China doesn't breed pushovers

1 am. Doha airport. Waiting to board a flight back to Shanghai.

Around 80 travelers, mostly Chinese people who escaped obligatory family reunions during Chinese New Year by exporting themselves out of the affordable long-distance calling range, stood in a small glass room. There were two sliding doors, each on opposite ends. An airport bus pulled up on the right side, as if ready to pick up the people in the room and send them to their planes. The people hurried over, dragging carry on bags and crying children, determined to get in front. Competitive elbowing followed. After five minutes, the door still remained shut. The bus drove away, empty.

A few minutes later, another bus pulled up next to the door, but this time on the left side of the room. The crowd swarmed to the other side, showing even less restraint in their aggressive edging. Once again, the bus taunted the jet lagged bunch and drove away.

This scene happened four times, with the crowd rushing from one door to the other, all desperate to be the front of the line. 

4 observations:

1. There is no overt advantage in being in the front of the line. Instead, you get stuck at the back of the bus and end up being the last one to board.

2. There are enough buses to take everybody to the planes.

3. The travelers look well-educated, well-off, and well-coiffed. It is understandable to rush over to the door the first time, and maybe even the second. But the third and the fourth? Somebody must have seen the pattern of the faithless buses and hesitated. But instead, the people became more and more determined in vying for the first spot in front of the doors.

4. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. I was really hoping that the lady with the red sparkly boots would win.

-----

I see this behavior in China every day. People push, shove, elbow, bulldoze their way through everything. The concept of lining up is hazy at best. My friend, Andrew Woo, thinks that it's because the people, having lived through the Communist periods of scarcity, are conditioned to think that there is never enough supply. That's partly true. But that doesn't explain equally competitive scrambling in situations where the desired item is guaranteed and no advantage is conferred upon the most aggressive (i.e. Rushing to get through the gate first even when there is assigned seating on trains).

I think the people here are socialized to be pushers. Because the society maintains an ambivalent relationship with the rule of law, people are used to relying on themselves, and not an existing order, to obtain what they want. There is a subconscious lack of trust in rules and what adherence can deliver, so even if they know they should line up and that there is no self-interest in shoving, they do it, just because they see little merit in not pushing.

-----

Two summers ago, when I first arrived in China as an intern, my wai po moved in with me for a little while to teach me "how things were done here." In a suffocating metro station, with hundreds vying for standing room on the trains, my 78 year old, 4 ft 11 wai po pulled me towards the front of the line. I tugged at her shirt and motioned to the back of the line, shy about blatantly cutting in.

She jerked me forward once more and stared me down, "Don't be such a pushover, Sisi."

Digesting Memories

Growing up, I've always hated eating boiled eggs. The yellowish-blue ball of hardened yolk would lodge in my throat and had to be washed down by gulps of water. When I left for college, I swore that I would never touch another boiled egg except during Easter. But every day during the summer in Beijing, I would wake up to sugared tomatoes, steamed buns, chewy wooden ears . . . and two boiled eggs. Waipo would faithfully repeat the secret to her father's longevity (he died in a traffic accident when he was ninety), and watch me patiently until I squirmed and ate everything on my plate.

But after the summer, when I returned back to America and had to figure out my own breakfast every morning, I would always reach for the eggs and start boiling my water. I still grit my teeth when I ate them, but somehow I wanted to keep doing it. To show her that I hadn't forgotten.

When Chelsea left for college, I also took it upon myself to continue her idiosyncratic habit of mixing cereal with yoghurt, even though I used to tease her about it.

Other times, I was obsessed with baklava, barbeque chicken pizza, subway chicken teriyaki sandwich and co. because each bite was a way of holding onto them and pretending that they're still there to force me to eat those things.

And right now, I would really like some Pear and Gargonzola.

You Are What You Eat

Letter home to friends and family on July 26, 2010.

"Sheep penis!" I nearly choked on the chewy, translucent meat in my mouth. The men in their white aprons and chef's hats cackled and made some obscene gesture to further illustrate what I was eating. They must also have looked up that word in the thesaurus because they had some impressive variation. My friend Matt and I looked at each other and blanched. We had eaten it innocently, thinking it was snake meat that was wound around a kebab.

This was how we found out what it really was.

In that same evening, my friends and I had eaten fried scorpions (not bad except for the pieces of legs stuck in your teeth), grilled starfish (charred and bitter), and gecko hide (burnt, crunchy mess). We did end up eating the snake meat (I was sure this time) and snake skin. The snake meat, seasoned with red pepper flakes, was absolutely fantastic. It was all part of a glorious attempt to eat what the locals eat and live up to our "When in Rome" policy.

 Scorpion.

(Me, Natalie, Anne)

Got to love Anne's seductive I'm-about-to-eat-a-starfish look.

(Me & Matt)

Back when we still thought it was snake meat.

 The crew

The triumph was short lived though. My coworkers hooted and slapped the table when I recounted our gastronomical adventures the next day at work. Apparently they had never eaten any of that. My next-door cubicle neighbor said that that was especially for foreigners who would shell out big bucks to eat what nobody else would eat. On a more serious note, he also informed me that I better watch out for my health because as a woman, I had just eaten too much "maleness," or yang, and I would not be able to handle it.

Sure enough, I got sick the next day. Despite my insistence that I already had the sore throat before eating all that stuff, my cubicle neighbor shook his head and blamed it on the overwhelming yang. The lady across the hall, looked at my hands and informed me that it was because of my diminishing yue ya, the milky semi-circles at the tip of your cuticles. Apparently one needs at least eight to be classified as healthy. She instructed me on pressure points to massage daily and sleeping habits to adopt in order nurse my precious yue ya back to their previous glory.

