Snapshots: The Fu Wu Yuan
Fu wu yuan (æœåŠ¡å‘˜) literally means "service person" in Chinese, yet the term applies to waitresses, barmaids, and virtually anyone else in the service sector. At any Chinese restaurant or bar, it is entirely appropriate and normal for customers to shout this word in order to summon help, something that makes Westerners new to China noticeably uncomfortable.
The fu wu yuan at The Box, my local watering hole, is 17 years old. She comes from Guizhou, the province east of Yunnan and amongst the poorest in all of China. Her parents are illiterate peasants and no longer work; her father is an alcoholic and her mother disabled. She herself has little education, as she has had to work from an early age. When she came to Kunming, she worked in a hairdressing shop, but for the past year or so has been at the bar. This work she likes better.
She typically works about fifty hours a week for a rather low salary, though her wage has recently been doubled due to her diligent management of the bar. In addition to making drinks (including alien concoctions like screwdrivers and mojitos), she also serves as the bar chef, making mainly Italian-style pizzas and lasagnas. She once confided that she doesn't much care for Western food, and when the bar is quiet she typically sneaks outside and grabs noodles or vegetables for dinner.
The Box, like most laowai bars in a foreign city, is often rowdy and full of drunken men. It is also small, grim, and full of cigarette smoke. Yet the fu wu yuan never complains. She often steals catnaps during the afternoons so she won't be tired at night. For a girl without any English, she remembers every regular customer by name, and greets them with a "ni hao!" and a smile.
Once, while I was there having an afternoon coffee, she told me that the she had spent her day off with friends at Grand View Park, one of Kunming's greener and more scenic outdoor spaces. Her friend had taken photos and had them developed. In the Chinese style, each photo showed the fu wu yuan posing in front of a scenic landscape. In no photos did she smile. I asked her why.
"Because I don't like my teeth"
This girl, at 17, sends most of her salary back to her family in Guizhou. Her younger brother plans to attend college, and will be the first member of her family to do so. He will do so based almost solely on the financial support of his older sister, who at this moment is making pizzas and serving drinks to foreigners in a dingy bar.
The Pragmatic Marriage
A dear friend of mine meets me twice a week for language exchanges. For the most part, we focus on reading and speaking our respective target languages, choosing texts too interesting for the average language lesson. At the end of our exchanges, which last two hours, we often will have a drink and a chat.
A few months ago, she acquired a new boyfriend, a very nice Chinese guy who lives in my neighborhood. "How's it going?", I asked. "Very well!" she replied enthusiastically. She then said that there was a chance the two could someday get married. "Really? You must really love him,"
She furrowed her brow and spoke carefully. "No, I'm not sure. I don't even think I'm over my ex-boyfriend. But I really want to start a family. You know, it would mean a lot to my parents."
She and her ex-boyfriend were together for four years after meeting in university. One day last year, he told her that he had fallen in love with another woman and that he wanted out of their relationship. She was broken-hearted, feeling alone and unwanted.
As she said, she had lingering feelings for him, as theirs had been a passionate relationship. Her new boyfriend by all accounts is decent, and seems crazy about her. She, for now, seems happy to continue the relationship despite doubts that she truly loved him.
Most Chinese people in their twenties face extreme pressure to marry. Part of this pressure derives from a cultural sense of filial piety. Being married and having children pleases one's parents. Not doing so arouses suspicion, or worse.
Compounding this pressure is the fact that the vast majority of Chinese under the age of 28 are only children. The continuation of the family lineage depends entirely upon them. There are no siblings to pick up the slack.
Practical considerations in marriage exist everywhere in the world, as couples with unstable financial situations or diverging lifestyle choices rarely pull the trigger. Yet what interested me about my language partner was her willingness to sacrifice her own happiness- by remaining in a passion-less marriage- in order to please her parents.
I can't say whether or not such sacrifices are prevalent in modern China, but one's sense of family duty does seem greater than in the West.
