One of the newest and best-funded shopping malls in Nanjing is called Aqua City (shuiyoucheng). In tribute to the canal culture of Nanjing and the entire Yangzi Delta, long waterways loop around the stores, connecting several ponds with fountains of colorful, dancing water. One of the fountains has a stage in the middle. The canals are enlivened by leaping arcs of water that people can walk under. Right by my favorite coffee shop is a waterfall that drops three storeys; every small child who passes by shouts out, “It’s raining!”

Naturally, the sparkling water, slick advertisements and well-lit stores attract quite a few people who just want to stroll and enjoy the scenery. Last Monday I was at a coffee shop there. In one hour, I saw two urban rustics lead their children to the place where the waterfall splashes into the canal–a perfect place for little junior to urinate, certainly preferable to the nearby rest rooms.

Of course Aqua City’s water circulates continuously, so before long, their urine was pumping out of fountains and leaping in arcs that so many people like to slap with their hands as they pass underneath.

Other Chinese say people like these “are at a low cultural level”. Living on a higher cultural plane, the architects of Aqua City did not anticipate this sort of behavior and neglected to install fences.

Empty Gestures

The other day a woman in a store explained to me how to use toilet paper–”First, you open the package, then you remove the toilet paper sheet by sheet…”

At that point, I assured her that I understood the technology. It reminded me of people in Korea who taught me how to use elevators. These people were only trying to be helpful, of course.

Learning the Drill

Several weeks ago, I and some other foreign teachers attended our school’s opening ceremony for incoming freshmen. New students spend the first several weeks of university life on military training, marching in unison, right-face! Company Halt! They wear camouflage uniforms, and for reasons I can’t explain, the dominant color of the camouflage is blue.

The students were divided into groups according to their major, and for well over an hour, they marched around and finally passed in front of us for inspection. The best marchers walked in front of their classmates because they had mastered a somewhat arrhythmic stride that involves long steps with pauses. The best shouter in each group called out the cadence.

Finally, the university president got into a jeep that weaved between the groups of assembled troops. He shouted repeatedly into an onboard mike, “You’ve been working hard!” That went on for about three minutes, and then the university treated us to a fabulous banquet.

It’s always a relief when a function that you expect to be boring turns out to be so entertaining.

Cao Cao

Cao Cao is a famous character in Chinese history and fiction, but for twenty-odd years, I ‘ve been trying unsuccessfully to get a good explanation for his fame out of Chinese people. Their comments are so unilluminating–”He was a general. He was so smart. He was so wily.” And that’s about all they give you. Is Cao Cao famous for being famous?

Finally, I found a good description online; the link is below. I so often get the best materials on Chinese history and culture from foreign academics; they rely on Chinese sources, but they seem better at presenting history convincingly. . Studying Classical Chinese with an American at the University of Iowa was great; studying Classical Chinese with Chinese teachers in China was dreadful.

After reading this article (the link is below), I started talking about it to a Chinese guy in the sauna at the gym. I only got a few sentences out of my mouth before he startled cackling in a way that was just a bit too exaggerated. “Is that what you foreigners say about Cao Cao?” he said.

“What do you Chinese say about him?” I asked, and of course he had no response. This is a problem for some people in China–they seem to think the outside world is genetically incapable of understanding their culture. That’s one reason why so many questions are met with boring responses, deliberate obfuscation and deliberate mystification.

Anyway, if you are interested, this article brings Cao Cao to life in a way that I don’t think I would ever get from Chinese sources.

http://www.anu.edu.au/asianstudies/decrespigny/morrison51.html