Building cultural bridges with love. 洋媳妇谈中国
Stories about life, love and marriage in Hangzhou, China. From one Western woman with a Chinese husband from Hangzhou.
“The feelings between my wife and I were not so harmonious. So [this past summer] we officially divorced,” wrote Huizhong, one of my husband’s xiongdi — male friends so close to him that he refers to them with the Chinese word for “brothers.” Just like that, Huizhong became a new statistic in the rise of divorce rates in China. Continue reading “Another Friend, Another Divorce in China”
On our first official date, John gave me a copy of a Dream of Red Mansions, treated me to a Buddhist vegetarian Chinese feast, and then romanced me beside the West Lake in Hangzhou. An unforgettable night with the man who would become my Chinese husband? Priceless.
Except for John, who not only paid for it, but actually took out a loan to make it happen — from his friend, a guy we call “Lao Da.”
But when I asked John why he went to such great lengths to pay for me, he gave me an answer I never expected: “Our relationship wasn’t settled yet.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked him, rocking back and forth in his arms playfully as we traded smiles. Continue reading “Of Love, Money and An “Unsettled Relationship” With a Chinese Man”
“These girls gave me panda earrings!” laughed this Chinese girl, who came over to my home for the holidays. “I mean, seriously, panda earrings? I can buy those in China anytime.” These girls were her American classmates. And even though pandas are pretty much the national symbol of China — and even one of the mascots for the Beijing Olympics — these Americans somehow thought this gift would truly be something special.
It was like how one of my relatives gave John — who comes from Hangzhou, the home of Dragonwell, one of the most famous and prized green teas in all of the world — a box of Celestial Seasonings green tea.
So it’s not surprising that, as I giggled at my friend’s tale of gifting gone wrong, I couldn’t help but think of many similar misunderstandings here in the US of A.
Like when people say this to John, after hearing he is from China: “Oh, I love sushi.” This culinary faux pas would usually make me cough uncomfortably. Sometimes, I would step in, reminding them politely, “Uh, you know, sushi is Japanese.”
Then there are the so-called “Chinese” things that don’t even really exist in China. Like General Tso’s chicken, and fortune cookies. When my husband first heard about chop suey from my Grandpa, I had to explain to him, later on, that this was a dish created by Chinese immigrants to the US, as a way to make Chinese food into something a little more American.
As long as people continue to learn about countries from afar — through the media, movies, TV and reading — there will always be misunderstandings. Which is why I’m sure this won’t be the last time an American gives a Chinese girl panda earrings.
What China misunderstandings have you experienced?
Great news! Matador just published my article titled “How I Learned to Read Chinese.”
For those of you dying to know about my path to fluency, this piece tracks how I left illiteracy in Chinese behind. Curious? Here’s a snippet:
When I came to Hangzhou, China in August 2001 as a writer – and to work on Mandarin fluency – I faced a great, embarrassing wall: I was illiterate.Sure, I could speak and understand basic conversational Chinese, because I’d studied while teaching English in China from 1999 to 2000. Then, as a beginner, speaking and listening in a tonal language was so challenging that I didn’t want to deal with the characters.
But in Hangzhou, my ignorance was a big deal. Even though I could chat with locals, order food and ask directions, I was baffled by business cards, menus, and even store signs. I needed to read so I could build vocabulary and truly be fluent. But how?
For the “thrilling conclusion” — and to discover the Meteor Garden connection in all of this — read the full piece at Matador. And if you like it, share it. And thanks! 😉
UPDATE: Got this in an e-mail from Matador:
I wanted to let you know that your article was featured in this week’s Traverse newsletter, which means it was picked out by senior editor David Miller as one of the strongest pieces published during the week.
That made my day!
When my birthday came along this summer, my Chinese husband orchestrated yet another in a long line of grand “birthday programs” — mining the rainbow gleam of opal; breathing in the azure beauty of a pristine trout stream filled with river otters; and savoring the fragrant delight of coconut curries at a Thai restaurant downtown. The entire day felt as precious and beautiful as the double rainbow we glimpsed from the highway, arching in twin perfection against the tumultuous gray skies behind.
Two months later, when his birthday arrived, along with the new semester, I imagined a day of birthday revelry fit for the one man who captured my heart and soul. “Maybe we could go to the hot springs. Or a planetarium in a science museum. Or what about visiting a state park?”
But John shrugged, as if I was just discussing the week’s shopping list with him. “We don’t really have the time,” he said, referring to his heavy workload this semester. “You can just make me a chocolate cake,” he smiled.
