...shouldn't throw stones

"My mother thinks you are planning to build a house with all those rusty things you collect on your walks." There was a hint of a smile in Brad's eyes as he put his hands on my shoulders and I dissolved into laughter. It is hard enough for my husband to understand my love of rusty things. My children can barely grasp what I envision as art. But my mother-in-law. Well, she just thinks I am very thrifty. In her world of "never-enough", found trash is a great way of recycling - for money or for building a home.


In Nai Nai's defense, she comes from rural China which is tantamount to taking Laura Ingalls Wilder out of Kansas and plopping her in front of a computer. In rural China, hi-tech means having a phone line that runs to the village and scarcity is a way of life. The dishwasher, microwave, fridge, and stove aren't luxuries to her, they are alien. I'm just not sure why she thinks I would want to build a house with my found pieces, though I imagine all those rusty bits of re-bar, bolts, wire, and other thingies might surely be useful in constructing a new home. The thing is, how long would it take me to find enough materials? And what does she envision it would look like? Now there is some artful food for thought.

Year of the Ox

Chinese Dolls

It is New Year's Day for over one quarter of the world's population. My mother-in-law just couldn't understand why the girls went to school and her son had to work. There should have been fireworks and food and family from all over China. But this is America. Though we had fish last night and a feast with friends from church the night before, I know she misses the two weeks of festivities and friends. She'll want to burn paper money to honor her deceased mother, give red packets of money to her oldest granddaughter, eat vegetables from her garden, hope for a good planting season.

She is out of her element here in our home and she is not used to sitting indoors. I show her pictures of when I visited her home for Chinese New Year (ten years ago) and wonder if it will only make her sigh more deeply.

During the feast with friends we met a seventy-nine year old woman visiting from China. Her father was a Chinese minister before the revolution yet she went to Nanjing University in the early fifties. I asked her how she was able to survive the red guards during the sixties and her eyes welled up. It was too painful to discuss, she said in halting English. Her mother was a westerner from California, she said, as she hugged me and asked for my address. I hope she writes to me in this year of the ox.

All Saints Day

Funny thing, Hallowe'en. Like Mardi Gras, something in humans craves excess prior to sobriety and, for the life of me, I don't understand our infatuation with the macabre. My Chinese mother-in-law noticed the "dead zone" decorations erupting from manicured lawns a few weeks back as we drove the girls to school each morning. Frankenstein hands reached from the grass; spider webs hung like mosses from the lagustrum; a guillotine hung gleaming over a straw-stuffed old man.

"It's like the Day of the Dead," my husband told her. She doesn't speak English and my limited Chinese could never explain what Hallowe'en is to Americans. I'm not sure I can explain it in English.

"But we don't worship our ancestors," I said to him.

"It's all she understands," he said.

There was a time I eschewed all forms of observing Hallowe'en. A day when we pretend to be demons and ghosts? And laugh when our children dress up like our worst nightmares? For years I ignored it or took my daughters to "Fall Festivals" where they dressed like zoo animals and bible characters.

But then I moved to Dallas and the girls grew older. First they were SMU cheerleaders, then Hannah Montana rock stars. Last night Hannah was the Olympic Medalist, Shawn Johnson, and Bethany was a veterinarian. They were oh, so cute and innocent. The costumes are always their ideas. For the first time, though, we actually trolled the neighborhood "dead zones." My mother-in-law came with us. House hopping from pumpkin bedecked walkways to spider-webbed porches, they filled their pastel colored Easter baskets with Hallowe'en candy.

The last glow of the sunset faded into dusk and up ahead the girls could see smoke and shadows. For the first time, they were scared. We all approached cautiously, gingerly stepping around a maimed Alice-in-Wonderland doll to where a fortune-teller beckoned the girls to get candy - if only they would walk through the archway nailed with bloody baby heads and doll parts.

Bethany got a little teary and backed into the street, but Hannah and another young girl boldly went for the candy. "Alice" quietly got up and did a macabre dance into the yard. A figure silently moved toward the curb and in the darkness, other figures began to rise and walk slowly forward: a court jester, a disemboweled King Kong, a tall corpse. The girls screamed and I laughed at the creativity and passion this family had generated to pay homage to the dead, secretly hoping that nightmares wouldn't torment this night's sleep. There are things about death I still cannot understand.

Last year's pumpkins have mildewed away; this year's leaves still fall.

The Law of the Letter

Barnson, Misery. I stared at the back of the student’s windbreaker as he sat in front of me during the field day events and struggled to decipher the butchered English. Next to him sat several guys and gals with the long-eared Playboy logo on their jackets, over their hearts, where friends back home in the States might wear alligators or horses. Did they understand the emblems they wore like badges? I chuckled and then, eureka! Branson, Missouri!

