Family Style

Luke attempted to buy a cell phone, which was an interesting experience in itself. To shorten the story, he wound up on the phone with the English speaking owner of the store who explained that he needed his passport to buy a Chinese cell phone number, but the price was not entirely clear, nor what the number how he would find out what his number was. In the end, I suggest he buy a phone and I’ll help him get a number when he comes to Shanghai (we can go to the same place Sabrina took me to get mine.)

Our next stop, which was a short subway ride away, was a silk tailor that Helen had recommended to Bryan. Since Suzhou was the silk capital of China, it seemed like a fitting souvenir (no pun intended) to take home. Not to mention, as a business major, it’s probably time I buy a real suit…and the suit that Bryan had bought from this guy looked awesome.

 The tailor was an older bald man, sitting in a folding chair with his feet propped up on a table. When we walked in, he immediately recognized Bryan

“Hi Gu,” Bryan said. “These guys wanted to get fitted.”

“Sure,” Gu said, standing up. “You need to take everything out of your pockets.”

We did so, and I also took my money belt out from under my clothes. Emily asked me why I wore it and Bryan pointed out that China really is incredibly safe. I told them that I don’t plan to ever need it, but if something were to happen and I do need it, I’ll feel better knowing I took every precaution I could to be prepared.

I went first to get measured. I won’t go into too many details, but suffice to say it was a much more personal experience than most fittings I’ve had in the US. When he was done wrapping his tape measure around me, he had me try on one particular jacket to make sure I liked the fit. It was really comfortable and I told him it would work. He then measured Luke and asked both of us for the deposit. I asked if I could pay him in full and have Bryan pick it up. He said that would be fine. The total price came out to about $130 USD.

The final stop of our Suzhou tour was Helen’s house. She had invited us over for a cooking lesson with her mother. I was actually most excited for this as I figured a family dinner would be a perfect way to experience Chinese culture.

We entered her apartment and took off our shoes. She showed us back to the bathroom to wash our hands before we got started. All of the ingredients were laid out on the coffee table in her family room. Luke and Emily sat on the couch, Johnny took a chair, and Bryan and I kneeled on pillows that Helen’s mother brought us.

Bryan had had dinner with Helen’s family before so he translated the lesson for us. We were making dumplings from scratch—at least almost from scratch, Helen’s mother had prepared the dough and stuffing. Really, this was the assembling process. To do so, you took a round piece of flattened dough. There was a bowl of water which you could dip your fingers in to wet the edges of the dough so it would seal. Using chopsticks, you pinched up a little bit of the filling—which was pork and some vegetable ground up together—and put it in the center of the dough. Folding it up like a taco, one pinch held together the very top of the dumpling. The ends were a little trickier. Bryan described it as sort of the way you seal of the end of a package when wrapping it with wrapping paper. Instead of pinching them together, you fold each end up, and then twist it around so it lines up with the original pinched part at the top. Once both ends are twisted, you pinch all the dough together to seal it.

It was so much fun! No two dumplings looked alike and most of mine had a little bit of filling leaking out from somewhere. Helen joked that the real test would be rather or not they stayed together in the boiling water, although we didn’t watch that part so we have no ideas whose dumplings made it and whose didn’t.

While her mother cooked the dumplings we sat down at the kitchen table to enjoy the other food they had prepared for us. Helen gave us each a can of Tsingtao beer. Bryan explained that it comes from the former German province in China and is considered to be China’s best exported beer. I tried a sip. It was certainly a lot lighter than Czech beer and a little bit sweet. But after tasting brands from Prague, the US, and now China, I am pretty much coming to the conclusion that beer and I are just not meant for each other. When Helen offered us Pepsi as well, I asked for one of those instead.

The food was amazing! There was thinly sliced beef in a spicy black bean and vinegar sauce. She also had some fileted salmon which was super tender and very sweet. There was a pastry she asked each of us to try that was made from radishes. It was really chewy, but also kind of sweet. We had sticky rice, which Helen explained is rice and sugar fried inside bamboo leaves. It was very chewy, but really good and totally unlike the sticky rice I’ve had in the US. She made broccoli, which was cooked with some sort of a nut and tasted super flavorful. It was kind of salty, but not over powering, and tasted really fresh. Bryan’s favorite was the duck and “bing” which was similar to the seashell shaped rolls I had Friday night at the dinner with Sabrina.

