of times, but never in an airplane.

Rumor had it that Shakey Jake was homeless (not true), but rumor also had it he owned a big house with several cars. I always thought it possible that that rumor was true, because people liked the guy so much it wouldn't have surprised me at all if someone had hooked him up with a nice pad and a ride or two of his own. He used to bum rides off of random residents (hence, "I Brake..."), including, once my mom, and had a lot of help from people in town who loved him. He was as beloved as former football coach Bo Schembechler or... well, I think they're pretty much the two favorite sons of my hometown (you might throw Gerald Ford in there, but that's a little before my time).

He turned his persona into a little business, selling these T-shirts for 10 bucks, along with bumper stickers and some CDs for the diehards. This man who seemed to have so little to be happy about, at least in the way we often define happiness, spread nothing but smiles when he walked around town. A couple of local restaurants fed him for free and a shopkeeper handled his paperwork and finances. The whole arrangement was one that could only have worked in a small, quirky town like Ann Arbor.

R.I.P. Jake. (Curious? Here's a great video on YouTube)

P.S. My friend Rachel recently posted this great anecdote on Facebook: So, I'm next to Mr. Jake in line at Espresso Royale, I said "Hey, how you doin today Shakey?" He says, "Oh, I'm just waitin." So I said "waitin for some good coffee, huh?" He says "No baby, I'm waitin on you to make the first move." He thought he was hilarious, and I agreed.

Help and Hospitality—Whether You Want It Or Not

ACT I
Yesterday I bumped my head, harder than I ever have in my life. I was going down from the loft at Prague Cafe and forgot how low the ceiling above the stairs was. It was such a hard hit that I heard an awful cracking sound, which I'm still trying to forget, and literally fell down on the floor. I felt a little dazed the rest of the day and got a golf ball-sized bump on the top of my head.

I mentioned this to my friend Emily (Chinese name Li Qing Rong), a medical student. I half wanted to ask her to call me in the morning to make sure I hadn't slipped into unconsciousness, but decided not to worry her. She did me one better, showing up at my apartment in the morning, her 8-year-old niece in tow, to check on my head. I had woken up but hadn't showered or really gotten dressed yet, but I invited them in for tea. I wasn't ready, or really in the mood, for a visitor; but it's nice to know that someone who knows where I live is looking out for me.

ACT II

Tonight, I just wanted to get a cheap meal, do a little work, then go out for a couple drinks. I went out looking for Beef Stew Rice Noodle, a ubiquitous chain. Only it wasn't quite ubiquitous enough for me to find it. So I went into this cute restaurant, only  to discover it was a cafe instead of a restaurant. I told the two women working there that I couldn't stay because I had to eat. They were enjoying their home made meal and invited me to join them.

I hesitated about whether to stay or not. I wasn't sure if it was a genuine invitation or a gesture I was meant to politely decline. There is a comedy sketch in my Mandarin text book, where a Chinese guy invites this unwitting foreigner over for dinner. The foreigner persistently tries to find a date that works, while the Chinese guy keeps on explaining why this and that day don't work for him. Finally they settle on "next Thursday." Apparently the foreigner was supposed to decline the invite. My teacher thought it was hilarious. I thought it was terrifying. How am I supposed to discern the difference between genuine invitations and patronization?

Anyway, I joined them. The meal turned out to consist of chicken in little, bone-in, fatty pieces with thick skin still attached; spicy bamboo and some other plant I never tried before and didn't particularly like; then some rice and potatoes. The meal, to me, was not the best that Kunming has to offer. I ate as much as I could. I felt obligated to order something to drink, but I couldn't read the menu, so I ordered the only thing I could understand: a cup of Yunnan coffee. They ground the coffee by hand at the table, taking about half an hour and requiring me to stay much longer than I'd intended. We tried to talk to each other, but the language barrier was even higher than usual since these were real local people who spoke Kunming-hua instead of Putong-hua.  When they served the coffee, it was strong, but not nearly as tasty as some of the Yunnan coffee I've had.

When I left, I stopped at a convenience store to pick up instant noodles, Oreos and a Tsing Tao. Mmm... Dinner.

Good Student- Photo Evidence

Remember the little boy I mentioned in this post? My friend Jessica just sent me photos that she took that day, and you can really see just how eager he is to learn. I'll be returning to the center soon, and I hope he's there. [Jessica is a student at the New School—to see more of her China pictures, go to her Flickr page

The Other Side of the Canal

Several weeks ago, I went to Daguan park, in the southwest region of Kunming. My friend Carissa and I wandered around the park, snapping photos of the sculptures, marveling at the empty kitschy amusement park rides, buying ice cream and napping in the sun. Later I posted this photo of myself in the park.

As is so often true here, there was a small part of the story that I didn’t get around to telling. That day, Carissa and I walked toward what we thought was another island with more park and scenic views, only to find that it was a community of decaying shacks with fiberglass roofs held down by scraps of brick. There was a small “park” over there, but it was the absurd cousin of the one that we stood in. No landscaping, no snack stands, no paddleboats to rent. Instead there were mounds of dirt amid the trees, and barefoot children looking across at Daguan Park. A dirty canal and a three-kuai admission fee separated us.

