1000¥

Today I got paid, but I decided I will try to live off 1000 (yuán [元]) this whole month. In dollars that is around $150. I wonder if this is possible... That means I will not go out to eat much and won't buy unnecessary things...but I want to try it anyway! Usually when I see something I want I buy it... but China=change, so I will challenge myself to this (the only thing I will not forbid myself to buy are tickets somewhere to travel, because what other time will I get to travel China? Probably NEVER in this way).

Moving onto a lighter topic, NOT...(but before let me mention that this is what Lily wrote to me in one e-mail "You and I are the best friends and sisters all the time and forever!" I think it's super cute and nice that she is SO amazing to me, and now I understand that she considers me to be like the sister she never had. A couple of days ago she even invited me to her hometown for The Spring Festival (the biggest holiday in China) and she told her parents that I might come, and they were so excited! It still amazes me how nice and kind and warm-hearted people that don't even know you can be! Lily said her dad would even take off of work to drive me around anywhere I wanted so that I could go sight seeing! He has already started planning excursions for me and one of the activities Lily told me about is called PiaoLiu which is a game that involves river rafting (someone steers the boat while the other people sit...it's a race) Unfortunately the Chinese New Year (AKA Spring Festival) is right before I leave to come back to the US next year, so I wonder how I will feel then...will I want to desperately leave China or will I want to spend more time here?

As I mentioned two posts back, we went to Lily's to cook this past weekend. We cooked so much food and pictures are on facebook! I won't go into too much detail about cooking because we cooked for about three hours and then eventually ate and left! The point is that Lily has been super kind to us, but actually we found out her roommates dislike us. She has two roommates: Charlene and some girl that speaks no English, but Japanese. Well after our cooking party and after we left (which her roommates did NOT join in on) Lily said they were cold and ignoring her...finally Charlene (whom I actually met the first time I ate dinner at Lily's and she seemed pretty nice to me...and spoke English pretty well) told her that she didn't like us and that she doesn't want us in their apartment anymore...ummmm?!??!? All of us are wondering what we did and we asked Lily BUT she said we didn't do anything! Literally, NOTHING. We also found out that Charlene called us "Ill educated" (translated by google translate from a word Lily didn't even want to repeat!). And I thought ALL Chinese girls were...well, not like this. So Lily has to honor the wishes of her roommates and never bring us over again, weird. She did also mention to me that before she went to English classes, she used to buy food, make dinner AND clean the whole apartment ALMOST EVERYDAY (???) for herself and her roommates. One time she asked them why they don't help her with the cleaning (including cleaning their shared bathroom, the kitchen, the living room) and they said, "We don't know how to use a mop". Literally. I would have given them a piece of my mind, but Lily said she just cleaned from then on and never asked them for help again! I asked her why she didn't just ask them to help her since it's a shared area, and she said it was because they are like her family, so she likes doing things for them... But what I don't understand is how you can do things for someone over and over and over, and spend your leisure time cleaning and cooking while they are relaxing in their rooms and disrespecting her? And that is where taking advantage of someone comes into play...





Anyway, that just shows me how important relationships are in China. It's like it never even occurred to Lily that maybe her roommates just didn't want to do work and expected her to do it all because she's so kind. If someone was like that to me, I would WANT to help because I would feel like I were using that person especially since it's clear she was doing it out of the kindness of her heart.


This makes me then think about 关系 (GuanXi). Anyone who has learned about business in China knows what GuanXi describes... it is basically the relationship you form with a person, more on a networking level. This is so important here and I have heard this word and description many times. The idea of "face" is part of GuanXi and this describes how you portray yourself to the public...it is the perception, for example, that Media gives off by having me, an American, working for them. I also know that in the Chinese government, GuanXi is very important...so many times, workers bribe those above them with presents to get to a higher position. When I say bribe...to us it is a bribe, but to them it is a gift showing kindness and maybe even an act to show respect and friendship... I guess it depends on which way you look at it. Since I'm in China, I will begin to look at it from the Chinese point of view. I don't know enough about this yet, and have not experienced enough, but surely soon I will be able to explain this better from experience (I have already heard of one thing that happened in Midea having to do with GuanXi, but I will save it for another day because I am too lazy to write about it now).


Until next time! Today I am going to GuangZhou and I can't wait because Alex wants to party hard tonight and I haven't in a while...sooooo GUANGZHOU HERE I COME!