And the dumplings turned out great! The meat was really tender and the combination of vegetables tasted awesome. There were a few that had leaky edges, so I take that as a sign that at least a few of mine made it through.

There was other food as well. I know there seafood and fried rice, a salad that had lots of different sprouts in it, and probably a few that I am still forgetting. It all tasted great and was one of the best meals I’ve had so far.

As we ate, we talked about school mostly. Helen and Luke caught up since he was just arriving. He talked about studying Biomechanical engineering, and she shared some stories of her time working in both China, Japan, and the US.

I was actually really fascinated by her stories and asked for more information. Eventually, she turned it around on me. “As business management major, what do you think about business in China?”

That was the question I had come to China to answer.

“I have noticed some differences,” I said.

“Like what?” she asked.

I tried to think about how to explain some of the cultural things I’d noticed.

“For example,” I said, “I’ve noticed that nothing is really definitive when Chinese people are making plans or suggestions. I hear people say things like ‘maybe we will do this at this time’ or ‘maybe this is what we should do’ but it seems like everything is open ended and the plan often changes.”

“Yes,” she said. “It is like this. It goes back to religious ritual. You are familiar with Congfuzi?”

I nodded. I knew that meant Confucianism.

“Part of Chinese culture is that nothing is black and white,” she explained. “We do not think in black and white because of the importance of face. We always talk about things in gray because we know they might change or be different, and it is important to not lose face when talking to people.”

That suddenly made total sense to me. If nothing is ever definitive, then nothing can ever be wrong. For example, if you plan on doing something at a certain time, but then you are late, you would lose face. But if the time is vague in the plan, then it can change without you losing face. This is of course different than our western mindset. We see plans—as I stated before—as something that we can make to have control in a situation, and we get upset when the plan “falls apart”. But if your plan is “gray” then your plan can never be wrong and you have an entirely different type of control over the situation.

This has so many implications for business, politics, and life in China in general. For example, it would be very easy for an American to believe that Chinese were sneaky or dishonest because they may not do exactly what you expected. The key is that what they tell you is just a rough estimate; if they do something different, it isn’t to be malicious, it is to safe face. Culturally, this is really different, but it makes total sense.

It was worth flying 5,000 miles for this conversation alone!

“That makes a lot of sense,” I told Helen. “It’s been hard to figure out some of the cultural things. In Europe, people would correct me and tell me when I was doing something wrong. Here it’s been a lot trickier figuring it out.”

“Chinese people are also very kind to foreigners,” Helen said.

“I’ve noticed that,” Emily added. “Everyone has been so nice.”

“It is very cultural I think,” Helen said. “We believe it is important to welcome people and be friendly to them. A lot of Chinese business relies on relationships. We do not do business with people we do not have relationships with. Even with my company, when we go to work with schools or with other companies, we are not just focusing on the business or ‘closing a deal’ but on getting to know them and having a relationship with the people that work there.”

“That is different,” I said. “I think in America we understand the importance of knowing people and networking with them, but I think there is sort of an underlying belief in America that you ‘keep work and relationships separate.’ It is even sort of an ethical issue in America to do business with people you are friendly with.”

“Yes it is different here,” she said. “We do not try to separate relationships from our work. They are all part of our life. And this is part of why we want to welcome foreigners. We can all do business together globally, but we have to get to know each other and understand each other too.”

“I think that makes a lot of sense,” I said. “In the end, business is just about working with people, and I think in America we’ve lost sight of that to some degree.”

“I think only recently,” Johnny said. “We used to be a very welcoming place and care about people.”

“I think foreigners are treated better than locals,” Helen said.

Emily tossed out a few of her cultural observations as well and Helen explained that they also related back to the idea of face.

“Something that is interesting about the American education system," Luke added, "They say that we are educating kids for problems that don’t exist yet."

“I think that’s a made up line manufactured by the American education system,” I rebutted but now didn't seem like the time for that debate.

“Same in China," Helen said. "A lot of parents are very hard on their kids. They are always making sure they are studying and busy doing things to get ready for the real world. I think parents sometimes forget that their kids are people too.”

“I feel like that is a trend that you are starting to see in America,” Emily said. “The schools talk all the time about keeping up with Chinese students and it seems like there over the past few years there’s been this shift to keep your kids busy all the time and push them to be at the top of their class.”

