Happy Birthday, Richard Adams

Every day I get the Writer's Almanac in my inbox. Honestly, usually I can't be bothered to finish reading the poems they send and I hurriedly skim the newsletter that follows, but I'm glad I didn't miss this item: 

Today is the birthday of the novelist Richard Adams, born in Wash Common, England (1920). He was working as a civil servant, and he had two young daughters, for whom he often made up stories. They were preparing for a long car trip when one of the girls told him he had to make up a new story, a long one that would last the whole journey. He began to spin a yarn about a band of rabbits escaping the destruction of their warren. There was Fiver, a weakling and a prophet; along with Hazel and Bigwig, inspired by two soldiers Adams had known during the war.

The story lasted the trip and more, and when it was done, Adams' daughter Juliet said, "You ought to write it down, Daddy. It's too good to waste." He did, taking nearly two years, and it was rejected by many publishers as too grown-up for kids and too simple for adults. A small publisher finally accepted it, but only printed a small initial run and couldn't afford to pay Adams any advance. After notable positive reviews, sales took off and within a couple of years, Watership Down (1972) had sold more than a million copies.

On my dad's recommendation, I read Watership Down in 1997, on the two-week trip my family took to adopt my oldest little brother, Billy. I'm overdue to reread it. I remember being very emotionally invested in those poor little rabbits. I'd never heard the story behind the book, so what an interesting little surprise.

It's good to be good to people

We have a great cleaning lady at work. She always says good morning, she's mindful of whose coffee cups belong to whom, she tells me what fruits to avoid in the afternoon for the sake of my Qi, and she loves to tell me and my co-worker that we're beautiful. Who wouldn't love that?

The other day, while I was out of the office, she teared up while showing a letter she'd written to one of my fellow editors. It was addressed to our company's previous landlord, who was apparently very kind to our cleaning lady. Then, still feeling emotional, she told my co-worker that people always ask why she spends so much time chatting with the editorial department. She told her it's because we always look her in the eye when we speak to her and she can tell by that how we feel about her. She said she knows her job isn't regarded as important, but she appreciates the respect we give her.

My co-worker gave her a pat on the back, feeling awkward and embarrassed, because it's not as if this is something intentional on our parts. If I had to guess, there are probably two reasons our department stands out in the eyes of our cleaning lady. (We're the only department that's majority Western.) Culturally, eye contact is more important to us when addressing people. And we have different feelings about relationships and power distance. We have much less of a problem telling the boss when we think he's wrong, and we also probably are more inclined to chat with the cleaning lady. 

I've seen (not regularly, but sometimes) Chinese people treat service staff in a manner that to me seems appalling and dehumanizing, behavior like snapping one's fingers at a waiter in a restaurant and not looking at them or saying "please" or "thank you." And it took me awhile to adjust to the fact it's acceptable and expected to address your cleaning lady as "ayi" (aunty) and your cab driver as "shifu" (skilled worker). Here on the mainland, we're supposed to address waiters as "fuwuyuan" (service person) because "xiaojie" (miss) is a euphemism for prostitute in the south. I still slip up and call a waitress "xiaojie" sometimes (which is acceptable in Taiwan). It just feels strange reducing someone to their labor. I had an equally hard time in Taiwan where everyone addressed the school managers as "zhuren" (manager). I wasn't expected to do this since I was a foreigner. What's more disconcerting to me is when the Chinese editors who have to deal with our censors address them as "laoshi" (teacher), which is a form of respect for older, educated folks. 

Of course I prefer my own culture because it's mine. But that's not to say everyone else is wrong, or that the other departments in our company are wrong for not taking more time out of the day for our cleaning lady - she doesn't expect it, but she appreciates it. 

It's easy to lose your manners in Shanghai. There are low expectations for showing consideration to strangers. Sometimes it drives me nuts. There's a checker at the corner grocery who seems to make a point of ringing up the items and then chucking them away from your open plastic bag, just to make the point that she isn't going to bag your groceries for you. Fine. But just because there's a low bar where social expectations are concerned, doesn't mean my personal bar has to sink too. Since my co-worker told me about her conversation with our cleaning lady, I've tried to be more intentional about looking people in the eye and smiling and almost always that friendliness is reciprocated. It's so much better to concentrate on conveying good feelings to others than to dwell on frustration. I'll try to remember that.

Dining by Madame Chiang's old haunt

Last night James and I had dinner at a Mexican place that shares a patio with this place.

Now it's an upscale eatery, but it used to be home to the mighty Soong family, big-time power brokers during China's brief and tumultuous Nationalist era. Soong Ching-Ling married Sun Yat-sen and later Soong May-Ling married Chiang Kai-shek. I'm presently reading this biography of Madame Chiang.

I started reading it about a year ago and put it down because the part about her formative years is slow. I'm glad I wasn't born into a richy-rich Chinese family around the end of the 19th century. After returning to Shanghai from studying in America, prior to her marriage, May-Ling spent a lot of time writing to American friends about how bored she was because her family wouldn't allow her to take a proper job. Without anything to occupy her time, whenever she got sick she thought she was REALLY sick and was very dramatic about it.

I've just got to the part where she marries Chiang. I never knew much about their marriage. In Taiwan sometimes you'll see postcards on sale venerating their great love story. I've also heard people remark that Madame Chiang was the most power-hungry of the Soong sissies.

Turns out, the wedding was a very calculated move on the part of the Soongs and Chiang. He also had to cast off his village wife, Jennie, before he could marry May-Ling. He sent Jennie to America, promising that it was only a political move of short duration and that he'd come get her in 5 years or so. But then he was quoted in the New York Times explaining that Jennie was just a concubine he'd set free. 

