A Little Life, A Little Love

Life in Suzhou is comparable to life in Memphis, TN on many fronts.
The weather is disgustingly hot and humid to the point where I've seriously considered shaving my head. And then I remember why I usually spend my summers doing something else somewhere else with much better weather.
The people are, well, small town. Well, as small town as a population of 5.71 million can be. It's like the crowded feeling of New York with wider streets, more trees, more pollution, and the people behave like those in Memphis. Most of these people do not have a passport and will never need to get one. They rarely even travel outside of Suzhou, hardly even to Shanghai which is only 20 minutes by train.
As a result, they are kind of small-minded as I've gather both in conversations and just seeing them on the street, see previous blog posts on the staring. They also don't require much out of life to enjoy it. Their life demands and goals and far less than my own.
What can I say, I'm hard to please.
This also makes them pretty friendly, though. Even though I don't speak the language, many have shown their friendly side. This week I had to make a trip to China Post to pick up a package from the boyfriend (he sent cookies [swoon]), on the subway ride back to work I encountered a woman who had her daughter right beside her. The girl stared for a while, so I finally smiled and wave. A grin busted through her cheeks, revealing her adorably crooked and dirty teeth (they aren't really known for their oral hygiene here, spitting frequently in the streets and I'm not sure why their teeth are often so discolored, maybe all the tea without a whole lot of brushing). She squeezed out a stressed "hi" to me as if she struggled to remember the English greeting. I returned the greeting and her smile grew. I looked away, only to have my attention reverted back as she tapped my arm and her mother asked me to sit next to her. I only had one more stop, but the thing about being in public here is that, like at the hotel, I can only speak what I have come to call "Chinese English."
Chinese English is a very watered-down version of English using sentences that are preferably no longer than ten words and only using words that I would know the translation for in French.
Why in French?
Well, many of the people here have taken English since 6th grade, but stopped after high school or college (if they actually went to college), so they've forgotten most of it. So, I try and remember what my first year or so of French included and only use that in my English as that's probably all they remember, too. We all speak "Chinese English" when we first learn to speak as kids and again when we learn a foreign language. It's how you break it down and start building up.
So, "Chinese English" kept me from telling her no and I sat down next to the grinning girl and a little boy came over to practice his English as well, before I had to get up to go. It was an unbelievably sweet gesture to not only make her daughter happy, but help out a stranger in a foreign land carrying a big box.
An encounter I would probably have faced in Memphis, too.
My co-workers have taken to calling me "Sh-ow may" (pronounced with a quick "sh" and an "ow" sound like you make when you hit your funny bone and a quick ascending pitch, "may"). It means "wheat."
They absolutely love bread around here. It is hard to come by, many of the stores don't carry it and I have to go to a speciality bakery to get a loaf that doesn't have this weird milky flavor to it that they love so dearly, and we have it for every meal at the club: a loaf a breakfast, banana nut bread at high tea, and another loaf in the evening. And they save it after we take down all the food every time.
While, I'm making dibs to keep them from throwing away awesome sushi or the amazing strawberry profiteroles and chiffon cake - by the way, since my room mate has been in the pastry kitchen the last few weeks, she made sure I made friends with the other chefs who, even though they don't speak English, have taken to treating me every once in a while by surprising me with a dessert near the end of the night since my room mate told them about my dessert addiction - they're just after the loaf of bread. They won't eat the crust, though, and were appalled when I told them that the French bread is semi-crusty all the way through. "Why would you eat bread that is like stale?"
Yes, I know, dear friends.
They also thought that the cookies Nick sent were "too sweet" tasting, while Alex and I loved them. They've even asked me why we eat cheese when it smells so bad, to which I was quick to reply, "Have you smelled the food you eat? I mean really, you ate a chicken's foot yesterday in the cafeteria and everyone loved it. You had to bite around the toenails of a chicken's foot for dinner last night. Come on."
Anyway, but they think my hair color is like that of wheat. So, I'm "show may" (sorry I don't know the correct spelling in English characters). While everyone here refers to the others as their English name, I have lost my English name and am referred to by people who normally don't (well, usually can't) talk to me.
