The China I Know

I regret to say I am ending this blog and returning to the United States. In doing so, I hope that what I've written will give any reader considering a trip to China something to think about. Beijing has a relatively tiny district filled with shiny new skyscrapers and modern architecture, but that is far from the truth. Living in the capital was like being developmentally-disabled and living in New York City. There is always a portion of the population that wants to take advantage of the situation. They can't help themselves.


Not everyone has had the same experience, and I freely admit mine was more uncomfortable than most, due to my unique circumstances arriving and living here. I didn't have a lot of time to think about moving to Beijing, and most of the people whom I turned to for advice, some of whom had lived and worked in China, were comprehensively and dramatically wrong. And as a result, I will soon leave this country after four and a half years with a negatively-skewed perspective of what it's like.

The noisy nose-clearing, the spitting, the public urination, the children without pants, the cutting in line, the unreliable internet, the government demanding silly apologies for insulting the nation's pride, all the things that belie China's claim to be a civilized nation rising to greatness in the 21st century. This is the China I know.

But I also know that for every aspect of Chinese life that I find lousy, disgusting, or simply unlikeable, there is a good and solid reason. I don't think the cultural behavior I've seen is correct, but I think I understand.

Occasionally, a landlord discovers he can make more money renting his apartment to a business and he kicks his resident tenants to the curb. This doesn't mean Chinese are greedy, they simply want to acquire as much cash as they can, as soon as they can. Accumulation of individual wealth is relatively new to this culture, but very important. You just never know how much is enough. I think I understand.

Every few seconds, a Chinese man feels a need to make a sound in his throat like starting a chainsaw, cough up mucous and spit it out in a massive loogie on the sidewalk. I'm told the Beijing air is thick with pollutants that wreck havoc on the respiratory system. I think I understand.

From time to time, a Chinese person is ignorant of everyone around her and simply shoves her way to the front of a line for fruits, vegetables, a shiny object, whatever. When this person was a child, she probably saw her parents approaching a similar line which was suddenly closed when they arrived, whatever goods being offered no longer available. Her adult behavior is rude and disrespectful to others, but I think I understand.

The problems I encountered here were caused by heightened expectations. A top-tier international city like Beijing was not supposed to be like this. True, it wasn't going to be Paris, but it wasn't supposed to be Phnom Penh either.

For those who arrive after I leave, whether for tourism or for business, maybe they will see a different view. But for me, Beijing came up short, serving as the unfortunate template for the China I know.

Helllllooooo!

I was walking along a busy Beijing street, amid the reckless bicycles, the crazed taxi drivers, the three-wheeled death cabs, the fresh fruit and vegetable vendors, and stinky tofu restaurants, when out of nowhere, a friendly-looking Chinese peasant worker gives me a long stare. Then, he utters what's probably the only English word he knows:


"Hellllloooooo!"

Almost every foreign visitor to Beijing gets this. For most of us, it's what we treasure most, a chance to make some kind of meaningful connection, person-to-person, with someone from another country and culture. Many Chinese, however, don't see it the same way. For them, "Hellllooooo" is the first step toward some kind of fraudulent scheme, a way to strip a visitor of his foreign cash.

"How stupid are youuuuuuu?"

A basic tip to any foreigner arriving in Beijing: if a man steps up and says "Hellloooo" to you, keep walking. His faux-friendly greeting is code for:

"Buy my soon-to-be-non-functioning fake Rolex watch!"

"Buy my piece-of-crap cheap replica I-Phone!"

"You speak English? Good! I have a group of invisible English students in a non-existent classroom that just happens to be decorated with lousy artwork which I KNOW you want to buy as a reminder of your trip to China!"

For any Chinese men who are reading this blog entry, take a hint. "Helllooo" doesn't cut it. You need to bring more to the party. Like, maybe, "Hi, how are you?" "Good morning." "Nice weather we're having." It's okay to lie.

Also, maybe try saying "Hellloooo" in a different language we might be familiar with: "Hola," or "Bonjour."

And if some of you really want to mess with us (you know who you are...and so do I), substitute "Helllooo" with "Konnichi-wa," so we might mistake you for being Japanese. I know you won't think it's funny at first, but ultimately, we both would get a chuckle out of it, believe me.

Who Needs Pinyin?

One of the most daunting challenges living in mainland China presents is communication. It is tough, even for the Chinese themselves. Reading, and writing Putonghua, the primary spoken language of the Han majority, is taken seriously. A popular TV ad shows people paying the price for illiteracy: job discrimination, bullying, and being shunned from everyday life. An interesting thing about observing Mainland society is seeing how people are punished for having a low-quality education; it's unfair, but still, a great motivator.


