China’s “Leftover” Women
26-year-old newlywed college graduate Li Fang (a pseudonym) explained to me over dinner why she had been in such a rush to marry:

If I hadn’t gotten married now, I would still have to date for at least one or two years. Then I would already have passed the best child-bearing age and I would be a leftover woman.

More than 90 percent of men surveyed said women should marry before 27 to avoid becoming unwanted. The message to women: If you want to stand a snowball’s chance in hell of ever getting married in this country, don’t demand too much from your man.

We’ve had our own encounters with this and related aspects of Chinese society:

• China’s Third Gender
  “A”-class women are so far outside the traditional definition of “woman” and have such trouble finding husbands and realizing the female roles of wife and mother that our teachers joke that they’re like a third gender.
• On Love and being ‘smart enough’ (by Jessica!)
  The guys also said that she should be “一般聪明” which means “smart enough” or “ordinarily smart.” There’s a definite thread in Chinese culture that says that smart, clever, and independent women are threatening or something to be feared, so the guys tend not to want a girlfriend that might be smarter than themselves.

This one is also worth a look:

• The options of yuppie women in China: “strong woman”, housewife or “fox”
  “Should I be a ‘strong woman’ (女强人) and make money and have a career, maybe grow rich, but risk not finding a husband or having a child? Or should I marry and be a stay-at-home housewife (全职太太), support my husband and educate my child? Or, should I be a ‘fox’ (狐狸精) — the kind of woman who marries a rich man, drives around in a BMW but has to put up with his concubines (妾，二奶)?”

Finding a mate is difficult when young people are scrambling for a job in a crowded and competitive market, so “marriage markets” (our term) are not uncommon. Since they’re full of bored parents and grandparents, they make great locations for students of Chinese to practice conversational Mandarin. We visited the one in Tianjin several times:

• China’s marriage markets
• Tianjin’s Marriage Market (photos)
• Central Park Marriage Market (photos)
• Marriage market, Eric Liddell, weekend slogan (photos)
• Tianjin bike ride (photos)

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

Let’s get to know each other

by Cindy
I had a conversation with my girlfriend about the hypothetical situation of whether we should remarry if our husbands died. I know my married girlfriends have had this conversation too, don’t deny it people. Her response was how hard it would be to have to get to know another person as intimately all over again.

Truly one of the greatest gifts in relationships is to be understood by another person. And trusting you will be accepted and loved in spite of the intimate knowledge. However, the process from acquaintance to intimacy takes time. It takes time to tell stories, to react to circumstances in life, to laugh and cry together, to argue and disagree, and then to make up. These experiences build layers of trust and loyalty and compose the patches of material that make up friendship. Through time we weave our lives together and enter together into the depth of relationship that allow us to be known by one another. And we are created to long for that depth. To be deeply known.

The trouble is, then we move. We pick up and move to another town. Or in my case, across the freakin’ ocean. I grew up in a small school where my friends were like my brothers and sisters. We were that small and that close. At graduation we scattered literally all over the world. Our new communities didn’t know our collective history and we had to start over from scratch with the storytelling and the laughing and crying and all that relationship building stuff. Then we’d move again. And start all over again. It’s no wonder people who are forced to move around a lot, like military families, have intimacy issues. It’s simply too exhausting.

Each time we enter a new community, that new place shapes us, molding us into someone different. When I left Wheaton, I was starting to question some of the conservative elements of my beliefs. Fuller helped introduce a broader spectrum of theology and how to incorporate doubt and criticism into a vibrant faith. In a sense, there was a Morrison Cindy, a Wheaton Cindy, a Fuller Cindy, a China Cindy, and a back-to-Taiwan Cindy. As time went on, the world changed and so did I. In the moving river of life, people who stepped in along the way journeyed with me downstream without the knowledge of who I was before I became who I am. Like a diamond, we can only reflect light off of one surface at a time even though we are made out of many facets.

The potential for misunderstanding is alarming. In our limited perspective, it’s too easy to make judgments regarding a person’s comments without a fuller understanding of their background. Wheaton Cindy would be appalled at some of the theological slants of back-to-Taiwan Cindy, and Chinese Cindy cannot hardly stand American Cindy most of the time. The complexities of our biological, cultural, mental, and spiritual identities is what fuels the psycho-therapy economy. And yet there exists inside of me the desire to be wholly known. The impossibility of somebody understanding the nuances of every past experience, every hat I wear, every idea and action and word I exhibit, doesn’t stop me from trying.

