One of my bathhouse buddies got engaged the day before his birthday, which happens to be Halloween. So for his birthday/engagement party/Halloween we carved Chinese love pumpkins! (and one apple):

The 双喜/喜子 (“double happiness”) one took forEVer. If you’re really sharp, you’ll notice where we messed it up (see real examples here). Since they just got engaged I thought it’d be nice to give them a Chinese love pumpkin, even if I left out a couple strokes. Someone else carved the smaller pumpkin, which says “爱” (love). These little Chinese pumpkins are so hard they’d bounce, not splat. When you flick them with your finger they go “tok tok tok.”

And for the record, Halloween is not All Saints’ Day, no matter what all my students’ Chinese-English dictionaries say (some online ones make this mistake, too). Halloween is the night before All Saints’ Day: 万圣节前夕 wànshèngjié qiánxī (“All Saints’ Day Eve”). So annoying. And if you’re curious, Jack-o-lantern in Chinese is “pumpkin lantern”: 南瓜灯 nánguā dēng.

P.S. – About the title: that’s “Chinese love-pumpkins” as in a kind of pumpkin (adj. n.), not “Chinese love pumpkins” meaning what Chinese people love (subj. v. obj.). I’m not so sure they feel one way or the other about pumpkins…

I walk into our old neighbourhood to get my bike out of the bike park where it’s been stored the last eight months, and Dà​niáng​ is sitting outside our old stairwell just like she always does. The Chinese gourd vines she’s planted cover the entrance and reach up to the third floor. She doesn’t recognize me until I smile and wave.

“Oh, it’s you! You’ve come back!”

“Yeah, we’ve come back!”

“Ha, at first I didn’t recognize you; you have a beard now, and also foreigners all look the same.”

“Yeah, I know, we’re all chàbuduō…

Ah, Tianjin. It’s good to be back.

I was babysitting ESL study block at my old high school yesterday morning when I saw the desktop background on a Chinese student’s Acer Netbook.

“Is that a girl?” I asked.

The student, a teenager from Guangdong, looked slightly shocked and annoyed. “No! Of course not!”

“Are you sure?” I smiled and she and her friends knew I was just joking. But honestly, I was only half-joking. Here’s the photo:

It’s Korean pop star 金范, but I don’t know his Korean name.

Sometimes my northern Chinese friends mention how they think southern Chinese males, especially Taiwanese, are too feminine. They laugh at the way they talk and they way they look. Sometimes they say that Western (white) women are too masculine. I had an American co-worker in Tianjin who smoked, and she was constantly told that this made her too masculine.

Now, I’m not saying men can’t 打扮打扮 if they want. But I’d be lying if I pretended that young urban Chinese masculinity ideals — or at least Chinese pop media masculinity ideals — don’t sometimes appear a little feminine to my Western sensibilities. And the women, at least the young and trendy relatively privileged urban ones and their pop culture role models, seem like they’re trying to embody an extreme femininity: anemic, weak, passive, desperately in need of a male’s strength and assertiveness (there’s even a term related to this: “little birdie leaning on a man”/小鸟依人). It’s like gender identity in general plays out a little more toward the feminine side of the scale in China.

Westerners have been getting this impression for generations, as have the Chinese themselves (“feminine” is one of many adjectives Lin Yutang uses to describe Chinese masculinity). There are lots of reasons why Chinese and Westerners perceive each other as too masculine or too feminine — some of it’s biological, but a lot of it’s cultural. And this post is really only talking about the thin slice of Chinese society that foreigners interact with the most: the urban, educated, relatively privileged with enough disposable income to enjoy a consumerist lifestyle. (If foreigners in China spent most of their day-to-day lives with peasants, I wonder how our gender impressions might be different.)

