This is not about the Olympics

So they’re going to be throwing a little party in Beijing exactly 364 days from today. I’m not sure what the big deal is, but I heard it had something to do with nude Greco-Roman wrestling?

Anyway, whatever the heck it is all those wacky communists are putting together, I’m sure it’s already been beaten to death by other blogs and media outlets. No, this entry is naught but a simple story of loss and redemption. Or rather, being lost, and subsequent redemption in the form of not being lost anymore.

Sir Links-A-Lot

I was recently on the receiving end of a promotion. This has been both bane and boon, for reasons familiar to anyone who’s spent any amount of time in the “real world” (i.e. not me).

• Boon: I am now being paid in real money, rather than what I refer to as “intern money”. My promotion also marks the end of the monthly “paying the intern” ritual, wherein my coworkers were invited to gather around me in a circle and light 10 yuan bills on fire whilst they all laugh heartily at the intern’s “paycheck”, which was not an actual check, but rather a handful of used lottery tickets (none of them winners).

• Bane: I now have a whole truckload of new responsibilities, few of which I have any idea how to fulfill. C’est la vie.

So we’re in an adjusting period. While the job and I are feeling each other out, substantial posts are probably going to drop off. For those of you who tend to find yourselves snoring facedown on your desks in a puddle of your own drool after trying to read one of my beloved “substantial” posts, give thanks! In lieu of actual thinking, I’ll probably just be posting anything that piques my interest. Links ahoy!

Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain – Science finally confirms what liberals knew all along: they’re smarter than everyone else. Glad we got that out of the way.

Opportunity for Wall St. in China’s Surveillance Boom – Any government anywhere has the right to take what it deems appropriate measures to improve administration and better protect its citizens. That much is indisputable. That does not mean, however, that the American companies who have chosen to engage with the Chinese government on this project have not stepped into anything less than a full-blown ethical quagmire.

Probably the most logical reason to install thousands of new video cameras would be to reduce the crime rate, and, sure enough, that’s exactly one of the reasons cited by the government why it needs the new system. It all rings a bit hollow, though. Crime is not a pressing societal issue in China (or, at least, not the kind of crime that could be prevented by more cameras on the streets, anyway), so why spend hundreds of millions of dollars on new toys to fight it?

One does tend to wonder when it turns out that some of the language used by the government to pump up the new system (“promote social stability”) is exactly the kind of language used to condemn people who challenge the Communist Party in the political sphere (“harm social stability”). I wish the American companies who’ve stepped into this mess luck. They shan’t receive any sympathy from me. They’ve made their bed. Now it’s time to sleep in it.

So how many white doves you figure we need to get this tank off the ground?

Ah Nena, Nena. Much like a real woman, the electronic vixen that is China’s Net Nanny seems to be content to keep me guessing. Am I blocked? Am I not blocked? Was it something I said? Actually, it seems like I might be keeping company with pretty much everyone in the Chinese blogsphere, so I won’t get too down on myself.

What was I talking about? Oh, right.

Unless you’ve firmly established yourself in Beijing as a member of a multi-national corporation, or as the proprietor of a successful business, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll be the proud owner of a hyphenated job description, with the back end of the hyphen being “English teacher”.

I too bear the hyphen, as well as the hope that I’ll be able to bury it six feet deep sometime soon. In the meantime, though, this means that I have a clutch of students to subject to my proprietary teaching method, the primary component of which is an exercise in every class designed to tease out their opinions on China’s position in the international scheme of things. I’m sure they’ll figure out eventually (I’m guessing by the next class, when I’ll probably do it again) that I’m shamelessly using them to satisfy my desire to find out how, exactly, Chinese people view the rest of the world, and what they believe everyone else thinks of them, at which point I’ll have to shift to asking them about something else for a little while to throw them off the scent. We’ll probably go with how much they hate Beijing. That one’s always popular among the folks from other parts of the country living here (which, in this case, is everyone in the class).

