林语堂 (Lín Yǔtáng) became famous as one of the first Chinese scholars to write about Chinese culture for Westerners in a way that Westerners could easily embrace. My Country and My People (1935) is considered a classic, and not his only one. It’s an easy and informative read, and his sly sense of humour makes it a lot of fun.

Here are some excerpts from a longer section, regarding a more traditional Chinese view of Western logic:

It is easy to see why the Chinese mind cannot develop a scientific method; for the scientific method, besides being analytical, always involves an amount of stupid drudgery, while the Chinese believe in flashes of common sense and insight. And inductive reasoning, carried over to human relationships (in which the Chinese are primarily interested) often results in a form of stupidity not so rare in the American universities. There are today doctorate dissertations on ice-cream, and after a series of careful observations, announce the staggering conclusion that “the primary function of sugar [in the manufacture of ice-cream] is to sweeten it”; or after a methodical study in “Time and Motion Comparison on Four Methods of Dishwashing” happily perceive that “stooping and lifting are fatiguing”… a University of Chicago student, after making a “comparative study” of the impressional power of various types of lettering, found that the blacker the lines, the more striking they are to the eye.

This sort of stupidity, although useful to business advertisement, could really be arrived at, I think, just as correctly by a moment of Chinese common sense and “intuition.”
[...]
…we see an opposition to “logic” verses common sense, which takes the place of inductive and deductive reasoning in China. Common sense is often saner because the analytical reasoning looks at truth by cutting it up into various aspects, thus throwing them out of their natural bearings, while common sense seizes the situation as a living whole.
[...]
For a Westerner it is usually sufficient for a proposition to be logically sound. For a Chinese it is not sufficient that a proposition be logically correct, but it must be at the same time in accord with human nature. In fact, to be “in accord with human nature”… is a greater consideration than to be logical. For a theory could be so logical as to be totally devoid of common sense. The Chinese are willing to do anything against reason, but they will not accept anything that is not plausible in the light of human nature. This spirit of reasonableness and this religion of common sense have a most important bearing on the Chinese ideal life…
[From pages 85, 88, 89 in my 2002 edition.]

Tomorrow we’ll do the other side, where he humourously and historically illustrates some typical flaws in the Chinese preference for intuition and lack of interest in the scientific method.

“In America” we don’t like fresh meat. We like “clean,” “sanitary” meat, and what we really mean by “sanitary” is meat that is as disassociated as possible from the animal to which it previously belonged. We don’t want to think about the fact that the meat on our plate came from what was first a dirty, stinking, but potentially cute living animal, and then a dead bleeding carcass full of entrails, before finally getting chopped up beyond recognition and plastic-wrapped to styrofoam. Maybe we feel guilty. Or maybe we only like blood and guts in movies. Given the choice between meat wrapped in plastic, or meat hacked off a largely intact carcass hanging on a hook, or picking out an animal in the store and having it slaughtered right then and there, Americans take the plastic every time.

In Chinese cultures, they don’t seem to have the same hang-ups we do; they aren’t bothered by the fact that meat comes from animals. In fact, the less time that has elapsed since that meat was actually alive, the better. In Taiwan everyone we know prefers the meat in the wet market over the plastic-wrapped supermarket meat because the market meat is fresher. In fact, the pre-cut packaged supermarket meat is cheaper.

I’m reminded of this whenever we go to restaurants, because usually somewhere inside the entrance there will be tanks of live seafood, from which you can select your dinner. This video is horrible (15 sec). I would have taken a picture, but buckets of eels don’t writhe as nicely in photos.

It seems strange the first time or two, but now we don’t think anything of it. Except this night the eels were really rebellious, so I took this video on the way out the door.

But how is China to be understood? Who will be her interpreters? … The language alone constitutes an almost hopeless barrier. Can China be understood merely through pidgin English? Is the Old China Hand* to pick up an understanding of the soul of China from his cook and amah (maid)? Or … by reading the correspondence of the North-China Daily News? The proposition is manifestly unfair.

Indeed, the business of trying to understand a foreign nation with a foreign culture, especially one so different from one’s own as China’s, is usually not for the mortal man. For this work there is a need for broad, brotherly feeling, for the feeling of the common bond of humanity and the cheer of good fellowship. One must feel with the pulse of the heart as well as see with the eyes of the mind …

Who then will be her interpreters? The problem is almost an insoluble one. Certainly not the sinologues and librarians abroad who see China only through reflection of the Confucian classics. The true Europeans in China do not speak Chinese, and the true Chinese do not speak English. The Europeans who speak Chinese too well develop certain mental habits akin to the Chinese and are regarded by their compatriots as “queer.” The Chinese who speak English too well and develop Western mental habits are “denationalized,” or they may not even speak Chinese, or speak it with an English accent. So by process of elimination, it would seem that we have to put up with the Old China Hand, and that we have largely to depend upon his understanding of pidgin.