I arrived in Beijing expecting Pinyin to be an integral part of how people in the city live and work. Students here start learning Pinyin, the Latin transcription of Chinese characters, as early as pre-school. It is included in the all-important, life-defining mega-exam at the end of high school, and then it's largely forgotten. You will see Pinyin written on street signs and subway ads, but hardly anywhere else. It's not used in the daily newspapers or weekly magazines, nor in most non-reference books.

The big reason there's no readily-available Pinyin in the Mainland is pretty simple. It would give us foreigners a fighting chance. Imagine if we could immediately connect Chinese characters to the familiarity of our alphabet? We would know when the bank holidays are. We could find out which movies use English subtitles. We might even discover why that dude from Chongqing is really in trouble.

Maybe it has more to do with Mainland philosophy in regards to the Chinese language. If China used Pinyin more often, it would mean meeting foreigners halfway, and it seems no one really wants that to happen.

Go To The Back Of The Bike

I've moved to a part of Beijing where the private car culture is just beginning to make itself known. The neighborhood streets are just too narrow to park a vehicle, and the pathways are barely wide enough for a car to fit anyway. So, it's obvious that this neighborhood in the Capital was made for 2-wheel traffic only. After all, the bicycle, more than a bus or a train, has been the historic transportation option for the Chinese people.


It also serves as the key component for romantic pursuits in China, and as such, the shift to automobiles seems especially troubling. Just as in any other country, women in China are attracted to a new, fast set of wheels, especially if it's Lambourghini, Ferrari or Audi.

One young woman who appeared on a Chinese dating reality show shook up the nation a couple of years ago, with her response to an earnest male suitor who was asked how he would woo and win the girl of his dreams. The young man, looking like many male reality show contestants in China, was a bit geeky, but heart-renderingly honest when he suggested a quiet, joyous, moonlit ride on his bike, with the girl as his passenger.

The female contestant stunned everyone by saying she'd "rather cry in a BMW than smile on the back of your bicycle."

In the USA or other Western countries, the snappy retort would have been duly noted and turned into fodder for late night talk show hosts. But in China, it was nothing less than an assault on the national character. How healthy could Chinese society be if a young person would reject the object of centuries of traditional courtship for a luxury automobile? Is this what Deng Xiaopeng's opening-up policy has come to, a generation of Chinese that cannot balance materialism with the noble ideals of the state?

It is telling that in less than two years, the Chinese government ordered programs like the aforementioned reality dating show off-the-air. It is clearly not the kind of modernization that China wants. If you're a foreigner, you fear that the future will look like the recent past for the Middle Kingdom. The so-called "morality-challenged" youth of China, quickly being accustomed to nice cars, loud music, body art and basketball, will be rounded-up and told to attend re-education camps in the countryside. And they'll be forced to ride bicycles to get there.

China and the Monkey King

In western culture, the monkey is a mischevious and entertaining creature. It's a crowd favorite at zoos, performs as a popular circus animal, and occasionally accompanies pirates on adventures overseas. But in China, the monkey has revered status befitting its place as one of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac.

Throughout modern tales in the West, a monkey's appearance spells nothing but trouble, whether it's as a Nazi sympathizer in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or one of the chimps in the CareerBuilder.com TV ads. You don't want to have a monkey around when there's serious work to be done.

Don't tell that to the Chinese. They'll simply refer you to one of the most beloved characters in their literature, Sun Wukong, or the Monkey King.

Sun Wukong's legend includes a lot of things, like being born from solid rock, developing mysterious powers like shapeshifting, jumping from cloud to cloud, consorting with demons, getting himself kicked out of heaven, and being thrown in prison for 500 years. But the biggest part of the Monkey King's story happened after he was released from stir. He donned a fashionable headband and joined a trio of other nefarious characters, accompanying an earthly monk on what is known as the Journey to the West, a tale that is acclaimed as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese Literature. That journey is what powers the Monkey King's ongoing popularity in movies, TV shows, operas, and more in China.

Back in the West, the most-recognized image of a primate-in-charge comes from the ultraviolent Planet of the Apes film series of the late 1960s and early 1970s. A recent re-imagining called Rise of the Apes attributes a simian takeover of human civilization to some wimpy pandemic. But in the original movies, the apes acquire the world by brute force. This is much better. An Apes movie is not respectable unless it includes scenes of primates on the march carrying and using automatic weapons against humans.

Compare the character of Ceasar of Apes fame to Sun Wukong's Monkey King and you've got quite a contrast. My Chinese friends say the Monkey King is "a kind, generous, and charming character. Everyone knows this."

