There's an interesting new culinary phenomenon sweeping through Western Chinese cities these days (and perhaps elsewhere, I wouldn't know): the house restaurant. Ambitious restauranteurs are abandoning the traditional storefronts and instead turning individual apartments into restaurants. This is particularly popular with Tbtn restaurant owners, with a good number having sprung up in new high rise buildings. They are all decorated in Tbtn style but each has its own selling point. One restaurant might make all the food fresh. Another has a black tent in the living room in which customers can enjoy their meal while sitting on pillows. Still another complements the Tbtn style with dozens of books for customers to read while waiting, thus underscoring the owners credentials as both a traditional T person and a well-known blogger, singer, and author.
The economics of the restaurant business and advances in technology make this set-up potentially profitable, providing one can get the word out well enough. Firstly, such a restaurant, lacking in the store-front space that might make encourage walk-in business, needs a way to encourage word of mouth. Although the methods are still rudimentary (this is no Wharton Business School guerrilla marketing campaign), WeChat (I've mentioned this app before) has proven a remarkably useful tool for generating word of mouth, and getting the word out. Secondly, however, it seems to have become increasingly expensive to get a regular storefront. Rents are getting higher, often far exceeding the rent of apartments, while new spaces often require a zhuan rang fei 转让费, a fee to take over the lease. These fees often cost tens of thousands of (US) dollars even for the least desirable locations, and that doesn't even count the money it costs to decorate and get all of the necessary equipment. The start-up capital required to open a new restaurant, can then make it prohibitive. Interestingly, this is not limited to restaurants. A number of other businesses have also begun to use this (DeCerteau-ian) tactic in their incessant quest to realize the China dream, and share in the country's "economic miracle." Cosmetics shops, hair stylists (not super professional, but still), jiating lvguan 家庭旅馆 ‘home hotels,' massage parlors, yoga studios and more. I don't know about the enforcement, nature, or even existence of zoning laws in this country, but I would guess that some such businesses are unlicensed. A number, however, are credentialed, and proudly display their credentials near the entry. It will be interesting to see where this phenomenon will go, and whether they ultimately will be able to compete with more traditional businesses.
0 Comments
I first arrived in China at the tender age of 19. I didn't drink at that time, but I was immediately confronted with (something resembling) the banquet culture for which China is (was recently) famous. I quickly learned that here people are expected to sing at these banquets. People are also expected to drink. The two were very much connected in my mind. When I arrived in Qinghai in 2009 for my first long-term stay in the region, I learned that this idea was in no way limited to a single ethnic group. If anything, it was more pronounced in Western China. As I was, by then, a drinker, the combination of liquor and music became indelibly linked in my mind as both culturally appropriate and incredibly enjoyable.
In the last few years, I have noticed a general decline in both aspects of this culture. It has become more socially acceptable to refuse liquor at a party, and to refuse to sing. There may be separate and unconnected specific causes for both of these. Regarding the former, it's possible that extensive secular and religious recognition of the potential negative (physical and social) effects of alcohol consumption have begun to affect local drinking culture. The professionalization of music, meanwhile, might have led to a decreased emphasis on the individual, non-professional . The two of these are also, culturally very connected. In a conversation with a friend today lamenting the downfall of singing across the high Plateau (and at parties more specifically), he told me of a traditional folksong lyric that suggests a causal relationship between first the consumption of liquor and the singing of songs: མདོ་དབུས་གཙང་ཡུལ་ལ་ཆོས་ཞིག་དར།། ཆོས་མ་དར་གོང་བ་དུང་ཞིག་དར།། དུང་དཀར་པོ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྣ་འདྲེན་རེད།། སྨད་ཨ་མདོ་ཡུལ་ལ་གླུ་ཞིག་དར།། གླུ་མ་དར་གོང་བ་ཆང་ཞིག་དར།། ཆང་བདུད་རྩི་གླུ་གི་སྣ་འདྲེན་རེད།། In the land of Dbus gtsang the dharma spread Before Dharma could spread, conch shells spread The white conch is the dharma's guide. In the land of A mdo singing spread Before Singing could spread, liquor spread. Ambrosial liquor is singing's guide. That's all for now.,, The new iPhones (and by this I mean the iPhone 5, and later models) have a nifty panorama function to complement the impressive cameras they already have in their phones. I have added a gallery of two panoramas I have taken recently, and will hope to add more after each ensuing trip out of town. The two there at the moment are Labrang Monastery and Xining.