The Taxi Driver
I spot the row of taxis lined up on my street and climb into one. The driver sits, smoking a cigarette and reading the Yunnan Daily News. He looks at me and I tell him where I want to go, and without a word he sets off and starts the meter.
Occasionally, taxi conversations are silent, but sometimes the drivers like to talk. I can usually predict which questions they ask, and I can reply in my sleep. In taxi Chinese, I am fluent.
We hit a red light and sit in the back of a long row of cars. He switches off his engine, in frugal Chinese style. He looks over and fires off the first question.
"ä½ æ˜¯å“ªä¸ªå›½å®¶çš„?"
(Which nationality are you?)
"American"
"Oooh! America! Good place!"
"Thank you"
So then I talked about mountains and national parks and rivers and great cities. He wanted to hear about salaries and housing costs and economic development. Some of the questions he asked were unanswerable.
"How much does a taxi driver make per month in America?"
"I don't know"
"How much does an apartment cost there?"
"It depends"
"Is it hot or cold there?"
"It's a big country, like China. Some parts are warmer than others".
And then, the truly tricky question.
"Which place do you think is better. America or China?"
I used to be flummoxed by this line of inquiry, as I was loath to say anything negative about China. But any Chinese person respects a patriot. So I said:
"Well, as an American of course I think my home country is better. But I love China, too"
This response elicited a chuckle, and before he could ask any more questions we had arrived at my destination.
Taxi drivers, I find, provide a more authentic window into Chinese thinking than virtually any other group of people. A lot of Chinese speak cautiously with foreigners, careful not to lend a false impression. Taxi drivers on the other hand have little to lose. They spend their lives engaging in temporary conversation without repercussions, so an impolitic comment will be forgotten as soon as the fare steps out of the car.
Since arriving in Kunming, I estimate that I have taken over a thousand separate taxi trips. Not once have I remembered having the same driver twice. Yet the odds are that I have. It is their very anonymity, then, that makes taxi drivers such interesting vessels of information.
The Businessman
A friend and I were sitting over beers at a cafe when a casually-dressed Chinese guy approached and said, "mind if I join you?". I praised his English and asked how he learned the American vernacular so well. He said, "Oh, I lived in New York for eight years- got my Masters degree at Queens College". He told us his life story: grew up in Kunming, got a degree in computer science "before the dot-coms crashed", moved to New York, then Singapore, and finally back to China, where he lives and works in Hangzhou. He had come back to Kunming to celebrate Spring Festival with his mother.
He described at length the differences in conducting business in New York, Singapore, and China. The one atmosphere he disliked most? Singapore. "In Singapore," he said, "everyone just works and works and works. Weekends too. Everyone talks about business, and only the rich can really afford to have a social life,". He found it hard to make friends- the Singaporeans were "cold". Moving to Hangzhou was a relief.
My Australian friend, who recently launched an internet hotel-booking business in Kunming, asked him what the business climate in China was like. "In China," he said, "everything revolves around PRC. Do you know what that means?"
"The People's Republic of China?" I guessed, fatuously.
"Haha, the other meaning is Patience, Relationships, and Compensation". First, patience is required. He described how nothing could be decided in just one meeting. A business meeting usually turned into dinner, then another dinner, and then perhaps a karaoke session. And then, he said, "they might be willing to work with you".
Relationships, as foreigners soon learn in China, matter far more than they do in the West. Without the presence of 关系, very little can get done. Know the right people, and previously impenetrable barriers magically disappear. For a Kunming native new to Hangzhou, making the right connections took time.
Yet despite some difficulties with work, he still preferred China's overall business climate to that of Singapore. The Chinese are able to relax and have fun, qualities largely lacking in their equatorial cousins. Despite a developed market economy and a long capitalist tradition, Singapore seemed to lack the vibrance of still-Communist China.
"So would you say China's society is more open than Singapore's?" I asked.
"Oh absolutely. Are you kidding? This place is a dream."