I tell them that I had never heard of the Monkey King before I arrived in China, and that I rather prefer Ceasar, anyway. He leads apes on a killing spree in 1970's Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, and has no qualms about world domination. At the end of the movie, he gives quite a powerful speech, foretelling regime change from man to ape with the line, "...we will found our own armies, our own religion, our own dynasty, and that day is upon you NOW!"

Such a forceful attitude is unthinkable to the generations of Chinese who have grown up with the adventures of Sun Wukong. Even Chairman Mao imagined himself as having some of the attributes of the Monkey King, although he enacted policy more in the spirit of Ceasar. But that's okay, because I think even the most loyal Chinese would have a hard time imagining the Great Helmsman wearing a golden headband and flying around on clouds.

Truly Asia

Unlike the vast majority of people in mainland China, I get to watch international television. It's common knowledge in Beijing that a satellite dish is illegal, what with all those radical scenes of democracy, diversity, and Lady Gaga possibly beamed directly into one's home and all. As usual, some of the best stuff on TV is commercial advertising, and you get the sense that Asian tourism plays a big role in this. I watched an international commercial recently, inviting would-be tourists to Myanmar. I mean, really, Myanmar? Where harsh military rule is a standard and, until recently, bloody revolution a constant threat?

The Chinese market is evolving so rapidly that the tourism business cannot help itself. Every Asian country believes that the soon-to-be wealthy Chinese citizen will gladly book a trip to someplace like Cambodia, Thailand, India, or Vietnam.

Wrong. On multiple counts.

First of all, China isn't too hip on giving its citizens permission to travel overseas. Second, it'll take some time before the average Chinese family of three can even think of being able to afford it. The Chinese laborer who is helping manufacture the products that are shipped around the world probably has no visions of taking his family on a trip like that. Ever. Seriously, a sight-seeing journey for this guy is walking down the street to the market and back.

He should want to see China first, anyway. The Chinese government is taking the smart road by encouraging its people to tour domestically. Many museums here are free-of-charge, including the massive and violence-inspired Military Museum in Beijing. I haven't been there, but I'm told they've got weapons dating all the way back to when Peking Man used a club to beat-down a saber-toothed tiger.

I'd like to think Chinese families want to relax on a vacation, and it's tough to do that with a travel itenerary that might include a standoff between Army troops and dissident monks in Bangkok. There are more than enough spectacular sights to see in China, plus you don't need to go overseas to experience the dangerous aspect of travel, especially considering the buses that fall over cliffs and high-speed trains that crash into ravines.

And if you're in Beijing, you would hope the Military Museum is still free-of-charge. You don't have to go that far to see the Stone Age up close, after all.

Year of the Dragon

Chinese New Year 2012 ushers in The Year of the Dragon.

A controversy developed over a limited edition postage stamp in China, which depicted a dragon in the form most familiar to Western audiences: a fire-breathing monster.

The Chinese view of the dragon is entirely different. It's a friendly, if overdressed, symbol of good luck, accompanied by firecrackers and high energy celebration. For people in China, the dragon is less Godzilla than it is Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent.

It is rather easy to see where and how the image of the dragon got twisted internationally.

Blame the British.

It's Great Britain, after all, which developed the idea passed down in stories and fables from the middle ages, of knights holding-forth in castles, rescuing flaxen-haired maidens from winged serpents who were basically flying flame throwers. The Japanese (shame on them) enhanced the image to include a dinosaur-like creature that blasted particle beams of destruction from its mouth, while piling up property damage all over Tokyo.

In the meantime, the Chinese were celebrating their symbol of the dragon for more than 5,000 years. The Chinese dragon excudes so much kindness and hope for good fortune and prosperity, that it should have a guest slot on the Muppet Show. Or CNBC's Fast Money.

Like the Monkey King, the Chinese dragon is one of those characters that Western audiences have yet to really appreciate. On the other hand, many Chinese are very familiar with the cruel, overbearing, Asian female villian.

The Year of the Dragon Lady, that's the one I'm waiting for.

Time To Go Home

Whenever Chinese New Year approaches, television viewers are reminded of the one of the holiday's long-standing traditions. A public service promo shows evocative scenes of Chinese citizens getting on trains and buses, making the annual trek toward emotional homecomings. Strains of violin-heavy, reverent music accompanies the slow-motion sequence, preceding the title line:

Time To Go Home.

Except the actual journey to a Beijing bus depot or train station is not nearly as peaceful and gentle as the commercial suggests. It's more like barely-organized chaos. Time to go home? More like time to give you a fat lip for pushing me in the back while fighting to get to the front of the ticket line.

Spring Festival and the Chinese New Year is well-known internationally for the millions of Chinese who travel across the country to visit their relatives. Unlike the West, where most employees can request and receive vacation time at any point in the year, Chinese workers generally get just one opportunity to put down their tools, pack up their bags, and make the trip over-the-river and through-the-woods.

