Chengdon't

Let’s go back in time to the early ‘80s, and Deng Xiao Ping, leader of the Chinese Communist Party, veteran of the Long March and seen by many as the founding father of modern China was touring the United States.  Part of the state visit saw Deng and his entourage pay a visit to the east coast seat of learning Boston.  After the business of the day was complete, Mr. Deng’s diplomatic counterparts decided to take him to see that most American of institutions, a basketball game at the team founded in tribute to the city’s Irish community, the Boston Celtics.

All was going well and the Chinese delegation seemed to be enjoying the action when things suddenly and unexpectedly took a turn for the worst.  As a token of friendship to commemorate the occasion, a state official attempted to present the Chinese leader with one of the Celtic’s trademark green hats, but instead of accepting it the usually unflappable Deng looked horrified, not only refusing to accept the hat, but vigorously and repeatedly pushed it away.  Bemused, the hat-giver looked over at the rest of Deng’s group, all of whom were looking as shocked as their illustrious leader.  The reason for such an extreme reaction?  Well, the phrase ‘wearing a green hat’ in Chinese mocks a man’s masculinity, as it implies that his partner is cheating on him.

In one sense adapting to life in China isn’t the enormous cultural leap that many who have yet to visit this vast and diverse nation imagine.  Globalising influences like television, movies and the internet have narrowed cultural divides, and especially in larger, more economically developed cities such as Shanghai or Beijing the Chinese are so used to dealing with foreigners that one can walk down the street without attracting so much as a solitary ‘hello!’

In modern China there are no vast religious, political or ideological barriers to adapting to life here that one might find in some parts of South America or the Middle East, and the Chinese themselves are, on the whole, a practical and flexible (if superstitious) race.  This flexibility may well be part of the reason that most Chinese who move abroad adapt and integrate relatively well into whatever society they arrive in.

However, with a country that was cut off from the rest of the world for the best part of the twentieth century there will inevitably be differences in attitudes and outlooks that come into play when people from two different societies meet, with the green hat incident serving as a high profile example of this.  Incidentally, I’m pretty sure that this particular issue has reared its colourful head in a diplomatic setting at least one before.  Sitting proudly in Beijing’s National War museum, presented to the head of the People’s Liberation Army by his counterpart in the Australian forces is a faded slouch or bush hat that makes up part of the antipodean country’s military uniform – in green.  It must have been a brave official who handed a green hat over to the head of the world’s biggest army!

There are countless other little cultural or linguistic faux-pas that an unwary and unprepared visitor can make in China, a selection of which can be found in the side bars, some of which are understandable, others slightly less so.  However, as pointed out above, none of these represent a catastrophic or unforgivable error, as most Chinese understand that their cultural norms are different to most other societies, and don’t generally take offense when these minor indiscretions are committed.  On rare occasions can even be an amusing way to break the ice between strangers from different lands!  Still, it’s probably best to leave that Celtics hat back at home for now, just in case…

• Never give a clock, as song zhong (the Chinese for give clock) sounds very similar to the phrase for making funeral arrangements, and clocks also represents time running out or slipping away i.e. impending death (strangely giving watches are ok)
• Scissors and knives symbolize the cutting of ties – not such a good move, especially when trying to forge a relationship with a new Chinese business partner
• Giving an umbrella (or yu san in Mandarin) is not recommended, as the san can also mean to crumple or disintegrate, and you don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade!
• Shoes are not a good gift, as xie sounds similar to the mandarin for evil
• ‘Giving a book’ in the Chinese language sounds the same as ‘delivering defeat’
• Never wrap your gifts in white or black paper.  Colours are important, red is lucky and used for celebrations, and white and black are bad as they associated with death
• When at a Chinese banquet, always try to leave a small amount of food left in your bowl when you are full.  Failure to do so symbolizes that your host didn’t serve you enough food – a grave insult in China’s culture of hospitality
• Also food related – do not stab your chopsticks into your rice bowl and leave them propped up, and this resembles incense sticks burnt at family graves – yet another reminder of death
• Numbers are also important, and just as the number 13 is an ill omen in the west, so the number 4 is frowned upon as it sounds similar to the Chinese word for death

