Jessica, who has several desperately interesting posts half-written but who has too much of a life to get them finished, fortunately has friends whose blogs will serve in the meantime. Shannon, one of our English teaching friends, just wrote about their weekly get-togethers with a pile of university students that they call “Girls’ Afternoon Out” (GAO):

For several weeks now I have been meeting with 4 other foreigners and about 15 former students every Saturday to talk about “girl stuff.” We officially call it G.A.O., Girls Afternoon Out, and one of the main objectives of this group is to learn about what it means to be a woman in China, as well as to share with the girls what it means to be a woman in the U.S., Taiwan, or the U.K. Let me tell you, we are all learning a ton! Relationships are different, families are different, the view of a boyfriend/husband is different, what is learned in school vs. learned from movies is extremely different! We are quickly finding out that these girls haven’t had much, if any, education about men and women, sex, or body image. They believe a lot of what they see in American TV shows and movies – YIKES!

To read more about how Jessica and Shannon are corrupting the minds of impressionable young locals, click over to Shannon’s blog.

Click the photo (stolen from Shannon) to see it bigger.

I would so love to be a fly on the wall when they get together!

Behold, the Tianjin rainbow:

It rained last week for two days solid. Makes me miss Vancouver when it does that, and it makes our British friends say, “This is just like England!” I took this photo on the way to class around 8am one morning.

Central Park Marriage Market

A group of us took a little outdoor migrating history lecture today, stopping for lunch in Tianjin’s Central Park, which used to be the main park of the French concession area. Since it was a weekend with fine weather it meant the marriage market was in full swing, and that means crowds of grandpas and grandmas were haggling with… I don’t know what you call this kind of service or the people who offer it.

The people who have all the stacks of papers with eligible young people’s stats deal with grandpas and grandmas mostly, who are trying to find someone their grandchild might like.

This is the third time I’ve been here on a marriage market day, and every time these crowds have been warm, curious, but not aggressive, and that makes them really fun to chat with. All a foreigner has to do is walk over, and ten or so people will gather around and start the usual friendly small talk. Since it’s an older crowd, no one is real keen to practice their English (unlike the university students).

Click these marriage market photos to see them big size. See pictures and descriptions from my first experience with the marriage market here.

Interesting historical tidbit
I learned some more the abandoned Zǐ Zhú Lín church building, which we’ve visited and photographed twice now. It was built in 1872 with compensation money extracted from the Chinese government by the French as reparations for the Tianjin ‘Incident’/'Massacre’ (1870). Foreign and local Catholics used it as a refuge during the Boxer Uprising (1900). It’s been disused since 1958. I noticed this time around that it has trees growing straight up out of the drain pipes on the side of the building.

Pronounced: nán zǐ hàn
Means: a “real man”; manly

Mr. Lù invited me to have dinner with the old boys tonight. I had a total blast. Undoubtedly the alcohol helped, especially for Mr. Lù. Fortunately, I knew it would be that way, and prepared accordingly. I know enough Chinese to catch and contribute to some of the jokes, and just the fact that I can do that is apparently really stinkin’ funny for these guys. From left to right: Mr. Zhāng, Sòng, Guō, Lǘ, and Lù (Mr. Guō is apparently the one who first suggested the Chinese name they all use for me:

I knew there’d be a lot of alcohol – there always is, never mind that the invitation is literally “invite you to drink alcohol.” I was supposed to meet them at 6pm, so I ate a ton of food at 5:30. Having had a few practice rounds with these guys in the past made it a lot easier this time to relax and have fun without worrying about either drinking too much or not being kèqi (客气) enough when refusing more drinks. And, thankfully, Chinese cups are smaller than North American cups, plus East Asians are genetically among the weakest drinkers in the world. In the middle of it all I managed to record the interview I need for an upcoming magazine article, despite Mr. Lù’s protests that I not record when he’s been drinking.

