As some might know, English names chosen by Chinese often range from weird to wacky. Over the years, I have known several girls named ‘Kinki’, men ‘Sky’ and even a ‘Boot’. They are young cosmopolitan Chinese who want to express personality and individuality through their English names. But they must have a very misconstrued view of English names. I suspect many see it as a name rebirth of the ‘tribal’ names they were first given by their English teachers, most of who go through a list of top 20 boys’ and girls’ names. That’s how I got my name ‘Jenny’. I have thought about switching to names like ‘Chloe’ or ‘Valaria’. But I would have a new favorite name once every month that I was even confusing myself.

I wonder if there is any implication for foreigners choosing a Chinese name. (Stick with transliterations?) I have an ultra-hip friend from Brooklyn whose Chinese name is 张明/Zhang1 Ming2, which could not be a more authentic and average Chinese name. But it was too Chinese of a name for him.

Oh, speaking of weird English names, my little nephew is named ‘Navy’ (given by his mother to honor our grandfather who served in the Chinese Navy.) Ah, maybe there is a personal story behind every weird name.

Additional thoughts: it dawned on me why so many Chinese have weird English names (and why some foreigners have funny Chinese names). It’s because we sometimes lack the cultural awareness and references to interpret names. So the nuances get lost in the process. Someone named ‘Cridge’ is most likely unconscious of how awkward the name is. And these subtleties   take time and sometimes being in a foreign country to develop. So I guess the best way to pick a name is to ask at least 5 native speakers.

Out of the 4 gold medals that China has won in the Vancouver Winter Olympics so far, only half of a gold was won by a male athlete, Zhao Hongbo in pairs figure skating. Are the men having a bad run at these games? Actually, it has been like this for as long as many Chinese can remember. There is even a term which describes the phenomenon, ‘阴盛阳衰’(yin1sheng4yang2shuai1), which means rise of the women, decline of the men. (Note that the phrase uses the Yin/Yang concept. Yin refers to the female, Yang male.)

But why? A Chinese curling commentator had this to say when he tried to explain why the Chinese women’s team is in the semifinal, won the 2009 World Championship while the men struggled to qualify for the Olympics. The same goes for a lot of other sports, e.g. speed skating, soccer, tennis, swimming, etc. His explanation is that when China started to train for curling 5 years ago, men’s game was a lot more developed in its complexity than the women’s game. So it was harder for the Chinese men to match their competitors than for the women. That created a vicious cycle where the men always did poorly, resulting in scant chances to compete in world-class events whereas the women kept building on their success to refine their game. I don’t know how strong the argument is. After all, in their own gender group, I am sure it wasn’t easy for the women to catch up with the competitors.

Some think the imbalance is partly caused by physique. The difference between the build of a Chinese man and a Western man is generally greater than that between women. That’s why Chinese men are weaker than women in sports that rely more on physique, speed and stamina. I guess some of it is true. Simply by looking at the people in the ChinesePod office, the Chinese girls are not so different from the Western girls whereas Chinese men are at least 2 sizes smaller than Western men.

So it seems Chinese male athletes are disadvantaged, excluding things like table tennis and badminton. But once in a blue moon we are blessed with a guy like Yao Ming to tip the balance back.

The two weeks leading up to Chinese New Year are marked by excessive feasting and drinking between colleagues and friends in China. It is an important social duty that puts one’s drinking ability into serious test. I was at such a dinner recently where a friend was barely holding his liquor, but insisted on drinking until he collapsed. He even proudly announced that his body can collapse, but his dignity can’t. This is the essence of China’s drinking culture.

Destructive drinking isn’t really a college thing here as it is an indispensable social ritual among mature, grown up men. They drink not for the thrill of getting wasted, but to show that they are trustworthy and upright. Yes, drinking excessively is a respectable quality here. We have this word 酒品/jiu3pin3, which combines the word for alcohol/酒/jiu3 and the word for personal integrity/人品/ren2pin3. The result is a concept which glorifies drinking and associates it with one’s dignity.

Business dinners in China are the most prominent display of our die-hard drinking culture. Even if you can’t drink, you need to drink to give your business partner face and respect, and also to show him that you are honest and trustworthy by putting your life on the line and drinking more than you are capable of. It’s not uncommon to find people whose entire career is built on their ability to drink. But of course not everyone in China abides by the same rule. The drinking culture in Shanghai for example is a lot more moderate. But that’s also why people from Shanghai are often the subject of ridicule at dinner tables.

In my humble observation, this might pan out to be an crucial event that could shape China’s history by awakening its young, fledgling civil society. It is fair to say that Google’s users in China are the most cosmopolitan and enlightened people in the country.

• The majority of them are in their 20’s to 30’s, grew up in relative stability and now enjoying the opportunities and wealth that the new resurgent China has brought them.
• Many have gone abroad to study or have had a fair amount of international exposure. I, and many many of my colleagues and friends belong to this bunch.
• We want to believe that our government would one day realize its strategies have to change in the 21st century even when it has repeatedly made authoritarian and outdated decisions with regards to the web and many other issues. We might even have fervently defended our government when it is criticized or ‘attacked’.
• Many of us are ambivalent at best about issues like free/speech, human/rights and censorship, because we don’t know going against the establishment would be the best way to bring about change in China. And frankly, many of us are disengaged from politics because we don’t have the courage to pay the price.
• Many of us are not activists of any cause.