Anyway, in this class, the assignment in question was a bit of homework I had assigned the class prior, wherein I asked each of the students to prepare a one-minute presentation on whether/how they believe that the Olympics will change other countries’ preconceptions of China. I had kind of hoped when I assigned it that this would be one of those exercises where there was a lot more to be gleaned about China than about other countries, and sure enough, my students didn’t disappoint. I tend to get excited about these sorts of things (my first thought is usually, “ooo, blog material!”). It’s pretty much because I’m a massive dork, so you’ll have to forgive me for going into way too much detail.

One area they hit on time and time again was the chance China had with the Olympics to show the rest of the world its new, modern face. I have a tough time faulting tourists here who take pictures of themselves in front of Papa John’s and McDonald’s, because, at least in the United States (can’t speak for Europe), the old perception of China as cut off, isolated, backwards, exotic, or any one of a whole arsenal of words traditionally deployed to describe the Middle Kingdom, persists alongside the steadily building realization that China has begun to step onto the global stage as, in many ways, a thoroughly modern player. This kind of cognitive dissonance goes a long way towards explaining why many Westerners have such a hard time adjusting to China when they first get here. Honestly, I think this headlong charge into modernity can be just as disorienting to the Chinese, as it’s resulted in a large group of people in the cities who can barely relate with folks from the countryside, despite them both ostensibly being “Chinese”. 

But I digress.  The perception that China is still mired in the past is, for the most part, decades out of date when it comes to anyplace the typical tourist is going to be visiting, and just like I think the Olympics are going to be somewhat of a shock to the good people of Beijing playing hosts to millions of foreigners, I think the millions of goggle-eyed foreigners descending on China’s capital city are going to be in for a rude surprise as well. Sure, they read in the newspaper that China’s thrown open the doors, and that they have cars and computers and condoms and all the other fun stuff that comes along with modernity, but there’s a huge gap between reading such a thing, and seeing it. I think my students are right on in that respect. Whatever else they’re going to be, the Olympics are going to result in hordes of foreigners swarming into Beijing, and lots of gaping on both sides. Luckily, wherever there’s gaping, someone’s probably learning something.

Other responses showed that my students weren’t entirely unaware of the geopolitical benefits to be reaped from hosting the premier international event. One student, however, gave a response that I found entirely disconcerting, mostly because of his perception of what sort of benefits there were to be reaped, and how they could be applied. The essence of his presentation was as follows: “The Olympics are a chance for China to show that it is a peaceful nation. They are also a chance for it to show its political and economic power. Of these, military power is more important. Hopefully, the Olympics will thus help solve the Japanese and the Taiwanese problems.” The student who made that statement is not dumb. On the contrary, I think he’s one of the sharpest in the class, so I have to wonder if there’s some language issues going on here. Perhaps he would express himself with more subtlety in Chinese.

Regardless, the essence of the sentiment expressed in that little gem of a soliloquy is frightening both for its complete misunderstanding of what the Olympics are (ideally) supposed to be about (contrast the first sentence with the rest of the statement), as well as its insinuation that China’s issues with its nearest neighbors would be most expeditiously solved either through displays of force, or through its application. Just the fact that he would, completely without irony, juxtapose the first sentence with the rest of the statement gives me the heebidy-jeebidies, for nothing else than its complete lack of logical continuity.

Luckily, like anywhere else, diversity of opinion is a fact of life in China. I’m just worried that the warped take on history that kids learn in school here, and the twisting of information about the outside world foisted upon the average person by the CPC’s control of the media/internet tend to tip the balance more towards the kind of opinion expressed by my student’s impressively misguided comment.

And how exactly would you use the Olympics as a platform for demonstrating military strength? Marching the PLA through the Bird’s Nest during the opening ceremonies?