It was nice that their invitation came when it did. It’s easy to read the news right now and be tempted to think all kinds of negative, suspicious things about Mainlanders. People can say whatever they want in the news about Mainlanders and the issues surrounding the Olympics – but the Tianjiners we know are great.

The longer we stay here, the easier it is to know how and when to refuse too many drinks. It’s no joke, though, that if you’re going to eat with Mainlanders, especially if you’re a guy, you’d either better go in with a plan or be ready to get hammered.

I don’t know what they’re showing in the news back home, so we just wanted to post a quick note saying we’re fine and Tianjin is real relaxed and there’s no danger, etc.

In case you’re wondering what on earth we’re talking about, there’re lots of stirred-up, angry folks in China right now. The Chinese term is “angry youth” (愤怒青年); fènqīng for short. In English they’re just called fenqing.

Carrefour (the French Walmart) is being boycotted/protested in cities across the country (because it’s French), and CNN is bearing the brunt of the (vitriolic) anti-Western-media sentiment for misreporting on certain recent events and for airing certain comments from an outspoken commentator. One American in an inland city was punched around a bit hasseled on Sunday by a mob when he tried to exit a Carrefour.

Our teachers and language helpers are talking about it in class. One of them forwarded me one of the many patriotic/anti-Carrefour text messages going around people’s cell phones. It says:

Carrefour showed its hand, buy 500 get ’250′ ["250" means "idiot"]. One supermarket and one lofty and unyielding character face one another in confrontation, in the end who wins?! All who don’t go, in order for the world to look up to China. Now must all in one heart please pass this on

家乐福出手了，买五百送二百五。一个超市和一把 傲骨 的对垒，到底谁赢？！谁都别去，为了世界看得起 中国。这次一定要齐心请转发

Some of our teachers are “boycotting” Carrefour, but one complains that Tianjiners are so cheap that that Tianjin can’t pull off a real boycott like other Chinese cities because Tianjiners will shop where it’s cheapest no matter what (ha! – so Tianjin). Because Tianjin is a special economic zone on the coast, it’s a little more cosmopolitan than many inland cities (…I can’t believe I just called Tianjin cosmopolitan! :D ) We aren’t expecting any trouble.

Anyway, we don’t know how this is all being reported back home, and just didn’t want people to worry in case the coverage of overly sensational.

If you’re interested about the situation, here are some interesting, pertinent links in suggested reading order:

• The Olympic Torch Tour As Public Relations Disaster
  English translations of the Chinese news media, with images. Shows why France is a special target.
• CNN’s failure to apologize rapped
  Explains why people are hating (and hacking) CNN right now. See also China strongly denounces CNN host’s insulting words. Both from China’s English language news media.
• Attack on an American volunteer by anti-Carrefour mob in Zhuzhou, Hunan
  Zhuzhou is nowhere near Tianjin.
• Dissenting Chinese voices have a hard time. Here’s one guy’s response to his “fenqing” critics (translated to English).
• “2008 !China Stand Up! 2008,中国，站起来！”
  A fenqing music video (with English subtitles, how thoughtful!) that gives you a dose of fenqing sentiment, opinion, and inspiration.
• Anti-CNN.com (English/Chinese)
• carrefourS.com.cn (the anti-Carrefour site)
  “Everyone take a look at the videos below, our China’s current plight, after watching do not be upset, do not cry, take everything and transform it into struggle”

If you’re wondering why Mainlanders are apparently so hypersensitive, I suggest starting here:

• Why Mainlanders are taking it personally, racially, and facially – the short answer

[Updated 08-05-02]: Text messages are playing an interesting role in Chinese society, from calling the patriotic masses to rise up (quoted above) to funny social satire, as seen here: “The text message as satire.”

No politically-oriented comments allowed – thanks.

