Last weekend, something happened which I knew would come eventually. That’s right, I had my first real Chinese culture shock. Which isn’t bad for over three months of living here. Up until then, I have been blissfully happy in China, to an extent that even surprised me. As I’ve discussed before, not only are Seth and I impressed and settling down nicely in this country, we actually are quite happy here. We have a fantastic work-life balance, people are friendly, and I have time to work on the podcast and this website. And when we miss home food we can literally order McDonalds, high quality pizza, Western groceries, or pretty much anything our hearts desire straight to our door. (Among recent purchases: lots of cheese, a small oven, and flushable cat litter! See? We’re living the high life.)The expat community is just as wonderful as I expected it to be, and there’s a very live-and-let-live tempo to life here — something I didn’t see happening coming to China. Overall, life has been grand!
My facial expression all day every day — it’s practically frozen on my face now!
And then last weekend, I went to a dark place. You see, my school went on a trip to a place called Qingyuan (see map below) and generously invited the foreign teachers to come along.
Where are you again, Patrice? Right across the border from Hong Kong.
This sounded really awesome. It was an all-expense paid opportunity to go see another part of China! While Seth could stay home and watch our furbabies, I would go check out this place that, according to google images, looked picturesque. And it was very nice that they did this. I can’t stress that enough — I really like my school. They treat me well, pay me well, and they very nicely took me on a long weekend trip! And parts of it were super cool. Some highlights of the happy moments:
So what could I possibly have to complain about!!? I could write a post about how great of a weekend I had and just focus on the good things — I think, for a lot of people, that’s the goal of social media. “Look how great my life is!!” But I want to be real and honest about my experience and opinions, without sounding whiney. So instead of telling this as a story that just keeps getting worse, I’m going to try to break this down into some lessons on Chinese culture which I learned during my time in Qingyuan. While also doing my best not to sounds whiney.
Three Lessons I’ve learned:
Lesson 1: Even though China is super advanced in many ways, in others, they are very much behind.
The other foreign teacher who came with me was a Brit named Garry. Garry is one of my favorite (or favourite) people in China! We were excited to be on the trip together and planned to be bus and hotel buddies. Not that it matters, but Garry is very openly gay. He never really needed to tell me this; I knew immediately when I met him. But being gay in China is not recognized as a way of life that exists or is acceptable. So when we got to the hotel to put away our bags, he and I were informed that we would not room together, as we have male and female bodies.
They gave us a few reasons, like the police might come and only married couples can room together (false), there will be gossip if you room together (amazingly, possible), etc. etc. I guess they thought there is a good likelihood that Garry and I could be having an affair, since we’re friends and they don’t really have a gaydar. As a result, I was paired with a woman I didn’t really know (my Mandarin is better than her English). And we only had one room key. It was very uncomfortable for both of us to share a space with someone we didn’t know. Besides the fact that the mentality is super old-school, if we had been told in advance that this wouldn’t be allowed, we would have each chosen different roommates.
Lesson 2: Chinese people are super patient when it comes to waiting for things.
On Friday night, we and about 10 teachers planned to go out after dinner to sing some karaoke. But one of the school leaders wanted to go to a bar, which changed everybody’s plans. So after dinner at 8:30, we waited for him to come up with a plan to go to a bar. And then we kept waiting. And waiting. For two hours.
At 10:30, the teachers who were still awake finally left the hotel lobby and ended up at a very loud bar (club?). With no English menu and fuses that were burning low, Garry and I left to find karaoke, with two other Chinese teachers in tow. Why couldn’t somebody else have taken the lead? We wasted hours waiting for this school leader to make a decision. This was one of several instances in which I felt we waited around for no good reason. At one point, a Chinese English teacher said to me, “I think time is very important to you, because of your culture, right?” and I could only just smile and tell her she was right.
Lesson 3: Don’t stop; smell the roses as you run past them taking pictures!
So on one hand, we spent a lot of time waiting around for things to happen. But on the other, when they did happen, in classic stereotypical Chinese tour bus style, they were completed extremely quickly. Afterward, we hopped back onto the bus to go wait for other things to happen. This phenomenon was particularly present a few times when we went to dinner outside the hotel. We would each gather at a table of 10 people, food was brought out and placed on lazy susans (typical Chinese style), and then about 10 minutes later everybody left.
There wasn’t a moment at the end of the meal where we got to sit back and happily pat our bellies; instead we choked down our food so that we could get back on the chartered bus to… well, I guess wait for the next activity. Patiently.
Final thoughts
Now that I’ve had some time to reflect, I am happy that I’ve learned these lessons (albeit the hard way). So overall, I’m glad I went on the trip, because it also gave me an opportunity to improve my Chinese a bit. I also met a language exchange partner with whom I just started regular meetings! But will I be chomping at the bit to do it again? Probably not for 3 days straight. I like to think of myself as an open, adventurous person, but at the end of the day, I need my own space in my own bed. And now that I’ve been on a real Chinese tour bus (tour guide and all), I will be waiting and studying until I can understand more to attempt another immersion.