So I tell stories. I share my reaction when stuff happens. I laugh and cry. I argue and disagree. And I make up. Then I listen, not only to stories but to the stories behind the stories. I try not to jump to conclusions about people because I don’t know where they’ve been upstream. I look for the other faces of the diamond that make up each person I encounter because seeing only one side is not satisfying. I lean deep into the relationships around me to know and be known. It’s what I was created for.

I’m Cindy. It’s nice to meet you. Let’s get to know each other, shall we?

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

First, here’s an excerpt from Cindy’s Our Unique Bond #4 (I really hope you’ll go read the whole thing on her blog; it’s fantastic and I cut out some of the best parts here):

Culture shock is the pruning process. It’s the Good Friday before Easter Sunday. It’s the dark night before the dawn. It’s the pain before the gain. But let me be clear on one thing: though culture shock is inevitably painful, it is not inevitable. We experience culture shock only if and when we actually desire to engage with another culture in a meaningful way. I personally know couples who marry cross culturally who don’t make an effort to engage in their spouse’s culture and I suspect they don’t have culture shock issues in their marriage. Just as an expat can live in another culture and exist purely in an expat bubble without engaging local culture, they too, won’t encounter culture shock issues.

And here I break the bad news to people considering cross culture marriages. Gulp. In my humble opinion, you WILL have to make sacrifices and be ready to lose aspects of your culture if you want to make your marriage work. [...] There are parts of my Chinese self, that I can never fully share and relate, with J. Though I try with every effort throughout our marriage. I believe it is ultimately healthy for the relationship to recognize and come to accept this. If you find yourself in a cross cultural relationship, you will have to decide the things you value in your relationship is worth the cost. In my case, I saw a character I admired, a common vision for life, and a deep friendship that bonded us even despite cultural differences.
[...]
Easier said than done. But it is worth doing. Please don’t be the kind of couple who just is content with living life according to one spouse’s culture. You are robbing yourself of the gift of being in a cross cultural marriage. J and I have learned so much about each other, and it has provided us with the invaluable skill of being able to encounter people who are very different from us with respect. And we hope to pass this on to our children to help them navigate themselves in our increasingly diverse yet interconnected world.

Here’s one of my answers from the travel website (China Blogger Spotlight: Getting intercultural with Joel and Jessica from China Hope Live):

Do you think [China/Chinese culture] is something a foreigner can ever truly understand?
Yes and no — it depends what you mean by “truly understand.” I definitely think it’s possible for people from vastly different cultures, like East Asian and Euro-American cultures, to have a deep and satisfying mutual understanding. We can also learn lots about ourselves and our own cultures through the perspectives of people from other cultures. Chinese people have the opportunity, to see things about Canadian culture and society (for example) that Canadians can’t see because Canadians are in their own culture and therefore they are too close to see some things. And the same works in reverse: outsiders in China can see things about Chinese culture and society that Chinese people can’t see because Chinese people don’t have an outsider’s perspective on their own culture. So there’s lots we can learn from one another, not just about one another’s cultures, but also about our own cultures.

Sometimes when people say “understand China” what they really mean is “accept and agree with whatever ‘China’ says or does.” Sometimes when these people hear a foreigner express a “non-Chinese opinion” (especially about sensitive topics), they disregard the foreigner by saying “they just don’t understand China” or “they’re just using foreign thinking to understand China.” I think that kind of attitude and thinking is basically nonsense, and it doesn’t promote mutual understanding. “Understanding” and “thinking and feeling the same” are not the same thing.

The differences between Chinese and Euro-American cultures are very, very deep; often I think people don’t realize how different we really are. Cultural differences are fascinating. However, I think the things we have in common are even deeper, more profound, and more important that our differences. I really believe that it’s possible for Chinese and lǎowàis (老外s) to have solidarity that is stronger and more meaningful than our differences.

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

Friends took these photos (below) at a wedding we were part of last weekend. Chinese weddings involve a big banquet (婚宴). The couple goes around to each table, toasts everyone, and receives “red packets” (红包), which are fancy red envelopes with money inside from each guest. Our table decided they weren’t getting their hongbaos for free; they had to play a game first (pictured below). I think traditionally you’re supposed to tie an apple to the end of the string (“apple” sounds like “peace”), but we opted for a tiny candy instead. Captions are below each photo:

The bride uses a package of wedding candy (喜糖) to try and bribe the best man (I was the other groomsman) to give the hongbaos without making them play the game. He’s having none of it. The best man married an American girl last year.

