A Tale of Two Cultures

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Every Saturday morning, Jin Yu takes her GongFu class at Chinatown. She practices Hong Quan, a traditional Chinese Gongfu, her mother learns to play Chinese drum. After the class, Jin Yu has lunch with Zhaogu, her younger sister, her mother and her father in her favorite Chinese restaurant.

His father , Jeff Gammage, often wears a T shirt with English and Chinese words: Jin Yu Loves Baba.

Jeff is a reporter at the Inquirer. He adopted Jin Yu and Zhaogu from China. He then decided to embed Chinese culture into his daughters’ life.

I was shocked by the fact that so many Americans adopt Chinese girls, including Meg Ryan. According to Xinhua News Agency, There have been about 40,000 Chinese children adopted by Americans by 2006.

The other thing shocked me is that many American families try hard to teach their children Chinese culture, which is very different from the things in China. In China if a family adopts a child, they may try their best to cover the adoption truth, especially to the child himself. Some families even move to a new city.

Why? I guess to Chinese it is a stigma both to these families that can not have their own children and to children abandoned by their original families.

Jeff told me it was the same thing in American two decades ago, but now things changed.

I guess one of the main reasons is that they cannot cover the different colors and faces since they adopt Chinese children. So, let’s be proud of them!

It is a news from China. A woman was stabbed by a man with a knife in a bank. It was morning and there were many people around her. But no one helped her. The woman died and the bad person sneaked out. From the video you can see how cold people around her were, including the people in the bank, the vendors on the street just outside the bank , a woman who took her basket from the robbed woman's back and the bank cleark hiding inside the office.

I felt so bad and suprised when I saw the video. A chinese saying goes that one should only clean the snow in his own backyard and do not need to help your neibourhood, which is really ugly. I hope I will never see such tragedy any longer.

What kind of role does globalization play in Asian community’s smoking cessation in Philadelphia?
A business trip to China could destroy all the effort you made to quit smoking.
Last Friday I talked with Dr. Grace Ma at the Temple University. Dr. Ma has worked on the smoking cessation program in Asian community for many years. She told me many Chinese Americans smoke again after they went back from China. Because they have to do business with Chinese by smoking.
As Dr. Ma said, smoking is the social norm in China. That is why smoking cessation is really a harsh battle for these Chinese Americans who travel a lot between the States and China.
But not for Melissa, the reporter at the Inquirer. She went to China in the 1980s and the first Chinese sentence she learned to speak is:
Smoking is not good.
That time she was in a closed train where almost everyone around her was smoking.
I hope more people like Mellisa could learned Chinese and then the globalization would help the tobacco control in China.

How did the Chinese factory that produced the poisoned wheat protein powder and killed pets in the States destroy the evidence?

In the beginning of May when the joint investigation team of officials from FDA and AQSIQ (General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China) came to Wuxi Jiangsu to investigate the factory that produced wheat protein powder, the source of poisoned pet food, they found the most important evidence has already been destroyed.

What happened?

Today I read the newest issue of Caijing Magazine and find:

In the middle of April, Li Jun Mao, the manager of An Yin-the company that sold the material for pet food-moved all the machines and wheat? to another village with more than ten tricycles. Each worker who worked for the movement got several hundreds RMB (about $50). These machines and wheat protein powder were moved to another place then.

At the same time, Mao tore down a row of plants in the factory and moved all the ruins. Then he dug out the soil in the ground in case any chemical ? maybe found by testing the soil.

Before the movement, Mao claimed his company had never export wheat protein powder to the States in an interview.

It took Mao several days to do all the things. Both the county government and the police station of the town close to his factory did nothing to stop him.

Ironically, Anyin, the name of the factory also Mao’s nickname_means ”safe camp”.

Then the central government launched a food safety crisis public relation campaign and set a rule that the exported pet food should be checked to see if it has melamin. But what about the pet food sold in China and other goods?

Finally China’s government decided to replace "W.C." with "Toilet" as the name of a public restroom.

A notice was published by the Beijing government yesterday.