We reach the 3^rd floor and the lift doors slide open.  Leaning casually in the doorway to the nightclub is a man with a magnificent beer-gut.  He’s stripped to the waist, sweating profusely and judging from his general demeanour has probably been drinking heavily.  He appears momentarily stunned at the sight of four foreigners approaching, but quickly regains his composure.  “Helloooo!”  He roars, “Welcome to Chinaaaaa!”  Behind him four slightly younger (and slimmer) but equally topless (and equally drunken) men shuffle slowly by, each with their hands placed on the man in front’s shoulders in a kind of sedated conga-line.  We slip past, through the metal-detector and into the dark, booming inferno beyond…

To be honest, when it comes to nightclubs I’m with liberal hero Charlie Brooker: “I hated them when I was 19 and I hate them today. I just don’t have to pretend any more”.  Personally, they’re just not places I’ve ever felt comfortable in.  When the idea was raised at the magazine’s content meeting that I should write about a Chinese nightclub I must admit my initial reaction was to suggest that I save everyone’s time and money and simply pour beer all over my office desk, upload some eardrum-splitting house music onto my mp3 player then sit there for 4 hours drinking warm lager and playing dice.  However, this time I’ve been promised an entirely different experience to the overpriced preening houses I’d previously frequented in Beijing and Shanghai – a more real and, (dare I say it?), more ‘Chinese’ experience.  How could I refuse?

Once inside the club, the first thing I notice (apart from the thundering music) is the floor: it’s so sticky that after taking a step forward I’m struggling to lift my foot up again; I feel like I’m part of a moon-landing expedition.  My bearings finally regained I start to look around, and there are people absolutely everywhere.  The dance floor is a gigantic mass of humanity; it’s sometimes hard to say where one person starts and another finishes.  There are police, security guard and army uniforms present, but all of them have finished work, had (quite) a few drinks and now have their shirts unbuttoned down to the naval and are waving, gyrating or just jumping up and down to the music.  It’s a proper spit-and-sawdust place, and all the more enjoyable for it as pretensions and egos seem to have been left at the door.

We sit down and order a round of piping hot beers, but the deafening music makes conversation impossible so I decide to go for a wander and attract a fair bit of attention, some passive and some not so.  One chap gives my arm hair a tug, another slaps my belly “you must be a big boss!”  As this is a family magazine I won’t go into too much detail about the antics of my fellow bathroom patrons, but needless to say if I’d have sold viewing tickets at the urinals I could have made a fortune.

Back on the dance floor the DJ gives the dodgy Euro-house a break and slips on Gloria Gaynor’s camp classic ‘I will survive’ – the crowd go absolutely bananas, the MC whipping them up into a state of frenzied, screaming excitement.  We order another round of warm beers and watch the chaos unfold.

As an anthropological study I’d say the evening was a success.  Despite being the only foreigners there it wasn’t a particularly Chinese evening, in fact it reminded me a lot of drunken nights out I had when I was 16 or 17 in cheesy British seaside resort towns – but with Chinese characteristics!  It was also nice to see ‘normal’, not-so beautiful people cutting loose and enjoying themselves with no inhibitions or pretensions.  However, and with no offence intended to the Chinese nightclub experience, my still-ringing eardrums will be pleased to know it might be a while until I return.

Ah etiquette!  This subtle ballet of general politeness has plagued mankind since the first caveman wondered if he should first catch supper for his date before clubbing her over the head and dragging her back to his cave.  When applied around the modern workplace, these rules of good behaviour become even more complex, and doubly so in a foreign country such as China where the potential for cross-cultural misunderstanding is rife.  Many books and articles have been written on this very subject, but one aspect that has so far been criminally under-investigated is how to behave while doing something we all do at least twice a day – riding the elevator.  However, help is at hand!  With this handy guide to taking the lift during the morning and evening ‘rush hours’, you now have one less culture faux-pas to worry about, and you need never feel shafted again…