“A chocolate cake?” I replied, with incredulity. “That’s all?” Continue reading “The China Birthday Enthusiasm Gap”
One late summer afternoon at the office in Shanghai, I happened to glance out the window, only to find the summer sun engulfed in a dark blanket of clouds covering the city. The sky soon became so dark, it looked as if the sun had almost gone down — the kind of darkness that, for this US Midwesterner who grew up with tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings, foreshadowed destruction and danger.
I ran through the office in panic, pounding at the HR manager’s door. “Did you see how dark it is outside? Shouldn’t we evacuate?”
But the manager, after looking away from her computer, smiled the kind of comforting smile a kindergarten teacher might before a worried child, as she leaned back in her chair with her hands calmly laying in her lap. “Oh, there’s nothing wrong. It’s just a storm. You can go back to work.”
Her words seemed so dissonant, spoken before the tumultuous sky framed in the window behind her. I retreated to my cubicle, my mind a cacophony of thoughts — as her reassurances thundered against my experiences with severe weather in Ohio. But, in the end, just as she told me, there was nothing wrong — no building damage, no heavy rain or winds. It was just a storm, a little thunder and lightening that passed harmlessly by.
Continue reading ““It’s Just a Storm”: The Ebb and Flow of Yangtze River Delta Weather”
One Saturday morning in Spring 2005, about 10 minutes before crawling from bed, I heard it — a screeching sound akin to scratching a blackboard with your fingernails, but magnified more than 100 times over. Yes, just a little good old welding and drilling in the name of redecorating yet another apartment in my neighborhood, a process that happened seven days a week, from morning to evening, for as long as two to three months.
Sounds like this used to bring out my worst side (a side that, regretfully, I’d even bring outdoors on occasion to shout something I’d regret later).
But not this time. I yawned, rolled over, and then slept the rest of that 10 minutes (with a clear conscience). And when I did finally rise, I didn’t even have any residual hangover of rage when I finally rose from bed.
What a milestone — but it wasn’t the only one. Continue reading “Learning Patience in China”
Before I went to China, I couldn’t even remember the last time I wore a pastel. I’d exorcised everything pale pink and peach from my closet, instead preferring the deep, scruffy olives and maroons and blacks of my thrift-store wardrobe. No one would mistake me for some prep princess, ever.
But over the years, pastels started creeping into my wardrobe. It started with a T-shirt here, a tank top there. And before you know it, I’m wearing an outfit — just as I did yesterday — that would leave the old me screaming in horror: a cheerful pastel striped knit tank with blinding white cargo shorts (ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!).
China changed me.
I’ll never forget my first full day in the Middle Kingdom. I dressed in my usual, defiant clothes — a military green knit top, and don’t-mess-with-me khaki shorts, baggy (just to make me look even more dominant) — as I flitted from one famous Beijing site to another: the Forbidden City, Beihai Park, Tian’anmen Square.
But as I wandered around town, I couldn’t help but notice the young Chinese women — and what they wore. Continue reading “How China Made My Clothing Cuter”
There are endless reasons to visit Hangzhou’s Su Causeway. A stroll with a lake view. A walk through — or rather on — history (it was, after all, named for Su Dongpo, the Song Dynasty poet). A brief respite from city smog. Or even just to fawn over the lotus blooms that grace the lake in the summer.
You don’t go to see a bench. At least, you don’t — unless you’re John and I, a couple minted beside the shores of this breezy little lake just a little over a year ago, on one otherwise unspectacular bench.
“This is it, isn’t it, sweetie?” I asked, pointing to the bench closest to one of the causeway’s bridges — a bench that happened to hold an entire family, curious why John and I were ogling their chosen seat.
“Yes, it’s ‘our bench,'” John beamed. We had secretly christened it our own bench, with John often suggesting that we plant a tree nearby, to commemorate a love that grew right from this very spot. Continue reading “Chapter 76: The Bench on Su Causeway”
“I’ve discovered a new confidence and joy,” exclaimed my Chinese friend Chris, who I also visited during my trip to Hangzhou in August 2003. He spoke with all of the passion of a born-again Christian pastor. Except this wasn’t about finding religion — it was about finding Amway.
I don’t know just how Chris went from masters studies in Chemistry to layman’s studies of direct sales. He had finished a year of graduate school at Zhejiang University, one of the country’s top ten schools, and presumably had two more years. Yet, here he was, in a dress shirt and tie, passing out Amway business cards — and demonstrating their products as if this was a sales call, instead of the friendly meeting over tea.
“Here try this,” he said, passing around an Amway hand moisturizer. “The glycerin and honey makes your skin feel softer and smoother than any moisturizer I’ve ever used.” My Chinese friend Caroline — the one who had been a matchmaker to John and I over a year ago — raised an eyebrow at me, and looked as if she was stifling laughter.
But it was no laughing matter to Chris. Continue reading “Chapter 75: Buying Amway in China”