Ever since my first major cross-cultural experiences in rural Uganda and Tanzania, where my language teacher and new friends explained in all sincerity that fat women are more attractive than skinny women, and then laughed so hard (once they got over their disbelief) when we told them that in America it’s the opposite, I’ve been aware that a lot of the specifics of what we “naturally” find attractive (fat/thin, dark/pale, tall/short, muscular/weak, smooth/scruffy, manicured/”man-hands,” etc.) have a lot to do with the families and cultures we grow up in.

Other posts about Chinese/Western beauty ideals:

• Please stop paying attention to my… (by Jessica)
• Beauty is all in the eye…lid? (by Jessica)
• White is beautiful… (by Jessica)
• The Men and the Boys
• 小鸟依人 (“little birdie depending on a man”)

For Jessica’s birthday we had a karaoke party with a bunch friends:

If you haven’t been to a good Chinese karaoke party yet, you’re missing out! Here’s some photos and fun video clips.

Piao Laoshi’s Korean boyfriend gives Jessica a “Happy Birthday Jessica!” shout out in the middle of his song, and elicits praise from some of the ladies who start chanting his name:

Liu Wei, Greg, Dingle and Zhou Jun give a heartfelt(?) rendition of Air Supply’s All Out Of Love:

Cute (they’re engaged):

Jessica got some cute stuffed cows as gifts, since 2009 is the year of the cow.

The cake says, “Happy Birthday, Lin Yi An” (生日快乐林怡安；shēngrì kuàilè lín yí ān). Yí-ān is Jessica’s Chinese name.

End of the semester for the Bright Future sex ed class
The same weekend as the bath house/octopus wrestling adventure, we also spent an afternoon playing games, baking Christmas cookies, and having fun with local university students that attended the sexuality class Jessica’s been volunteering with this semester. Jessica’s actually been volunteering regularly every semester, and this weekend was sort of the end-of-semester party. The students are fun and the cookies are good. For more on the sex ed class, see here, here, and here, or see the links at the end of this post. Jessica has a million interesting stories from observing these classes each semester — the class is for many students their first time to have any real sexual education. Kristi, our friend who heads up the whole project and teaches the classes (in Chinese!), could (and should!) write a book.

SNOW!
After Joel’s eventful evening at the bathhouse, he returned home…at that time, around 10:30 pm, the ground was still dry. However, when I left my friend’s house at about 11:15, there was already about an inch of snow on the ground and it was falling fast. By the time I got home about 20 minutes later, I was covered from head to toe with snow…and had icicles in my hair. Since it hardly ever snows in Tianjin, it wasn’t difficult to convince Joel that we should go out for a nice romantic midnight walk in the snow. He put all of his stuff back on, we strolled along the canal and down to the TV tower. The snow was still falling pretty heavily, and it was so peaceful and still outside, aside from the occasional whoops of joy from the other few people out playing in it.

Tianjin is so dry that last winter we basically didn’t get any snow. Our local friends say that when they were little Tianjin used to get decent snow every year, but no these days. We’ve seen only two “big” snows since we got here…one two days after we arrived back in Feb. 2007, and the one this weekend. I did see a few flakes fall on my birthday last year, but I was the ONLY one that saw them…so they must have been a special gift just for me. One local friend speculated that the dryness has to do with the deforestation and desertification in Inner Mongolia, which is where Tianjin’s weather blows in from. Either way, we weren’t expecting snow for Christmas, so this is extra special.

Once we got to the TV tower, we found some untouched areas of snow…fell backwards into them and made some snow angels. We would have made a snow man too, but we didn’t think about it until after we were already soaked from making the snow angels. Note to self for next time we get this much snow in Tianjin: Snowman first, and THEN snow angels. It was an awesome walk…we finally came home around 1:30 in the morning…but were so excited that it took quite a while to fall asleep.

Unfortunately at this point two days later, there is very little white snow left…and the slush on the roads is BLACK.

There’s no getting around the ankle-deep icy muddy slush that’s covered Tianjin’s roads for most of the last two days. Tianjin city deals with the snow by sending out saltwater trucks and legions of migrant workers who shovel all the ice and slush into three-wheel carts.