Taking a Hands-On Approach

When you travel or live in another country, there are always scenes that stick in your mind, mainly because you think they really encapsulating the essence of the place. I still remember a certain gorgeous spring day in September 2002, when my most loyal reader (hi mom!) and I were ambling through a market in central Bolivia, and a woman dressed in the traditional highlands garb sauntered by while jabbering on a cell phone. In retrospect, I realize that it was more our ingrained belief that the traditional and the modern couldn’t exist alongside one another that made the situation seem, to us, so unique and odd. I’m sure the woman herself certainly didn’t think it was strange that she was chatting on a mobile phone.

Anyway, a couple days ago I had the privilege of beholding yet another such scene unfolding before my eyes, this time in the intimate confines of the bathroom nearest my office.  Just a brief explanatory digression should help place the tableau in the proper context. To a good number of Chinese male white collar workers, a bathroom is not just a place to pee, nor merely a place to hide from the boss, but a place to smoke. It’s likely because of this that the bathroom nearly constantly smells like the inside of Joe Camel’s ashtray. It’s a rare day when I go to the bathroom to hide from the boss take care of business and I don’t find someone’s lit one up in one of the stalls, or in front of the urinal (the second one being only for the flashiest of smokers, both because of its blatancy and the degree of difficulty involved. I’ll spare anyone who’s not familiar with the process all the gory logistical details, but suffice it to say that a third hand would not be unwelcome in attempting such a feat).

Two days ago, though, I witnessed an act of such skill, such supreme mastery of both the environment and the self, that I don’t deem it likely I’ll ever see it again in my lifetime. I suspect that my life shall now be divided into two periods: the before, and the after. The gentleman of whom I speak was somehow-simultaneously-taking care of that which one takes care of in the vicinity of a urinal, speaking loudly into a cell phone, and smoking his preferred brand of cigarettes. I would probably need five or six hands to accomplish what he did with two. I’m still at a loss as to how he managed this, or why he even felt compelled to attempt it. All I know is, when pressed to recall those images that I felt really defined my time in China, certainly one of the first to spring to mind will be that of my new hero, puffing and yakking away, head in hand (so to speak), without a care in the world.

Triumphant Return?

And we’re back. My apologies for the extended absence. Finding the aforementioned work-life balance has proven to be a challenge. I think we’ve finally got it licked, though, so the pace of posting should pick back up once again. There is, however, one thing that may continue to throw a kink in any plans for future posting.

My blog is now blocked by China’s Net Nanny (Nena, as I call her). Not really sure what her problem is. I was just sitting here, minding my own business, not posting any subversive material at all. You’re reading this, so I obviously have a work-around, but the block can make the business of posting a bit of a hassle. This pipsqueak of an entry, because of various roadblocks along the way, still took me about 45 minutes to get up.

Seriously, the people who run this country need to get their underwear unbunched. Also, check out the website pointed to by the “material” link for more information on why all those wacky communists decided to get started with all their wacky censorship in the first place.

Tortilla Rascals

Colonel Sanders has certainly come a long way. To think, what was once a roadside Kentucky restaurant is now one of the most popular chains in China. Whenever I amble into KFC here (which, it’s worth mentioning before I proceed with my mockery, I do much, much more often here than in the US), I’m always struck by the discongruity. Beijing’s a long way from Corbin, Kentucky in more senses than just the geographic.

The distance has allowed KFC a certain latitude in refashioning itself for the Chinese market. This process does have its upsides. For instance, KFCs here are about 1000% cleaner than their U.S. counterparts. The service is correspondingly better too. As for the menu, it’s mostly what you would expect to see if you walked into a KFC in the U.S. (that I know of. Like I said, I don’t go to visit the Colonel very often back home), except that the food generally comes out hot enough that it’s still palatable.

