Chinese hospitality

One of the best things about living in China is how welcoming and hospitable people can be. Don’t get me wrong, this is not to say that everyone you meet is best friend material, nor that plenty of people won’t piss you off (particularly on crowded public transport..). What I do mean though is how accommodating people can be when you make an effort to socialise and mix with them.

A perfect example of this happened to me a few weeks ago when I went to the cable company to pay my TV bill. Whilst in the queue I got talking to one of the women that worked there and ended up giving her my QQ number. Long story short I ended up being invited to her family’s house for home-made dumplings and now have a regular badminton match with her husband. That is not even the first time that I have been treated to home-made dumplings – a chance comment to my friend about liking dumplings evolved into me having new year’s dinner with his parents replete with dumplings that his mum had painstakingly made the night before! This kind of accommodating character is not unusual, and I think that for new people coming out to China the most important thing is that you not only open yourself up to it, but actively pursue it. When I first came to China I was sometimes uneasy if someone I didn’t really know asked for my phone number or QQ, but usually they are just being friendly and if you pursue it you often find yourself having experiences you otherwise wouldn’t have had whilst making some great friends along the way.

If I asked many of my friends at home for a lift to the airport I don’t think there would be too many volunteers, but this kind of thing is something that Chinese people will generally do for their friends. When my brothers visited Wuhan last year my Chinese friends were basically queuing up to help out and provide lifts if needed (which I was quite happy to accept). The notion of friendship is taken very seriously and making Chinese friends is a very enriching experience. Learning Chinese is definitely something worth doing though as it opens so many doors and allows you to communicate with people you otherwise wouldn’t. This is not to say however that it is an uncrossable hurdle, one of my English friends in his first year regularly played football with a group of 9 or 10 Chinese guys. After football they would all get hotpot together and have a big night, occasionally even going to a KTV. Of the Chinese men only 1 or 2 really spoke English, but I know that for my friend it didn’t stop him from having a great time with them and making some good friends (he ended up going to two of their weddings).

I do think that it is important to have other foreign friends. Having people that speak the same language and share the same background is a hugely important thing in a foreign country. Having said this, making friends from outside this circle; whether middle-aged women from the cable shop or a rowdy Chinese football team is absolutely worth it, not just because you will experience and do things you otherwise wouldn’t, but because you will enjoy your time in China that much more if you have some good friends to rely on.

 

The response in China to different backgrounds and sexuality

Obviously this is not the most comfortable topic to write about but we feel it’s important to make our applicants aware of some of the scenarios that may present themselves when spending a significant amount of time in China. The first point I’d like to make is that Chinese people on the whole are some of the most welcoming and accommodating people you could ever wish you to meet. The kindness and hospitality I have experienced is beyond what I could ever have imagined and has meant I have adopted China as a second home. There are so many variations between London and Wuhan but I feel just as comfortable in China as I do back home. I would go as far as to say there are I even prefer parts of the lifestyle in China and have become accustomed to and very much miss when I go home.

However within Chinese culture there is a small amount of ignorant behaviour which although rare can be astonishing at times and hard to ignore. Certain views of Chinese people aren’t malicious but due simply to lack of education. It is actually quite shocking what Chinese people don’t know about the rest of the world and although the media outside China concentrate on the positives of their education system such as huge successes in maths and science its worth pointing out that R.E and World history are also important to learn. The lack of these subjects in their education system means Chinese people often fail to look past stereotypes they have seen on TV…..An English gentlemen….a romantic Frenchman……and a beer drinking German is a little monotonous after a while. China is not a multi-cultural society so perhaps it’s a little unfair to compare Wuhan with a city as modern and liberal as London where I am from however our most valued person is our applicants and we feel it’s important everyone understands what you might experience whilst living in China.

With regards to sexuality we have had gay teachers that have come to teach in China with us in previous years who have asked us whether they should make their sexuality public knowledge. I have asked Chinese people in Wuhan on several occasions whether there is a large gay community in Wuhan, the response almost every time has been “No, there are none….we don’t have gays”….Of course they do and I have met a few gay Chinese people in Wuhan however they certainly keep it quite low profile and within their close groups of friends. There is actually one gay bar located along the river in Hankou although it isn’t particularly well known and is quite well hidden. My advice for gay teachers coming to China would be to keep it to yourself until you've made a solid friendship group, I would say it’s probably not wise to make it instantly known to your Chinese co-workers.

