What's that, you say?

                I’ve been settling back in in a fashion roughly approximating ‘nicely’ since my nearly month-long exodus from the PRC.  After an initial comedown period of disappointment and disillusionment I’ve re-established a connection with the reason I’m here after all (LOOT), and found my way back into my old routine of attempting to eat well/stay hydrated to combat the worst effects of The China.

                This isn’t to say that things really get that much easier here.  At the core of every outing to the grocery store/restaurant/mall/etc lies the same issue: I will have to attempt to make myself understood, and understand in kind.  The fact that I have collected some elemental mandarin since I’ve come here helps less than you would think, though, because it puts you in decided danger of thinking you might be understood when you speak.  Explanation!

                Mandarin is a language that dearly holds on to its multiple-intonation format.  They literally can’t get enough of it; it’s the reason you can’t even pretend to speak mandarin without feeling like some kind of closet racist.  If you don’t do all the crazy ups, downs, recovered dips, and high level tones *just so* you will be looked at like a dog that is trying out its speaking legs for the first time… and not even some kind of adorable Hanna-Barbera creation, either.

                Part of the issue is the antiquated (yet quizzically still clung to) language, but a larger part is the near complete lack of multiculturalism here.  Now, you might say, “what do you mean, look at all the white people on the billboards?” – a semi-valid point, in a way.  I don’t hold the fact that the entire world seems to want to get ‘a bit closer’ to white people as valid multiculturalism, though: Orlando Bloom and an endless succession of anonymous blondes aren’t bastions of cross-cultural exchange – they’re just sexy as all getup.

                It’s hard to even come to visit somebody in China.  They need to send a letter of invitation dictating their address, job, and own visa status before you can even be considered for a visitor permit – after which you can stay in the country for no more than 30 consecutive days on a typical tourist visa.  You think you can come live in China? You better have a post-secondary degree in a field that the Chinese literally CAN’T do to even think about applying.

                Plus you have to remember that as a result of decades of unbridled (by reason, empathy, or environmentalism) development, much of the country is barely habitable by comfortable western standards; those with any lung, allergy, stomach, or immune issues have no business doing more than crossing the airspace.  What’s that, you’re a vegan/vegetarian? Get out of here you wuss, before you are forced to eat the boniest possible fish (which is the selection process for fish served across the country…jesus I miss halibut).

                Thus people of the Caucasian persuasion are actively discouraged from coming to live in China.  You’ve got to be a particularly hardy brand of weirdo to make it more than one day (the length of time a teacher recently lasted at our school… ah, Ontario, you make good people) in this country, and even then it’s only despite the best efforts of the Chinese service industry. 

                I’m not trying to say that helpful people don’t exist, I’m trying to say that the vast majority of people have no idea what to do with someone that doesn’t speak the wacky language like their neighbour.  This is why ‘po-tone-hwa’, or however you want to spell it, even exists: making effort to divine what someone who can’t exactly intone your way(even if they’re just from a different part of China) is seen as too much work for any day ending in ‘day’.

                In Canada it is common to encounter somebody with a thick accent (or no English at all) who wants something.  You think about the situation, use simple/slow language, point at things with your hands, and usually sort things out in a remarkably short/easy period of time.  In my experience here, the preferred way of dealing with such situations is to keep your hands at your side and speak mandarin increasing in speed by the moment.  This leaves the hapless foreigner again using their skills, but to help themselves through a situation – which is a situation that doesn’t have to be! 

                It’s not the peoples’ faults at all: clearly they’re not the leading intellectual lights (products of Chinese school system, currently working at KFC etc.) and they are completely unused to helping anyone who isn’t part of the clan.  Aggressive mono-culturalism (hello, ‘southern Chinese’ mountain people) has hobbled peoples’ ability to relate, and the breath of relief when people finally see us turn away is as palpable as it is audible.

                It’s just the way things are here.  If I ask my class about why such things are never addressed, or encouraged to change, the more glib amongst them announce “this is CHINA!” (or more commonly ‘the China’ after hearing about me/Hoochador’s go-to explanation for anything odd here).  If you can’t get used to constant disappointment over the little things – that don’t have to be that way, but damned if they are going to change – you don’t have a lot of business here. 

Thankfully I can laugh most such inconveniences off – if only a few hours after the fact.