School and the Real World: Two Views of China Collide

I recently decided to start studying political words; it’s not that I didn’t like studying words that are used in everyday conversations, it’s just that I wanted to start talking about things that really excite me…like politics. After a few weeks of studying a new book, I can now talk about the People’s Congress, the Communist Party, leadership styles, governments, policy and the like, which is great. One of the more interesting things about studying these words is that you get to read stories in your textbook about Chinese politics. The following is an excerpt that I’ve translated from my book, so if the translation isn’t great, I’m the only one to blame.

Student 1: Since China is a country that is ruled by one party, how is it able to how is it able to give everyone a high level of human rights protection?
Student 2: Correct, China is a country that is ruled by one party; why do you think that the leaders of a one party country are not able to help facilitate/realize a high level of human rights for everyone? The Communist Party of China and its delegates look after and protect the interests of everyone; all Chinese people are protected by widespread human rights. Moreover, China also has several other political parties. The Communist Party is very trusting of these smaller parties; the CCP and the smaller parties work together to discuss big issues and matters. People from the smaller parties hold leadership posts in the government. For example, Mr. Sun Yat-Sen’s wife Mrs. Song Qingling was the Vice Chairman of a Standing Committee of the People’s Congress.

Other excerpts:
In the People’s Republic of China, workers, farmers and intellectuals all have the same rights and are treated as equals.
Hong Kong will reenter a union with China in 1997; Macao will do the same in 1999. I believe that the Taiwan problem will also be resolved in a short amount of time.
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Obviously, it’s a little bit uncomfortable to talk about issues of human rights and the way in which the United States views China with your teacher during class. Yet, possibly because I was hiding behind the fact that I was an ignorant American, partly because I am a student and partly because I was curious, I decided to press one of my teachers about the Party, minority parties and the role of the State in China. Perhaps the most interesting—and obvious—that came to the fore during our discussing was the resolute manner in which she proclaimed that the Party does a great job of protecting the rights of everyone and working with minority parties.
After that discussion culminated, she asked me to talk about US foreign policy and why the US and Taiwan were so close. While we shared a negative opinion of invading other countries preemptively, I was unable to do a good job of explaining why, exactly, the US meddles in the internal affairs of other counties (i.e. human rights issues) On the issue of Taiwan, I tried to explain that the island’s relationship with the US had a lot to do with history and styles of government, but I have a sense that my explanation in Chinese was less than adequate. She concluded this conversation by telling me that she believed Taiwan would rejoin the Mainland in the near future.
After school, a lunch meeting, tutoring, and the gym, I decided to grab a late dinner in a small restaurant that I ride pass on my way to and from the gym everyday. It seems to be crowded most of the time, so I decided to go in a take a look at the menu. Now, you have to realize that this is a restaurant frequented almost exclusively by lower to lower-middle class Chinese—I’m going to assume that I was the only person coming from the nice gym up the street to eat at this place. The room was similar to most of the small restaurants you find in Beijing; the walls were white and dirty, the floor was in dire need of washing, and all corners of the room were filled with small white tables, many of which were slanted and in need of repair. In terms of chairs, small stools were the only option. After looking over the menu, I order eggs and tomatoes mixed together with a side of rice, a huge meal that cost just under one American dollar (note: I usually pay 50 cents for my lunch at my favorite lunch spot). While I was finishing up dinner, I noticed that two workers in their 40s had sat down at the table in front of me. As I’m trying to use my Chinese more in everyday situations, I decided to strike up a conversation and sit with them for a few awhile.
The first worker was dirty, very dirty. He had mud caking his hands as well as some on his nose from his day of installing and working with air conditioners and other machines, although I didn’t understand many of the things he was describing. His teeth were in need of a cleaning and crooked. Yet, despite his disheveled look, and his insistence on questioning why someone dressed like me—I was in khakis and a button down—would talk to him, he was funny and amiable. It turns out that he had moved here from Sichuan about a year ago. He wanted to return home to his son, but he was stuck working in Beijing. He also missed to weather and spicy food in Sichuan. He insightfully noted that pretty much every migrant worker from the south longs to return home. He was eating fried rice (12 cents) sharing a plate of meat and peppers with his friend (50 cents) and drinking a large beer (25 cents). He said that he worked 8 hours a day and, for those 8 hours of work, he was paid 30 Kuai, or almost $4. While this seems to be a ridiculously low wage, you have to remember that some people in Beijing make a lot less than that and 85% of the population of China rural. Moreover, these guys have jobs and a place to stay, which is more than a lot of people can say. Nonetheless, it was interesting to juxtapose this experience with the class about how great things are in China from the morning.