“Yes,” Helen said. “I think there is sort of a competition between China and the US, but the competition is not really between the people, but between the governments.”

That did seem to be true.

“It seems like most people I know,” I said, “are scared of China.”

“Really?” she said.

Everyone around the table kind of agreed. “Most people I talked to before I left had this fear that it was unsafe. I keep writing messages back about how ‘normal’ and ‘similar’ China is to the US.”

“I think a lot of Chinese people feel the same way about going to the US,” she said. “They are interested in it, but I think we think it is unsafe. Most of the news we hear about the US is about shootings in schools. One year I took a group of students to Denver and the parents were sacred that their kids would get shot. I promised them the US was safe, but while we were there, Denver had that shooting in the movie theater.”

We all admitted that we do have a funny view of safety…and not just in the US, but everywhere. We assume that what we are used to is safe, regardless of what the reality actually is.

“I think the reality is,” Helen said, “people do not have issues with foreign people, governments have issues with foreign governments, and they make us fearful of people from those foreign places. I think that is why it is important that we share our cultures with each other."

"Like teaching a bunch of Americans to make dumplings," I joked.

She laughed, "Yes! And taking my groups of teenagers over to the US to see America."

This conversation was awesome. It was the exact intellectual stimulation I’d been hoping for when I came to China. In this short hour we’d been talking, I felt like Helen had cracked the code for me. Suddenly so many things I’d been observing made sense to me. From the disorganized planning process, to the idolization of Western culture, to some of the seemingly un-helpful advice we’d gotten during orientation…I’d been seeing all of it as sort of this tacky take on American life, but now I realize it has all been very, very cultural…Helen just helped me shift my viewpoint to be able to see it.

We continued eating as we were talking. I was so full that when Helen brought out dessert, I seriously thought it might make me sick to eat any more. But these treats did look tasty. They were little dough balls that were sticky on the outside. The inside was filled with poppy seeds. It had a very clean taste, but also definitely tasted like dessert.

“These are my favorite,” Helen told us. “Very traditional Chinese dessert.”

Afterwards, she made us some tea which really did settle my stomach. I think it was some sort of green tea, but I’m not sure. Either way it was good.

All of a sudden, we heard loud exploding sounds. We all looked around a little panicked, but Helen laughed.

“They are not gun shots,” she said. “In China, whenever you have something to celebrate, you set off fireworks. Maybe for a birthday. Maybe when you move into a new apartment.”

We heard more explosions. Bryan explained that they weren’t exactly the same fireworks we use on the 4^th of July (although those do get used occasionally) but rather these were little packets of gunpowder they explode to announce a celebration.

“I love this country!” Luke said.

As it got closer to 7:45, I started to think about leaving. My train was at 9:30. Helen insisted that I could leave her house at 8:30 and have plenty of time, but I was a little nervous about not knowing where I was going. I finally decided to head out a little after 8:00.

Bryan agreed to walk me to the train station.

“Keep in touch,” Helen said as I left. “Bryan can give you my email and if you need any help in China or back in the US just let me know.”

“Thank you so much, Helen,” I said. “This was so nice. I’m so glad I met you. I don’t know if it would make me an ‘ugly American’ but can I give you a hug?”

She smiled. “Okay yes,” she said and gave me a hug.

“Thank you again,” I said as we left.

As Bryan and I walked to the train station he asked me, “Why do you make ‘Ugly American’ comments like that?”

“It’s kind of my way of asking permission,” I said. “Since I don’t know if something is offensive, I feel like qualifying it as an ‘Ugly American” thing shows that I am aware it is cultural for me but might not be to them. I guess it is sort of my way of apologizing in case I’m stepping over the line without knowing it.”

“Why don’t you just be yourself?” he asked.

I thought about that. In my mind, this was the best way to be myself. I’ve always considered myself curious but polite. I want to be personable and meet people, but I also want to be aware that what is normal in America, may not be normal everywhere. I want to be myself, but also adapt myself in an international way.

When we got to the metro I thanked Bryan for having me.

“Have a good rest of your summer,” he said, giving me a hug.

“You too,” I said. “I guess I’ll see you on the other side.”

“Sounds good.” With that, I took the escalator down into the metro and back to Shanghai, and he went back to his world in Suzhou.