In Tianjin, we have “centralized heating” with Chinese characteristics. So do our neighbours and everyone else on our block. On Nov. 15, the local government fires up the coal stacks and the heat comes on. On March 15, it goes off. They use a network of pipes (above-ground in our neighbourhood) to heat the apartments, and you pay according to how many square meters your apartment is (in some of the older apartments you have your own stack of coal to burn yourself). Aside from phoning the heating place and complaining that they aren’t burning enough coal, you can’t turn up the temperature.

But it’s still October, so they haven’t turned the heat on yet, even though the temperature is down in single digits. The “Guide to Living in Tianjin” suggests that during these unheated cold weeks of the year, you can stuff cardboard in the window cracks, wear toques to bed, and imagine how hot and uncomfortable you’d be living in Singapore.

It’d be easy to go buy an electric heater, but most people just hold out for the heat to come on. During the day some students find coffee shops or other places to study, since their apartments are so cold. In the evenings, we curl up on the couches wearing multiple layers of clothes and a few blankets, sipping hot drinks and trying to write our Chinese homework. This is our first winter in Tianjin, so we’re gonna try and hold out ’til November 15th. Only two more weeks to go!

I’m participating in the Bright Future Project at a local university again this semester. It’s always a good way to practice listening, and I get to pick up some really interesting vocabulary. This week’s topic was “True Love” and we did one of my favorite small group activity/discussions with the students. After being divided into a few same-sex groups, we ask them first to write a list of what they are looking for in a boyfriend/girlfriend. Then, after several minutes of letting them create their wish-lists, we ask them to write a list of what they think the opposite gender is looking for in a boyfriend/girlfriend. The answers are always interesting – and their reactions at finding out what the opposite gender thinks/desires are also fun to watch. This is one of those discussions that I can’t wait to hear over and over again as my Chinese continues to progress. Meanwhile, I’ll just give you a few bits and pieces from it that I did understand.

Surprisingly enough, most of the girls did not want a very handsome boyfriend. They stated pretty clearly that they felt like having a “too handsome boyfriend” was definitely unsafe (meaning, presumably, that he’d be a target for other women to hit on and therefore more likely to cheat). Also, I was even more surprised that the girls in this class didn’t say that their boyfriend should have a lot of money. Previous ladies in other classes have seemed to think that this was a pretty important quality.

The guys said that the girl should have long hair, big eyes, a good body, and “give him face.” I talked to one guy about the eyes, and he said “The eyes are the window of the heart/soul.” I was excited to discover both that I understood him, and that English and Chinese apparently share this saying. The guys also said that she should be “一般聪明” which means “smart enough” or “ordinarily smart.” There’s a definite thread in Chinese culture that says that smart, clever, and independent women are threatening or something to be feared, so the guys tend not to want a girlfriend that might be smarter than themselves.

Obviously, both groups mentioned a lot of other characteristics as well…it definitely wasn’t limited to the ones that I’ve written about here. Unfortunately, many of those desirable characteristics tend to be very poetic or abstract, which also makes them well above the reach of my current listening comprehension skills. Just think of it this way, if my eyes are the windows for you to see into the heart/soul of this discussion, then I’m the small-eyed undesirable girl for the time being. But it’s better than not having eyes at all, eh?

Pronounced: yì bān cōng míng
Literally: ordinarily smart
Means: the preferred wifely intelligence level as imagined by some male Tianjin university students: not stupid, but not as smart as the husband.

A previous post explains the phrase “…with Chinese characteristics” this way:

“…with Chinese characteristics” is a phrase used when China takes something (like socialism) and changes it to better suit China. Or, when the changes are so drastic that the thing actually becomes something else, “…with Chinese characteristics” is used to refer to the blatant incongruities between what a thing is labeled and what it really is.

But here’s a humourous example of said explanation in action:

GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) – At the door of the Commune Mess Hall restaurant, a young woman in loose-fitting army fatigues and a cap, with a red “Serve the People” armband and braided pigtails, greets customers.

“Welcome, Comrade! How many?” she chirps.

