NERDING OUT ON LANGUAGE (Part 1)

I've always been a huge fan of etymologies, but in English they are sometimes rather hard to track down. Why something is spelled a certain way and what its Latin root might have to do with that or to say about that is rarely apparent (though for the curious and diligent, there are great rewards to be reaped in discovering, via the OED, that 'science' derives from the same root as 'shit'). There is plenty of obscurity in Chinese when it comes to the original meanings and forms of characters, but there are also lots of compelling and often amusing etymologies built right in.

In English we have the term "to butter up", the meaning of which seems metaphorically intuitive and obvious to a native speaker but really, what the hell does an oily preparation have to do with achieving some alternate motive through flattery? Can anyone think of a good reason?

In class this week, I had to try to explain the similar Chinese term 拍马屁 (pai ma pi), or to "pat horse buttocks", to a classmate, who is perpetually doing exactly this in order to get at the delicious cougar snacks he knows I have stored in my locker. "Perhaps your neighbor has a new horse", I told him, "and you want something from him, or maybe just to build good relations with him, so when you see his new horse you pat the horse butt and say: "this horse is very attractive" or something like that. You do this because you have another goal in mind" (incredibly, in Chinese, this probably sounded even more ridiculous).

Another of my favorite Chinese phrases (set expressions called chengyu) came up this week in our readings. Although it simply means "not enough to go around", the Chinese term is so much better. How much do I wish that somewhere out there, some nouveau riche Chinese "Socialist" is surveying his party and saying aloud "gosh, I thought I bought enough cocaine and hookers, but it looks like I've got a real 'monks-many-porridge-few' (粥少僧多) situation on my hands?

Answer: a lot.

THE COUGAR DOMINATION PLEDGE DRIVE or, STARTS WITH AN 'R' AND ENDS WITH AN 'ECIPROCATION'*

The Official Pledge Drive mascot, an 11-day old South China tiger cub.

This tiger cub is cute, isn't it? Those watery eyes, that snuggly fur, and those adorably outsized paws, along with that little touch of sadness that just makes the cuteness all the more powerful. He is so cute, in fact, that although I have this newspaper image of him on my desk (ripped from the pages of the China Daily), I can't stop looking at the photograph of that picture that I have posted on the screen in front of me. Then again, I'm a little lonely these days.

School has been keeping me phenomenally busy, but not enough to make me forget that I haven't been hugged in more than 3 months, or that I lack companions with whom to watch all the pirated DVDs I've collected, to enjoy music with, or to battle the human oceans of Beijing. I'm also just about to have the loneliest holiday season EVER. It isn't that there aren't good people around, its just that the best people are in time zones far away from my own and I miss them so.

This is where you come in. I need mail. Desperately. I love to write postcards and letters, but I've been putting so much time into ye' old blog that I haven't been doing so much of that. However, considering the mail I have put out into the world in my lifetime, I think I merit a little something in return. I'm tired of looking into an empty mailbox, or carting up Jessica's twice weekly missives from her well-trained friends. I'm sick of half-heartedly sifting through the mail pile at school, knowing that nothing is for me (mostly I know this because I haven't given anyone my school address, but still - poor me!). Some of you have been extremely good, others could do much better. I'm not going to name and shame, but you know who are you. Thank you to all those who have written or sent goodies. I am so grateful (and responses are forthcoming)! To the rest, now is the time.

Below is my school address. If you e-mail me, I will happily provide my home address, but it seems a little foolhardy just to put it on the interwebs. Besides, if you send stuff to school all the other kids are going to think I am way popular:

China
Beijing 100084
Tsinghua University
Wen Bei Lou, 502
Inter-University Program

中国
北京100084
清华大学
文北楼502

(the Latin-script should be sufficient, but if you know Chinese, or feel like cutting, pasting, and printing, the Chinese-script will probably speed your mail along)

If you don't have the time to make real mail, send an e-mail (though I will probably take a terribly long time to respond). And if you don't want to e-mail, I do always appreciate comments in the handy forum provided below. It just makes me feel like you guys are out there somewhere, and that warms the heart mightily.

Thank you so very much, and happy holidays to all!

*"starts with a '[single letter]' and ends with a '[rest of the word]' are both copyright Mark Siano 1997 or earlier.

