Bears, babies and Beijing

As a favour to a friend I decided to fill in for a kindergarten job. So while I was talked through the basics of teaching children, it seemed easy enough. My job was to teach them English and I was assigned the youngest class of the lot. I figured I love children, so how difficult could it get? I just had to sing and teach them a few basic English words. That can’t be hard.

Anyway, I was shown around and given my teaching material and told to go ahead and teach. And I’m like “I’m not sure what you teach kindergarten”. So they‘re like “oh don’t worry, just do some action songs and play with them”. That sounded like fun till I entered the class. I could hear a whole lot of wailing and I was so hoping it was not my class but I had no such luck. So here I am handed a class of three year olds wailing their heart out and all I wanted to do was run the other way. And I was left thinking how do I teach them anything when they are all just crying.

I guess it didn’t help that I was brown skinned. I can’t blame them. They have probably not seen anyone darker than pale yellow! So the minute they saw me they wailed extra hard! And that did not buy me any brownie (no pun intended) points with the caretakers of that class.

If looks could kill, trust me between the caretakers and the children I sure would have been dead! I mean here they were trying to calm the kids down but the minute I walked anywhere near them they all just pointed fingers at me and cried. Yeah, I was the new female Gargamel in town! It was jus nine thirty and I was already looking forward to the end of the day. What made it even more difficult was the fact that I could not speak a word of Chinese. So how on God’s earth am I supposed to calm them? They didn’t like the way I looked and i couldn’t even soothe them in a language they understand. I understood helplessness to the fullest extent then! And the caretakers assigned to my class did not speak a word of English either. So there was no way of knowing if what I was doing was right or wrong.

My second class was slightly better, they were older children. So they were not wailing! I had a guide to take me through my first day and she taught me a song in the class and then I was expected to immediately memorize that and teach it to the kids. I just turned around and said “but I just heard you recite that to me like ten minutes back. I don’t even remember the words”. Not just teach, sing. Sing! Hmmm, nobody said nursery rhymes had to be melodious! And she turns around and says but don’t you know ‘one lil, two lil, three lil Indians’. (As an aside you could almost hear me say you bet I know a lot more than three Indians.) But I managed to keep a straight face. The last I was in a kindergarten was twenty-five years back! And for better or worse I was taught Jack and Jill went up the hill and twinkle twinkle little star.

There is a break at eleven. It’s lunch time for the children. And I watched the caretakers give them their lunch while the others were putting out their beds. I too just wanted to crawl into bed and go to sleep. So after putting the children to bed, we went to have lunch during which I was taught a few more games for my afternoon classes.

I hate it when someone forces me to wake up, so imagine twenty, three year olds forced to wake up. Each one of them was crying for their mom! I could totally get it. I myself would have thrown a hissy fit. My sympathies were with them but how do you make them stop crying? I was at a total loss. This was definitely not my area of expertise. But give them some yoghurt and distract them and they were good to go.

While I am writing this bit, I need to mention my princess. She was the only one who gave me a chance. She watched me for a long time before she made her move. She had this air about her, a bit snooty, very well mannered. She sure was the boss in this class. As soon as she sized me up and decided it was better to be on my side the others felt slightly more comfortable. She would always stand right beside me no matter what and if I did not pay her any attention then she would demand it.  And her genetics were brilliant! She was so adorable, cute and gorgeous. Now I know why teachers back in school had pets. She had me floored. I was also allowed to give them English names. I had decided on Diana, yep after Princess Diana!

Of course I felt sorry for some of the children. They should not have been there from 9 -5. They were too young.  But what knocked my breath off was how everything was catered to their needs. Their toilets and wash basins hardly came up to my knee! I was so fascinated! You can’t blame me. I’ve never been inside a kindergarten in like two decades. Back in the day, it was not so cool!

So here are a few of my insights

1.       Kindergarten is a very expensive affair and so parents here are opting to have only one child even though that law has opened up enough to allow two single-child parents to have a second baby.

2.       The kids here have six people to spoil them silly and when they grow up they have six people to take care of.

3.       Most kids are picked up by their grand-parents/ aayis (ayahs) and they practise the 9-5 work week already and they are only three years old!

4.       They charge heavily claiming to be international schools who teach English but they have people from places like Albania teaching them. I mean the guy who hired me could hardly string one coherent sentence in English and he was teaching!

