Visual and Aural entertainment from my trip to China!
Most people know that some Chinese people don't queue like some other people in the world do, if at all. I'd add that many Chinese people are out of touch with queue logic and reasoning. I arrived to my gate at JFK to discover a huge line beginning at a seemingly arbitrary point in front of the gate area. I stood in this line for about thirty seconds before my critical thinking and the ever burning "Why?" got the best of me. I glanced down at my ticket and, despite the absence of a boarding group number or letter, decided to wing it and hope they'd be letting us on board in groups. I stepped out of line and took this photo. Sure enough, I boarded before the majority of people in that huge line (by chance) and got to stand there with my false sense of superiority the whole time, to boot.
Lesson: No matter where you are in the world, it pays to ask "Why am I/are we doing this?"
Lesson: The sun still shines above the clouds... even above the clouds of Chengdu.
Chinese weddings are different. I was a groomsman in my friends Rock and Vivian's wedding. This is how their particular day went.
7am: Groomsmen and groom congregate at groom's home, bridesmaids and bride congregate at bride's (parents') home. Everyone changes clothes and gets ready. Photographers start photographing. Dogs start barking. Family starts familying.
7:45am: Groom and groomsmen hop in their caravan of cars and make their way toward the bride's home. I rode with Rock in the Mercedes he was borrowing for the day.
8:10am: Groom and groomsmen arrive at bride's home. Photographers get all up in everyone's grill and start taking pictures of our nose hairs. Get used to it, they are here all day!
The five of us, now accompanied by photographers and girlfriends of the groomsmen, make our way into the bride's house, where we find the door to her bedroom locked with the bride and bridesmaids inside. We push on the door, trying to break in and retrieve our hero's bride for him, but alas! one of the bridesmaid's boyfriends has made his way into the room and is aiding the effort from inside. We are repulsed and must resort to different tactics.
We present an offering of 红包, red envelopes containing money. We pry the door open once again and introduce a red deluge into the small room, threatening to drown the dear occupants in a sea of... paper envelopes containing money. Our sacrifice is met with delight, but the door shuts once again, it's tumult resounding throughout the room, mirroring the echoing pains of our failure.
Then! What is this? Eureka! Huzzah! Excelsior! The door creaks upon! Were it only that we had sensed the danger which awaited us, the terror we were soon to behold. Our hero was presented with a challenge, a conundrum, if you will. The maid of honor showed him a tissue, the lipsticked lips of all the bridesmaids having made contact with said tissue. Our hero had to determine which, if any, of these outlines belonged to his bride. I don't need to complete this particular tale... I feel we would not have been granted the elation of victory even if the groom had guessed correctly.
In return? Punishment. Cruel and unusual. A test of character... a test of will. The hero was given a glass of liquid, contents indeterminable. The liquid must be consumed, we were told. How could we, knights and brothers, allow our fighter to complete such a task? We apprehended the glass and, toasting our hero, made it vanish. The poison? Soy sauce, vinegar, and some chili pepper. Ahem, *cough*, ahem yeahittastesgoodnoworries!
Surely this would be enough to appease the she-devils holding the bride hostage! But no... not yet. We had first to perform a feat of strength. To lift a motor vehicle? To transport a heavy object? Run a mile? No! Ten push-ups! Gasp! The challenge, we were to discover, was that our hero had to call out a different name for his bride before every push-up. This proved to be somewhat of a burden. The first five or six names came quite easily, but we were soon slowed by a lack of creativity. "WIFE OF MY FUTURE CHILD!" Everyone laughs. Sweat drips from the hero's nose as the seconds turn into minutes, minutes into hours. A groomsman whispers something, our hero repeats, "GRANDMOTHER OF MY FUTURE GRANDCHILD!"
Upon completion of this task, we are finally allowed respite from the turmoil of humiliation, only to find that the door has closed, once again. When will this end? "This ends now", I hear Rock mumble as he reaches for his sword guitar. We all pick up our pre-assigned instruments and the serenading begins. We felt our hearts shake within us as the intro and first verse passed with no hint of change. Dread filled our lungs as the sounds of untuned guitars seemed to fall on cold, steel ears, hearts made of stone. The chorus passed. "Forget it", I thought. "We'll starve them out."