Pronounced: fèn qīng
Short for:
愤怒青年; fènnù qīngnián
Literally: angry/indignant youth
Means:
Called “fenqing” in English, this is the term for China’s hyper-nationalistic, raging young people. It was apparently originally coined in the 80′s but it’s back in use now with all the patriotic backlash reaction to the recent events in the news involving the Olympics. French retail giant Carrefour is being boycotted/protested in cities across the country (because it’s French), and CNN is bearing the brunt of the (vitriolic) anti-Western-media sentiment.

If you have friends who are Mainlanders or you’ve been watching the news, then you’ve probably noticed that a lot of Mainland individuals are having remarkably strong emotional reactions to the less-than-glorious reception that people in some nations gave to the Olympic T0rch relay. Accusations of racism are among the milder responses.

(NOTE: This is about culture – specifically how certain aspects of Mainland culture and history affect Mainlanders’ relationships to non-Chinese – not politics. If you want to discuss politics or current events, go elsewhere. If you want to discuss the cultural factors highlighted by recent events, then welcome!)

It’s only a small minority writing death threats or comparing misquoted Western media personalities to Nazis or forcing the parents of “race-traitors” (汉奸 – specifically a traitor to the Hàn race) into hiding like some sort of sick re-run of the 1970s. (But what else is the internet for, anyway?) We don’t personally know anyone doing this kind of stuff. But individual Mainlanders here and around the world, including our friends and teachers, are taking it as a personal, racial insult that a few thousand foreigners dared sully the Olympic T0rch relay with public criticisms of particular government policies. Mainlanders living North America have expressed how they now feel unwelcome; as if Canadians don’t want them, and maybe they should just go back and serve their motherland. Obviously, these protesters have pushed a large, sensitive cultural button.

This doesn’t make sense to a lot of Westerners. North Americans, and I’m assuming Western Europeans as well, generally draw a sharp distinction between our government’s actions and ourselves as individuals. We don’t necessarily take it personally that someone might not like a particular policy of the our nation’s government. We routinely publicly criticize each other’s government policies whenever we’re not already busy publicly protesting our own government’s policies. Sure, people might get worked up, but the idea of it being racist doesn’t even enter our minds. When our governments get publicly embarrassed it’s more entertaining than anything else.

Not so for Mainlanders. That crucial distinction doesn’t exist. But why is it so personal? And why so extreme? Why is the CNN office in Beijing requesting all it’s non-essential personnel to stay away due to threats of violence? It makes us want to say, “Hey, welcome to the world, now stop being so touchy. If you can’t handle criticism, then you can’t play in the big leagues.” What’s the deal?

There are reasons. And I think being aware of them goes a long way to helping Westerners learn to better understand and communicate with Mainlanders. Of course there’s tons more to say, but here are three of the biggies, as far as I can tell anyway.

The Short Answer: Wounded Nationalized Face
The short answer explaining Mainlanders’ reactions to recent events has three parts that go together.

1. Culture
First, China is a ‘face’-oriented culture. You can think of ‘face’ as “one’s degree of standing (and amount of power) in the social hierarchy” (too simplistic, but good enough for now). The way that ‘face’ expectations work in Chinese culture – the nature of ‘face’ culture – leaves them unable to ‘handle’ certain kinds of public criticism; their only recourse is to fly into a rage and demand that ‘face’ be returned to them. What’s happening now internationally with Mainlanders’ reactions to the less-than-perfectly-glorious torch relay is a national-scale version of what happens on the sidewalk somewhere in China every day: someone feels they weren’t given the ‘face’ owed them and a public shouting match/fistfight ensues. We saw one on our first day in Tianjin, on the way in from the airport.

There are Chinese scholars who argue that the current state of Chinese ‘face’ culture is a major hindrance to Chinese individuals’ personal happiness, and to China’s constructive participation as a nation in the global community. Mainlanders’ current reactions to public criticism from outsiders is a perfect example.

2. Identity
Second, individual Mainlanders feel criticism of their government as criticism of themselves as a people, a race, a culture, a nation. Their individual, racial, cultural, and political identities are emotionally fused; individual identity is nationalized. The national identity/face has a closer relationship and bigger impact on Mainlanders’ individual self-conceptions than national identity, honour, and pride do for Westerners – even Americans and the French.