That said, I have heard some pretty scary tales of kindergartens where parents have been so mad at a teacher because one of the kids cut off a bit of hair of their child and the parent did not even realize until two days later. And when they did, they deemed it fit enough to throw hot water on the teacher’s face! There was also this parent who sent an unapproved driver to pick up the child from kindergarten and the teacher refused to send the child with that person. Later the parent came and went on an abusing spree till the teacher apologised! This in a country where kindergartens across were prone to killings last year.

But all said and done teaching was not my cup of tea, never was, but it’s always good to experiment new ways of spending your time in a whole new city.  Gives me some perspective. Anyway the one person who had the most amount of fun in all this was my husband. He could not wipe the smirk off his face while I was practising

‘Teddy bear, teddy bear turn around

Teddy bear, teddy bear touch the ground...’

Chingapore

My thoughts this month are inspired by our trip to Singapore and the Chinese I saw there and the similarities and stark differences with their mainland cousins. So we landed in Singapore and caught a  cab to go to our friend’s house. And my heart skipped a beat when the taxi guy spoke flawless English! On our way we engaged him in a conversation and I was secretly jumping for joy and tearing at the same time. Yeah, that’s how deprived I am for English speaking people in Beijing. And I am not exaggerating, trust me!

Half way through the ride we were caught in this downpour and this am told is very common in Singapore. But I had not seen rain like this in a while. So, the happiness was flowing. Reminded me of Kerala. But it started to get a little irritating, when the darn rain refused to ebb till 11 AM. Damn it. Here I was half way across the South China Sea and cooped at home. We bought our selves an umbrella and made our way to the metro station. Our only stop over was a breakfast place for DOSA!! This time I think my tummy was doing the victory dance! After seaweed, corn and conjee as breakfast options this sure was a welcome change.

And our Singapore exploration started with Little India. Did I forget to mention I was missing India? You must’ve figured it out by now. And the first place I went to was a parlour. I have renewed respect and love for our Indian parlour ladies. They kick ass! She made my caterpillar like eyebrows look gorgeous but not without asking why it looked the way it did. 



But here’s the thing, from all of what I saw and experienced of Little India, I think it should be called Little Chennai or Little Pondy bazaar. From Ilaiyaraja songs to malli poo( jasmine flowers) it was all there. The colour and the chaos. This was the only place, repeat, only place in Singapore where you could cross the road as you pleased and not get fined for jaywalking. Some habits do die hard.

 



But what I loved best was the fact that I could communicate with anybody on the street. And Singapore is 70% ethnically Chinese so you’re never too far away to miss the Mandarin. But the interesting bit about it was that they spoke like how the Indians speak their languages, by substituting English words in between most of their conversation

 

But by the second day, I was able to find uncountable similarities between the Sing Chinese and their PRC cousins. They all had difficulty in following what you would say if it had too many articles and prepositions. They all had the same haircuts! And, they’re all as I-phone obsessed as the mainlanders!



And you can easily tell the difference between an ethnic Chinese Singaporean and the newly arrived mainland Chinese when they start talking to each other. They don’t quite get each other’s accents. There was this instance in a bus I took in Singapore where the air-conditioning was not working and so this Chinese guy tried dissuading a lady from getting onto the bus by telling her in Chinese that the air-con was not working. But she did not understand a word of what he said and replied back in Chinese to that effect. By now, I catch bits and pieces of Chinese. But when the driver told her in English, she understood. Maybe it’s a bit like my Hindi, incomprehensible to anyone but the South-Indians!

 

And then you speak to the Singaporeans they will tell you that even the Chinese Singaporeans look down upon newly arrived Mainlanders.  And the complaints range from their loud behaviour and complete lack of self restraint when it comes to standing in a queue or just overall unruliness. Of course, there’s also their absolute lack of English language skills!



But to be fair it happens to most immigrants. The disowning by their own. Almost as if to feel distanced from what they too once were. Wonder what will happen to us? Global nomads.

 

This blog however seems incomplete if I don’t mention the reason for our trip to Singapore. We went to watch the Singapore Grand Prix. It should be on everybody’s list of things to do before you die! It doesn’t matter if you follow the sport or not. The sound of the cars whizzing by, the atmosphere, the concerts...all of it is to die for! And am told by the organisers that this is the best Grand Prix in all of Asia. A night race and a street race with lots of beer.  What more can u ask for? 







Crooning with a K

KTV as an entertainment phenomenon gives Ekta Kapoor’s K-serials a run for their money. And no, KTV is not a television channel (naive as it may seem, Kalanidhi Maran hasn’t spread his wings to China yet and Rajinikanth hasn’t taken over either!) According to Wikipedia it’s Karaoke TV and has its origins in Japan. 