- 林语堂 (Lín Yǔtáng),
from the prologue to My Country and My People (1935).

footnote - “Old China Hand” is a gracious term bestowed upon foreigners by locals, as if to say “one who knows China.” But it’s mostly used as a nicety. The author here moves on to mercilessly characterize/assassinate the typical “Old China Hand” as an embarrassingly ignorant, culturally-cocooned but self-styled “Old Resident Twenty-five Years in China,” who has the gall to assume expertise in the foreign press regarding China and her people.

Photos from our first trip to an undisclosed, virtually tourist free location on the Great Wall. We camped overnight on top of a tower. Here you can see the wall, restored and unrestored parts, some of our friends and teachers, and other stuff.

You can read about this trip here:

• Camping on the Great Wall

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[I had over 40 half-written, drafted posts, some over a year old. I cleaned most of them out, and here's the random stuff I rescued from the delete button. Especially good if you are bored and/or procrastinating. Sorry if some of the links are too old and don't work anymore.]

Chinese Rain
“xī lǐ huā lā” (like “shee-lee-hwa-lah” – 稀里哗啦)
That’s the sound that rain makes in Chinese… the equivalent of our “pitter-patter.” We had a lesson on animal noises the other day in English class, and had fun contrasting the sounds used in each language for different stuff. I’m indebted to John Pasden for the use of his Chinese Onomatopeia list.

Buddhism struggles for relevance, employs Evangelical marketing tactics
Coffee shops, fitness classes, rock bands… in Buddhist temples.

Matsumoto is undaunted. He recently put on a free rock concert at Tsukiji Honganji temple for 1,000 20- and 30-somethings who went wild to the beats of the Zazen Boys before settling down for a Buddhist sermon.

From Buddhism struggles for relevance.

The Measure of a Dress

All women’s dresses are merely variations on the eternal struggle between the admitted desire to dress and the unadmitted desire to undress.

- 林语堂 (Lín Yǔtáng), 1895-1976.

Current Favourite Mao quote
Mao had issues with what he perceived as a traditional Chinese aversion to violent exertion; apparently Chinese traditionally liked to cultivate “flowing garments, a slow gait, a grave, calm gaze.” So in April 1917 he had this published:

Exercise should be savage and rude. To be able to leap on horseback and to shoot at the same time; to go from battle to battle; to shake the mountains by one’s cries, and the colors of the sky with one’s roars of anger–

The other Chinese author quoted above consolidated the Chinese character into one word: mellowness.

China’s Instant Cities
From Peter Hessler, author of River Town, for National Geographic, about how when China wants to build a city, they build the whole thing all at once: China’s Instant Cities.

“Hatch for unwanted babies”
From the Asia Sentinel on East Asia’s plunging fertility rates and the rise of DINK couples (Double Income No Kids): Down the Hatch.

The Inner Consumer
Kelly Shearon, of Houston and Kelly Shearon fame, wrote this last year and I thought it was interesting: Fighting the consumer within. Don’t know if it would preach over here right now, though.

Culturally-revealing pandas

Chengdu Director Zhang Zhihe said Mei Lan, pronounced “may-lan,” has male overtones, a gift Chinese parents bestow on female children whom they want to step outside traditional roles for women.

“It means her parents want her to be as capable as a boy,” Zhihe said. “It is a beautiful name.”

From Atlanta Zoo unveils name for new panda cub.

Goodbye Old Beijing
China is really changing. Here is some photo journalism and video about it.

Why Fighting is Good
In contrast to the trendy pacifism bandwagon making its rounds among my peers (我们有一点 reactionary 吗?), here’s a video clip from the pontiffable Don Cherry, showing how and why fighting in hockey is a good, yea, noble thing (skip to 3:37-5:02). And why the Yanks trying to Americanize the game don’t have a clue what their doing with their “[evil]” instigator penalty (which makes it very hard to start fights). Undoubtedly a fatal blow to Yoder’s nonviolence.

Cancer and Tianjin
Cancer rates in N China city rise sharply in 20 years (March 7, 2007, Xinhua).

Cancer rates in north China’s port city Tianjin have increased more than 40 percent over the past two decades, which researchers say is mainly because the ratio elderly people has more than doubled. The research conducted by the Chinese Academy of Engineering in Tianjin… [blah blah blah] … The research found that 55.35 percent of people over the age of 65 had contracted cancer.

Slogans in the news

…one of Mao’s legacies is that outdoor slogans are still widely used as propaganda tools, though most prime outdoor space in large cities has been sold for revenue-generating advertising. For the political messages, the difference nowadays is that the slogans are much more diversified and largely address local affairs.

From The Writing is on the Wall.

So what happens when all those virtually unstoppable economic and population demographics rearrange the world in future decades? …which will include influential doses of pop culture flowing into (and not just out of) America? China (and India and the Middle East and other foreigner peoples) will have an increasingly bigger, closer impact on the lives of average Americans in decades to come. I could swear that more than once I’ve made jokes about how we’re learning Chinese so that when China rules the world our friends and family will have people that can translate for them, or said things like, “We’re learning Mandarin now, while we still have a choice.” I just found a guy (with lots of letters after his name) who says this kind of stuff, and he’s serious.