But then... Crrrrrrreeeeeeeeaaaak? The door opened with an inquisitive tone, and we all knew what that meant! Time to walk inside the room and try to fit ten grown people plus three photographers and whoever else wants to try to squeeze in into the tiniest space known to mankind! Just kidding, kind of.
We finished our song and then had a few other tasks to complete. The bridesmaids had hidden Vivian's shoes in her room for Rock to find, so we helped him locate those, then we went out into the living room and barricaded the bridesmaids and groom and photographers inside, requiring the return of the 红包we had provided in the first place in return for their freedom. It worked.
9:15am: I leave my phone in the Mercedes and Vivian takes selfies with it. The caravan, now 2-3 times it's original size, travels to the location of the photo shoot, wedding ceremony, and reception, all in one.
Meanwhile, I sit in a jeep within the huge line of cars, accompanied by two groomsmen who are helping me with the pronunciation of a few of my lines that are in the local Sichuan dialect. "Lines?", you ask. Just wait...
9:30am: The photo shoot begins. We shot at an old factory compound that has been turned into an entertainment complex with shops and bars and wedding facilities which was and is really pretty cool. The factory was in use during the Chinese Civil War. It gave the shoot an industrial feel that somehow retained it's romantic essence, and I mean romantic in pretty much all three senses of the word.
Hopefully I'll have more photos of that in the future. I should have more photos of all of this stuff...
11am: Guests start arriving. Rock, Vivian, the maid of honor, and I stand in front of the entrance. I stand beside Rock with a platter of cigarettes in hand. The maid of honor stands beside Vivian with a platter of individually wrapped candies. Rock hands the men cigarettes and Vivian lights them, the women and children are offered candy, then everyone is escorted upstairs by one of the other groomsmen to play cards or majiang upstairs and wait for the ceremony to begin.
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12:30pm: The ceremony begins. Lights go out and I welcome everyone to the wedding while the hero-turned-Rockstar takes the stage to surprise everyone with his secret piano skills (he took piano lessons for three months without telling anyone, all so that he could surprise Vivian!) He sang and played "The Rose". What a pro.
She walks down the aisle, he grabs the mic and continues singing to her as they walk down the aisle. They climb onto the stage and off we go!
I was the "host" for the wedding. I'd call myself the MC, but there's no real equivalent in American culture, I don't think. Rock and Vivian were officially married a month before this ceremony. I kind of just read the lines and kept the train on the tracks is all. It was a privilege and an honor.
Vows and rings in Chinese and English, and they responded in both languages. It was pretty straightforward. I had offered beforehand to add some other stuff in, but they requested that we keep it simple and short, and I kind of understand why- there were guests standing and taking photos with their phones the entire time, the band was playing music in the background, kids were running around playing, all the lights were off and the spotlight was in our eyes, and photographers were lurking in every corner.
There is one part of all of the actual Chinese ceremonies that I've attended that's different from a typical Western ceremony, and I really like it. I've seen it take two forms. In one, it was just a section during which the bride and groom walked over to each other's parents and sincerely said "Thank you, mom", and "Thank you, dad". This was the modern manifestation of the more traditional practice, which is as follows, as I saw it: the bride and groom offer one another's parents 改口茶, which pretty much means "Changing Mouth Tea", or tea that changes the mouth, in reference to the fact that the bride and groom will no longer call each other's parents the familiar but distant "uncle" or aunt", but rather "father" and "mother". The children present the tea to their parents-in-law and say the words "Mother, drink tea" and "Father, drink tea". Cool, right? I got emotional during that part. At the risk of reading pretentious, I think it's a lovely picture of both family within the context of marriage, and marriage within the context of family.
Just like that, the ceremony was over. Flowers were thrown, and I read the words everyone wanted to hear: "吃好！喝好！耍好！" (Eat well! Drink well! Play well (Enjoy yourself!)!)
Photos were taken and the long afternoon began. The bridesmaids and groomsmen lazed around as guests ate and drank and played more majiang. Another huge meal came at dinner time, and the night slowly came to an end. It was a good day.
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I attended a second wedding a week later with some notable differences that might shed some light on a few things.
This is where the second wedding took place. It's a much more traditional setting with seated dining instead of the more modern setting and buffet that Rock and Vivian had.
The ceremony was somewhat similar, though, complete with shining lights and people standing and taking video with their phones.
