I had ended a relationship as part of the process of moving to China, and for many reasons was not looking to get into one right away. First, I did not speak a lick of Chinese when I arrived at Pudong International, and didn’t think a relationship without communication would be too prudent. Secondly, I didn’t know what the differences were, but had heard that there were some pretty fundamental cultural differences between China and the land of the Stars and Stripes. After two years, I can say this is absolutely true, and many of the differences involve the conservative nature towards romance, love, and sex in China, not to mention the individualist/collectivist cultural schism. Lastly, and although I don’t consider myself anywhere near a moral paragon, I was aware that many Asian women, often from poorer, less educated families, are eager to fall in love with a Western man for all sorts of non-romantic reasons and that many Western men take advantage of this situation. I think that both sides of that situation are filled with misguided passion that is anything but responsible. So, I was single (I mean available) my whole first year in China. The two closest brushes I had with romance was having to get a friend to call the campus police to remove an adoring student from my porch and thinking that a friend had the hots for me, only to find out she really liked David (which really shouldn’t of been a surprise).
Back to November 2009, and I started dating Yan Zhen, who, from now on we’ll call Zhen Zhen (真真), as everyone does. We had (or at least I had) an amazing time together throughout my second year there. Make all the judgments you want about me dating a student, but I will provide a few attempts at excuses to try to rescue some dignity. For starters, she was only eight months younger than me (not a difference that many teachers can claim). Also, foreign teachers dating students at JSTU (and at Chinese universities in general) is a very common theme, and thus doesn’t meet the disdain that it might in other schools/cultures. This is mainly due to two factors: one, the lack of age difference and two, that many foreign teachers teach at teachers colleges, where a large majority of the students are females. In fact, I was often chastised during my first year for not yet having a Chinese girlfriend. 
Dating Zhen Zhen turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life, and trust me; it was a tough decision to not stay in China with her. Because of her, I was able to participate in all sorts of activities I otherwise wouldn’t have, was able to really ratchet up my Chinese, gain much greater insight into Chinese culture, travel with much greater ease, and get to know an incredibly smart and equally sarcastic young women. I will highlight a few of the interesting experiences that I was able to enjoy (generally) with Zhen Zhen.
After we had hung out together a few times, I was talking to Zhen Zhen one night on QQ (look into it, there are more people on QQ than there are Americans). By this point I had made the decision that this was a relationship worth investing in, so I brashly invited her to go on a trip to Shaolin Temple the coming weekend. Because time and money are very sparse for most Chinese college students, they generally plan their trips well in advance. Thus, almost any student would’ve rejected this ridiculous (to them) offer outright. But, I was hoping that Zhen Zhen was just smitten enough with me (a ridiculous prospect, I know) that she would say yes. She said she would need to get some friends to come with, as a trip with her teacher would be just too preposterous. So, Zhen Zhen and Chuan Mao came with me to Shaolin Temple. During the trip they actually convinced me to hit up another tourist site, Yuntai Shan, which was quite pretty. One things that were fun during this trip was the girl’s utter disgust at my hotel picking choices. I generally travel with a towel of sorts, maybe soap, and all the toiletries that I need. I enthusiastically agree with the old Motel 6 ad campaign that all hotels look the same when I’m sleeping aka the majority of the time I’m there. So, essentially, I’m looking for a roof, a flat bed, and maybe heating/air conditioning if it’s really, really freaking cold/hot, respectively. Well, let’s just say they didn’t see it the same way. But, the great thing about this was that I was obstinate about not paying more than we were quoted at the first dingy hotel we visited, so mark a win for KFerr. I can’t not admit that I watched an episode of Gossip Girl on Zhen Zhen’s cell phone one night at the hotel, as the local TV offered little entertaining, even for the two Chinese speakers. I figured if a third of my female students picked English names from this (insert negative adjective here) American export, it wouldn’t hurt to find out what it’s all about.
From the third wheel vacation to quite an interesting evening featuring me, Zhen Zhen, her friend from high school (female), her friend from middle school (male), and another friend from middle school (male) in what could be called a double date, with one half blind date and a fifth wheel thrown in for fun. Zhen Zhen’s friend from middle school (male) had been bugging her to set him up with one of her cute friends. So, she relented, set him up, and then informed me I would be attending. I was full of nothing but excitement to 1) observe a blind date 2) practice my Chinese 3) be able to make fun of Zhen Zhen to some of her friends I just met, thus throw a huge curveball at the Chinese/Asian art of saving face. It was quite an interesting night, I had to slyly ask Zhen Zhen halfway through the night who the guy being set up was, as the set up girl was talking way more with the fifth wheel, thus exposing the one big flaw of the third wheel/fifth wheel concept (your friend might be more attractive than you). It was also a good chance to interact with some Chinese people my age who were not my students. Needless to say I had to have Zhen Zhen explain to me some of the dirty jokes told, pretty embarrassing, but it may have been just as embarrassing for her and her friend to explain the jokes to me.