SEXY BEIJING

The weekend before last I was at an AIDS benefit with some classmates and overheard "Did you see Sexy Beijing?" "No, is she here?". I hadn't a clue what they were talking about but was told that this "Sexy Beijing" thing was a video-blog whose creator and star was in our midst. Although from the sounds of it I feared some sort of chipper horror of a expat covering the local club scene, my vision was quickly amended as the young lady in question, a sweet, diminutive American girl with distinctive horn-rimmed glasses, stopped to talk to my friends on her way out. My curiosity was piqued, so much so that I remembered the encounter despite the fact that it occurred early in the evening, before we passed a massage parlor offering not only a seemingly unnecessary "massage of the kidney", but also a possibly useful but rather shady sounding "massage of the ovary", as well as a tantalizingly vague "part of the body massage". It also withstood much wandering around a sleepy hutong looking for a secret bar called "Candy Floss", and ending up in a packed bar where a Chinese band played a surprisingly kick-ass cover of a song I usually hate, Sting's "Englishman in New York". It must have been the bongos.

Anyhow, last weekend, while coming down from a midterm, I looked up Sexy Beijing on Youtube, which, happily, is hardly ever blocked these days, and I actually quite enjoyed it. Su Fei is a personable hostess, and does the best kind of pop anthropology, chatting with regular folks about all manner of topics with apparent ease. The production quality is great, and the gimmick not overdone.

This one, on the English names Chinese people choose for themselves, is quite short and funny:



This one, on finding love in Beijing, is more in keeping with the spirit of the original:



This one is mostly ridiculous, but kind of worth it just so you can hear "我有bitches，我可以大电话给她" (I have some bitches I can call) [at about 4:47 if you're impatient]。 There are also lots of pretty girls and some very silly Chinese rappers.



The production company behind Sexy Beijing, Danwei.org, has some other good stuff out there too, most of it far more on the intellectual side of the infotainment spectrum, which I recommend you browse at your leisure as time and interest permits.

MY ROOMMATE JESSICA (狄可佳)

I've had this post in my drafts for ages now, but keep deleting half of it and then setting it aside and then editing it again. It's not easy to describe a friend, particularly someone who is (as Montana suggested), like an island for me here. I couldn't do without Jessica and I want you all to know how awesome she is, but I know I can't do her justice here, so for now, this will have to suffice.

Firstly, you should know that she doesn't like having her picture taken, so these socks, my birthday present to her, will have to do. She likes to pretend she's a bit of a grouch, but only as compared to me, seeing as some of my favorite things are whistling in the morning, jumping rope, and drinking Stolichnaya (a very dangerous $6.50 a bottle here). In reality, she is one of the most considerate, personable, generous, open-minded people I have ever encountered, but I suppose a veneer of negativity keeps her from being deluged with applications for friendship (also, you probably shouldn't cross her, ever). Sometimes she calls me Lele, short for 乐观 (leguan) or optimistic, and I call her Beibei, short for 悲观 (beiguan) or pessimistic. We make a good team.

The grumpy-face socks have a greater significance here in China, where for us foreigners the whole face-saving dance and concommitant avoidance of direct confrontation gets old quick, and it is a mighty relief to have someone to vent with. In Chinese you say 出气 (chu qi), or "to vent one's spleen". We make a habit of it.

Jessica and I only met at the hotel breakfast on the morning after we arrived here, but she has also spent the last two years in Bloomington, studying for her Masters in Chinese Pedagogy in the East Asian Language and Culture Department. Jessica already has a job lined up to teach Chinese at a private high school in Chicago next year, and actually taught first year Chinese last year at IU while I was in third year. Still, its awfully strange we never met.

We are studying at the same level here at IUP even though our abilities are very different. Jessica has been studying Chinese for five years off and on, and spent a year studying abroad in China while an undergrad. She has very precise tones, good pronunciation and excels at dealing with daily life. I have shoddy (but much improved tones) and can barely order a meal by myself, but I have an enormous vocabulary and in the right setting can talk easily about all sorts of big ideas. No, this has NOTHING to do with our individual personalities! How dare you think such a thing! We do, however, joke that our combined powers make for one excellent Chinese speaker.

