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Expat's Eye
Expat's Eye
UPDATED: September 25, 2007 NO.40 OCT.4, 2007
Playing Host
Come one come all, but beware the host
By JEREMY CHAN
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Of all the various encumbrances on the life of a foreigner in China, perhaps the most disorienting is the out-of-town guest who breezes into the Middle Kingdom expecting a guided tour. It is an unavoidable, if not always unwelcome, outcome of calling such a foreign land home, as visitors assume that living in China somehow gives us propriety over her myriad enigmas, not to mention a willingness to share them. While it may sound miserly, the universal burden of playing host is compounded in China by the fact that we are, by definition, fish out of water ourselves.

In the eyes of our friends, family, friends of family, and family of friends back home, however, the fact that we have a mailing address in China qualifies us to act as tour guide, no matter how tentative our grasp of the language, the people or the customs. It does not help either that, in many respects, Asia is the new Europe, meaning that China is an increasingly appealing tourist draw. And even though we expats are often bumbling and hapless on our lonesome, we instantly are thrust into the role of Sinologist when an even more clueless acquaintance comes to town. It's like the visually impaired leading the blind.

Admittedly, as an expatriate who has lived and worked in Beijing for almost two decades once told me, there is no such thing as a China expert. Knowledge of a country as vast and multifaceted as China cannot be grasped entirely by any single person, and anyone who pretends otherwise is doing just that: pretending.

Perhaps an apt analogy for the folly of considering oneself a "China expert" is the Great Wall itself, which at first glance seems uniform in its endless expanse, yet is actually bewilderingly polymorphous upon closer inspection. Like China's history, the Great Wall is both unfathomably long and characterized by its capricious yet insistent continuity. What's more, even the most cursory visit to China is not complete without a trip up the Great Wall, though few tourists ever get past the prepackaged excerpts at Badaling or Mutianyu.

However, the cultural divide between Western countries and China is often greater than the greatest of walls, and that means expertise is a relative commodity; for the newly arrived and uninitiated, any knowledge of China is better than complete unfamiliarity.

Indeed, when I reflect on my first few fledgling months in China, when everything about this country was a new sight, a new sound or a new smell, I feel an unmistakable sense of accomplishment swelling in my gut. It's either that or the MSG. And while I still feel more foreign than not in my daily Chinese life, calling China home has grown considerably more satisfying as my experience has grown deeper. Moreover, once-daunting tasks such as communicating with a taxi driver, ordering off a menu in Chinese or visiting the doctor about that swelling in my gut are now commonplace.

None of this, however, qualifies me to lead a visitor through the many mysteries of this culture. Indeed, the deeper I delve into what it means to be Chinese, the more unqualified I feel to summarize it for a visitor. Let's just say that the aspects I have come to love most about China over time are not usually included in most tourist brochures. With all due respect to the Temple of Heaven, the Silk Market and the Summer Palace, they are not what make China such an enthralling place to call home.

What weighs heaviest on the expat tour guide is that China is, in many respects, an acquired taste, a fact that cannot always be impressed on a visitor in a limited timeframe. Moreover, while we expatriates are necessarily foreigners, we are not tourists. This distinction is made heart-wrenchingly clear when a visitor comes to town.

While, for the most part, I am accustomed to living the life of a Chinese person, I know that I take many of China's idiosyncrasies for granted, idiosyncrasies that the newly arrived may find considerably less charming. Squatting next to a ramshackle table, upon which lay skewers of steaming ham, limp greens and tofu; weaving my bike through the elegant dance of oncoming traffic; chatting with the woman amicably guarding the dairy section at the local grocery. These are hard-fought victories in cultural immersion, which make the look of slight exasperation on the face of said friend/family member all the more difficult to bear. The irony, of course, is that one key aspect of Chinese culture has eluded me to this day: While Chinese people will go to ridiculous lengths to be accommodating hosts, I often cannot be bothered.

And yet, perhaps playing host also helps to keep us grounded in a way. After all, it serves to remind us of how far we've come--notably halfway around the world--if not how far we still have to go. My understanding of this country is ever-evolving, and my affection for it ebbs and flows over time. It must be an even more manic exercise in sensory overload for visitors, who must try to maintain their equilibrium while taking a crash course in doing as the Romans do, so to speak.

So it is with good humor that I often caution friends and family from back home, who are eagerly preparing to see China in her ascendancy: Come one come all, but beware the host.

The author is a Chinese American studying in Beijing



 
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