Jenny Zhu

I bumped into a friend on gmail chat the other day.  With a mix of words and angry emoticons, she told me what she considered as a great injustice at work.  She was eating melon seeds after lunch in the office, something she had been doing for a while, and ‘always with civility and grace’ (as opposed to loud seed cracking and spitting out the shell). But on that day, her British boss saw it and told her on the spot that it was inappropriate office behaviour, and that she should stop once and for all. She was not happy of course, not only because it was a huge loss of face as her coworkers all witnessed it. But more importantly, her foreign coworkers ate melon seeds too. But ‘they ate it the Western way’, i.e. deshelled, or pumpkin seeds whose shell was soft enough to swallow and quite flavorful. Her boss has seen them doing it, and he didn’t think that was inappropriate. 

While most of us agree that indulgent and prolonged snacking at work is something to refrain from, but where do you draw the line of appropriateness, a concept itself ridden with ambiguity and moral judgment. Sometimes, a clash between civilisations is as small as a melon seed. Something to chew on there.

How are we coping with the global recession in China? Take a look at CCTV’s appropriately named news program ‘China, confidence’, you will know the anxiety and fidgety hope spread across the country. Last night’s program was particularly interesting. It featured two largest job seeking groups in China: university graduates and migrant workers. This year, there are 5.5 million students leaving college while millions of migrant workers are out of work in the midst of factories closing down. It was never likely that these people would cross each other’s path. But when interviewed, some graduates have lowered their salary expectation to around 1500 RMB a month considering the economic situation and an over supply of fresh graduates. On the other hand, migrant workers, especially experienced ones who’ve lived through the boom and now bust are demanding more. A few interviewd said that they were making around 1500 RMB -2000 RMB a month and that’s the lowest they could accept. If they couldn’t get that kind of money working in the city, a few said they would return home and start their own business. A reverse demonstration of humility and confidence, and one of the many fascinating contradictions in China.

If you want to look into China’s vibrant present and unpredictable future, 56minus1.com is worth a visit. It’s a blog run by Adam Schokora, which centers around China’s edgy, vibrant and creative youth culture. Adam is a good friend who spends his day at PR agency Edelman, but is also a keen observer of China’s youth culture, subculture and digital culture. You might already be familiar with his video pieces on danwei.org. Again, for things that often slip under the radar, you can’t miss his work. He’s covered things like Shanghai’s gay culture and graffitti community.

Adam recently interviewed me for 56minus1.com. He asked some brilliant questions that took me an entire weekend to ponder. But he kicked off the interview with something gossipy.

Enjoy!  http://56minus1.com/2008/11/chats-jenny-zhu/

Albeit an economic slowdown and a series of food scares, there is also non-stop festivities in China. This time, it’s a sports competition for farmers, i.e. 农运会/nong2 yun4 hui4. Not only are all the contestants farmers, the events are also inspired by agricultural life such as the planting race you see in the clip. Other events include shot put (instead of a piece of metal athletes throw a bunch of crop) and dragon dance, which originated in the countryside. 

I don’t know how applicable those events are to farming. But the contestants all seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves, maybe to an even greater extent than Olympians. Also a dose of optimism in a dire time. 

Three of my friends are getting married on the same day next month. I would have loved to wedding hop (albeit sounding a bit unseemly), but they happen to be in three different parts of the world. But they do have one thing in common: they are all Chinese. This happy clash of weddings are especially prominent in Chinese culture. A user on ChinesePod was intrigued when he got two invitations and begged to know why.  

Here enters the emperor’s calendar (a.k.a the yellow calendar) or 皇历（黄历）/huang2 li4.  It’s a traditional calendar which has extensive information on how lucky and unlucky each day is, what one should and shouldn’t do on that day. It’s the lunar calender with fortune telling features if you will.  That’s what most Chinese base their decision on when choosing the wedding date. While many do not entirely believe in the validaty of the 黄历, they see it as an auspicious tradition that doesn’t hurt to keep. 

But a lucky day is not all. You don’t want to get married in the melting heat nor freezing cold no matter how lucky the day is. You want spring or fall, which narrows down your selection much like the process of refining your google search. That’s not all. You want the weekend in order to make it easy for your guests. Now, you see how we’ve gone from 365 days to a handful ones which meet all of the criteria. The art of the wedding date.

China’s spacecraft Shenzhou VII,神州七号 blasted off last night, carrying 3 taikongnauts ( a term if I remember correctly was coined 5 years ago when China sent its first astronaut to space. Taikong/太空 means space). On this mission, one of the taikongnauts will conduct China’s first space walk. Therefore, this mission has been marked with extraordinay importance.

TV stations ran hours of live coverage. When the spacecraft catapulted into space, it was undeniablly an inspiring and proud moment. But more than national pride, it would be truly wonderful if the mission would bring something else to China, to help us see our country as a little spot on earth, and earth a little spot in the infinite universe. That’s one of the greatest legacies of the moon landing, which inspired a new world view that helped establish environmentalism and global citizenship. Ancient Chinese philosophy sees human beings as dust in the universe. A few thousand years later, technology might help us understand that better.

The shocking revelations about dairy products keep rolling out in China. The contaminated baby formula produced by a major local brand, 三鹿/San Lu has caused tens of thousands of babies to have liver stones, and resulted in three deaths. The chemical melamine which makes milk appear rich in protein during quality tests is the culprit. This week, nationwide tests further reveal that most of China’s dairy producers use melamine to some extent. Even highly trusted brands like 蒙牛/meng3 niu2 and 伊利/yi1 li4’s products have been tested positive.

Recalls, apologies, sacking, arrests and pledge of free treatment dominated the news this week. China, unfortunately is no stranger to incidents like this. Toxic toys and dumplings caused major scare at diplomatic level in the States and Japan. Our response though has always been excessively defensive, like a cactus. Many see it as a loss of face and feel persecuted by conservative protectionist ’China detractors’.  The automatic response to quality issue is ‘false claim’. But in fact, many Chinese opt for foreign brands if they can afford them. The public response to the milk scare has been anger and utter disappointment. But like many past incidents, we seem to be unable to make substantive change. Our obsession with face and pride combined with corrpution and structural problems are fundamentally poisonous.

Loss of faith seems to be the global theme in recent weeks. And we are yet to find a way to restore faith.    

The man in this interview has a fascinating story. Sidney Shapiro or 沙博理 has lived through Mao’s China into Hu’s China. Now in his 90’s, he enjoys a quiet life in his adopted home in Beijing. He is one of the few hundreds of ‘communist sympathisers’ (for lack of a better term) who joined the Communist Party’s effort in building the PRC. Most of them left China forced by circumstances. But Shapiro managed to stay. 

Trading his U.S. citizenship for Chinese and joining the Communist Party all makes him seem like a fanatic and regime collaborator. But in fact he came to China by chance, and it was through the force of daily life engulfed in earth shattering historical developments that has shaped his life rather than a single burning belief. Perhaps our lives are always a bit more interesting in other’s view.  

And speaking of Communists, you will be surprised to find what a modern day communist is like. A few of my friends are registered party members. They work in media, drink Starbucks and watches Lost.  Joseph McCarthy would be stunned.  

shanghaiist_SH0003pb.mp3

In this week’s Chinese Soundbites, Amber and I reveal some election vocab. While the media coverage is drowning many of you in the States, why not take a mini detour and see it in a Chinese light?

I’m asked asked how the Chinese see the US election. I’d say first of all, the general public gives it the same amount of attention (or slightly over) as the US public would to Chinese politics. While Obamama drew mega crowds in Europe, he would probably be able to enjoy a bit of privacy and travel incognito in China, so would McCain.