|
From Magic City Morning Star R.P. BenDedek
Chapter 6 Made to feel at home. Zhan Yan's home was just a little behind the Junior Middle School he attended, so that in fact, he had further to go to school from my place than from his. Nevertheless, his family felt that there were three good reasons for living with me. The first was that he would develop his English Speaking skills faster living in a household where English was the first language. The second reason was that his parents were divorced, and that he did not have a father figure in his life. The third reason was that he had no older brothers, and at the time he came to live with me, he had an older brother in QC. In Chinese English, both natural brothers and cousins are called brothers, a point that always needs clarifying with even the most gifted students when they refer to a brother or sister. Zhan Yan was an only Child, and as most of his older male relatives lived and worked in other cities, he spent most of his time in an all female household. His mother once explained to me that she thought it was good for him to spend time in a male household. (Strange contra-western concept that is!) As I refused to take payment for him, his family regularly dropped in to visit, and would immediately set about cleaning up and organising my house. It got to the stage that any visit from them caused me great distress. If I was unaware of their impending visit, I would be embarrassed as hell as they set about folding my undies, making my bed, washing my dishes, and literally getting down on their hands and knees to clean my floor, even though I had a vacuum cleaner. On the other hand, if I knew that they were scheduled to visit, I would have to drop everything and run around and clean house. Eventually I made one of the boys explain to them that they risked causing me to 'lose face' by cleaning my house. Not to worry! They understood! They would just bring me heaps and heaps of food! Their gifts of food were always well appreciated by the boys (because it was Chinese food), except for one dish, for which I likewise had no liking. Lotus plants grow in abundance in Hong Hu, and you can literally eat every part of the plant; the root, the stem, the leaves, the flowers and the seeds. But the only preparation of the lotus plant that I have never liked, is when lotus root is boiled with pork bone and made into a kind of soup. The lotus root changes consistency, and stretches like mozzarella cheese on a pizza. Every week or two Zhan Yan's mother, Tian Ying, would drop in a big pan of it, and every week we would throw it out the window. It made me so guilty in the end, that I forced the boys to explain the situation to her. Of course what they actually told her I'll never know. Probably something like: 'Ma! The foreigner says this is disgusting food and we should not eat it!'
It is now my favourite dish, except that I usually have to buy it as a takeaway and go home and add finely chopped chillies. In time my brother and I learned to shop at the local meat and vegie markets, and would buy 5-7 kg blocks of pork. In China, the more fat on the meat the more valued it is, but being a westerner I used to cut all the fat off. What exceeded my capacity to boil down and use for cooking, I distributed to passing old folk. Now you remember that I mentioned going into the female toilet upon my arrival in Hong Hu? My apartment was the very last before the brick security fence, and that toilet was opposite the spare room window. All the old folk who lived in little niches under the high rise resident teachers buildings had no inbuilt toilet, and so would pass by my door on the way to the outdoor one. One day an old dear that I had never seen before was passing by, and when she returned from doing her business, I handed her a bag with about a kilo of pig fat. She was so grateful, that 15 minutes or so later, she returned with a bag of weeds and proudly presented them to me in payment. I thanked her, bowed, smiled, shut the door, and threw them out the kitchen window. (That side of the house was sealed off and no one could get out there.) Being the fine people that they are, Zhan Yan's family often invited myself and household, and my brother and his fiancee over for lunch or dinner, and I have written about that at Magic City. Zhan Yan's grandmother, a marvelous woman with a wonderful disposition given all that she has suffered in her life, (Women in China) is a wonderful cook. Her's is the only Doufu / Toufu that I ever eat. I don't give a continental if Doufu is supposed to be good for your health, it is as far as I am concerned, crap - except when Grandma cooks it. One day I and the 3 boys were having lunch with Grandma, Ma and Aunty, and I was in the middle of chattering away to the boys, when I realised that I needed more rice. Without missing a beat in the conversation, I jumped up, went over to the rice cooker, opened it, and filled my bowl. Suddenly there was Chinese chatter amongst the women, coupled with raucous laughter, and then the boys started up. OK!OK! I started pleading. What have I done that is so funny? What's wrong? What are they laughing about? Well it turned out that I had done nothing wrong. Grandma merely commented that at last she knew that I felt that I was a part of the family, because I felt free enough to get up and help myself. And it was true! I did feel like part of the family.
