Chinese take-aways

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In October/November 2002 I started and spent most of my 10-day stay in China in Beijing, a city of ancient and modern wonder and complexity. I stayed, and ended up working, in AIESEC’s flat cum office. It was a modest 2 bedroom flat on the 7th floor, which had been rented for several years by representatives from AIESEC in USA who were working for the establishment of AIESEC in Mainland of China. I was sharing the flat at the time with the recently “retired” Eugene. He is Russian but was working for AIESEC in the USA’s efforts to extend AIESEC into Mainland of China and was a wealth of knowledge & support for me.

I visited towards the end of October and beginning of November and the weather was getting decidedly chilly – however the heating inside the building was not able to be turned on because the local authorities didn’t “flick the switch” based on temperature – but on the date! Unfortunately Mother Nature was working on a different calendar that year so everyday we rugged up in several layers of clothes to work inside, and one of the local AIESECers, Cinderella (obviously her English, not Chinese name), kindly bought me a scarf and beanie.

I had many meetings and trainings about AIESEC skills, knowledge and strategy with the different LC members from Beijing as well as the new MC members. I was really impressed with the students’ thirst for knowledge and drive for excellence despite their very recent induction to AIESEC and its network. I also spent a lot of time just asking questions and talking with the Chinese AIESECers to try to understand the reality they operate in…because this has such a huge effect on how they “do AIESEC”. And in such a different country in so many respects – cultural, political, historical to name just a few – there were bound to be a few memorable moments:

TABLE MANNERS
Went for dinner on one of the first nights in local restaurant with Eugene. It was quite a popular one and was very packed with people, so in very common Asian fashion, we sat down at the only spare seats at the same table with other diners. There was quite a buzz in the restaurant…filled with great smells, hungry appetites, loud tonal chatter and fish who were swimming on borrowed time in the tanks. I was sitting down next to an old man at the table, opposite to Eugene. There are many differences between Chinese and Western table manners, and many that tell a lot more about deeper cultural difference than whether one eats with two different shaped pieces of metal or two thin bits of wood. For example, in most Western dining each individual orders their own meal, for themselves. Whereas in Chinese, and most Asian, dining, the group of people usually order a selection of different dishes that go in the centre of the table & everyone takes small amounts of their preferred dishes into their own smaller individual bowls. I am sure the individualistic and communal natures of the two different dining styles are obvious.

I am not sure of the cultural meaning behind this old man’s actions, but I realised that it is not just his party trick but a fairly common practice, as I was the only person in the packed restaurant who showed any reaction. My cultural sensitivity was tested and I definitely reacted when the old man forcefully spat his fish bones onto the floor between us! I had seen some of my Chinese friends dropping their fish or chicken bones on the table from their mouths, but never had they spat them onto the floor. Welcome Chinese culture shock number one!

SUMMER PALACE SCENES
Being in such an historic city as Beijing, I managed to squeeze one morning in of site-seeing during this work trip. Two of the AIESEC Presidents’ friends volunteered to take me to the Summer Palace for the morning. The Summer Palace is located in the northwest area of the city, and during the late Qing Dynasty was the summer retreat from Beijing's heat for the imperial family and court. It is a massive complex that was enlarged in the 18th century by Emperor Qianlong, and extensively rebuilt in 1888 by the Dowager Cixi, using money that had been reserved for the construction of a navy. Needless to say, the Chinese Navy were incensed that so much money that had been reserved for them wassquandered on the restoration of a royal garden - especially since the restoration included a marble boat!

In 1900 foreign troops, irritated by the Boxer rebellion, destroyed large portions of the Palace. In 1949, however, much of the Palace was once again restored to its former glory. In one part of the Palace grounds there is Kunming Lake, which was man-made at the request of the imperial family, and the resulting spare soil used to provide hilltop views beside the lake from one building.For native English speakers the translations of the names of sections of the Palace are quite unusual- everything from the elegantly named “Garden of Harmonious Pleasures” and "Hall of Benevolence and Longevity" to the simple “Long Corridor” (728 metres long in fact) and the “Seventeen-Arch Bridge” (yep, you guessed it, with 17 arches!). There is quite beautiful scenery there and I can imagine it will be an amazing floral delight in spring time, but even in autumn it provides more than adequate serenity for regular tai-chi practitioners and er-hu players.

After climbing many stairs with my head reverently bowed to avoid falling over, as per the design of the Emperor’s loyal builders, I was enjoying the View from half-way up the Buddhist Tower of Virtue. Below there was a great mixture of architectural styles, with a few foreign golden arches thrown in here and there. The view must have been pretty breathtaking because I failed to see the step below me and promptly proceeded to fall over, once again pulling the ligaments in my foot. This was the second time in one month and probably took my life tally into the double figures. I also tore a fair bit of skin off my knee which nearly caused one of my companions to faint, but he regained his composure and together made a plan with our other travel buddy.

"The plan" was surprisingly not to go directly down the mountain towards medical help – Rest Ice Compression Elevation etc – but to keep going UP the mountain and then back down. As my ankle throbbed in pain you could possibly imagine my initial opposition to this idea but they assured me that it would be the easiest route in my condition and we would also have nice scenery and things to see along the way…so off we went! Both of these guys were very sweet and eager to help me so much so that they were almost arguing over whom got to help me the most…so they actually compromised and held me on both sides and took it in turns to support the "bad leg". Eventually we made it up the Tower of Buddhist Virtue and back down on the other side, nearby to the start of the Long Corridor.

LESSONS FROM THE LONG CORRIDOR
At the Long Corridor there was also a place to sit and some shops - so we improvised and they bought me an ice block - to use as ice pack on my foot. The ice block actually lasted for quite a while given the cold weather. As I was sitting there I had a bit of time to really look at the corridor and started to think about an important life lesson that maybe it was supposed to teach me and that has stayed with me.

