I had a funny experience at work two days ago...I was on Facebook (hehehheh) and one of my students and coworkers (who is probably around my age) walked by me, then stood behind me for 15 seconds until I turned around and smiled... and he made a noise, "hmmm..." then started walking away. Well he turned back around and said to me, "But in China we can't use Facebook". I said, "Oh really? For some reason I can" then I thought about it and replied quickly, "OH! This isn't the REAL Facebook, it's something SIMILAR to Facebook" and he's like, "Ok..." and walked away. STOP SPYING on me people! Actually I think he was just curious how I got on Facebook, probably nothing to do with getting me in trouble, but I'm pretty naive sometimes, so hopefully he doesn't tell my manager that I have been breaking the law AND slacking off at work. Actually my students told me that some of them just use "wall climbing" software, as they call it, to look at banned sites anyway, so it's not that uncommon here just not spoken about (oooh interestingly, WALL CLIMBING could refer to the Great Wall of China, OR as my blog title says and something that I came up with myself, the Wall that the Chinese government has made around China to block certain Western influences).
One other thing before I start writing about life here are the relationships in China. I know I've briefly touched on this subject in previous posts, but I must admit I like many relationships I have with Chinese. I really DO like feeling special and people make me feel like they LIKE doing things for me which they actually don't need to. I really respect and like this in the Chinese culture (although there are many things I don't like) As wrong as it is, and believe me I know it's not right, I do like being treated like a Westerner and I love getting special treatment. Why should I though? Just because I have big eyes and olive colored skin, and wavy hair and a nose that doesn't look like a Chinese nose? I shouldn't, but still do get special treatment. I KNOW Chinese people are not the same towards people of their respective nationality. I have seen this many times, and I have seen people who are incredibly nice to me, be so-so towards other Chinese, who might even be closer with them than I am. I shouldn't have so many expectations for people here, but now, I hate to say it, I've gotten used to it. I hate that, but at the same time, it makes my life so much easier. Only people who have been to China for a while can begin to understand this, because you need to experience what it is like to be in a new place and NOT be a Westerner, and come here and then be treated like a Westerner to get the full effect.
I cannot even try to fully get across the aspect of exactly HOW DIFFERENT China is in every possible way...at least where I live. Many people have traveled Europe and Latin America, but China is a country completely peculiar and contrasting. This just makes me want to travel to more countries that I do not know much about... that are so incredibly distant from the West in every way possible. This is how I came up with the title of this post. I believe the Chinese government has tried to make an invisible wall around China that turns away certain Western influences, and this is particularly evident throughout history. The province in which I live, GuangDong, was a trading port and one location of the earliest entrance to China. During the 17th century, the British arrived with ships from the East India Company wanting to establish trade with China. The Qing dynasty (which ruled at that moment in time) was so against all the foreign inhabitance that they sent them all away to an island nearby, Shamian. This was the time where something we have learned about occurred: The Opium Wars. Basically the British felt that the Qing dinasty was harming trade and so they dumped opium into the Chinese market, which would create addicts who later would pay inflated prices to acquire more of the drug. The Qing would then try to cease the British opium trade, leading to the Wars which the British won due to their much advanced weaponry. And this was how Hong Kong was forced away from the Chinese, to become a British territory. There are much more details and rebellions that I will not go into about this time in history, but it's worthy to note that the Qing dynasty was the last dynasty to rule China.
My point is that where I live, life is different than in many parts of China. Like I said, the locals here speak Cantonese which is a different language than Chinese Mandarin. The food here varies compared to other parts of China, and the people are also different. I have to admit, the more I learn about GuangDong, the history and the culture, the more I become a fan of this province...this is my hometown province now! Still it is pretty incredibly how the government has kept the West from penetrating Chinese borders in ways such as censorship. In many parts of China, you wonder how it can be so backwards and developing at such a high rate at the same time. In many aspects of life and culture, the West, and globalization in general, has LITERALLY NO effect on China.
...Now onto topics I have been meaning to write about in the last two weeks and haven't gotten the chance...
So many children!
