scruta

I saw an ancient shadow play

In Shanghai, China, far away.

I could not understand the songs

The warble, clatter low and long;

The locals too had lost the words,

And told me so with smiles absurd.

They asked me how I came to see

This spectacle in front of me.

But I was lost in puppetry –

The flattened models hard to see

That flashed behind the stretch of skin

And bayed like ghosts above the din.

The form was strange, from long ago

And gave me stories I couldn’t know.

My Chinese tender, knowledge weak

I made up stories so they’d speak.

+++

I saw a man behind the screen,

Just his face and his hand

Clutched about a bow

Dragging across an erhu.

He rocked with the music

Lost in the melody,

Pentatonic, ebbing about the puppets

Projected on the skin.

But he didn’t see the stories either.

He didn’t see the intrigues of principates.

He had his own stories.

I couldn’t imagine them,

But they sat there on his face

And didn’t need to speak.

[Ferret is ordering food at Subway, engaging in the strange dance that one goes through at such service locations in Shanghai. Do I bark my orders in Chinese or English? Both are acceptable, although there is an assumption as a foreigner that you will be doing the English-bark. Ferret chooses Chinese in all of its perversity, and works his way down the line, performing well enough. Until he gets to the cashier:]

Casher

Hello, twenty-three yuan.

Ferret

我要套餐。

I want the meal.

Cashier

什么？

What?

Ferret

套餐。

The meal.

Cashier

套餐，是吧？

Oh, the meal?

Ferret

是的。

Yes.

[The Cashier slaps a cup for a fountain soda on the counter and begins:]

Cashier

你要什么种类曲奇啊！

What kind of cookies do you want?

Ferret

[pausing as the word for “cookie” comes into his head:]

哦，我不要。我要那个图片。

Oh, I don’t want that. I want the picture.

[Ferret was searching for the word for “potato chips” which is 薯片 (shúpiàn), but thought about the other word for “potato” 土 (tù), but was tonally attracted to the second tone of è–¯ (shú), so… 图片 (túpiàn). If this confuses you, reader, don’t be alarmed. The Cashier was equally confused as to why Ferret was asking for a picture with his meal.]

Cashier

[realizing what he means]

哦，告诉我你要的，我帮你拿。

Oh, tell me which one you want, and I’ll grab it for you.

Ferret

没关系，我自己拿。

Don’t worry about it, I’ll grab it myself.

[Only later, as he is eating his sandwich outside, does Ferret realize that he asked for a “picture” instead of “potato chips.” He sighs. Chinese you are a motherfucker.]

When you say you understand the West, don’t speak to me in the tired platitudes of freedom or individualism. I cannot stand them; they stick in my mouth like cotton balls. They are tasteless and they choke all discussion, leaving nothing but sputtering and agonizing gestures that the offending words should be taken back.

Ask me: where are the communities of the West? And who struggled to forge them? And the families? The histories that bind them?

And when you come bogging on about the East, don’t begin with your blunted generalizations about relationships and duty and society and histories of 5,000 years. They are just glass panes you look through. They are ultimately the keepers of your own reflection. Through them you see whatever you want, or nothing at all.

Start with the individuals. Start with the iconoclasts. Start with the ones who stand outside, few as they are.

Understanding any people is understanding their struggle, especially the struggle with themselves.

I’m really uncomfortable with the non sequitur often batted about to justify a foreigner’s frustration when coming into conflict with Chinese culture – that it’s 5,000 years old.

I suppose the thinking is that Chinese culture is radically different, and the reason for its difference is that China is the longest surviving culture in the world. (Whatever that means.)  However, I fail to see how the length of time that a culture has had to develop is in any way indicative of its depth or its difficulty to be understood. There are plenty of people all around the world who find subcultures based around musical genres less than 50 years old such as hiphop and drum and bass absolutely inscrutable. Of course, it’s also important to note the reciprocal difficulties that many Chinese encounter with American culture, a somewhat radical off-shoot of European culture with a little over 200 years of history. (To be fair, this has gotten easier for many Chinese in recent years due to the constant inundation with American culture during their education.)

I would argue that the difficulty in understanding any culture has very little to do with how long the culture has been around per se. The difficulty in assimilation and understanding is a relative relationship having to do with the proximity that two cultures have in terms of their thought processes, values, etc. This could be related to the physical or temporal proximity of the cultures being compared (ex. China and the West), but it doesn’t have to be.

When people say something like “Don’t feel bad that you’re frustrated. China’s culture is over 5,000 years old!,” I’d like to think they are saying:

“China and the West have been developing as cultures relatively independently of each other for several thousand years. No wonder you feel frustrated!”