This is part of a Confucian cultural framework, and it’s thousands of years old. And although Confucius himself has fallen in and out of favour many times over the last several decades, this particular deeply-seeded cultural aspect is quite useful when those in charge need to rally the people around the flag, and it’s been deliberately cultivated over the last several decades.

3. History
Third – and foreigners have to be aware of this if they want to have any hope of understanding China – Mainlanders are still pained by the humiliating wounds inflicted by Western powers in the 19th century. When foreign powers took economic advantage of China by force, it was a devastating blow to national face. China is in the long process of regaining the ‘face’ lost in those historical episodes, but they have a long way to go and success is still uncertain. Mainlanders as a nation are desperate to prove to themselves and the world that they’re a great, superior nation/race/civilization, but they know they haven’t arrived yet, and are therefore still insecure about it. But the Mainland is absolutely determined to never take crap from Western powers ever again.

So when foreigners publicly and rudely tell China’s rulers how they should conduct their national affairs, these foreigners are pushing the “Remember the Opium Wars! The Century of Humiliation! The Unequal Treaties! Remember what THEY did to US! NEVER AGAIN!”-button. That’s a very sensitive and powerful button. It operates on face-principles, and the individual ‘faces’ of a billion-plus Chinese are directly connected to it.

If we take these three factors and put them together backward, we have a wounded, nationalized face . And that’s a big part of why individual Mainlanders are so touchy right now.

P.S. – This is the short answer. Of course the short definitions I’ve given above are inadequate, and there are thoughtful dissenting Chinese voices out there, and there is so much more to say. I have thousands and thousands of words in drafted posts on these topics of face and foreigners and nationalism, but it’s such a complicated situation that I don’t know when they’ll see the light of day. We’ll see.

(Remember: this is about culture, not politics. If you want to talk politics, don’t do it here.)

The phone was ringing as I unlocked the front door and stepped inside. It was ‘Aunty Wang,’ and she wasn’t in the mood to make baby-talk with the not-so-cute foreigner. Jessica had answered the phone, and Auntie Wang tried to discuss the rent hike with her, but Jessica again made her ‘talk’ to me.

‘Aunty Wang’: “We still want you to pay 1200.”

That is totally not fair. Plus, she’s talking really fast, and I hadn’t had time to prepare. I’m scrambling.

Me: “Last time you said 1100.”

A.W.: “Oh, well-”[long string of fast Chinese that I can't catch involving babies and other people who love paying 1200, but the general gist of it all, after I remind her again that they'd already come down to 1100, was that they'll settle for 1100].

Me: “We discussed it while we were waiting for you to phone us, and we feel we can pay 1050.”

That is true. Prices are going up, and we feel 1050 was OK, with strings attached…

A.W.: [Something long and fast about forget 1050 and remember the babies that like to pay 1200 and perhaps might be ready to move in so we're talking about 1100.]

I tell her to hold on a second, and I quickly discuss the next move in English with Jessica.

Me: “OK. We have a list. Some problems. We can pay 1100 after those all get fixed.”

Aunty Wang doesn’t sound impressed.

A.W.: “What are the problems?”

(This is the part where we try to make them pay for raising our rent.)

Me: “The first problem, a stinky smell often comes up from the drain in the bathroom. When we have guests it’s really embarrassing. I tried to fix it my own way, but my way was no use.”

A.W.: “And?”

Me: “The kitchen yángtái (阳台 – North American apartments don’t really have these) windows are ok, but the other windows all leak air. They leak cold wind in the winter and hot wind in the summer…”

She laughs when I say “hot wind” – maybe “hot wind” (热风) means something I don’t know about.

“… and of course you already know the roof leaks. The kitchen has no hot water. The water pressure usually isn’t enough for the gas water heater. And we’re scared of it. And the water dispenser leaks.”