Gross...and food
Audre gets lost and we learn a lesson
Kids
Chinese people love kids, so it's interesting that most can only have ONE. When I walk to the building where I teach in after work...I pass by a courtyard with a huge water fountain. There I always smile and take my time walking because I see so many grandmas with their grandchildren. Little chubby Chinese children who can barely walk, wearing little squeaky sandals running around with their fat tushies hanging out of their pants. Poor grandmas, because these kids waddle around all over and of course, grandma has to chase her grandchild down. I have been wanting to bring my camera with me, but I always keep forgetting...next week. Nevertheless, there are children everywhere here! I feel like this town must only have young couples who have just had babies, and grandmas to take care of them! (This would actually make sense because people who work for Midea are usually young and right out of college, and when they get older, they move to other companies who have less requirements but more pay...)
Eating
UGH! So yesterday I was so hungry after work and so before class, I went to my favorite HotPot restaurant and ordered the best cucumber salad ever. As I was eating I noticed that there was a fly in my food... GREAT. And you know what I did? Threw the fly away, and kept eating. Now that I think about it, it IS pretty gross, BUT I mean this is China people, and not some FIVE STAR restaurant in Chicago...I thought about what my options were; make a scene and yell in English where no one one understand and they would just think I'm crazy or over reacting (and I would be embarrassed to ever come back again), I could have just left (and still had to pay) and then embarrassed the owners of the restaurant which I DID not want to do (considering how happy they always are when I walk in there), or suck it up and just finish the food and not make a big deal of it. So I chose the third option... And this is an example of what China is doing to me.
On that note, I'd like to say that I have seen, and heard that some Chinese people cannot even use chopsticks well. I don't really understand how this is possible considering I see mothers feeding little babies with chopsticks, but I guess that's the reality of it. I've been really opposed to eating with a fork, so I may have only once or twice so far, and that is because the restaurant served food only with a fork (or noodles that I bought in the store maybe came with a tiny fork and I was too lazy to do my dishes, so I used it)
Audre gets lost
We went to Babyface two weekends ago, had a great time...did the usual...sat in VIP, got free drinks, etc etc. Well Audre got drunk and decided since she felt sick, she would go to the bathroom and throw up...or rest. From what she said (hahahahhah Audre I know you're reading this, and hopefully your BF is not since YOU left some details out when you told him this story) she thought it would be a good idea to just sit in the stall and "rest" so she felt better. That rest turned into a nap which lasted until the club closed. All of us were pretty drunk and looked EVERYWHERE, or so we thought, for Audre and couldn't find her. Somehow we assumed she went back to Katia's apartment (which is where we stay every time we go to Guangzhou), so we went home. I slept throughout the cab ride and when we got back to the apartment I passed out. Audre wasn't there, so Lily called the police (thank God Lily came to GZ with us this weekend because she was the only one who is Chinese). Two hours later the police called back and said Audre was there, so we had to pick her up. Katia and Lily went alllll the way back to the club in a cab and got Audre who was completely shaken up...understandingly (the bounders found her and took her to the police station around 5am when the club closed. They told her they were going to "policy" and this was the way they thought POLICE was pronounced. She didn't have her phone, her camera, any money (she gave it to Alex to hold when she was dancing) and none of us speak Chinese of course, and neither does she! She tried to tell the police the area where Katia lives...but of course they didn't understand, and assumed she was either drunk OR crazy. We learned that we need to carry around the address of where we are staying at all times, and that we need to learn Chinese because if this ever happens to occur again, we might not be so lucky next time.
We actually went back to Babyface last weekend and got invited to sit with the owner in VIP and I must say it was great! We had a girl's night (Katia, Audre and I) and first went to Bound, which was a club with all Westerners. There were a lot of Russian looking, tall, skinny girls...who gave us dirty looks so we left and came to Babyface. Usually there are not a lot of "posh" (as Audre calls it ) Westerners at Babyface, so we love it there because we can party and have fun without people totally staring and giving us looks (funny that it was actually "Westerners" who were staring at us this time, and not Chinese! Regardless, Babyface was great! We drank Moet and Hennessey (well actually Audre and I dumped our shots before pretending to drink them because we didn't want to get too drunk)...and we chit chatted and had a great time with awesome Chinese people!
I'm getting bored and have work to do, so I did have more to write about, but it will have to wait until after the weekend!
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