Thoughts on Chinese culture

In China, many people believe in the importance of saving face, which means that they don’t like to embarrass themselves or make mistakes in front of other people.  They will not outright tell you things, but maybe try to communicate in an indirect way.  This can be very frustrating for an American like me who is used to being told things straight up.  It also means that sometimes people will not call someone out for doing something rude or inconsiderate.  For example, whenever you wait in line for anything- buying train tickets, getting on the bus, and so on- there is never actually anything that could be called a line.  Instead there is a shoving, shuffling mob, and many people cut to the front.  Even when there is a line to buy train tickets, for example, there will be people that go straight to the front and shove their money under the window and holler out their destination.  The thing that gets me is while I’m standing their glaring, no one else seems to care.  Nobody says, “hey dude, wait in line, we’ve all been waiting for fifteen minutes!”  But watch out China, because I’ve learned the words to stay, “please stay in line” (qing pai dui) and “don’t cut” (bu yao cha dui).  The thing is that if you do call them out, then they get embarrassed and stop (usually).  So I don’t understand- some Chinese people do things are rude or inconsiderate but it’s ok as long as you don’t call them out and make them lose face.

            Right now I’m reading a book that I recommend, called Fried Eggs and Chopsticks, by Polly Evans.  It’s about a British woman who travels for a month in China, and it demonstrates her frustrations with the language and culture (as well as the rewarding things that happen, such as kindness from a stranger).  I can totally relate with a lot of things she shares.  For example, she talks about being in a restaurant and the waitress says, “Would you like some gobbledy gobbledy gook?”  That happens so many times to me!  Before traveling she did take a course in Chinese but of course it’s never the same as dealing with speaking for real.  Another time she talked about being in a taxi cab, and after exhausting the few sentences she knew, the driver kept talking and asking her questions, and no matter how many times she said ting bu dong (I don’t understand) he kept jabbering at her a mile a minute.  That also happens to me all the time.  I tell people I only know a little Chinese but they think that means I can understand everything spoken at full speed.  Even if you spoke slower I couldn’t understand you because I don’t know that many words!  I’m not saying anything against the Chinese people because this happens in other places too.  It is hard to know how much of a language someone knows.  But you’d think that once they start saying they don’t understand, you’d stop talking!  She mentions also about being a patient person but finding herself constantly short-tempered and frustrated.  I know the feeling.  I feel bad that I get so frustrated but all the simple daily things can be difficult to complete.  Luckily our Peace Corps language training was pretty thorough in teaching how to order in restaurants, so that’s not too bad.  It’s just that the language barrier can be rather inhibitive and many things are done differently than we’d expect.

            This is a tangent, but another thing that frustrates me is that I often don’t find out about schedule changes with my classes until right before.  I don’t understand why there isn’t a school calendar with the dates of holidays written in- I mean, they’re the same time every year!  I just found out today that there are no classes next Monday through Thursday because they give time off for the New Year.  I didn’t expect to get a holiday for the western New Year. I know we don’t have classes during the Chinese New Year (aka Spring Festival) because our semester’s done by then.  No one told me about these classes, until I happened to tell my class monitors that next week would be our last week of classes this semester.  Then they all said, “Oh but we don’t have classes!”  Oh.  Well now I know.  Who knows when I would have found out if I hadn’t mentioned it! 

            I hope you don’t get the wrong impression.  I am happy here. But there are definitely things that continue to be a challenge even after all this time.  I still get stared at all the time and it still sometimes bothers me although now I just try to look above people or at the ground.  Sometimes to help myself cope I talk or sing to myself.  Which doesn’t help with the staring but it calms me down.  It’s something I will have to deal with the whole time I’m in China. At my school it’s not a problem anymore, but anytime I leave my city I have to deal with it all over again.  And I seem to be leaving my site quite frequently!  It’s nice to get away and see something new and be with other volunteers.