I forget to mention the broken mosquito nets. There’s other stuff I could mentioned, but we’re aiming to get a couple big ones fixed and just need the little ones as bargaining pieces to give up.

A.W.: [She rattles off a whole bunch of fast Chinese which I can't catch. But I'm pretty sure it involves us having the money ready when they come over with the contract this Saturday, and her saying they'll take a look at fix things.]

Me: “After everything is fixed, then we’re able to pay.”

A.W.: “Sure, we’ll fix everything and then you pay us.”

I’m pretty sure she actually said this – though it kind of surprises me. Maybe I’m hearing wrong. We’re only hoping to get one or two of the more important things fixed. I double check, and it sounds like she confirmed it, but I’m definitely not certain.

We arrange a time for them to come over. She says bye but as she’s hanging up I hear her start complaining to her husband, “Aì yà…!” (哎呀; [exclamation!]).

So they’ve forced us to our Plan B. This coming Saturday night will be Round 3, when they come over with the new contract. If I spoke really good Chinese instead of Chinglish, I would have tried to make it all nicer and smoother and leave the option open for them to not raise the rent and not fix stuff. But I speak Chinglish, and that’s just how it is.

Every time I go outside, I’m stunned at the visible extent to which China is going to “Welcome the Olympics” (迎奥运) in our area. The words “welcome the Olympics” are everywhere, from slogan banners to the sides of sānlúnchēs (三轮车: the pickup truck of bicycles). The one on the right says, in effect, “Welcome the Olympics; raise the bar.” Even our teachers have remarked how crazy it seems (and we thought the construction was already crazy to begin with when we arrived a year ago).

It’s all about face
“Welcome the Olympics” really means “give China face.” The 2008 Olympics is all about China gaining ‘face’ in relationship with the world, particularly the West, and that’s why they’re so touchy and emotional about it, and why they are going to seemingly extreme lengths to look good both in the eyes of foreigners and, perhaps ultimately, in the eyes Mainlanders. The photo at right is yet another banner hung on a construction site proclaiming our area’s most common slogan, “Welcome the Olympics, have decorum, create a new atmosphere” (迎奥运 讲文明 树新风).

“Be more civilized”
Though the connection between the Olympics and ‘face’ is hardly a secret, and our neighbours and teachers freely admit it, it’s still not nice for foreigners to point this out, especially since we’re the foil from which face is being gained in this particular historical instance. The poster at right is one of many illustrating what “have decorum” specifically entails. My teacher explained “have decorum” (more literally, “be more civilized”) as, “don’t do things like spit and be loud in public.”

How to: Welcome the Olympics
Below are some examples of specific ways China is ‘welcoming the Olympics’ in our area. It’s not a summary of the nation-wide campaign; these are just some of the things we can’t avoid noticing going about our day. We get an extra big dose of Olympic prep craziness because we live across the street from a major hotel near a major park/landmark and not far from the new Olympic stadium. We wanted to give you a little bit of an idea how much the Olympics matter over here, and how fast things are changing right now.

[Click the photos to see them bigger size.
Click the Chinese characters to see the pronunciation and translation.]

Church is so fake, and so is your roof
Maybe you went to church once and felt it was kind of fake, but I promise it wasn’t this fake. This isn’t really a church building, it’s just built like one to make the area look nice. I haven’t found out what they’re going to use it for yet but if you click the photo and see it big size, you’ll see a woman using it for her bridal portraits, an architecture student sketching it, and parents taking their kids’ photos in front of it. I’ve heard it was maybe built by a local business, not directly by the authorities, though often those are the same thing (or at least the same people are involved in both).

The glass wall to the left of the church is a facade in front of an otherwise nondescript brick building, and on the roof of the building in the background you can see workers building a pointed roof facade (flat roofs are becoming pointy wherever Olympic traffic is expected). We have a new crack running the length of our ceiling that leaks water when it rains because of this. Another ‘fake church building’ we’ve seen apparently houses some sort of power plant, but this is the first fake church I’ve seen that actually has crosses on it.