After I got sick, I became part of an experiment among the neighborhood ladies. As I laid moaning on my bed, I listened to my wai po pick up phone calls from her friends with advice on foods to cook me. Their solution? A lot of ginger, black fungi, congee, and nothing cold. One morning I came out of my room, bleary-eyed, and saw that my wai po was reading her food chart intently. She looked up at me, stuck her tongue out, and grinned, "I think I nearly poisoned you!" According to her chart, there were certain foods that will hurt your chi, or your life energy, if you eat them together. Apparently what I was having for breakfast, shrimp chips and watermelon (it's the Vitamin C), formed one of the fatal combos. When I looked skeptical, she quickly hid the watermelon from me.

While I still laugh at some Chinese food theories that seem bizarre to me, I now approach the subject with an added measure of reverence. I occasionally look at my tongue in the mirror to monitor my yin yang balance and constantly check to see whether my yue ya have edged back. But I'll admit, when my wai po isn't looking, I still eat my shrimp chips with my watermelon.

 Waipo and me

Partying with Global Times

July 17, 2010
 

After  I told my friend at Global Times, a super right-wing Chinese newspaper, that I would be happy being the MC for one of their events, I didn't think too much about it. After all, I would just be introducing some of the performers in English and Chinese and smile my face off. I enlisted Matt, one of my BJ street-cruising buddies, and we both agreed to just wing it. No big deal right?

 

We first made a bunch of stage jokes that none of the Chinese audience understood. They did crack up though when Matt, overconfident with his Chinese, told the crowds that the dancers were really angry (excited) to be dancing for them.

 

 Matt and me on stage.

Perhaps because we were doing a good job, my Global Times friend decided to leave for a more important meeting and handed it over to us. She pointed to a few important looking people and told us that we didn't have to worry because others would be there to take care of the logistics.

Boy was she wrong.

Matt and I suddenly realized that we became the de facto Global Times spokespersons because all the GT staff ditched. We were soon mobbed by those same important looking people who saw their chance to make some drastic changes to the program.

The dance company representatives switched up the dances while I was on stage announcing them.

At the last minute, a few pizza boys informed us that they really wanted to do a dance (no kidding). So, we watched helplessly as they sauntered on stage, doing a Backstreet Boyz-esque routine while tossing pizza dough into the air.

 Mini celeb, sneaky event staff, my big head, and an overwhelmed Matt.

Then enter mini celebrity on the left. The venue event staff pulled a supposedly "next pop queen" out of nowhere and demanded that we interview her on stage to promote her new book, CD, and vegetarian dish that she had brought to the event. My waipo later reported that she forced herself to choke down the celeb's tofu mystery dish just because I was selling it hard core on stage. The things that waipos do for their grandchildren.

 Interpretive Dai ethnic ballet.

 Korean drums!

 

 The Chinese didn't know how to take it when the Tahitian 

dancers started yelling in the middle of their dances. 

It was very awkward.

Matt and waipo. She loved rocking the VIP status.

Matt and I grabbed sushi at a fancy restaurant afterward. We laughed about all the improvs and close calls. After all, we pulled through and it was not even a big deal. Yeah right. 

p.s. I'll be back-blogging a lot about my China trip this summer. Due to the censorship, I wasn't able to post all of these little posts that I had crafted in my head while my face was being squished against the BJ metro doors.

Waipo lessons #2: Taking the pill

Boys I date complain that I am non-committal. My parents believe that I'm travel-crazy to be ready to settle down. My sister just thinks that I am not done flirting.

To be honest, one of my biggest fear about getting married has always been about birth control.

I use to literally cry when I had to take pills. Each pill would take an agonizing half an hour to swallow. Over time, I learned to pretend to swallow then spit it out when my mom's back was turned.

Last summer when I had to take antibiotics for my snakebite, my friends at the Barlow center sat with me to make sure that I actually ate my medicine. Little did they know that I never really swallowed any of them. Needless to say, my foot got infected and became kind of spongy. It was gross.

The other day, my waipo just handed me a packet of vitamin pills and a glass of water.

I fidgeted.

I then started to do my little stockpiling-in-the-cheek trick.

She just sat there and pointed out that she's not stupid.

I was shocked.

So, I swallowed.

And it wasn't too bad.

----- And now, I take my vitamins twice a day.

Waipo lessons: #1: Eating a fish head

I'm living with my waipo, or my grandma, in Beijing right now. Everyday I hang out with her in our little kitchen and try to learn a thing or two about Chinese cooking. Today we made fish head tofu soup, deep-fried shrimp crackers, and this leafy vegetable dish. While the cooking was fascinating, the eating was a little harder.

I had made a pact with her that I would learn to eat anything as long as it is good for my health. Inevitably though, everything I ask her about she claims that it is good for me. Especially the fish head.

She taught me how to suck all the flesh and juices out of the pieces of head. When I was awkwardly playing around with it in my mouth, she stopped me and said,"Your tongue is the smartest muscle in your body. If you can learn to speak English, then learning to eat fish head is so easy." With that boost of confidence, I braved on. I did draw the line at the fish eyes though.

You see, my American friends, you are already one step ahead of everybody else when it comes to eating fish heads.

p.s. The secret ingredient is a little bit of vinegar. It makes the fish bones soft.