We read lots of articles, but this one had some firsts. “Changing China and You” lays out the whole current China situation (development, government, environment, etc.), stuff we’ve personally heard about a lot. But then at the end he has this section on things the average college-age American should do/prepare for. Not China-interested Westerns; regular high-school and college-age Americans. Here are some of them (not in quotes is my paraphrase):

1. Get off your nationalistic high horse. Starting getting used to the fact that American dominance is a thing of the past. The new world will have multiple poles of power, including Russia, China, and India, but especially China.

2. Excel in school and quit wasting time playing video games and internet. I quote:

Remember, there are literally millions of smart kids like you in China and elsewhere who work very long hours in order to excel in academics and get into the best graduate schools – in America. Once you get to college, if you have not found out already, you will discover that your competitors in class and in the lab are Chinese or Indians. They didn’t get there by lounging around in front of the TV all day.

Some campuses are working hard to become multicultural… one day they won’t have to try.

3. “Learn all you can about Chinese history, culture, and current society. Take courses… read books… watch Chinese movies.”

4. Learn to like Chinese food and use chopsticks.

5. Make friends with ethnic Chinese.

And then comes my favourite… I think he’s serious, too:

6. “Learn Chinese – now, while it’s optional.”

People can change, right? I want to become a morning person. You know, get up and 6 or 6:30 and be done with breakfast and ready to start the day by 8. It would be cool. Plus, in this neighbourhood it would also be a whole lot easier than trying to sleep in.

I spliced together the following video from different mornings when I was still pretending that I could go back to sleep. It’s the view from our bedroom and kitchen windows. (Turn up your sound.)

That first song – which we hear every morning – is called, 纤夫的爱 (qiàn fū de ài), or “the Boat-hauler’s love.” As my teacher explained it, it’s a man and woman singing to one another as the man pulls the boat in while the woman sits in it, tired at the end of a long workday out catching fish together. Apparently it was really popular ten years or so ago.

The only thing missing from the video is “the ninja” – a guy we’ve heard but never seen, who used to be up at 6am going “Haa! Hyuh! Hyou!” before collapsing into a coughing fit. I think he quit for the summer.

His language teachers later told him that he should have stayed lying on the road until a crowd formed. Then get up, blame the driver, and make demands. With a crowd around him, the children, and the driver, all passing judgment against the driver, she would be forced to negotiate and eventually pay something. That’s not what happened this time, and I thought it was interesting how it played out.

We haven’t had a traffic accident yet, but one of the German doctors who ate the frogs with us did last week. Interesting story from a cultural perspective.

He was driving an electric three-wheel cart (sān lún chē – 三轮车) with kindergarten aged kids in the back. A car trying to squeeze through a red light ahead of the vehicles turning left almost plowed into the sān lún chē. They both hit the brakes and he swerved so hard he fell off onto the road. Thankfully, the sān lún chē was designed for the cart to stay level even if the driver tipped over. He was scratched and shaken up a bit, angry and scared, but not really hurt. The kids were OK. The car stopped about half a meter away from them. And here’s where the rules come in.

Usually if there’s an accident the bigger vehicle is at fault, or at least partially at fault. Plus, this driver was clearly in the wrong by running the red light and driving out of her lane. But instead of lying in the road while a crowd formed, our friend got up off the road right away, slammed on the hood of the car and started trying to argue with the driver through the driver-side window. And that was her chance. She put both hands on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge that he was even there. It was infuriating, but with no crowd gathering around a victim in the road, she wasn’t forced to negotiate. Eventually he was forced to give up and they went their separate ways. But not before he loudly told her something like, “You have no courtesy,” and a taxi driver across the street laughed and gave him the thumbs up sign.

The driver’s reaction reminds me of the two girls we saw getting yelled at on Saturday; they just sat there as if the irate boyfriend/husband wasn’t there. I don’t know what all is going on with all this, but one day hopefully we will.

Pronounced: shān zhōng wú lǎo hǔ, hóu zi chēng bà wáng
Literally: Mountain in lacking tiger, monkey called big king/overlord
Means: “When the mountain has no tiger, the monkeys can be called king!” Sort of like, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play!” Also commenting on how people can seem more or less important depending on who they’re being compared to.

Apparently every kid in China knows this song Jessica found it at ChinesePod.com. Usually people don’t use the tones when they sing in Mandarin, but this guy sings with the tones on the third time around. Careful, though. If you listen too many times, it will be stuck in your head for days.

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Some versions use tail (尾巴 – wěi ba) instead of ears (耳朵 – ěr duo). I’m gonna learn to write it so I have some “poetry” to write next time we visit the guys who write calligraphy with water on the sidewalk in the park.

Enhance your KTV repertoire!

• Nothing to My Name – 一无所有
• Liang Shanbo & Juliet – 梁山伯与茱丽叶
• Even in Death I’ll Love – 死了都要爱
• Mouse Loves Rice – 老鼠爱大米