Some buildings get a make-over…
They’re also painting the sides of buildings facing the street. No more shabby, dirty, dripping-looking buildings on the Olympic routes. Yesterday morning migrant workers were hanging on rope swings outside our (6th floor) living room and kitchen windows, painting the building. It was a bit of a shock to wake up and walk into the living room and have a guy hanging six stories above the ground staring at you through your window. Good thing I was sleeping in PJ’s that night! They’ve also re-surfaced one side of our school’s building, but not the sides facing away from the road.

…and some buildings get bulldozed over.
The family living at the place in the photo below has until May 1st to vacate. Their entire section of the city is being leveled before the Olympics and (rumour has it) temporary park space (草坪) is going in its place:

The vertical strips on the door say: “In the New Year welcome the Olympics! God’s country, go for it!” (新年迎奥运神州齐加油). Turns out America isn’t the only place in the world that likes to call itself “God’s country.” The rectangles with phone numbers are ads for moving companies. When I talked to them, they hadn’t found a new place yet.

They’re leveling the old-style neighbourhoods – whole city blocks – and giving the residents money to go find other apartments. The historical Nanshi area is perhaps Tianjin’s most notable loss (see the photo gallery here).

City parks… on steriods
All the sidewalks, benches, tables, etc., in the parks are gone, along with miles of sidewalk on the road to the Olympic stadium. Whole adult trees are planted using cranes, along with truckloads of bushes. Whole parks complete with landscaping materialize over a single weekend. They’ve even brought in bamboo to the park near our apartment (no word yet on any pandas ;) ). I made my own slogan in class this morning: 迎奥运，爱中国，要熊猫！(Welcome the Olympics, love China, want pandas)… the old boys club didn’t think it was funny. The sides of this 三轮车 say something like, “Welcome the Olympics, Establish national cleanliness; Adorn Hexi [district] beautiful scenery” (迎奥运创国卫, 扮河西美景).

Camping trip – migrant worker style
Migrant worker camps are everywhere, from right outside our stairwell to along the canal to the middle of neighbourhood sidewalks. I can’t imagine the size of the workforce needed to accomplish all projects currently underway in our area, but it’s no secret where these guys sleep. I did my homework this morning in the park, surrounded by workers tearing up the path, and they said that each green tent houses 20 guys. The sign in the middle of this migrant worker camp says, “Beautify the environment, welcome the Olympics” (美化环境迎接奥运).

Hey, where are you going with my lunch?
They’ve cleared away most of the neighbourhood street markets, bike repairmen, and street vendors (in select areas designated for Olympic-related traffic). This jiǎozi (饺子) stand hides behind a gate in an alley, just down the road from the fake church building. The bicycle repairman are keeping a lower profile in sidestreets now, and there aren’t as many of them. They don’t have to be completely out of sight, just out of the way and off the roads and main sidewalks. This particular stand’s jiǎozi are mediocre but tolerable (I know where to get worse, but that place is on my blacklist).

Establish condescension, thoroughly patronize the masses
There is no shortage of slogans exhorting the masses to act differently in public. Usually it’s just a red banner hung outside, but sometimes they have comic book style cartoon posters. Others are drawn in coloured chalk on a public blackboard. This particular banner says, “Establish ‘Garden City,’ Thoroughly launch the entire population’s obligatory tree planting campaign” (创建园林城区深入开展全民义务植树运动).

Does it ever end?
There’s much more we could mention: new, prettier, cleaner taxis, they’ve stocked the intersections with traffic police that actually affect the traffic, the canal – I have no idea how they’ve done this – is clean… China is making a phenomenal effort to be lavish hosts for the world. I’ve never seen so much labour dedicated to a single cause in a single place before.

