Adventures in China

I could generate a lot of different reasons for why the Chinese people I knew were, in my opinion, overly concerned with appearances, but I'm not really sure I have any idea where their concern comes from. It could be from the lack of resources and the intense competition for any edge on your neighbors, so keeping up appearances makes you look better. It could be left over from earlier Communist eras when everyone was busy spying and reporting on their neighbors when gossip might kill you. Or it might be something entirely different.

Whatever the cause, image was essential in my area of China. No one ever complained around people they didn't know, especially around people who might report to their superiors. There was so much shame around family disturbances that people would avoid revealing realities such as a parents' divorce, even if it happened 10 years ago. If someone lost their job, they often continued to get up, get dressed, and walk towards work so the neighbors wouldn't find out.

In the United States, I feel comfortable enough to complain about my job, employer, family, or friends to a perfect stranger on a bus. In China, these issues only seem to get discussed within families or with a very close, very special friend. I often seemed to become that friend for the young women I worked with because I was outside the system. For as often as I heard the same complaints from all these women, they would never talk to each other for fear that they would lose status in the other person's eyes. It seemed incredibly precarious and lonely to me.

When dealing with anyone the standard mantra was to say that "everything is fine," even if it wasn't. In fact, the only complaint that was commonly accepted was tiredness. If I didn't want to attend a function or do something that someone ask of me (like teach an extra class), it wasn't appropriate to say I didn't want to or explain why I was opposed to an activity. Instead, I was supposed to claim to be too tired. It almost always got me out of the situation, but it always seemed a bit dishonest to me, though I don't think anyone was fooled.