The worst of it had melted away by the time I took this photo this afternoon. I (Joel) spent two hours biking across town and back yesterday; bald road-bike tires (what most people have) weren’t made for this stuff. Navigating major intersections full of taxis, buses, bikes, and three-wheel carts sure is a lot more interesting though, especially when you don’t want to lose momentum and have to put your foot down.

Click the photo to see Ào Yùn the Chinese cricket up close.

Every summer we get a pet cricket, and each summer we let it go before autumn.

This year’s cricket was named “Ào Yùn” (“Olympic”) in honour of the thousands of Chinese kids who were born this year and given the same name.

These are “100 day bugs,” so we only kept him a few weeks before letting him go.

They’re really weird because they breathe through their bellies.

Learning a song now and then is an easy way to play with the language. We found out pretty quick that the lyrics to Chinese pop songs are just as… what’s the word… vapid? as the lyrics in most English pop songs. Except a lot of Chinese pop songs seem to involve more cutesy-ness and less prostitution. That means the lyrics are simple and safe, assuming that large doses of aural saccharine can’t hurt you.

We’ll post songs occasionally, and for each song I’ll put the music video so you can hear it, and post a download link to the lyrics and guitar chord sheets that I made to practice the song… in case you wanna sing along!

老鼠爱大米 / Mouse Loves Rice / lǎoshǔ ài dàmǐ

Our teachers tell us that this is maybe the cheesiest Chinese pop song ever. It’s famous, and has been redone in many different languages, but don’t go looking for the English version on Youtube because you’ll find it, and it’s horrible. Also, Chinese mice don’t eat cheese, they eat rice. Actually come to think of it, most Chinese people don’t eat cheese. Anyway, you can play the song while you look at the lyrics below:

Or you can play the mp3:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Lyrics & Guitar Chords

Download: LaoshuAiDami.pdf (lyrics & guitar chords with pinyin/English cheatsheet).

歌词 / gē cí / Lyrics (the English is a little overly literal):

我听见你的声音 / wǒ tīng jiàn nǐ de shēng yīn
I hear your voice

有种特别的感觉 / yǒu zhǒng tè bié de gǎn jué
Have a special kind of feeling

让我不断想 / ràng wǒ bù duàn xiǎng
Makes me constantly miss (you)

不敢再忘记你 / bù gǎn zài wàng jì nǐ
(I) don’t dare forget you again

我记得有一个人 / wǒ jì de yǒu yī gè rén
I remember there’s one person

永远留在我心中 / yǒng yuǎn liú zài wǒ xīn zhōng
(who) forever stays in my heart

哪怕只能够这样的想你 / nǎ pà zhǐ néng gòu zhè yang de xiǎng nǐ
Even still all (I’m) able to do is miss you like this

如果真的有一天 / rú guǒ zhēn de yǒu yī tiān
If really there’s a day

爱情理想会实现 / ài qíng lǐ xiǎng huì shí xiàn
(when) ideal romance is achieved

我会加倍努力好好对你 / Wǒ huì jiā bèi nǔ lì hǎo hǎo duì nǐ
I will doubly strive to be good to you

永远不改变 / yǒng yuǎn bù gǎi biàn
Forever not changing

不管路有多么远 / bù guǎn lù yǒu duō me yuǎn
No matter the road is however far

一定会让它实现 / yī dìng huì ràng tā shí xiàn
(I) will definitely make it happen

我会轻轻在你耳边 / wǒ huì qīng qīng zài nǐ ěr biān
I will softly beside your ear

对你说，对你说 / duì nǐ shuō, duì nǐ shuō
Say to you, say to you

Chorus:

