A review of a Chinese article in which Confucian scholars apparently feel threatened by Chinese Christianity: “One would have to be deaf not to hear that warning shot across the bow of the growing Christian church in China. Having identified Confucius as a “cultural sage,” and his hometown temple as “the heartland center of Chinese civilization,” Wen raises the stakes to the highest level: Will the Christians seek to displace Confucius and Confucianism, and thus radically re-define Chinese civilization? What would happen to the government’s comprehensive call for “harmonious society”? With Communism effectively sidelined as a viable “state orthodoxy,” the call for some sort of revived Confucianism has become increasingly insistent. Simply naming its “soft-power” centers around the world “Confucius Institutes” indicates the government’s awareness that it must identify itself as the guardian of Chinese culture in order to retain ideological legitimacy.” Link: Confucianism and Christianity: Looming Confrontation?

When we order baby things online, like diapers or whatever, they often throw in free stuff (赠品), like kids books with bilingual vocabulary so Chinese kids can learn English (which we use them the other way around, of course). Our living room is littered with these things. Anyway, in this particular book about “People,” which covers family members and common jobs, they apparently felt that Chinese kids’ basic vocabulary ought to include social classes:

Even though we’re used to hearing and using the term “peasant” 农民 in China, the only other time I’d heard or used the term was in history class talking about pre-Industrial Europe. Just reminds me how — and people really get tired of hearing this — China is big, is changing really fast, and that there are “many chinas”; traveling from Shanghai to the Chinese countryside is like going to the moon.

Family members, of course, are from a different social class:

Pronounced: kǒngmíng dēng / xǔyuàn dēng
Literally: Kong Ming lantern / make-a-wish lantern
Means: sky lantern, the candle-powered floating lanterns released into the sky during the Lantern Festival.

Last night was The Lantern Festival 元宵节, the final night of Spring Festival 春节 and that means the last night of fireworks(!), so this morning it’s finally all quiet on the eastern front.

We joined the happy crowds last night on Tianjin’s frozen Haihe river 海河 near Ancient Culture Street 古文化街 and launched a couple “wish lanterns” 许愿灯 (usually called 孔明灯) — the candle-powered sky lanterns you’ve probably seen pictures of.

These pictures aren’t great, but it was actually a pretty fun scene. Hundreds, maybe thousands of lanterns were floating around, fireworks up and down the river, lots of people having fun, etc.

Ok, the pictures really aren’t that great, but all those little dots in the sky are lanterns. It looked cool, I promise. Just look at the photos and use your imagination.

You can actually see it better in the video clip below.

Some of the flaming lanterns got stuck in trees, and every so often one would come hurtling down to the ice in a blazing arc of glory. We even launched a couple:

These were the only lanterns to be found at Tianjin’s Ancient Culture Street 古文化街，which was a bit of a disappointment considering it was the LANTERN Festival, but it was still fun to launch fire hazards into the night sky from down on the river. We’ll definitely do this again next time we get the chance!

You can browse the rest of our Spring Festival fun here.

Shannon went back to America with her Chinese husband after three years in China, and she’s only just now, several months later, able to start articulating parts of her reverse culture shock experience: “I was continually asked to be an “English expert” in various ways, I was always treated like a guest and was usually the first to be approached and befriended in a new situation. My picture was all over the city – on buses, in movie theaters, on LCD screens throughout the city, even as a life-sized cut-out in my school. I was special, unique, different and rare.
…
“I’m just not a big deal anymore! It’s a complete and total change from the last 3.5 years of my life and, I’m afraid, it’s going to be one of the biggest adjustments for me.” Read more here: Hero to Zero

We’ve written about our own adventures in reverse culture stress here.

Here’s an update on the environmental situation in China. From The Choking of China – and the World: “the Chinese government has less control than foreign observers assume. … the state lacks the authority to impose pollution regulations and wildlife conservation laws, while at the bottom citizens lack the … tools … to defend their land, air and water. Inbetween there stand corporations and corrupted local governments bent exclusively on profit and growth, whatever the cost. So when it comes to protecting the environment, the authority of the authoritarian state looks alarmingly shaky. Yet at the same time, China’s leaders are – like ours – refusing to pursue the big projects that could haul us out of these dilemmas.”

And from Lessons from the Tiger: “Most of the environmental accidents of 2010 involved state-owned energy and mining firms. It is clear that the management styles of these companies are out of date, their systems lack early warning signals and they have no concern for the public interest. In this sense, pollution in China is not merely a natural consequence of economic growth, but rather the result of a series of human errors.

“The system of government supervision is also full of holes. … An overly close relationship between government and business has led both the executive and the judiciary to neglect their responsibilities when responding to such events. … Moreover, there has been no effort to deal with the root causes of the pollution.”

Child beggars in China are often kidnapped children, working in situations tragically similar to the one depicted in Slumdog Millionaire. Now a Chinese professor has created a microblog for people to upload pictures they take of child beggars (here it is) so that parents can search for their missing child. Read more here: Chinese professor creates microblog to end child-abduction and forced child beggars.

Has anyone heard of this happening in other countries? Has it worked well? Here’s a Chinese news article about how the professor’s blog was used to help a family find their son who’d been missing for three years.

See also: Test Confirms Happy End to Kidnap Case

Figuring out how publicly break cultural norms in a foreign society isn’t always easy, especially when the norms you want to break involve volatile situations that spring on you without warning.