1. Arrival:  Get to your chosen office building at around 8.55am, making sure that you work exactly the hours on your contract while also ensuring your wages are not cut for being late.  Even if you work on the 4^th floor, join the huddled masses queuing for 15 minutes to travel upwards the equivalent distance of crossing the road.  Remember, stairs are for losers.
2. Stealth: Watch the position indicator like a hawk, and just before the elevator arrives shuffle forward while pretending to make small talk, listen to music or scratch the wax from your ears, thereby ensuring pole position right in front of the arriving elevator, preferably with your nose touching the gap between the doors.
3. Top tip!  Try to carry as many random belongs as you can.  These can include stuffed toy animals, rolls of copper wiring, ladders and large empty boxes.  These objects can help you to push people out of the way without making it too obvious.
4. Operation Kestrel: When the elevator finally touches down, if someone happens to be trying to alight under no circumstances allow them to do so before you’re safely in.  The millisecond the doors open, extend your elbows outwards in the patented ‘landing kestrel’ position and ram yourself into the elevator like a sardine in a tin.  During the summer months for maximum shock and awe in this crush situation try not to use deodorant or take showers.
5. Alarming: Inevitably at some stage during the cramming the elevator weight alarm will sound.  The general rule is last in first out, but this is usually overridden if you are a good-looking female.  If you are unfortunate enough to be the last one in when the alarm goes off, get out and come back in, preferably several times, as the electronic scales may be wrong.  If someone else is the last one in make loud remarks about them being too fat, especially if you don’t know them.
6. Top tip! Try to push all the buttons, even if you’re not actually going to that particular floor – the lights look so purdy…
7. While riding: A little-known national bylaw actually insists that for their own safety citizens should talk loudly on their mobile phones while riding an elevator. Try to add to the atmosphere by smoking constantly, after all, it’s a long ride. Also, try to be considerate to your fellow passengers by playing the latest inane mandopop song featuring a 4 word English chorus (for example “oh yeah baby baby”) on your tinny mobile phone speakers at top volume (extra marks for singing the chorus while looking directly at a foreigner and laughing).
8. Disembarking: if you happen to be at the back of a crowded elevator when it’s time to get off, definitely do not ask the people in front of you to move, just stiffen your shoulder and smash through the crowd.  If you’re lucky someone will fall face-first out of the lift.  Double points for old ladies or children.
9. Home time:  It’s basically the same drill, but in reverse.  If the elevator looks full to capacity when it arrives on your floor take two steps back before hurling yourself forward into the crowd like a tattoo-festooned lead singer of a grunge-metal band.  When the weight alarm sounds, look hurt and confused and walk slowly around the corner to the freight elevator.

And that’s it!  You’re riding Chinese-style!  That wasn’t so hard was it…?

A middle-aged man dressed in a full cucumber outfit strides confidently onstage, and the audience (all dressed in matching yellow t-shirts and hats) go ballistic, furiously clacking pairs of plastic hands together. A brass band strikes up, and Cucumber man is joined onstage by other cheery men dressed as vegetables. They all begin to sing a rousing march together. Its twenty-past six on a Saturday night, I’m sat on my sofa watching CCTV 7’s flagship variety show ‘Happy village’ (快乐乡村), and I’m a little confused.

From everyday obstacles to life here like fielding questions on my private life, finances and bodyweight to first time blogger favourites such as spitting and queue-jumping, I’d like to think that there aren’t too many ‘cultural differences’ between China and the west that time and a little patience hasn’t helped to overcome. However, one aspect of life here that this yang gui zi has never come to grips with is the world of Chinese television.

For those who don’t speak the language (as I didn’t when I first arrived), Chinese TV is experienced almost exclusively through the part-robot part-South African accents of the CCTV9 presenters as they earnestly explain the intricacies of 17^th century Ming pottery. Even those who dare to venture into the Chinese language jungle and use TV as listening practise are greeted by dubbed Korean soaps, dramas from ancient China and those ubiquitous shows where people fall from inflatable objects into stagnant pools of water.