我爱你，爱着你 / wǒ ài nǐ, ài zhe nǐ
I love you, loving you

就象老鼠爱大米 / jiù xiàng lǎo shǔ ài dà mǐ
Just like a mouse loves rice

不管有多少风雨 / bù guǎn yǒu duō shǎo fēng yǔ
No matter there is how much wind and rain

我都会依然陪着你 / wǒ dōu huì yī rán péi zhe nǐ
I will still as before be there with you

我想你，想着你 / wǒ xiǎng nǐ, xiǎng zhe nǐ
I miss you, missing you

不管有多么的苦 / bù guǎn yǒu duō me de kǔ
No matter it’s however bitter

只要能让你开心 / zhǐ yào néng ràng nǐ kāi xīn
So long as (I’m) able to make you feel happy

我什么都愿意 / wǒ shén me dōu yuàn yì
I’m willing to do anything

这样爱你 / zhè yang ài nǐ
This way love you

More help for your karaoke 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

This was a cool opportunity. Tianjin’s drama school, which trains kids to eventually become Beijing Opera (京剧) performers and TV/film actors, let a group from our language school come and observe their Beijing Opera classes in action.

(I suggest you let this video load while you read, since it’s a few minutes long.)

The kids were elementary to high school aged, and the older ones study around 12 hours a day (I didn’t hear about the younger ones), beginning with exercise at 6:30am (the acrobatics required by some of these roles is no joke). They live on the campus and their studies include regular schooling. By the time they’re done, they will have learned around 15 different roles from various operas. These kids will hopefully find jobs with opera troupes in various cities, once they graduate from a two-year college program.

The student at right is practicing the role of a female general, which looked physically demanding with all the jumps and twirls and spear-spinning and exacting technical expectations of her teacher, who would often step in to adjust the angle of her hand or arm or posture. When in full costume her face paint would indicate that her character is a fierce and capable warrior.

Click the photos for a bigger view. The classrooms were a little dim for taking photos and video, but you can still get a little bit of feel for it.

These boys are playing generals. In ancient China the flags on their backs served as armour protecting them from behind.

Only the highest ranking people, like generals, would get to wear the platform shoes.

This girl is playing a woman wrongly accused of killing her husband (hence the chains). The girls in front of the mirror are practicing dealing with their extra long sleeves, which served to hide civilized women’s hands and keep them from appearing too “开放” (open, loose) in public:

The female actors have to move as if their feet are bound, and generally carry themselves as ancient cultured women were expected. These beginner students are learning the basics:

At one point this nice grandma of a teacher suddenly in mid-verse pointed at one girl whose posture wasn’t quite right and said, “肚子!” (tummy!).

These boys were practicing navigating their beards while performing what looked like a long, painful dance routine, where they were required to hold difficult poses for long periods of time, jump, and switch feet in mid-leap without tripping on the beard. In this pose, the student had to slowly bend his right knee down and then up again:

A civilized warrior would be able to fight without getting his beard too messed up; a well-kept beard displayed one’s civilized nature.

These girls were practicing a singing part that required very little movement, but the teacher required that every movement, down to each finger, be placed exactly so:

The boy on the right is playing the Beijing Opera equivalent of a clown. When in costume his face would be painted in a way indicating his role as the comic relief, and his stick would be a long pipe:

On our way out we passed the high school girls’ dorm. There were a couple of blond toddlers in our group (some students brought their kids) and they became magnets for an adoring mob of female students. In China, you can’t get much cuter than little blond white kids.

We went for walk today on the canal. Here’s a many-layered Jessica, with an ice-fisherman in the background. There is a city back there… you just can’t see it for all the “fog.”

Jessica is still sick, but managed to get out for a walk this afternoon. It’s her birthday week, so I’m trying to be a good husband. We’re hoping she’s feeling good by this weekend, when we plan to go with friends and skate on the artificial lake up the road.

Unlike most of you, our year hasn’t ended yet. Normally we’d be starting a new semester, feeling as if another page was turned or mile marker laid down during all the Christmas and New Year’s family festivities. But this time we’re missing that feeling; our rhythm is off. Imagine if it was still last semester for you and the big holidays were still coming up, even though it’s mid-January. That’s what it’s like. For us, it’s the last week of school, and then winter break just begins. The supermarkets are packed with people getting ready for the holidays. It’s weird – Christmas came and went, although in a much less spectacular fashion, and it still feels like 2008 hasn’t arrived.

