The Multi-Lingual Man

Today I was at The Bookworm for the first time to get some inspiration. It was all that I expected it to be, except the coffee was a tad bit expensive for my taste.

In any case, I spent three hours trying to draft a personal statement, but failed miserably.

As I was leaving, I saw a stand full of Time Out China magazines. There was no price, so I assumed they must be free, but I just stood there by the doorway reading the latest issue about what to do for National Day. Since I didn't want to write anything down or take the magazine, I noted down some things on my blackberry that can't read or write Chinese.

Suddenly this Chinese man says, "你在练习你的英文啊？" Then I turn around and say to him back in Chinese, "不是！我只在看看。 我是美国人." Suddenly it didn't even matter that I spoke Chinese because the man started just speaking in English to me. He spoke quite well. 

"Oh, I thought you were practicing your English. Ha, ha." He takes the magazine out of my hand. "I saw you writing down notes"

"我只是在看看。。。"

No matter. Then he says, "Oh I see. So you know English and Chinese?"

I gave up and just spoke English. "Yeah."

"What other languages?"

"Um, I guess I do know French too."

Then all of a sudden he starts speaking some really fabulous French and I tell him, "wow, vous parlez très bien! quand je parle j'ai un accent americain."

"Non, non...en fait quand tout le monde parle, on a un accent. Comme les Canadiens, les Belges..."

I was mystified. This multi-lingual man is so multi-lingual. WHAT DOES THIS MAN WANT FROM ME? He asked me if I spoke Spanish, and then used a bit of Spanish on me (I said I didn't know any Spanish!) and then he asked if I knew German, and tried that on me too. We spoke for a little while, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to read the Time Out magazine anymore, nor was I going to be able to not feel inadequate.

"OK, so, I'm going to go," I told him. Then he bid me farewell.

Whatever.

Good thing about Beijing, though, is that there are SO MANY UNIQLO SHOPS AND MUJI SHOPS TOO! AHHHHH!

Oh, and today I noticed that in my classroom's map of China, Taiwan is included. I'm not saying anything else.

 

Myths and Facts: Series One

I'm slowly realizing some myths and facts about China (well, probably more about Beijing).

Myth: No one knows how to line-up in China.
Fact: Ever since Beijing had to prepare for the Olympics and facing an international community, the government created days focused on teaching citizens how to line-up. So far, many of my Chinese comrades line up very properly. But when they don't, they're usually scoffed at by other Chinese people. Also, beware of old ladies because they are really the ones notorious for cutting (like last night I was cut-off by two old Chinese women in the bathroom line at the Opera).

Myth: People in Beijing/China spit a lot.
Fact: OK, ok, so these Chinese really do spit a lot. Despite having gotten someone's spit on the back of one of my shirts during my 2+ weeks here, I have to admit that the spitting situation is MUCH better than it was when I was last here four years ago. Again, thank the Olympic-preparation for this. Sure, you still see people spitting on the streets and while driving in their car, but at least now they're watching where they spit and not aiming for distant ground.

Myth: Chinese KFC has chicken that are unhealthy because they're genetically mutated to have THREE legs. (I heard this in Taiwan, obviously).
Fact: Um, I don't know about that. But KFC's really popular in Beijing, I've seen more KFCs than McDonald's. Frankly, KFC looks REALLY appealing because they've got french fries and shrimp-based entrées.

Myth: China's really dirty and polluted.
Fact: That's true and not true at the same time. I do see a thin layer of smog every morning and when I'm in the heart of the city, and my skin has never been worse. Never. However, China's much cleaner than it used to be. The streets are not so filthy and if you venture to Tiananmen Square and around those parts, you'll definitely see lots of clean areas....

Myth: Beijing's so under-developed.
Fact: I may have actually said that statement before, and that's only because the last time I was here, it really was under-developed! That's hardly the case now. Those old hu tongs have been taken down (sadly) and new, huge, shiny buildings and sky scrappers take their places. Like anyone should know, China's got a growing middle class now, so that means more businesses, a lot of cars, a lot of new industries that are up-and-coming. Being in the first/second rings of Beijing is almost like being in NYC's wall street or mid-town. Really!