Similar to the previous story was another date story. Eleen (Xuan Ke) was a classmate of Zhen Zhen’s and had gone to one of the two high schools Zhen Zhen attended. So, Zhen Zhen informed me that Eleen wanted to go on a double date with us. (Yes I told Eleen that her English name should be Elaine, she didn’t go for it.) Again, plenty of reasons for me to say yes, not the least that I love learning about other cultures, and well, there’s lots to learn about Chinese culture. As a symptom of the one child policy (now amended significantly) and Asian culture’s incredibly strong penchant for male children (read: heirs) China has a giant surplus of men between ages 10 and 30. (The one child policy was in greatest effect from 1980 to ~2000.) A surplus of men puts women of this age in high demand. So, Xingwang (Eleen’s boyfriend) and I waited and held purses for about half an hour while the two girls looked at perfume and makeup. Looking around the mall, this seemed to be a pretty common activity for men our age. After this we had a delicious dinner at the Korean restaurant downtown (a favorite of Zhen Zhen’s). Now, going out to dinner in China involves something I really don’t like. No, not chopsticks. No, not the lack of ice water. No not the lack of a non-smoking section. Not even the lack of kind and courteous service. It involves ordering in groups. When I go out to eat I want to eat what I want to eat. To me this is totally reasonable. But when the Chinese go out to eat, they order a few dishes and share from all of them, exactly the way they eat at home. This was a sticking point with Zhen Zhen and I, as she would generally expect to have half of what I ordered, regardless of whether I wanted what she ordered or not. It wasn’t her being greedy or impolite, it was her being Chinese, and well, we were in China. So, on this date I succumbed to the group ordering thing after failing, in my pre-school Chinese, to explain the virtues of ordering for one’s self.
My pre-school Chinese was actually part of the most interesting and different part of the date. Four is a great number for a conversation, big enough to get different opinions, but not big enough to have people splitting off into their own little groups. Well, lets just say that I spent the two hours daydreaming. I think the only time I had any idea of what was going on was when Zhen Zhen would poke me, repeat a question in pre-school Chinese, and then wait for a response from me. I wasn’t really concerned about making a good impression with my answers when I didn’t understand the questions. Double dates might be stressful for some boyfriends, but when my conversation offerings for two hours consisted of “My name is Ken. I am American. I like drinking beer. I like to read. I like to travel” I wasn’t all that worried about what the other couple thought. When foreign businessmen come to China, their Chinese hosts will speak in English the entire visit, to accommodate them and recognizing that English is the international language. Well, Zhen Zhen, Eleen, and Xingwang did anything but accommodate me that night. I’m sure my dad and mom are smiling with joy that for at least one night nobody had to listen to what I had to say.
The last little tale I’ll tell of my time with Zhen Zhen was our trip to Hong Kong. Well, rather, some travel details of the trip. I’m a sucker for overnight trains, because, it’s like a hotel and transportation for the price of one, and, well, I love me some 火车的方便面(train Ramen noodles). So, she and I were going to take a trip down to Hong Kong to celebrate her birthday by eating crazy good Hong Kong food and visiting some of her old college classmates. Well, the train plans got cancelled because Zhen Zhen couldn’t take the train, because she didn’t have a visa. Why, you ask, isn’t Hong Kong part of China? Why would she need a visa to visit her own country (Zhen Zhen is a card carrying CCP member to boot)? Well, China does own Hong Kong, it’s part of the “one country, two systems” program. Which really means “two countries, one really messed up system.” This lack of a visa also prevented Zhen Zhen and I from flying straight from Shanghai or Nanjing to Hong Kong. Zhen Zhen didn’t have a visa because a regular Chinese citizen can only visit Hong Kong as part of an approved tourist group. Yes, Hong Kongers can visit China whenever they want. This was a problem that even Zhen Zhen’s high-ranking father couldn’t solve. So, we took a flight down to Shenzhen (the city where the world’s electronics are made). We then took a bus to the border where we would cross the border on foot (side note: I am a HUGE fan of foot border crossings). But, like every problem in the world, this visa problem had a solution. For, there are visa pirates/peddlers/hawkers that lurk around the border station doors. People like Zhen Zhen have to find one of these hawkers, and wait around for enough to show up to make a group, pay the ‘service’ fee, and a seven-day tourist visa is hers (with 1.34 billion people, these groups form pretty fast). For the record, US citizens-decidedly not the country that owns Hong Kong-get 90 days visa free in Hong Kong. Oh how I love the blue and gold passport. Whether its cultural sensitivity, maturity, or consideration, I definitely didn’t have enough of it not to make jokes about this disparity the entire trip. We had an awesome trip filled with beach chilling, a beachside barbecue, karaoke, eating crazy good street food, introducing Zhen Zhen and her best friend to Mexican food, enjoying the amazingly cool views from the escalator between Central and SoHo, eating freshly caught oysters on a Pacific Island, and eating more crazy good street food. The diversity and richness of those experiences is very emblematic of my time with Zhen Zhen, full of flavor and fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment