Why China is better than India for women

Chairman Mao famously said that women hold up half the sky. And he was not even a bra burning feminist of the seventies. Just a man who understood the importance of women in the growth of a society.

Historically, Chinese women were among some of the most oppressed in the world. From foot-binding, child marriage, illiteracy to forced prostitution. They were kept at the lowest rung of society for the longest time.

But women in modern China for most parts do not even closely resemble their counterparts of the past.  Implementation of equal rights for women in Chinese society affected fundamental emancipation of women in all aspects of political, economic, social and family life. And this single-handedly transformed the story of contemporary China.

 62 years after Mao’s revolution China has become a force to reckon with and after 64 years of Indian independence we are still struggling to provide basic rights for women who constitute almost half the population of India!

I have been contemplating writing this piece for a while, but in a completely different context. About why I like living in China, with all problems ensuing. I still prefer this place because I do not have to look over my shoulder and watch out for which pervert on the road is looking to have his share of fun. Like every other girl/woman who has grown up in India, I have had my share of being groped, eve teased, bullied and what not. I guess in India it is your right to passage as a woman to undergo this demeaning ritual.

And I’m not the only Indian woman in China to state personal safety as a reason for their love for China. It just tops the list among other important parameters. We constantly compare ourselves to  China in terms of our GDP, strength of our economies, savings rates, trade and investment etc. Therefore it only seems fair to compare ourselves to China with regard to safety of women, especially after the Guwahati and Mangalore incidents. By that I don’t mean to make little the hundreds of rapes, molestations, sexual assaults and domestic sexual violence that happens India, every single day.

I am constantly appalled at the gross negligence and the sheer brutality that women are subjected to in our country. What I want for Indian women is to be as safe as safe as I am in China. Why can a country that a lot of Indians look at with disdain protect its women better?

Why is it that I can go out at 11 in the night to look for a cake for a friend’s birthday in the company of two other women and be dropped back by a cab driver that happens to be a woman and not be frightened about how late in the night it is. I can be drunk as a skunk and hail a cab back home at any time of the night and be sure that I would reach home safe without any male escort. I can wear whatever I please and not get stared at whistled at or even eve teased.

The answer lies in China’s laws and their implementation of them. Committing rape in China may result in sentencing of a fixed-term imprisonment from three years to ten years, and if one of a list of “serious circumstances” spelt out in The PRC Criminal Law happens, a fixed-term imprisonment from ten years up to the death penalty may be imposed. And the death penalty is often used to act as a deterrent. Let me be clear. I oppose the death sentence in principle. But here in China, it is routinely handed out in rape cases and it is highly-publicized by the state media which puts the fear of god in potential offenders.

There are high conviction rates in crimes against women which is one of the biggest differences between India and China. There is of course a tremendous fear of the law. Then, there’s also surveillance. If someone tries to eve-tease or molest you in any public transport in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, all you need to do is call the police hotline and before you know it, the cops will be there at the next available stop. It’s as fast and simple as that. And unlike in India, they take the side of the victim not accuse you in turn.

But here is what baffles me. Despite the extraordinary progress of women in China, the country’s body politic has far fewer women than men. And it gets fewer as you go to the top. In the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, about 20 percent of all members are female. One step above that, in the CPC Central Committee, only 13 of the 204 members are women. That’s less than 10 percent. And in the all-powerful politburo, there are no women at all. Contrast that with India. We just had a woman President, have had a really powerful woman Prime Minister in the past, and today, for all practical purposes, the country is run by a woman. The tragedy is none of these women in powerful places have made the lot of womankind in India any better.

The success of a country depends on how well it treats its women and in that regard India will always come up short.

Why chinese women fare better # Primary school participation, Net enrolment ratio (%), 2007-2010*, female -99 # Youth (15-24 years) literacy rate (%), 2005-2010*, female -99% #Women make up 49% of China's population and 46% of its labour force, a higher proportion than in many Western countries.  # China has over 29m female entrepreneurs. That's a quarter of the national total according to All-China Women's Federation.

Learning Chinese

Learning was the last thing on my mind! I thought I was done, but living in China is not easy without knowing the language. I know we have all heard that the Chinese are all learning English, some 300 million of them, but let me assure you it does not include EVERYONE.  There are about a BILLION that are not.  I constantly struggle at supermarkets, with taxi drivers, restaurants…basically for most things in everyday life. So learning the language, I thought would prove extremely useful for me. And I took inspiration from my Indian friends in Beijing who not only speak Chinese but can also read it!  They make me want to try at least.

I’m sure by now we all have that uncle or neighbour or distant relative who does business in China. And most of us have even heard that its one of the toughest languages in the world! I completely agree. I am usually good with languages. But Chinese, is a wholly different ping-pong game altogether.

The difficulty in learning the language has mostly been my inability to unlearn what I know about languages in general. A lot of it does not make any sense when translated. The grammar is very different and sometimes non-existent. And not to mention different tones to words that are spelt the same in pinyin.

Then of course there is the slight matter of learning the language in Pinyin: this is the name given to the method of transcribing the Chinese characters into acceptable phonetics for Western learners. This system of learning became popular in the late 1950’s and is now widely accepted as the first step to learning Chinese. In fact, it also helps Chinese children learn pronunciation and the phonetic way of transliterating the characters. So most Chinese people know the character as well as its pinyin.

In pinyin the alphabets are in English with the respective tones: there are four tones in Chinese thus increasing the complexity of the language. I just have to learn to pronounce correctly depending on the tones and voila I will know Chinese. But to me it all sounds the same! For example, yí in 1^st tone means aunt, yī in 2^nd tone means one, yǐ in 3^rd tone means chair and yì in 4^th tone means hundred million. 

However, unlike other languages this is slightly easier to grasp because the grammar is simple and uncomplicated. There is only one form of the verb, which is so unlike English where we have is, as was, there, were… In Mandarin one verb does the job!  And the local Chinese folk are also very patient, so if you get the word right (without the tone, that is) the locals try and understand what you are saying. 

What I get asked frequently by my non-Chinese friends when I say am learning Chinese is, ‘so have you learnt the alphabets?’ There are no such things as alphabets in Chinese. Each word has a character and the average Chinese person knows about three thousand characters. Which is not much. Back in the day you were considered a scholar only if you knew about ten thousand characters.  And your handwriting or calligraphy had to be very good!

And here I am struggling to learn a few thousand words. My biggest hurdle has been memorising the words and their meaning. Memorising was never my forte.  But that’s the only way to learn. And learning pinyin is far easier than learning the characters as you have to memorise the characters and there are about 1400 basic characters. Think about it this way: you have to memorise 1400 diagrams!

Here is what takes the cake though. The Chinese have their own words for everything from names of countries, their currencies and even some world famous personalities. So much so a Chinese friend of mine argued with me that the fastest man on the planet is some freak called You Sai En Bo Er Te. Turns out, that is Usain Bolt’s Chinese name. Well at least in India, America is just Amrika or AAmaereeka depending on which part of India you come from. So for the Chinese, I am Yindu ren, from Xin Deli and our currency is the Lubi!    

Disappearing Act

If I could change my identity who would I be? J K Rowling? The money would be pretty damn good! Or Angelina Jolie? Six kids… hmm am not so sure. But in China I have met Justin Bieber, Jennifer Aniston and even Jackie Chan. 

The first time I noticed this phenomenon was with my real estate agent. The first day his name was Jackie and by the third day he says “call me Justin Bieber” and I just stared at him incredulously! I was like you know that you look nothing like Justin Bieber right? And he goes “no that’s ok, girls love Justin Bieber, so I just decided to change my name. I wish it were that easy. But in China it works. 

The influx of foreigners and their inability to pronounce Chinese names is what prompted this English names phenomenon. It makes it easier for Chinese to meet foreigners and foreigners to remember their names. This is most prominent among the low income and low middle class workers who by Chinese definition are the migrant workers that hold up the Chinese economic miracle. 