Many of the subjects of the commercials and stories about Chinese traveling for Spring Festival are the country's migrant workers, a lot of whom battled hard with their employer to get paid and find a way to their hometown for the holiday. Some workers haven't seen their family members for a year or longer, and they occasionally burst into tears while talking to reporters about their upcoming reunion. Their stories are so gripping, that it does not surprise me how some Beijing friends felt when I told them I could travel to visit my relatives in the USA twice in a single year.

TWICE?! During ONE YEAR?! Oh, the unfairness of the benefits offered to the foreign devils!

But seriously, some of the best news for foreigners is that Beijing becomes a lot more civilized during these two weeks of celebration, simply because half of the population's left town, and it's not the better half. Then, there's the special experience of the on-going fireworks displays, Temple Fairs, the Lantern Festival, and all the sights and sounds that make China such a tremendous place to be.

Plus, the buses and subways leading to our favorite McDonald's are less crowded. Why can't we have this kind of holiday when it's time for us to go home?

CCTV Chinese New Year's Gala

This month will mark the start of the Year of the Dragon, and the renewal of a traditional rite of the Chinese family New Year celebration. Hundreds of millions of television viewers will watch the state-run TV network's annual variety show.

The CCTV Chinese New Year's Eve gala is an entertainment marathon, produced live at the China Central Television main studio in Beijing. It is a broadcast that has, over the years, been designed to unite the country in much the same way that old American TV shows like "Sabado Gigante" and "The Ed Sullivan Show" did in the 1960s and 1970s. While the American TV universe has exploded to include a thousand channels of entertainment, Chinese viewers still basically receive around 3 dozen channels, virtually all government-controlled. In the end, people in China watch what their government wants them to watch. On the night before the Chinese New Year, the people are supposed to watch 4 consecutive hours of state-sanctioned music, dancing, comedy, and speechmaking.

For Americans and other foreigners who wax nostalgic for such programs of their youth, the CCTV show isn't so bad. The content recalls Sunday evenings watching mop-topped British pop singers, wise-cracking puppet mice, and acrobats spinning plates on sticks. I happen to spend a lot of time at CCTV and get to see the Chinese performers rehearsing for this mega-colossal supershow, and can't help but admire their hard work and dedication.

Yet each year, the Gala exposes a generational split in modern Chinese society that's impossible to ignore. Young Chinese cannot bear to watch this show. They feel that it's old-fashioned and out-of-sync with their lives, not to mention the expectation that it is required viewing in the family living room next to their parents, grandparents, and cousins. Yuk!

Kids who express their preference to play video games or surf the internet until the midnight fireworks start are harshly reprimanded. The youngsters would rather lock themselves in their rooms in silence rather than watch ethnic dances and lame magicians, or hear patriotic songs. It's roughly like forcing a skater punk in the USA to sit down and listen to Pat Boone and Lee Greenwood, amid the occasional sketch comedy of Red Skelton (if he was still alive) and rip-roaring, down-home bluegrass from Dixie.

Of course, the truth is that when these kids in China grow up to become adults, it's expected that they sit down in the living room with their children, and watch this very same show 20 years from now. And they probably will.

On the other hand, nothing like MTV has ever reached the vast majority of Chinese youth, but music videos on the internet have. One gets the feeling the fireworks have yet to begin.

China and Kim Jong Il

Upon receiving the news of North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Il's death, China's leading internet video site, Youku.com, carried a black banner at the top of its home page. It's a mark usually reserved for disasters in China. It showed up during the recovery from the devastating Sichuan earthquake in 2008, and again earlier this year after the Wenzhou high-speed train crash. But Kim Jong-Il? His departure from the world stage was hardly a disaster. I could not believe that China actually wanted its people to join in the mourning for this knucklehead.

China shares a weird kinship with North Korea, or the DPRK, as we're told to call it. There's a common political and social ideology, but really, that's about it. Yet, a lot of Chinese are envious of the impoverished Hermit Kingdom. Either secretly or overtly, they wish China was more like North Korea, closed to public scrutiny, locked-down from foreign influence, belligerent to its neighbors. When the North Koreans told the foreigners in Pyongyang to take a hike during the mourning period for Kim Jong-Il, you could almost hear Chinese hands applauding the move.

The whole big-brother / little-brother relationship between China and the DPRK would probably be OK, except for the fact that Kim Jong-Il had a few flaws. He starved his people, closed-off all international access, rejected technology that would have helped economic development, backed the kidnapping of foreign nationals, shelled and killed islanders in rival South Korea, exploded nuclear weapons, and launched short-range missiles over Japan. This guy was a wrongheaded deadbeat from start to finish, and the Chinese should have been happy to see him go.

