Pekingese Winter, Part I

27 December 2011–11 January 2012

This December, I went back to China for the first time in six years, and experienced my first Chinese winter since 1995. (It’s colder than Swiss winters!) Although I had an idyllic childhood in Beijing and have very many fond memories–kicking soccer balls down streets, drinking Sprite from a baby bottle while laying on the couch and watching TV sideways, large and rowdy family dinners–I spent the majority of my life in the clean, bland suburbs of northern California. And now when I go back, I always find myself battling with culture shock. It’s a bit embarrassing, as I consider Beijing my hometown. But being there, I can’t say that I really feel at home. I guess you can say that I’m culturally confused.

It’s a strange feeling: things are familiar, but at the same time, uncomfortably so. In the mornings I drank my milk boiled, like the way I used to; I dipped my almond cookies in them. In the afternoons, on days I wasn’t in the city, we took walks; I never got over how dirty everything is. (If anything, I think Chinese people are so obsessed with being clean because everything is so dirty. That’s why we take showers before we go to bed. That’s why we take our shoes off when entering a home. And that’s also why for the first two years of living in America, my mom would always take a newspaper with her to sit on when we went to movie theaters. Of course, in California, there’s no need for that. And I guess I got used to that.) In the evenings, we would watch some TV–either something about killing the Japanese or some imperial teledrama–and I would take a footbath. Life in China hasn’t changed since I moved away; these were all the things that I used to do, but it leaves me craving for my Western comforts. I missed the ubiquity of American brands, I missed long showers with good water pressure in non-rusty shower basins, but perhaps what I missed the most was the feeling of independence and freedom. Yeah, I think that’s what I ultimately miss the most when I go to China.

Anyway, this time around, I took some photos to document my time there. In the previous years that I went, I stayed between one to two months, and inevitably always got extremely homesick, so this time, I went for only two weeks, which I think is a much better measure of time for me. Not enough to get depressed, but still long enough to feel that I’ve spent a substantial amount of time with my family. Unlike previous visits, we were also in Beijing city a lot, which I really liked because it’s much more developed than the countryside where my grandparents live.

But the food was always good!

We had hot pot (fondue chinoise) the first night I was there, and it pretty much continued on like that food-wise for the rest of the two weeks. What was the beginning of my culinary downfall was the Peking Duck I had in my second week. Literally ate myself sick: couldn’t even think about eating for dinner or for breakfast the next morning. In fact, I’m a bit afraid that I might have ruined Peking Duck for myself forever. A glutton’s punishment, I’m sure.

What you see above is seafood night: freshly shucked oysters with horseradish, fried oyster, fish, crevettes, and sea snail. And it was all oh-so-good! In fact, I’m pretty sure it was this meal that did me in. I had seven fresh oysters that night, and five more the evening after, and it wasn’t too long before I felt queasy and lightheaded. Long story short, I found myself hooked up to an IV in an infirmary, 3 AM in the morning, ten hours before my flight out to Munich. I never did find out if it was because I simply ate too much…

The Eternal Internal Struggle Between East and West

It’s one thing to have pet peeves, but have you ever had one about yourself? Well, literally about three minutes ago, I just “discovered” a new annoyance about…me. (And by discovered, I really mean identified for the first time by coherent thought.)

You see, I had just arrived home from three and a half hours of studying for my Strategic Management midterm tomorrow morning. (And still, I’m here blogging at 1:22 in the morning. Some things, like sleep, are clearly worth sacrificing!) Upon reaching the hallway, I bumped into a classmate. He asked, “Did you study for the exam?” My reply: “A little bit.” A little bit? That’s an outright lie! Earlier in the day, a professor had also asked me if I had learned any Italian; I replied with–that’s right–”A little bit.” Whereas most people tend to exaggerate, I have the irritating tendency to underexaggerate. And this sucks because 1) it’s annoying due to the fact that I never give anything enough credit and 2) nothing that comes out of my mouth can ever sound exciting.

Now, there’s actually a “cute” story behind this trait. When I was growing up, my grandparents drilled into my head the importance of modesty and being humble. If you give me a couple of days to reflect upon it I can probably give you some example from the stories they told me or from the cartoons I watched. It’s very Chinese, this…modesty value thing. So, I learned that bragging is a vice and that when people compliment you, the rightful thing to do is to negate their compliment by saying how unworthy you are of praise. I kid you not; ask any native you know–while they might not put it in those words, they will surely understand the sentiment. Now, one and a half cultures removed, I feel a little bit pissed that I had picked up this mannerism and am currently using it so excellently. I mean, why do I have to put myself down? What’s wrong about receiving compliments? Why can’t I just say “Thank you” and be gracious? There’s a certain disdainfulness…a certain sinisterness about the way compliments are handled in this culture but I can’t place my finger on what it is that makes it so irksome! It’s sneaky, maybe; dishonest, definitely! But whatever it is, damn it, it pisses the Western me off!

I’m going to end my rant here and prepare for some shuteye. But what about you? Do you have a pet peeve about yourself? And do you know why?

It’s February 29th!

Flash forward 2012!

Where to start? A couple big things have happened in these past couple of months, both exciting and nerve-wracking.