I’m walking back to work from lunch and pass a group of older middle-aged people watching a man and a woman duke it out on the sidewalk. It’s not your typical vegetable market screaming match; they are full-on kicking and punching each other, furious and out of control. The guy is bigger and has the upper hand. Obviously I’m not going to just walk on by when a woman is literally getting beaten right in front of me.

But the tricky thing is, interfering in this sort of thing has huge potential to instantly make the situation worse and get the third party in a lot of trouble, which is partly why Mainland Chinese typically won’t interfere even in really bad situations. And adding to other people’s grief just so you can play hero is really selfish. Today’s situation is even trickier because this woman is asking for it. I don’t mean she deserves it. I mean that after the guy lands a couple punches or kicks he turns his back to her and starts walking away, but she chases after him, punches him in the face from behind, and provokes another couple haymakers in response. Anger can apparently override our survival instinct, or — and this is more likely — she could actually be trying to get him to beat her up. She might not want anyone to intervene because by provoking the violent man and deliberately making her situation worse she scores more pity points with onlookers or family members. And in their dispute’s bigger picture, winning over the relevant people probably matters more to her than a few bruises.

Anyway, that’s what I see happening in the few seconds from the time I notice them to the time I make it over to stand in between them. I don’t touch or even try to directly engage either one. The sudden presence of a foreigner who appears to not know the ‘rules’ for handling this sort of situation (which are: Don’t Get Involved) seems to throw them off their game a bit — either one would now have to go right over me to get at the other. It’s awkward, but it works. They give it up after a few choice parting words and walk away in opposite directions.

Intervening (or not) in public situations in China is a perennial topic among foreigners, partly because there seem to be more opportunities to do so here, and partly because the typical Mainland Chinese response to such situations scandalizes the resident lǎowàis. Not even the police are willing to get involved in domestic violence; it’s considered a private family thing, never mind if the victims are unable or unwilling to defend themselves. I’ve written before asking about culturally-intelligible, or at least effective, ways to break the ‘rules’ in hazardous situations where you feel compelled to do so. It’d be nice if life gave you a heads up when these situations are headed your way, so you had time to think about what to do instead of having to just act in the moment.

Other adventures in sticking our noses into other people’s volatile business in China:

• The Good Samaritan with Chinese characteristics (Pt.1): examples
• The Good Samaritan with Chinese characteristics (Pt.2): explanations, excuses, & scapegoats
• (How to be a) Good Samaritan with Chinese characteristics (Pt.3)
• Altercation

P.S. – This post is brought to you by the verbs 干涉: to interfere, to meddle; and 管: to manage, to control, to take care of. (I was using 干涉 when telling this story to some students this afternoon, and they said I should use 管 instead because 干涉 sounded too formal.)

If you’re wondering why it sounds like your Chinese city is under attack again, a mere five days after the Chinese New Year bombardment, it’s because today is 初五, the 5th day of Spring Festival and the day traditionally reserved for getting together with family and cursing your current and future enemies. In other words, what you’re hearing tonight is Chinese firecracker voodoo.

There’re also voodoo dumplings, among other preemptive enemy cursing traditions, which you can read about here:

• It’s Spring Festival Day 5 — time to chop, pinch, stomp and explode your enemies!
• How to hate people in China

Happy Chūwǔ 兔 you!

Chinese are sending literally billions of Chinese New Year greeting text messages this year as a way to 拜年, meaning pay New Year’s respects to one another. They’re often in the form of cute little poems and word-plays. Last year was tiger-themed, of course (I pity the fú!), and this year it’s rabbits. Here’s one from one of my students:

快乐“兔”you，幸福“兔”you，健康“兔”you，平安“兔”you，Lǐ Yǎnán 恭祝您及家人健康幸福，兔年大吉，万事如意，合家欢乐！

Happy “rabbit”* you, blessing “rabbit” you, health “rabbit” you, peace “rabbit” you, Li Yanan wishes you and family health and happiness, an extremely auspicious rabbit year, that all matters go according to your desires, a joyous household!

*Rabbit (兔) in Chinese is pronounced “tù”, which sounds like “to” in English, so the message actually says “health to you”, etc.

Here’s another one that I can’t translate (don’t be too shy to help me out in the comments!). It arranges some idioms sequentially 1 through 10; the first character of each expression is a number:

Lù Yán 给您及您的家人拜年！祝愿大家2011年一帆风顺，二龙腾飞，三羊开泰，四季平安，五福临门，六六大顺，七星高照，八方来财，九九同心，十全十美。新年快乐！ Happy New Year!

Lu Yan gives you and your family a New Year’s greeting! Wish everyone in 2011 favourable winds, rapid advancement, the auspiciousness of three sheep*, four seasons of peace, the Five Blessings arrive at your door, sixty-six** great smoothnesses, the Seven Stars’ brilliance, riches from all Eight directions, ninety-nine*** cooperativeness, complete and beautiful.

* I thought that there must be a word play here, but I asked two local friends and all they can guess is that it refers to the blessing one would receive in ancient times for sacrificing sheep.
** Six (六) sounds like the first part part of the word for smoothly/without a hitch (顺利).
*** Nine (九) sounds the same as 久 (a long duration of time), and nine-nine (九九) is often used to symbolize “forever” because 久久 means a very long time. One Chinese friend of ours proposed to his girlfriend with 99 roses, for example.

If I get any more interesting ones, I’ll add them here. You can see last year’s Dr. Seuss-esque tiger year text here.