Cultural behaviour: 02 (London)

From my experience, the Chinese are quite extreme in their social interaction:  

• If they don’t know you, they can be cold and uncaring.
• Once they know you, even if it’s indirectly (e.g., through a friend or a friend’s friend), they’ll often be warm and generous.  (I had written to a then-boyfriend in 1988 with my theory about this, but that’ll have to wait for another blog.)

Yes, yes, I know these are generalisations, as lots of statements out there often are.

I was at the negative receiving end of the second extreme on one occasion.

A mainland Chinese woman, Mei, with whom I’d become acquainted when I interpreted for her at a hospital appointment, took me to the meat counter at a Chinese supermarket in Chinatown, saying the woman who worked there had been a neighbour of hers back in Shenyang, NE China.  In the typical Chinese way, Mei wanted her ex-neighbour, Yao Li, to be aware of my existence (as her friend), so that Yao Li could give me nice service next time I went there.  That’s the bit I was saying above: about your being given good treatment even if it’s an indirect relationship.

A few days later, I took a Singaporean lady there to buy some pork for her daughter’s birthday meal.  The Singaporean lady asked the mainland Chinese man on duty at the counter a few questions about the different cuts, which the bloke then started to look a bit unhappy about — presumably because it was taking up time, although there weren’t many people about.  She then said, “I’ll have this piece.”  

It was at this point that I took advantage of the lull to ask, “Is Yao Li in today?”  The man gave a terse, “No,” which is not an uncharacteristic Chinese trait, so I didn’t think anything of it.  If she’s not in, she’s not in, as far as I was concerned — just an idle enquiry, that’s all.

The man picked up the piece of pork.  The Singaporean lady said, “Can you cut it up for me?”  The man threw it back onto the tray, and said, baring his teeth, “不卖 / bù mài / “not sell”!!”

Huh??!  What was all that about?

I later told Mei about this incident.  Mei said, “Ah, you said the wrong thing to the wrong person.  That bloke and Yao Li absolutely don’t get on, so when you asked if she was in that day or not, he assumed you were her friend, so you became his enemy too.  The Singaporean lady was with you, so she also became his enemy.”  

Wow, so not only did we become his enemy by extension, which on the personal level is bad enough, he even refused to do business with us just because of that.  This is the extent to which the Chinese will go for people who are friends or otherwise.

(OK, I know, I know, he was already getting fed up of her asking those questions about the different cuts, and he was only an employee, so it was no skin off his nose if he didn’t make a bit more money for his employers.  By all accounts, a lot of them almost deliberately boycott the business in covert protest at the low wages, but then if they’re illegal, they should be grateful that they’re taken on at all.)

A week later, Mei and I were in Chinatown again.  The man was standing outside the supermarket, looking sheepish.  Mei had apparently told him off after that episode, and wanted him to apologise.  I refused to approach; just stood a few yards away, waiting for Mei to rejoin me.  

The point is: he was only looking sheepish because there’s now a positive link between us (me being Mei’s friend, and he was caught out behaving badly towards her friend), rather than the negative one he’d thought we had (me being Yao Li’’s friend).  (Watch the upcoming blog with my theory about this, part of which is already proven by this tale.)

Yet another week later, Mei brought me a sweater top, stripy and pink, as an appeasement.  Said it was from Yao Li, who wanted to express how sorry she was that I, her friend’s friend, had been treated so shabbily by her enemy.

C’est compliqué, as Serge on the French farm had once said*.

* See:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2012/02/conflicting-instructions-france.html).

(London, 2004?)

Cultural behaviour: 01 (Italy)

I’m editing a series of stories at the moment, written by an Italian.  One of the stories features a Georgian, whom the author depicts as Italian-looking in his physical appearance  (dark hair, olive skin) as well as his body language (waving his arms about when speaking).

This reminds me of a book by an American academic who’d bought a place in Cortona in Tuscany.  She said she saw an Italian man talking in a phone booth (book was published in 1996, so no mobile phones then).  He had to step out of the booth to continue his conversation because there wasn’t enough room in the booth for him to wave his arms about.

Jurek, a year below me at SOAS, told me this story about a tourist in Italy who was driving up to Milan, but got lost.  He saw watermelon pickers working in a field by the road, so he walked up to one of them and asked, “Excuse me, can you tell me which direction is Milan?”  The man, arms full of the huge melon he’d just picked, said to the tourist, “Here, hold this,” and passed over the melon into his arms.  He then raised his arms, spread his hands out, and said, “How should I know?”

(Italy)

A damp squib (Accrington, England)

I grew up with this common saying, “Three things you don’t talk about: politics, religion or money.”

“Not even political jokes,” I’d now like to add.

My first interpreting assignment here in the UK, as a third year BA student in 1979, was up in Accrington (north of Manchester), looking after four mainland Chinese from Nantong 南通, near Shanghai.

Their factory had bought some textile machinery from a firm in Accrington, Lancashire (an area in NW England known for its textile industry).

Although their contract said the British firm would fix any breakdowns, the Chinese were very forward-thinking and asked to come over and be trained on fixing minor problems themselves, because by the time they got in touch with the British firm (they’d have to find an interpreter first, and ring the British side during UK working hours as well, a bit tricky in the timing, given the time difference), identified the problem and the right engineer was found, a visa was obtained, an air ticket was bought, etc, their factory would have lost precious production days.

Outside of the training sessions, the British side would always have someone eat lunch at the factory with them, sometimes even dinner at the hotel.

One day, to lighten the atmosphere, the Brit who was in attendance told a joke:

In East Germany, a Trabant was speeding down the autobahn at way past the limit.  The highway police gave chase.  When they did eventually manage to catch up, they asked the driver, “How does this car go so fast?”  The driver said, “The front wheels are made by the Russians, the rear wheels by the Chinese.”

Silence from the Chinese delegates, then a sort of nasal noises that were meant to resemble polite laughter emanated hesitantly.

(Accrington, Lancashire, England, 1979)

Dictionary definition of a damp squib:

A situation or event which is much less impressive than expected.