Some of the changes made to get the Colonel all localized and prepared to meet his Chinese customers, however, do have a tendency to bring a faintly amused smile to western lips. For instance, the music that plays in all the KFCs here: most of the time it’s a mix of the easy-listening American classics that are so popular here (“A Whole New World”‘s a perennial favorite) and saccharine Chinese pop. At my local neighborhood KFC, though, it’s been the Chinese version of “Happy Birthday” for the past week. On a loop, over and over, repeating every 5 minutes. My admiration for the employees knows no bounds (and I know of what I speak. I once taught at a swim school that put the Beach Boys on a one-hour loop for a week. I think by the end of the week I was singing “Little Deuce Coupe” in my sleep).

As far as local twists go though, my favorite has to be Mexican Chicken Wrap.

This appears to be the Chinese version of the Crispy Twister, as sold in US KFCs. What makes me giggle here is not so much the product as the name. This “Mexican” Chicken Wrap’s about as Mexican as Rodney Dangerfield. Of course, here, it works. I’ll just toss out a rough estimate and guess that about 99.9999999% of Chinese people couldn’t tell Mexican food from Malian, and wouldn’t know an enchilada if it smacked them between the eyes. So if KFC wants to blow off some of Taco Bell‘s excess supply stock by smacking a piece of friend chicken in a tortilla with tomatoes and a little lettuce and call it “Mexican”, well then, by George, it’s Mexican.

The really interesting thing (and I guarantee that this is bound to happen at some point) will be when people decide to start marketing Mexican food to the masses here and they have to contend with the image of “Mexican” food created by KFC. As far as consumers of Mexican Chicken Wraps here are concerned, what they’re eating is (shudder) real Mexican food, meaning potential purveyors of the genuine article will probably be facing an uphill climb in winning the hearts and stomachs of the Chinese. Of course, as my devotion both to quality (read: dirty) Mexican joints in the US and to Taco Bell can attest, the imitation and the genuine article aren’t necessarily mutual incompatible, so perhaps there’s hope after all.

Weighing the Options

As devoted readers (all 1 of you, judging by my number of daily hits) may remember, my first post was an open invitation to name the blog. Well, after much time, and the sifting through of a number of submissions (that number being 1), it is at last time to unveil the new name.

喂ing in

Kudos to my most loyal reader (hi mom!) on the submission. For those of you who don’t speak or read Chinese, the character there represents the syllable used to answer the phone in Chinese. It’s romanized as wei, but its pronunciation is much closer to the word “weigh”.

All of which makes for what I think is a pretty darn clever name. It’s bi-lingual. It expresses a desire to occasionally address topics that are bit weightier (pardon the pun), but also shows that we’ll try not to take ourselves too seriously around here.

Now, newly christened, let us venture forward to new heights of idiot amateur punditry!

Ironic Cymbalism

Previous readers of this humble webpage may remember my heroic neighbors, who’ve remained steadfast in their determination to protest injustices perpetrated against them by Evil Developers™ (probably in collusion with Evil Officials™). Past readers may also remember that I voiced support for their enterprise, and wished them well in their endeavors. Well, I’m here to say that I’ve officially changed my position.

Now I hate them and want them to die.

Now that I think about it though, wishing a painful death upon them is perhaps crossing into overkill territory on the punishment front. No, if I were to wish one thing upon them, it would be a dawning in their collective consciousness of some understanding of the word “irony” (a word which, contrary to the popular belief of some, does have a Chinese translation. Incidentally, is it kosher to say “contrary to the popular belief of some”?).

You see, my neighbors, one of whose collective grievances was a difficulty in sleeping caused by an excess of noise emanating from the construction site next to our community, have, in one of those wonderful idiotic twists that could only happen in China, decided to coordinate their efforts to block vehicles from leaving the construction site by banging a gong outside a window on one of the higher floors in their building. Said gong is no doubt enough to roust everyone in their building to the ramparts, because it’s sure as hell loud enough to wake me up at 7 in the morning, or 11 in the evening, or whenever they decide to sound the alert and I happen to be sleeping/reading/writing/concentrating.

I would laugh, but first I need to suppress the urge to beat the living snot out of the next guy I see carrying a gong. Didn’t someone write a song about this once?

