Quirky China Connections

The rhubarb pioneers of China!

Blame it on the rhubarb!

In this blog I want to look at the more humorous aspect of building bridges of understanding between the people of China and the people of Britain.

Why rhubarb?

Well, last Friday, at a very prestigious banquet in Beijing, I found myself sitting next to the wonderfully witty Michael Crook, who interrupted an earnest discussion about cross cultural Educational philosophies to inquire if I’d ever managed to buy rhubarb in China. It was a question of Johnathon Swiftesque absurdity. As far as I knew, after ten years of trying every Chinese culinary delight possible, the only possible conclusion was that rhubarb was totally unknown in China. And then miracle of miracles, a search into the deeper corners of Chinese on line sales platforms revealed a grower and seller of rhubarb, whereupon we both leapt in to make a purchase, probably saving the astonished rhubarb merchant from bankruptcy. Thus, there is a batch of green and red acid tasting stalks in my fridge, waiting to be cooked and served up to my bemused Chinese colleagues, whose comments on this most traditional of English desserts, will build a quirky connection between our two peoples.

Laced with humour, the poignancy of moments like these, can in fact build lasting cultural webs across cultures. Trying to explain cultural differences in senses of humour is notoriously frustrating, but has moments of reward. ‘English corner’ is an idea that might be familiar to any of you that have worked as ESL teachers as a relaxing way of sharing vocabulary. I used to run an English corner for Chinese colleagues and one week the topic of English humour was suggested.

A quick internet searched showed that the scene from Fawlty Towers where the John Cleese character beats his broken down car with a bush had been rated the funniest scene ever in British television. The scene was duly played to my Chinese audience. It’s purely physical comedy, ‘ It’s bound to get a laugh. Most comedy is defeated by the language barrier, isn’t it?’ I thought as I loaded the video. Nothing. Bemused silence. Why is it funny they asked? If anything they felt sorry for the frustrated car beater, or even for the abused car! No amount of sociological explanation about class or psychological analysis of male repression shifted the smiles. Experiment failed.

A reconstruction of the famous scene from Fawlty Towers

And then one week later I was in front of the same audience, desperately trying to load a video on a totally unco-operative computer monitor, visibly frustrated. And quick as a flash the comedian of the team disappeared, to return seconds later with foliage borrowed from a nearby houseplant and the quip, ‘If it’s faulty, you’d better beat it!’, of course bringing the house down. From a barrier of confusion, this obscure cultural episode has become a much loved classic routine amongst our team. Another utterly quirky connection.

While we’re on this topic, I wonder if you’re aware of the utterly random British designs and slogans which occasionally find their ways on to the back of fashion jackets in China. It sometimes seems as though the designer has just allowed a dictionary to fall open by chance and plucked out any meaningless phrase to adorn the back of a piece of fashion wear. We can say it’s the Chinese equivalent of the British fashion for tattoos of Chinese characters which may or may not communicate the intended message.

‘Just Hardly Good’ another quirky fashion design

It’s the obscurity and incongruity of the English references that makes these fashion statements so quirky. A young man in my school proudly came to school this term with a very cool looking new black English style trench coat. Then he turned around and blew his cool completely. Because the back of his militant outfit proclaimed an advertisement for a ‘99’, the ice cream in a cornet beloved of every little kid in England at the seaside. To add to the delicious absurdity of the ensemble, the strap line to his ice cream declaration was ‘Est. 1856’. I’m waiting to see if this new brand catches on amongst my fashionista students and wondering what the opportunities might be to reintroduce it back into England!

A future fashion icon- the 99 jacket!

My next quirky encounter of cultural understanding and misunderstanding takes place on a Beijing public bus, at the time of my first winter here. Beijing winters can be savagely cold. I had arrived in the summer and was still wearing clothes suited to the British climate. I was with a Chinese Beijing friend. As we got on the bus we were separated and I took a seat next to a charming
‘lǎoren’, an old man. Within five minutes of starting our journey, his hand alighted on my thigh. He ran his hand up and down my upper leg, occasionally pinching the cloth of my trousers. All the while he was smiling profusely and trying so hard to tell me something important. At that time my knowledge of Chinese was poor. You can imagine my embarrassment at this failure of cultural understanding. I called my friend over. She could see my anxious face. After a few seconds of conversation in ‘Běijīnghuà’, the local dialect she laughed and explained, ‘He’s worried about you. He thinks your trousers aren’t thick enough for the Beijing cold. He wants to tell you to wear another layer.’ And now of course everything made perfect sense. He had found the simplest and most direct way to express his concerns which my narrow British thinking had not been able to understand at all. I thanked him as best I could. He smiled handsomely, happy to have done his little bit for international friendship.

How to dress for the Beijing winter

The line between comedy and tragedy is thin and porous and my last quirky connection illustrates this. One of the most fashionista places in Beijing is called ‘789’. It’s a set of disused factory units from the 1950’s that has developed as an ‘art zone’ and hipster paradise. Imagine a post industrial setting like the Tate Modern and populate it with London art students. In my humble opinion 90% of the exhibits are shallow and commercial and that’s what makes this tale all the more poignant. On one of my rare visits to 789 I came across a hall of new material by David Hockney. These were all views of his native Yorkshire, trees and lanes, but done on a iPad. The resulting landscapes were vibrant and luminous in a way I hadn’t expected at all.

Now I’m a forest boy by background, born and raised in the New Forest village of Burley. And I have to admit that in the presence of these shining pastoral scenes I burst into tears of homesickness, uncontrollable waves of tears.Of course it wasn’t long before I was looking around nervously hoping my tears hadn’t been seen publicly. And there, congregated in front of every screen, was a small hipster throng, where at least one of the group had a tear or two on a cheek and her or his companion was extending an empathetic hug. We were a congregation of woeful worshippers moving through Hockney inspired glades. Was it the influence of a suddenly homesick foreigner or the powers of the great artist? The quirky enigma is, we will never know!

A David Hockney iPad landscape

I wish us all the bitter sweetness of ‘rhubarb moments’ in our crossings between cultures!