Re: China: What did you know before you got here?

[Wolf]

I knew the really basic stuff outlined by MartinK. I also read Wild Swans just before I left (I also re-read 1984 and Animal Farm just before I left because . . . um . . . I like George Orwell. )

I learned a tiny bit about Chongquing (sp?) and Dalian, as I was orgionally supposed to go to the former, and later I was scheduled to go to the latter.

I bought the Lonely Planet for China a month or so before I left, so I learned how much hotels cost in many different places.

That's pretty much it. I had no clue what Chinese society might really be like, what teaching here would be like, etc etc.

[roaming kiwi]

Maybe because I'm the wee-fulla here, but in college (that's high school to you ignorant fcuks) we learnt about China's geography. Plus being an recovering-social studies teacher helped.

We got the lonely planet guide months in advance, we did a week long survey trip to Shanghai and Suzhou about a year out, we made a point of networking with the Chinese community in Wellington (NZ) and learnt what was meant by "gum-bay" in the safety of a friends home.

But nothing prepares you for total immersion. Weird-poo may happen back in your home country, but you know the ropes. When weird-poo happens here, you can't just turn to the Yellow Pages, or pop down to the local shop and instantly get what you want without an involved game of pictionary.

By the way, I bet we're all dab-hands at Pictionary now! ;D

[MyTurnNow]

I was a lifelong China hand.

I'd studied Chinese language, Chinese history, Chinese arts. I'd read The Dream of Red Mansions, selected poetry and political writing of Mao Zedong, Riding The Iron Rooster, several accounts of the Tiananmen massacre, and much, much more. I'd read the classic Shu Jing, and read and practiced I Ching. I studied Hao style taiji. I had one serious Chinese girlfriend. I ate Chinese food several times a week. I was a news stringer for China News Digest for several years, which kept me very up-to-date on Chinese current affairs. I even came here as a turista back in 1987.

So, needless to say, I was totally unprepared for the realities of daily life in this country. I spent my first 72 hours here curled in the fetal position in a corner of my apartment, looking like the astronaut going through the wormhole in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I got better. Sort of.
MT

[Chinasyndrome]

1986. At the airport. About tea time. I met a Guangzhou guy who was a total noob to Oz. He was wandering around looking completely lost and being studiously ignored by everyone so, acting completely out of character, I befriended him and helped him out. We have been best friends and brothers since. I taught him English, which is where the language training thing began for me. I learned halting regional Cantonese from him and his friends and whenever I was in Australia was immersed in their culture, to the point that 'Li', my Chinese name was generally accepted as being my only name, even amongst guilao.

I studied Chinese history and traditional medicine, the first for 10 years in a systematic way and the second in a sporadic way. My particular interests are in, historically, the Warring States and T'ang Dynasty periods, and culturally, the idioms and sayings of China. Tracing etymology is impossible in many cases because the purges and effects of revolutions have at times in China's history meant that a lot of written knowledge has been destroyed.

There is a saying for everything and each has facets that prove or disprove the other to some degree. I read widely about China's modern development, especially from an economic/financial persepective, and did my best to read books about all facets of China via translations, first-hand accounts of now-overseas Chinese, and foreigners who have actually been here. Poor translation works both ways, it's difficult to keep the true meaning of many things if you're writing in your (western) culture as well as your language, and I'd say fully 60% of what I took to be fact is mildly to wildly incorrect.

The worst book I've read about contemporary culture was written by a Chinese woman now living in America. The best and most insightful foreign comment I've read was from a guy who said (to the effect): 'When I'd been living in China for a year I thought I knew everything about it. When I'd been here for 7 years I thought I knew a lot about it. When I left after 12 years I realised I knew almost nothing about it.'

Looking back, I was pretty much prepared for everything except the local culture, and the depth of bastardry by some Chinese (not only locals) and particularly by some foreigners. Even though I knew I should expect it it's been an ongoing amazement to me how some of these people can think of themselves as humans. I'll always come back to China but seriously doubt I'd come back to where I am now.

Like MT, I spend a lot of time curled up, drooling, and sometimes crying for my mummy. My teddy bear is sometimes aloof and emotionally unavailable.

[Roger]

I came to China by default, sort of.
It began, perhaps, a long time before. In 1983, I travelled to Russia, and from Moscow to Peking by Transib. It was a great adventure in those days - two of the world's staunchest socialist empires, rubbing shoulders with their natives who were indoctrinated at that time to not talk to Westerners.
In Peking, I went to the ticket office to buy a train ticket for a destination in the south as my visa was valid for just 7 days! I didnt know a single place except Hong Kong. I asked for a ticket to "Hong Kong", but of course, the vendor didn't get it. Finally, a Hong KOng native came to my rescue, and I got a ticket to "Canton". I arrived there two days later, then, the same evening, I was in HK. I had seen myriads of blue-clad Chinese ants, all shuffling about silently, never speaking to me, staring yes, though not that provocatively.
And, I had seen those rice paddies for which I thought China was so famous! I definitely wanted to come back.
Four years on, I went to New Delhi, then to Kathmandu. Overland, I and two companons travelled to Lhasa, TIbet, then on to China and Hong Kong. The Northwest thrilled me - those sandy plains of Qinghai, the cool climate of XIning, the lush greenery of Changsha. We met many CHinese students eager to communicate with us.
In 1992, I lost both my French partner and my own home - the first abandoning me, the second was going to be pulled down to make room for a bigger and new house. I decided to explore China again.
I stayed one year and a half, interrupted only once for 4 months away. I frequently travelled to Hong Kong to get a new visa, but for the rest of the time, I was continuously on PRC soil.
I drifted to Hainan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, everywhere. It was a fantastic time. People were different from now - more genuinely friendly, smiling more broadly, showing more generosity although there were many crooks that worked on your pity and sympathy - students trying to wheedle invitations from you to posh restaurants.
People's minds op;ened up quickly. I learnt a lot from many of my acquaintances. It was only 3 years after the killing on Tiananmen, and those befriending foreign visitors made no bones about their true feelings. Today's young generation is almost the very opposite. Anyway, not one train station in those days where I was not seen off by a numerous local delegation of friends!
That decided me to seek employment, which I found in 1994. To my horror, my school then was a typical product of China's system, a nightmare that would have lent itself for a fascinating and shocking story for George Orwell!
But every down was followed by an up. I learnt survival techniques, and am still reasonably happy here.