If China wants to be all buddy-buddy with the region's most destabilizing nation, fine. But it's hardly the mark of world leadership, even third world leadership.

China Is Not Japan

It is hard to believe that when I chose to come to China a few years ago, I actually had the option of spending my Far East experience in Japan instead. I even went as far as to learn basic Japanese language skills and became endeared to that country's culture and history. In fact, while factoring-through my decision to come to Beijing, I made the mistake of considering Japan and China as similar in a lot of ways: I thought China was a modern, technologically-advancing, economic powerhouse with cities filled with skyscrapers and people busily moving into the 22nd century.

Living in America, so far away from the region, causes you to think these things. Of course, it turned out that the two countries could not be more different in every respect, and China was more like the Flintstones than the Jetsons.

I could have understood it sooner by looking at the recent history between China and Japan. The imperial Japanese of the early 20th century took over China in a brutal occupation, a fact that today's Chinese will never forget. But then, after Japan was beaten in World War II, the country rebuilt itself into a world-leader in business and economics, something that China could have done if it wasn't for its political system, its huge and fractious population, and its failure to open up to the rest of the world.

But it goes a lot deeper than that. The Japanese are simply a kind, humble people. They seem to value kinship and sacrifice. They are even polite when they crowd each other onto subway trains. They are friendly to foreign investment. Their bullet trains don't crash into ravines.

In short, Japan seems to be everything that mainland China is not. There are no hip Chinese kids getting their radical fashion groove on in the flashy shopping districts. There are no unbearably cute Chinese television programs featuring young female pop singers. There are no cosplaying people randomly performing on the urban sidewalks. There are no computer scientists inventing robots to help the elderly live a better life.

In the end, of course, it will all come full circle. Japan's work force continues to shrink; its birth rate keeps falling, and its elderly population is growing fast. It has newfound qualms about high technology and nuclear energy. China is destined to take over as the region's dominant nation.

It all just points to the obvious fact that China is not Japan. And don't get me started comparing it to South Korea.

The Culture Shock Trifecta

I recall Beijing tried a civility campaign in the months preceding 2008 and the Olympic games. The city hoped to improve the general manners and attitude of its residents, and make them more welcoming to the foreigners who would soon show up for the event. It even tried to convince taxi drivers and police officers to learn English.

Now that a few years have passed, I figure we can pretty much declare that little experiment a total failure. Leave the lessons in good manners to London 2012. Who knew that England would need them more than China ever did?

Be that as it may, business and tourism travelers arriving in Beijing brainwashed by the stories of modernization and development should take note that China still inflicts a high degree of culture shock. It's a shame that so many Americans stroll through the financial district of Hong Kong or Shanghai and come home bragging that they've seen China. You have no right to make that claim until you've experienced China's Culture Shock Trifecta in an inland city like Beijing.

Spitting: I've actually met foreigners who have lived here long enough to ignore this nasty habit, until they think about walking anywhere barefoot, including indoors. Even wearing sandals won't make you safe in the Capital.

Public Urination: I place this habit behind spitting, because Beijingers don't have enough public restrooms. In a city with more than 15-million residents, there could be an indoor toilet shack on every other block and it still would not be enough. On the other hand, people of Beijing, why not at least walk behind a bush or a tree to do the deed? Just pretend there's a door, and imagine using some make-believe toilet paper while you're at it.

Busting In Line: This is at the top of the list, by a huge margin. You can always bet on a jet-lagged foreigner arriving in Beijing, already weary of waiting in a line for everything from airport bathrooms to baggage claim, finally getting a chance to hungrily queue up at a fast-food counter, only to have some stranger just barge-in as if he OWNS the hot-dog stand.

The overt, non-blinking rudeness of Beijingers is what will drive the traveler over the edge every time. Of course, just getting to the edge might be tough. Imagine the crowd he'd face there.

Doraemon

Over the years, I've been trying to come up with the definitive symbol to represent things, thoughts, or ideas that are utterly foreign to Beijing visitors, but widely familiar to people who live here. You know, things that cause the locals to consider you stupid for NOT knowing about, like using chopsticks or interpreting calligraphy. In the United States, these things would be rules like "don't break in line," and "look both ways before crossing the street." Things that we consider to be common sense, but concepts which Beijingers have never heard of in their lives.
I finally found that symbol in a ubiquitous cartoon character called Doraemon.

Doraemon is, for lack of a better description, a blue talking robot cat from the future. It is probably more-recognized in Asian countries than either Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. Why Doraemon does not have its own dedicated theme park chain is beyond me, but it does have a hefty endorsement deal, visible on all sorts of products ranging from refrigerator magnets to boxes of instant noodles.