I took advantage of the May holiday to head to Labrang for a couple of days. It was wonderful to get out of town. I hadn't ventured out to Labrang for nearly 8 years (since August 2006), and the differences were mind-bogglin. Roads were paved, the city had expanded and (blanket feature of modernization in China spoiler alert) added a handful of high-rise buildings. The monastery was mostly as I remembered it, but monastic and secular space seemed more clearly delineated... or perhaps I can just recognize the difference better now. I didn't see any monks playing Counterstrike in internet cafe's this time. There are also three (count 'em) coffee shops! It was a very interesting experience. The panorama here provides a (basically) South to North (left to right) look up the valley from the hill where the thangka is displayed during Smon lam chen mo (on the eest side of town) After returning from Gansu, my wife and I took a stroll to Xishan (West Mountain). I took a panorama there too, but it was a depressing one. I remember sitting on West Mountain with two good friends back in 2009 and marveling at how one could see across the valley almost unimpeded. Five short years later, a depressingly large number of (here it is again) high rises dominates one's line of sight. The image goes West to East (Left to Right) through Xining, and is taken from Xishan (which despite being called "West Mountain" is located in the Southwestern part of town). If you wish to see the images, please follow this link A friend of mine owns a barber shop here. He and his wife work hard on a regular basic in a tiny shop. Their son is in third grade, and plays outside after he finishes his homework. He's a nice kid, but there's really no place to play. One day, a boy maybe two years younger than my friends' son hits their son with a stick. The son then kicks the boy, and pokes him with the stick. The younger boy runs away. Ten minutes later, the younger boys parents, and other relatives storm into the barber shop with their most menacing demeanor and start berating the parents, threatening to destroy their shop. Nobody (including the shop's clients) thought to call the police.
Interestingly, in addition to cursing out the boys' parents, they ask if this is the way they are educating their son: teaching him to hit a younger child, etc. But it seems that the same question could be asked of the marauding parents: do you want to teach your child not to solve his own problems, but to come crying to you every time? Do you want to teach your child that he doesn't have to solve his problems but that you will intimidate anybody who crosses him? My only conclusion is that they indeed are trying to teach their children thus. My friend ended up making his son apologize to every member of the other family in turn. While maybe he (as the older child in this event) could probably have reacted without kicking the other boy, there's no logical reason to expect that a 10 year old boy would behave any differently. In the end, this experience likely only teaches this poor boy that his family is not powerful, and not wealthy, and that money and power (and intimidating force) is all that really matters. That nobody thought to call the authorities seems suggestive of the low esteem in which that particular body of people is held. Or at least, the way in which people don't exactly see it as a natural pathway for achieving mediated solutions to problems. Today, I learn an interesting local way of telling someone to examine their zippers:
In the Khams dialect of Tbtn, people will say bai huo da lou sgo phyes du gi 'the mall [borrowed from the Chinese] is open.' As a quick note on pronunciation: phyes is pronounced "tsee." Fortunately, I learned these before I went outside with my fly open... A co-authored article introducing Asian Highlands Perspectives and published in the journal Himalaya is now available on this website.
I have spent a decent part of my dissertation period re-reading articles. In many cases, I think I have found them on my own, thinking that I'm stumbling on a new body of literature. That initial excitement of discovery, however, dissipates just as quickly when, half way through the article, I realize that I have already read it before for a class. The joy turns to disappointment, mostly in myself.
I realize now that much of my graduate school was spent engaged in a sort of academic triage. I would give more time to classes or individual readings that seemed, at the time, to be more pressing or important. In almost all cases I would read to complete the article, rather than reading to really understand. Unfortunately, my judgement wasn't always so great. So it is, with apologies to certain professors (Prof. Chan, Prof. Modan, and others) that I've begun to come back to articles I had read before and forgotten. I probably could have saved much energy in this part of the process by actually knowing from the off what things would be important and what wouldn't (not mentioning names for this negative side). I haven't been outside in several days. It's crazy, and it's not the weather.
