يعيش في أسرة صينيّة

هو كان واحدة شيء أن يعمل مع الناس صينيّة, يتلقّى صديقات صينيّة وزبونات صينيّة, غير أنّ عاش واحدة من ي أكثر يغني خبرات كان كعضوة من طبقة وسطى صينيّ أسرة.
 
لاثنان سنون, زوّجت أنا كان إلى رائعة, جميلة وناجحة [شنغينس] امرأة أعمال, [ميشلّ], الذي تلقّى ابنة [سفن-ر-ولد].

كلّ أنا كنت قد سمعت حوالي ويقرأ حول الثقافة صينيّة, كان أنا يمكن أن يختبر من الداخل. أسرة, صديقات وصحة حالة وعي [إينتغرل برت] من ثقافتهم.
 
هناك ما من [نورسنغ هوم] في الصين. يأمر فلسفة [كنفوسن] العلاقة بين الإبنة وواجداته. هو توقّعت أنّ رعى الإبنة واجداته في شيخوختهم. غرفة رصدت لالاحتلال نهائيّة من واجدته متبقّي في الإبنة إلى البيت. بسبب ال [أن-شلد] سياسة, بنات يفضّل. الحاليّة ولادة نسبة في الصين حوالي 90 بنات ل كلّ 100 فتى. استعملت طرق مختلفة أن يميّل المقياس. إجهاضات عاديّة, ويشجّع, كشكل ال [بيرث كنترول].  ولادة يأتي إنتقاء حوالي من ما فوق الصّوت مسح, أيّ يستطيع حددت الجنس من ال [أونبورن] طفلة. ال 90/100 يذهب نسبة أن يمسك فوق أخيرا. هو حقيقة الحياة أنّ [يوونغ من], مع تستوسترون يجري من خلال نظاماتهم, يحتاجون نساء شابّة في مكان ما على طول الخطّ.  سابقا يعلم نحن نساء شابّة يكون يخطف من فييتنام, تايلاند وكمبوديا ويحضر داخل العمق أن يرضي طبيعة طلبات.

The other fact I observed is the only child syndrome on a national scale. You know, that the only child has certain benefits, advantages and personality characteristics that children with siblings don’t have. Right now, in China there are more only child kids (over three hundred and fifty million) than the entire population of the U.S. These children have two sets of grandparents, aunts and uncles doting over them, doing everything for them, including thinking for them. They are all little emperors and empresses. Imagine as they mature and take their place in society, what traits and expectations they will bring to the political and corporate world of China?
  
We talked about friendship and guanxi and how school classmates maintain their connection throughout the years of career growth. 

Deep friendship is very important and not limited to social or job networking. Suppose a classmate is experiencing marriage difficulties. It is quite normal that a group of classmates, male and female, would band together and if needed, travel large distances to spend time with the troubled couple. The men would meet with the husband; the women would meet with the wife. Then, the women and men would meet and discuss the situation. Then a combined dinner would take place, with more meetings later. The purpose is not for intrusion or fixing, but each person and their happiness is important, also for face.  So, no effort is too much to bring peace to the couple. I was so impressed with this kind of activity, and again it reminded me that the Chinese are really a peace-saving and peace-making culture if for no other reason than to save face. Everybody’s face.
 
Health is an important issue in a Chinese family. My father-in-law and mother-in-law were in their mid-seventies and they were in much better physical condition than I was. My father-in-law for the past forty years, daily went to the park and did tai chi for forty minutes and he walked for at least forty minutes. One day, when it was very cold and blustery, he did his ritual on the balcony of our apartment. I watched him from the comfort and warmth of the inside. It was fascinating.  He spent about a quarter of the time slapping and massaging his face. My wife slapped her face while she was doing her morning toilette. That might explain why Chinese people have smooth, wrinkle free faces, no matter what their age. My mother-in-law, just standing in the kitchen, was constantly making tai chi moves as she walked and talked.

Accidents happen

One morning, while walking down the street with Michelle, I slammed into a metal sheet protruding from the walkway. I stumbled as blood gushed from my forehead.  Immediately, a crowd gathered, police were called and the discussion began.  Towels and water appeared. With much discussion, my fate was sealed and a policeman drove me to the hospital on his motorcycle.

