3 categories of people

When my friends asked me to guess the third category of people, I excitedly assumed China was including transgendered people into the mix instead of the normative "male" and "female" categories.

no no, uh uh.

The third type of people refers to female PHDs, ("女博士是第三类人" nv3 bo2 shi4 shi4 di4 san1 lei4 ren2). They are a third type because no one wants to marry a strong, capable female. Those who do marry phds are referred to as the fourth type of people.

If a woman does support a man , the man has a “小白脸” （xiao bai lian, small white face). The man will lose some serious face if he is supported by a woman. I mean, its not that different in the West. We have a similar saying when the woman is in charge or makes more money than her husband: "she wears the pants in the family." The only way the woman can be in charge, or I would argue, be equal, is by turning her into a man.

But the attitudes towards female professionals, in my opinion, is more pronounced in China. It is more explicit. Most people I talk to openly say they want to marry a younger woman who is not as smart and makes less money. The women also generally want to marry a smarter man who is the key breadwinner. Even if people feel this way in the west, they aren't that open about it. I luckily don't know anyone (I think) who feels this way!

Anyway, good luck female phds! I hope you find some wonderful partners who do not subscribe do this ridiculous saying.

Censorship in China

So its been a while since I've written anything. Blogger has been censored for the past few weeks so I am now using a proxy service to allow me to access this blog. Unfortunately, I still cant post pictures or URLs. Why the sudden crackdown? What happened 20 years ago on June 4th?

Students gathered in the largest public square in the world to demonstrate their feelings towards a one party system. The students were joined by workers, teachers, beggars, police officers...The smell of a democratic revolution was in the air and the freedom to vote seemed so close they could almost touch it. But things turned for the worse and the army got involved. Orders straight from the top told the soldiers to open fire on these optimistic civilians until they stopped.

Now, 20 years later, the democratic revolution spark has completely died down. While most young people do not even know that such a massive protest and massacre took place, those who know do not seem too caught up over it. If you ask anyone in China who their favourite chairman was, 99 percent will say Deng Xiaoping, the chairman who gave those orders 20 years ago. Why does the majority of Chinese society fail to recognize such a disastrous event in their history?

"白猫，黑猫， 抓到老鼠，就是好猫" (bai mao, hei mao, zhua dao laoshu, jiu shi hao mao). "It doesn't matter if the cat is white or black, as long as it catches the mouse."

This is one of Deng Xiaoping's most famous sayings. It doesn't matter if China is socialist or capitalist, as long as it prospers. And many Chinese people, from my experience, love this approach. As long as China is prospering, they are willing to give up some basic rights like voting and freedom of speech. We have to remember that Deng Xiaoping came into power in 1978, after the "ten year calamity" or Cultural Revolution. The country was in shambles and Deng slowly put the pieces back together. He wasn't going to let the democracy protests take away what he had done for the country.

So what's going to happen in China in the upcoming weeks? I really have no idea. I try to go on the New York Times webpage and look up articles about Tiananmen but I cannot access them. All I know is that protesting in China has not only not ceased but have actually increased (Even though they are not seen as protests but are instead called "walks").

In the past, the government has been able to keep the majority of society relatively happy but as the economic recession is hitting more and more people, people are wanting their voices to be heard. It will be interesting to see what happens on June 4th. If you have any news from the other side of the world, please tell me!

Text message breakup

So I decided I was getting sick of living with the family...They treated me like an employee, which I was but they were not friendly or warm at all. I liked the daughter and the dad was ok but the mom was quite unpleasant.

I started to realize that I wasn't very comfortable living there. For example, not only was I using a hand towel as a bath towel, they stopped feeding me. They would make the normal amount of food that they used to make but would only offer me two of the four dishes. And when I would go in the fridge, the mom would firmly say, "你干什么？“ ("ni gan shenme?", a rude way of saying "what are you doing"). I was getting hungry and frustrated.

So I called my friend on Friday to ask him if I could sleep on his couch for the next couple weeks. I thought I would gently break the news to Melody, the girl I was teaching the next day. I texted her to see when she had time to meet and she informed me that she was not accepted into the school in the UK and was therefore not moving. Then she said:

"i am sorry that my parents let me tell you you cannot live here cause i wont go to uk this year."