One thing that makes Doraemon most interesting to me is this: it is just about the only thing from Japan which Chinese people love. Keep in mind that the Japanese will never be forgiven, especially in Beijing, for their imperial reign of terror during World War II. But somehow, the cartoon cat and his pals have risen far above it and become idolized for generations, ever since the series was introduced in manga form and proceeded to regional anime stardom some 40 years ago.

The biggest problem I have with Doraemon, with the exception that it doesn't have ears yet apparently enjoys perfect hearing, is that everyone expects foreigners to know about it, and they are idiots if they don't. If I ran into someone in Beijing who had never heard of Garfield the cat (and there are a lot of Chinese who haven't, believe me), I would be happy to explain everything about the feline furball from Muncie, Indiana. When I profess ignorance about Doraemon in Beijing, all I get is:

"Doraemon? Of course, it is the blue talking robot cat from the future. Everyone knows this."

Me: "But what's his story? What's with the goofy theme song? Why do his friends look like they were bused from Fat Albert's neighborhood in North Philly?"

Beijinger: "Doraemon? Of course, it is the blue talking robot cat from the future. Everyone knows this."

Me: "How far in the future? And why doesn't he ever say anything in English? Don't they have English in the future?

Beijinger: "Doraemon? Of course, it is the blue talking robot cat..."

Me: "Oh, never mind."

The point is, as usual, when you are in an Asian country, just about everyone there is from that country. Immigration, at least the way we know it in the West, has never happened. In mainland China, the chances that you will be born, grow up, go to school, live, work, and eventually die without meeting anyone from another part of the world are still way up there. The idea of running into a non-Chinese person in China is a crazy notion that ranks barely below science fiction.

Speaking of which, I finally found out that Doraemon is from the 22nd century. Hey, that's not all that far from now. I'm sure the Chinese will have invented flying cars by then, which means no one will need to learn any silly rules about looking around before crossing the street in Beijing.

Fashion Update!

It is the end of another summer in Beijing, and the conclusion of another entertaining season of English-language t-shirt messages. To be honest, there weren't as many mirth-inducing misspellings this year. The charm lies in the occasional lack of context, which means they are not that different than those worn by young people in other countries.

Among this year's best:

Give Me Time To Break Your Heart
How Am I Supposed To Know What To Do
Take Me To The Party
Jojo Could Not Be Contacted
Too Young To Regret, Too Old To Be Naive
More Respect Less Attack

and

Everything's Amazing And Nobody's Happy

Much credit to the t-shirt makers for copping Louis CK's routine. Even I would have worn that one. Amid the thick air and high temperatures of a Beijing summer, sometimes I am amazed that anybody's happy.

Tale of Two Cities

I could not pass up a recent article from The Atlantic, just from glimpsing the lightning-rod title alone: "How to See the Real China: Ride Beijing's Subway."

This article was written by Deborah Fallows, and has all the marks of an author whose husband told her to sit in her Beijing villa and do something halfway-useful. And I'm generous in using "halfway". If she wanted to see the real China, she should have sat on the subway platform floor and made herself a target of every drop of saliva and worse that came her way.

She cites all her years of living in Beijing and Shanghai, two of the new Chinese super-cities, and writes about how subway passengers' behavior has improved during the past 4 years: upscale business-people quietly and dutifully standing in line, not pushing and shoving, following every rule of law and order and fairness.

What a crock.

Fallows admits she based these experiences on riding the new Line 10 through the Beijing central business district, arguably one of Asia's most modern and civilized areas. She manages to write a lame follow-up that documents the jarring counterpoint of riding Line 1, the oldest subway line in the city, which is always packed with people from, as is the favored term here, "all walks of life." Her husband gets doubled-over by a migrant worker struggling to carry his plastic-grain-sack-full-of-everything onto the crowded train. This is the true Beijing subway experience, and the one she should have started her story with.

I like to contrast Fallows' article with the book written by Tom Scocca with the similarly incendiary title, "Beijing Welcomes You." Scocca arrived in the alleged city-of-the-future at roughly the same time I did, and his account is rock solid, from the forced evictions in old neighborhoods, to the people crowding to get aboard a bus refusing to let the disembarking passengers get off first. ("Habit was stronger than etiquette, or numerology," according to Scocca. True.)

Scocca is at his best when he describes the what I would call the life of a typical Beijing resident: "A 30-year-old Chinese citizen has seen more disruption and change than a 60-year-old American has; a 60-year-old Chinese citizen has seen more than a 200-year-old American would have."

Think about that the next time you look at the Fodor guide.

