Gifts and griping.

Just when you think you’re getting used to life in a completely different culture, you quickly get put back in your place of not really knowing what to do. Sometimes I wish there was a culture guide that had every answer to all my questions right at my finger tips. Things like “appropriate gift giving” or “why do I have to cheers everyone at the table every 5 minutes” would really be helpful sometimes. For now, I just have to guess

The first story for my “what do I do now” moment came after a relatively catastrophic event last weekend. Long story short, my apartment flooded on Sunday when I wasn’t at home. My neighbor, Ellen called me in a panic Sunday afternoon telling me I must return home -“ 你家有很都水” - your home has a lot of water. I came home to an apartment a half inch deep in water in some areas, and my neighbor Ellen, her mom and another friend helped clean it all up.

So to thank Ellen and her mom, I went over later with some fruit and told them I wanted to treat them to dinner. They said I didn’t need to that and wouldn’t let me. I think this is partly because Grandma is living with them now and she looks a little old... But you’re never too old to enjoy a good meal out. Instead of letting me treat them to dinner, they invited me over the next night... This wasn’t how this was supposed to work. So I was left without a proper way to thank my Chinese family for their help. I decided I would take them a gift the next night.

So I asked Cheryl a proper gift to take them. I had decided on flowers, but when the only arrangements available at the super market were almost half the size of me, I knew I needed a new plan. With the October Holiday, or Moon festival (yet another blog topic), just around the corner, Cheryl approved my idea of taking them some nice mooncakes (a common Chinese delicacy during this holiday). I was ready to win over my Chinese family, but when I arrived that evening bearing my gift they said “no.” It wasn’t that they weren’t appreciative, but Ellen translated that since they are Chinese, they wanted to give me mooncakes to celebrate the holiday. They were happy to accept the gift, but I still felt like I had kind of failed. I didn’t bring a lot of American gifts to share with potential Chinese friends, and I can’t just take them a bottle of wine, an easy gift-giving solution back home. It isn’t traditionally for a woman to give alcohol... Too bad.

So along with my feeling as a failure to give proper gifts in China, I’m still getting used to going to typical Chinese lunches with big groups of coworkers. Basically it’s about 12 people around this table eating all kinds of Chinese food. There’s usually more than you could ever eat at these lunches, but I much prefer going with 3 or 4 coworkers, ordering about 4-5 things I know I’ll like and relaxing during my lunch break. But occasionally I’m asked to these big lunches or dinners that are really more of face time for the treater than anything. And for me, it is anything but relaxing. It seems like every 3 minutes there’s cheersing and speeches. There’s usually an assortment of “what is this?” food that I usually don’t feel like trying. I mean, I’m all about being adventurous, but digesting what looks like moldy eggs just isn’t something I’m too keen on, especially with everyone waiting for the foreigners reaction. Don’t get me wrong, I like being treated to lunch, but sometimes it’s just uncomfortable and awkward going through Chinese pomp and circumstance.

I probably sound like a brat and I don’t mean to complain. Even after two months here I’m still getting used to this switch in cultures and still find myself somewhat lost at times. I guess I could say, “screw it, I’m American, I’ll do what I want,” but I don’t think that would be well received. And even though I don’t get it right, don’t want to do it and don’t know what to do, Chinese appreciate the effort. So for now, I'll just keep trying.