Some Chinese practices: 06 (Make yourself at home)

 

I found an ensuite room in a flat with an old couple (Mr and Mrs 杜 [Dù]) in a block that overlooked the runway of the 松山機場 / Sungshan Airport (now a military airport -- and domestic flights only??).

    The lodger before me would come and visit on Sundays.  He'd moved out because he got married, but he'd turn up every Sunday and stay the whole day.  (He'd either built up some kind of bond with Mr and Mrs Du during his time there, or he was trying to get away from his wife, even though he was fairly newly married...)

    He'd arrive late morning, sit down and chat over a cup or two of tea, watch telly (which is the Chinese way of entertaining a guest -- they'd actually switch on the TV to provide that distraction should conversation run dry), have lunch, then go to the spare room (the old couple's son was away on National Service) for a nap, before getting up late afternoon for more tea and telly, then dinner, then home.

    I found myself also doing it at my colleague's house on Sundays, although not really of my own volition.

    My upbringing was such that we didn't even use our own chopsticks during the family meal to help ourselves to the food in the dishes laid out on the table.  Communal chopsticks (and a serving spoon for the big bowl of soup) were provided for that purpose.  

    We'd avoid using public toilets as much as possible.  Singapore toilets were not like toilets in another country which I shall not name and shame (this country has a very bad reputation for the atrocious state of its public toilets), so it was purely meticulous attention to personal hygiene in my family.

    Imagine, therefore, being told, after lunch and a cup or two of tea (with the TV switched on), to go and have a kip in the bed of one of the three girls.

    To refuse would be rude (the banana in me knew that much at least), as it'd imply that I thought their level of hygiene might be suspect, so I had to comply and acquiesce.

    The YouTube series I've been watching, set in mainland China 1979–92, has a scene where the whole family (all three generations) has got together for a meal at the younger son's (where the grandparents live).

    The older son's wife is having a kip in someone's bed while the food is being prepared and the table is laid.  She gets up as dinner is being served.

    Her reason is that she's just done a shift at the textile factory.  (She's actually protesting silently at her treatment on previous occasions when she'd done all the work but then told to go and eat her food in the kitchen as there was no space at the main table.)

    So, sleeping in other people's beds seems to be a common enough, and acceptable, practice -- in Taiwan and mainland China, anyway.

(Taiwan, 1975–6; China, 1979–92)