I Know They Mean Well, But Still

There is a massive billboard near our apartment compound, meant to block the view of yet another monstrous modern construction project. The billboard boasts an illustration of young children riding a rainbow, which is just fine, except for the fact that the dark-skinned child looks like he just stepped off the stage of a minstrel show.

At first, it was a miracle to me that there was a place in the developed world that was so culturally-insensitive to allow something like this to happen. Then, I started to think, apparently someone needs to explain to the Chinese that this is insulting, degrading, and just wrong. And I'm not just talking about wrong from the African-American perspective, but from the general perspective of dark-skinned peoples from Brazil, to the Horn of Africa, to New Guinea and beyond.

It's clear that the artist's intent really was quite innocent. What better way to show China's inclusiveness than to depict children representing all the world's continents enjoying a thrilling journey aboard a multi-colored sled. But even this is a farce. The fact is that mainland China does not fully understand that there is a whole 'nother world out there that swings to a different beat, and the chances that a difference-making number of Chinese citizens will not get to experience that fact is between slim and none.

That is one of the tragedies of the so-called New China. The current generation of 20-somethings on the mainland is slowly beginning to realize that they will only share the same quality of life as their parents, despite all the modernization of Chinese society, the new buildings and the airports, and the annual lucky 8% GDP growth. Traveling to another country to live and work will still be a distant dream, one that they will pass on to their children. Maybe then, Beijingers will find out about the world beyond China's borders, and get a sense of what real diversity is all about.

Beijing and The Karate Kid (2.0)

I've just watched 2010's "The Karate Kid" for the first time.

It updates the 1980's classic starring Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita by putting Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan in the key roles, and moving the action to Beijing. Otherwise, the story is basically the same: small kid gets picked-on and bullied, older Asian man teaches him discipline, kid enters martial arts tournament, endures opponents' brutal tactics, and kicks butt to win the championship.

It's a good movie, with a satisfying ending. And as far as re-imagined remakes go, 2010's "The Karate Kid" is way above average, despite the fact it has absolutely nothing to do with karate. But that's another story.

The first several minutes of this film, which shows the Kid's relocation from Detroit to Beijing, filled me with sickness and sadness. Because as an American adult, I know that Detroit is just about the only city in the USA that would make moving to Beijing an improvement. Still, the child's trading the danger of living in Detroit with the insecurity of being in Beijing. It is a choice between being victimized by violent crime versus psychological torture: of a total lack of familiarity with what you are seeing and what others are saying, and knowing that it isn't going to change anytime soon.

"The Karate Kid" gets more cruel by the minute. It forces the Kid to face both scenarios at the same time: he suffers one of the worst neighborhood beat-downs captured on film, and gets humiliated in Mandarin by the bigger kids pummeling him. Ultimately, the Kid gets his revenge and earns the respect of the Beijing bullies, but it's a fish-out-of-water story which, for me, strikes too close to home.

At one point near the beginning of the film, the Kid meets a friend, realizing the rare occurence of seeing another American in Beijing. The new friend asks the kid if he knows any Chinese, and the kid answers, "no." The friend responds, "you're in China. It would be a good idea."

I have a good idea, too. In my idea, you don't need to know Chinese to live and work in China's capital city. But you do need to know how to beat the crap out of bigger kids, and if you're lucky, Jackie Chan will be around to teach you how.

No "I" In "Team"

A few days ago, China celebrated Yunnan Province native Li Na's ground-breaking win in the women's final of tennis' French Open. It was the first time that a Chinese had emerged victorious in one of pro tennis' Grand Slam events. Worldwide media was filled again with hyperbolic headlines about the start of global domination of the sport by Chinese players, considering that there are probably 5 million Chinese playing tennis right now, and millions more likely to be motivated by Li Na's success. One local article began with the bombastic claim, "You Will Hear China Now."

Never mind the overblown hysteria created by the big numbers of tennis players somehow produced by the writers (did anyone really bother to count?), and forget about the unique circumstances that allowed Li Na to rise above the Chinese sports system to achieve her feat. Li Na and three other top players were allowed to leave the system and strike out on their own, improving their skills, finding better competition internationally, making money, improving their skills further, finding even better competition overseas, making even more money, and getting better all the time.

But another reason Li Na and her fellow players have succeeded is because tennis is not a team sport. I find this very appropriate, because while there is no "I" in team, there is one in "China." This is a country where teamwork is hard to come by.

Consider the fact that, barely more than a generation ago, Chinese villagers and city residents were pushing and shoving to get the last scraps of bread and vegetables being thrown off the back of a truck. If you waited patiently, or worked out something with other folks to get the food, you might go hungry. It made sense to get what you needed, no matter what.

