Val's China 101: March 2011

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

China: A Fashionating Study

Grin and Wear It!

When packing a suitcase, the main question that pops up in most people’s heads is “What will I need or want to wear?” Guidelines when packing for China are simply that anything goes. As far as fashion is concerned in the Orient all bets are off and the rules are: there are no rules.

Fifty years ago people in China didn’t have the option to express themselves through their choice in clothing (or virtually anything else for that matter), so I suppose their overcompensation these days is justified to a certain degree. The fact that there are roughly 1.3 billion people in China means there’s some fierce competition to stand out in the crowd. And believe me, plenty of people try their damndest to do anything but blend in. The Chinese people are the epitome of overzealousness in nearly everything: they have an insane work ethic, they have some of the worlds’ highest test scores and most notable engineering achievements, they embrace an aggressive take-no-prisoner style of driving, and these attitudes are enthusiastically reflected in their attire.

The best way I can describe the way the majority of women (and quite a few men) dress is with serious reckless abandon and zero self-restraint. It’s as though their closet or dresser was alive and puked out whatever combo it wanted and the wearer simply said, “ok, but let me add a couple frilly bows to my hair, pin a mini-stuffed animal to my sweater and put three more pairs of bright, sparkly colored socks on to pad my tiny feet from my excessively bejeweled, furry hooker heels.”

Sometimes it feels like I just walked off of what I picture the set of Mariah Carey’s movie Glitter would look like. I can imagine every person was handed a Bedazzle machine and a bag full of rhinestones and was told to cram on as many as humanly possible. Thus, you see women walking around in baggy sweatshirts with gigantic, blindingly sparkly Mickey Mouse heads (or Winnie the Pooh, or any other Disney character for that matter) plastered to the front, and guys with shirts that are pin striped in glitter.

Besides Disney and glitter, other common themes in clothing include animal print (the more different types one can fit into one outfit the better, and bonus points if real fur is included somewhere as well), cheesy English phrases (they absolutely do NOT have to make sense, nobody here cares that much about what it actually says), and a wide range of knock-off luxury brand name clothing, bags and sunglasses. I’ve also seen children dressed like adults, adults like children and babies like little emperors.

As with everything in China, there is a balance in what people wear. Though many dress over the top, the others simply go out in their tacky fleece or luxury silk pajamas and Croc sandals and don’t give a damn to what they look like while venturing out in public. And to be honest, the public doesn’t much care either.

Summary: To blend in try to stand out, chances are you’ll look just like every other over-adorned person on the street. If you are a foreigner it really doesn’t matter what you wear, you will get blatantly stared and pointed at no matter where you go.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Six Month Summary

Mid-term Review

Good things come to those who wait. No pain no gain. Or as Mother Teresa said, “Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything.” My first six months in China were full of change, chaos, anxiety and a certain amount of suffering. This was my Yin. Patience paid off though and I am now in Huangshan and entering what is shaping up to be a much brighter chapter of my life in China. This will be my Yang. Since being here I have had time to reflect on the lessons I have learned thus far. Being away from Hefei has allowed me a sense of perspective, and it is time that we review as a class the most important things one should know about China through my point of view.

China Stinks. Literally. Since the majority of their bathrooms are squat pots there is nothing to contain the aromas of the raw sewage hanging out in the bottom of the pipes. But these odors also apply to various random locations on the side of the street. With the prevalence of Buttless Baby Breeches there are little puddles of piss everywhere.

And men have a much lower level of modesty here and can often be found taking a leak against whatever very public wall or shrub is nearest. Other common odors include paint and random toxic fumes from the myriad of construction sites, carbon monoxide being coughed out from the thousands upon thousands of cars, busses, trucks and tractors choking up the roads, and the indescribable and innumerable stenches that waft from the piles of garbage that loiter wherever they damn well feel like it.

But not everything one smells in China is bad. I will always love catching an enticing whiff of the street vendor foods (except for stinky tofu . . . that’s its actual name for a reason), and I know that for the rest of my life, whenever I smell freshly lit fireworks or incense, I will be able to close my eyes and be transported back to China for that fleeting moment.

China is crazy. There are certain unavoidable and asinine truths about China. It doesn’t matter where you go, you will always hear the incessant honking of horns. It doesn’t matter what time of the day or night it is, you are bound to hear the random, cackling and crackling and sometimes the heartier booming and popping of various fireworks. It doesn’t matter how well you think you have adjusted, there will still be things that will take you by surprise on a regular basis. It’s as though every aspect of the country was on a heavy dose of syrup that induces panicky hyperactivity. People work like bees wearing blindfolds, frantically darting to and fro but often without being able to see the bigger, brighter picture. In short, they work ridiculously hard and ridiculously inefficiently. Nothing is built to last; new buildings are torn down to be replaced by newer ones. People dress with a wild lack of self-restraint and rather than picking one look to wear often opt to put all of their favorites on at the same time. And when dogs aren’t on the dinner menu, they tend to be dressed just as extravagantly as their owners.

If you’ve seen the movie Moulin Rouge and recall the first half hour as being nothing but an onslaught of crazy flashing images and neon colors with a dash of lucid storytelling somewhere in there, that’s pretty much China in a nutshell.

China is beautiful. Sunrises in Hefei were truly memorable. At times it looked as though the burning orb of the rising sun had ignited the skies by setting the smog aflame. This of course applied to many sunsets as well and made them particularly exciting to view near a body of water. The evening sky would be heavy with vibrant colors that stuck to all the particles in the air, and the water would give the illusion of being molten lava. Though the sun could make the sky beautiful, sometimes it was simply being able to see the blue sky at all that would put a smile on my face and fill me with calm. And viewing the infinite pale indigo from atop Jiuhuashan took my breath away. The Rockies, the Cascades and the Olympics are savage in their appeal, they are wild and untamed. The Alps resonate strength, power and a certain hint of opulence and grandeur. But the mountains in the Anhui province of China emit pure, simple and ancient majesty. It’s as though wisdom seeps from the rocks and the trees and flows down the hillsides and into springs for monks to sip on with their tea.

Aside from the visual beauty of China, I have had the privilege of observing and learning about the beauty of the culture as well. It was hard for me to see at first, but again, time and patience were required. To me China is like a man standing out in the rain with his face painted in the sinister and extravagant Peking Opera style. He is intimidating and off-putting to say the least, but the longer he stands there, the more the rain washes off the thick paint. And eventually, if you stand in front of him and watch long enough, you will see the soft features hidden underneath. I’m still watching and I don’t know what the steady drips of water will ultimately reveal, but I don’t intend to walk away anytime soon.

Summary: China doesn’t half-ass anything. They have the biggest dam in the world, the longest wall in the world and roughly a quarter of all the people in the world. When things are bad, they’re really bad. And when things are good they defy both expectations and words to describe them by. And remember, if you come to China you will learn as much about yourself as you will about this freakishly fascinating nation.