Although the internet is now fundamentally changing the ‘shared experience factor’ television provided for people around the world for so many years, families in China still regularly congregate around the television for weekends and holidays (especially the Spring Festival Gala), and according to friends and colleagues they seem to enjoy what they see. So I found myself thinking – have I judged Chinese TV too quickly and harshly?

In the interest of science, I decided to invite impartial observer John over to explain things from a Chinese point of view, and we settled down with tea and scones for some Saturday evening televisual entertainment. We watched a show until either I understand what was happening or John got bored, and gave each show a ‘Western confusion rating’ (WRC) and a ‘Chinese confusion rating’ (CCR) to indicate our respective comprehension levels. 1 = complete understanding 10 = eh?

Results for the individual shows can be found below, but generally – and despite some initial bewilderment at the moment of channel change – with a bit of time and explanation most of the shows were actually very similar to prime-time TV anywhere else. Pop idol style ‘sing and vote’ shows, top entrepreneur programs and cooking demonstrations dominate the airwaves, and although a little less polished, were no better or worse than their Western counterparts. Should I be surprised at this? Probably not. Will this lead me to watch more TV? I somehow doubt it, but should I get a hankering for singing cucumbers or rowing digger trucks it’s good to know there’s an option…

(17:30) CCTV3 – ‘Wanna Challenge?’ (乡挑战吗?). Cut to: A foreigner sitting in a digger truck mounted on a floating pontoon. He appears to be using the digger arm to ‘row’ the pontoon forward, while 3 polished young Chinese look on from a studio. According to John, celebrities come on the show, are presented with someone performing a challenge and have to guess if they will succeed or fail. The losers then suffer a forfeit. Although initially bemusing, the show quickly settled into a fairly western format similar to classic British TV show ‘You Bet’ with Chinese characteristic…

WCR: 4/10 CCR: 3/10

(18.05) SCTV5 – ‘Idiot General’ (傻儿司令). Cut to: an elderly hunchbacked man kicking a policeman up the bottom, while a rotund man in old-school military uniform looks on. John informed me this is one of Sichuan’s most famous TV series, and based on the true story of General Fan Peng Ju, famous in olden times for helping people fight bad guys.

WCR: 7/10 CCR: 2/10

(18.20) CDTV5 – ‘The story of Guo Kui’ (锅魁的故事). Cut to: a chef instructing his audience on how to prepare traditional Sichuan snack ‘guo kui’ (flat breads that are baked, then split and filled like sandwiches or stuffed with meat or sweet things and then sometimes pan fried). This was quickly followed by a series of adverts for restaurants that served guo kui.

WCR: 4/10 CCR: 1/10

(18.35) Emei Movie Channel – ‘Con Air’ (Chinese language). Big-budget blockbuster featuring Mandarin-speaking Hollywood stars Nicolas Cage and John Cusack. A little violent for my taste, but John was impressed with the stunts and surely the highlight of the film for me was Steve Buscemi’s Beijing burr.

WCR: 2/10 CCR: 7/10

To paraphrase travel journalist Paul Theroux, “the Chinese have 50 different ways of laughing but few of them actually involve humour.  For example, ‘ha ha – we’re in big trouble now!’ or ‘ha ha – don’t expect me to answer that question’.  The relatively serious nature of people here has led to the incorrect assumption of some that the Chinese have no sense of humour.  There are, of course, plenty of amusement opportunities – some concern subjects that cross the global laughter barriers, others travel well across Asia but no further, while a few gags leave all but the natives scratching their heads.

One example of things that people the whole world over find funny comes in the form of good old-fashioned slapstick.  From Charlie Chaplin right through to Mr. Bean, hilarious pratfalls and footballs in the groin are as funny in Chengdu as they are in Chicago or Kolkata, and have been popular here for as long as the populace has had access to them.

Another bridge over the cultural comedy divide is smut, as demonstrated by the recent ‘grass-mud-horse’ video hysteria that hit Chinese youtube a few months back.  Pranksters put together a fake documentary and song about the mythical animal, whose name when translated into Mandarin sounds very similar to an especially unpleasant Chinese insult.