"W.C,", or Water Closet, has been put on the door of every public restroom with the Chinese name “Ce Suo” in China. We believe in putting Chinese name and English name together on the door of restroom so western tourists know where to go after they enjoy the delicious Chinese food.

Really? My English teacher in middle school told me his personal experience :

He was walking on the street when a western tourist asked him where was the bathroom.

“I obviously thought that was the “Public Bathroom” and told him where to go and you can imagine what happened,” he recalled, refering to public baths.

You can imagine how surprised I was when I heard that people on the other side of the world don’t use "W.C."!

Actually there were a lot of public baths when I was a child since Chinese had no bathroom or W.C. in their own houses at that time. In a typical building, usually a number of People living in one floor shared one “W.C”. And it was a simple ditch but not flush toilet. If you wanted to have a bath, you could have it in your own room with a wood tub and put the hot water into it, which took a lot of time. If you needed a shower or a bath in a real bath tub, you had to go to a public bath.

Before I was 15 years old I went to the public bath every week and it was so crowded that I had to wait 40 minutes outside of a shower cubicle. I was always wondering if I would become a science fiction writer since I had so much time to think. I might also become a scientist who invents a waterproof book so that people in the long line would not waste time.

As an investigative reporter, I am famous for patience in my newsroom. I could not stop thinking that it is the bath trip that helps to cultivate my patience.

This kind of inconvenience changed when I entered high school. My family moved into a new apartment and had a dark red bath tub and a flush toilet.

Last year I renovated the bathroom in my own apartment in Beijing. I covered the wall with dark blue tiles, my favorite color. On the wall I put a papyrus painting I got from Egypt. I bought a big wood tub so that I can have a spa there. With wireless appliances, I even write stories and read on my tiny VAIO when I enjoy the spa.

Now almost every Chinese family in the cities has a bathroom in their own apartment. Most new houses on sale even provide two to four bathrooms. At the same time, “Restroom” or “Toilet” already replaces “W.C.” in many public places such as restaurants, hospitals, stadiums and parks.

So, don’t worry where to go when you enjoy the Olympic Games in Beijing. We know exactly where the bath room is!

Tonight I attended a farewell party in Washington, D.C for Xin Li, Caijing’s Washington correspondent who will leave for Beijing this month.
About 20 people attended the party. Almost everyone was cooking when Xin Li called them that afternoon, she said.
This is typical Chinese party in the States-every guest brings a dish-not only wine or flowers- so that people can enjoy the food and exchange tips on cooking during the party.
At a traditional Chinese party, usually the one for spring festival, the equivalent of Christmas in the States, guests not only bring food but also make food, usually preparing dumplings with the host.
This is the biggest difference between a Chinese party and an American party. How good the food is at the party is a matter of life or death.
It not only shows the talent of the host's wife but also works as a permanent topic of discussion for strangers as the topic of weather, or a refuge for shy people. If you don’t know what to talk, you can at least enjoy the food!
On the contrary, it seems food is the least important focus at an American party. To Americans, the most important thing at the party is talking, then liquor or beverage, then dessert, then the meal. It could be nice if you know most of the guests or you have pleasant conversation with other guests. It could be terrible if you find all the guests around you are strangers or boring, plus you have to stand there with little to eat.
The first B.B.Q I’ve attended in the States was in a White House reporter’s home in Washington. I told my colleagues all the details about the B.B.Q:
“We had food under cherry blossom in his backyard.”
“Wonderful!”
“We had candles and flowers on the table.”
“Beautiful!”
“We played with his dog.”
“Interesting. What about food?”
“Hamburger.”
“Are you kidding?”
And then I knew American B.B.Q is not the camp B.B.Q that I imagined before, and hamburger or cheeseburger is the typical food for B.B.Q.
I attended some pleasant parties in Philadelphia and then decided to hold a party at my apartment. I prepared four dishes as main entrées, including lobster, which is obviously fancy in American cuisine but still a little bit light to Chinese. I thought everything was perfect until I found I missed one important course:
Dessert, always Americans' (especially American women’s) favorite course.
I felt sorry about that for a while then I felt better. Since we’ve already enjoyed the fancy Chinese food, why bother to have dessert?

street shows in New York.

