Happy Holidays from China with love

It was the strangest feeling walking through the malls here this past month.

Just like at home, there were dazzling ten-foot-tall Christmas trees and yards of sparkling lights strung along the streets and storefronts. Cheerful Santas and smiling snowmen lounged about in meticulous wintery tableaus. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” blared incessantly from strategically placed speakers.

But unlike home, I knew I would be returning to a cold, empty apartment for the holidays. And instead of rolling out of bed Christmas morning to make waffles and take pictures around the tree, I would be at school teaching.

I've missed Thanksgiving a couple times due to my travels, but never the Big 3-- Christmas, New Year's and my birthday. And, to be honest, I wasn’t thrilled about the idea. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. The smells, the warmth, the hint of surprise and mystery, that slight sparkle that everything seems tinged with as the day draws closer. I didn’t want to wait another 365 days to celebrate.

If living abroad has taught me anything, it has taught me to be adaptable. To make do. To Macgyver whatever situation you find yourself in and turn it into an opportunity.  

So this year, Christmas was introducing my students to Elf. It was forgetting the lyrics to “Winter Wonderland” while performing at the school’s Christmas Eve program. It was a can of Vanilla Coke for the Chinese teacher in the cubicle behind mine. It was a shared meal of rice and noodles at a new restaurant we found. It was singing Christmas hymns at church and praying for the safe return of our deported pastor. It was finding neither wrapping paper nor gift bows and settling for reusable grocery bags and large pieces of stationery paper. It was sitting with my brother in my little apartment and surprising each other with a gift that was somehow exactly what we both wanted and needed.

It was not like home. It was not Christmas as I imagined it should be. It was Christmas in China and I’ll never have another like it.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year’s to all of you, dear bloggies!

(For pictures from our Christmas Eve program at school, click here.)

Upon closer inspection

I'll soon be able to say that I've been in China for four whole months. Since that first vlog, when I talked about the three things that stood out most to me about China, I've been able to expand that list quite a bit. The longer you stay anyplace, the more its little eccentricities begin to show themselves. The following is a list (I know, another list. I promise the next post will be a proper entry) of all those eccentricities that I have witnessed or experienced firsthand, and that have surprised, amused or annoyed me over the last four months.


No personal space. I don't know that this one caught me too off guard. I mean, c'mon, I'm living in the most populous country in the world. Space is not a readily available commodity. And Ecuador taught me that yes, it's okay to stand so close to someone in the grocery line that your shoulder might double as their breast rest. (Yes. That happened.) Still, after having been in the states for several months before leaving for China, it took another round of readjustment to acclimate to having people all up in my business all the time. It bothers me less and the less the longer I'm here. But I still occasionally find myself inching ever so gradually away from the person breathing down my neck at WalMart just to see if I can maintain a respectable distance. It never works.

Line jumping. While we're on the topic of lines, let me share another Chinese social custom that I've learned to grit my teeth and bear. On countless occasions (mainly at the grocery store, but also at the Entry/Exit Bureau the other day), I have been waiting patiently in line when a harried man or woman comes rushing up the line, jumps right in front of me and hands their items to the cashier to be checked out. Thankfully, in most of these instances, the cashier will honor the fact that I was there first and will tell the person they have to wait while they check me out. On a few occasions, however, I've been forced to wait while the line jumper conducts their business and goes on about their merry way. This same "me first" mentality applies to getting on the bus as well. A few weeks ago, I was nearly stampeded by a group of aunties (elderly Chinese women) who were trying to get around me to get on the bus first. And the bus wasn't even full! *sigh* I know patience has never been my strong suit so perhaps living here will finally instill some in me. But still, my American self doesn't like it. Not one bit.

Women's fashion. One misconception that I had about China--that was quickly laid to rest--was the idea that women here dressed fairly conservatively. In my head, I viewed China as a traditional, highly structured society, and conservative dress seemed to just go hand in hand with that. I was so wrong. Like wrong wrong. Women's fashion in China tends to fall into two categories: sexy-borderline-inappropriate and babydoll. Let's begin with the former.

