The Magic of Tofu

I love tofu. And in China that's an easy thing to enjoy, all kinds of tofu every day. In fact, it's only 1pm and I've already eaten four kinds of bean curd today. As soon as vegetarianism comes up over dinner, a Chinese person will tell me how it's great that I can eat so much tofu in China and that it's really good for skin. And it gives me the chance to show off my fancy tofu-related vocabulary while we discuss the different kinds and the best way to serve each one.

 

I know from my dietary studies in the UK that tofu is really good for women in general because it's full of lots of great girlie hormones. Yay for tofu. Yay for it being good for skin and for girls. Yay yay yay.

 

At dinner the other night this topic came up again. It is strange how seemingly random topics suddenly become very normal while I am in China. I flexed my vocab a bit more and said that I'd heard men shouldn't eat too much tofu because of the hormones. My Chinese companions looked at me like I was crazy. And then explained that 'eating tofu' had another meaning. My heart sank as I expected another "my boyfriend masturbates at 3:30" incident, see an earlier post for details. Thankfully, it was not of the same standard! 'Eating tofu' means touching the skin of a woman you don't know. So it's exactly right to say that a man shouldn't eat too much tofu, and that it impacts on hormones, but not for the way I imagined.

Adopted

I have a new family.

 

Following last week's business dinner and all the drinking and toasting and drinking and drinking and feeling very ropey the following day, my Big Brother has adopted me into his family.

 

This week, he organised a dinner to mark my adoption at his little restaurant in the middle of Shanghai. I am always overwhelmed at the generosity of the people I meet in China and the warmth of Big Brother's welcome was enough to make me need a little cry on the way home.

 

My Big Brother is in his 40s, he runs several small restaurants. He is married to my Big Sister, a very beautiful woman who looks nothing like her 40 years. She asked me not to call her Big Sister-in-Law as she doesn't like the word - neither do I so Big Sister suits us both very well. They have a 15 year old son so I have my Little Nephew. Then comes the tricky part - because Big Brother has two nephews, they become my nephews (Big Nephew and 2nd Nephew respectively) despite being older than me. Usually I would call them Big Brother too but because I already have Big Brother, they would have to be 2nd Brother and 3rd Brother.! Are you keeping up with me? These words to describe relationships are wonderful once you get the hang of them, just from the introduction you know how someone fits with someone else and precisely what they relationship is. there's no need for the questions so common in English about whether someone is from your mother's side or your father's side. It's all very clear. That is until you learn that Brother, Sister, Grandma and Cousin can be used to describe someone's boyfriend or girlfriend!  I once had a very confusing conversation with a girl who told me about a time that her brother visited her in the night so she couldn't play in an important basketball match the next day. Her Brother was her period!

 

 During dinner everyone was very kind and polite in a Chinese way, my bowl was filled with all the good stuff, everyone toasted with me at least 3 times and thanks to reading a lot of Amy Tan books while I did my A-levels, I knew that all the complaints about the food were not real. It was hard to keep up though I felt I fared better at returning toasts this time. It was a fun evening and as Big Brother got happier and happier (thanks to several bottles of baijiu and rather a lot of yellow wine) he found a new way to entertain himself. He says "Little Sister" and I reply "Big Brother" and he looks at me in the proud and sweet way that parents look at their kids when they say something funny and cute.

 

Towards the end of the meal, Big Brother asks if I will go downstairs to help him with something. He takes out his phone and starts to make a call, he wants to call our "Mother" so that she can say hello to her new "Daughter". I was rather worried - she's an older lady, it's 10pm at night (rather late in a country where dinner is eaten between 5:30 and 7pm) and as fond of me as Big Brother has become in the last week, I wasn't sure how fond of me his Mother would be! Luckily the booze made his fingers slower so Big Sister managed to come and sort it out before we woke the old lady up!

 

Big Brother calls every day to check that I have eaten and to remind me to get plenty of sleep. I'm going over there next week to make dumplings, I'll take my camera and provide pictures as soon as I can.

