Some Chinese practices: 14 (Seniority)

The last two of us five children in the family are the closest in age to each other, with only 14 months between us.

    Our clothes were made at home, often with us two wearing the same style dresses made from one piece of cloth.  People used to ask if we were twins, even though we didn't look alike.

    It was, therefore, very natural for me to call this sister by her personal name, instead of her title, which is Third [Older] Sister.  If my [maternal] grandma was visiting and heard me do this, she'd tell me off for it -- every single time.  It doesn't matter how close you are in age, an older sibling's position in the family is his/her prerogative, and that has to be observed (if not respected in spirit).

    We had two servants at home in the 60s when I was growing up.  The dinner table was only a few feet away from the kitchen sink, but we children were all brought up to take our empty plates and cutlery to the sink when we left the table -- to save the servants this bit of work, even though they were being paid to do it (among other things).

    One day, my brother (the middle of five children, and the only boy, therefore the pet by default, as per the Chinese practice) got up after finishing his food and started to walk away without doing this.  My second sister (two years his senior) called him back, "Dave, take your plate to the sink."  He thought about it, and decided to ignore her.  As he turned away to walk off, my second sister said, "Did you hear me, Dave?  I said to take your plate to the sink."  This time, he didn't dare defy her authority as an older sibling -- not for a second time anyway.  Such is the force of the pecking order.

(Singapore, 1950s–75)

Information that's not much use on its own

Saw this line in an article about a school in Yunnan province, S.W.China, that I stumbled across while searching for something else:

Quote 

As of 2019, the annual disposable income of residents of the county 27,291 yuan (￡3,151) per person. 

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(https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/china/china-yunnan-school-free-piglets-b1990692.html)

    It never fails to amaze me why people are still doing this:  giving a Western equivalent of the amount of money cited without any indication of the significance of that sum of money in the local context, e.g., what local wages are, what the cost of living is (against their income), etc.

    What I mean is:  to the London reader, £3,000 / year may not sound like a lot of money, but ￥27,000 might be quite ample for a small rural place in S.W.China (vs Shanghai or Beijing, say).  It's no good presenting the figures to the reader without providing some context to what the purchasing power of those figures is (in S.W.China in this case).

    An American academic who'd freshly arrived in London around 1987 said to me one day how gobsmacked he was at prices in the UK.  He cited the cost of a train ticket from London Victoria to Gatwick Airport, saying, "£5 for a half-hour journey!  In China [where he'd lived for a bit], people can go on a 36-hour train journey for that price!"

    Background:  the exchange rate at that time was around ￡1 : ￥10.  So, ￡5 would've been 50 yuan.  I argue, however, that one can't just convert the money from one currency to another as a figure all by itself.  One needs a fuller context for it.

    At a superficial glance, it does look like this academic (academic, note, and American as well -- supposed to be more worldly wise than a lot of people, given that America is a global superpower) had a point.

    Surely, however, I'd like to posit here, the other factors should be considered, e.g., what percentage is £5 of a UK worker's pay, vs ￥50 of a Chinese worker's wages.  A mainland Chinese friend told me in 1987 that it was ￥75/month, so ￥50 would be quite a big whack of the average Chinese worker's pay packet.  You can see from the data (below) that I've found from googling that £5 wouldn't make such a big hole in the UK worker's salary.

(from googling)

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In 1987, average weekly earnings for full-time adult employees in Great Britain were around ￡182 for men and ￡128 for women, but London wages were generally higher, with an estimated average annual income of about ￡7,200 for 1987-88, translating roughly to ￡138-￡140 per week when considering overall averages and regional uplift. Specific London data from 1987 isn't easily found in snippets, but UK averages suggest a range from ￡100-￡180 weekly depending on gender and role, with London leading.

Unquote

    The other problem is gauging the cost of living just going by the conversion rate.  For example, I grew up in the 60s with £1 being worth S$8.  By 1980, it was £1 : S$4.  So, if we were to look at cost of living using conversion figures alone, a Singaporean spending in London in the 60s would've found things twice as expensive for them as in 1980.

    Neat conversion is not the way to look at it, I feel -- but I have no head for money matters, so I'd love to hear your (the readers') comments on this.