In the time that’s elapsed since my trip to Iceland, I’ve also managed to squeeze in a two-week trip to Beijing. Needless to say, things have changed a lot since my last visit in 2005, although the suburbs still remained the same. Still though, it’s funny to think that I spent the first six years of my life there as the culture shock is simply immense! (You would think that speaking Mandarin helps, but in some ways, I think it acts as more of a hindrance as people’s expectations of you as Chinese are very different than they would be if you were simply 老外, or a foreigner. A strange paradox, ich weiss. I’ve learned to recognize the, ‘What’s wrong with you? Are you dumb?‘ inquisitive look and subsequently also learned to reply sans delay, “I’ve been studying abroad for a very very long time.”) Oh, I also got food poisoning and was hooked up to the IV twelve hours before my flight out of China, but that’s a story for another time.

I’ve also left my school job at the end of last semester. Running every day between Sorengo (school), Paradiso (home) and Lugano (internship) proved just too much on my short little legs, and everything else was suffering due to it. It was a great learning experience both from a management and cultural perspective, however, and it gave me a clearer idea of where I place in terms of working style, personal style, etc.

Last semester I went to my first job fair in Zürich, which was abso-fucking-lutely terrifying! Now in retrospect, it was a pretty funny experience, but at the time I felt so much like a fish out of water. To start of, I am pretty sure I was the only one there who didn’t speak proficient German, and boy, is that language really important in Switzerland! And I don’t remember how many companies I went up to, asking, “I have never heard of your company. Could you please tell me a bit more about what you do?” before learning that they were one of the top leaders in their respective industries. (I will never live BCG down.) Yeah, that was a humbling day. I guess it’s moments like these where you just have to smile and be grateful for the opportunity, eh?

And–fast forward to the present: these upcoming couple of months are going to be a real transitional phase for me in many ways, with the big upcoming thing being graduation. I’ve also decided that I’m going to try a different blogging strategy, composing many short topical blogs instead of trying to sum up everything at once (like this post…which sadly, is now leaving me exhausted), in hopes that I will be better able to manage this ongoing blog-project.

And to end things with a bang: I’m going to Munich this weekend!

Tilfeldige Greier

今天早上我和안니켄一起跑步和锻炼。我们跑到靠近学校的海边儿，在码头上抓海蜇，真好玩儿呀！回到学校后，举重时，她开始跟我讲她的爱情生活：跟她的前男朋友，아른스다인，分手，和另外一个男孩儿，安德斯。她一直在说，我一直在听。就是在那个时候我才终于感觉她，안니켄，真正的吧我看成朋友。话不必说，我好性份呀！十个月后，终于有点儿进步了！

In other news, I had the strangest dream today. Normally they’re not worth mentioning but this one was at a whole new level of wack. I took a nap after school and my iPod was on shuffle, and apparently I had set it to lock in the middle of a Koreanclass101.com podcast. I seem to recall the dream itself pretty sexual, 德这儿朝那儿的–but all of a sudden I was stringing beans with Mom and Grandpa, with–get this–my left foot in a shoe filled with porridge. And you know those moments where you’re barely conscious enough to register your surroundings? Well, I was barely conscious enough to register the voice of the lesson host through my earphones, which I mistook for my grandpa (coincidentally, it was a lesson on Sino-Korean numbers and months, so everything was vaguely familiar). I think I spent about five minutes in that state: lying there, confused as hell, trying to shake the non-existent porridge off my feet, listening to “Grandpa” listing off the months in Korean. Anyway, that was a little public preview of the things which go on in my head.

Moving on: I just booked my flight back from Newark to San Francisco. My itinerary is as follows: Oslo to Copenhagen to Newark to Philadelphia to San Francisco. It’s insane! And you know what? I think I had my first little panic attack about leaving today: an image of being bored on a Saturday afternoon in Fremont again–truly frightening.
안녕!

Хинрих Шмидт-Хенкель

Дэго, сышичзю, вэньщу фаньичжэ.

Вомэнь цзай Осло Дацзяотан мэньвай цзяньлэ мянь; ваймянь чжэн цзай ся сяо юй. Та лайлэ ихоу, вомэнь ици цзоудао Май Френд Клуб, игэ тунсинлянъдэ санна. Саннадэ вайбяо хэнь цзиньшэнь, цзай игэ хутун’р лимянь, тунго игэ суодэ дамэнь. Цзай лимянь туодяо ифу хоу ся лоу чунлэ цзао; дэн аньаньдэ, лянь жэньдэ лянь доу кань бу цзянь, чжи нэн кань дэ цзянь шэньти хэ дуцзы.

Сивань цзао хоу цзиньлэ игэ баофан’р: чжи ю игэ чуан хэ игэ хун дэн, цифэнь фэйчан «дынджий».

Вомэнь кайшилэ. Лян шуан цзуй хусян сюньчжао, хусян таньсуо: шэтоу, сяба, хай, боцзы, сюн. Ули хэнь жэ; вомэньлядэ шэньти хэнь куай чаолэ цйлай: ибань’р хан, ибань’р туо. Водэ шоу шицзинь чжуачжу тадэ цзяньбан’р хэ хоубэй, ю ши ю хуа. Во юнюань доу бу хуэй ванцзи нагэ ганьцзье: пота и слюны, пота и слюны.

Та чунчжэ во, ганьчжэ во, дишэндэ нянь гэй во на мижэньдэ Дэюй. Тадэ шэнинь нэнмэ вэньжоу, тадэ бяоцин намэ сингань.

Айвань чжихоу, та сунлэ во дао Осло Хочэчжань, шуньлу е гэй во майлэ гэ Макдональд. Вомэнь цзай хочэчжань ибянь’р чи, ибянь’р ляотянь’р (гуанью тадэ гунцзо, юянь). Та тилэ во май хочэпяо хуэй цзя.