To Assume Makes An Ass of U and Me

A few nights ago, I walked home from a very nice evening out with my rather drunk Chinese friend and his very sober American girlfriend. We stopped off for some Yangzhou lamb noodles on the way home. I had lambless Yangzhou lamb noodles of course. The shop was tiny, perhaps just 3 tables and little low plastic stools. I love this kind of place. Grubby, no pretense at all and usually fabulous tasty food which is the sole focus of the experience because the surroundings are so drab.

 

We ordered some food and sat chatting with the very curious staff who had lots of questions for two foreign girls. After a while,  an old man shuffled in and ordered some noodles too. He sat at the table behind me. I was showing a magazine article to one of the waiters. The elderly man asked me a few questions, very standard, where were we from? What were we doing in China? Were we used to Chinese people asking us so many questions? I admit, my answers were as standard as his questions. It was late, I was tired and I really just wanted to eat my noodles and enjoy the chopped green onions sprinkled all over them. The elderly man was no perturbed and continued to ask. And ask and ask. He asked a lot of America, so I translated the questions and answers between my American companion and the elderly man. He asked if I had been to Washington, I said I hadn't and turned back to my noodles.

 

Then, in divine English he says "I've been to Washington" and we all fell about laughing. It was such a shock! It's very common to find young people in China who speak very very good English, but rare in older people. This man was very pleased with his joke! He was a professor who specialises in thermal materials for rockets and missiles. He explained that as a child he studied at a British missionary school in Shanghai, not far from where I am staying. He glossed over what happened during the revolution, but he now lives in Beijing and had just come back to Shanghai to visit his mother. I did not ask how old she was, but figured she must be pretty ancient now.

 

His English was really beautiful to listen to with soft intonation and a gentle mixture of British and Ameican pronunciation. I wanted to ask him to read me a story!

 

He was rather disinterested in me by this point, I imagine because I'd been rather short in my answers earlier. I was humbled.

 

And reminded I should never assume.

 

But of course, I will continue to do so!

Business Studies

This week I have been fortunate to attend some Chinese business meetings with a friend. I want to learn more about the way things are done here in China, particularly negotiation and disagreements.

 

On Thursday night this involved a meeting with a man who wanted to "do some business" with my friend. My buddy had been generous enough to share his meetings with me, but I sensed a real reluctance to explain how he felt about the meeting. It was clear he didn't want to go, and that he was feeling some pressure to cooperate with this man.

 

We arrived on a street corner where the man was waiting for us, my friend was on the phone and not about to end his call just because he had arrived (this is a very Chinese thing to do). Feeling awkward, I went to stand with the man we had met and made small talk. He seemed slightly bemused that my friend had brought me along and reluctant to talk about much of anything. I asked where we were going and he said we'd go to his little brother's place for a moment to talk and then go to eat dinner. On hearing this, my friend ended his phone call and said that we should just go to the restaurant. This made me a little nervous. The man insisted we follow him and we headed into a residential estate and up some stairs to a lobby area where three men and two women were waiting for us. If the first man had been bemused to see me show up, these guys were stunned into total silence. Recovering after a few seconds, they started talking to my friend and talking about the building - Little Brother (a common thing to call someone close to you but younger than you in China) owned the whole thing and was keen to show it off. They took my friend on a tour of the building but asked me just to sit in the lobby where 2 men and the 2 women eyed me suspiciously. Sometimes, it is far better to pretend you don't speak Chinese so I just sat (demurely of course, that taxi driver taught me well) and waited for everyone to come back.

 

After Little Brother and Big Brother had finished this display of wealth and status, off we all go to a restaurant. It occurred to me that at this stage, I was also a display of status. The questions start - 'Does the foreigner eat Chinese food?', 'Can she use chopsticks?', 'Does she like spicy food?'. My friend did me a great service and told them to ask me. Hearing that I could make conversation was something of a relief to them all. As we wandered down the street, my friend spoke with me in English about the evening - telling me that these people did business in a really traditional Chinese way, and that he hoped it would go well. Was the English speaking another way to show his power? I asked if there was anything I should do or not do in terms of manners, he said there were no table manners in China which is of course a complete lie! It's just that when something is natural to you, you forget to tell other people about it.