Better to be pessimistic and turn out to be wrong

Old friend Valerio points out that I should do something about my "Being new to writing" description as it's now been 14 years since the inception of this blogspot of mine.

    My response is:  "Slow learner."

    It's true, as I'm still finding things to amend or improve on.

    The other thing I said to him was: "I’ll keep it as I can use it as an excuse if any of the writing is found not to be good enough…!  Hahaha."

    I've always said, "I'd rather be pessimistic and be proven wrong, than be optimistic and be proven wrong."  

    So, it's better to present yourself at a low level to start with, so that people don't expect too much, and anything better than that low level will be a pleasant discovery / achievement.

    If you start off letting people think that you're good or clever, it'll be hard work maintaining the expectations, and the toppling from that high spot won't be too soft a landing.  I'm happy to give the impression that I'm not very good at things -- less pressure this way.

One way to get rid of mice (France)

Old friend Valerio has two cats, yet they won't catch mice.  I wondered to him if it might be a feature of urban, modern-day cats, because they're being looked after so well by humans.

    The French farm that I used to go to had something like five cats at the beginning (on my first visit in April 1996), doubling (or trebling??) by 2011.

    Whenever the farm mistress heard scuttling in the ceiling, she'd stop feeding the cats for a while, then take them up to the ceiling and release them there.

(France)

Chinese sayings: 51 (破罐破摔)

破罐破摔

pò guàn pò shuāi

"broken jar broken hurl"

This means the jar is already broken anyway, so it won't make much difference if it was hurled to the ground (and got smashed) -- won't make things any worse.

(from googling) 

Quote 

“破罐破摔” (pò guàn pò shuāi) 的意思是比喻人有了缺点、錯誤或遭受挫折後，不思改進，反而任其自流，甚至故意往更壞的方向發展，表現出自暴自棄、放任自流的態度，有貶義色彩。

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(google translate) 

Quote 

The idiom "破罐破摔" (pò guàn pò shuāi) means that when a person has shortcomings, makes mistakes, or suffers setbacks, they do not try to improve but instead let things go as they please, or even deliberately let them develop in a worse direction. It shows a self-destructive and laissez-faire attitude and has a derogatory connotation. 

Unquote

I was helping out at a community church that serves lunch to homeless people every Monday.

    A diner there left her plate that was absolutely groaning with food about 70% untouched, so I asked, "Are you not going to eat anymore?"  Nope, she said, without showing even a shred of regret that she was wasting all this food.  I asked, "Would you like a box to take it away to eat later?"  Nope, she said, again with no expression of regret that she was going to let it be binned.  Her body language said:  can't be bothered.

    Wasting food is bad enough for anyone, but for someone who probably doesn't know when her next meal would be, it's even more shocking.

    I mentioned this to a mainland Chinese friend, who then said, 破罐破摔.

(London, 2025)

A visitor at 3 a.m. (Jamaica)

This is a spooky story told by a friend, Donald. 

    On a visit to Jamaica in 1987 for the first time since age 4, Donald was staying at his uncle's.

    One night, he heard someone knocking on the front door at 3 a.m., and thought it strange that his uncle should be having a visitor at that time of the night.

    He heard his uncle get out of bed, then having a conversation with the visitor before going back to bed.

    After breakfast, Donald asked cousin Vivienne if her father normally got visitors that late at night.

    Vivienne didn't understand his question, so Donald provided the details, "Your father was talking to Mr Bolton at 3 a.m. last night."

    Vivienne looked shocked, "Are you sure?"

    Donald, "Yes, I heard your dad call him by his name."

    Cousin Vivienne said, "Mr Bolton died three months ago."

    This was Donald's first visit back to Jamaica since he left as a four-year-old, so he didn't know a lot of people in their circles (unless they'd visited in Britain).  Where would Donald have whipped up the name Mr Bolton from?  Even if it had been a name he might've heard as a boy when people from Jamaica visited Britain, why did he go for that name of all the possibilities?

    Donald says he'd never heard the name mentioned before, and no one in his family knows a Mr Bolton. 

