Chinese Flash Mobs and Other Strange Behaviors

(Joseph)

Our team, or the mighty G.O.A.T.s (Going Overseas Adventure Team), had an…amusing time in Kunming, where we met Mr. Randy Hoover, Dover-Sherborn Middle School teacher. Randy was kind enough to take time out of his vacation to be our guide for a day and a half, and it was great to see a familiar and friendly face—with a mouth that spoke very good English.

When Randy mentioned the option of biking around Kunming, I must admit: my stomach dropped and my pulse quickened. If you have not already read my previous blog about driving in China, please do to appreciate my anxiety here. The thought of biking amidst a bunch of drivers to whom rules seem non-existent was not a welcome one, but Randy assured us that it would not be so bad, and that we, unlike the Chinese, would wear helmets for protection.
I have seen too many drivers brush within inches—nay, centimeters—of a moving bicycle or pedestrian, and crossing lights seem mere suggestions, which are often ignored. Sidewalks in China, moreover, are not only for pedestrians; I saw the occasional driver mount the curb and drive along the sidewalk while carving a passage through passersby. A brief one-minute study at a major intersection would support my anxiety, although, I will admit, after over two weeks in China, I have not seen one accident. The Chinese seem to have this chaos under control (which is no small miracle, and those doubting the existence of God—like all of China—should take note), but I imagined myself being the first casualty. I, however, lived to blog the tale, and, in fact, after about a 15-minute breaking-in period, we all gained confidence for our three-hour bike tour of Kunming. We found ourselves passing numerous Chinese drivers—no doubt to mutterings of “stupid American hot-shots” (or other expletive) spoken in Chinese. We all got quite a workout, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Two of our stops along our bike ride were two large parks, one of which contained a small amusement park with rides (very typical, very American) while the other was the backdrop for a good number of what I will call Chinese flash mobs. Here I thought this was only an American fad, but the Chinese flash mob apparently has a long history (since everything else here does), dating way back, I’m sure, to the Ming dynasty, where emperors led their subjects in random acts of spontaneous dance in front of the palace. Randy explained to me that the Chinese people use this as a form of both exercise and self-expression. The end result, however, was a bit cacophonous. Too many of these flash mobs were crowded into one space, and the blared music was competing for both air space and attention. Most of these groups were composed of women, but I could spot the occasional man, one of whom was quite memorable. In the middle of at least twenty or thirty women, a tall Asian man (noteworthy right there) dressed as a cowboy suavely swayed his hips (and everything else) while giving his best interpretive dance to the rhythm. He was really “in the zone”; his eyes were clamped shut as he literally strutted his stuff; of course, I took numerous photos, and this man may be dancing on my living room wall as a reminder of this truly memorable, humorous sight. And speaking of cowboys, vendors here are selling a large number of cowboy hats, which makes me wonder: is this still what the Chinese think an American is? Are we all still nineteenth century gun-slinging cowboys killing off Indians? Of course not. I am quickly reminded that such very American imports as McDonald’s and KFC, which are extremely popular here in China, were not around in the nineteenth century (or the Ming dynasty for that matter).

And speaking of song and dance, last week at a dinner show in Lijiang we watched an amazing spectacle of traditional Naxi dance fused with more modern special effects. While I was expecting something more primitive (when I heard the words traditional Chinese ethnic dance, I ignorantly thought I was going to see barbaric galloping and chanting around a fire), what we got was pure Broadway spectacle done on a grand scale. The music was loud, the lights were dazzling, and the set pieces were simple but effective (one particular number looked like one of the choreographed song-and-dance numbers from the Broadway hit Chicago). All of us were captivated, and when the dancers began to take their bows for curtain call, no one was applauding but me, until I, thinking I made some faux pas in Chinese etiquette, quickly stopped. I began to look around at the audience for a cue, but no one was really moving. Apparently, the Chinese are very reserved with their positive feedback, and the clapping was minimal for such a great show for a packed audience. As a man of the theater myself, I felt horrible for the hard-working and very talented performers, but I rest assured that they at least heard me, if only for a few seconds.

On a completely unrelated note, I could swear that I read somewhere, or was told by someone, that the Chinese “hock-and-spit” tradition was an outdated one, and only the vestiges remain among the elderly Chinese. Unfortunately, this is a lie. For those who need me to spell this out a bit more: one “hocks” the phlegm into his (and it usually is his) mouth and spits it on the ground with with a launching sound like thooot (the number of o’s in thooot depending on the size and relative launch speed of the phlegm out of the mouth). We hear this grotesque, guttural sound pretty much everywhere—even among the young people. Typically, you hear this more in the mornings, but on our way home from dinner tonight we heard a good number of hock-thooots (I just coined the term) on our eight-minute trek from our restaurant to the hotel. I’m not sure where this tradition originated, or how the Chinese perceive this as acceptable social behavior, but I imagine it had something to do with competition, seeing which man could hock-thooot farthest. If this were an Olympic sport, the Chinese would undoubtedly win—unless hitting a target were necessary. In fact, as I write this, I am waiting for my ride to Hangzhou at the train station, and a suavely dressed man is sitting across from me. He has a travel mug sitting on the floor in front of him. Hooooock…..….thooooooot. He misses the mug by at least a few inches. He doesn’t care. Another man is sitting in the midst of a bunch of discarded sunflower seeds scattered on the floor and seat. I doubt he will clean his mess up. So it goes.

I still can’t get over how many heads we are turning as we walk the streets of China. I expected this to calm down since we’ve arrived in a major urban city such as X’ian, but, alas, not true. The Chinese people give us looks like we are something they’ve only seen or read about in a National Geographic magazine. Most people just give us a brief once-over, but others maintain their stare for an uncomfortable amount of time, as if taking a mental photograph. I would ask them “Why don’t you just take a picture?” but my Chinese is really poor. I’m currently limited to hello, goodbye, and thank you. And I think I mistakenly called someone’s mother a horse. Damn those four different tones.