Now that I have a nick name and have answered their questions without judgement, they've taken to my personal life and also unloaded on their own.
When I was in Paris, I read the book "Eat, Pray, Love." It was an awesome book for that time in my life and, as always, better than the movie. The author, Elizabeth Gilbert, has a friend who was a psychologist and was asked to counsel female Cambodian refugees as they had just been rescued from horrific circumstances inclusive of genocide and rape. What did they talk about?
Their relationships.
Of course.
I come all the way around the world, interested in hearing what they have to say about politics, the environment, and what they want to do with their lives, but none of it interests them. They tell me instead about their asshole ex-boyfriends or this guy who clearly just wants a friend with benefits, but I had a hard time explaining what that entailed.
They're shocked that I've dated so many people (by American standards, I really haven't dated that much, stop your judging), when, at 20-25 they've only dated one or two people. They also don't really date much longer than a year before getting married.
From what I've gathered, there's not really an engagement period. And it seems that a lot of them are getting married around my age, just like many of my friends at home, but there are also many that are avoiding that path for a while, and in some cases, forever. Many have kids with their boyfriends, well, one kid, being the one-child policy and all. And a lot of my co-workers never want kids, some of those want to be married and the rest don't really care.
Being from the south, I would say that there are far more people here that don't want the marriage and kids life than those that already have it back home. Then again, things are different in the southern part of the states.
They're very inquisitive of the boyfriend and my friends.
So I have a theory that I believe I have shared before, but here it goes for review: The Disney Princess complex. This is a complex that a lot of girls tend to have that spend a lot of time at Disney growing up or are truly engulfed in the movies. As many of you may know, Asians love Disney. They're crazy about all things Disney, I think I have seen every girl I work with wear at least one Disney shirt or carry some sort of Disney accessory. I think that this, combined with the aspiration to have the "American Dream" contributes to their outlook on the normal American's life.
They think that everything, every story, is a fairy tale of sorts.
Unfortunately, the divorce rate of the American dream also seems to be following them. As a society of only children, they are having some difficulties from moving as the center of attention and the freedoms to do as they please, where they are boss and their desires are number one, to a mutual relationship. So, the dream of a fairy tale brings them together, but the realities quickly push them apart - last year over 2 million couples divorced in China. 2 million.
That's the entire population of Houston, Texas.
They always want to know how my boyfriend is and if he has sent me any letters lately or want more details on my friend's lives. And I have to follow up every story with pictures. Pictures of the people and the places I tell them about. They love the Grand Canyon pictures and told me that the Chinese characters for "America" are literally translated as "Beautiful Country" and now they know why.
I sometimes feel like I overwhelm them. In China, they have more freedom that people in the states think that they do, but a lot of times, they don't care to go out and use those freedoms. They're beginning to experience a cultural revolution of sorts ever since they opened their economy and little by little, things are changing. Still, you can tell by the look on their faces when I tell them the stories of the places I've been and the options I have for things like food choices all the way to where I want to live, it's almost too much to take in.
"Your parents really let you go to Paris and even come here for 6 months? My family would never let me do that."  I guess at the end of it all, their families are just as worried about their only kid where I am one of many kids. Not that I'm unimportant, but I do also happen to be fiercely independent.
They're just used to the life they have now that they don't really have a desire to do anything else, but, then again, I don't know what they make of that after seeing their reactions to my answers to all their questions.
But even though most everyone is part of a three-person family, they're still very tied to their families and, as a close extension their communities. Not that, volunteer-of-the-year or homeroom mom type of community ties we Americans filled our time with (not that there is anything wrong with that, I happen to love it). Just basic, hanging around and enjoying another day together, type of community.
Just spending one summer evening walking around my complex and you will see it, the sense of community even within a city this large. They're just as close knit of a city as we are in Memphis. Everyone is outside as if it were a block party every night of the week, just sitting around enjoying each other's company while some kids break dance on a cardboard mat and younger ones ride bikes against the back drop of the evening sky and lit by the small local market and flames coming off the grills of the neighbors turned vendors during the night. It's after midnight and the good times keep rolling on another average Thursday night.