But today, a company who has brought us a fresh way of thinking and outstanding services is forced to pull out from China. Unlike, to be honest, the detachment and ‘how we go again’ sentiment we feel when people are shouting ‘free XXX’, we actually feel a personal stake in it. It has hit us harder than any prior incidents which have also exposed the deficiencies and backward thinking of a country which doesn’t need to behave this way.  Google is on the right side of history. I am bringing flowers to them.

I spent the better part of my past Saturday sitting in the waiting room of a renowned plastic surgery clinic in Shanghai, the No. 9 People’s Hospital (the name certainly doesn’t inspire glamor.) It also turned out to be a first-hand look into the pursuit of beauty and youth in China.

Oh, what work did I have done? An ear job. That’s right. My right earlobe was torn apart by the earring I was wearing. For a week or so, I could perform a gross human trick with my split earlobe. So on the weekend, I went to the hospital to have it stitched together.

Business was certainly booming for plastic surgeons. I went to the clinic at 9:30 in the morning and received my operation at 5:30 pm. As frustrating as the wait was, it was a widely novel and informative experience.  Here are my observations:

1. Most popular form of plastic surgery in China: an even divide between all-time favorite double eyelid operation (双眼皮/shuang1yan3pi2) and new comer face-slimming injection (瘦脸针/shou4lian3zhen1).(Note, many Asians are born with single eye lid, but double eye lids are considered beautiful. We are also obsessed with a small face. My take is that Asian faces tend to be flatter (hence bigger). I don’t know what’s ugly about that, but there is an industry dedicated to making one’s face smaller, everything from lotion to plastic surgery).

2. The consumers: girls in their 20’s top the list. The aforementioned operations were monopolized by these girls. There were literally 5 girls coming in for one of those treatment every hour.

3. The dandy (middle-aged) Shanghai men: they certainly live up to the reputation. There were 2 of them sitting in the waiting room both getting an eye bag removal operation. One man said to the other, ‘I am also getting a double eyelid job’. The other said, ‘these eye bags started to show up last week. They seriously bother me.’

4. Privacy: we observe collective privacy in China, i.e. extends to all who seek similar kind of treatment. While in the waiting room, everyone was asking everyone else what kind of work they were getting done, and how much it cost. The long waiting time and auto magazines from 2007 didn’t help either. You had nothing to do but to small talk.

5. Price: expensive by Chinese standards, but not stopping anyone. My ear job cost RMB2600 ($400).  Double eyelid and face-slimming were about the same price. Nose job is around ¥4000. Must be a wild bargain compared to the prices in the U.S. and Europe. Medical tourism anyone?

6. Outcome: my ear is still covered in band-aide and sponge. And the people who went for operations came out with faces covered except for the girls who were getting face-slimming injections. But those didn’t show immediate effect according to the doctor. We shall see.

A few days ago, I overheard a fascinating discussion about Chinese and American sense of humor. While many concur that comparing the two are like comparing apples to oranges, there seems to be an amazing convergence, that of the Rust Belt, the Northeastern parts of both countries. They have produced the nations’ most celebrated comedians and helped shape the nation’s sense of humor. In China, the undisputed king of comedy is Zhao Benshan/赵本山 (pictured above with his disciple and sidekick) who has the noble task of entertaining the entire country on CCTV’s Spring Festival gala. He hails from a small town in China’s Rust Belt. Originally a local 二人转/errenzhuan performer ( a local comedy style that features 2 comedians performing), he exploded on the national stage with his comedy rooted in blue-collar and peasant wholesomeness but galvanized by sharp sarcasm directed at inequities in the society, a sentiment widely shared by China’s masses.

More on China’s Rust Belt. It refers to the region once known as Manchuria which now includes the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jiling and Liaoning. These places are marked by vast wilderness and punishing climate. They were also China’s heavy industry hub after the founding of the P.R.C. However, similar to the fate of America’s Rust Belt, China’s Dongbei (meaning Northeast) was in the doldrums in the early 90’s when large state owned firms underwent restructuring, throwing a large portion of the population out of work. However, the courageous people of Dongbei, with “their rustic manners and boisterous camaraderie—washed down with 120-proof grain alcohol—adapted the spirit to the 21st Century with new ways of thinking” (quote from the Nine Nations of China, the Atlantic).  And many of them turned to the grass root 二人转/errenzhuan comedy for inspiration. Song Xiaojun, China’s prominent cultural and military commentator (yes, that’s right) has said that unemployment and 二人转/errenzhuan performances peaked at the same time in Dongbei. His analysis was that comedy helped people get through the harsh times and also offered an idea for entrepreneurial attempts. Many who were blessed with the talent became amateur 二人转/errenzhuan performers, while others opened performance venues, now an important part of the region’s economy and cultural identity.

Would the same happen in America’s Rust Belt?