“不满意，不给钱！”
bù mǎnyì, bù gěi qián
“(If we’re) not satisfied, (then we) won’t give the money!”

It took them a few tries, but they got it in the end (with a helpful shove in the back of the head from the best man’s wife).

After a full-on and packed-out Western-style church wedding with the white dress and suit and all that, James (the groom) and Jiā Xī (the bride) arrived at the banquet in Qing dynasty style traditional wedding clothes, complete with the giant red silk bow (大红绣球). I asked a couple Chinese friends what the bow was about and none of them could tell me, but they were emphatic that, “He has to wear that!” One of my co-workers later said it’s a word-play on “glorious future” (锦绣前程), since the name of the bow in Chinese and the idiom “glorious future” both have “绣“。

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

Instead you get to hear some Christmas songs for grown-ups. It’s not the ultimate Christmas song selection (for that I’d need the Trans-Siberian Orchestra stuff we accidentally left in Canada), but we like it. All the songs are from Over The Rhine‘s 2007 Snow Angels album. OTR gets points from us for mixing real Christmas (i.e. love, forgiveness, hope, Jesus, etc.) with married-people’s business. I’ll let you figure out for yourself which songs are about which, or both. You can buy these and other OTR music here.

• “Here It Is”
  [Visit the blog to listen to audio]
• “All I Ever Get For Christmas Is Blue”
  [Visit the blog to listen to audio]
• “Darlin’ (Christmas is Coming)”
  [Visit the blog to listen to audio]
• “Snowed In With You”
  [Visit the blog to listen to audio]
• “White Horse”
  [Visit the blog to listen to audio]
• “North Pole Man”
  [Visit the blog to listen to audio]

More Christmas posts on the way; we have a little Tianjin Christmas adventure planned for Christmas Eve.

Other Christmas and Christmas-in-China posts:

• Ho! Ho! Who? Santa VS. China’s God of Wealth
• Christmas Eve… with Chinese characteristics
• An UnChristmas party in Tianjin
• “And the 2008 Tianjin Grinch Award goes to…”
• Christmas doesn’t have to be Made In China
• 圣诞快乐! (Merry Christmas!)
• Some Tang dynasty poetry for the Christmas we’re missing
• Take this, capitalist!
• 聖誕快樂! – Shèng dàn Kuài lè! (first Christmas in Asia)

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

See photos of our personal encounters with Tianjin’s marriage market here, here, and here.

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

Joel和怡安的猫从袋子里逃出来了。 / Joel hé yíān de māo cóng dàizi lǐ táo chūlái le.
“Joel and Jessica’s cat escaped out from inside the bag.”

Neither of those idioms make much sense in Chinese. The Chinese way to say this is “She has happiness!” (她有喜了！/ tā yǒu xǐ le), or just “She has!” (她有了！tā yǒu le).

We told our families on Christmas (so glad for Skype!). As of right now we’re just about at 12 weeks.

(You may now commence with the “Made in China” and homemade Christmas present jokes.)

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

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.

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

Our friends got married this weekend in Jixian (蓟县), a county to the north of Tianjin near the mountains and the Great Wall, so we ditched the first day of classes and spent two nights in a guest house in the Nine Dragon Mountain National Forest Park (九龙山国家森林公园). We finally 放假ed (took a vacation). (Hey kids: When you ditched your summer break to take summer classes, you’re allowed to ditch the first day of the semester to take a long weekend away with your wife!)

We needed the break: from classes, the city, the noise, the air… I’d literally forgotten how blue the sky could be. Tianjin city has the odd blue sky day (the whole region was especially clear this weekend), but it’s only blue when looking up; even on the clearest days in the city the blue dissolves into a light rust-ish colour on the horizon over the buildings. But in the hills we could smell the trees instead of cars, and the sky was bold and undiluted, with real, thick, white, shape-shifting clouds instead of the gray wispy smudges we usually see.

The second night we were the only guests in the entire place (30 some odd rooms). The chef just cooks whatever you want. The rooms was clean enough, probably somewhere between a cheap motel and camping. It cost us $70 for the entire weekend, including food and transportation there and back. It was Jessica’s first time to ride an old-school train. All we did was eat, sleep, and play in the forest-covered hills.

