The Dumb Laowai

Sorry for the delay in getting this posted but, once again, my internet connection has been down and I’ve been reluctant to go out to a wireless equipped bar. There is very little that can make me reluctant to head for a watering hole, but temperatures in the teens with high winds does make me think twice. They don’t speak of the wind chill factor and it’s just as well; I really don’t want to know. If someone told me the wind chill was -20, they might not see me again until spring.

I grew up in northern Illinois. I tell people Chicago because I got tired of the blank looks that invariably occurred whenever I said Rockford or, God help me, Stillman Valley. When you have to tell someone that you’re from a place that’s ten miles from a bigger city that they still haven’t heard of, you start looking for short cuts.

All this is to say that I have a passing knowledge of winter. I remember entire months where ten degrees was the high. I had to be out and about when we had an eighty below wind chill on a New Years weekend. I remember working forty-eight hours straight to salvage a factory because the entire roof had collapsed from the weight of the snow. It’s a large part of why I moved directly to Phoenix.

Prior to China, a few years in Atlanta had reacquainted me with cold weather to a lesser degree, but my twelve years in Phoenix have permanently destroyed any tolerance I have for it. I now think of Chap Stick as a mandatory accessory. I take taxis four blocks. I even had my mother send me long underwear for Christmas and, as far as I know, no man has ever asked for underwear as a gift, at least not men’s underwear. Of course, my mom’s wonderfully quirky sense of humor led her to add a couple pair of flannel boxer shorts, complete with the Coca-Cola polar bear and Charlie Brown with his Christmas tree.

So here I sit in my favorite bar at 9:00am on a Sunday (I love this place – open 24 hours and makes a great American breakfast), warm and toasty in my new shorts. It’s such a little thing but it makes me so deliriously happy that I just want to share my good fortune with the other patrons. I probably won’t. The staff has adopted me as their favorite, slightly off-kilter foreigner, so I’m not ready to risk their displeasure quite yet. I need them more than they need me. I’ll just have to make sure that when I return during drinking hours that I wear something more traditional and remove any temptation. (Yes, I know that I am not adverse to drinking with breakfast, but that is generally reserved for football holidays.)

Heading towards Christmas has been a little strange this year. I’m considered an expert on last minute shopping techniques, most involving a mall with a bar that’s open on the 24^th. Yet this year I had everything purchased before Thanksgiving. I’d heard too many stories about gifts that seemed to tour the world prior to delivery. Just so the season wasn’t totally out of character, I still procrastinated two weeks before actually shipping them.

I didn’t expect much Christmas related activity in China. I’ve been surprised in several ways. I understand not taking a week off, but to schedule class on Christmas day still seems a little excessive, especially since a large percentage of the students celebrate it. I doubt that attendance will be robust.

On the other extreme, grocery store clerks all wear their red, fur-trimmed Santa vests. Nativity scenes are non-existent, but little Santa village scenes are common. I’m still unable to decipher the meaning of cute pigs in Santa suits though. Small, plastic, Christmas trees are quite common, although lacking any religious ornaments. I was a literally stunned to see a twenty foot tall tree, topped with a large, red, communist star. It might be the best example I’ve ever seen of “not getting the idea.” I might be able to enthusiastically support globalization if it meant truly experiencing the best of other cultures. Unfortunately, it seems to mean taking both the best and worst elements, twisting them with local tastes and coming up with something that has absolutely no meaning whatsoever.

It was about this time that I started to notice more negative examples of globalization. The other evening, as I walked out of a sub-standard sushi bar and past an even lower quality pizza joint, I was bombarded by Hobo Willy singing “Jingle Bell Rock”. While shopping at a French Wal-Mart-like department store for household necessities, I was forced to listen to such favorites as “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” and “Rockin’ Round the Christmas Tree.” I kept waiting for “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” It’s bad enough that I have to listen to Kenny G everywhere I go. I’ve heard the theme from Titanic enough times to make me wish that he had been on it.

I suddenly find myself harboring a possibly irrational, but real fear. I’m scared to death that someone will give me a Chinese-version fruitcake and yet morbidly curious as to how they could possibly make that worse.

Merry Sheng dan jie everyone!