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I am at Tampa, FL now for a seminar at Poynter Institution, a journalism training organization, with other 7 Alfred Friendly fellows. I opened schedule and saw the “dress code” again.

You do not see this kind of “dress code” in the paper of schedule or invitation letters in China. Unlike America, Chinese don’t have clear codes on what to wear for what situation. When I was a little child, everyone wore blue or green. Even though there are colorful cloths with different styles, you still can tell which cloth is definitely for a dinner party or for workdays.

I can clearly tell how long has a person stayed in western society by what he or she wears in a party. There was only one female reporter wore evening dress at Caijing’s last Christmas party. This girl is graduated from the Columbia University. Many guests including me wore what we wore in workdays.

Are Chinese women really don’t like fancy dresses or are Chinese don’t want to show respect to others?

No. In fact traditional Chinese used to have very complicated dress codes 50 years ago. If you read books written 50 years ago, the description of different clothes in different meetings will drive you mad.

But the Cultural Revolution changes everything. Fancy clothes were regarded as symbol as rich people or capitalists, which should be abandoned by the new China.

In a long time, all the people wore the same colors, blue(symbol of workers)or green(symbol of solders).

Now things changed. There are many more kinds of clothes you can find in China’s shops than in the ones in the States. People have different choices and different tastes.

However, the dress cold is still on track of developing.

In more internationalized organizations, people are more used to dress for different occasions.

For example, I have worked for HP when I was at my graduate school. I was told I could wear skirts or pants but not jeans. Since all the trousers I have were jeans at that time I had to wear skirts in the whole internship. I was called skirt girl and I hated this so much that I finally decided to work as a reporter but not a official lady for an international company.

So now where can you see Chinese woman with fancy cloth?
Bars, parties, night clubs, and the shopping centers.

Go to the shops at new oriented plaza in Beijing or Nanjing Road in Shanghai and you can see beautiful women with the latest cloth of world class brands walking down the streets for shopping.

Why?
Maybe because there are still no clear dress code or enough parties so the streets become many Chinese women’s arena to show their beauty.

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Speaker: May Run, Chinatown Town Watch member

That day, I saw the thief who has been to Chinatown before when I drove on the Tenth Street. I called the police at once. I parked the car and then followed him. He walked into a building at 928 Race Street. Some people in Chinatown tried to persuade me not to enter the building.
They said: “If the thief knows it is you who told the policeman, he will take revenge against you.”
I said: “I am not afraid of that. I come to catch him.”
There was a policeman at the building. I said to him:
“Could you help me? He is a thief.”
The policeman asked the man what he was doing. He said he was looking for an apartment there.
Then my friends Chen, Bei and policemen I called before came. He still denied that he was stealing. The checked his bag and found a lot of things: jewelries like jade bracelet, necklace and 28 credit cards.
I went with the policemen to the police station as the witness. Then I received a subpoena.
Some people said:
“Don’t go to court. It will bring trouble to you.”
I said:
“I must go. If all of us don’t report or go to the court to testify theft will never stop in Chinatown. I will let them know we won’t tolerate being bullied.”
I went to court for four to five times. Every time town watch members accompanied me. At last the thief was forbidden to enter Chinatown in two years. The court also made an Apprehended Violence Order for us.

Read the English version of the story:Town watch grows in Chinatown

Watch the video about Chinatown's vibrancy and problems

Last night, I was on the way back to St. Petsbergur with other fellows. Aresu asked me:
“Do you want flossing? ”
“Yes,” I said and open my hand.
I waited for a while and found Aresu seemed to wait for me with a small box in her hand, instead of put the flushing onto my hand as I had supposed.
“Why don’t give it to me?” I asked.
“Why don’t you come to pull it out?” She said.
Then I opened the box and found it was not a piece of candy but a string.
It was the first time I’ve used flossing! I brush my teeth everyday but have never seen flossing before.
Aresu and Sabrina, AFPF fellows from Iran and Brazil, were surprised. They were told by dentists that it is necessary to use flossing everyday even they brush their teeth at the same time.
I explained that problem of teeth was not a big deal to Chinese for a long time until several years ago. A Chinese saying went that the problem teeth hurts you a lot though it is not a disease. That is why several years ago a Chinese MBA from Wharton even looked for venture fund to open a dentist clinical in Beijing.
But now Chinese change their idea.
And then we found People in Bangladesh and Georgia also didn’t use flossing very often.
“So it is a great market!” Sabrina said.
If we could sell one box of flossing at 50 cents and our profit is 10 cents, we can sell to 2 billion people and make 0.2 billion dollars!
We decide to build an international company and Beijing will be the headquarter.
Come on and join us!