Race is another issue where there is a severe lack of education. I was in a taxi with a friend of mine who is South African, he is white and when the taxi driver asked where he was from he simply said….”But…..You aren’t black”….It’s hard to find a response for a comment like that. Another common thing to find is that unless you’re from one of the bigger nations in the world there is a good chance most Chinese people would have never heard of your country. Smaller European nations tend to not be known and Africa seems to just be clumped together as one continent. I have heard the odd derogatory mark made against black people too which is appalling but is a reality. They refuse to accept a Black British national as British and will always say they are African…even if Africa isn’t their background. It’s quite strange considering how many Chinese live in The U.S, Canada and Australia but is suppose that’s just how it is for now, hopefully this is something that will begin to change as China grows economically and inevitably becomes more multi-cultural.

Relationships

I taught an English lesson recently with relationships as the theme. One part of the lesson was on various personality traits and things that people might look for in a partner. Having lived in China for a little while now I had a fairly good idea of what would come up and I was not let down. Whilst I wouldn’t necessarily say that dating/marriage in the UK is perfect (the rate of divorce is enough to suggest that people do make mistakes) however one thing that is fairly common is that if you ask someone what is most important in a relationship they will probably say ‘love’ or some variant on this…this is an answer that tends to come up a little less in China. At this point I should say that the lesson I took was comprised solely of women, and this blog concerns women in China – I’ll save the man’s side of things for another day.

For many women I know, finding a man they love is very much secondary to finding a man who is a) dependable b) financially sound and c) of a good family background and social status. If that sounds like it is straight from the 1950s that’s because it is. I personally know many people who will readily admit they don’t love their husband, or even single people who assume that they will eventually marry someone they like but won’t necessarily love. A lot of this springs from the pressure to have a child and conform to the standard family model placed upon people by parents and society in general. Parents in China exert a far greater influence on their children’s life than in other countries (this does not stop when said child reaches their twenties..) which is partly why potential partner’s backgrounds are so important. Whether or not you love someone, more importantly do your parents approve of him, his job, his family and his social status. Being dependable and able to provide a stable income and familial life is often considered to be more important than whether couples love each other or indeed whether they are faithful. There is a strange unspoken thing where men cheating on their wives is not seen as that bad provided he keeps it quiet and it does not impact on how he provides for his family. I realise that this is a very broad statement and I would not want to comment on whether unfaithfulness is any higher in China than elsewhere. What I would say though is that it enjoys more tacit acceptance than anywhere else I have been.

 Many people I have met can be judgemental about things that perhaps would not be judged elsewhere. One of the women in the class I taught for example said that she would not want to marry a man whose parents were not still together. Initially I assumed that she meant a child of divorced parents which whilst I could not agree with, could at least see her reasons. It turned out however that she meant this in a more broad sense, for example if one of his parents had died then for her this would make him undesirable husband material. Upon closer questioning it was because she felt that anyone who was not raised in a conventional family unit would not grow up properly. I can only feel pity for the man who suffers a close family bereavement only to subsequently hear that this has also made him unattractive husband material… One thing that women can get judged on is being single from any age above 28. Most women are expected to be married by this point and the older they get without being married the more potential partners might assume that this is a result of some sort of deficiency on the part of the woman rather than something else e.g. she hadn’t yet met someone she wanted to marry or didn’t immediately want to settle down and have children.

Of course this is not to say that these attitudes are true of everyone, there are plenty of people who do not care about racing into having children in their mid-twenties and plenty of people who are looking for a soulmate rather than someone for whom a man who can satisfy the ‘provider’ role as a husband is quite enough. Yet it is also true to say that these people are still in the minority and whilst in the UK things might not be perfect I think I prefer our attitude to it than that which still holds sway for many people in China.

 

 

The Cinema

It took me three years to actually go but I’ve been to the cinema six times in the past few months and I’m bloody loving it. For people who have resided in China for a while and are keen on learning Chinese and taking lessons going to watch a Chinese movie can be a great way to learn, admittedly watching Chinese TV for free is a lot cheaper but you’re missing out on that cinema feel….the stale popcorn, Fanta with absolutely no fizz and Chinese people talking loudly on the phone in the middle of a movie.

As not much of a film buff my tastes don’t go much beyond a Christopher Nolan blockbusters but now I’ve dipped my toe into the world of Chinese and Hong Kong cinema there is no going back. I can safely say I have witnessed the worst acting imaginable whilst watching Chinese movies and they make the cast of Eastenders look like Oscar nominees, nevertheless it’s still a great way to learn.