Last week, I went to a community center in that neighborhood to teach English. I was told these kids do not go to school, either because their parents can’t afford the city’s registration fee, or because their parents are migrant workers from the rural areas who don’t officially live in Kunming. I noticed that a couple of the kids had actual siblings, which may be another part of the problem: A family that doesn’t want to get caught with two children, and then pay a fine five times their annual salary, would have to keep one at home.

Most children lacked decent shoes; none wore clean clothes; all were in need of baths. We “taught” for an hour, practicing counting and simple words. Like most kids, they couldn’t pay attention for too long. Except one little boy who looked to be about six years old (although he was probably older; poor diets mean that these kids’ physical growth lags behind their middle class counterparts). He had an eagerness to learn that I’ve seen in few other children. When the others ran off to play Pokemon in the other half of the room, he took a book from the pile and brought it over to me. I pointed at the pictures and he read the words to me in Chinese—lang, huang, lanqiu. I read them in English—wolf, yellow, basketball—and he repeated them back to me. In less than an hour, I could see him learning. He got better at counting and could recall some of the words without prompting. If this bright little boy were able to go to school, I’m sure he could accomplish quite a bit.

After “class” we went with one girl to her family’s shack. Six of them live in a room the size of my kitchen in New York (nine feet by ten feet). There are two beds, one above the other, a coal pot and a case full of utensils and dishes. In the middle of the floor is a plastic bucket to catch the rain that drips through the roof. In one corner, their clothes hang from the ceiling.

The three of us Americans sat on plastic stools, and the nainai (grandmother) brought us bowls of hot tea. My friend had brought them, a couple of days before, a photograph of the family together (the one that you see at the top of this post). The photo and its simple frame were displayed prominently in the home, and when some friends came over to visit they showed it off.

When we got up to leave, nainai invited us to stay and eat. I am a little ashamed to admit that I was afraid to eat there, and we really did need to get going. As we walked out of their shantytown, nainai sent the little girl after us with some money. We tried to walk away, but nainai and the girl were fast. In the end, we had to run down the street to refuse the money.

On our way home, talk inevitably turned to problems we’d seen and how they could be solved. The solutions seem simple—the amount of money required to send that boy to school would be easy for me to part with. But in reality, translating my disposable income into that child actually sitting in a classroom with a book and a pencil, is much more complicated.

One Big Misunderstanding

I recently read a story online (which, of course, I can't find now) that ranked the world's friendliest cities. China had a really poor showing-- no cities to be found in at least the top 25, if not 50 or 100. This reflects an opinion that I've heard from some Westerners before-- that they don't find Chinese cities very  friendly.

But my experience here has been quite different. This past week while traveling in Beijing, I have found it a challenge to navigate this huge city. And every day someone has gone to relative extremes to help me find my way. There was the man on the street who called the IKEA store to find directions for me; there was the young guy from Harbin who walked me to my bus stop when I asked him where we were; there was the couple on the Great Wall who hunted me down to tell me that they'd found a closer exit than the one I was headed to. While I would say New Yorkers are friendly and love to give directions and recommend restaurants, I don't think people go this far to help visitors. These people also are very interested in me. Everyone wants to know where I'm from, and everyone tells me "Welcome to China."

Now it is true that people here will cut in line in a hurry, and that they rarely apologize when bumping into you. But you handle the cutting by asserting your position in public places, and when it comes to the bumping, well, if you've spent any time in a crowded city you know that if people apologized whenever they brushed up against someone, the city would grind to a halt.

My opinion is that the rude label the Chinese seem to have unofficially acquired is one big misunderstanding, and it comes down largely to the sizeable language barrier here. English is the international language of travelers, from Mexico City to Copenhagen, making it possible to get around major cities without knowing the local language. Even in Beijing, many signs are in English and it's possible to find an English speaker in most crowds. But it is still not widely spoken and in some places you'll be surprised to not find English signage (the Badaling section of the Great Wall, for instance, has only Chinese signs once you start climbing). It's a stated goal of the government to have 35% of the population speaking English in time for the games, and although they claim to be "near" this goal, I can tell you this is certainly not the case. Taxi drivers, waitresses, ticket sellers at major attractions--most know very very little English.

I think that even the people who speak a little here are very shy and embarrassed about trying to use it. They have so few chances to practice with native speakers, they're afraid what will really come out of their mouths. When people try to speak to them in English, they wave their hands and avert their eyes. But all of the interactions that I describe above began with me asking for help in Chinese. It doesn't take much: If you know how to say, "Where are we?" or "Where is?" or "Excuse me," they open up and become very interested in you. 

I think that when the study I mentioned (which I WILL hunt down and post) is repeated in, say 5 or 10 years, when more Chinese speak English and more foreigners speak Chinese, you will see cities here quickly shoot up the list of World's Friendliest.