 The Chinese are obsessed with KTV’s .  And for lack of creativity, all of them are called KTV. It’s like adding ‘Bar & Restaurant’ to most eat out joints in Kerala. My favourite one being the Gaylord’s Bar and Restaurant. I suppose it would be imperative to my Mallu brethren to know whether it serves alcohol or not!

 Melody KTV is one of the most popular in Beijing.  Well there is a reason why my Chinese friends did not take me there. My singing is far from melodious!  So I had to be content with Uranus KTV. Not that it made a difference to me. I was after all going to a karaoke bar that was playing Chinese music, so the cheaper the better, I thought.  Well to add to my disbelief, they actually did play English music and I was asked to, no, forced to sing. The crowd favourite was” Everybody” by Backstreet Boys. The last time I heard it was in high school.

After the first couple of lines my friends decided to put themselves out of their misery and asked for the mike to be passed on.  Serves them right for not heeding to my husband’s advice on my disastrous singing skills!

But KTV as a phenomenon is fascinating not because I have not witnessed such a thing in India. But because of the sheer size and scale and even opulence of some of these operations! They are restaurants, bars, pimping joints and family hangouts all rolled into one. And they are open for business till about 7 in the morning.  

What often renders me speechless is the sheer size of these things. They usually cover about three or four floors and have these massive chandeliers that are probably as expensive as the real estate itself. These places are then divided into smaller rooms and you pay for a room depending on the size of your group. Some of these rooms are bigger than whole houses in Mumbai!

These huge buildings with multi-coloured neon lights are hard to miss.  Beijing’s full of them. Some of these places remind you of Paharganj in the night, especially the tacky neon lights and obvious underground illegal activities.  Some places have these huge LED display screens at their reception which is usually displaying these tacky, hypnotic patterns that annoy me no end. It’s like Pink Floyd meets Annu Mallik. So you walk into a KTV and pay for a sound-proof room which usually consists of a 40 -50 inch LCD screen and a two large sofas and a table and a funky touch-screen console which lets you play your songs.

And singing is the not the only thing that happens in these places. Some of them are known to be just fronts for high profile pimping. Of course, if you are with a mixed gender group then you are unlikely to ask for these services. But even the high profile ones have girls on hire. They sing with you, flirt with you and for a few hundred yuan more, are willing to oblige even more. So boys, if you are on a trip to China ALONE, you know what to do. There are also two kinds of KTVs. Ones which you can take your girlfriend to and ones you won’t! I guess sound proofed private rooms have their benefits.

As for us, we picked our poison and sang the night way. A couple of beers down my singing voice came out. Though I doubt I’ll get invited for karaoke again! Ever.

Dog and the bone

     Shopping in local markets in China is quite a delight. Most of the so-called local markets are actually these huge air-conditioned multi-storeyed buildings, not like the crowded and dingy by-lanes of Janpath or Sarojini.  And they’re organised floor wise. So you have an entire 40 or 50 thousand square feet of just bags, shoes, clothes and other trinkets! What more can a shopper ask for? The one thing that’s common with markets back home is the colour and noise, with the collections nicely displayed to tempt an avid shopper like me.

But here is the cool part! Guys enjoy shopping here more! Surprise, surprise! The pretty Chinese sales girls are usually all over them, touching them, holding their hand and coaxing them to buy wares from their store.  Have to mention, it’s a definite plus if you are white and blue eyed! Infact it’s common to see sales girls hold your hand and guide you into their store. And boy, it’s a pretty strong hold. So much so, my first instinct when grabbed like that was to get angry and defensive. I guess after all these years of having lived in India and being grilled to be defensive if anyone as much as touches you, this comes as no surprise! It took a little getting used to smile politely and walk into the store till they loosen their grip and then I just flee for dear life!

An incident I witnessed while waiting for my husband and a friend to finish haggling over half a dozen shoes deserves a special mention. There was this white guy and his mom trying to buy shoes from the store right next to where we were buying from and the girl was fawning over him so much that if I were his mother, I would have been quite embarrassed. But to be fair, he was encouraging it in the hope of more discounts, I suppose. Letting a girl feel you up is a small price to pay, if it is one at all!   