 

At the restaurant, the menu is handed to me - usually confident with my Chinese and anything to do with food I suddenly baulked at the idea of having to read with 8 pairs of eyes watching me. I quickly passed the responsibility to someone else saying that they would have to wait too long for me to read everything. Food ordered it was time to order drinks. I've heard a lot about the amount of alcohol consumed during these dinners so I said that I didn't want to drink. "No problem" said Big Brother, "No alcohol for you - you're a girl and your foreign, it's fair". So  a beer I was given, a strange version of non-alcoholic! The men cracked open a bottle of baijiu (the dangerous ingredient added to all our punch bowls at our student parties at Fudan) which was finished in less than 15 minutes.

 

The protocol seemed to go like this - each person around the table makes a toast to someone else. During last summer, I studied a business Chinese course with a man who explained that to be really polite you should hold your glass lower than the person you are chinking glasses with. I was grateful for this insight and tried as often as possible to keep my eyes down, my smile under control and my glass lower than anyone toasting me. I had also read that I should return all toasts - but I had some problem because I didn't know any one's name! And I didn't know any of them well enough to just use the catch all "Big Brother", "Big Sister". So I decided that no one would think it too odd if I didn't know what to do! The toast is made by giving the person a (rather overblown) compliment. When Little Brother toasted me, I got something along the lines of:

 

"Here's to you, little English sister Fenya, who has made our night so special and happy by coming and enjoying this simple meal and being so pretty and polite and speaking such perfect Chinese just like a Chinese person"

 

And so on and so on. I noticed that no one drank unless they were toasting so if you were thirsty, you'd have to make a toast with someone or wait for someone to toast you before you could drink something.

 

After the men drank their baijiu, they started on yellow wine - sort of sweet and, as my cousin Sally and I know from a very lively night out in Shanghai, lethal. Rather than share the bottle among all the men, my friend and Little Brother split the whole thing into two glasses - which they then drank dry. I was nearly sick at the thought of it remembering the worst hangover of my life and the taste of yellow wine which stayed with me for days.

 

By this point, everyone was quite flushed and happy. I noticed that one of the men seemed to drink much less and was watching everything. I figured that was a sensible role to give someone at a dinner where the boss gets completely wasted. Next comes another bottle of something, and drinking games started. Now, I'm sorry that I will be such a poor cultural guide in explaining what happened during this game but I'm not sure if it was the large amount of beer or if it was the complexity of the game, but I couldn't figure out the rules, or who won or lost - sometimes the winner had to drink, sometimes the loser had to drink. Then out came the Chinese tongue twisters which amused me so much earlier this week that I sprayed lemonade through my nose. I will study them and at later dinners, impress Chinese diners with my ability to say this funny poem about a Llama from Tibet carrying bread who is met by a mute man carrying a horn and how they killed each other! But for now, I will just watch and listen and enjoy.

 

Big Brother sat next to me through dinner and we had chatted about his wife and his hometown and talked a little about his business. I decided I would chance it and while everyone was busy with the drinking games and funny rhymes, I would offer him a toast. So, slightly worried that I would be using a too familiar way to address him, I raised my glass and said "Big Brother, will you drink a glass with me?"

 

I am not sure I have ever seen a bigger smile. So, we make our toast and I felt relieved. Until he stops everyone and says - "look, look, she just called me Big Brother"

 

And they all did something like a big "Awwwwwwwwww"

 

And so I got toasted again

 

"Little Sister, you are now part of my family and I will always take care of you. So will my wife, we could call her now so that you can chat with her"

 

This carried on for the whole evening.

