From Chinese patients demanding (and receiving!!) I.V. antibotics for viruses to the local “businessman mentality” among expats who smoke, drink, and sleep around way more than they ever would at home, the good doctor at MyHealthBeijing.com introduces us to the differences he encounters practicing Western medicine in China: “An American Doctor In China: What’s Different?”
Western N.G.O’s sometimes struggle with the ingrained sense of hierarchy in which their Chinese colleagues naturally operate. This little article contains some words of wisdom for egalitarian-minded expats working with Chinese colleagues.
Tonight is 元宵节 (yuán xiāo jié, a.k.a. the Lantern Festival), the last big fireworks night of Spring Festival. This is our living room (4th floor) around 9pm — you can imagine the noise.
We partied it up too hard during all the other days of Spring Festival (photo galleries will be up soon!), so tonight we’re staying in nursing Lilia’s and Jessica’s colds. By this time (15 days into Spring Festival) the fireworks have long since changed from fun to annoying. We’ll be glad for the relative peace and quiet after the fireworks season is over.
Other fireworks posts:
Pronounced: wēn gē huá dōng ào huì
Means: the Vancouver Winter Olympics
One of our Chinese friends in Vancouver has a blog post about the Olympic atmosphere in Vancouver (in Chinese) and photos from downtown:
It’s time for preemptive voodoo dumplings!
My younger, university age students couldn’t tell me anything about this, but my older students (over 45) got the biggest kick out of explaining it — it was the same with Mr. Sòng two Spring Festivals ago when they invited us over for dinner on 初五，the 5th day of Spring Festival.
Traditionally on the 5th day of Spring Festival (初五), no one visits anyone in the evening and parents would make their kids come back before dark. The evening of the 5th day is for “beating the petty people” (打小人儿), who, my students explained, are those infuriating neighbours or coworkers who oppose you in secret, messing up your affairs without you knowing who’s behind it. So there’s a whole traditional custom during Spring Festival using dumplings as voodoo dolls to preemptively give trouble to anyone who might secretly give you trouble in the new year.
Chūwǔ (初五), like chúxī (除夕), is an evening of dumplings and fireworks. According to this tradition, the dumplings and fireworks on chūwǔ are for beating your future petty people. Specifically:
- 剁小人儿 duò xiǎorénr. Chopping up the jiǎozi filling (always chopped very fine) is “chopping petty people.”
- 捏小人儿的嘴 niē xiǎorénrde zuǐ. Pinching the dumplings closed is “pinching petty people’s mouths.”
- 崩小人儿 bēng xiǎorénr (zēn xiǎorénr in Tianjin dialect). Lighting off firecrackers is “exploding petty people.” This is harder to translate exactly; “给他们崩走” is the example my students used, meaning something like “explode them away” as in scaring them off with the explosion (as opposed to blowing them to pieces).
- 踩小人儿 cǎi xiǎorénr. Apparently you can also draw a picture of a “petty person” on the bottom of your socks and “step on petty people.”
Hong Kong is famous for 打小人 as a paid service — you go under overpasses and pay someone to chop for you.
I added the 儿化 to the sentences above because my students all used it when saying these phrases, but they said when written you can choose whether or not to include it.
Other stuff about “beating petty people” in China:
Other stuff about celebrating Chinese New Year’s:
- Enjoying 福 (fú) and the inner circle of Chinese life
- I pity the fú
- ‘Tis the season for… RED PANTIES!
- The Nian monster is coming! Better get some red underwear!
- Sharing Chinese New Year’s with the neighbours
- Happy New Year! Congratulations for not being eaten!
- Chinese New Year: a Passover?
- Fireworks
- Happy New Year! (Taibei 2006)
The guy in the stationary shop by our front gate says our daughter is “our neighbourhood’s little superstar.” I love showing off our little “foreign doll” (洋娃娃); she deserves all the attention no matter what country she’s in!
But sometimes the friendly little crowds that occasionally form around her can be too much. Especially when total strangers try to stick their fingers in our daughter’s mouth to make her smile! When I come home from work on the subway I always wash my hands before I play with her; there’s no way we’re letting random dàjiěs fresh out of the càishichǎng stick their fingers right in her mouth!
And that’s where this post’s foreign-baby-in-China essential comes in: āyí finger-blockers.