A definite plus is the fact some of the best English speaking Chinese are in these markets. Here’s the weird part. You could walk into a real Louis Vuitton store and the sales girl wouldn’t know English, but walk into one that sells fakes, and the Queen’s English comes rattling out. I remember going into a high-end store to buy my husband a suit and we spent close to an hour trying to tell them that they need to make alterations. My husband and I tried our very best to make them understand in our broken Chinese English and not to mention a liberal use of charades. Finally we gave up and politely smiled and walked out while all four of the sales staff there breathed a sigh of relief. The only good thing to come out of all this: try beating us at dumb charades now!

But the best part of the shopping is yet to come, the thandav between the Indian and the Chinese. And to quote a prominent Chinese businessman it’s not a question of who is able to outsmart the other, but simply which one will give up in absolute frustration!! And after moving to China this is the only place I have seen the so called India-China rivalry. Otherwise I don’t think the Chinese particularly care!

The difference between the bargaining in India and China is that here they start their negotiation at astronomical prices.  For example in Janpath if you want a top which you think is no more than a hundred bucks worth, where will the shopkeeper start? 500, 1000, mebbe even 1500? Here in China it starts at something like 1800 yuan that is 12500 Indian rupees. You must be kidding me! You can buy whole of Palika Bazar for that kind of money! So yeah we finally end up paying like 30 yuan, but of course if you were American or British i guess 400-500 will sound like a good deal to you.

Moreover, if you can’t afford the Coach bags and Jimmy Choos just yet, the Chinese markets are there for your rescue. They make the best quality fakes I have ever seen. Even light them on fire to show you how good their quality is. But they don’t always put them on display, its usually hidden in their backrooms. But if you get chatty you can definitely find whatever you are looking for. I have to add they are bloody good at faking things.       

On one such visit to these markets we were shown fake i phones and the shopkeeper was proudly displaying the “Chinese i-phone 4”   as opposed to the Apple i-phone 4! He even had four different qualities of the i-phone 4.  And you could actually tell the quality difference, the most expensive being the very best. But, it’s still a steal compared to how much you have to shell out for a real I-phone. And also I-phones are a huge status symbol in China, so fake or real you need to seen to be owning an I-phone and not to forget drive a fancy car and own a nice apartment. That’s your ticket to China! Huānyíng nín dào zhōngguó!

Love, Lust and the Chinese

How much do you love me? Isn’t it a question we often ask our partners? I am not sure about everybody, but most Indian men I know don’t wear their heart on their sleeves. If anything, most of them are unabashed MCPs. Chinese men on the other hand are out to prove otherwise. My first sighting of a guy carrying a woman’s bag was on the subway and I thought okay maybe she has some problem with her hand or something. Soon it became way too many women with problematic hands! I just could not understand why Chinese women did not carry their own bags or why men insisted on carrying it. Either way it is a bit unnerving to see a guy with a pink handbag with hearts all over it, tucked under his arm and being extremely comfortable being seen in public.  Try telling my husband that!

Once or twice I’ve even spotted the odd white guy carrying a hand bag, but they almost always had a Chinese girl friend. And I am told that guys do this as a way of showing that they love and care for their partner and it is almost offensive if he does not insist on doing it. So I imagine the average girl-gang gossips revolve around how much their boyfriends love them depending on their bag carrying abilities!  

Who doesn’t enjoy the candle light dinners, flowers, gifts, etc. But wearing the exact same clothes? And I don’t mean same colour. I mean exactly the same t-shirt, trousers and shoes, with matching shoelaces.  And to top it, the t-shirt has something as corny as “I love you” written on it, as if it weren’t obvious enough! That’s pushing it even for an eternal romantic like me but I guess in a country obsessed with love, that would be the perfect guy to take back home.

The other major difference I found in the men here is that they are openly lusty. No qualms whatsoever. If they find you beautiful, you bet they are going to accost you. And it does not matter whether you understand them or not. Trust me, before Beijing I lived in Delhi, but when it comes to gawking, the Chinese men put even the Jats to shame. But unlike in Delhi, I don’t feel like am being raped by their eyes. It’s more out of curiosity. It does help that I am brown skinned and conspicuous in a train full of Chinese who look like they’re recovering from jaundice or simply deathly pale!

Among a few interesting incidents that come to my head one stands out because of the sheer audacity of it. My husband and I were out exploring Beijing and he asked me to stand for a picture. I was telling him that I don’t look nice and don’t want to pose but he insisted. So here I am standing in front of our hotel while he is taking a picture and a bunch of middle aged men are passing by. Suddenly, one of them goes “Naicceee!” and continues on his way without missing a step.  I was a little taken aback because I had hardly ever hear anybody talk English all the time I’ve been in Beijing. And now, this man was not only checking me out but also commenting in English!! I just stood there laughing while my husband fumed at the fact that guy did not even acknowledge his presence there. But guess who was not complaining about not looking nice for the rest of the day?