It is this set that recognises the value of learning English and how that can make a difference to a person’s career. So why Justin Bieber or Michael Jackson? There are two reasons. One, is the popularity of pop music in the average Chinese psyche and English songs are their first step to learning the language. So I’ve met Chinese who sing flawless songs in English right to the T, while their spoken English, less said about it, the better.

Migrant workers who flock to the cities usually want no reminders of their life back in their hometowns or villages. And by changing their names they find it easier to assimilate in the cities. They are all here to realize the Chinese dream. 

So why does this phenomenon deserve a mention? Because it is not that they get English names. It is how often they change their names. It’s how one day they are part of your world and the next they are just another person in milling crowds of these emerging cities.  Cities help them camouflage.  They make new friends, they change their numbers , they change their names and even their email and social networking ID’s.  And voila, they are who they want to be! It is like they never existed.

I have met some wonderful people in my one year here. Gone out, gotten drunk like a fish, sang avaaraa hooon mein with Chinese friends and their neighbours, shared food at common tables. But, a year later I have no idea where Kevin or Jackie or any of the others are or for that matter who they really are. One day they just disappeared! 

I have in my time here done a little research on why this happens and the reasons are many.

1.       It gives them an anonymity and helps them create an identity that would fit their career goals.

2.       You learn from your mistakes and then when you want to move on, the best way to do it is would be to get a new number. So your friends have no way to trace you. And you get a whole new start to life.

3.       Internet has become such an intrinsic part of their lives it helps them further live out their fantasies! The girls often put pictures of models or extremely photoshopped pictures of themselves to attract the elusive, perfect guy! The guys usually put up pictures of themselves in front of expensive cars.

4.      Microblogging allows them the anonymity to voice their opinion about issues in a tightly controlled media environment. And that too without revealing who you are.  ( Though recently  the authorities have clamped down on that by asking for real name registrations.)

5.       It also helps them lead multiple lives and one that does not intertwine. One for their parents and relatives back home and the other for themselves     

6.       The anonymity helps them change their fates, for better or for worse no one can tell.

Well, there are of course the legitimate reasons for changing names and these might not sound very surprising to us Indians;

1.       Usually fortune tellers will tell them that changing names will help them get married , get promoted and more importantly make lots of money(Wish they would qualify how much is lots of money  and how(il) legitimately you have to earn it!).

2.       Secondly, some of the names are ultra patriotic and can sound irrelevant today.

3.       Chinese by itself is a hard language to grasp and tones make up the language. And foreigners tend to butcher the Chinese names without of course realising it. I have called people pig, chicken and some other terrible things I would rather not say! And some names can also have unintended associations. And since Chinese is a tonal language, different tones can mean completely different things . 

 Fong Si-lung(literally translates to become the dragon) and Lei Siu-lung( literally translates to little dragon) are martial art actors most of us grew up watching or have at least heard of. We of course know them better as   Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee.  What’s in a name you say?

Beijing bites: Hotpots and chopsticks

The first thing people ask me when they know that I am based in China is about the food. The questions usually start with “is it anything like the Chinese food you get in India?” or “have you tasted snakes yet?” The answer to the first question is Chinese food in China is poles apart from Chinese food in India. It’s far better or worse depending on how adventurous you are willing to be. The for the answer to the second question read on! Also, unlike in India, in China, there’s no such thing as Scehzwan fried rice or Chicken Manchurian! 

There is of course Sichuan cuisine. The uniqueness in their food is the Sichuan peppercorn. It’s not spicy like our chilli but it numbs your tongue and you experience a tingling sensation. It is an acquired taste and not necessarily something I enjoy.  Sichuan is also known the food capital of China.  So it’s easy to fathom why hotpots from this region are pretty popular all over China. 

Hotpot refers to different varieties of stew that is usually brought in a simmering pot and kept onto an electric hotplate or induction plate at the center which is controlled by a knob. While the hot pot is kept simmering, ingredients are placed into the pot and cooked at the table. Typical hot pot dishes include thinly sliced meat, leafy vegetables, mushrooms, dumplings and seafood.