Update: My apologies for the waffling, but it’s time to reverse my position again. The gong banging started at 5 this morning. I am now officially in favor all manner of inhumane punishment towards the residents of building 37. Maybe something like this.

Satellite

Sorry for the extended absence. I just got one of those things they call a “job” with one of the magazines in the city targeted to expats, and I’m still figuring out how to wrap the rest of my life around the block of work time in the middle of each day.

The word “satellite” seems to have followed me around the past week, popping up in conversations, peeking its shiny little head around corners, getting me to think. Two particular incidents, while seemingly sharing little connection other than that one word, are related by a much more important theme, namely the information vacuum in which many Chinese people live.

The first of these incidents developed during an evening conversation with a friend of mine on the second floor of a lovely cafe near Beijing University. My friend is one of my AIESEC acquaintances, and is, in fact, the first Chinese person with whom I struck up a friendship. She’s one of those people you count yourself lucky to have as friends: kind, unassuming, and quick to laugh, but at the same time deeply studied and accomplished. I learn a great deal every time we talk, and just so, the conversation that evening was interesting and informative.

So I was surprised at the perplexed expression on her face when I brought up the Chinese military’s recent testing of anti-satellite weapons. Turns out it was news to her. A quick search of the topic on the internet brought up a translated New York Times article that she pored over. The fact that we were able to find anything at all with Net Nanny on the loose means that public discussion of the topic probably isn’t completely off-limits. However, the fact that my very well-informed friend was just finding out about the test means that it wasn’t something the government was at pains to publicize. Interestingly, my friend’s first reaction was, “I don’t think this is something the government needs to keep secret.”

Flash forward three days to a meeting at work. I’m in a planning meeting with the editorial staff, and someone mentions the fact that the Beijing municipal government is planning to develop satellite cities in Shunyi and Changping.

To which I say, “hear, hear”. Beijing, as it’s laid out today, is a highly centralized city. Its six concentric ring roads are designed to bring cars and people from outlying areas into offices and stores in the center of the city in the morning, and send them back to whence they came in the evening. The concentration of development in the center and east side of the city draws massive numbers of cars and people to itself every day. There are a number of reasons for Beijing’s nightmarish traffic and pollution, but this focusing of the outer parts of the city inward is surely one of the most important, which is why the development of new urban centers makes eminent sense. It should reduce the city’s overcentralization, and maybe ease some of the major congestion problems Beijing’s dealing with at the moment.

And it turns out the gf, who was born and grew up in Changping, had heard of the plans to turn her home district into a satellite city (and she had no trouble understanding the phrase “satellite city”. Turns out the term in Chinese is a direct translation, just the words “satellite” and “city” stuck together). I had only just heard of the plans myself, so I asked her what they were planning to do. It seemed like a logical assumption that the gf would know about what changes her home was set to undergo.

And again I got the perplexed look. She didn’t know what was being planned, and when she thought about it, was pretty certain that no one had ever come out and explained what exactly the plans to make Changping a satellite city would mean in terms of concrete changes in the urban landscape its residents would negotiate each day. What will be built? Where? What’s going to be knocked down? What kind of city will Changping be after all this is over? As far as my gf knows, no one’s said much about this at all. Whether this is because the plans still haven’t been well thought-out, or because the Beijing city government just doesn’t feel that it’s particularly important to come forward with the information is unclear, although my money’s on the latter.

So what is it that my friend’s and my girlfriend’s “satellite shocks” have in common? More than anything, they help to illuminate the information deficit in which the average person operates here. By that I don’t mean what they do or don’t know so much as what they could potentially find out. In the US, the average person couldn’t tell you about the details of their city’s 20 year plan, or tick off all the important weapons tests the U.S. military had conducted over the past year or so. However, we’re comforted by the certainty that, if we wanted to, (for the most part) we could. We don’t worry about the city government building a highway through our backyard without telling us first because we have access to information on what the government’s planning, and because it knows we know what it’s plans our, the government doesn’t (abuses of eminent domain aside) do things like build highways through people’s backyards, or at least, not without the proper negotiations and compensations first.