As one might expect, when more highbrow forms of jest come into play the differences in humour become more pronounced.  A good case in point can be found in Chinese Crosstalk or xiangsheng (lit. face and voice).  At first glance it seems very similar to Western stand-up comedy, with two comics onstage in front of a live crowd engaging in rapid-fire conversation, their interaction following the tried-and-tested recipe of a straight-man acting as an exasperated foil to the muddle-headed clown.

However, as David Moser points out in his essay on the decline of Crosstalk ‘No laughing matter’, there are subtle differences between the two art forms.  Crosstalk mostly features more than one person, and is always a self-contained routine with a fixed narrative or main premise. In this sense, a typical crosstalk piece resembles a scripted dialogue like Monty Python’s ‘Dead Parrot’ sketch, or the Two Ronnies ‘Four candles’ routine. There are hundreds of traditional crosstalk pieces, and although new pieces are written all the time, each new piece is performed to the original premise, leaving the performers free to add material or edit sections according their specific needs.

The western concept of sarcasm also doesn’t seem to travel well here, and the ‘lowest form of wit’ is generally not well received in social situations.  A dictionary translation of the word into Chinese comes out as fengci (讽刺), but this would probably be better interpreted as satire – lampooning petty officialdom or pouring scorn on the pretentious social elite.  The concept of sarcasm appears a little strange to some Chinese people, who just do not seem to find saying one thing and meaning another that funny.

Xiao - The Chinese for laugh

In a completely unscientific attempt to try and find out what actually made normal Chinese people laugh, I decided to ask all my Chinese colleagues to email over one Chinese joke that they thought might amuse.  The results were pretty random (and some unprintable!), and perhaps were influenced by their bi-lingual skills, but nevertheless made for interesting reading.  You can see examples below – enjoy, (and good luck and good tasty – zaijian!)

Once, there was a boy who was an onion. He cried every day.

Q: Why don’t babies need to brush their teeth?
A: Because 卑鄙无耻 (bei bi wu chi – homophone of ‘baby has no teeth’…)

George Bush: Who was the first president of the U.S?
Deng Xiao Ping: Wo xing Deng [我姓邓: My surname is Deng]
George Bush: Yes, Washington.  And what are you doing in the U.S?
Deng Xiao Ping: Xiaoping [小平]
George Bush: Ah, shopping.  Very good.  Have nice day!

Shortly after the declaration of the PRC in 1949, Premier Zhou Enlai held a press conference. A foreign journalist deliberately asked how many lavatories there were in the new PRC. “Two,” Premier Zhou answered. “One male and one female.”

With the ‘current global economic crisis’ (© international media) looming large in the hearts and minds of all, the number of ‘venerable outsiders’ coming to China to seek their fame and fortune grows larger by the day.

There was a time when these intrepid entrepreneurs would be limited by language, legislation or just the basic nuts and bolts knowledge of how to do business in China.  However, with the rise of Chinese language study, the country throwing open their doors to all foreign friends and reams of ‘chasing the Chinese dragon’ style literature on best business practice, these barriers to entry are not the ‘great walls’ they once were.

Although it is almost universally acknowledged that access to the Chinese market is now easier than ever, better access is no guarantee of success.  There are still many subtle dangers and learning experiences that every budding Mr. /Mrs. China has to encounter and overcome before they see any real returns for their hard work or investment.

In the modernised, vibrant cities around China, you sometimes find yourself forgetting that it is only in the last 25 years that the middle kingdom and the west have been reading from anything like the same page in terms of commerce.  It is in the melting pot of international office space that this disparity in experience and cross-cultural knowledge can come to the fore and create problems for both natives and outsiders here.