I received seven or eight stitches and then hopped on the back of the motorcycle and was taken to the police station to file a report.
I was having a fantastic experience, racing through the busy streets of Shanghai on a police bike. As we passed my wife walking to the station, I waved, like a kid on a circus ride. The look on her face was far from joyful. She had lost face being with a gweilo who walked into objects on the street, and we were going to the police station to file a report and negotiate payment for our hospital bill.
 
At the station, the theatre began. After initial indifference from the office police, Michelle (after I’ve been briefed and assumed a painful, angry and serious countenance) talked loudly on her cell, actually to her sister, but making it sound like she was talking to the Canadian consulate about this terrible thing that has happened to a Canadian on the streets of Shanghai. That got the cops’ attention. Three representatives of varying levels of hierarchy from the construction company appeared quickly. The police interviewed us separately. Back and forth, matching, pairing statements. With room-to-room shuttle diplomacy, without lawyers, we received cash on the spot for our hospital expenses.  Actually, we could have received whatever we asked for. The construction company had much to lose from the Shanghai city government for sloppy, shoddy sidewalk protection.

Chinese Education

During the high immigration of Hong Kong Chinese into Richmond, precipitated by fear of what would happen when Communist China took Hong Kong back, our children were students in the public school system. The new Chinese students quickly took all the top scholastic spots, winning all the awards, bursaries and scholarships. Naturally, there was a certain amount of resentment from the local students and parents about this “oriental invasion.”

There is a simple explanation for their superior classroom performance: their study habits.

Chinese parents are obsessed with their children excelling in school to ensure a future of riches. The driving force is tied in with the Chinese cultural tradition that children look after the parents in their later years. Children with the best marks are the best insurance, even better than London Life’s Freedom 55 plan.

In the West, you choose and apply to the school you want to attend and then based on your marks, you are accepted, or not.  In China, you have no choices. The Chinese national educational system is based entirely on merit. Your marks determine which school you qualify to get into. In 2006, 9.5 million high-school graduates sat down for three days of tests to determine which 2.6 million would enter Chinese universities in September.

Just before returning to Canada, I taught English for a semester in a first-tier Shanghai high school. Each high school had a native English-speaking teacher to counter the Chinglish phenomenon.
 
At first, I was troubled because the students kept falling asleep in my class. Then, I realized they were dead tired.  Teachers gave them loads of assignments and harangued them if they didn’t complete them. Their parents woke them early to study and kept them up late studying for the college entrance exams, their one and only chance to get into university. Their future was determined by these entrance exams. They had to forgo all TV, sports, socializing. Study. Study. Study.

In a rush of empathy and a desire to help, I gave them research data from the Harvard Medical School Psychology Department that proved what they studied when they were tired, they would not remember at the exam. To improve their marks, they needed to get a good night’s sleep.

I gave them reprints of the findings and told them that if they chose to tell their parents, the parents would not buy it.

One parent, when his son showed him my documentation, said, “Don’t listen to that crazy foreigner. You study. You will sleep when you are old!”

I enjoyed and admired these students. They were interested in the West. They respected the West and the U.S. and its accomplishments. They envied the Western educational system that provided freedom of study. While they recognized they were better students and would get higher marks than a Western student, they also gave credit for the innovation and creativity that a free system encourages. They would repeatedly say, apologetically, “A Chinese person has never received a Nobel Peace Prize.”

I also attribute much of this to the only child syndrome.
They are not encouraged to have initiative and independence. Everything is done for them, except study, study, and study.

Sex in Shanghai

The global economy is based on sex. 

A baby is often the result when two people have sexual intercourse. This begins a spending spree that includes increasing purchases of food, clothing, housing, furniture, appliances, transportation, schools, hospitals, government buildings, etc, etc. This is the simple basis of economic growth. People spending money. Factor in that close to seven billion people, many having sex this very minute, leading to more births. You do the math.

All this spending requires manufacturing plants for the goods and providing of services. Companies, industries and countries are started and run by Type A personalities with above average testosterone levels, which provide the push to make things happen. Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich addressed this issue as sexual transmutation. This explains why many powerful business leaders and powerful politicians are called charismatic and appear to be highly sexed. Some feed this drive within the confines of marriage and committed relationships; many do not. This is always chronicled in the papers and on CNN.

I began this discussion on sex from a global economic perspective because sex is not a moral, ethical issue; it is a biological fact.

So, what about sex in China, sex in Shanghai? My comments are limited to my personal observations and what others with more direct knowledge and experience have shared with me.

