Jaded 厌倦

Since coming to China I have had constant reminders that this country is not what I imagined it to be. I left America thinking that I would have this incredible mind blowing experience; that I would be welcomed into Chinese society with open arms, ready dive right in to Chinese daily life. I can say this experience has been mind-blowing, and many times incredible, however, my experience so far has been a rocky one. The first 10 weeks in Beijing were like a riding a roller coaster for the first time. The thrill of doing something risky was terribly exciting, and then once the illusion started to fade the pressures of daily life started to tax my patience. 

Recently I had a realization that the people I’ve been surrounded by are not mere faceless Chinese; rather they are people with countless experiences and emotions. I started to see the relationships between people in a real way. The lady I buy breakfast from is not just a retailer, she has a husband, a family, a hometown, and so do all the people passing by each day. Some are friends, some are enemies, some are strangers, but each one is a person not a Chinese person. 

I was talking with a classmate a few days ago about something the Academic Director told her at lunch. They had been talking about students adjusting to life in China, and Zhu Laoshi brought up that after seeing numerous terms at CET Beijing, there were phases that many students went through while in China. In a nutshell, they were: the honeymoon phase at the beginning when everyone is excited to be in China, second is when culture shock starts to set in and students start to really dislike certain aspects of living abroad, and third happens when the student starts to feel a part of the community. She went on to describe additional phases depending on the length of time abroad, but what really caught my interest was this first part. Seeing as a semester long program is typically only 4 months, most students get to the third phase and then return home shortly thereafter. I can attest to the first and second phase, having had a hard time with culture shock myself. 

5 Dragons Pagoda at 北海公园

For about a week I felt like I was getting to a comfortable place mentally. I was feeling confident about my schoolwork and my day to day interactions outside of campus were become more second nature. I still have moments when all I want to do is going home, where everything is familiar and safe. Often times it is when I’m faced with a new challenge that I end up struggling at. An example of this would be when I decided to try exploring further from school on Friday after a test. I had a few hours before an event, so I set out to find a park I heard about. After getting off the subway, I checked a road map to make sure I walked in the right direction to the park. What should have been a short fifteen minute walk turned into nearly an hour long fiasco that ended up wasting nearly all my time. 

Good news! I did find the park. It was gorgeous; the lake in the middle was huge! There were boats, it was good weather, and I got some pictures, however, my detour made me late for the event. Long story short I got lost twice in one day, and nearly gave up finding the event all together. I told myself I was not going to another event if I was going to be late.

Fast forward a week later and I'm in the same situation again. A particularly poignant reminder of that happened when I attended a CET excursion to the National Chinese History Museum. We took the subway there without incident. The museum was very cool. After gazing at the various treasures housed there, I decided to purchase the extra tickets to see exhibits from the Louvre. I mean, when I am going to get another chance to see that kind of art! Bathing myself in such rich western culture left me feeling content as I departed the museum by myself, seeing as my classmates had already left.

Raising of Lazarus - Artist not remembered by me, Some year. :P

Large Mountain Landscape - Joos de Momper 1620

Inside the Exhibition of Selected African Sculptures

As I neared the subway stop two Chinese women approached me, initiating a conversation. They claimed to be tourists as well looking for a place to sit down and have some coffee. Let me preface this by stating that I am usually very cautious of theft, and keep a close eye on my belongings. After politely refusing, I ignored my better judgment and accepted their invitation to have coffee. As they led me to a “coffee shop” they asked me about my family, my knowledge of Chinese culture, and my impressions of China. Most of what I said were half-truths since they were strangers, but speaking passable putong hua with these charming ladies made me lower my guard.

The coffee shop was a hole in the wall near The Forbidden City. Upon entering I thought, “This is sketch”, but I followed them in and sat in a small room as a server fetched coffee and biscuits. We chatted, drank tea, coffee, wine, etc. Then when the bill came, they began to explain to me the amounts for each of the items. Tea: 500块, coffee: 90 块, wine: 350块, etc. totaling at 990块. You can imagine my shock. They spoke quickly, asking for me to use my credit card. Fortunately I’m not a complete idiot and lied saying it was just an ATM card. They then suggested that we split the bill 50%, I pay half, they pay half. All the red flags were going up in my head as this happened, but I had no idea what to do. Growing up in a medium-size, safe American town I had never experienced anything like this before, and before I knew it I had handed over 500 kuai, and one women had slipped out with the server to collect. That’s about $90! We left together, and separated when they said for me to go to the subway stop, and they were going to a nearby shopping center. I knew what had happened, but by the time I could think of anything to do to stop it, it was too late. Nothing I could have done would have changed what happened.

Shocking. Humiliating. Infuriating. I got scammed in Beijing! All the comfort I had cultivated in the past few weeks crumbled as I fumed about what had just happened to me. I must have looked like the angriest westerner the people on the train had ever seen.

These perpetual fiascos have left me feeling at a loss. The song “Jaded” by Aerosmith comes to mind when I think about my present attitude toward China. 

“Your thinking's so complicated
I've had it all up to here
But it's so overrated
Love and hated
Wouldn't trade it
Love me jaded”

I don’t know if I’ve been knocked back to phase two, or if I completely skipped phase 3, but what I feel right now it anything but friendliness toward China. My study abroad experience has been very valuable and I plan on making the most of it, but there are some aspects of Chinese culture that I simply do not like! In hindsight it could have been worse, but still disillusionment really fucking sucks. If I learned anything from this it is that relationships are a double edged sword. Good and bad people exist here too, and I met two of the bad ones. 

Once again, thank you for reading!

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Check out the song if you haven't heard it, and educate yourself.