First, forget mini skirts. Let's just jump right to micro-mini. Like so mini I'm pretty sure you're just wearing a longish shirt. And don't worry. This is an all-inclusive,non-discriminatory look. If you're 55 and still want to step out in booty-baring clothes, more power to you. Just don't forget to add a pair of rhinestone-studded, clear, 5 inch heels to polish off the look. The same goes with shorts. The shorter the better. And if it's 50 degrees out? Don't put on pants. Just throw on some sheer pantyhose underneath and keep rockin' your Daisy Dukes. I kid you not, the other week this 50+ year old woman came marching into the canteen in tights, booty shorts, clear heels, a red, curly perm and a full face of makeup. As inconspicuous and understanding as I try to be when living in foreign countries, I will readily admit I stared. For awhile. And then felt slightly awkward and looked away. And then had to look again because what?!

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have the sugar and spice brigade. Remember those frilly, ruffly, bow-y, cotton candy party dress confections our mothers used to dress us in for birthday parties and Easter Sunday? And those cuffed party socks with the ribbons and ruffled edges that perfectly matched the cotton candy contraption we were wearing? Yes. Now imagine grown women walking around in slightly larger versions of those and instead of our patent leather Mary Janes they're wearing heels. Just. Imagine.

Now, I know I'm sounding terribly American right now. There are of course women who have found a happy medium and resemble neither a stripper nor My Little Pony. And one thing Chinese women are conservative about is covering up on top. As much as they like to show off their legs, showing cleavage is a huge no-no. And, thankfully, most of the women do tend to wear spanx underneath their micro mini clothing. However, if your skirt is so short that I can see that you're wearing spanx, I still feel like there's an issue that needs to be addressed.

Spitting. This one I knew about before coming to China. It was right up there with squat toilets. Every blog, guidebook, and acquaintance who had lived in or visited China felt the need to mention it. Now, I understand why. Everyone here spits. Everywhere. All the time. Men, women, children, young and old alike. They hock loogies like it's their job. And it's not a silent affair. Oh no. If you're going to do it, everyone within a 2km radius needs to know just what you're hacking up. And no, you don't need to find a patch of grass or someplace out of the way of foot traffic. Last week, some guy spit on the floor of the bus! I'm not an incredibly squeamish person, but that. That got me.

Nose picking. Apologies to all of my weak-stomached readers but this one has been a real personal trial for me. If it was just one or two instances, I would have just dismissed it as a distasteful anomaly and forgotten about it. Regrettably, it is a widespread condition. And this is no quick flick or scratch and snatch we're talking about here. These are full-on nasal expeditions that go on for a good 15 to 20 seconds (if not more!) and with no attempt to hide said actions. But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that the majority of these offenders have been adults! Needless to say, my hand sanitizer rarely leaves my side.

Butchering meat. I feel like the Chinese take the whole concept of "butchering" very literally. In America, when we go to the butcher's to get meat that has been butchered, it generally means that someone has taken the time to carefully separate the meat and bones into nice little edible segments like thighs and steaks and ribs. Here it means that you take a chicken or duck and just hack it to pieces helter skelter. I had duck for dinner tonight and while the heaping serving I received looked quite filling, almost 75% of it was inedible bone and gristle. This is almost always the case. Nicely sliced meat is more expensive and often requires a trip to a nice restaurant or a nice butcher shop. My running theory is that this "helter skelter butchering" is popular because it makes the meat easier to grab onto with chopsticks. But who really knows?


Now, please take all of these reflections with a grain of salt. These observations cannot be readily applied to every Chinese person or China as a whole. All of my perceptions are tainted by my own upbringing and American-ness, and what I see as distressing or hilarious is the product of my social conditioning.

However, I think it's good to include posts like these when I travel. We all make our way through the world carrying around grossly exaggerated cultural stereotypes or romanticized versions of exotic locales. Not everything we encounter in our travels is glamorous and alluring, and not everything lines up with our standards of how things should be. This is why we travel. To be confronted with the things that make us uncomfortable or impatient or maybe slightly queasy. Then we ask ourselves Why? 

If you only complain about your new environment and stop there, you have wasted an opportunity. But if you make it past that place to where you are able to sift through what you think and how you feel and why you behave a certain way, and then on to what others think and how they feel and why they behave a certain way, then you have done something more. You have begun an intercultural exchange--a dialogue--that creates compassion and understanding and self-growth. In that moment, global citizenship is no longer a hip buzzword you toss around over lattes at Starbucks. It is something your personal exchange is actively contributing to.