One of the joys of teaching English in China was reading all the butchered English from my students: on signs, in books, anywhere that English was printed. We affectionately called the mistakes “Chinglish.” One day I passed a crew of workers putting up a sign on the Bureau of something or other. They had all the letters but not in the right order. I salvaged the crew leader’s reputation from criticism when I stopped and had them change Bareuu back to its proper spelling. Little did I know I saved him from future legal problems.

Last month, Fox News ran an AP story that caught my attention. In an effort to crack down on irregular English, Chinese authorities have laid down the law and beefed up security surrounding Beijing in anticipation of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Apparently, private businesses and others who have dealings with foreigners are simply not following the rules.

According to Liu Yang, head of the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program, a language hotline is in the works to encourage the public to report nonsense English. The standard by which each case is judged is to be found in a two-pound stack of regulations detailing proper English usage in advertising.

The problem, however, is not just with advertisers. Evidently the taxi drivers are also failing in English. Liu said Beijing taxi drivers must pass an English test to keep their licenses. But he acknowledged, "The taxi training courses are not working effectively, and there is a problem of taxi drivers missing classes.” Despite the problems, Liu said one-third of Beijing's 15 million residents speak some English, a claim that was challenged by a local reporter from China's state-run CCTV.

"I think 5 million is a big number," the reporter told Liu.

Liu stood by the figure, but conceded the vast majority of the English speakers fell into a category he labeled "low level."
Said Liu, "They can have very simply conversations, like: `Who am I? Where am I going?"'

This blogger wishes she could have simple conversations in English, like: “Who am I? Where am I going?” For more fun, read this then scroll down the link for some more classic “Chinglish.”

The Shadowland of Shibboleth

Xibolai. The seminary student was using it a lot and I felt pleased I could translate my favorite Chinese word. It means "Israelite" and sounded remarkably like my favorite Hebrew word—Shibboleth. You may have heard the word shibboleth. In modern usage, it refers to an entrenched belief or custom that defines a culture. Depending on how you pronounced it in Hebrew three thousand years ago (it meant growth or flow), well, it could have you killed.

The book of Judges tells the complex story of inter-tribal conflict between the outlaw Jepthah of Gilead and the men of Ephraim (all of them Israelites) that led to land grabbing and warfare. When the men of Ephraim tried to cross back into their land, the men of Gilead would force them to say the word Shibboleth. If they said Sibboleth (an ear of corn), there was no mercy.

Unfortunately, Xibolai (希伯来语) was one of only ten words I could translate during the sermon. So, for lack of anything else to do, I began computing. This July 4th weekend marks the sixth anniversary since I returned from a three year teaching stint in China. If I had continued my language studies and learned just one Chinese character per day, I would be literate in Chinese. If I continued learning at that pace for the next three years…. Look at it this way: a scholar knows at least 5,000 of the 10,000+ unique characters in the language and based on my computations, I’d be downright scholarly.

Sunday afternoon, I dusted off my language books and methodically penned the calligraphic strokes of my first word: nü (tone 3), which means woman, girl, daughter. I was so impressed with my ability that I decided to move on to zi (tone 3), which means infant; child; son. My calligraphy looked good to me and I moved on. The next word was hao (tone 3), which means good; right; excellent. Interesting, at least to my eye anyway, was that the composition of this character combined the strokes for woman and son to form the character for “good.” Hmmm. Turning the page, I rediscovered the word for peace, which is: an (tone 1). This character placed the strokes for “woman” under the strokes for “roof.”

Brad walked in about this time and I showed him my resurrected skills. He was my informal language coach in China and he used to shower me with kisses whenever I did well. I’m not sure why we quit our lessons, but I do remember being thoroughly frustrated by the tonality of the language. After a few serious faux pas, such as encouraging people to “eat night soil” instead of “eat more food,” I gave up. Kisses or no kisses, it was easier to communicate in English.

I mentioned my observation of the characters and how they reflected the shibboleths of the culture. If a son with a wife means “good,” and a wife under a roof means “peace,” then what would be two girls and a wife under a roof? My challenge was meant as a rhetorical question, a prompt for cheese that might elicit a witty answer like “love” or “happiness.” He looked at me for a brief moment and in his eyes shone the telling signs that I had made another classic faux pas. My husband exhaled (had he been holding his breath?) “It’s the word for adultery,” he said. “Don’t go trying to make up words in Chinese. It can’t be done. But you’ve done a very good job writing your characters.” And he kissed me.

(calligraphy work by He Zhizhang, Tang Dynasty poet)