Below are a few of the most common issues found in such workplaces.  It is by no means a comprehensive inventory, and also comes with the caveat that none of is intended as a criticism of either culture, but merely a guide to successfully adapting yourself to the Chinese working way of life:

• Reactions

In this country that was hidden from the world’s glare for such a long time, everyday people’s reactions to certain situations differ somewhat from their western counterparts.  An obvious example is laughing.  Travel scribe Paul Theroux once pointed out that “the Chinese have 50 different ways of laughing but none of them involve humour, like ‘ha ha ha – we’re in big trouble now!’ or ‘ha ha ha – don’t expect me to really answer that question’”.  Being put on the spot can trigger this laughter reflex, and under intense questioning from an angry laowai boss who hasn’t received a vital report on time, a Chinese worker may be prone to a fit of the giggles.  This in turn provokes further rage from the manager who cannot comprehend why the situation is amusing to his or her member of staff, when actually the worker thinks it’s anything but.

• Patience

The ‘I want it all and I want it now’ culture of the west can at times grate against the more xiu xian (relaxed) working culture prevalent in many Chinese cities.  It’s a fact of life that things move a little slower here, and rather than jump up and down, rail at the injustice of it all and get nowhere fast, it’s much better for your heart and your popularity to go with the flow, politely smile and apply consistent and polite pressure where it counts.

• Style

For a number of reasons, the Chinese office is generally a lot more casual than its Western counterpart.  For one thing no one really wants to stand out, and when the boss rarely wears a suit, it’s hard for his underlings to do so without looking like they are trying to show off.  The casual nature of the Chinese workplace makes it hard for someone who wants to be stylish to fit in with the overall office aesthetic.

• Lunch

Never play down the vital role lunch plays in the Chinese workplace.  While the British practice of a wolfing down a quick sandwich in front of your computer is slowing beginning to become more prevalent on these shores, on the whole the Chinese take a more continental approach to their afternoon meals.  Asking staff to work during a lunch hour could result in a few raised eyebrows.

So, that’s the end to this short guide to adapting to life in the Chinese workplace.  Every country in the world has its difficulties and rewards when it comes to doing business, and China is no exception.  Working here can be frustrating, but it can also be diverse and fun, and China is arguably the most exciting place on the planet to do business right now.  You meet enthusiastic and talented co-workers and learn new things every day, and with an open mind and a healthy dose of patience and anyone can make success happen here.

Most westerners living in Chinese cities today do so in a bubble, insulated from the outside world and the harsher sides of life that the other 1.3 billion people in this country have to face.  Unless you take extreme measures to remove yourself from this cotton wool like moving to the countryside or stubbornly refusing to interact with anything western, you experience comparatively little of the random red tape and ritual that affects the daily lives of the locals here.

Foreigners have their own schools, hospitals, living areas and business zones, and you sometimes catch yourself wondering why the authorities go to these great lengths to help us.  Obviously foreign investment and technical expertise are important for the development of a country’s economy and the skills of it’s people, but as I mentioned before, the concept of face and the importance of being a good host are also fundamental.

Many efforts are made to ensure that China’s foreign guests are made to feel welcome and are happy with their lives in the middle kingdom, and this can sometimes manifest itself in some pretty bizarre ways.  However, there are very few occasions that you actually catch a glimpse of the man pulling the strings Wizard of Oz style behind the curtain, who makes our lives that little bit easier – but last night just happened to be one of those nights…

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Last night Iz and I attended the 2009 Sichuan Provincial G0v$rnm$nt Foreign Investor Friendship New Years Eve Party (try saying that after a few glasses of baijiu!).  It was a lavish networking event held at the 5 star Crown Plaza Hotel, where all guests received a free goodie bag containing (among other things) a large and rather ornate teapot.  Over the course of the evening we were treated to a full-on Chinese banquet, lion-dancing, lute playing, singing, face-changing and of course plenty of long speeches about harmonious living.

Then the time came for the prize draw, and the mainly Chinese crowd were buzzing with excitement.  All attendees had put their name cards in box and Iz – with her British Chamber of Commerce hat on – was asked to draw out the cards.