As the name indicates this is a covered wooden promenade stretching over 700m (nearly half a mile) along the northern shore of Kunming Lake. Chang Lang, as it's known in Chinese, takes the resident or visitor from point A to point B and helps you get to your destination, somewhat protected from the elements. If you take the time to look around you though as you proceed through the 728 metres of corridor on the way to your destination, you will notice that each crossbeam, ceiling, and pillar is painted with a different scene (roughly 10,000 in all) taken from Chinese history, literature, myth, or geography.

They say that pictures paint a thousand words and these pictures spoke to me about meaning and beauty. For me this was a powerful visual and physical demonstration of the idea that the journey is as important as the destination.

RESTRICTED ACCESS
Then came one of the moments in my life when I wish I was a man - because guys can pee standing up - imagine the difficulty for a girl to go to the toilet in China with a sprained ankle, wearing jeans when the toilet is Asian style - IE a hole in the ground and you have to squat over it! Hehehe...I think the two guys I was with were even imagining my challenge because I had to stop them following me into the bathroom to "help me" ;-)

That evening I was transported across university campuses on the back of a bike till we found a hospital that would accept me (universities are like whole communities here - students live on campus even if they are from that city; they vote through the university in national elections; passports are issued through the university; lights out at 11pm; 8 people to a room - sleeping with your PC on top of you on a table on your bed!). Anyways at the hospital I received my own record card and saw a doctor fairly quickly - luckily Jenny was there to translate – it wasn’t broken, just ligament tears, so the doctor recommended rest and Chinese medicine to improve circulation. So for the next 2-3 days I was stuck in the MC apartment/office (on 7th floor, no lift) - so all of the AIESEC meetings were rescheduled to the apartment.

FORBIDDEN CITY
The Forbidden City is the name of one of the major tourist attractions in Beijing...but somehow I got the feeling of being in a forbidden country while I was in China. I know that China has "opened up" a lot in recent years, but to me, coming from a relatively liberal democracy, there are still many restrictions on the citizens there. My sense has always been that laws are there to protect the people, but in China somehow it seems through my cultural lenses that the law's main purpose is for the government to control people and protect their own power.

But each example is also subjective…for example, Chinese people cannot move & stay freely within China - they have their own residence permit system for Chinese nationals within China (which incidentally affects AIESEC’s exchange program) - main purpose to stop over crowding of the big cities and to maintain rural population - preventing urban overpopulation as in many other developing countries - but of course this also means that government can somehow control national uprisings and maintain lower levels of education and awareness in rural areas...other rules include:
* Non-government organizations must have government supervisor
* Universities issues passports to the students - must have good reason to go overseas and often do random checks when you come back to make sure that you have souvenirs or other things to prove your visit met its stated purpose
* Foreigners are only supposed to live in certain areas of the city - can't just live anywhere - we had police come and question us at our apartment because there were two foreigners there
* No one can form an organization that has members in more than one state - IE no national organizations

There is a long list of laws pertaining to AIESEC’s legality in China, but the basic summary is that the authorities are ok for students and recent graduates to participate in the exchange program, but they are not so fond of their university students being part of an international network of university students, despite its non-political nature.

In Shanghai, at the time of my visit, the university had kind of blacklisted AIESEC and they were not allowed to actively promote to students…so I guess you can understand that I was a little nervous when I was giving a training session ON campus about AIESEC’s identity to a dozen or so "LC members" in Shanghai - I didn't want to write AIESEC on the blackboard at all or do the roll calls too loudly or anything for fear of university officials coming in and busting us - but in the end it was fine.

I really developed a strong admiration for the courage and determination that the AIESECers here show…so many barriers to overcome to participate in a youth development organisation. It made me reflect a lot on Australian university students and AIESEC members…and how relatively easy it is for them to participate in an organisation like AIESEC, but unfortunately how few people really grab that opportunity with both hands and get the most out of it…like one Aussie saying of “too lazy to get out of your own way”. I guess with most things you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone…and while most of my Chinese friends do not walk around all day feeling oppressed, being in China certainly made me realise how much I value freedom, even though I probably didn’t realise it before.

UNITED THROUGH LINE DANCES
The weirdest meeting agenda that I had during my stay in China was held between 12am-3am, in a one room apartment in Shanghai, before I got on my flight to Hong Kong. The local AIESECers ensuring they got the most value possible out of my visit. The agenda was as follows:
* How to engage members in identity of AIESEC - especially WHY of exchange
* Long term strategy for legalization of LC in Shanghai given the above decree of government
* How to do Shakira, "Whenever, Wherever" dance (AP version) and "Together Again" dance.

We practised and practised, with the volume as low as possible (so as not to wake the neighbours who had already reported my foreign presence there to the police), until they were confident that they knew the moves well enough to teach it to the rest of their members.

All AIESECers will know that our organisation has quite an obsession with line dances…not your country and western style line dance (unless you’re from AIESEC in Canada ;-), but choreographed, repeated moves done in unison to pumpy-style songs; known to AIESECers in the sub-continent as “jives”.

I always thought that they were mostly serving the purpose of energisers during conference when people were getting tired, but in Shanghai and many subsequent country visits, I realised that they have a much more powerful role – connecting and uniting people. When members learn a line-dance in their own country, it helps many of them to feel a part of the group. But when they know they are also doing the same dances as thousands of other university students who live in foreign lands and speak foreign tongues they can somehow feel a strong connection to that international network, one that is amplified even more if one day, they get the chance to dance these moves together with them at an international conference.

The power of AIESEC’s line dances to unite people is strange but true.