Huge portraits of Engels, Marx, Mao, Lenin and Stalin adorn a back wall and Chinese propaganda posters hang on pillars and side walls, showing chipper workers, peasants and soldiers toiling.

Blocky, red characters painted on the rafters implore: “Be self-reliant, work arduously” and “Use your own two hands to have ample food and clothing.”

The eatery here in the capital of the booming southern province of Guangdong is a throwback to the Mao era, modeled on the communes that dotted the countryside from the 1950s to 70s.

Staff dressed like the Red Guards of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution serve peasant fare. Revolutionary songs play in the background.

Scores of similar restaurants have opened around the country, recalling a turbulent period in China’s modern history that many remember with bitterness but which also evokes feelings of nostalgia for what some say was a simpler time.
[...]
Cong Fang, who said she was sent to the countryside with her parents as a child, was feeling nostalgic and advised a young waiter how to dress more authentically.

“Everything’s pretty accurate in here,” she said of the decor. “Except the air-conditioners.”

But is there contradiction in using the Communist imagery of the past to promote a capitalist cause, a private restaurant?

Wu, the manager of the Guangzhou restaurant, paused for a minute and then offered a politically correct answer.

“You can’t really call it capitalism,” he said. “It’s socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

It’s sometimes really hard to keep from thinking that, in China, the outside of the cup matters way more than its contents. And the anecdote above is the least among many that would seem to be in agreement. But I’m trying desperately to make sure that the assertiveness of any judgments matches the depth of my understanding. And for now, a rant about a deeply-seeded emphasis on superficiality in Chinese culture that privileges inauthenticity would be premature. But that doesn’t mean some days you don’t just want to go off. ;)

(ps – it’s 具有中国特色的社会主义, for you fellow language students.)

From my desk-top at a fantastic history lecture by Tim yesterday morning:

It says, in white-out: “Liú Zhōu-chéng [hearts] Guō Jìng-míng.” (Awww…)

Beauty… with Chinese characteristics
Ha, I’m really going overboard with that phrase. There’s not been much to report lately, since other than go to class and study and practice we don’t do much… not that that bothers me. Funny episode in class this week, though: After seeing photos from my glory days, my teacher thanked me emphatically in class for cutting my hair and shaving my beard. She just can’t believe that anyone would actually choose to look like that, and finds it even harder to believe that Jessica liked it. I asked her why, and took the opportunity to ask what the deal was with Chinese people’s obsession with white skin, and she said white seems clean, and darker skin or facial hair looks dirty. Scruff is out. If you didn’t already know, in China it’s the whiter and cleaner the better. No cowboys, and forget playoff beards. Our friends even saw armpit whitening cream in the store the other day. We’ve seen whitening products for body parts I won’t mention here; just take our word for it that in China, white is beautiful.

[Edited to add...]
I just found a description of the apparent “enduring beauty standard” of the Chinese on ChinaCulture.org, thanks to The Journal of Intercultural Learning. Both links have the article’s full-text, and it’s a nice introduction to general traditional Chinese perceptions of feminine beauty, sans reference to feet. But what’s weird is that it gives the impression of describing present day China, as if this traditional perception of feminine beauty still dominates:

…a rosy plump oval face, new-moon-shaped eyebrows, delicate and soft limbs and fingers, and fine porcelain skin. More than skin deep, a Chinese beauty should also have good manners, temperament, tastes, and style of conversation.

Perhaps it still does – most of the teachers at our school seem to be aiming for that standard, actually – but as the Journal points out,

We find the article very interesting, but one might come across very different views when you ask the younger generations, particularly those who were born after the opening-up, i.e. the-post-80s-generation.

Either way, it’s a short article worth the read. I’d be curious to know how the different generations of today’s China feel about it.

I also found it interesting that an article on ‘the’ Chinese perception of beauty, which completely avoids anything negative and upholds a traditional emphasis on feminine morality, happens to come from China’s Ministry of Culture.

Pronounced: jùyǒu zhōngguó tèsè de ___
Means: “_____ with Chinese characteristics” (fill in the blank). For example, “Dominoes,” “Hospitality,” or “Tourons with Chinese characteristics.” Most famously: “Socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

One day I’ll actually learn how to take pictures and get some good ones of these guys. Most nights they’re here at this spot – old men patiently writing with water on the ground. But it’s getting colder and I don’t know how much longer they’ll keep going.

