Pigs’ brains in a skottel: interviews with the Chinese (Ray)

I despaired as I looked at the editing job in front of me.

This being Ray’s response to my interview questions for Chinese people. His English bore some resemblance to a child’s bowl of alphabet soup in which he is thwacking his spoon about among the noodle letters. I did not want to wade through the Chinglish, ( a weird form of English used by some Chinese) and try and decode what Ray was on about in some of his replies. Or get into a long Q&A with him about what he was trying to convey.

Then I had a bright idea. Just publish it as it is.

So here you are, dear reader, raw, completely unedited: a 21-year-old engineering student’s response to my interview questions. Like a freshly scalloped pig’s raw brains put on a plate in front of you. Here in China you can skewer off uncooked pig-brain pieces and dunk your chunks into a pot of bubbling oil placed in the middle of the table. The meat, fondue style, is bolted down half a minute later, medium-rare. It’s a favourite in some parts of this mammoth country.

There’s just something authentic and in your face about Ray’s unexpurgated answers. (By the way, he just passed a translator’s examination, Chinese to English and English to Chinese, at his university.) Giving his words to you exactly as he wrote them gives readers a chance to understand what I go through almost daily in terms of daftness or miscommunication.

This gives you the chance to explore something of the real China through Ray’s words: words which sometimes spray like a peacock’s feathers, semantic possibilities flaring in all directions …

What do Chinese people like about foreigners?
Maybe because of the curiosity, also they think we are funny, once my father saw a Canadian use his socks to clean his mouth :)

What do Chinese people not like about foreigners? (What do you think other Chinese people like/not like about foreigners? Is calling someone a lawai (foreigner) a rude word, polite or not polite?

You are very individualism, like some foreigners would rather go outside than take place of teacher once. You take care of yourselves too much, don’t have much team spirit. Well. Laowai is not a rude word now. It becomes our tag.

What is your view of South Africa and South Africans? What have you learned about South Africa from the Chinese media (newspapers, radio, television, movies)?

Full of actions, not real, sometimes have some sexual plots. Not good to children, but help the adults a lot.

What are your views on Tibet belonging to China?
Of course it belongs to our China. But now some foreigner journalists left people who don’t know China a very bad effect.

What do you think of the Dalai Lama?
Both of them are religious people. But to tell you the truth, I don’t know much of them cause they are so remote from us.

Hollywood actress Sharon Stone said that the Sichuan earthquake was karma for what China did to Tibet. What do you think of that?
Well that is why she is not very famous in china. HOHO She totally didn’t know our history, I promise. Tell her welcome to China and she can learn a lot such as how to build a good social image in front of her audience.

What do you think of Taiwan being re-integrated into China?
Taiwan did a very good job. Nowadays a lot of Taiwanese move to mainland of china, not only do business, but also establish their family. Being re-intergrated into china can give them an ecomonic boost

I was horrified by Japanese soldiers raping and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Chinese in Nanjing (Nanking) in 1937. Japan, in my opinion, has never really apologized to China for the rape of Nanjing. Why do you think Japan does not apologize?

Maybe they proud of being Japanese. They think their culture, custom, almost everything is superior to china. However they don’t know what they possess now is from our china.

What do you think of America selling arms to Taiwan?
Well American always want to do some sales in the world to show that they have a very good business brain.

If you could go live in another country which country would you choose to live in? Why? Why not?

England. Because it is the city full of history. Also my English friend told me that there were a lot of beauties in Britain. I wanna marry a beautiful and sexy foreigner girls HOHO

I understand from Chinese friends that Shanghaiese sometimes look down on “outsider” Chinese. Some of my Chinese friends hate that.
I am a shanghainese. Well , most time I treat outsiders the same as the shanghainese. But now most of the outsiders treat us bad :(

Why is it that Chinese people often say they can only speak one language when they all can speak two, Mandarin and their hometown language? What is your home language called? How different is your home language from Mandarin?
My home language is Shanghaiese. It is difficult to speak excellently to outsiders, I think. It has a lot of proverbs and sayings in our dialect. I like my home language.

I have had the experience of Chinese people not understanding Chinese people from other parts of the country even though they are both speaking the “common language”, Putonghua, Mandarin. Do you think Chinese people from different parts of the country speak Mandarin differently? How do you deal with this?
Yap~~~ We have so many dialects in China. The difference maybe belongs to the way we speak our own dialect. It will affect our way speak Mandarin.
When it comes to how to deal with this problem, what do u think to record it in advance and then play it to the people ? :)

What do you think of the hukou system en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system? How has that affected your lifestyle in Shanghai?
Big problem is that if you born a baby, then your child’s hukou follows to the female. Also it is a not very big problem is that if two people love each other deeply, they will conquer all the barriers they have including hukou system.

End of interview.

Notes

Ray is actually a dear friend of my wife’s. He is her teaching assistant at a part time job on weekends. He is wonderful, friendly, very camp and would do anything for Marion. (Marion, Chookie, has this effect on men young and old.) He chose the photo of him below. It sums up his harry-casual approach to life.

Some Chinese like to refer to China as our China, womende Zhongguo, a precious gem owned by all Chinese. China in the written Chinese is 中国. The second character shows the semantic aspect of the character for jade or a precious stone surrounded and protected by the great wall. Chinese are fiercely patriotic and loyal, despite of (and also because of, I sometimes think) the bitter hardships the country has suffered in the 20th century.

The hukou system is a strange set-up. Essentially people from other parts of China do not have the same rights as others in, for example, Shanghai. That is to say, “outsiders” have to pay for basic medical treatment and school fees. To get the same rights as Shanghaiese is an intricate business. Not even marrying a Shanghaiese will necessarily change the “outsider’s” status.

I wish now I had published Janet’s response on the hukou system, as she is from Sichuan province. I know she hates it but she was very reticent and mild in her response. I deleted it. The Chinese are not fond of criticising their country with foreigners, though they will do it among themselves.

I am still hoping to receive questions form readers to ask Chinese in future interviews.