Lessons To Live By

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  Dalian, Liaoning, China
Monday, May 30, 2011

During a lesson about U.S. and Chinese superstitions, I learned more about the Chinese way of life in eight 1.5-hour classes than I have in my entire 14 months of actually living here. Some of the more "useful" tokens of advice include the following:

*Carrying around a dead rabbit's foot for good luck is downright repulsive and idiotic, but did you know that the foot of a sheep can actually ward off zombies if ever faced with an attack? My follow-up question: "...soooo.....how many of you have the foot of a sheep with you on a regular basis...?" Frighteningly enough, only a few students responded with an appropriate 'haha, what a silly idea"-type laugh...

*After the New Year, under no circumstances may you cut your hair before February 2nd. If such a gross misdeed should occur, however, the consequence is the death of your uncle. 

*For husbands: don't you DARE wear a green hat, or else it means your wife is cheating on you. How unfortunate for all you husbands who support the U/O Ducks in your green-and-yellow gear...

*If you're caught walking alone at night and someone calls your name, forget the silly notion that it could be a potential stalker who's waiting for the right moment to murder you--nope, instead it's most likely a ghost who's waiting for you to turn at the sound of your name so that it can give you bad luck.

*Breaking a mirror and having seven years of bad luck seems like a welcomed holiday compared to this superstition: If you're vain enough to look in the mirror and begin brushing your hair when the clock strikes midnight, you'll die and turn into a ghost that cries bloody tears. Thank GOD I go to bed a solid 2.5 hours before I even have the chance to test THIS superstition...

*A student asked me the following question: "Teacher, did you know that if you put the tears of cows in your eyes, you can see dead people?" My response: "Someone get me a bottle of cow tears IMMEDIATELY. IM-ME-DIATELY!!!"

***DISCLAIMER*** 

Due to the language barrier, some of the superstitions had to be pieced together from a variety of students trying to share the same superstition. Therefore, particular details shared by one student might have been different had another student been brave enough to actually speak in class.



Now, the following stories are those I wish were superstitious in nature, but are worryingly too true:

*Eating cucumbers in China might, in fact, prevent pregnancy. Why? Apparently, the hormones found in birth control can actually make cucumbers larger. Those farmers looking to make an extra yuan, regardless of any ethical implications, have embraced this new method with the purpose of crushing their competition. How anyone managed to discover birth control's effect on cucumbers in the first place is still a nagging question in my book.

*While watching someone purposely explode a watermelon over his head might be entertaining if not absurdly strange, finding out that the watermelons you look forward to eating every summer actually explode of their own accord is no longer mere fun and games. Farmers in the Jiangsu Province who inject their watermelons with a particular type of growth chemical are waking up to find that their watermelons have exploded overnight. Looks like their attempts to "cheat" the system have exploded as well...hopefully all over their faces.

*We all know what happens to meats and vegetables when left out in the sun (some of us from first-hand experience): they spoil and do "bad things" to your stomach. For those who think rationally, the unfortunate side-effects of eating spoiled food can be easily avoided by either A) not leaving food out in the sun and heat, or B) replacing spoiled food with fresh food. I guess in some parts of China, though, these options are neither practical nor cost-effective. It's really too bad, because buckets of animal organs left in direct sunlight in 100-degree weather might sound only borderline unappetizing, but the smell paired with the thick cloud of flies is enough to perhaps permanently suppress one's desire for food. So, when prevention and/or replacement just aren't worth it, what can you do to ensure that the threat of diarrhea doesn't trump your customers' loyalty to your restaurant? The answer's obvious: just put a smidgen of anti-diarhhea medicine into your food, and you're golden. It's a win-win situation, really.

*Much of China's cuisine uses copious amounts of oil; it is therefore essential to obtain such oil in the most cost-effective manner possible. One method involves extracting oil from septic tanks (why this method hasn't caught on in the U.S. is beyond me). 

China is also trying to "go green" in as many ways possible, but is perhaps a little over-zealous in its campaign to "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle," as is demonstrated in the following method of oil procurement: when you go to a restaurant or cafeteria to eat, the remaining bits of food (either intact or partially chewed) on your plate are dumped into a big bucket of what can only be described as slop. By using the communal slop to make oil in which new meals will be cooked, the restaurant owners thereby effectively implement every aspect of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" cycle. Congrats, really--to implement the entire cycle in one step is truly astonishing. It's just that, I don't know, I can't quite shake the fact that I'm unknowingly being forced to ingest garbage. I mean, that should be a human's choice, right? If I feel so inclined as to eat garbage of my own free will, then I'll deal with whatever consequences I've inflicted upon myself. But to trick someone into eating garbage, thereby causing massive confusion and frustration as to the causes behind persistent stomach problems, is just unfair.

Finally, I'll end with a bit of lighthearted humor: Matt and I recently visited Dalian, another coastal city much like Qingdao. While enjoying a lovely walk through the park, we couldn't help but take part in a widely-celebrated cultural tradition: namely, taking ridiculous pictures of ourselves while posing in front of the most mundane of settings. I was fortunate enough to capture a picture of a woman doing just that, thus providing the necessary momentum for the portfolio of pictures that follows.

Dalian hotels Slideshow Share

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No Longer Child's Play	The Spark	A Sensual Moment	Tree Hugger
Tree Something...	A Dainty Touch	Amongst the Flowers	Amongst the Flowers
Back to Nature	Oh-So Delicate	Pumpkin Ass	Two Worlds
At One With Nature	Secret Garden	Unlocking a New World

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