TEXT MESSAGE BREAK UP! And she beat me to it! I was going to break up with her, not the other way around! Anyway, I got out of there fast.

It wasn't all that bad. I learned a lot about Shanghainese culture, ate a lot of really good Shanghainese food and saved quite a bit of money in rent! And I will start traveling in less than three weeks! Can't wait!

Rocking out in Zhenjiang: The Festival

The festival was amazing! It was a rock festival but there was an eclectic mix of rock, folk, heavy metal, funk, electronica and a wide array of Chinese and western bands (three being from Canada). There were two stages - the main stage had all the live music while the side stage had a dj with electronica music. I spent minimal time listening to the DJs as I spend most of my weekends listening to them. I instead wanted to be engaged in the live music scene in China.

There were food stands set up in the festival, just like at any festival in Canada. Although I wasn't a huge fan as the food was just a bunch of 小吃（'xiao chi', or small eats). 小吃 also mainly consisted of 羊肉串 （'yang rou chuan' or lamb on a stick). Not the biggest fan...Luckily street food vendors took advantage of the festival and set up right outside of the entrance. Street food, soo good...

Anyway, onto the music. I'm not much of a metal head but it was fun partying with a bunch of metal heads...I crowd surfed for the first time and was thrown into the mosh pit a couple of times. I have never been felt up so many times in my life! These little Chinese boys who are usually so polite were just grabbing everyone and everything. I got out of there fast...

There was one really good Canadian band, which I missed! I was out getting food and could hear them from a distance. They are called So Called and supposedly they will be playing at folk fest!

The Chinese bands were awesome. There was a pretty cool "folk rocker" group called Cold Fairyland with a woman singer who played this Chinese type violin (don't know what its called).
















I think my favourite act though was the Subs which had this amazing female lead who was just giving her all! it was cool seeing such a powerful Chinese woman on stage. I went to see her again in Shanghai after and she was just as amazing. She had a great style, an interesting voice and a lot of power.

The last act was amazing too. Everyone was looking forward to 痛仰. It was one of those bands that every country has; a sort of alternative sound that young people are familiar with. I think of them as the Counting Crows of China. It was cool to be in the middle of a Chinese crowd that was singing their hearts out.

Overall it was a random and great experience. I am finally at the level with my Chinese where I can have a fairly deep conversation and understand fairly well what's going on. I am also finally getting comfortable living here and exploring new and different circles. This experience was definitely new and different and I was able to (and forced to) use my Chinese. There is so much more for me to see and do here but I am leaving in less than two months! Hopefully I can experience more things like this and soak up as much as possible before I leave!

peace out!

Rocking out in Zhenjiang: The Campground

I never would have thought I would attend a three day rock music festival in a random Chinese city. Bit I did. And it was Amazing.

I found out about the festival from a friend who lives in Hangzhou. I love music festivals and I love camping so I called my friend Geoff and two days later, we pulled up in the Zhenjiang train station. Walking into the music festival was a surreal experience. I was all of a sudden welcomed into a China I had never met; a subculture of weed smoking, tattoo wearing, rebellious Chinese rockers. The whole experience of a music festival was so familiar but so different than anything I would experience in Canada. Let's start with the campground.


We arrived at the campsite and because it had rained the entire night before, it was covered in mud. Security guards lined up at the entrance helping people along the way so they wouldn't slip. On top of that, just like any Chinese public space, there was garbage everywhere! In the city I don't mind it. There is just a different philosophy here than there is in the west. Drop your shit on the ground and clean it up later. This philosophy has employed many service people in terms of sweeping up and cleaning up the streets. But it
was so hard to see a campsite like that! The trough was covered in shit.

Then there was the construction. If you wonder why buildings get built so quickly in China, its because these people work non stop. I fall asleep to construction and wake up to it. But I never imagined I would hear it while camping! At 6:30 on Sunday morning I was woken up by construction that sounded like it was coming from right beside our tent...That's because it was. The development in China is crazy. Everywhere you turn there are old buildings coming down and new buildings coming up. (I will definitely write more about this in upcoming entries).