So my bike was stolen...twice

The following experiences indicate—at least in my mind—that I’ve finally settled in to my life in China:

1. After buying a gym membership late last week, I decided to go to the gym Monday afternoon in order to do a little bit of training. Once I got to the gym, I was unable to find the entrance to the underground bike lot (many of the nicer places in Beijing have an underground lot where workers and a few patrons can park their bikes). Therefore, I decided to park my bike on the street next to several other bikes. After a decent workout, I left the gym only to find that my bike was gone. Although it was locked, someone had managed to break the lock and take my bike. After I thought about it, I realized that parking a nice bike with a cheap lock on a corner that has hundreds of migrant workers passing everyday was probably not the best idea. The next day, I went to a super market and bought a cheaper bike and a more expensive lock. Yet, as fate would have it, that bike was stolen as well. Although I did buy a more expensive lock, it was a very greasy one. I think that when I went to lock it this morning the clasp slid right out of the lock and someone stole it. As they say in China, zenme ban, or what is one to do?!

2. Last Friday I was paid a decent amount of money—most of which will now go to buying a new bike and a very nice lock—to work at an event celebrating the 5-year anniversary of a Japanese-Italian magazine. A friend of a friend of a friend was looking for 4 clean cut Westerners to serve champagne and walk around at an event attended almost exclusively by upper crust fashion-savvy Chinese. During the party I spent 2 hours walking around, looking white and serving champagne. Besides getting paid to look foreign and exotic, which in and off itself was kind a novelty for a white jew from ohio, I was also given a free dinner complete with sushi and chocolate cake as well as some of the left over champagne I served, which was terrible.
The reason that I bring this up is that, for the first time in my life, I was paid to walk around and be exotic. My purpose was to be a white foreigner at the beck and call of the Chinese party attendees. I think that I was paid handsomely precisely because having several foreigners serving the guests gave an appearance of power, opulence and class. What I found to be most interesting about this was that, aside from a few people who were demanding and consistently asked me to refill their glass and bring them ashtrays and the like, most people looked right through me. It was as if I existed only insofar as I was able to fill their glasses with more wine. Therefore, my job was to be part of the ambiance and background of this party. While this is really the role of all wait staff, I found it interesting that I was chosen to do this specifically because I was a Westerner.

3. My visa is going to expire in a month. As an American living in the States, you take for granted the ease of living without having to worry about your visa expiring. This week, I hope to extend my visa, or else I’ll be deported and this blog will end rather abruptly.

4.Saturday night I went to an Abigail Washborne folk concert. Abigail was accompanied by a fiddler, a cellists and her boyfriend, Bela Fleck, who plays the banjo. Obviously, getting to see such a show is rare in China and only possible in Beijing, Shanghai or another major city was a large expat community. In fact, I saw more white people together at this concert than I have seen in any one place during the duration of my stay here in Beijing. For me, the highlights of the night were as follows. Since Abigail speaks fluent Chinese, she performed some traditional Chinese folk songs in addition to a few that she wrote on her own. While I couldn’t understand all of the Chinese, it was really neat to see a white blond haired women the banjo bust out Chinese. As Abigail is very invested in Asian music and used to live in China, she arranged for two musicians who play in a traditional Mongolian manner to sit in for a while. The men both wore long green robes and played instruments that looked like two string guitars. The Mongolian style musicians did some incredible throat singing, played a drinking song, and then harmonized with the Americans, which sounded pretty good. The final thing that struck me was the ignorance of many Americans living overseas. During a break between songs, Abigail used Chinese to ask how many Americans were in the crowd. About 15 hands went up. Ten seconds later, she repeated the question, this time speaking in English. About 75 hands went up. This, then, is further proof that, even in places like Beijing, many Americans live in a small, ethnocentric world.

5. Before I forget, I should mention that I can’t read this blog. While posting on it from inside China is no problem, I’m unable to access it. So if any of you have written an interesting or insightful comment, I apologize for my inability to read it.

My Interview...