My introduction to the hotpot was actually accidental. It happened in the second week after our move to Beijing. As we were still waiting for our gas connection to be set up, we would end up eating out quite often. So our daily dinner plans always started out with a walk to find a place to eat and our criteria was simple. The menu had to be in English!  

We had overdosed on TGIF, Subway and other such Western joints. I love my rice and curry and decided to try the Chinese version of it. We very soon realised our criteria for an English menu was quite often a tedious task. On one such outing even after an hour we were finding it difficult to find a place to eat with food we recognised. Finally, just as we were about to give up and settle for another night at TGIF, we found a menu which had chicken, mutton and momo’s (dumplings). How difficult could it have gotten from there!  Well, for one we had a Chinese waitress who exhausted us with her ranting in Mandarin while we continued to gesture that we did not understand and finally picked from the pictures on the menu. A plate of mutton and dimsums. She tried to get us to pick a broth but we hardly understood what she and half a dozen of her colleagues who had by then collected around our table tried to tell us. 

They finally gave up and brought a broth of their choosing and the girl picked up my bowl and gestured me to follow her and pick from a large assortment of ingredients. I was not very sure what I was supposed to do with it but picked some of the ones I recognised anyway. The list is quite exhaustive  and includes garlic, coriander, spring onions, chilli garlic paste,  peanut paste, red and green chillis, soy sauce etc.   

By the time I came back to the table the dimsums were already there. There was only one problem, they were frozen!! How was I supposed to eat it? I had no idea and tried looking at other tables but did not quite understand. I figured maybe it was some sort of delicacy and even tried biting into it. But it was frozen solid! And I would have definitely broken a few teeth had I continued.  While we waited the mutton also arrived and surprise, surprise it was uncooked! By then even bread seemed like a wise option and I was reaching my “mummy...bhook lagi hain” moment! Armed with chopsticks. 

The waitress finally arrived with the pot filled with broth, poured it into a hole in our table, lit a fire under it and deftly put the dimsums and the mutton into the broth. While i sheepishly looked on! And voila, in about ten minutes she served up cooked mutton and dim sums in a soup bowl.  I can’t say I liked it as it was in the middle of summer and we had steam from the pot blowing into our face. The overall experience was not exactly worth remembering.

 But under duress from our friends here we were soon taken to experience it like it is supposed to be experienced.  They taught us how to order it and and what you do with the ingredients and how you eat it. Its just what the doctor ordered for the long winter in Beijing. I have of course grown very fond of it.

The experience of China lies in its food.  Mine were not the most pleasant ones to start with, but I still love Chinese food and I mean the food you get in China, not in Majnu ka Tila. Back home, I have tried to learn eating with a chopstick, and I fancied people who could. But I never imagined one day I would have to! Initially I tried asking for a spoon and fork and for a while even carried disposable ones in my bag! But after getting stared at for eating with soup spoons and ladles (‘coz that’s the only spoon they had) I was determined to master this skill. I mean how hard could it be? I practised at home and when I thought I had mastered it, took it to the streets (literally) and have I had bad chopstick days or what. It was a constant feature to have things flying off my chopsticks and I would just sheepishly say ‘I guess I am having a bad chopstick day’ . And on a good day, all I could manage was about five grains of rice on my chopstick!! 

So imagine my surprise when visiting one of the palace museums I saw a whole bunch of spoons and forks on display and am like ‘what! They had it then why can’t they have it now’?  I can’t help but quote Bill Bryson.  

“And I find chopsticks frankly distressing.  Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites and any number of other useful objects, and who have a noble history extending back 3,000 years haven't yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is no way to capture food.”

I have learnt how to eat with chopsticks, eaten raw crab, maybe even eaten a bird which the restaurant claimed was chicken, cartilage on skewers, some weird greens, pickled chicken feet and stinky tofu . But snakes, not yet!