Given that around 90% of the four hundred or so guests were Chinese, the three third prizes (hospital VIP cards) all rather curiously went to foreign managers of foreign-owned enterprises.  Two Chinese won the two second prizes (mobile phones) and then, most bizarrely, the first prize went to one of the most important foreign dignitaries in the room, the Chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce.  It just so happened that the first prize was life insurance specifically for foreigners allegedly worth 6 million RMB!!! He stood on the stage looking rather sheepish with his oversized insurance certificate, while photographers hired by the company snapped away.

If this strange set of events seemed to be too strange to be a coincidence, that’s because it wasn’t… It transpired that inside the big box of name cards from where the lucky winners cards were drawn was a smaller compartment, from where the drawer (Iz) should pick the pre-determined winners. In the eyes of the officials this made the result of the draw ‘fair’ and meant that ensured that everyone went home happy in the knowledge that the right result had been achieved.

Although fixing the prize draw was I’m sure meant as a token of respect and a very generous gesture to the foreign guests, at the same time it seemed to make the foreign winners involved extremely uncomfortable for being singled out from everyone else just for being foreign – in my opinion having precisely the opposite effect to that which was intended.  Ah cultural differences…

My apologies for missing photo of the week, I promise it’ll be back with a bang on Wednesday, so be sure to tune in for that.  Until then blogwatchers, good luck and good tasty – zaijian!

Welcome back blogwatchers!

After a hectic and chilly festive period in Britain, Chengdon’t is back on the airwaves!  I’ll spare you the clichés about things at home being the same and yet somehow completely different, but there were a few noticeable changes from previous visits home.

The relative price of things is one of them.  In recent years, returning to Britain from China has been a bit of a shock to the system cost-wise.  If someone gave me a price in a shop or the pub, I would generally repeat the price back to them in a slightly higher tone of voice, “two pounds fifty…” By my own admission it was a pretty annoying habit, and I was soon banned from starting sentences with “in China that would cost…”

To be fair, when I started working in Beijing I was being paid about three hundred pounds a month, so if things hadn’t been cheaper in China I would have been in serious financial difficulty!

However, this year the economic gap between the two countries – at least to my untrained eye – seems to have narrowed.  One of the biggest factors in this is the relative strength of the two currencies.  When I started in Beijing almost 4 years ago now, 1 pound was worth around 16 RMB.  Now – according to yesterday’s figures – 1 pound is worth 9.91 RMB.  An eye-watering drop if ever there was one…

Our friend Mr. Mao

It could be argued that another reason for the worldwide financial crisis being less keenly felt here is that the Chinese are generally pretty careful with their money, and so are less likely to have racked up enormous bills on their credit cards or mortgages than their western counterparts.  This is changing with time as modern world temptations like shopping malls and Internet purchasing catch up with China’s youth, but on the whole the occupants of the middle kingdom are still relatively prudent.

That’s not to say that the ‘crunch’ hasn’t affected China – it certainly has – but its effects have so far been fairly industry specific (manufacturing goods for export has been hit especially hard).  Perhaps there will be a kind of trickle-down effect from these industries onto the rest of the economy, and this year will see the crisis hit the country in full.

We’ve already seen hundreds of thousands of migrant workers returning rather meekly to their hometowns from the cities after being laid off or not finding work, and some experts are predicting 2009 to be the year that the Chinese economic bubble bursts.  For the moment though, it’s business as usual here in Chengdu, albeit with the occasional furtive glance over the shoulder…Until next time blogwatchers, good luck and good tasty, zaijian!

Christmas here in China approaches!  Rosy-cheeked babies wrapped up in ten layers of clothing stagger along the street, the smell of roasting chestnuts hangs in the air and the Christmas decorations are up – actually, they’ve been up all year, old Mr. He in my local shop just couldn’t be bothered to take them down…

NOT old Mr. He

As a westerner in China, it’s easy to be sniffy about Christmas here.  Cynics point to the fact that the vast majority of the Chinese population are not practising Christians, so why are they celebrating the festival marking the birth of Christ?

However, if we’re going to be picky here, the vast majority of the British population are also not practising Christians and yet we still go gift-buying crazy in December.  And wasn’t there an enormous Spring Festival parade on the streets of London this year?