It is exactly the same kind of behavior that you see at train stations in Beijing. As usual, there is a line of people waiting to climb on board. But no matter how orderly the line seems at the beginning, it dissolves into every-man-for-himself chaos once the train arrives. Pushing, shoving. Agitated men shouting "zou wa!" ("move!"), mowing-down women, children, disabled people, the elderly. Hardly the sign of a society with 5,000 years of development behind it.

Teamwork seems to set-in here only when it is presented in a life-or-death situation. As in the case of the workers who built the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest, along the Yangtze River.

Organizer to workers: "You will work together to accomplish this very difficult task."

Worker: "What if we don't?"

Organizer: "You will be killed."

I have no doubt China will continue to produce some of the world's top engineers, scientists, artists, and athletes in the coming years. Just don't look for it to deliver any standout achievers standing in a group of more than one.

Search for the Suburbs

A friend in the United States asked me, "are there any suburbs in Beijing?"

The short answer is, of course, yes. Anywhere there are cities, there are suburbs, even in China. But they are not the kind of surburban living spaces we are familiar with in the USA. There are no Schaumburgs, West Nyacks, or Farmington Hills in China. Remember that in most countries outside the USA, the "suburbs" are places choked with overcrowding, poverty and joblessness. And near the big cities that anchor third world countries, the "suburbs" look like American inner cities, not Levittown. There's no sense talking about a "car in every garage" unless you are considering blowing up the car -- and the garage -- to make a political statement.

Hence, I chose to search for a well-known Beijing surburb one recent evening, a mystical place called Shunyi. I had heard that this was not just where the well-off Beijingers and foreign expats live, but it was where you can find imported foods and other goods in abundance. In fact, I was outraged to read some articles in the free English-language magazines, which noted that people in Shunyi were living the same kind of lifestyle -- cars, homes, gardens, modern toilets, etc. -- that I used to take for granted in the USA.

According to the latest city maps, I expected to find Shangri-La, er, Shunyi, at the end of one of Beijing's newest subway routes. Predictably, it was the one which ran closest to Beijing International Airport. Shunyi was sounding better all the time. I boarded a train that was refreshingly free of the serial spitters and snot-slingers of urban Beijing, and sat among the nouveau riche of New China for the journey to the Promised Land.

I took the train to the end of the line, disembarked at the park-and-ride, and found that the area looked about the same as the station where I'd gotten on. Old high-rise apartments, trash-strewn countryside, abandoned factories, and the occasional import car dealership; plus taxi drivers and bicyclists for whom traffic laws were just a joke.

The line had ended several kilometers short of the surburb itself. I was so disappointed. Like the author James Hilton wrote in "Lost Horizon", everyone hopes they'll find their Shangri-La. I don't think I ever found Shunyi.

Problem Solving

I remember the case of a journalism student at a major university in the United States, who was given an assignment to attend a city council meeting and write a story about it. Upon his arrival, notebook in hand, he discovered there had been a fire at the city hall, and the meeting was cancelled. In a panic, the student called his professor and said, "there's been a fire, and there's no meeting tonight. Now what do I do?" The professor, dumbfounded, told the earnest young student, "find out what happened and write about the FIRE! That's your STORY!"

I am convinced the same kind of thing happens a lot in mainland China. When a taxi driver in Beijing is confronted with finding an alternate route to get around a traffic jam, he always scratches his head. As a rider, this is when you know you are in real trouble. The problem of getting from point A to point B is just too much for the driver to handle, and hopeless confusion is setting in. It is at this point that I usually dive out of the cab and start looking for the subway.

Maybe it is the result of the 50-year challenge of trying to quickly educate millions and millions of children in ramshackle schools, but problem-solving is not a Chinese strength. Some writers say the political system has stifled innovation and critical thinking, and that's why China will lead the world in making things for sale at Wal-Mart, instead of inventing things like Facebook.

This in a country where a guy came up with a way to produce hybrid rice, preventing starvation and famine, and where launching satellites around the earth has become almost routine. Workers are building the world's biggest dam to counter flooding along the Yangtze. The contradictions are staggering.

"With our grand population, there is no reason why we cannot be world leaders in 21st century scientific research," someone said on one of the many television talk shows extolling the virtues of the Mainland's education system. "Everyone knows this."

I've noticed people from all walks of Chinese life struggle with finding creative solutions to all sorts of issues. On the other hand, I've watched a man pile a hundred plastic jugs aboard a hopelessly-overloaded motorized wheelbarrow and take off down the freeway, disappearing into the smoggy Beijing traffic.

Maybe in China, folks know they can indeed overcome bad situations without suffering panic and confusion. They just haven't figured out how.