Some strange thing happened.
I had sandwiches as lunch everyday during the seminar at Poynter Institute at St. Petersburg, FL. I liked the sandwiches so much that I had three to four ones at everylunch, which I can never imagine three years ago.
One day in the summer three years ago, I had lunch with a friend near capitol hill after we finished the hearing by the former Fed chairman Greenspan. He opened his brown bag-full of carrot.
“Do you want some?” He asked.
“No. In our country only rabbits eat such things. ” I said.
As the DC correspondent for Caijing Magazine, I attended a lot of events and I never ate the sandwiches provided in the events. Can I survive with two pieces of toast and one piece of turkey?
I can and I enjoy it.
After three years I learn it.
The last day of the seminar we had dinner at Jonathan(the Chairman of the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowship Foundation)’s home. He ordered the Thai food.
I jumped out to the table and buried my head into the food.
I learned then the Asian food, especially the Chinese food is always my favorite food though I began to enjoy the American food.

Americans think to be punctual is very important. It is what I heard before I went to the States as the Washington correspondent for Caijing Magazine three years ago. I didn’t want to be late for any interview. But I am not a good map reader. So I always arrived one hour earlier. Usually I went to a nearby Starbucks and prepared for my interview there after I found where the interview would be held.
I often recited the questions to myself when I prepared my interview at the Starbucks.
One day as I was murmuring questions in a line waiting for a cup of mocha at the Starbucks close to the World Bank, the man in front of me suddenly turned around and said:
“Absolutely!”
I was stunned for a second and then realized that he was answering my question.
Anyway, I never missed any interview.
When I came to the Philadelphia Inquirer I was reminded again of American’s emphasis on punctuality. The first day Andy Maykuth, my mentor at the Inquirer, gave me a printed schedule with a list of about 30 journalists I should meet in the newsroom the first three days. Every interview lasted exactly 30 minutes.
“Americans are not human being,” I said to myself, "they are computers.”
But quickly I found that Americans are also flexible. They would also change their agenda. I felt a little bit relaxed when my schedule was changed.
And then I was shocked again.
In my newsroom, when people don’t have time to talk with you, they usually say:
“Could you wait for a couple minutes? ”
Here people account by second.
“Five seconds, OK?”
I always hear that kind of response.
But then I find actually they need five minutes.
Now, whenever I hear a response like five seconds or a couple of minutes, I will translate them into five minutes or 30 minutes.
Does that mean Americans do not stick to their word?
No. They use seconds to show their respect for others and their time. But they are too busy. During this chaotic time in the whole newspaper industry in the Internet era, American journalists have to write more with fewer people and less pay. They are competing with different media, with all the other things people would like to read, with the Internet.
They are competing with the time and for the time.
So what do I do?
Leave and wait?
No. I will do exactly the same as I did in the newsroom of my country. Go back to my desk but still watch them to see if they have time to talk with me.
In China I always chase my editor or I would be chased and tortured by them. Here I have to chase my editors too or I could not get more opportunity to learn about the American society, the American newspaper industry and tell you the tale of the two cultures.