Fifteen or twenty years ago perhaps a Chinese Christmas would have been a somewhat muted affair – but not now.  In 21^st century Chengdu the festival seems to have been taken up with verve and enthusiasm – especially by a more international-savvy younger generation – and what they lack in the knowledge of Christmas traditions, they more than make up for in er, festive spirit…?

Christmas is generally celebrated here by singing Karaoke, going to concerts and generally partying it up.  A more extreme example of Chinese yuletide innovation is Chengdu’s famous (and now officially outlawed) Christmas bat wars: in recent years the city’s main shopping street and square on Christmas Eve has resembled part Mardi-Gras part full-scale riot, as beer-fuelled youngsters smash each other on the head with plastic inflatable bats for 2 hours.

Ho ho ho!

Not particularly in the conventional spirit of Christmas – at least I don’t recall the part in the nativity where one of the wise men attacks a Shepard with a blow-up Hello Kitty club.  Sadly a large p0lice presence somewhat restricted the revelry this year, but no doubt other, slightly less bizarre Chinese Christmas will arrive to take its place.

Whatever your view on Christmas in China, in this increasingly globalised world you have to accept it is very much here to stay.  So wherever and however you plan to celebrate your festive season, have a very mao-ry Christmas and a happy new year!

Good luck and good tasty, zaijian!

I guess three years is a long time.  By next year I will have spent approximately 13% of my life in the middle Kingdom.  Which leads me to this question; does that make me 13% Chinese?

I feel that small nuggets of Chinese behaviour have started to creep into my unconscious.  If I’m trailing around H&M after Isabel and the dreaded ‘shopping foot ache’ sets in, I get the urge to squat down on my haunches and give my feet a rest.  Of course I’m completely useless at it and usually end up crashing like bambi-on-ice to the floor, but I now find it strangely comfortable for a short while.

It’s sometimes hard to immediately adjust and adapt your behaviour to a change of societal rules.  Last time I was back in Britain I was told off for taking too much of an interest in strangers.  On the bus into Bristol town centre – now a disgraceful £2.50 for a single – a ‘gentleman’ in front of me attracted my attention with his impressive array of tattoos, and I found myself oddly drawn to them.  My friend shook me out of my trance, “what are you doing? Stop staring!”  He hissed.  For a moment I felt somewhat indignant – if something’s interesting why not stare?

Obviously you have to put on different hats and adjust your behaviour for each country, but it’s not usually a disaster if you make a slight cultural boo boo coming from China to the west or vice-versa.  It’s one of the reasons why the Chinese abroad are usually so successful.  Apart from differences in expression – the Chinese tend to be a little more blunt about aspects such as physical appearance – there are no huge religious or ideological barriers to overcome living in a foreign country, and therefore this makes the Chinese more adaptable to whatever society they happen to be living in.

Foreigners coming to China looking for acceptance and integration do often struggle with their identity though.  Da Shan may speak better Mandarin than a lot of Chinese people, but one of the first things Chinese people will tell you is that he is Canadian.  You could be Professor of Chinese at Cambridge, but walking along any street in China to a stranger you’re a waiguoren.

However, I feel that in the next ten or twenty years this gap will narrow significantly as more foreigners flood into the country with yuan signs dazzling their eyes.  At the moment the country’s national identity is very strong – me Chinese you foreign – but if the number of Sino-Western hunxie babies I’m seeing around at the moment is anything to go by, then China’s demographic make-up is in for one of the biggest changes it’s ever seen.

So where does this leave me and my 13% in this great cultural shake-up?  Hopefully with a better understanding of not only China and the way things are done here, but also my own culture and how other people relate to it.  I can’t see too many Brits in the near future carrying round flasks of green tea, putting split trousers on their babies or squatting by the road waiting for the bus, but if they can know about and comprehend this behaviour then that’s a start to understanding the nation who may shape the fortunes of many in the years to come.

That’s the end of this Saturday’s post, apologies for the long-winded nature, and until next time blogwatchers, good luck and good tasty, zaijian!