A Year in the Blink of an Eye
Trip Start
Oct 19, 2007
1
19
70
Trip End
Ongoing
Jinan,
Shandong,
China
Monday, October 20, 2008
I could say a lot has happened since I arrived. And I suppose it's true. But what I feel most is that life has kicked into overdrive all around me. I don't know if this is just because I am getting older, or if it is to do with China and the insane rate of change in this country. All I know if that time is seeming more and more precious as it zips on by.
I moved here last year because I'd been in Taiwan for 7 years and desperately needed a change, but one that would still allow me to study Chinese. I wanted to learn simplified characters and get used to accents other than Taiwanese. I wanted to see just how different people on either side of the strait are. It was all well an good for me to sit in Taiwan and ponder cross-strait relations and Chinese culture, but much better to come and experience for myself. Still, as the time came to leave, I confess I was worried. I had heard horror stories from friends. One even went as far as to advise me not to tell anybody that I had learnt my Mandarin in Taiwan because people would be hostile towards me for it. While some of the horror stories were true, that at least was crap. Firstly, I don't need to tell people here that I learnt Chinese in Taiwan. They can hear it from my accent. Secondly, nobody has ever acted strangely around me for having lived in Taiwan, except for a taxi driver who got into an argument with me because he refused to believe they actually speak Mandarin in Taiwan!?!
I chose Wuhan because I wanted to go somewhere other than Beijing or Shanghai. Somewhere different. Actually for all the problems I had there (quite easily summed up in the three words work, weather and pollution), I'm glad I went, if only for the friends I made there. Also, I think many of the things that us foreigners complain about in Wuhan are also at the root of the things that make it special. It has a straight forward, grubby charm about it and a laissez-faire kind of exuberance to match. The city is like its food. Oily and with a bit of a kick to it. Takes a strong constitution to handle it, but if you get used to it, anything else seems weak and dull in comparison.
Sadly, the guidebooks are right. The weather is crucifying (that winter was trying even for my sense of humour and the summer very nearly fried what was left of it). The company I worked for was owned and run by a bunch of extremely dodgy, incompetent morons. And the pollution was the worst I've seen. I only ever really meant to stay in Wuhan for about 6 months, as a taste test. I stayed for 10.
Then came Shandong. It's all China, but it is oh so different. I can't decide if it is because I'm on campus, or what. The food is a lot lighter. The people are also quieter, more reserved and polite. Even the traffic in Jinan is more orderly (although the cab drivers still drive like lunatics, but I suspect that is universal). It is a very different facet of the country.
How different are the people on either side of the Taiwan Strait? Completely different. How similar? Very similar. It depends what aspect you look at. Other than the bleeding obvious (politics, baby poo and spitting would all be high on the list), I think the difference is a feeling more than anything else. I feel there is more hopefulness, cheerfulness, and innocence in Taiwan in general. When I say innocence, I guess what I mean is the kind of curiousity, friendliness and courage that do not exist when you've had the crap stomped out of you. Given Japanese rule, KMT takeover, martial law, threat of war and political ostracism, it is an absolute miracle that this feeling exists. Taiwanese people are the friendliest I've met. I know I'm biased, but they really are.
Among the children the difference is astounding. For a while in Taiwan it was popular to talk about the "strawberry generation", or kids who have grown up without hardship and cannot cope with too much pressure because like strawberries, they bruise easily. Just before I left, there was a lot of talk about depression and the emergence of a "tofu generation" because there are kinds of tofu that collapse when you touch it. The opposite is true of the kids I taught in Wuhan. Chinese primary school students have a stack of homework that would put most university students in Australia to shame. Due to the sheer size of the population, the competition to get into university is brutal. Highschool students are often at school for more than 12 hours a day. Sure they complain about the amount of homework they have, but they plod along. And there is a strength and determination in them to keep going under extraordinary pressure (not just amongst students, but people in general). No strawberry generation here. More like a potato, or radish generation. The kids here are tough.
A lot of traditional beliefs and customs, still practiced in Taiwan, Korea and Japan, no longer really exist here. For instance, sticking chopticks straight down into a rice bowl is a) rude and b) unlucky in Taiwan. In Wuhan, take-out is usually served like that, with the chopsticks stuck in the food. But then customs, about the placement of guests, hosts facing the door and drinking etiquette, are more strict in Shandong than I ever came across in Taiwan.
Suffice it to say, it is hard to say. Sometimes students will ask me which I prefer, Taiwan or China. I hate this question. It is not a fair one. Taiwan is my second home. I spent 7 years there. As such, it holds a place in my heart and my memories that cannot be replaced. I love Taiwan second only to Australia, but if you asked me what place on earth I like the most, I'd say Assissi. Go figure. And food... Noodles and dumplings, PRC hands down. Seafood, ROC. Tea, ROC. Beer, PRC. Hot pot ROC. Baozi, PRC. Biandang, ROC. Tough call. But the only food from Taiwan that I miss with a vengence is the little clams. And donggua lemon tea.
What has happened this year? Several trips to Hong Kong, a couple of mountains, Guilin, Dali, Lijiang, Beijing and Shanghai, the winter from hell, a terrible earthquake, Olympic fever, a strike, a milk scandal and a veritable revolving door of hellos and goodbyes...Study? Precious little! But in spite of this, I can decipher a lot, just slower than if it were in traditional characters. I guess I've managed to pick up a lot of simplified characters from osmosis or something. Accents? Chuh. If my goal was to understand "mainland" accents, it was a dumb one. The accent is different in every province. The local dialect changes from town to town. People often speak dialect as much as they do Mandarin. That is all well and good in Shandong where the dialect is quite similar to Mandarin, but frustrating in some places where it is pretty different. I now know three words for taxi and three different ways to address the driver. I used to get frowned at for speaking too politely in Wuhan, but don't seem to be running into the same problem in Jinan. Having said that, I sometimes have to ask people to repeat things a couple of times, which I don't remember having to do in Wuhan and I can never quite work out if this is because of the words they are using, accents or dialect. Not really sure what I was trying to achieve in this respect. What I've gotten is variety.
And as for understanding Chinese people. I've gotten the same thing. Variety. But then what exactly was I expecting? To wrap my head around more than a fifth of the world's population? Living here has just reinforced what I've always known. People are people wherever you go. Some are lovely and some are creeps. People have the same hopes, dreams, fears, and disappointments as anywhere else in the world. It is more open here than I thought it would be and very familiar, but this can be disconcerting when one blunders into a rule, or custom that is oh so very different. Oh so very old, but surprisingly new. Parts of society euphoric in new-found wealth and modernity. But layers of hardship and painful history lie not so very far beneath.
While living in Taiwan and learning the language, I adapted. Part of that required change on my part. This time I've thrown myself into a whirlwind. A year has gone past in the blink of an eye and I feel like I am still gasping for air (sometimes literally... not joking, it was really dusty today!). I'm still game for more, but I do wonder at times what might waiting around the corner and how I will have changed if and when I emerge from this land.