This kind of transparency can of course result in gridlock of the legislative, rather than the automotive, variety. However, I’d personally rather have a government that can be hamstrung by its need for consensus with a number of interests than one that “gets things done” through a false consensus created by a seemingly arbitrary withholding of information that can result in the casual destruction of people’s lives and livelihood.

Wow, don’t I sound self-righteous?

That’s not funny . . .

Healthy relationships always have a solid base of communication and common interests (or so I’ve heard. As an official whippersnapper, I don’t know nutin’ bout nutin’). Since my gf and I are both language freaks, one of the activities we most enjoy is the mutual consumption of each other’s pop culture. Personally, I find Chinese movies and TV series to be a lot more enjoyable when I’ve got someone next to me to walk me through some of the more difficult language and cultural references, a feeling which I think she share!s when we watch American programming.

One of the (many, many) reasons I like this girl is that she can actually watch and appreciate Family Guy. The show’s humor is (like Sinocidal‘s) definitely not for everyone. Apart from being sophomoric and crude, the show’s jokes are a plethora of cultural and political references, making the show especially difficult for people who aren’t steeped in the up-to-the-minute minutiae of American pop culture and politics. This all gets double hard when you’re dealing with a language barrier on top of everything else. A given episode can contain literally dozens of references, some of them obvious, some of them obscure enough to escape even a pop culture geek like myself. Just as an example, some of the references in the episode my girlfriend and I watched last (the episode where Peter sets up his own TV station, if any fans of the show are reading) were:

• Dennis Rodman (based on a mispronunciation of the word “Ramadan”)
• The theme song from The Simpsons
• Any Molly Ringwald movie made in the 1980′s (but especially 16 Candles)
• George Bush’s erstwhile cocaine habit
• The Janet Jackson Super Bowl scandal
• The Dick Van Dyke Show
• Benedict Arnold
• Reeses Pieces
• Robin Hood
• The Emmys

And that’s just a sampling. Basically, if The Simpsons is American Culture 101, Family Guy is a Ph.D in Media Studies.

But the gf and I manage to muddle through. Usually, watching a 20-minute episode will take us somewhere between an hour and two hours, with the extra time being taken up by internet searches, dictionary searches, and extended explanations on my part (it’s no better the other way around. I think it took us 4 hour to watch the Chinese movie “Cell Phone“, with about half of that extra time being spent on her explaining to me what the dude with the Sichuan accent was saying). Although it can all get quite time-consuming, it usually boils down to a fairly linear process of tracking down said reference, providing an example of said reference, explaining any unknown vocabulary, and then explaining why this is funny in the context of the cartoon.

There was one joke, however, that completely stymied my best efforts to think of an explanation. Like so many others before me, I found myself dashed against the complicated, jagged rocks of American race relations. Despite my admittedly shaky grasp of Internet fair use copyright laws, I have a fairly clear idea that it wouldn’t be kosher to link directly to the clip in question, so I’m just going to try and draw on my formidable (*cough*) narrative skills to set the scene for you, my dear reader:

Our protagonists, Lois and Peter, are seated side-by-side watching their daughter Meg’s performance in her high school play. Peter, who wanted to stay at home to watch the Emmys, has already tried several ruses to con Lois out of remaining at the play. Unsuccessful, he parts the afro of the African-American gentleman in front of him to find a small TV with an earbud attached. Placing the earbud in his ear, he enjoys a brief glimpse of the Emmys, interrupted all too soon by the afro-ed gentleman standing up and stepping out with the words “Excuse me, I gotta go do some black guy stuff .”

And that’s it. It’s a throwaway joke at best, not likely to elicit anything more than a chuckle from the viewer (I chuckled). And yet, I had the darndest time trying to explain it to the gf. Basically, I think the humor in the joke hinges on the show’s writers mocking the lack of mutual understanding between the black and white communities in the US. What’s a black guy standing up to do? Black guy stuff, of course!

