{"id":1526,"date":"2014-05-04T05:00:02","date_gmt":"2014-05-04T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/?p=1526"},"modified":"2014-05-04T13:15:55","modified_gmt":"2014-05-04T20:15:55","slug":"foreigners-living-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/china\/foreigners-living-in-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreigners on the Loose in China"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Unsavory<\/a>Unsavory Elements: Stories of Foreigners on the Loose in China.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been a tourist in China a couple of times. I\u2019ve climbed the Great Wall, toured the Forbidden City, and walked along Shanghai\u2019s bund. But I\u2019ve never lived in China, and that’s an entirely different thing.<\/p>\n

I was curious. So, rather than pack up and move halfway around the world, I bought a book: Unsavory Elements, <\/i>an <\/i>anthology edited by Tom Carter that is packed with the China stories and experiences of 28 writers.<\/p>\n

Here is just a taste of what you\u2019ll find.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaying Tuition,\u201d by Matthew Polly”
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

\"painting<\/a>

painting by Nicki Chen<\/p><\/div>\n

Foreigners settle in China for all kinds of reasons. For Matthew Polly, the author of one of my favorite essays, \u201cPaying Tuition,\u201d it was to study kung fu at a famous Shaolin temple. He signed up as the temple\u2019s only foreign student more or less prepared for a grueling training schedule and lots of hard work and pain. What he wasn\u2019t ready for was the expense: US$1300 a month.<\/p>\n

It took Polly three long, expensive months to realize he was being charged the sucker foreigner price. He succeeded in bargaining it down to the smart foreigner price of $550, but that was still far higher than the Chinese friend price or the Chinese friend-of-a-friend price or even the Chinese stranger price. By then he was nearly broke and in need of a money-making scheme.<\/p>\n

And so began his ambitious t-shirt project: The negotiations with the manufacturer. The 2000 shirts. The suitcases and hired vans. The bribes and duties. His hilarious story concludes with a saying not from Confucius but from Chinese slang that succinctly describes someone\u2019s first business venture:\u00a0 \u201cpaying tuition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Shoe,\u201d by Kay Bratt<\/b><\/p>\n

\"sandal\"<\/a>In Kay Bratt\u2019s story, \u201cThe Shoe,\u201d an American woman who volunteers at a Chinese orphanage takes a physically disabled six-year-old girl on an outing. She buys her a \u201chappy\u201d meal at McDonalds, a new frilly pink dress, and a single sandal. By story\u2019s end, we wonder with the author what will happen to the girl with one leg whose parents abandoned her but refused to give her guardianship to the government so she could be adopted. After you finish the story, you may want to follow up by visiting Kay Bratt\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEast of Nowhere, South of Heaven,\u201d by Alan Paul<\/b><\/p>\n

\"batik<\/a>

batik painting by Nicki Chen<\/p><\/div>\n

A few pages into Alan Paul\u2019s essay, I\u2019m shaking my head. OMG! What was he thinking? Why did he take his wife and in-laws, his wife\u2019s great aunt and sister and, especially, his 3-, 6-, and 9-year old kids into the Tibetan region of Sichuan\u2019s \u201cwild west\u201d? Didn\u2019t he know ahead of time that part of the trip would be over a \u201chalf-built, high altitude road with no guard rails in the dark of night\u201d?<\/p>\n

Then I paused and remembered some of the dangerous trips we took our kids on when we lived abroad. (Paul\u2019s story, in fact, was the impetus for me to write two earlier blog posts: \u201cAn Easter Week Trip to Mindanao<\/a>\u201d and \u201cScorching Our Feet on Taal Volcano.<\/a>\u201d)<\/p>\n

I could sympathize with Paul\u2019s desire to give his children \u201cgenuine China experiences,\u201d and I understood his naivet\u00e9 in believing the person who said the dangerous nine-and-a-half hour trip would be nothing more than a three-hour drive over a bumpy road.<\/p>\n

Raising your children overseas is sometimes a guessing game. But, we told ourselves, they\u2019ll thank us for it later\u2014if they make it out alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cRed Couplets,\u201d by Jocelyn Eikenburg<\/b><\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>

photo courtesy of Jocelyn Eikenburg<\/p><\/div>\n

With so many Chinese men available, you\u2019d think most resident single foreign women would have a Chinese boyfriend. Not so, according to Jocelyn Eikenburg. During her first three years in China she said she spotted no more than four or five Chinese men and Western women together in public. She would have noticed, too, especially after she fell in love with her Chinese boyfriend, Jun.<\/p>\n

Having a relationship with a Chinese man wasn\u2019t simple though.<\/p>\n

When Jun moved in with her (only days after their first kiss), they had to keep their relationship a secret. If the school where he was a graduate student found out he was living with a foreigner, he could have been expelled and asked to reimburse them for his tuition and expenses.<\/p>\n

Another challenge was visiting Jun\u2019s parents in the countryside. The couple didn\u2019t dare kiss or hold hands, and Jun\u2019s father made it clear that he didn\u2019t like the idea of his son having a foreign girlfriend. Later when Jun wanted to visit Jocelyn\u2019s parents in Ohio, he couldn\u2019t get a travel visa.<\/p>\n

Oh dear! you might think when you finish the essay. Is the deck stacked against them? My suggestion: Visit the author\u2019s website, speakingofchina<\/a>, and see how they\u2019re getting along today.<\/p>\n

These are only four of the 28 fun and informative essays you\u2019ll find in Unsavory Elements.<\/i> Check it out.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve already read it, what did you think? Which were your favorite essays?<\/p>\n

If you enjoyed this blog post and haven’t done so already, please click the subscribe button and enter your email address, so you can receive a reminder each time I publish another essay (usually once a week).<\/p>\n

\"my<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unsavory Elements: Stories of Foreigners on the Loose in China. I\u2019ve been a tourist in China a couple of times. I\u2019ve climbed the Great Wall, toured the Forbidden City, and walked along Shanghai\u2019s bund. But I\u2019ve never lived in China, and that’s an entirely different thing. I was curious. So, rather than pack up and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[343,13,29,253],"tags":[358,347,356,350,353,352,357,351,348,349,354,345,346,344,355],"class_list":["post-1526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-china","category-culture","category-travel","tag-east-of-nowhere-south-of-heaven","tag-paying-tuition","tag-red-couplets","tag-the-shoe","tag-alan-paul","tag-chinese-orphanage","tag-jocelyn-eikenburg","tag-kay-bratt","tag-matthew-polly","tag-shaolin-temple","tag-sichuans-wild-west","tag-stories-of-foreigners-on-the-loose-in-china","tag-tom-carter","tag-unsavory-elements","tag-western-women-dating-chinese-men"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-oC","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11277,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/china\/hearing-again-from-ruth\/","url_meta":{"origin":1526,"position":0},"title":"Hearing again from Ruth","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"January 26, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019m talking about Ruth Silbermayr of the blog, China Elevator Stories. 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Some of its floors, hallways, and towers are basically the same as in everyone else\u2019s brains. The rest are my own, painstakingly constructed and connected, they\u2019re based on everything I\u2019ve ever\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "books"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"image by TZA, flickr creative commons","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/brain-by-TZA-on-flickr-creative-commons.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/brain-by-TZA-on-flickr-creative-commons.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/brain-by-TZA-on-flickr-creative-commons.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4937,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/tiger-tail-soup\/translation-is-that-what-i-wrote\/","url_meta":{"origin":1526,"position":3},"title":"Translation: Is That What I Wrote?","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"April 10, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"My novel looks so different in translation. 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