For those who have been to a meal hosted by Chinese, you will know what ’too much of a good thing’ really means. Indeed, it is the social norm in China to crowd the table with dozens of dishes with the objective to impress your guests and genuinely giving them a treat.  (Many even see having empty dishes as a dining faux pas). But the way China’s leadership entertains is vastly different from the burgeoning middle class.  This week, President Obama was treated to four dishes and one soup followed by ice cream by President Hu Jintao at the state banquet. The four dishes consist of an appertizer, tofu soup, Chinese style steak and fish. It is a far cry from China’s ubiquitous display of opulence.  But  what’s also worth noting is that the four-dish, one-soup menu, known as 四菜一汤/si4 cai4 yi1 tang1 is a protocol set by the PRC’s first and much beloved premier Zhou Enlai. Premier Zhou believed that the menu was satisfying enough without being extravagant, a true reflection of the regime’s proletariat roots and also of the trying times. The menu later bacame the standard for entertaining guests and colleagues in both official and private occasions.

Decades have gone by and hardly anyone exercises the 四菜一汤 protocol. But China’s ultimate authority still pays culinary homage to the founding fathers. As they would have said, ’a glorious tradition’ indeed.

When Ken Carroll, my co-host at ChinesePod asked me in a Halloween related lesson whether people in China knew about the holiday, I said ‘no, the vast majority doesn’t’. It was in 2007. Come 2009, things have changed. Halloween/万圣节/wan4 sheng4 jie2 is set out to become the next big imported/commercialized holiday  in coastal China. While in the recent past, Halloween was only celebrated by expats dressing up in costumes that shocked and amused the Chinese, this year’s Halloween seems to have a lot of local flavors, which makes one wonder if it has reached critical mass in China. Here is the evidence: I received a multimedia message from China Mobile which featured a step by step guide to carving a Jack-O-Lantern; youngsters in Shanghai line up for hours to enter a Halloween themed haunted house; a local supermarket near my home which is frequented by young migrant workers is selling plastic pumpkins and scary masks. But in typical style of ‘festival adoption’ in China, hallmarks of the true Halloween spirit seem to be missing: crazy costumes and trick or treat.

Mid-autumn Festival is just around the corner (3rd of October this year). Like each and every year, it’s hightime for mooncakes (月饼/yue4 bing3), mooncake coupons and mooncake coupon scalpers which make up a dynamic supply and demand chain.  Like pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving and roasted turkey on Christmas, these over-sweetened treats evoke a very warm and fuzzy feeling that’s a mix of tradition, festivity and reunion. But what’s quite uniquely Chinese about mooncakes is that they are also a great networking tool. It’s the norm for companies and individuals to give mooncakes to staff and clients to maintain existing relationship and explore new opportunities.  

I was chatting with a friend the other day who told me an interesting story which brings the importance of mooncakes to life. She works in a small company owned by a foreigner. Her boss instead of giving staff mooncakes took them out to lunch. While the lovely gesture was much appreciated by all, everyone emerged from the lunch saying it would be cheaper but a lot more impactful for the boss to buy them mooncakes instead. Of course mooncakes won’t have a fundamentally transforming effect on things, but they are a basic social etiquette that helps make people feel connected and appreciated. For example,  when a company gives its staff mooncaks, it makes them feel a sense of belonging, which is 10 times more effective than any team building exercise. So mooncakes are something worth investing in even in this economy.

Now, a quick list of who you should buy mooncakes for:

1. Employees if you are running your own business 

2. Clients (existing and potential)

3.   People who you need favors from

4. Your in-laws

For the past 2 years, ChinesePod and our parent company Praxis Language have set out to become the leader in the filed of mobile learning, i.e. providing learning solutions that can be used on mobile devices on the go. We have been building a Mobile Learning Network which includes products for individual learners (e.g. ChinesePod), for corporate learning (e.g. Wuxian Ketang and for schools and groups of students (e.g. Openlanguage). But why? I will be the first to admit that I didn’t get it at first and not everyone in our company understands the essence of it.

But I had an epiphany recently as we were preparing to launch ChinesePod School to offer face-to-face Chinese classes in Shanghai. During copy meetings, we thought about how to conceptualize our tech edge to the learner. And we started writing long paragraphs about how cutting-edge our Mobile Learning Network is. But that only muddled the message. The key question here is what a learner gets out of the technology. Then it hit me that we were getting too tangled in the technology itself and forgot why we used it in the first place. And it’s based on one simple idea: fit the learning into the learner’s life. We didn’t develop ChinesePod iPhone and Android apps because they are cool and cutting-edge. It’s the other way around, because people are already using these phones and other forms of technology which have ultimately changed the way we work, communicate and entertain. So is the way we learn. But learning has often been slow to adapt to these changes. We still largely see learning as going to a class, reading a book and listening to a teacher. It’s not that different from how people learned in the age of Confucius. Of course, there is irreplaceable value in the practice but learning especially adult learning needs to take new forms that respond to the changing demands in our lives.

So that’s why ChinesePod and Praxis have been focused on mobile learning. And we hope our products (like the best examples of technology) empower you to learn without you having to think about the tech infrastructure. At the end of the day, technology is plumbing. Learning is the goal.