We joke a lot actually, one might even say perpetually, and it is a very good thing. Readiness to laugh and to be delighted, rather than frustrated, by cultural dissimilarities and obstacles to going about daily tasks, is really a prerequisite for living here. Jessica is excellent to have around in all manner of situations, not only when being chased by douche or wandering the grasslands, but also in the wonderland of our local grocery store, or during long taxi rides when we entertain ourselves by looking up dirty words in our electronic dictionaries. She is particularly ace at responding to enthusiastic greetings on the subway. Not only does she have a powerful command of the Chinese expression meaning "piss off", but I once witnessed her befuddling of two Chinese dudes who she first spoke Japanese to and then explained to in flawless Mandarin that we really were Japanese. There is also no one aside from her that I would rather assist in wording a note to the upstairs neighbors humbly requesting that they reduce the volume on their amorous activities.

We're perfect roommates for the additional reason that she cooks to de-stress and I clean to de-stress, meaning that we enjoy delicious eats in highly sanitary conditions! She does a fantastic pumpkin soup, bean soup, persimmon pudding, banana bread, and seaweed and sesame salad; and uses her mean stir-fry skills to make tofu and veggies her bitch. This has given me ample practice in using the grammar pattern which foregrounds the object dispensed with, notably in the phrase 我把你做的饭吃完了 (literally: I took the food you made and ate it until it was gone).

Comprehende? She's rad.

ALL NEWS IS GOOD NEWS

Both of my morning classes take place just off an all-purpose room optimistically termed the 休息室 (relaxation room), where one can peruse a variety of Mandarin newspapers as well as the country's official English-language newspaper, the China Daily. Those in my cohort are not yet advanced enough to read much in Chinese newspapers (which, again, have their own style of language), but my classmates Wei Lian and Ding Ding have developed a habit of perusing the China Daily together during the break between our classes (I usually just sulk in the corner and lament my poor classroom performance). By peruse, I really do mean that they just leaf through, as there isn't much to be gleaned from news items like this:

Or hard-hitting editorials like this:

While these are mostly just facile, there are also many that make optimistic pro-China news items out of non-events;

Or misrepresent news items in the interest of the CCP:

In the case of this one I must call attention not only to the inaccurate image that people of Chinese descent the world over are rioting in the streets to bring Taiwan back into the tender arms of the motherland, but to the troublesome linguistic distinction that a country cannot actually secede from another with whom it has no diplomatic ties.

Usually the only time I pay attention to the China Daily is when Wei Lian and Ding Ding find a real zinger of a headline, the kind that causes laughter and light consternation and to which our classmate Han Wei characteristically responds with a sing-song "mei you daoli" (没有道理 - literally - 'lacking in truth'). These articles are not so much outright falsehoods, but gross distortions based on extremely vague statements of supposed fact.

I really feel for the journalists behind these pieces, apparently required to create a headline which has little more to bolster it than the bold-faced quote: "The judicial reform process has been progressing smoothly". The body of the text contains another such quote from the garrulous Chief Justice Xiao:

"The number of death sentences has been gradually decreasing and human rights are being better protected", Xiao told a national work conference on court reform, without elaborating.

Because why would you need to elaborate on such on obvious statement of fact? Progress is progress, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is the way forward, and all those tricky human rights issues and environmental catastrophes are pretty much going to work themselves out, right?

Of course I have selected only the most extreme examples from the last week, and much of the paper is actually composed of international articles taken from wire sources (but certainly cleared through some national authority) which exhibit no more or less truthiness than those you would find anywhere else. I think the thing that really gets me about the more farcical articles is that I just don't understand on whose behalf they are being produced. They must know that the English speaking readers of the paper are just going to chuckle at the empty places where news should be and go find contraband ways of reading the New York Times online, yet they obviously put a great deal of care into keeping up the appearance of vigilant indoctrination. So I suppose its just another wink, wink, nudge, nudge sort of a deal. You pretend to write the news and we'll pretend to read it.

WANG LEE HOM - 放开你的心 (open up your heart)

Starting at 7:50am and continuing during each and every 10-minute break between classes at IUP, Chinese pop music is played loudly over the school's speakers. I have yet to determine the purpose of this system, but I very much enjoy the insta- life soundtrack it provides. Every few weeks the five or six songs that rotate get replaced by a new set and I must say, someone has fairly decent taste, at least regarding inoffensive, chipper tunes. For several weeks running now, Wang Lee Hom, a massive heartthrob on the mainland (and apparently a star in Ang Lee's Lust: Caution, which is screening here in a massively censored form) has been the darling of the IUP airwaves. This is not one of the songs playing now (there's too much English in it for that), but it is one of my cheesy favorites from the dreamy Mr. Wang. Enjoy

生日快乐?

