Note: A few months flitting about various locales in China, and a few books read on Chinese society definitely don’t make me an expert, so please don’t take my words as absolute truth. These are simply my observations and my attempt to categorize them into transmittable ideas for those back at home who will never have the opportunities I have been blessed with to experience such an incredible culture first-hand.
I feel like the dynamics in a Chinese family are as varied as those all across America. After all, people are all different, so it would follow that the families of one society, although very similar across the board, would have different micro-structures. In China, these differences are further amplified by the uneven way in which modernization is happening across the country. A rural family and an urban family have their differences, and even within the category of urban families, the poor and the wealthy obviously have their differences too.
I had the pleasure of staying with the family of a Chinese friend this weekend in Dalian, a modern coastal city. They were a perfect example of the blend of modern and traditional that coexist in Chinese society. The parents were both very easy-going and willing to talk about any subject, even government. Notice I said, “both.” It seemed to me that even though the father was “head” of the household, the mother did not play a subservient role. She was respected, as she should be. Both she and her husband run their own separate companies. Yet at the same time, my friend explained to me, she was very traditional and conservative with the way she looked after her daughter. My friend cannot get her ears pierced nor wear make-up, and is expected to wear clothing that, relative to her age of 21, is fairly juvenile. To be fair, this only stems partially from tradition; the other part is that the mother does not want her only child to grow up (according to said child).
In another strange juxtaposition of modern and traditional, my Saturday evening went from shopping at some of the most luxurious designer stores in the world to burning paper money on the side of the street to honor dead ancestors. Allow me to digress. Saturday evening, as I explained in a previous post, my host parents took their daughter and me to Dalian's most ritzy mall, where we browsed around stores like Louis Vuitton, Fendi and the like. I was already aware that this family was comfortably adjusted to a more materialistic consumer culture, as they had picked me up in a fully-equipped BMW sedan and then introduced me to their very Western-style home:
In addition, they had taken me to a Western restaurant for dinner, and while I obviously loved it, they also greatly enjoyed the international buffet themselves. I admit, I didn't see much of the traditional Chinese culture I had read about up until this point. Then, as we were driving back to the apartment from the restaurant, I saw various groups of people huddled about little fires along the sides of the streets. I asked my friend why there were so many people with their own little fires going, and she said that they were worshiping their ancestors. Apparently, this past Saturday, November 6th, was the first day of the tenth month of the lunar calendar, a day where Chinese traditionally burn paper money to deliver to the afterworld for both their ancestors and their own use when their time comes.
I was thinking that it was pretty interesting to observe from inside the car as we sped along the road back to the apartment. But then we stopped. The dad got out, went and bought something, then got back in the car. We continued to head back to the apartment. Then, on the long road leading from the main road to the apartment complex, the dad pulled along the side of the road, and we all got out. I circled around the car and saw him pull out HUGE stacks of paper money, along with three bottles of alcohol. I then watched as they walked over to the sidewalk and began to burn each sheet of paper money, one by one. It was so fascinating to watch. There was no real ceremony or ritual to it; just slowly feeding paper to the fire. Each of the family members did take a bottle of alcohol and spread it around the fire in a circle. What an eerie contradiction. Here was this modernly-dressed family, straight out of an extremely modern car, doing an incredibly old Chinese ritual on the sidewalk of a city street. I helped a little bit when stray bills flew away, so I guess I have a few dollars waiting for me in the afterlife. Otherwise, I just watched it all slowly burn away, guaranteeing my host family a fortune in the life to come.
Other experiences, in a nutshell, included going to the health club inside the apartment complex and having to deal with naked females of all ages parading around the locker room. Nudity in single-sex shower areas is apparently the norm in China, something that completely shocked me the first time I walked into Peking University's gym locker room. Also, the father very much enjoyed encouraging me to drink basically anything and everything. Wine and some kind of coconut alcohol at dinner, beer at lunch, and more coconut alcohol for the train ride back to Beijing. Oh, and then there was the dumpling-making session I had with my friend's mother. That, however, is yet another post to come...