I have been asked by various applicants the value of learning local dialects, each town or city has their own each dialect which differs greatly from standard Chinese. Of course there are similarities but it’s not just contrasting accents but often different words completely. Of course it’s useful to learn some local dialects especially as some of the older generations will only speak their local dialect, so conversing with shop owners for example can be difficult without any grasp of the dialect….but at the same time its relatively pointless in the grander scheme of things. If you are looking to learn Chinese to further your career or converse within business you’ll only ever need to use standard Chinese and eventually local dialects will die out. It’s best not to complicate things for yourself and focus on standard Chinese. Going to the cinema is great for this as the actors speak very slowly and clearly using standard Chinese, it can be good practise.

In terms of foreign films, there are usually a couple on at the cinema at any one time. Off the top of my head in the last year “The Hobbit”…”Skyfall”…”Gravity” have all been shown in Wuhan, both dubbed into Chinese and subtitled. The cinemas are really nicely furnished and the same as what you would expect in the U.K, Imax screens and 3D films are shown with the best thing being there are no adverts! The film always starts in accordance to whichever time is shown on the ticket, sitting through 20 minutes of adverts really bugs me. There are also no trailers which I find a little disappointing but maybe that’s just my preference and many of you would also be viewing that as a bonus. Staying in touch with movies from back home is not an issue and for anything that isn’t shown at the cinema you can buy on DVD from one of the many shops and street sellers…the legality of these DVDs is questionable may I add.

One thing you may find in some Hollywood films is that the Chinese will censor them and change the films ever so slightly as they don’t want anything to depict China in a bad light. If there is a movie where the villain is Chinese they will have that changed so the nationality of the villain is of another Asian country. In Skyfall for example there is a scene in Shanghai where Bond kills a Chinese guard to get into a high-rise building, in the Chinese version the guard being killed is completely removed from the film, I’m not really sure why. Films that depict sex or violence they will absolutely not be shown, also anything political would never successfully pass the Chinese censorship tests. The Chinese are very careful about what types of films they show and most of Chinese Cinema is based around trivial topics or Chinese history.

The hardest thing about the Cinema is dealing with the Chinese people sitting around you, there can be a lot of talking and disruption throughout a movie so best to try and find showings at more obscure times. Enjoy!!

 

 

Chinese TV

Often Chinese people will ask me about how they can improve their English, leaving me casting around for an better answer than ‘practice harder’. In general I tend to mumble something about trying to use English as much as possible and try to make some friends who they can speak English with regularly. I usually also mention that it might be worth watching some English TV shows as it may help their listening skills. Until recently though, this was advice that I had never employed personally in my Chinese studies, though in the last few weeks I have been watching more and more Chinese television to test out my own advice.

When flicking across TV channels it seems like the airwaves are dominated by costume dramas and low-budget sitcoms. There is one common thread however that links all Chinese shows – terrible acting. Whilst not a thespian myself, I feel quite certain that I can act better than most Chinese TV actors and remain convinced that fluency in Chinese is the only thing standing in the way of me taking the industry by storm. What you do see a lot is ridiculous over acting that only belongs in poor quality panto. One comedy show that is quite popular right now is Aiqing Gongyu (iPartment) which follows the lives of a small group of young people living in the same apartment building in Shanghai. On the plus side the production values are actually quite good, though on the downside it is not funny (a pretty big problem for a comedy) and is guilty of copying entire scenes from other shows (notably Friends from which some scenes have been copied word for word).

Similar to most other countries in the world, reality TV programming and in particular talent show contests command huge audiences. Equivalents of The Voice, Britain’s Got Talent and The X-Factor can all be found and follow much the same blueprint as those in the UK and the USA. One such show is Zhongguo Hao Gequ which is essentially the same as The Voice, however contestants are only allowed to sing songs that they wrote. I have to say it is actually quite good, with singers performing music from a fairly broad range of genres.

Another show that is pretty huge right now is Baba Qu Nar? which follows five celebrities as they travel to rural places in China with their children taking part in activities and challenges. This show regularly gets 75 million viewers per episode, though I am not really sure why. I think one of the key attractions of the show is finding out more about the celebrities and how they interact with their children, though as someone with no prior knowledge of the fathers in the show this is basically lost on me – I’m essentially just watching five random guys traveling with their children.

Almost all Chinese programming is accompanied with subtitles, so watching TV can be a good way of practicing both your listening as well as reading. As such when viewed as a learning resource it does have several benefits for Chinese learners – when viewed as a source of entertainment however it has less going for it.