When a Chinaman says 'make yourself at home' he literally means it; unlike in the west where the same comment can mean, 'don't make a mess - don't spill anything on my plush carpets, and for godsake act in a civilized manner.' That last one is a real killer for me! I've always believed that passing wind was better than keeping it in. Some people seem to have contrary opinions on this matter. By the way, while I was joking just then, if you ever go to Hongkong, be warned; loudly passing wind in public does not even raise an eye brow, unless it is your eyebrow and you are the one standing directly behind that old lady in the lift. (True story!) Now in fact, I have never been to QC's home nor met his father. QC comes from a different town in HongHu, but I did meet other members of his family in Tianjin, about which I wrote at Magic City. I have also had his mother living in my apartment. When QC and Mingxing were sitting their entrance examinations, both their mothers came into Xindi 'to look after them'. As I had no classes myself because of the examinations, and as I knew that the mothers would probably undergo some sort of hardship (as many do at this time of year), I turned over my apartment to the women, and went off to Wuhan. The day I got back, the boys were not yet home. I went to my room and emptied my bag, and in a jiffy the women had grabbed all my unmentionables and were racing off to the bathroom to wash them by hand. Those rotten little buggers had let their mothers wash everything by hand and had never pointed out that there was a washing machine in the kitchen. As for Mingxing's family, I've met a village full of them and there are heaps of stories about my stays at his home in Heng Ji the first of which was called 'Down on the Farm'. Hengji is a couple of kilometers off the main road (and on a dirt track - I don't think it qualifies as a road), and is I think around 20 kilometers from Fengkou. Fengkou, which is a town of HongHu, is closer to Xindi. Closer still is Jianshi, which is where my sister-in-law comes from. (Did I mention that my brother married a local girl?) Some of Mingxing's relatives live in Jianshi, and when he repeated Senior grade three, my sister-in-laws brother John was in his class. Mingxing's family have likewise made me a part of their family, and I always feel at home there, even though that has meant at times that I have learned to live quite a different lifestyle. Although someone once mentioned to me that they thought I was using literary license when I wrote in an article that I was drinking water straight from the creek in Hengji, the fact is that I have actually done that (although I didn't know it), and I never got sick. One morning on the farm, I woke up to find no one in the house. I was quite thirsty and so went to the thermos flask to get some hot water but both flasks were empty. I went to the kettle that sits atop a little brick stove, and the kettle was empty. I went to the barn (where the cooking stove is and where the food is stored) intending to drink from a little tap that I had seen next to the stove. When I turned the handle, nothing happened. Underneath it however is a huge earthenware pot full of water. Assuming that it was filled with tap water, I drank from it. It was 'piquant' shall we say. Tasting something akin to rainwater from a tank and with a robust but enchanting 'je ne c'est quoi' it did it's job and satisfied my thirst.
That creek was stagnant in places, covered in moss, had a dead fish and even a dead chicken in it. The Ox drank from it, bathed in it, shit in it, and I had seen all the local kids pissing in it. Oh Dear lord in heaven protect me! You know, in seven years in China, the only time I have gotten sick from food, was in Suzhou, when, after not going out all weekend and therefore eating only what I myself had cooked, I ended up with a stomach bug for 4 days. Ironic isn't it? When you consider how I was feeling prior to coming to China; that I had no past and no future, it is not difficult to see what it was about those first two years in Hong Hu that appealed to me, and while one might be tempted to say that those feelings were simply the result of the 'repaid kindness' of families whose kids lived with me, the fact is that such kindness was not restricted to just those boys families. Not long after arriving in town, I noticed a little dry cleaning shop up near the Long Ke Duo supermarket, and began taking some of my clothes there to be cleaned. Whilst at first I needed assistance to explain what I wanted done with the different items of clothing, after the staff got to know me it became an easy task to go there on my own. Naturally we all tried to communicate but the initial difficulties disappeared as I began to learn the simple things like greetings and abbreviated explanations of where I was going or whether I had classes that day or not, and most importantly, when my clothes would be ready or when I would be back to fetch them. In the Summer of 2004 I was commanded to teach at a Summer Camp that was held in Hong Hu No 1 Senior Middle school. This was to be my first and last Summer Camp with very good reason. (See: Teaching English Summer Camps.) Although the camp was aimed at Teachers, I did have a number of university students, one of whom was named Chen Yang. According to him, and despite having just completed his first year at University, he had never spoken English before. Under my tutelage however, he learned that speaking English was easy. His words were but one of a few worthwhile moments during that camp. As it turned out however, the only reason he was at the camp, was because his mother - the dry cleaner - made him go to my classes, and as a result of our ability to communicate, I was invited to dine with the family.