Ta da! Back to Chinese homework.

 

The Founding of a Republic

This weekend I spent a lot of quality time with Mother since Dad left Beijing to go back to Taiwan. On Saturday, Mom and I went antiquing and found a lot of really pretty things.

Pretty things include lots of really beautiful paintings of Chinese Opera singers, vases, beads, etc. Not so pretty things include tiger hide. Dead serious. There was a little group of men on the street just hanging out with some tiger fur. I went over to take a picture and see if it was real or not. I'm not 100% sure if they're for real because they were selling the tiger for 400-something Yuan, which is like, 59-ish US dollars. Tiger can't be that cheap, can it? I told them that I refuse to buy it: fake or real, but then one of the vendors chased me with the tiger across the street. That's scary shit.

Today I had the pleasure of watching a movie with Mom called "The Founding of a Republic" (建国大业). As you may have guessed, this movie is about the rise of Communism in China and was released just a week ago just in time for the 60th anniversary of Communist rule in China (remember Western folks, 60 is a significant milestone year for Chinese). The movie actually detailed the events that happened after World War II, which was basically the Chinese Civil War continued and, in essence, the Communist Revolution in China.

Quick history lesson (you can skip this if you'd like): Chinese Civil War was fought between the the Chinese Nationalist Party (AKA Kuomintang, KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC). This civil war began in 1927, which was only a decade or so after Sun Yat-Sen took down the Qing dynasty to build a republic in China. So the KMT, led by General/President Chiang Kai-Shek, and CPC, led by Mao Zedong, fought and fought for rule of China, only stopping for the Sino-Japanese War (aka WWII), together pushing the Japanese out of China. After this great feat, the two parties thought that they could be united in peace; however, the civil war started up again in 1946. The KMT were eventually pushed out of China and into Taiwan while Mao Zedong and the CPC declared China a Communist state on October 1, 1949 in Tiananmen Square and renamed Beiping into Beijing. In Taiwan, the KMT set up their government and declared them to still be representative of China as a whole.

The movie was almost a good history lesson. Lots of battles were discussed in the movie and lots of important personnel were introduced. But, of course, this is a movie about Mao in China, so there were some interesting dynamics. On a side note, the movie was jam-pack full of A-list Chinese stars including Zhang Ziyi, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and Donnie Yen.

Mao Zedong was depicted as very great man. Every word that came out of Mao's mouth was meaningful, well thought-out, and inspiring. He was portrayed as not wanting to fight anymore and only wanting peace for the benefit of China. The film gave me a glimpse of Mao's life: there he is playing in the meadow of pink flowers with his daughter teaching her how to write, he's up on the roof top looking at the stars and writing poetry, giving the common man a pack of his own cigarettes. Impressive, no?

Then there's Chiang Kai-Shek. Every word that came out of General Chiang's mouth was shallow and selfish. He spoke in platitudes and didn't really care about the republic of China. His family takes money from the treasury, he orders KMT secret agents to kill people that are openly pro-CPC, he even told secret agents to kill off an entire political party (the Chinese Democratic Party that I don't think I've ever read about...). All he wants is to go to war. Yikes.

Ultimately, Chiang and the KMT crew flee to Taiwan, and we see that Mao is victorious! In Beiping, he is greeted by thousands of members of the People's Liberation Army as they chant, "LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN MAO!" Then, the movie closes with General Chiang being told that the US will no longer support their battle to win China, and then we're shown REAL FOOTAGE of Mao at Tiananmen Square on October 1, 1949. The Chinese national anthem plays in the background as we see Chairman Mao greeting all his people happily, the subtitles say that dozens of political parties were invited to voice their opinions and be a part of the first republic, and then we see the Chinese flag waving in the air for a few minutes before the credits roll.

Truth is, the Chinese can't confront anything that happened to China after that day under Chairman Mao. I'm not going to say anything more because I'm in Beijing, but...the movie did show Mao's glory days. Also, truly, the KMT really were selfish. Chiang Kai-Shek's extended family stole millions of money that the US had given to the KMT to defeat the CPC. It's true, they were really focused on their self-interests! However, I'm not so sure about the other things.