We have an Erogobaby baby backpack (they really ought to pay me for this!), and it has this very convenient lǎotàitàis-who-want-to-stick-their-fingers-in-foreign-babys’-mouths -finger-blocking device. It’s not in any of these photos because in winter the snowsuit does almost as good a job, but this baby carrier has a panel of fabric that you can button over the baby’s head when she’s sleeping. She doesn’t get distracted and people can’t get at her.
These photos are from today at Tianjin’s 古文化街。Lilia would not stop drawing friendly crowds! It was fun and she was smiling at everyone, but I was glad for the big snowsuit hood that she could hide behind and sleep behind when she needed to.
Related stuff:
Other foreign baby in China essentials:
- Foreign baby in China essentials: IMPORTED BABY FORMULA
- Foreign baby in China essentials: FACEBOOK SUBSTITUTE (or VPN) & SKYPE
- Foreign baby in China essentials: AIR PURIFIER
The only thing more amazing than the fireworks on our street last night (Chinese New Year’s Eve) — I won’t even try to describe them, you’d have to see, hear, and feel it to believe it — is the fact that our eight month old daughter slept right through them.
Last night and today are the most special time of the year for Chinese. Last night families crowded the streets in our area to set off an unbelievable amount of fireworks in between family meals, and today (Chinese New Year’s Day) they’ll eat in or out in great Spring Festival family banquets — the restaurants are all packed full. It’s the annual family reunion, which in its ideal form embodies fú, or blessing/good fortune. I’ll let someone more qualified than me explain.
In The Chinese Have a Word For It, Boyé Lafayette De Mente spends most of his chapter on fú talking about Chinese food and banquets:
There is a famous Chinese saying that shíwù (食物) or food is heaven to a peasant, a stark reminder that throughout most of Chinas history the specter of starvation was a constant companion to the majority of the people.So compelling was the threat of hunger that the Chinese used the symbols of a cultivated field and a mouth integrated with heaven, representing a full stomach, to mean fú (福), or happiness.
Today the ideogram for happiness is one of the most popular “good luck charms” in the country, and is familiar to patrons of Chinese restaurants around the world.
The role that food plays in Chinese life is one fo the most conspicuous and important aspects of their culture, and one that can be fully enjoyed by outsiders as well after only a few minutes of orientation.
A Chinese meal served and eaten Chinese style is a tableau of the culture in action, graphically depicting the hierarchical order within the family or the group, the etiquette that controls their behavior, and the substance of their relationships.
The typical Chinese meal eaten in a restaurant — and the Chinese love to eat out — is an even more dramatic representation of Chinese culture. Evening meals in particular are typically banquet style, a thanksgiving for the food and a celebration of family ties and the bonds of friendship.
Unlike some Western cultures that require people to eat quietly and quickly, when a typical Chines family or group eats out it is a noisy, lengthy affair, brimming with the hubbub of humor and ribaldry.
To the Chinese, the banquet table is more than just a convenient meeting place for a meal. It is the place where they confirm their cultural identity and just as important if not more so, enjoy fú and their Chineseness to the fullest.
It is around the informal banquet table that the Chinese let their formal hair down, nurture the bonds of old relationships, and make new ones. The informal banquet table is thus a doorway — the only easily accessible doorway — to the inner circle of Chinese life.
Outsiders wanting to establish close relationships with Chinese … must eventually enter this “doorway to happiness.”
(If anyone of consequence has a problem with me quoting this much text, just let me know and I’ll remove it.)
We had our own little fú-fest last night with friends and family:
Other stuff about celebrating Chinese New Year’s:
- I pity the fú
- ‘Tis the season for… RED PANTIES!
- Pun-based Chinese New Year customs
- Spending Chinese New Year with a Chinese family
- The Nian monster is coming! Better get some red underwear!
- Sharing Chinese New Year’s with the neighbours
- Happy New Year! Congratulations for not being eaten!
- Chinese New Year: a Passover?
- Fireworks
- Happy New Year! (Taibei 2006)
Albert at LaowaiChinese.net has a whole post on how to write your contributions to the 19 billion Spring Festival greeting texts that will be sent this year.
“No Celine Dion. No Nickelback. True north, strong and awesome.”
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