Saving face

So, I've been asked to write something about "face." In case you're not familiar with this concept - in China (and other Asian countries, I've been told), "face" is something like the Klingon honour system, just with much less sword fighting and blood oaths, and probably better personal hygiene and breath. Basically, if you show respect toward someone or do them a favour, you gain face, if you have to rely on others, you lose face. You can make someone lose face by humiliating them, and that's really bad news. In general, I guess I'm lucky I'm not in Japan but in China, as all the very strict rites and rules of conduct have been wiped out by the cultural revolution. Chinese are in most cases pretty easy-going. But hospitality is still a big issue. Never would Chinese go out and split the bill. It is customary that always one person pays for everybody with the understanding that things will balance out eventually. One friend told me that when he was a student in Beijing, there was one guy who would always invite the others and never let them pay, so they stopped going out to eat with him. So, there you have your explanation why my students never want to be invited for dinner.

I don't think I have committed any big faux-pas yet, but then I might be too ignorant to notice :) Well, there was this photographer at the wedding who handed me his business card and I just said "thank you" and pocketed it. He was quiet for a minute (we were riding in the same car) and then said "well, you know, in China it is customary to return a name card" Oopsie. Well, I don't actually feel bad about it because for starters, I don't have business cards (A... - crazy scientist impostor, fabulous baker) and second, this guy was just coming on to me and I was really not interested, not even in polite chit-chat. He was just too fond of himself, I think that would have been a rather one-sided conversation.

I already mentioned that I have to be careful to find excuses why I "owe" my students to take them out to dinner and I know I should repay my neighbors' dinner invitation (I just don't feel like cooking much at the moment, it's so frigging cold in my apartment). I should probably also have asked my hosts in Ganzhou to sit down with me, whenever I was dragged to someone's home and made sit down and eat fruit etc. They were all standing around me, and when I wanted to stand, too, they would insist I sit. It just didn't occur to me that I should ask them to sit down - in their own home. One thing that puzzles me a bit is the standing of money. Usually, nobody is shy to ask how much did I pay for this and that, in many places people haggle for prices, but at the wedding, the handing over of money envelopes happened almost hidden. It was as if the groom's parents were embarrassed to take them and the guests were embarrassed to give them. I did not see an explicit "thank you," also when I once gave Master Wang (the guy who fixes things around my house) a red envelope. So, this strikes me a bit as a discrepancy.

About the value of face... I have really no idea if I have more or less "face" as a foreigner. I don't think the trying to rip tourists off has anything to do with that. It's sort of the rule of the game and everybody is expected to play their part in it, I think. But I do definitely notice people's attitude changing when I speak Chinese to them. And almost everywhere I can rely on the goodwill of strangers. It's pretty amazing. It seems as soon as you have one foot in the door that is 关系 "guanxi - connections" in China, everything becomes much easier.

Just this week I had to attend the yearly physics theory group meeting (about 10 professors and 20 postdocs) and report about what I have been doing. The interesting part was that I was only informed 10 minutes before the meeting that I should go - by my boss who herself neglected to show up. But it wasn't so bad. It was mostly the postdocs introducing themselves and only saying for a minute what they're doing. One of the old professors even suggested they should all speak English for my sake, but I guess it was good they didn't, it would just have taken longer than an hour. When it was my turn and I introduced myself in Chinese everyone was all smiles and admiration :) After the formal part, the professors started smoking (inside the conference room with no ashtrays) and everybody was munching snacks - they are constantly eating oranges, bananas and nuts here. And after about half an hour of small talk everyone left, but not without a box (must be 3 or 4 kg) of tangerines. I'm starting to notice a theme here... I am still working on that huge cookie-box. I'm taking them to my Chinese study group. Since our regular class ended and the new semester only starts in March, a few of us are getting together to study on our own, so we don't forget everything and maybe even manage to skip one level... well, 6 hours a week compared to 20 before is not really very efficient and with half the group being south-American, we never start on time anyways (not that I believe in stereotypes).

Some days I do feel guilty for not being as useful for my boss as I could be. I may contribute a little to one of her projects, but otherwise my research output is close to nil. I just don't enjoy it anymore. But then I remind myself that I am teaching a class, I just won a grant I let her use to pay her students (she has lots of grant money herself, but due to its allocation she doesn't have enough to pay her students - she can buy them macbooks instead, but cash is hard to come by) and I am helping two of her students to apply for Grad School. One of them didn't need all that much help - he's really good and I am writing a recommendation letter for him (no idea how much weight that has since I'm not exactly famous, but it might help to have a letter from someone non-Chinese). With the other one I worked pretty hard on his personal statement - he came across sounding as if he was only going to Grad school for his parents and some of his statements sounded a bit arrogant and as if we was casting blame for is failures on the system (which might be correct) but never on himself. The funniest part though was practising for an interview. The graduate school recruiter from Minnesota actually travelled all the way to China to visit 4 big universities and interview all applicants personally! Quite impressive. They say they usually rely on recommendation letters but for various (unspecified) reasons they do not find this system useful for Chinese applicants. So, we practised handshake and "nice to meet you" while keeping eye contact, sitting down without sitting on your hands (the Chinese all tell me the reason I feel cold is that I don't wear enough clothes and they are not cold at all, but then they sit on their hands to warm them - ha! gotcha!) and standard questions like "why do you want to come to Minnesota?" "What are your strengths and weaknesses?" until midnight. So, no, I don't think I have to feel all too guilty. Maybe I'm not doing exactly what I was hired for, but I am certainly useful... The thought of opening a coaching agency for all sorts of interviews and applications crossed my mind...

I almost wish people would stop telling me they like my blog - I feel so much under pressure to write now :) And I just don't have much to blog about. I am getting comfortably settled in a winter depression, where I don't even leave my apartment - after all there is nothing at the office I can't do from home and I barely ever meet any other people there, and it's too cold to go to Kung Fu, my ear is constantly infected and I'm bored by the food. I think, after 5 months (wow, can you believe it, it's already been so long) I have my first Western food craving. Thankfully I brought a piece of parmigiano from Montreal. So, French toast for breakfast and pasta (which I can get without problems, just cheese is impossible to find) for dinner it is.