This year my birthday fell on a Tuesday which also happened to be the first day of the new semester. As much as I agree with my teachers that a glorious entree into the Chinese language is the greatest gift of all, this happenstance didn't exactly lend itself to an opportunity for celebration. Luckily we had Monday off, so I went to explore the city's tea district then met a dozen or so classmates for dinner at Xiangyang Tun, a Cultural Revolution themed restaurant (because who doesn't want to re-live those all-singing, all-dancing, all-persecuting, halcyon days?).
Because it was a Monday night there wasn't much of a show, but we did get a taste of the comedic and acrobatic skills of the proletariat.



We would have missed most of the show anyway, as we had our own Chinese style private room, which was kind of lavish looking and unsurprisingly, rather red. The gilded Buddha in the center was flanked on either side by little cubbies with beds, reflecting, I am sure, the opulence enjoyed by the peasantry in the mid to late 1960s. The food was good, though not spectacular. The meat-eaters liked the ribs, and the herbivores enjoyed the soybeans, greens, and Chinese chives cooked in a clay pot. A surprise hit was the fish stew with cornbread (at right). We opted against sampling the more authentic fare of variously prepared innards, and were all the happier for it. Not that we didn't eat well...


Apparently there was an attempt to bring the evening's performers into the room to sing to me, but there was a miscommunication and they went home early. I was perfectly happy just to be serenaded by all of my classmates.

Bellies filled, we departed for a round of drinks at a bar close to campus. Chinese people don't really go to bars, preferring to drink at restaurants or at home, so the only bars around are those catering to and populated by foreigners. It seems that certain of these foreigners believe they have reason to doubt the quality or authenticity of the beverages on offer at these establishments, thus the reassurance below:

When Jessica and I got home, it was almost midnight, and I responded with the tears and lamentations I thought appropriate upon reaching an age at which unmarried women are referred to in Chinese as the 大龄女青年 (aged youth). Jessica presented me with a gift bag of marvelously weird stickers, notebooks, and pins, and I gibbered unintelligibly about my 学历太高了and 找不到男朋友 problems. The girl is a saint really.

The week staggered by, but the blows of the new semester were softened by all of the thoughtful birthday greetings from friends near and far. My dear mb must come in for extra special commendation, as her care package of handmade birthday wonder was one of the nicest things I've ever received.

On Friday we hosted IUP's weekly happy hour, starting at 7:30pm so the teachers could come if they wanted to, but lasting into the early morning (at around 2:30 we accompanied the last 5 or 6 revelers to our classmate Adam's apartment two floors for an "after-after-party", though I fear that my bragging about this just shows how old I really am). I was nervous, as I always am when hosting a party, that no one would show up, but as it turned out it was a really, really fun time. Hula hoops were employed, hipster music videos were viewed, towers of Yanjing beer were created, and I mixed drinks using my new Olympic mascot shot glass.

This panda, who goes by the name of Jingjing, is my favorite of the five Olympic friendlies depicted in murals and on souvenirs all over town. Jingjing represents sports classified as liliang (meaning physical strength or force) and according to the official mascot website:

Jingjing makes children smile -- and that's why he brings the blessing of happiness wherever he goes. You can see his joy in the charming naivety of his dancing pose and the lovely wave of his black and white fur. As a national treasure and a protected species, pandas are adored by people everywhere.

And that's all fine and good, but I am slightly troubled that Jingjing's "charming naivety and optimism" seem to lend so much to his sharpshooting. If you think about it though, violent pandas are pretty freaking punk rock.

All of which goes to say, you really shouldn't let me get started on pandas. Returning to the party, I must say again that it was terribly fun, and that it felt kind of deliciously naughty speaking all night in English to people that I have to speak Chinese with during the week. Although party photos tend to make both participants and event look less fun that they really are, here are a few.

Leslie and Jason (whose blog is essential reading for those wanting more critical observations on modern China as well as for those just wanting vicarious visits to Siberian tiger reserves).

Laura, working the red on red.

Canaan, who celebrated his birthday on Friday and wore the birthday crown I passed down to him with great manly gusto.

Though I woke up happy this morning in recalling the evening's merriment, I confess that at times I have felt better. It was a grand, lazy day though, with much tea drinking, a bit of internet time-wasting, bustling about the house, and a trip to the city's art district to see a gallery exhibit on the Chinese New Wave. Chinese Dada from the 1980's? I don't know if it can get much cooler than that (but if it can, rest assured that you will hear all about it).