The place was full of weird bugs, especially big spiders that would shake their web at you (video) (I didn’t know spiders did that), massive butterflies, and praying mantises, which I’d never seen before. The mantises apparently don’t fear people; it was kind of unnerving, because they still turn to look at you. And some of them are huge. We saw the fattest snake I’ve ever seen outside of a zoo. It was sunning itself on a bench and lazily slid away when it felt us coming. That thing surely eats rabbits, and maybe even small children who skip school. There were caterpillars like I’d never seen, and even some of those big armoured beetles with the giant pincers.

It was too bright for the camera to get good scenery photos, but there are a couple in the Nine Dragon Mountain photo gallery, along with a pile of gross insect pictures. (Warning: the macro shot of the praying mantis eating the moth guts is suuuper gross.)

I don’t think I’ve ever been stared down by a bug before.

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

Tianjin’s Marriage Market
I have to do an article on this marriage market! It’s just too awesome, and the people — hordes of parents and grandparents trying to arrange blind dates for their unmarried children — are super friendly and talkative. Some translations of the banners and signs that were hung around:

• “Hand-in-Hand Marriage Introductions” (手牵手婚介) — a banner on a matchmaking company’s booth
• “Help each other attack marriage” (互助征婚). “Attack” as in “tackle the problem”… I think… maybe “help each other request marriage”… I don’t know.
• “Matrimony Information Exchange Station” (婚姻信息交流站) — includes a “Man department” (男区) and a “Woman department” (女区).

Many people advertise their child’s stats right on their shirt. The man in red has a daughter, the man in blue has a son:

People also advertise from their bike baskets, or hang their child’s stats on lines in the “Matrimony Info Exchange Station.” Jessica interprets some details on an eligible bachelor for Nadina:

These two guys are perusing in the woman department:

Inside the crumbling “Purple Bamboo Forest” church
We finally got inside the long-shuttered Zǐzhúlín jiàotáng (紫竹林教堂) (photo gallery); workers were inside when we arrived. Neither the workers nor the residents knew what was to become of it.

Headless statue museum-restaurant
Finally returned to the headless statue restaurant — I don’t know what its real name is. It’s a museum-restaurant hybrid, full of “cultural relics,” which in this case means old statues, most of which were decapitated during the Cultural Revolution. I asked one of the attendants why they had no heads, just to see how she’d respond. She tactfully replied that there were some political movements in which people removed the heads. Points for being straight with the foreigner.

Nanshi during the Olympics
Since we were already in the area showing Nadina the town on a Saturday bike tour, we pedaled through what’s left of Nanshi, the hutongs that they kicked everyone out of for the Olympics.

They didn’t have time to flatten it completely before the Games, so they’ve built a massive wall around it. If you were looking at it, you’d just assume that behind the conspicuously high, long, connected billboards was a regular construction site. You can freely go in, but finding entrance points was a little tricky.

Inside was like a ghost town, only more depressing because there were more people still there than I expected. A few squatter’s shacks have been set up, some with brightly coloured flags flying from the roof, and there were still small children running around playing, so I wonder if some families are refusing to leave. There was still, to my surprise, remnants of one of the larger street markets selling vegetables. The key maker (photo) was still there, although the bathhouse (photo) across the street from him is nothing but the front wall. The tea house (photo) is gone. The vendor who originally helped me find Mr. Wu on my first return trip was still there in the same place with her cart, but she said she’s already moved out and just comes in to do business (I have no idea why). Two-thirds of Mr. Wu’s building is demolished. Mostly only some of the larger apartment buildings remain untoppled.

Scavengers were picking through the vast lots of rubble; one guy had a metal detector. The wall curved out of sight; it looked bigger from the inside.

Other places
We biked all over. There were lots of swimmers in the river (I want to swim so bad, but I would need a really good excuse to justify exposing myself to that “water”). The “Tianjin Incident” church (building) still isn’t open for viewing; the church (people) meet next door in a metal shed that’s decorated with spray-painted angels and Santa Claus with his sleigh and reindeer. I don’t know what that’s about, and I’m afraid to find out.

I had to walk to borrow a bike for this trip; it was a gorgeous afternoon so here’s some photos from our neighbourhood:
The three-wheel truck is called a “three horse” (三马 / sān mǎ). This one is parked at a neighbouring stairwell. On nice days, people often take their birds to the park, put them in trees or on that grass, and sit and watch them.

©2012 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.