(Jamaica, 1987)

Chinese sayings: 50 (賓至如歸 / 宾至如归)

賓至如歸 / 宾至如归

bīn zhì rú guī

"guest arrive similar-to return"

This saying is from 

春秋·左丘明《左傳·襄公三十一年》

春秋·左丘明《左传·襄公三十一年》

The Spring and Autumn Annals (Zuo Zhuan), Book of Duke Xiang, Year 31 (572 BCE)

It means that the guests [are made to] feel as if they have returned home.

    This refers to the host treating the guests in such a way that they feel as if they were in their own home.

    I had the principle behind this saying applied to me at Xmas 2024 but with a different outcome, and with a lasting effect.

    I'd received two Xmas dinner invites.  Chose to accept the one by a couple in their 80s because I didn't want them to spend Xmas on their own.  (I have always had a soft spot for old people, even way back as a child.)

    Turned out that they weren't going to be alone after all, with six other people joining them, so my sacrifice was for nothing.  Actually, not for nothing, as it left an indelible PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) impact on me.

    The other guests were their Bulgarian handyman (who could speak some English), his Bulgarian wife (who could speak a bit of English) and their four children.

    The host is not sociable at the best of times, never mind after many months of shouting down the phone line at someone about his property empire, which I'd hear every time I turned up to give the wife a free massage and deliver their cheap and fresh fruit and veg that I'd sourced for them, which was practically every week.

    So, I tried to make the Bulgarians feel welcomed by asking them how Xmas is usually spent in Bulgaria, which part of the day the meal is, what they eat for the meal, what the other customs are, etc.  (I know that Polish people celebrate Xmas differently and eat different things from the Brits.)

    This turned out to be the wrong thing to do, in the eyes of the disgruntled host.  I heard him complaining later to his wife that I'd "dominated the conversation".  By asking questions and trying to make HIS guests feel at home?  How stupid of me.

    The volcano erupted on Boxing Day when he jumped to the wrong conclusion regarding my question about a funnel (that he was going to make out of a 10L cooking oil plastic bottle), which I'd thought might make him happy, with people taking an interest in his creations.

    Before I could finish my question, he interrupted me with an answer about his small coffee funnel.

    I said, "I haven't finished my sentence."

    The next thing was a blast of:  YOU ARE SO RUDE!!!

    Huh, rude saying "I haven't finished my sentence"???  What about him interrupting people?

    It was Boxing Day night (no trains), so I couldn't even go back to my own flat to cry.

    The next day, as I was leaving, his wife explained that he'd "shouted at you because he treats you like family -- he does that with his siblings".

    Oh wow, I should feel so honoured.

    So, this is his version of 賓至如歸 / 宾至如归 (making the guests feel at home when they come and visit):  letting off steam on them after building up stress over some other, unrelated matter(s); accusing them unfairly of rudeness when he was the one being rude (interrupting before the guests could finish their question).

    No apologies, nothing, from either of them -- for a whole year now.

    That's supposed to be another aspect of being treated like family, then?  No apology due, since it's family.

    Wow, I should feel grateful for the honour.  (Actually, maybe I should feel grateful that I only got shouted at.)

(London, 2024)

Some Chinese practices: 13 (Gender roles)

 

One of the things the mainland Chinese drama series (set 1979–92) that I've been watching focuses on is the education and career paths of the younger generation.

    The girls are expected to just get into some kind of job, it doesn't matter what, because they'll be getting married anyway.  It's more important for them to find someone with residency, which is what will set them on the right path in life, i.e., not have to live in some backwater place.

    Gender roles are clearly set in the Chinese culture, though perhaps less rigidly now.

    My brother was the only boy but also the least able scholastically.  He kept failing a grade, having to redo it, then just about making it to the next grade up, before repeating the cycle until he became overaged.  (The only other option in those days was to go to adult education classes, but I don't know what happens at the end of that route.)

    We four girls said we'd give our inheritance money to him because, being women, we'd have our husbands to support us, whilst being a man, he'd be expected to support his family, scholastically able or not.  This was said back in the 60s.

    A woman's role was to bear children and pass on the (man's) family name.  The sole blame for infertility was traditionally laid at the girl's door.

    A girl was also expected to be able to cook, if not to sew as well.  My mother made me learn how to sew and cook when she found that I was still not able to at age 16.

