One thing that has interested me since my arrival back on the plateau 16 months ago has been my chance to see through the lens of a local person, courtesy of my lovely wife. This hasn't always been comfortable. Foreigners have a distinctly spotty (the most generous term might be ambivalent) reputation here on the plateau. Foreigners are widely considered to have great amounts of money, but they're also dirty or unkempt, uncouth, culturally insensitive, sometimes rude, and sometimes religiously different (and pushy about it). Depending on the person with whom you are speaking, they might point to different things, or might have different reactions to one or multiple of those traits listed above.
Today, I'm mostly interested in the first pair: dirty and/or unkempt. A good number of foreigners who hit the plateau come here to travel, and as such are in the midst of travel. Although Xining is a city in which the modern amenities are never really too far away, there is a sort of "traveler's chic" in which a person may not have showered for a few weeks, washed his/her clothes, and not shaved. From a Westerner's perspective this is all too easy to understand as these people are traveling. However, for a local person, whose entire contact with foreigners is likely to come within the city of Xining, they can be forgiven for thinking that all foreigners are smelly, and unkempt. But there are perhaps two other elements that are instructive. The first is that local cultures are distinctly unaccepting of people who do not look neat and clean (please excuse the double negative, but that's blog writing for you). People frequently think it is more important to look wealthy than to actually be wealthy. I would like to bring out several little anecdotes that themselves point out nothing, but when viewed as a set of cultural artifacts, perhaps point to a trend and an important way of understanding some of what's going on out here: 1) Some local young NGO workers mentioned that whenever they go to a school in the countryside, one of the first things that headmasters ask is to see their mobile phones and/or how much the make. A smart phone is proof that the people are from an NGO with funding and therefore worthy of the headmaster's time. Students also frequently double their salaries to seem worthy. 2) An acquaintance of mine works in a company that makes things difficult for him. In order to be seen as someone more important than his job status would suggest, he has purchased a car (with bank loans) and wears a large gold ring. Without these, he feels like he would be treated even worse in the company. 3) This quote comes from an late twentieth-century comedy performance detailing the stir caused by a Western woman coming and marrying a local man. At this point in the narrative several local elders are showing off their verbal skills and denigrating the foreigners who have come to act as representatives on behalf of the Western woman's family: You say that you came here in a bird boat [airplane], so you must be wealthy. And seeing as how you can come hunting birds, I think you must have a lot of free time. And judging by the patches on your clothes, I think you must have nothing left! 4) If I go out with scuffed or unpolished shoes, some have suggested that I look like a migrant worker (and this is no more a compliment here than it would be in the United States). 5) G told me how a student once opined that local people wear their wealth BECAUSE they don't have much of it, while foreigners ARE wealthy and so they don't feel the need to wear it. 6) A friend told me that he was going to buy a pick-up truck when he first moved out here, but was advised to buy a sedan instead. The reasoning given was that, even though sedan was eminently less practical (particularly for that time when roads within and outside Xining were not particularly good), anyone hoping to engage in business would find it difficult to be taken seriously as a businessman if they were driving anything else. Indeed, pick-ups continue to be associated with the country-side. Interestingly, 4x4s and SUVs are regarded as something of a hybrid "luxury-off-road" crossover. This list is representative rather than exhaustive, but it may give you an idea of the way things stand out here. 1, 2, and 6 suggest that what perceptions of wealth remain extremely important. Often more important than actual wealth. They also seem to suggest that there is a premium placed on looking like this. While rings make up a part of a more traditional matrix of wealth standards, smart phones and cars conversely suggest an incorporation of these modern technologies into perhaps pre-existing understandings. Number 3 is just fantastic and also gives an idea of the way in which people viewed foreigners at the time, and (as far as I can tell) still do. Foreigners waste time, have lots of money, and look like beggars. Number 5, meanwhile provides us not so much with facts, as an interesting further insight into the ways in which Westerners are perceived in this part of China. It suggests that foreigners are all rich, but it is precisely this wealth that encourages one to be slack with one's attire. In actuality, there are a number of very wealthy (and not-so-wealthy) people in the West who will judge you based on how you dress, and there is certainly a sense that certain contexts require certain kinds of dress. Number 4, however, is most telling to me. Knock-offs and fakes are so common here as to make a concern over brand-names or quality a little bit unnecesary (indeed, "Made in China" carries with it the same scorn and derision and implications of poor quality here as it does in the states), and it is not quality so much as appearance that people value. Indeed, this is the crucial point about dress and style in Xining. While people do have ideas of what is stylish or out it is not so much what you wear, but the way you wear it. You must look neat, and well taken care of. It sets you apart as someone with the time and means to keep yourself looking neat. With the exception of sports, nearly all occasions require you to look neat. There is no social status in which slovenly appearance is particularly tolerated. The difference, however, appears to be that slovenly doesn't really have to do with wearing sweats instead of suits. Instead, it means that you should be neat. Your shoes don't have to be nice loafers, but they should be well-maintained. On a different note, here's today's fun foodlore fact: In Yushu, they make bread yeast by allowing yogurt to sour. That's awesome to me. I wonder how this would work as a brewer's or distiller's yeast.
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Watching a Western movie last night was the prompt for an extended and very interesting discussion of Tibetan values. On this particular occasion we watched a movie called "Failure to Launch" which squarely into the Romantic Comedy category. In this film, Matthew McConaughey plays a 35 year-old man who is in an "extended stall pattern." His parents (played by Terry Bradshaw and Kathy Bates) are concerned by this behavior (though they encourage it by doing his laundry, cleaning his room, doing his shopping, etc... a point that gets overlooked in favor of spurring along the outrageousness of the male protagonist's childish antics) and hire a consultant in the form of Sarah Jessica Parker to get him out of the house by getting him to fall in love with her. Long story short, the male protagonist finds out about the deception, moves out, and when things seem at their worst, he is able to realize his love just in the nick of time through the timely (albeit unconventional) intervention of friends and family.
In the US this may seem like an ok plot. But in Western China, the parents come out as villains, and the entirety of the conflict is completely lost on viewers. Tsomo watched it and completely couldn't understand what the problem was about a 35 year old son living at home. Indeed, this is to be admired in China. It is a sign of being or having a filial son. A son who lives at home is therefore a good thing and no parent should expect to get them out of the house, nor should they ever want to. What to me, had seemed like an innocuous plot, had become a reason for dissatisfaction for local viewership. Ultimately, I found this to be a fantastic experience. There are so many tiny facets to culture that seem so natural as to avoid questioning. And yet, even those facets are frequently underlain by other yet more fundamental cultural ideas. In this case, the notion of filial piety, is paramount. Whereas Western viewers may see parents concerned about their child's stunted development and hoping to help him out of this rut, Chinese and Tibetan viewers see parents who clearly have no idea about how a son should be taking care of them. All This week marks the tenth anniversary of the week that completely hooked me on China. Specifically, the experience of walking around the hills outside of Xi'an with Paul (later known as Krrang) Kang. Paul and I have fallen unfortunately out of touch in the last few years since graduation, but I frequently remember that week, and the three years of hanging out with Paul that it initiated with great fondness. This is one of the images i have of us with our Godfather. Style (or lack thereof) aside, I had alot more hair back then in those carefree days. It was also alot easier to go "gallivanting" outside of the city in those days. I mean, I suppose I still could, but... given where I am living and researching, I could cause more trouble than it'd be worth. Hope all is well with the few people reading this. Tim |
About TimAs you can see elsewhere on this webpage, I conduct research on ethnic minorities in western China. This blog offers semi-academic musings on the minutiae of daily life out here--the sort of information otherwise destined for footnotes. Categories |