I don't know much about the states anymore. The speed with which things change (and the fact that I never had a smart phone until very recently) means that in the two years since I last visited the USofA so much has changed that anything I know about US culture is already horribly out of date. Maybe someday I'll spend enough time stateside to catch up on things like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and whatever other 'apps' the kids are using these days, but keeping up with the trends in China while also writing a dissertation is plenty taxing in the meantime. China, of course, has its own equivalents of many of these. Weibo (微博, literally 'micro-blogging'), for instance, is like China's Twitter. The extremely popular "WeChat" (Ch: weixin 微信) seems to be a kind of all-purpose application, used for socializing directly with people in your friend network via either vocal or written media, leaving status updates for everyone to see, and even make video phone calls to other users, while weishi 微视 lets you make and share videos of 8 seconds or less (like a video instagram?).
One of the most interesting apps (in my mind at least) is chang ba, an app in which people sing into their phones, and then put it up for anybody (and I mean literally everyone in China just about) to listen. Earlier incarnations of the app only let you sing, karaoke-style, into your phone as it records. You can use the internal microphone, or anything with a 1/8" jack that plugs directly into your phone. More recently the makers have added video capability, such that people can make and share videos of them singing favorite Chinese and Western songs. Some of the people posting videos are incredibly talented. There's a group of kids from Sichuan who rap in Sichuanese (which is awesome), and make sing a variety of popular songs in dialect (as opposed to putonghua, which is far more common these days). The songs on chang ba are karaoke version. You have the background sound, but no singer, leaving you to take care of the singing, unmolested by that pesky original track. The advantage over traditional karaoke, however, is that you have the leisure of singing from the comfort of your own home. Singing a song numerous times until you feel like you've done a good enough job to share it with the world. I suppose this is not entirely unlike the phenomenon of putting such videos on youtube (the very same phenomenon that gave us such cultural luminaries as Justin Bieber). Some people, have begun using these for purposes other than singing. With background music, they might show someone how to put on (obscene amounts of) make-up in under 4 minutes. Or they might use them to make quick commercials, hoping that some viewer might randomly stumble upon their video and choose to buy their products. Still others, lonely souls indeed, pour their hearts out for the chang ba community to hear: young lesbian couples, girls dealing with heartbreak, etc. In these cases, it seems that people are drawn to this technology for a range of reasons: the sheer enjoyment of singing a song and making a music video, the sense of community derived through the wireless world of chang ba, a simultaneous feeling of anonymity (among the masses of users) and notoriety, the potential for fame, and the chance to turn a profit, to name but a few. I am supposed to be becoming something of an "expert" on this country (and particularly its Western regions), but sometimes i still feel flummoxed by the technological things going on here. Whether it's the emergence of new terms like tuhao 土豪 (which is sort of like 'nouveau riche,' but refers specifically to the sort of opulent and garish consumption of certain members of this group), or of new technologies that I'm supposed to be able to fit into my life. Personally, I don't like being accessible so often. It's very distracting. At the same time, there does seem to be one general urge tying all of these together: the desire to avoid anonymity to be anonymous or alone in China's megalopolises, and the 1.34 (or so) billion people living in the country. I don't like that I'm making a habit of apologizing for the amount of time between posts. This time, however, I have a decent enough excuse: a recent news item informed me that Qinghai has the slowest internet speed in all of China. I have been trying for days to open weebly. I finally managed to today.
Anyway, on to the post: the title of this post is true. I caught myself saying this to a friend the other day, and realizing that this is the kind of sentence that really makes no sense in American English. How on earth could there be any causal link between my nephew being hospitalized and the amount of milk in our home? Well, it just so happens that out here there is a logic to the sentence. While people in America give flowers and hallmark cards to people in hospitals, people out here (at least in Western China, I can't speak for other places) give milk and fruit. This is a much more practical gift than flowers or hallmark cards. When I discussed the differences with my wife, she said: what good are flowers? There's more to this, however. In the States, hospitals are more or less full service places for those unlucky enough to need to stay in them. People in the USofA also have insurance and credit, which allows people to (at least temporarily) delay the full impact of the high costs of healthcare. In Western China, neither of these exist, all people in need of medical advice must pay for the tests before they can have them done. Not being able to defer these costs means the burden on these families is extremely heavy, particularly because one nurse remarked that most of the hospitalized come from poorer families. Hospitals here also don't exactly provide food for people who are ill. Hospital food has a bad reputation in the states, but at least they serve it. In light of this, I suppose it makes perfect sense that people should give milk and fruit to the families of ill people. They are (supposed to be) guaranteed to be healthy, and so may perfect sense as gifts for convalescents. |
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 |