So I interviewed with a Chinese “law firm” this afternoon. It was, well, interesting. I called this guy—lawyer zhj—after reading an ad posted on a local Beijing website. At any rate, the ad stated that this lawyer was looking for 2 foreigners to help with the firm’s business. After talking to the guy over the phone, I decided to meet with him to talk about potential work opportunities. I figured that, if nothing else, it’d be a great opportunity to practice my Chinese in a “real” context.
So I go to his office—which was way off in the cut to the north of the city—and was struck by the lack of a functional office. It turns out that the firm is planning to start doing business next Tuesday; besides a water cooler and a few desks with nothing in them, the place was empty. Bare. Nonetheless, a start-up can be interesting, and sitting through an interview mostly in Chinese was something that I wanted to try out, so I was excited to hear what he had to say.
The guy interviewing me was a large, jovial man with a big laugh. Not an I-just-told-a-joke laugh and not an evil laugh, but something between the two extremes. Kind of like the laugh you’d expect a rich villain in a movie to make after he wipes his ass with money. Beyond the laugh, he had a crew cut, a big smile, big teeth and a presence that vacillated between commanding, playful and boyish. After we sat down across the table with nothing on it, the three other people in the room—a chain smoking middle-ages man in a suit, a woman in her early twenties in jeans and a guy with a youthful face also wearing very casual clothes—all left the room, leaving me and the laoban, or boss, alone to discuss things. After bringing me a glass of luke warm water in a Dixie cup that resembled a shot glass, we began to talk.
It turns out that foreign lawyers are not allowed to appear in court in china. Because of this, the guy starting up this firm believed that he could find foreign companies looking to get a foot in china and take care of their legal troubles. Yet his English was, well, less-than-stellar. Therefore, he was looking for 2 foreigners to work with him. Essentially, the job would entail calling up foreign company—and he was thinking mostly of investment banks and other big money outfits—and convincing them that, instead of going through a western firm that has a relationship with local lawyers, they should use “us” for all of their legal work. Pretty much, my job would consist of calling western firms, convincing them to meet with us, and then accompanying the boss to these meetings. As for salary, I wouldn’t have one, but I’d get a commission of 20% of all legal fees for every company we found which, according to my boss, would make me rich if 1 in a 100 phone calls turned into something. As for switching to a business visa, I’d have to do that by myself—he wouldn’t pick up the tab. On the plus side, he offered to teach me about doing business in china and how people go about practice law in china. Moreover, he said that the firm would have a staff of 20: 3 lawyers, 2 foreigners, a file person, and 14 people do other things.
Although he offered me the job, which would start on Tuesday, I don’t think that I’m going to take it—it’s just not what I’m looking for. I just think that I want something a little more structured and, candidly, I can’t afford to work for months and give up studying to make no money. So, that was my day. Interesting, definitely, but not what I want to devote my time to—I’d rather study political and current events words, learn how to read the Chinese language daily, and continue to look for other opportunities.

Interview Tomorrow

Tomorrow I have an interview with a Chinese law firm looking to hire to foreigners to help them expand their business and appeal to Western clientele. It should be interesting as i heard a rumor that it's not so much a firm as one guy looking to start his own thing. Expect a posting about the experience shortly.

The Homeless in Beijing

Walking around the streets of Beijing one is struck by the fact that there are few—if any—homeless people in this city. In fact, I only run into unkempt people who are begging for money with I’m in an area frequented by tourists and foreigners living in Beijing, or laowai. The reason for this is that the people who are posing as homeless and begging for money—most of whom are either small, dirty children, women with babies or the elderly—are, in fact, on the local government payroll. In exchange for begging and scamming money off of foreigners, these people are handsomely compensated by the government official or local strong man who is running the begging racket. Therefore, when one is in Beijing, he/she should be wary of giving the “homeless” money. It’s not that the money would be going to feed that individual’s substance abuse habit, it’s that the money will be lining the pocket of someone higher up the food chain. For those of you who are interested, the actually homeless people in Beijing look very unkempt and are easy to spot.
The fact that local strongmen/government officials are in charge of rackets aimed at scamming money off of unassuming foreigners is evidence that, as China has opened to the West and more foreigners have begun to live and travel in Chine, some local people are becoming more adept at hustling unsuspecting foreigners. While a foreigner was literally stopped, touched and stared at in the street 10 years ago, the same people who were staring 10 years ago are potentially the very people who are running these rackets today. The ability to scam a buck off of foreigners is also seen in the markets, where no local Chinese shop and where the prices are outrageously high by Chinese standards, yet still cheaper than you could find the same—yet genuine—product in the West. Yet I should close by saying that, for the most part, the Chinese are interested merely in talking to foreigners—very few have malicious intentions.