The Chinese are extravagant in their desire to honour guests, and without realising it, are prone to offending foreigners. I know that one Nigerian Christian Teacher suffered some guilt after giving in to accepting just 'a little try' of beer. You risk offending your hosts if you do not at least 'try' this or that food or this or that drink. My personal experiences during those first 18 months led me to prefer offending my hosts by not eating food which either literally made me sick (I'm allergic to shellfish) or which turned my stomach (frogs). I also learned to prefer that they get angry with me for not drinking alcohol, than end up drunk through succumbing to their constant demands to drink yet one more glass of beer. I must point out here that until I came to China, I seldom seldom ever drank because my physiological tolerance for alcohol is almost zero. When Chen Yang told me that his parents wanted to have dinner with me, I made a point of using precise language and told him that I would love to 'go to his home' and have dinner. When he told me that we would eat in a restaurant, I told him that I would only agree to this if I could choose the restaurant. When I took him to two different restaurants in which I would eat, he told me that he thought his parents would not find those places suitable. When Chinese honour their dinner guests, they take you into private private rooms within restaurants, and as I've always been somewhat claustrophobic, I really don't like doing that. Additionally, as the Chinese have a habit of smoking at the dinner table, (not that I personally find that offensive), when several people are smoking in an enclosed room, even for this smoker it becomes stifling. It was for this reason that I chose ordinary / common / backstreet restaurants where I knew I was not going to be shoved into an enclosed space. By the time we finished all the bargaining, and after numerous telephone calls back and forth to his parents, it was agreed that we would have dinner on the rooftop terrace at his home. It was simply wonderful. From that day onwards, both before and after I left Hong Hu for Wuhan, and whether Chen Yang was around or not to act as translator, I was invited to dinner, and have on occasions turned up in town and visited them knowing full well that I would be dining with them, no matter the time of day. Of course these days I do have some ability to communicate in Chinese. The graciousness of the Chinese toward people they like and feel an affinity with is beyond description. As someone once told me: 'If you make a friend of a Chinaman, you have a friend for life.'
Many Chinese assume that because you are a westerner that back home you live in the lap of luxury, waited upon by servants. On many occasions I have had people tell me that they would like to have me come to dinner at their home, but that they felt that their home was too poor to accept a foreigner. It is sometimes difficult to make them understand that I care not a whit what type of home they live in; I am only interested in the people who live in the house. One student who invited me to her home was Raine. I can't now remember her real name, but against all better judgment I think, her parents agreed to have me to dinner. We had a wonderful time, and Raine herself was pleased as punch to have me there, as was I to be there and meet such fascinating people, as indeed they were. When one has lived in a poor rural type environment for a while, and that place happens to be in the middle of China, one can I think be forgiven for assuming that everyone is poor. If it can be said that the sight of poverty in China can give you culture shock, then so too can opulent wealth. R.P. BenDedek Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com Hardcover Publishing inquiries welcomed! R.P. BenDedek is the pseudonym of an Australian who has been teaching in China since 2003. He currently lives in Baotou in Inner Mongolia. In addition to contributing to Magic City Morning Star News as a columnist, he also is an assisting Editor for the Newspaper. Additionally, BenDedek is the author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' at www.kingscalendar.com © Copyright 2002-2008 by Magic City Morning Star |