Anyway, Jessica’s 29 now, and still getting hotter every year!

These are the Fuwas (fú wá), mascots of the Olympic games. Aside from taking cute to a whole new level, there’s some interesting (and even more cute) symbolism and word-play involved, all of which, it could be argued, makes the Fuwas just that much more “Chinese.”

Mandarin is a language of homonyms; compared to English, there are way more words that are pronounced the same, and there’s a rather limited number of available syllables. Chinese culture is full of phonetic word plays, allusions, and even superstitions (door numbers on the 4th floor are often changed because the word for “four” (四; sì) is pronounced the same as “die” (死; sǐ) but with a different tone).

You’d think all these homonyms would make it harder to communicate, but that’s not necessarily so. First, Chinese language and culture emphasize the context of statements in order to understand their true meaning, placing more emphasis on non-verbals and less emphasis on literal meaning than we do in English (this is a perennial point of culture stress).

Second, when people need to clarify the meaning of a word during a conversation (and they often do because of all the homonyms), they’ll use their finger to trace the character on their palm (yeah, big help for beginning language students!). Or, since most words in Chinese are made with more than one character, they’ll say “[example word]’s [character].” For example: 国家的国; “nation’s” guó, as opposed to any of the other “guo’s.” We use this almost on a daily basis, and it’s part of the routine of sharing our names.

The Olympic Fúwás are a fun example of Chinese homonyms in action (“fú wá” means “good luck doll”).

Note that the names for each are double-syllables: Beibei, Jingjing, etc. What they did is take each syllable in the sentence, “Beijing welcomes you” (北京欢迎你 – Běi jīng huān yíng nǐ), and double it. The characters for three of the Fuwas don’t match the corresponding characters in the sentence. They used homonyms instead to give those names more meaning.

The blue one, Bèibei (贝贝), is a fish. She represents the aquatic sports. Instead of using Beijing’s “bei,” her name borrows its character from “treasure” (宝贝). She’s gentle and pure, and represents prosperity. “Fish” (鱼) is pronounced the same as “surplus” and “remainder” and is a traditional Chinese symbol for prosperity.

The black one, Jīngjing (晶晶), is a panda. He represents weightlifting, shooting, judo, and stuff like that. Instead of using Beijing’s “jing,” his name uses 晶 (jīng), which is from “crystal” (水晶). Pinyin.info says you could get something to the effect of “Sparkles” if you were translating “晶晶” into English. Jīngjing is an honest, optimistic, and happy panda, despite (or maybe because of) the gun.

The red one, Huānhuan (欢欢), is the Olympic flame. He’s enthusiastic, extroverted, and passionate, and represents ball sports. 欢 (huān) means “joyous” or “pleased” (as in the “pleased to meet you”), and keeps the first character in “welcome” (欢迎).

The yellow one, Yíngying (迎迎), is a lively, vivacious, and healthy male Tibetan antelope. He’s the track and field mascot, and keeps the second character from “welcome” (欢迎), which just means “welcome.”

The green one, Nīni (妮妮), is an innocent and joyous swallow of good fortune (the bird, not the verb). If they’d just doubled the character for “ni” from the sentence (你), it just would have said “you you,” as in, “Not me-me, but you-you.” Instead they chose a different “ni,” which means “girl” and is used in a girl’s name. But this Fúwá also alludes to Beijing because the character for “swallow” (燕) is used in Yanjing (燕京), an old name for Beijing. She’s the gymnastics mascot.

Wikipedia, which – of course – we can’t access in China, has a nice overview with additional info on their personalities, attributes, corresponding elements, and symbolism. Pinyin.info goes into a little more detail.

And speaking of interesting symbolism, that panda with the gun (a.k.a. Fúwá Jīngjing) is an officially approved image.