    My sister-in-law said to me years later, "When I first met you and you said you couldn't cook, I thought, 'How can a girl not know how to cook!?'  Then you cooked some clams for me:  you boiled some water, added some salt, threw the clams in, then fished them out and presented them to me, and I thought, 'Yep, she's right.  She can't cook.'"  That was the cultural remit of being a girl/woman at the time.

    In the mainland Chinese drama series, the studious girl and the boy next door decided to get married in spite of their young age (still at university -- young according to the official perspective), rather than risk being allocated jobs in different geographical places and end up splitting up.

    Her family is up in arms about this, saying she is jeopardising her future [prospects romantically] if the relationship doesn't work out after all and she ends up with the stigma of being labelled "a divorced woman".  No one issues the same warning to the boy.

(Singapore, 1960s; China, 1991)

For those of you who need "residency" explained (thanks to Valerio for drawing my attention to this):

(from googling)

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China's Hukou (户口) is a mandatory household registration system tying citizens to a specific location, determining access to crucial social benefits like education, healthcare, and welfare, effectively creating internal passports that historically controlled migration and still influence opportunities, especially between rural and urban areas, dictating entitlements even with recent reforms. It's a central document recording personal info and family ties, crucial for accessing local government services, education, and jobs.

Unquote

It's the people's disposition: 03 (UK)

I met a mainland Chinese woman through two students of mine (a married couple).

   She told me about her experience when she was a post-grad student in Nottingham.

   Being a foreigner not long in Nottingham, she wasn't familiar with the bus routes.

   When the bus arrived at the stop she was waiting at, she asked the driver if he was going to xx Road.  He said no, but he didn't leave it at that:  he went on to tell her where to catch the bus to xx Road, which was something like "go that way, turn left into xx Street, a few yards further on is the bus stop for the bus to xx Road."

   She said to me, "Not only did the driver deal politely and patiently with me, and as if I were the only passenger there and he had all the time in the world, the queue of people behind me also waited patiently and quietly, as if they had all the time in the world as well.  This wouldn't have happened in China:  the people behind would start complaining about your holding them up, or at least start to show impatience which is basically putting pressure on you and the driver to not waste any more of their time.  I was very touched by how kind everyone was -- especially to an obvious outsider."

(UK, c.2010)

It's the people's disposition: 02 (Singapore / UK)

I grew up in Singapore where people were practically always impatient.  (Can't speak for now, as I left in 1974.)

    I used to put this down to the weather:  it's not easy to be placid and calm when you're hot and clammy all the time.  (Average temperatures high 20s to low 30s; humidity around 80% most of the time.)

    In my childhood days, drivers would honk impatiently at people crossing the road if they didn't quicken their pace at the sight of the approaching vehicle, as if the drivers had priority by right.

    Drivers would hoot at the first vehicle at a set of traffic lights if it didn't shoot off as soon as the lights turned green.

    In my early days in London, I'd witnessed the opposite on more than one occasion.  The first driver at the lights hadn't even had his/her first gear engaged, ready to charge off when the lights turned green (which was what was expected in Singapore in my childhood days).  The other drivers would patiently (and quietly) wait for that first driver to get the car into the first gear and move off.  I was very impressed at how civilised people were.  (Not anymore, I must add, from what I've seen in recent years.  People are starting to behave badly.)

    I'd always put it down to the weather in both cases (Singapore and Britain).

    Some generalisations here from my own experience to support my weather theory (yes, Valerio, generalisations, but from my own experience):  people from Mediterranean countries are much more excitable than Scandinavians who are calmer and more softly spoken.

    However, a student once complained to the co-ordinator about my moving the young man next to her to another seat because she kept talking to him in class while the teaching was in progress.  She said, "My Latin temperament doesn't quite get on with her style."  (No, she's not Italian.)  So, even she herself acknowledged that there's such a thing as temperament (or disposition).

    Therefore, it's not just the weather, although the hot and humid weather must make the blood boil more quickly as well.  It must be the temperament of Singaporeans (in my childhood days anyway) as well.

(Singapore, 1960s–75; UK, 1977 onwards)