-It was Rock's idea to serenade the bride and get the bridesmaids to open the door. At the other wedding I went to, the groom had to rely on the efficacy of his 红包, his charismatic personality, and the mercy of the girls to get the job done. It worked just as well!
-Rock and Vivian had to put their foot down to get what they wanted. Their parents had other ideas about how the ceremony should have gone, so Rock and Vivian had to do some compromising and battle-picking. Everyone was happy in the end, but it all sounds familiar, right?
-My friend Charlie explained the Western wedding mindset well when he compared Western brides and grooms to prize boxers with trainers (bridesmaids and groomsman) around all day long to make sure they can stay relaxed and calm and focus on the task at hand and have someone else take care of "less important" things for them, if need be. At both of these weddings, the grooms were pretty much responsible for pulling the whole thing off, calling shots and making decisions throughout the day.
-Parents traditionally have a lot of say in Chinese weddings, and they usually get there way. Usually.
-Chinese weddings are different, and I like them.
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The night before the wedding, Rock picked up the Mercedes and we did something I'd never even seen done in China but have always wanted to do there.
To be clear- it's the convertible top down and blasting loud music that is unheard of. Nobody does that.
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The rest of my time in Chengdu was spent hanging out with Rock and Vivian and their friends, or visiting other ones.
I used to live on the third floor of that building.
We went to the east campus of the school I used to attend...
...and ate at the biggest (and best) night market (read: cheapest, least healthy, best tasting food) in Chengdu...
Wedding #2 Photo Shoot Location (one of them)
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Ladies and Germs, Rock and Vivian:
Again, this sort of thing may seem commonplace to Western eyes ("Big deal, Chinese people playing Just Dance), but, in my experience, it's pretty unique.
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Is there anything so beautiful as sacrificial love?
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If you live in the same town or city from your birth day to your day of death, you'll see some crazy stuff. You might be waiting for it to come to you, but you'll still see it. Move to another city or state or province, and you'll see some things that you consider to be even crazier. Move to another country, and you might see things that blow your mind. By nature of the degrees of cultural and social separation, it's very likely that, the more geographical distance that lies between you and your home culture, the more likely you are to encounter unfamiliar situations and instances.
Or, as Bilbo so famously states: "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."
Here's a story that blew my mind. Keep in mind, it took place in a country that I've lived in for 2.5+ years and thought I could only see "category 2" level "crazier" things, as opposed to ones that blow my mind. Also, well... I'll just tell you.
16 hours. JFK to CAN takes 16 hours. We had the wind at our backs so I guess it was 15.5, but who cares? Anything over 13 and you are numb, anyway. For the record, I love flying in airplanes, even for 17 hours. Did I say 16 earlier? 15.6.
So, I was tired, and a little bit miserable. The stewardess on the plane had stubbornly explained in Chinese that, because I was traveling domestically after arriving in Guangzhou, I didn't need to fill out an Arrival Card to get through customs. She was stubborn and beautiful and wrong.
I walked over and grabbed an Arrival Card and rejoined the sea of people entering the snaking queue that empties into the tributaries of people waiting to enter the Middle Kingdom. Gates of freedom. I had never thought of them like that.
Anyway, this was different. I'd been in customs lines in China literally 30-40 times before (I had to go to Hong Kong regularly the last time I lived in China). This was different. I carried the only American passport that I could see. Not only that, I carried the only Western passport that I could see. Everyone was from the Middle East or Africa, based on the passports I got an eye on. See what I'm doing here? I'm being politically correct by talking about passports and trying to not talk about skin color or appearance. I didn't do very well...
...but I digest... We entered the tunnel, the funnel, the maze of elastic bands and posts that would keep us in line, in order, civil and secure. Like this:
"All good, right? It'll just take some time and I'll be out of here and on to my next flight. Jeez, I'm glad I carried on instead of checking or I'd definitely miss my flight." La di da, I'm hanging in there. I make it half way through the maze and I'm hanging in there. I'm doing my time. I'm surviving. Everyone else seems to be fed up with the gig but being patient is the price we pay for order and peace, right?
The ladies behind me start tisk-tisking me when I decide that, no, our alien overlords have intentionally narrowed our path to make sure we file through one at a time and I start boxing them out. They get over it soon enough, though.