First, there is above the line and below the line. Above the line, other than for the young, beautiful Chinese ladies wearing long, red dresses with slits dangerously high on the thigh at most official events, sex is visibility absent.

Of course, it’s an intimate, personal matter in all cultures. In China, with their indirectness of communication, their shyness, and face saving, it’s hidden. The government is vigilant about pornography, although porn CDs are readily available on the back streets from young, impoverished mothers from the countryside. They are obviously victims and agents of organized porn groups.

Now, let’s go below the line. I will examine three areas of sex in the city.
 
• Sex for foreigners

• Sex for Chinese men of wealth and the growing middle class

• Sex for the common Chinese man.

The male foreigner arriving in Shanghai will be awestruck by the number of striking women dressed in modern, attractive, and provocative attire. Shanghainese women are known for their beauty and sharpness. These ladies hold the West, Westerners and the Western lifestyle as the epitome of how they want to live. The perfect scenario is to latch onto an older foreigner, supposedly wealthy with access to the U.S. and U.S. citizenship for education of her children. Upon the elder partner’s earthly departure, she stays or returns home to her family with sufficient means to provide for her parents in an envied style of comfort. So the age-old, trans-cultural Venus flytrap of sex arises with easy and frequent availability.

Simply put, there is much good, clean sex available to foreigners.
I am not referring to the sex trade, which is also, omnipresent and omni-available.

China is not burdened with the sin and guilt associated with sex in our society. It’s a natural, clean, enjoyable activity. It was interesting to observe how many men in public washrooms wash their hands before approaching the urinal.  I guess they figured their hands were dirty from handling money, doors, etc. and their organ was clean from the morning shower and clean shorts, so they washed their hands first.
The Western washes his hands after. We carry from our early upbringing that that part of our body is dirty, whether it was just washed and packed away in clean underwear or not.

For the increasing number of wealthy Chinese men, it has been traditionally, and still is, accepted to have mistresses and to provide them with downtown apartments and all the accoutrements of success. This is usually not blatant, so as to save face for his wife and family.

I was entertained one evening by a Chinese businessman who wanted some favors from my company. His gorgeous girlfriend accompanied him. After a late dinner, they took me to a karaoke bar and I knew that a foursome could easily and quickly be arranged.

On another occasion, when we were making a corporate presentation to a possible client and his company contingent, he also had his lady friend, who he introduced as his wife. He had to do a fast shuffle when an aide whispered that his real wife had just entered the building. 

Love, marriage, family is complicated in any culture. I got the feeling that with the super level of confidence and high expectations of the wives, frequent withholding of sexual accessibility as a bargaining chip that often drove the man to seek outsourcing services. It’s much the same in most countries. The male vs. female game has been thus played since ancient times everywhere.

For the common man, away from the hot throb of the city scene of classy bars and lounges, every street with stores on it has a plethora of beauty parlors, which also have an inventory of beauties who are more than willing to go to the second floor of the establishment.

Early in my Chinese marriage, Michelle went with me to the local beauty parlor to arrange a haircut for me. She came to give instructions in Chinese to the beauticians and was quite clear that this gweilo was to get his hair trimmed only, without a trip upstairs.

There are many massage parlors, which vary considerably in price, ambience, quality of the masseuse or masseur, and comprehensiveness of services offered. The usual menu includes foot massage, body massage and oil massage. Additions may include a variety of Chinese medicinal services; include cupping — heated vessels placed on the back. The high-end versions of massage parlors are called spas. The highest end tends to cater exclusively to wealthy women; they offer a variety of beauty treatments, including skin whitening.

A notch down are spas that cater to both men and women, offering single or dual massage tables for treatments by one or two massage therapists for one or two customers. A hot tub and sauna may be provided in the higher-end establishments, along with soothing music.

The more reputable establishments don’t offer sexual favors, but many parlors do. Some might offer an excellent massage by a trained masseuse with good experience, with or without intimate contact while others might offer a decent massage for a low price, with the possibility of negotiation for additional services. The range of skill and experience is as great from spa to parlor, as it is within a given establishment. You throw the dice and take your chances, but a great massage can be obtained at varying price levels, regardless of the ambience or location.

Next week: A Case Study: 
A China Success Story.  Dan Mintz and DMG

Ernie Tadla  www.odysseychina.net