Anyway, there's not much more I can say, except that it was a great movie-watching experience. Afterwards, Mom and I found a huge 50-ft statue of Shaquille O'Neal in Chaoyang Park.

Updated my flickr photos, and added some links:

• Communist Revolution Glossary
• Save China's Tigers
• Chinese Babies Stolen For Adoption (ok, so I never talked about this today, but still good article to read!)

New Developments

I'm just sitting in my room reading "One Hundred Years of Solitude" because today is the last day Beijing has before 10/1 (National Day) to practice for the big ceremony, so my only access to inner Beijing is cut off at 3:30. That means, even if I did go somewhere on the 1 line (it's much like Paris: the 1 line goes straight through the city, hitting all the popular places), I would not be able to get back to my place.

I was originally going to go to a really cool bookstore called The Bookworm to check out some new books and make some expat friends and then watch a new movie that's supposed to be about the Chinese Civil War -- oh, you know which one I'm talking about. The civil war really became juicy in 1946 and in a few years' time, the Communist Party of China pushed the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) to Taiwan. Thus, October 1st marks the 60th Anniversary of the Communist Party of China's rule over China. Oh, and that's why this movie came out.

My plans for the day have become significantly more boring. But then I get this call from my mom and she says to me, "Your dad just bought a house in Beijing!" Then I laugh and she laughs for a long time, and she says to me, "Seriously. He did."

What the Hell?

Exotic Person

Hi friends/comrades

Here I am in China. I'm getting a little tired of e-mailing everyone individually about my experiences here in China. I love writing to everyone, but I think I should focus more on writing Chinese here.

Today I realized that I am an exotic person in China.

I'm going to school with a lot of international students from all around Asia and most of them have never been to the United States and are fascinated by me because of the fact that I am Chinese, and yet I have an American passport. Hum, weird.

Everyone's first comment to me is something like this, "Wow, your Chinese is really good. Where are you from?" (except imagine this being said in Chinese most of the time).

"Guess!" I reply. (Sometimes I tell them to guess, sometimes they guess on their own.)

"You look like you're from Thailand. No? Philippines? Uh, Malaysia?"

"I'm from the United States."

"What! You don't look like you're American" -- and there is always eye-widening and then eye-squinting and serious mental damage done.

So then you go on to say, oh, my parents came to America, I was born in America, hence I'm American...and everyone gets a big kick out of it.

For example, today I was with one Malaysian and two Thai men at the hospital and we chat happily in Chinese. They could not get over my American Chineseness (the Thai guys say that I have the face of a Thai girl. When the building manager asked me and my mom if we were Malaysian, my mom replied "It's because we're so dark, ISN'T IT, [bitch]?") and the fact that I was in Beijing to learn more Chinese. Flattery, flattery, flattery. It was unimaginable to them that there were people who grew up speaking fluently two languages in America. Of course, this idea isn't foreign to me. Go ahead and look up the racial statistics of Diamond Bar, Rowland Heights, and the greater Los Angeles area in general. With an area so saturated with Chinese and Koreans, it's sort of impossible to not keep your mother tongue alive. I feel like the loser in town because I can't really read or write ze language (but that'll soon change!).

Oh, and I mentioned a hospital. I was in the hospital because my physical in America wasn't thorough enough. My doctor didn't give me a picture of my chest x-ray or my ECG chart and so I had to go to a local hospital to get that done in order to get a resident permit for living in Beijing. So complicated.

I was accompanied with ten other international students and we drove an hour in a van to get to the hospital. Long drive. Le tiring.

The hospital was a mess. There was a section dedicated solely for giving foreigners (like us) physicals to fill out those forms in order to get a resident permit. Chaos ensued. There were lines galore! It's a disgusting site. For my ECG, they didn't even change that paper sheet on the bed I had to lie on and the sticky nodes they stuck to my body were merely pulled out of a bucket of water where they were soaking for a minute in between patients.

I'm just so lucky that they accepted my blood tests I had done in America because I'm not sure I could have stomached getting my blood drawn in China.

(PS since all Blogger is censored in China, I'm writing via e-mail blogging? Let's see if it actually works).