Siiiiiigh. Alright. I'm getting there.
And then it happens. Never in my nightmares did I think it could happen. I'm in the middle of my lane, 30 feet from either of the turns, when, from my left, somebody has had enough, and they've barreled through. They did it. The dam has burst. Elastic bands come off of posts, chaos ensues. Men laugh and surge forward, women start yelling. 15.6 hours and this? Really?
What a mess. A real, real mess. My monologue gets more and more bitter. How disgraceful. We just lost so much face. I am so embarrassed. What a joke. Unbelievable.
The bitterness and frustration start to ebb as we reform lines. Grown men continue to cut in front of me. I haven't been intentionally cut in front of since elementary school. I adopt the habit of practically touching my nose to the back of the person's head in front of my own. How could this have happened? Oh shut up, it happened, and you'll survive. But why? But why what? Oh forget it...
The fact is, it was a unique situation. I'd never heard of anything like this happening before. I have my suspicions about why it would never have happened in the USA.
So why? It is my belief that some of my fellow foreign entrants didn't respect the Chinese customs officers. Why not? Well, one reason was right in front of my eyes: Chinese customs assistants were walking around as we walked through the maze, randomly asking to look at people's passports and visas. Black people's passports and visas. From what I personally saw, only black people's passports and visas.
Any other reasons? I only know what I have heard regarding race tensions between the particular race and continent groups that were present that day... the tensions on all sides are high, the prejudices on all sides are strong.
I do not believe the breaking of the queue and upheaval of order that day was a direct result of the Chinese assistants going around and only checking certain people's passports, and I cannot be certain that the Chinese assistants were only checking black people's passports. Regardless, I saw multiple instances of what I interpret to be profound, widespread, unchecked, deep-seated disrespect for "the other" that day. It was sobering, to say the least.
On the personal level, I survived. I wanted to ask the Chinese roaming random passport checkers why they didn't even consider asking to check my passport and then force them to look at it (this wasn't the first time I'd had roaming passport checkers ignore me and focus on other race groups as we wait in line for customs), and I wanted to apologize to the customs officers on behalf of the foreign community for breaking their system and replacing it with our own, even temporarily.
Lesson: I have my own cultural biases and value judgments. They are not perfect and some of them are really terrible. That being said, I like some of them and will stick with them. For example, I like the way Americans/Westerners tend to stand in line and wait, even when we are afraid we will miss our flights. We adhere to a social norm-why? Because we believe (consciously or otherwise, that) our adherence to that cultural norm has meaning and contributes to something greater than ourselves. I decide to stand in line and risk missing my flight because I realize that doing otherwise may result in an unhealthy breakdown of order, that my patience is a personal expenditure that allows all to profit, even if it's only pennies. That's my spin I put on it to rationalize it and make it feel "right".
While I am absorbed and consumed with myself, the individual, (note that I had a hard time not taking the whole thing pretty personally) I like that we are asked/forced to share sometimes, and that we do.
Lastly, my main sentiment that day was that I just wish we could all get along. I wish that honestly and seriously. I know and believe that tension can be beautiful and productive, but not the kind that I saw that day. I saw the opposite of redemption and reconciliation that day, and I hated it. I do not hate the players who were involved, but I hate what I believe to be the emotional and physical manifestations of disrespect, disregard, and selfishness.
Note also that no group is exempt. There are some USAmericans that are responsible for overseas (and domestic) atrocities that are far worse than whatever it was that I saw on that day in China.
There is no earthly promised land, no utopia, which is why I end this section by advocating for adherence to the norms and mores of a currently intangible culture, a Kingdom culture with redemption as it's banner and sacrificial, unconditional love as its foundation. This isn't to say that the earthly members of that Kingdom always rightly or appropriately wave that banner or stand on that foundation (we rarely do), but therein lies the struggle, and that brand of tension, I can handle.
Comment on this, especially if you have experience with it. I'm still analyzing and processing what happened and welcome input. Really.
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Along the same lines, I had a realization recently:
I think that doing ministry is more integrally about cultural redemption and transformation than I had imagined.
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I really missed being out of the USA and sense that I may be there a lot more... for the rest of my life.
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I'm off to Honduras in less than a week.
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I went back and forth between past and present tense a lot in this post. Forgive me, you grammar Nazis. Forgive all of the abominations.