However, most of the time the statement is not used to alleviate or explain someone’s frustration, rather, it is used to diffuse argument and act as a conclusion, blocking further discussion. A foreigner might say, “Why do the Chinese have this social practice? I don’t understand.” And they’ll get back, “Take your time. You’ll get it. Chinese culture is over 5,000 years old.”

Although on the surface, the questioner seems to be reassured by their interlocutor that it’s just a matter of time. But what they have actually done is refused to justify or try to explain their values, thinking that at some level no explanation is possible or even worse, that the foreigner couldn’t understand, even if they tried.

Put simply, the idea is:

“Chinese culture is 5,000 years old. It is very complex. You couldn’t possibly understand.”

Really? I beg to differ.

Not all foreigners are devils;

Not all devils are foreign.

I want to know why it is that glitter replaced ink,

And all the artworks of a great nation

Were wrapped up in a smirking irony

Embracing the gaudy demands of materialism

But grasping its ideals with wrenched palms.

+++

But then I remember

An embrace never opens up the world.

It silently covets a corner

And creates another hiding place within it.

I saw the following advertisement in a subway station featuring Chinese blogging legend, Hanhan:

A rough translation into English:

I love the internet. I love freedom. I love getting up late. I love night markets. I love race cars. And I also love 29 kuai t-shirts. I’m not some flag-bearer. I’m nobody’s spokesperson. I’m Hanhan. I only represent myself. You and I are alike. I am Vancl.

Is it me, or has Hanhan sold out, and then utilized the ad to explain why he’s not selling out?

Despite the hypocrisy, this ad could also be said to represent an entire generation of Chinese born in the 1980s, the so called 80后. They are caught between their society’s near-moral imperative to pursue wealth, and their desire to define themselves as individuals in a dynamic, quickly changing world.

Can you have it both ways?

Hanhan seems to think so.

This is the thing that you’d probably say if you were trying to unravel this Chinese mystery that you see before your foreign eyes, sitting in a land that heard the buddha speak long ago, that understood and forgot, but found his voice lined in its bones. Now you see China as this, a mystery that continually unravels. You think you’ll understand the core, a massive turban that you unravel in your hands, turning over and over, piling up before you that you find impossibly, perversely never diminishes in size. You tell yourself that there must be a core, or that even if there isn’t, that you must think there is.

[Ferret and Glasseye are outside of Logo talking.]

Ferret

I think it’s weird.

Glasseye

What’s weird?

Ferret

I think it’s weird that in Shanghainese people always speak English to me.

Glasseye

What do you mean?

Ferret

I mean. If you came to America, people wouldn’t go out of their way to try and speak Chinese to you. They’d just say, “You’re in America, so speak English.”

Glasseye

Yeah. No, I understand. But that’s the thing about Chinese people. You know S&M?

Ferret

Yeah.

Glasseye

We’re the M.

Ferret

Haha. Okay.

Glasseye

No, seriously.

Ferret

I believe you, but it’s weird. I don’t see why they think it has to be that way. Chinese isn’t impossible for us foreigners to learn, and I bet you’d be surprised how quickly we’d pick it up if we were forced to learn it.

Glasseye

所以我们在说中文吧 .

So let’s speak Chinese then.

Ferret

[startled a bit, then realizing what was said]

好的, 我们说中文.

Okay, let’s speak Chinese.

[There’s an awkward pause. Suddenly nobody has anything to say.]

Glasseye

You’re right though. It’s still weird.

Ferret

Yeah, it is.

[Ferret is tired. He’s trying to get dinner with Chipmunk at 五观堂素食. He walks up to the Hostess.]

Ferret

你好.

Hello.

Hostess

你好, 你们几位?

Hello, for how many?

Ferret

两位.

Two.

Hostess

不好意思, 两位没有位子. 你需要等一会儿.

I’m sorry, but we don’t have any tables for two. You’ll have to wait.

Ferret

[beginning to speak an actual sentence in Chinese for the first time all day:]

多少钱?

How much does it cost?

[The Hostess gives him a puzzled look, and Ferret realizes his mistake instantly.]

Ferret

哦! 多少时间?

Oh, how much time will it take?

Hostess

半个小时.

Half an hour.

Ferret

[to Chipmunk]

Do you want to wait?

Chipmunk

Well, I could do whatever. Are you really hungry?

Ferret

Yeah. Let’s try somewhere else.

[As Ferret and Chipmunk walk out, Another Customer waiting in line looks at him in puzzlement and maybe with a hint of disapproval. Ferret knows why. It looks like he just accidentally tried to bribe his way into getting a seat.]