Anyway, I will always be amazed by the blatant contrasts in China. While we were partying and listening to music and hanging out by the tents, workers were watching us trying to figure out what the hell we were doing sleeping in this landfill next to their construction site. A lot of the workers snuck into the festival the last night and danced the night away.




























While the campsite was a new and different experience, there were some familiarities. Mainly, the fact that we were camping next to two Winnipegers! What! Ya, they're going to folk fest this summer! It was interesting meeting these people because although we lived basically down the street from each other and all live in China, we had and have such different lives, perspectives and stories about Canada. These people were obsessed with Canada. They carried this huge Canadian flag with them wherever they went and this guy had a tattoo of 加拿大 ('jianada' or Canada) on his leg. Not that I don't love Canada but I just dont really think about it that much. When I asked a Torontonian from their crew why he loved Canada so much, he provided me with the only plausible answer. He had been in the army. The patriotism was insane.















Winnipeg, Manitoba represent!

We camped next to some really cool Chinese guys from Anhui. Two of the guys are doing a bike trip from Sichuan province to Tibet this summer. They added a level of comfort and familiarity when they started singing 'Vincent' on their guitar. This turned into a singalong of a bunch of pretty famous western songs. It was lovely to reminisce and to share an interest in music with these Chinese guys. I usually have very different music tastes from my Chinese friends. After all the reminiscing, they sang us Chinese folk songs as we fell asleep. It was beautiful.















三， 土 and 吴 something something (San, Tu and Wu Something Something)















Geoff and I and our lovely tent!

Texas lawmaker: Chinese Americans should change names so "Americans" can handle them

Nine years ago during a Canadian National Election, Betty Granger, a Winnipeg Canadian Alliance candidate voiced concern over an "Asian invasion" in British Columbia. She said,"Canadian students can't get into some of our university programs in Vancouver and Victoria" because of an influx of Asian students. When discussing an arrival of refugees from Hong Kong, she said "There was a realization that what was coming off these boats was not the best clientele you would want for this country."

Needless to say, she was asked to step down after a well deserved uproar from Canadians. Unfortunately though, these views still exist today. At least this Texas lawmaker was a little more subtle about her racism. She only suggested Chinese change their names, not leave the country.

"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese -- I understand it's a rather difficult language -- do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?" Brown said.

找对象： Looking for a Partner (Lesson 21)

In the 1970's Mao Zedong exclaimed that "Women hold up half the sky." This mentality has certainly not been excepted in modern China.

Bi ru shuo, we read a story in class entitled "Looking for a Partner." It goes something like this:

小赵 ‘Xiao Zhao’ is looking for a wife but he has no luck finding one. The first group of women he tries to meet think he is fat. In the second instance, being fat is 没关系（no problem) but they instead want him to have a salary of more than 5000 RMB, a house that is in good condition and about 100 square meters. Unfortunately, Xiao Zhao cannot accomodate these women.

His friends then introduce him to this women who seems to be a good match. But after finding out she is a manager of a company, he decides he can't marry her. He says, "是个非常有能力的女强人” (she is a very capable, strong woman). This is a huge problem as she will be making the money and Xiao Zhao will have to do the housework. Xiao Zhao explains, "男人怎么能给老婆当用人呢？” (How can men be their wives' servants!) He then finds a woman on the internet and they fall in love.

Not only is it crazy how openly and casually the story focuses on appearance, salary and living condition, the sexism is rampant and accepted as normal.

After telling my roommate about this story, she told me that at birth, boys and girls are compared to two banks in China. For a boy, people say, 建设银行 (jian she yinhang - the construction bank) and for a girl people say, 找商银行 (looking for a business bank). In Shanghai, the man's parents provide housing for the newly weds and the man is supposed to make more money. Thus, the boy is the construction bank because his parents will have to 'build' him a house, while the girl just needs to go and look for a rich husband.

There is also a saying (I forget the Chinese) but they say there are three groups of people. Men, women and women professionals because women professionals will not find husbands. Men do not want to marry a woman who makes more money than him and women do not want to make more money. While this to a certain extent exists in the West, it is openly discussed in China.