In Tianjin we sometimes play dominoes…

…with bikes. The bike parking places are often over-stuffed, and most kickstands are pretty flimsy. Jessica and I are both guilty of playing dominoes on more than one occasion when trying to extract our bikes from the pile. (In the photo, my bike is standing up on the left.)

(ps – there’s an explanation for the phase, “…with Chinese characteristics” in this post.)

It’s no secret that China is unbelievably polluted, and Tianjin in particular. My morning commute is often into a haze where the buildings just across the street seem faded. But it’s not just the air; it’s industrial and agricultural environmental practices – pesticides, waste disposal, food additives and stuff, and tons of construction. This photo was taken at break time (around 9am) from the third floor of our school building. You can – theoretically – see our apartment windows from this spot on a clear day; we’re in between the school and that barely visible tower on the right.

For an in-depth and beyond-frightening look at China’s current, unprecedented environmental rampage, see the NYT multimedia series Choking on Growth.

The details are still coming in, but here’s what’s going around the NGO office that contains the library where I currently study in the afternoons. One of the associates here, who heads up a disabled children’s care program through the NGO we’re with, has just gotten results back from doctors in the States. She’s lived here for several years, but returned to the States last month because her body was rejecting food – almost all food. She’d been switching from food to food, eliminating things from her diet whenever she started reacting to it. Eventually, she’d eliminated almost everything. Last time we went out to eat, she came with us to the restaurant but brought a container of buckwheat, and that’s all she ate. It’s all that was left that she could find that wouldn’t give her some sort of allergic reaction.

The results are in from some of her tests. Apparently she’s consulted more than one doctor, and they all agree that basically the toxins in her system have exceeded her body’s tolerance level. It’s reached the point where her body reacts to any level of toxicity in the food. They said it will take three to six years for the stuff to leave her system. She has to stay in the States because it’s next-to-impossible for her to get the special restricted diet in China that she’ll need to recover. I assume she has some sort of predisposition to developing food allergies, but she apparently isn’t the only foreigner known to our associates who’s returned home under these circumstances.

We’re paying attention to this as more details come out (and perhaps get corrected), because Tianjin is one of several possibilities for us long term (we don’t have a list, we just haven’t ruled Tianjin out… yet). In the meantime, the head of a disabled children’s care program is stuck in the States, and doesn’t when she’ll be back.

It’s time for your monthly dose of sloganeering!

But first, have you ever wondered: What to do with a population the size of Canada that is comprised entirely of sorely disaffected males from the ever-lowering classes who have no hope of finding a woman and whose economic horizons look increasingly bleak?

From our trip to a village in September:

“Care about girls’ development, establish a civilized new atmosphere.”

关心女孩成长，树立文明新风。
guān-xīn nǚ-hái chéng-zhǎng, shù-lì wén-míng xīn-fēng

In 2001, the government introduced the “Care for Girls” program, which promoted the birth of girls in rural areas. Families are given 100 yuan (about $13) each month for girls, in an attempt to make female babies more desirable. Also, local education fees are waived for girls. (from China Fears Lopsided Sex Ratio Could Spark Crisis)

There’s no shortage of coverage on China’s looming gender-ratio crisis: 140 males for every 100 females in some rural areas, 117:100 national average, with modernization actually exacerbating the problem, since relatively cheap ultrasounds pave the way for sex-selective abortions. The preference for boys is thousands of years old and the reasons for it are many, and it’s actually getting worse. See here for a recent report from China’s national English language news media. This NBC article calls it “gendercide”:

China is asking where all the girls have gone.

And the sobering answer is that this vast nation, now the world’s fastest-growing economy, is confronting a self-perpetuated demographic disaster that some experts describe as “gendercide” — the phenomenon caused by millions of families resorting to abortion and infanticide to make sure their one child was a boy.

I’m in the middle of some ‘real’ study on this and related issues, but for now all you get is whatever Google turns up when you search “China gender population crisis.”