 

My role in the evening became clearer as my friend starts to explain more about his business model and how he understands foreigners and what they expect from Chinese services. Peppering his language with English words and plenty of reassurance from me that, yes, most Westerners like to see traditional things in China and that yes, it would be OK for a boy and a girl to share a room if they weren't married and even if they were just friends, and yes, I would share a room with a black person. All of these things were strange concepts to the other people around the table. I think my friend wanted to show that he could run his business the right way because he understood what the foreign market wanted and that if Big and Little Brother wanted a piece of the action, they would have to do what he said.

 

I must admit that the rest of the night is a little fuzzy. Not so fuzzy that when Big Brother offered to drive me home I didn't manage to persuade him that it might be better to take a taxi! The Drink Drive message hasn't really been pushed over here!

 

 

 

InterFreya - the latest breach of interlectual property in China

Yesterday I found myself on a most curious mission. A German man has had his heart captivated by a Chinese woman. He was leaving China but wanted to send this lady some flowers - but without embarrassing her or making too grand a statement. He was so nervous about the whole thing, and utterly charming. He was sure the girl had no feelings for him, but I wasn't sure she would stay that way if she could have heard the conversation we had. He's got it bad!

 

So, naturally he enlisted the help of Special Agent Baggins! Loaded with cash and the address of the lady's office, I set off with the owner of the Sleeping Dragon to carry out this task. The German had given us about 40GBP to buy flowers - I could have got a whole truck sent to her for that price. We spent about half the money on a MASSIVE and rather stylish and gorgeous bouquet. Waiting outside the TV studio where this lady worked, I was seriously nervous about what her reaction would be. She arrived looking tired and rather bemused - she explained she hadn't left the office or slept for a few days. At least now she can be sleepless at work with a desk smothered in flowers.

 

It warmed the cockles of my heart.

 

 

 

 

The Curious Incident of the Freya in the Night Time

A birthday, a dinner, a large group of friends from all over the world. A full belly, some laughs, a bag of gifts, a journey home. Sleepy. Very sleepy...

 

And locked out. I arrived back to my hostel at 1:20am - rather respectable time I thought since I am now a grown up and firmly in my "late twenties". The hostel was locked - reception closes at 1am but guests are supposed to have access 24hrs. There's a doorbell so I pressed it and was rather embarrassed to hear that it played a whole tune rather than just a dingdong. After a few moments there were still no signs of life. I pressed the bell again less concerned about whether the little tinny tune woke up the whole street. It didn't! It didn't wake anyone. I pressed again and again, increasingly anxious and in need of the loo (acorn bladder + night time cold air). Around 10 minutes later, the situation got worse. A small group of rather drunk men were coming down the street, I started banging on the door. It wasn't like the men were doing anything threatening, I just didn't fancy being locked out in the street with them. As they approached I tried to make it look less like I was locked out (no more door thumping, no more bell ringing) and more like I was waiting for someone. I also focused on making myself as inconspicuous as possible, which was very effective until one of them stopped for a pee and noticed me on his quick look round to see if anyone was watching.

 

What he said was in Shanghainese, so I didn't understand it but it was clear that the basic gist was "Hey look! There's a foreign girl out here". The rest of his gang made their way back up the street to have a look at me. I was reminded of a book my very right on Mum used to read to me as a child about a white man who went to an island where everyone was blue and they put him in a cage to stare at him. My dark street on a dark night felt rather like a cage.

 

The situation got moderately worse when a second group of men met with the first. Now, before I worry you all too much, this situation would have been much more frightening in the UK than in China where, in general, men are far more respectful of woman and I wasn't scared of being assaulted. Robbed maybe! But worse was just the idea of being surrounded and not wanting to continue banging on the door with them watching.

 

After what felt like an age in this make shift zoo pen, I received a text message so took out my phone and read it. Of course it was from Sam reassuring me that it would all be OK. It gave me an idea. I made a fake phone call.