Still, after I explained this to the gf (following about 5 minutes of verbal fumbling, trying to come up with a coherent-sounding explanation), all I got from her was a blank look. I think she could understand why it would be funny, but didn’t really find it funny. There’s not really an equivalent form of humor here, that I can tell.

Having made that previous statement, I hope that you’ll allow me an extended digression. The problem of making judgments across cultures and Chinese-American cross-cultural communication has already been explored far more delicately by far better bloggers than I. I’m going to do my best to explore the topic sensitively, but invariably I’m going to have to generalize and qualify. I do this with the goal of trying to build understanding (aww . . .), but when it comes right down to it, I remain something of a blogsphere idiot greenhorn, so you’re going to have to bear with me. The last sentence of the previous paragraph was not intended in any way to say that Chinese people don’t have a sense of humor. Many of the Chinese people I’ve met and observed have wonderful, rich senses of humor, and (once again, my personal observation, and true only on average) seem more ready to laugh than Americans, both at themselves and the world around them. That said, a couple of observations (here’s where I really get myself in trouble. . .):

• Sometimes (not universally by any stretch of the imagination), the sort of jokes told by the inhabitants of the developing countries I’ve visited may not be appreciated by an inhabitant of a developed simply for the joke’s sheer lack of sophistication. I’m ready to chalk this up to industrialization and the division of labor. Living in countries that have spawned so-called “humor industries”, and being much more likely to be a rabid consumer of media products, developed country inhabitants are (on average, always on average) exposed to a wider range of more sophisticated humor. That is to say, for many developed country inhabitants, the bar for what qualifies as humorous is simply set higher due to, virtually from birth, extended consumption of media products in general, and humor “products” in particular.

• Political and racial humor are natural outgrowths of the American approach to politics, society, and racial relations. We use such humor to help us cope with, consider, and (occasionally) make progress towards resolving issues in these areas. The rules of the media game in China stipulate that such jokes are, by their very nature, strictly verboten. Despite that, there is a thriving underground trade in Chinese political satire. For example, one famous joke plays on the similarity of former PRC leader Jiang Zemin’s name to the word “thief”, not a completely wacko way of looking things when considering some of the activities of his famous “Shanghai clique“, or the fact that his son is one of the largest private owners of real estate in New York City (thanks to FearOfARedPlanet on the Sinocidal forums for pointing that second one out).

• Racial humor, or the lack of it, is a more difficult issue for the western observer in China to come to grips with, partly because our own notions of race and how it informs social interactions is usually quite well developed by the time we come to China. The worldview of those Han Chinese individuals I’ve come into contact with doesn’t generally include a clear idea of “race”, at least as it applies within the boundaries of China. The upshot is that there isn’t a whole lot of discussion of race, and a corresponding lack of what we in the US would call racial humor. This may be because most Han Chinese people simply don’t come into contact with members of other “races” in China. Another explanation may lie in Chinese government policy. Officially, all citizens of China (including Uyghurs and Tibetans, for anyone who’s keeping score) are members of a large meta-nationality called the zhonghua minzu, usually translated as “the Chinese people”. Official policy tends to be aimed towards emphasizing and promoting the similarities between the different subnationalities, so any attempt to turn racial/national differences to humorous purposes would be running against the prevailing official and societal tide. Racial/national perceptions do exist in China, but they just really aren’t fodder for humor, or at least that I’ve seen.

So, finishing the world’s longest digression and working our way back around to the beginning of the circle, why did my girlfriend not laugh (or even chuckle) at the joke? Well, when we’re talking about reflecting humor through the prism of American racial perceptions, followed by a further filtering through Chinese ideas of humor and race, it may just be that some forms of humor are just about impossible to translate. Others, however, bridge the gap quite nicely.