My hope for the 2008 Olympics is that however it looks and whatever the rest of the world thinks, China’s 老百姓 have a good time!

[Click the photos to see them bigger size.
Click the Chinese characters to see the pronunciation and translation.]

Given the talk I overhear on a daily basis in the ladies locker room at the gym and in the halls at our school, it’s evident that in China – as in the rest of the world, I’d imagine – body size/shape is an important element of female beauty standards. It’s also talked about much more directly than in the US, where it’s usually fine to comment on someone’s thinness…but not at all okay to comment on someone’s fatness.

But here in China, just like friends often greet each other with “You got whiter!” or “You got darker!” it’s also not uncommon to hear “你变瘦了!” (You got thinner!) or “你变胖了!” (You got fatter!). Sometimes this will be shortened to a simpler “瘦了!” (Thinner!) or “胖了!” (Fatter!).

It’s also not uncommon for random people (especially salespeople in markets for some reason) to grab hold of one’s upper arm and exclaim about how fat one is. Especially when one is a foreigner. At that point, it’s quite common that the foreigner has to work hard to restrain the urge to punch the lights out of this person who not only invaded valuable personal space, but also pushed the sensitive “weight/size” button. Then most of these salespeople go on to try and sell us their fabric or vegetables or whatever, and wonder why exactly we’re NOT inclined to buy. Yes, I’m speaking from personal experience here, though at least no one has dared to pat my tummy yet and ask how far along I am (another foreign friend has had this happen more than once). Yet this doesn’t just happen to those of us that are bigger, it also happens to foreign ladies that most of us would consider to be of “average” build.

I should point out, however, that the above interactions were all between females. I think guys around the world have enough common sense to know that it’s best not to be quite THAT direct when talking about a lady’s body size/shape. As an illustration of this, last week I got a compliment from Mr. Lu and the other old guys that sit around on the corner and repair bikes all day. However, their way of paying me a compliment was pretty indirect and really interesting.

Last Friday night, Joel and I went for a walk in the park. On the way to the park, we stopped at the corner to chat for a few minutes with Mr. Lu and company. As soon as we walked up, Mr. Lu started to chastise Joel. “大江！ You’re not being a very good husband these days!!! You’re not taking very good care of your wife!” We both looked slightly surprised at this unusual start to the conversation. Mr. Lu continued by asking Joel, “Why aren’t you giving your wife enough good food to eat?” At the puzzled looks on our faces, he grinned a little bit and said “She’s gotten too thin!!!”**

At this, we laughed and I began to explain that Joel is taking care of me just fine, but that I’ve been exercising lately. Apparently not quite satisfied with this explanation, or (more likely) just out of the desire to mess around with Joel a little bit more, he turned to Joel again and said, “Don’t bully (欺负） her to go exercise!” Then he turned to me, still grinning, and said, “He’s bullying you to go exercise, isn’t he?! He must be for you to have gotten this thin…what did you weigh before?” (At this point, one of the other old guys hit him and said something to the effect of “Hey, what are you thinking..You can’t ask her that!!!”) Mr. Lu backtracked a little and said “Well anyway, he must be bullying you to go.”

I told them that we’ve actually both been exercising, and that we decided since we’re still young and don’t have a family we should use this time to pay more attention to our health. We all laughed together for a little bit, they all warned Joel that he shouldn’t lose any weight (and spent a minute or two miming what would happen to Joel if he got any thinner), and then we headed for the park. I’m guessing that it wouldn’t be very culturally appropriate for these older guys to tell me “You look nice”…so they disparage Joel’s skills as a husband in a roundabout way of paying me a compliment. I have to confess that even though the compliment was at Joel’s expense, it was still really nice to hear, and I was pretty tickled by their creativity.

**For the record, there’s no need to worry that I’ve suddenly turned into a beanpole or something. Having peeled off the requisite 15 layers of winter clothing and started to get into better shape, the appearance of change is probably far more dramatic than any changes that have actually occurred. :D