 

"Darling, it's me. I'm standing outside 394 Zhoushan Rd. You're late, where are you?" said with my perfected Chinese fishwife tone.

 

"Oh good, OK. So, I'll see you in a few minutes. Who is with you? Oh! That many? Well, I'd better cook something quickly, you boys will be hungry"

 

On hearing that another group of men would soon arrive, my audience departed in dribs and drabs.

 

Leaving me on the door step surrounded by my bags of lovely gifts and still locked out.

 

Ten more minutes of door banging and bell ringing and it became clear that this was not going to be an effective strategy. I wandered around the whole building looking for an open window or a light on in a room somewhere. Nothing. Ah well, I thought, I have money with me. I'll just go to another hotel round the corner and spend the night there.

 

Only when I got there did I find that my passport was, of course, in my other room and so I could not check in to another hotel. I called round some friends and no one was answering. I started to feel very alone in this big city. Thankfully China has 2 things that are very very useful in this situation - all night karaoke lounges and 24hr coffee shops. I made my way to the main drag near here to find such a place... I might even sing a song or two. At that moment, my friend Hector called back and on hearing his voice and therefore my ticket out of this situation, I burst into tears! I know, 'cry on your birthday and you'll cry all year' but it wasn't strictly my birthday in China anymore. He told me to come to his place and I set off in a cab and to see a very worried Hector and his sleepy girlfriend.

 

Relaying this whole thing to them sounded so silly. I think what shook me was the feeling of being alone. Even though I am blessed with a wonderful group of people here in Shanghai, I still felt by myself.

 

However, my misfortune has led to an even warmer welcome from my hosts who were mortified to have left me in the street. Once I find a job and an apartment, I shall be sad to leave my Sleeping Dragon. But I will tell other guests that the dragon sleeps very soundly so if you want to wake it up, you have to have lots of stamina!

 

 

Hats off to me!

A little anecdote from Shanghai life. I was walking in the rain a few nights ago, wearing my favourite purple hat with the peak pulled down to keep the rain from my eyes. A lady approached me and asked for directions. I just told her I didn't know and it was the first time I had been to that area. She was obviously in a hurry and didn't really look at my face. Off she walked til her companion started pointing and shouting. The lost lady ran back over to me, pulled up the peak of my cap and exclaimed "Heavens, you're right. She's a foreigner. I had no idea". It made me walk a few inches taller. Til I tried to book a restaurant and used the wrong tone to say my own name! Ah yin and yang are in force. The balance is always restored!

 

 

Sleepless in Shanghai

Since I got to China, I have been denied my greatest pleasure in life...and the strain on both my face and my mood is starting to show. I simply can't sleep.

 

Last night my sleeplessness didn't seem so bad. It has rained non-stop for about 36 hours. Really slugging it down. I lay in bed last night, awake of course, and slowly the city became quiet. Around 4am the whole place seems to be dozing. The rain was pattering on the roof, and lolled me to a state of relaxation even if it didn't quite do the job and put me into a coma! It's still pouring now so all I really feel like doing is curling up on a sofa under a blanket and reading a book. The danger of this making me nod off is too great so I shall resist. Surely I will manage to sleep for a few hours at night tonight?!

 

The result is my writing juices aren't flowing as they should. Must do better!

24 Hours of Smiles

Different from my usual style, here's a short list of things that have tickled me over the last 24 hours:

 

A hairdresser (with very bad hair) standing in the window of his salon picking his ear and looking very glum indeed. The name of the shop? "Happy"

 

A tiny puppy (a little bit bigger than my hand) who alternates his outfits between a green spotty jacket and a small bumble bee costume.

 

A sparrow sitting on the head of a large statue of Chairman Mao (if only it had needed the loo - the bird, I mean, not the statue)

 

A man with an enormous cloud of polystyrene tied to the back of his bike. It was so heavy his front wheel lifted off the ground leaving him suspended in the air. Beautiful.

 

A couple wearing matching t-shirts. His green, hers yellow. Both said "Cok head" across the front.