Hello - Goodbye

It was only a few weeks ago I was saying how normal everything had become, but in the blink of an eye everything’s changed and a few more weeks have flown by.  The pace of life in Xi’an is rapid: the weather is changing day-by-day; I’ve learnt to play the oldest Chinese game in the world, Majiang; I’ve had more adventures with Aston colleagues and my family has come and gone.  Never before has my life been so hectic, but I love it, because there’s never a dull moment.  It’s not peaches and cream 24/7, as any expat will tell you: “You’ll have your good days and you’ll have your bad days.  Some days you’ll hate China and some days you’ll love China.  And just when you think you’ve seen it all, just when you think you understand this place, it’ll catch you off guard and surprise you one more time.”

Summer is here, bringing with it an intense amount of heat, sunshine, and oddly, umbrellas.  Many Chinese women don’t like to tan, so when the sun comes out, so does their umbrellas.  As it gets hotter it also becomes more and more risky eating from the local barbeques.  Some of these places are unsanitary at the best of times, with meat being left unrefrigerated for hours on end.  Combine this with the rising temperatures and you’ve got a glorious safe-haven for all kinds of inglorious bacteria (not that the locals seems to care).

My Chinese lessons at Aston have finished, providing me with a great grounding and teaching me a lot of essential, survival Chinese.  I’ve retained at least half of what was covered and it’s proved extremely helpful for everyday transactions; it’s amazing what you can achieve knowing a minute amount.  I love using what I know everyday and it’s reaffirmed the decision for me to continue learning Chinese at university in September.

In addition to teaching us Chinese, our teachers also taught Andy, Brian and I to play Majiang.  Majiang is probably one of the oldest games in the world, not to mention extremely simple.  If any of you know how to play Rummy then you’ll pick up Majiang in a flash.  The only reason this game is alien to many in the West is probably because of the Chinese characters it employs.  To be quite honest though, it’s still possible to play it knowing only a few of the characters.  In the grand scheme of the game the meaning behind the characters isn’t that important.  We learnt to play the game within a few hours, and when my Dad arrived in China a few weeks ago, we passed on what we’d learnt to him too.

During my Dad’s stay he got a real taste for life in Xi’an, but more importantly for him, he got a real taste for my life in Xi’an.  He saw my apartment, my hangouts and many of my friends.  I took him to our local restaurants, barbeques and bars.  Not to mention the tourist attractions: Xi’an’s city wall, Dayan Ta (The Big Goose Pagoda) and Bing Ma Yong (The Terracotta Warriors).  Purely by coincidence, the week of my Dad’s arrival, a group of Aston teachers had planned to visit the Zhashui caves.  The caves are located about an hour or so outside of Xi’an, but having to get three separate buses more than doubled the journey’s length.  As I’ve said before, nothing here is ever simple!  Especially when you’re dealing with an incredibly difficult language barrier.

Despite our lengthy journey, our efforts were rewarded upon arrival at the caves, as staggering, breath-taking mountains greeted us.  Little did we know, however, we would soon be left literally staggering and breathless, as we had to climb hundreds of steep stairs in order to reach the entrance to the caves.  The caves were magnificent, juxtaposing a journey of small crevices, elongated stalagmites and large, black, empty spaces.  The caves were lit up by shades of blues, greens and pinks.  Overall, this had quite a positive effect, but there were times when this artificiality hindered the natural beauty of the surroundings.  Mind you, considering the scale and beauty of the caves – not to mention the need for light of some sort – this was easily forgivable.

Before I knew it, it was time for my Dad to leave and the very next day my Mum, her partner, Mel, Mel’s daughter, Helen, and my brother, Neal, were due to arrive in Beijing.  Whilst they toured China’s capital I worked and met them a few days later in Xi’an.  There stay in Xi’an didn’t get off to a great start.  Many of the taxi drivers wanted nothing to do with the laowai (foreigners) and there copious amounts of luggage.  We were also hindered further by the piece of paper displaying their hotel address; most of the taxi drivers assume it’ll be written in English and drive off, or some of them are unable to read and pretend to be completely clueless as to where it is.  Eventually we arrived at their hotel and after settling in I took them to a local bar.  They’d only been in Xi’an an hour or so by this point, but already they could see some clear differences between Xi’an and Beijing.  The biggest difference, they noticed, concerned Xi’an’s interaction with Westerners.

A "charming" toilet sign

Despite Xi’an’s history as an international hub and former capital of China, it is still very wary of foreigners.  In some cases, this wariness borders on distrust, even dislike.  Having lived here for almost five months I’ve come to observe and interpret this spatial detachment for myself.  China and the entire West really are, in many ways, worlds apart in terms of both language and culture.  When travelling much of Europe you are often able to find someone that speaks a small amount of English, or there are sometimes some linguistic similarities that allow you to culturally cross borders and transfer some sort of meaning with an interlocutor.  This doesn’t work in China; Chinese and English are two completely separate languages in almost every way.  Thus, slowing your pace of speech and shouting may sometimes work in the Western world, but in China, it will do little more than offend or embarrass someone.  Furthermore, you’ve only done yourself an injustice, because you’ve managed to enact the exact stereotype of an ignorant Western foreigner from the eyes of the Chinese.

Xi’an has a lot of history and is quite a traditional city, especially in comparison to other major cities such as Shanghai and Beijing.  From what I know of Shanghai, it seems to attract big business, so this industrialisation has probably furthered it’s pace of modernisation and also Westernisation in comparison to Xi’an.  There are far fewer Westerners in Xi’an, which is why Westerners are still treated in such an alien manner, with people staring and making “laowai” comments every time a Westerner steps outside the tourist spots.  There are some days when this can be extremely annoying, but if you let it get to you all the time, you’d go mad.

After taking my mum and co. on more or less exactly the same tour I’d given my Dad, I travelled with them to Hong Kong.  Wow… What a city.  Hong Kong surpassed my expectations from the word go.  The flight into HK paints a picturesque image of a city spread over multiple, beautiful islands, which are intricately connected via spaghetti-like-highways.  Everybody surrounding you speaks or understands English, even if it’s only a small amount.  Trust me, after coming from a city like Xi’an this is a luxury that makes life a hell of a lot of easier.  In many ways it can’t be compared to the rest of China, because it is completely different in so many respects.  After meeting with an old school mate in HK I think it’d be fair to say that the locals wouldn’t want to be compared to the rest of China.  Similarly, the Welsh/Scottish/Irish wouldn’t want to be called/compared to the English.

It was great to see my entire family, despite the fact it flew by far too quickly.  It’s hard not knowing when I’m going to see them and many others again, but this is why my life here is so hectic: by keeping busy I’m keeping my mind off of home and preventing homesickness from settling in.  Come September I’ll start university once more and embark on a four year Mandarin degree – I don’t think I’m going to have time to think about much else!