Stepping Stones Across the River

Should one rely on signs, signals or the logic of rules, China will appear lawless, chaotic, and dangerous. The usual cues and clues that Westerners believe as reality is like the new Olympic glossed paint on Beijing‘s innumerable buildings. Merely a surface treatment which hides leaky pipes, faulty electric outlets and hallways of rotting trash that neighbors are too lazy to carry down a few flights of stairs.

Beijing still lives a rhythm based on hierarchy, peristaltic pressure and a convolution of Rube Goldberg rules. Viewing it from any perspective other than a Chinese-centric point of view is an invitation to red-tinged rage and a constant mantra of “what the…” as Western bred sensibilities constantly abrade against the grindstone of cultural expectations.
I’ve always enjoyed Chinese puzzle boxes. Marvelous works of engineering where first the right side must be raised before you can slide the latch that opens the drawer, which gives access to the switch, that slides the bar which turns the dowel that unlocks the lid.
 Chinese puzzle boxes are fun; but a bit more challenging should you happen to living in one.

One of the first lessons in Chinese is how to respond to praise. In English we say “thank you,” but in Chinese that would be rudely self-aggrandizing; the proper response would be “where where? Not me!”It is humorous for the beginning student of Chinese. However, it is enough to make one consider hari-kari with an ice pick when you are striving to cross culture divides in pursuit of employment.
The Games of the 2008 Summer Olympiad brought sweeping changes to the visa policies of the middle kingdom. Fears of protests and other face losing mischief forced all the foreigners currently working out of the country by requiring new visas which could only be issued from the Chinese embassy in our home countries.

As the post-Olympic hangover abates, the Chinese wheels of political commerce slowly grind out yet another new set of rules. Sadly, no one knows exactly what they are, or where we really can get that coveted Z visa; not even Beijing’s official visa office.

Where I actually need to go to get the required work visa, as they say in Chinese 船到橋頭自然值 “when the boat gets to the piers of the bridge, it naturally will straighten its course“ ‚ In the mean time, there is the Rube Goldberg maze of Chinese Chutes and Ladders to navigate.

At times it is Monty Pythonsque.

The blue haze of tobacco that tints the restaurants with their “no smoking” placards on every table.
The Erguotou drinking bloodshot eyed good-old-boys; smoke wafting from full purple lips into nostrils against the backdrop of a poster pleading “please no smoking in our environment friendly enjoyable restaurant.”
To the untrained eye, there are no rules against smoking in the middle kingdom.

Not all lessons in culture come from speaking Chinese.
Teaching English provides a financial bridge between departing America and settling into a stable Chinese life. Like any immigrant who sells whatever they can, my American accented English goes to the highest bidder. In this case the Haidian district office of the Chinese Centers of Disease Control.

I strive to be a respectful teacher. My lessons are absent of references to Tibet, democracy, the political status of Taiwan, and the racist confusion of how America could have elected a black man. 
But, there are occasions, usually around public health, when potentially face losing issues come up. I figure as we are in the same line of work it is worth bringing up.

“I see these placards on tables in restaurants. On every table. –No Smoking– What’s the point? Anyone can smoke anywhere in China.”
“Oh, of course they should be there. Smoking is against the rules.”

Sometimes when deep-sea fishing you hook into something, but you are not really sure you want to bring it to the surface. There is some monstrous shit down there.
“OK, let me see if I get this. Smoking is against the rules?”  -Yes

“People smoke freely in Chinese restaurants, or anywhere for that matter?”  -Yes

“Even if it is against the rules?”  -Yes


“Help me out here, I’m a foreigner, I’m missing something, smoking in restaurants is against the rules but people do it.”

-Oh, yes, it is against the rules, but it is not against the law.

I suspect we have similar kinds of logic in the USA. Perhaps that is why when middle class people screw up their business they go broke, and when rich privileged people do the same they go to Washington.
Rules and Laws are not the same thing.

Just because you are paranoid does not mean they aren’t out to get you. it is like breathing; an automatic sub-consciousness habit, like a fish knows how to swim. Foreigners in China develop a kind of radar that alerts us to when we are being the charged the “big nose” tax. The extra mark up that goes with “you are a foreigner so you are rich so I must squeeze a few extra RMB from your wallet. At times it makes for an entertaining exchange, like an friendly sword flight. Othertimes it is like a snarl of rush hour traffic.

The HR department needs a copy of my passport coverpage and visa, and it is too much trouble for them to walk across the hall and use the copy machine, so I’m at the little shop down the street that yesterday copied my resume for 2 cents. Today, copying a passport is 5 cents. What is the difference? Today the white boy is there by himself, yesterday the China girl with was him and doing the talking.

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As the copies begin to spit out I’m informed of today’s price; it throws the switch of “foreigner tax” and taps a shot of fight or flight adrenaline into the bloodstream.?”Forget the extra copies! One is fine. Yesterday I paid 2 cents, today its five. What the fuck?”?”Sir, we charge 5 cents to copy government documents.”?”Right, that’s funny. Very creative. Give me my passport.”?”Sir, really, look here.”

Sure enough on the posted price list plain as day, indeed copying government documents costs 5 cents.

I am thinking “I really need a longer fuse,” as the familar Beijing chirp of a cricket fills the little copy shop.

Beijing men love to collect crickets which they keep in dried out gourds. There used to be a Bird Market housed in an old maze of hutongs, out by the Panjiayuan Antique Market, that also sold crickets and kites; last time I went by there it had transformed into a 3 lane highway.

“Oh, you have crickets. I used to go to the cricket market in the bird market, but it seems to have disappeared into a highway. Where did you get your bugs?”

“The market is still there, it just moved across the ring road. Take the #100 bus. It goes right by.”

Patience. The lesson is patience. It is so easy to trip the switch of anger.?
What if instead it tripped the feeling of curiosity?

When Deng Xiaoping opened China up in the early 80’s, no one was sure how to blend Socialist thought with Capitalist economics. He coined the phrase “Cross that river by finding the stones that create the path.” It is good advice whenever trying to find one’s way through a new territory.
Beijing may not be new territory, during my previous five years in Asia, this northern capital was my home for almost two years. But, as my friend Ronny who I knew in Taiwan, and now is now living here as well so well pointed out “we played the card of the bold move in Taiwan, and it worked. But, here at this time in Beijing; it is a different story.”
Indeed it is. Which might account for why the line from the new popular movie “21″ keeps echoing off the walls of my cranium.
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YOU HAVE TO ACCOUNT FOR VARIABLE CHANGE
I suspect the Buddhists figured that one a while back. “You can not step twice in the river,” they say. It is true. The currents of culture that I used to be able to navigate with a sense of mastery, now have me pounding my head bloody against an invisible ignorance which can only mean that I’m reading the wrong wrong subtitles on this movie.
It is not back to square one, there is no square one. And…it is always square one.

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When I first came to Asia I sent home electronic postcards; travel logs of that time. When Yong Kang Clinic was opened it was an opportunity to publish via a blog Stepping Stones Across the River is a new chronicle of medicine, translation and life China’s northern capital.
歡迎光臨！