Hannah Pakula made a Freedom of Information Act request and dug up documents indicating the US government did its best to make sure Jennie didn't publish her memoir because it would reflect poorly on Chiang's government (our allies). Threatened with lawsuits, Jennie destroyed all but one of the copie. She died in 1971. The book finally made it out in the 1990s, Chiang Kai-sheks' Secret Past: The Memoir of his Second Wife.

I learned all this in a lengthy footnote in Pakula's book (after all, the book is about May-Ling, but it must be disappointing to drop that kind of lengthily-researched bombshell in a footer). I'm adding Jennie's book to my to-read list. There are actually 84 books on my to-read list. I just got a Goodreads account. Oh man, it's a great way to track and fuel a reading addiction.

Anyways, as we walked past Sasha's last night, I got really excited, "That's where the Soong family used to live! I'm reading about May-Ling now and this makes it all the more REAL!"

James: "The who?"

Me: "The Soong sisters! You know, the ones that married Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek."

James: So, Madame Chiang used to live in Sasha's...

It's common knowledge that Sasha's is the old Soong house, it's even printed in the front of their menus, but somehow it escaped me until recently that Sasha's was known for more than anything than overpriced cocktails and a great patio. Last night we had Mexican food in a second-floor dining room. I  got to eat fajitas and watch the Soong house, wondering if May-Ling ever sat by one of the windows I could see, writing about how bored she was, waiting for her life to start - unaware that she would shortly become one of the most important women in modern Chinese history.

Here since June 4, 1989

I had an interview last week at a hole-in-the-wall hair salon. The subject was a middle-aged guy with a giant mole on his cheek and a yellow t-shirt with the silhouette of a lawn gnome and the words "take it outside." Born in a seaside village in Guangdong Province, he had a southern accent so thick my Chinese co-worker had to constantly ask him to repeat himself. I could barely follow him.

We started with the customary Shanghai interview questions. In this transient city, the first or second is most always "how long have you been here?"

"I've been here since before the June 4 riots." He said. This was shocking not only because I rarely hear Chinese people speak of it, but also because we'd only been chatting about a minute. Some introduction.

"But we can't put this in the magazine, can we?" my co-worker asked, wondering if we should redirect the conversation. In truth, we can't go anywhere near June 4, 1989. Once I wrote that an interviewee who'd had "problems with authority" was fired in 1989, our censors told me I couldn't write the year or the part about authority. Still, I was interested in what this guy had to say so I told her to continue asking him about it.

I was happy to have this particular co-worker along. She's young and sharp. At one point the Tiananmen Incident came up in the office and her comment was, "well nobody really knows what happened," to which another (Western) co-worker responded, "actually, I think it's well documented in publications outside of China." She responded with, "but those journalists could be lying to promote Western interests."

This wasn't a reactionary, nationalistic conclusion on her part, it was a natural one: Chinese media is the mouthpiece of the state, it's their job to promote the government's interests. Sure, she was off base, but not as off base as a knee-jerk Western reaction might conclude: in recent years evidence surfaced that no lives were lost in Tiananmen Square (to be sure, plenty were killed in Beijing streets after the square was cleared), but it appears the US government and Western journalists let the depiction stand. This is one of the world's most iconic protest photos - why sully the emotional pull of "Tiananmen Tank Man" with the caveat no one died at Tiananmen?

So we continued our chat with the hair salon guy. He'd only been in Shanghai a week when protests broke out here. He'd come for work with a few other young guys. He was living near some of the students protesting. He said some in his group were scared. As I've heard it told by another man who was in Shanghai at the time, local government was much savvier and less heavy-handed than in Beijing. There was only maybe one day where the protests prevented goods from getting into the city.Still, people panicked and the cost of food and supplies shot up. The hairdresser told me some people wanted to go home, but he chose to stay. He said he liked Shanghai and thought that life and opportunity here were worth fighting for. He didn't mention democracy, he seemed to be more taken with the emotional appeal of the movement and the students' passion.

True story.

Why I follow my brothers on Facebook

Okay, actually there are lots of reasons, but the main one is that teenage Facebook melodrama is fascinating and infuriating. It's like reading tabloids. And there's ample opportunity for tut-tutting, kids these days just put so much out there! (Imagine me clutching my pearls).

Ricky, my littlest brother, just took first in all his track meet events and jumped an incredible 20 feet and 1.5 inches (He's 13!!). In a thread where his friends were discussing how he did it, this exchange (or teaching moment, perhaps) much amused me:

Kid: well u r black

Ricky: Cambodian*

Kid: Isn't it the same thing

Ricky: Sir, Cambodia is in Asia

Yeah Ricky, drop that knowledge.

Bought!

May 29. One-way tickets to Nanning in Guangxi Province, from where we will hop a bus to Hanoi.

Vietnam here we come!

Cab Driver Inquisition

I had an interview at the end of the day in the French Concession and got stuck in traffic heading back to Jing'an, allowing plenty of time for my old lady taxi driver to give me the third degree on just about everything. Before we'd even passed the elevated highway she'd gleaned enough to express shock and consternation that my sixty-something-year-old mother could still be raising two teenage boys and she also let me know that if I'm dating a guy he should really already own a house. I got a special kick out of this part:

Driver: What does your boyfriend do?

Me: He's a ... [I botch "designer"]

Driver: What?

Me: He paints advertisements.

Driver: Ah, I understand. How's his salary?

Me: Yeah, okay.

Drive: How much does he make in a month?

Me: Ah! I won't say.

Driver: Does he give you money?

Me: No, I make my own money!

Driver: But if he lives with you he should really give you money.

Me: Hmm, I like how you think.