I have managed to make a couple of friends who are Chinese. There’s this one guy who simply amuses me the way he approaches women. If he likes them, he just goes ahead and talks to them and if they like him, he even manages to get their cellphone number. Mind you, these are just random strangers on the road. It does help that he is bloody good looking. So it might seem alright. But if it were India, no matter how good looking you are, if you approached me on the road,  there is no way in hell I would have entertained you, forget exchanging numbers.

I have an extreme aversion for heart accessories. Growing up, it was not “cool” to be seen wearing heart pendants and watches or for that matter anything heart-shaped. But everything about love is so corny and cheesy here, am sure I would have cringed a little less had I grown up in this part of the world and maybe even liked wearing the exact same clothes!

One of the largest retail chains in China is called Love & Love Couples. They only make products for couples. It ranges from matching heart pendants to keys to each other’s heart.  So the guy gets the plain silver heart while the girl gets the exact same thing but her heart is studded with pink stones! Of course for the nouveau riche there is the more expensive and exclusive store which sells matching jewellery in platinum, gold and diamond. That is love for you Made in China!

http://www.love-lovelife.com/c_cn/

Half-truths and full lies

At the risk of sounding ignorant, I’m going to pen my first thoughts on China. Like most Indians with preconceived notions of the Middle Kingdom, I too had my own list. Let’s start with their height.  I thought all Chinese were short.  My little bubble burst starting with my husband’s colleague who picked us up at the airport. She was almost 6 ft. Not ready to concede defeat yet, I watched as the Chinese continued to tower over me at malls and metro stations. Damn,and I thought this would be the only place on the planet where I might be considered tall.  Anyway it piqued my interest enough to gather courage to ask a native Chinese. Luckily for me she was tall, so took no offense to my questions and went on to educate me. She told me, that like in India, people from different parts had certain characteristics. Broadly speaking, the people from South China are usually short. I repeat broadly speaking!     

I am sure all of us have at some point wished that we all had straight hair like the Chinese. Hassle free and easy to maintain. This is misconception number two.  I was quite surprised to see quite a few Chinese with wavy hair.  It broke away from the conventional Head & Shoulders advertisement that we are all so used to seeing.  Of course, there is the occasional curly haired blonde Chinese but I believe that is the handiwork of their neighbourhood beauty salon.  

 I always thought Delhiites swarmed to the salons in hordes. Surprise, surprise! The Chinese put us to shame. They are quite obsessed with their looks. There are at least 5 salons within walking distance from our apartment. I am pretty sure there are more and I just have not discovered them yet.  And yet I find it difficult to find someone who can thread my eyebrows without making me feel like I’m in labour. They usually don’t thread. They use this blade that my grandfather’s barber used for shaving. I’m sure it is still used in barber shops in India. Emphasis on barbershop! Well, the Chinese women use a smaller version of it to shape their eyebrows.

I always thought Indians had a monopoly on arranged marriages. Misconception number three. Apparently Indian aunties are not the only ones who call up saying there is a boy who is studying in the States . And that he happens to be her husband’s brother’s wife’s cousin.  He is perfect for you. Well China is not very different.  They have their fair share of relatives setting them up. But its slowly changing to speed dating, internet date sites and there are some whackier ones. Like parents of prospective girls and boys gathering at a park every Saturday and Sunday with their details on big chart papers. With special attention to details of how many apartments they have and if they own a car. And if you don’t have either an apartment or a car then the chances of finding a spouse for your child are simply next to impossible. So much for thinking this was a Commie country where wedding vows were exchanged with red paper garlands and over a glass of lime juice!

We are all used to the phrase big, fat, Indian wedding. In my limited knowledge of the world, I always figured we were the only ones who invited 500-1000 guests for our weddings, but even that would be low-key. The Chinese weddings are as big and as fancy and the guest-list runs into pages.  

Like in India the newer generation of Chinese also thrive on everything Western.  So much so that most Chinese brides have given up the traditional red gown, which is considered to bring good luck and keep away evil spirits.  They’ve all taken a real fancy to the white gown made popular by  western movies. Traditionally though the colour white signifies mourning in China and Japan. Well, having been married for three years now, I can’t help but agree. Marriage = Mourning:)