Last Wednesday I was in St. Petersburg for a seminar with other Alfred Friendly Press Fellowship fellows. After the seminar I went to the swimming pool with other two girls.
Upon we arrived at the pool I jumped into the pool and began to swim. After I swam for 10 minutes I found I was the only one in the pool. The other two girls were still lying on chairs under the hot sun.
“Come on and swim!”
They didn’t go. Most of the time they were busy with putting sun block onto their bodies, drinking, or just lying on the towel when I was swimming.
Three days later we went to the beach. The same thing happened.
Most of the time girls just lied on the towel and read fashion magazines. They only swam for several minutes during the whole morning.
I had wondered before that why Americans build the best kitchen rooms in the world while they don’t cook very often. Now I have a new question:
Why do Americans go to the swimming pool or beach if they don’t want to swim?
If they just want to lie on the chair and relax, why bother fly for such a long way to Florida? Why not just lie on the chair at their backyards?
Katie, one of the girls who went to the pool with me, said:
“Go to swim” means exactly going to swim. But ‘go to the pool’ or ’go to the beach ’ means a lot.”
I guess that maybe Americans want to split the workday and personal vacation very clearly. Maybe they work too hard so that they want to go where they don’t need to think of any piece of work.
You know what does “Go to the pool” means to me in China?
It means a large terribly crowded dumpling bowl. There are always a lot of people in the pool that you can never enjoy swimming in the swimming pool. When I swam in China I was often kicked mistakenly by other swimmers. If I don’t want to be kicked the only way is to stand in the pool like an idiot.
To men, whether from China or the States, I guess, “Go to the pool” or “Go to the beach” also means beautiful women, especially hot girls in Bikinis.
Obviously there are more Bikini beauties in the pool in the States. However, there are more and more girls in Bikinis in the pools in China.
But the traditional culture still played an important role. About eight years ago when Bikini was first introduced to China I went to a swimming pool one day and was surprised to see a girl in a Bikini. She was so brave to wear a Bikini but at the same time she was so traditional that she wore a T shirt first and then put the Bikini outside the T shirt.

How to put your name as a byline?
According to American’s culuture, I should be called Yi Lou. Because my last name is Lou and my first name is Yi.
However, I was always called Lou Yi in China. Actually my last name and first name have never been split before. I even used Louyi as my name when I first introduced myself to my colleagues in the Inquirer.
To Chinese, last name is very important. It tells the story of people’s families which may go back to thousands of years ago.
To show respect, Chinese only call senior people (both by age and position) by their last name. For example, you should call your uncle John Zhang ”uncle Zhang” but never his first name “John”.
To people who are at the senior position we also follow the same rule. If John Zhang is your director, he is usually called Director Zhang even he is younger than you.
So what about journalists?
Most of newsrooms in China follow the same name rule. Maybe even stricter. They call senior journalists “Teacher”. Because Chinese think writers or journalists are better educated intellectuals and Chinese respect education.
I was often called “Teacher Lou” when I received calls from readers or other journalists in China. But most of them called me “Lou Yi” after they met me and found I was only a young girl with naïve eyes and acne.
Caijing where I am working with is very different. In our newsroom every one call each other’s first name just like Americans. Why? I don’t know. Maybe because most of the people in the newsroom are young or because our editor in chief, the best reporter in China, is always energetic like a young girl and never wants others to warn her of her age.
However I am unique in my newsroom. Some Chinese characters have the same pronunciation but mean totally different. Unfortunately my first name Yi has the same pronunciation of another word “Yi”——means aunt. I am too young for people to call me aunt and show extra respect.
Therefore I am Lou Yi for 30 years and I wonder if I need to change myself to Yi Lou?
I tried to introduce myself as Yi Lou but felt very uncomfortable. I even thought of having an foreign first name so as not to feel weird.
Here I do the same job in the same way; wear the same clothes and eat quite the similar food (from Chinatown) as I did in China. Why should I change my name?
I asked myself and wondered what other Chinese do in the States.
“How do you call Yao Ming? ”
“Yao Ming.”
I know Yao is the famous basketball superstar’s last name and Ming is his first name.
“So call me Lou Yi.”
That is why byline is Lou Yi in the Inquirer, just the same as the one on the English version of my stories at Caijing.
Be yourself and be proud of yourself and your culture are the same as, or maybe more important than to learn to adapt yourself to another culture.
And tell you another thing of my name. Every Chinese name has a meaning. Lou means house and Yi means safe. Visit my blog and feel safe, safer and safer.