I HEAR THERE’S TROUBLE IN SHANGRI-LA

My wealthy compound is in the North East and is built to attract wealthy Asian businessmen from around the globe. The sanitized South has a reciprocal compound being built to attract wealthy Western businessmen.

Both compounds are wealthy beyond reason but mine is distinctly Chinese with its garishly extravagant (and I find ugly) Bauhaus architecture and surrounding authentic Chinese venues while the Southern one is distinctly New Money European with its columns, classical statue reproductions and surrounding Disney-fied tourist attractions. There is no question by anyone living in either of these compounds that they are fortunate beyond compare… well, perhaps except the errant angst riddled teen.

I was invited for dinner at a lovely couple’s home last night (11/14). My Brazilian Angel has made friends with the American wife of the couple and another European gentleman from my father’s family’s hometown of Bern, who happens to currently live in my compound.

The lovely couple (she is American and he is European) was truly lovely. Their home is lovely (a house with several, beautiful, spacious stories) and adorned with things from their travels all over the world. His job has moved them to every country on the “Must See” list of international travel. Her job is teaching English and she knows how to find all the best resources money can buy. Their relationship has the ease, comfort and familiarity of a decade of loving compromise, hard work and being each other’s touchstone. Their beautiful dogs are well-trained, loving and large breeds (in China, if families have a pet dog, it’s never larger than a teacup breed of any sort). The lovely couple has the kind of relationship and life I used to envy and it wasn’t until last night that I realized that I no longer recognize that part of myself. It was very strange and I’m still mourning the loss of that piece of myself but I don’t know that, in the end, I’ll miss it.

In my choice to have as authentic an experience afforded a six-foot-plus white girl in China, I found a real community with real friends, real politics and, well, reality. For all its idiosyncrasies and real-life-issues, it is a home for me. There is a specificity for me here. I find comfort in my Chinese friends who protect me as best as they know how, I have found clumsy steps towards romance with two of the men and I find respite in the two men charged with caring for me. I am surrounded by a community of people who do their best to understand me with what they’ve got, do everything in their power to provide me what I need and act with the best of intentions; you cannot ask for more than that in this world. The Chinese, for my newfound Western friends, are simply job titles and career roadblocks. The Chinese women boil down to “Maid” and “High Powered Official.” The Chinese men boil down to “Driver” and opaque moneygrubbers or “China Businessmen.” China is literally nothing but a European ghetto sprinkled with some good tourist sites and shopping. I find it very strange and am left to wonder why one would come to China to, at best, avoid it.

Our drive South on the Xi’An beltway to the other compound took over an extra hour (it normally takes 20 minutes) because, well, frankly, don’t try getting ANYWHERE in Xi’An between 6 and 7. It won’t happen. We left at 6 just as the rush to go out to dinner begins in Xi’An. (In Xi’An, everyone eats out at the very least 3 times a week, the bus system is over-crowded and there is no subway system consequently everyone drives to their destination.) So, in the car it was my Brazilian Angel, the gentleman from Bern, the Chinese driver and myself.

Practically speaking, it simply makes sense to hire a driver if you must drive regularly when you live abroad. In some countries, all drivers in car accidents are placed in jail until the months-long process of settling the “People’s” case against the drivers is concluded. In other countries, drivers simply disappear. In other countries, there are the routes to keep you alive, the routes that will put you in the hands of people looking for something to ransom and it helps to have someone who can discern the difference. When the whatever hits the whatever, you want someone who knows the geography, the language and the politics intimately. The Bern gentleman told me stories of the practicalities of living with Chauchesko and surviving revolutions in the developing nations in which he lived only to return a few months later in an attempt to salvage the unsalvageable. Essentially, as a high profile businessman representing an even higher profile company, it is only safe to have an extra, in-the-know presence when out in public. In fact, China is one of the few places where he has worked in the numerous decades he’s been abroad where he felt he didn’t need full-time security.

All this drama aside, the in-the-know presence is still a human being and I was mortified by my fellow Westerner’s constant discussion of his harsh and myopic knowledge of “the Chinese.” At full volume, he discussed how “disgusting,” “crude” and “vulgar” they can be. He then commented that, perhaps, “in a few generations,” the Chinese might be more “civilized.” While I admit I was thinking the same words and evolutionary thoughts, the Chinese had nothing to do with said words and thoughts. Being a precious, fiscal resource to a company does not a learned diplomat make. Needless to say, I had a hard time making conversation in the car, as, under the guise of “polite conversation,” I have nothing to add to, “The Chinese are a disgusting and dirty people.” All I could think was of the Chinese guy who was silently driving us having to drive this loud, myopic man everyday. No job is worth that bullshit.

When we finally arrived at the house in the compound in the South, we got stuck at the gate because, apparently, the guard was not prepared for us. While that sort of thing is a pain in the ass, it is not an issue specific to China; try getting into the Dakota to just poke around. The driver was attempting to sort it out when the man from Bern leans over and starts shouting in English, “Go, make a call. Go! Make a call! Go!” I must admit, the dismissive waving of the hand was an extra lovely touch.

The English yelling, of course, made the Chinese guard stop and look at the yeller from behind the mask to see if he could sort out any of the words. Sitting behind the driver I could see that the driver didn’t even miss a beat as he continued to talk at the guard in Chinese. The only thing that mortified me more than the scene we were making was the fact that the driver was accustomed to said types of scenes.
Finally, the gates were opened and a line of guards led the car to the lovely house. In that moment, I think I finally understood viscerally why it is that developing nations envy Western money. Western money gives the power of unparalleled physical comfort with the ability to be dismissive and blasÈ about it. It simply appears to be a birthright. I always knew that but this was the first moment in which I understood it. For the first time, I saw my world from the outside and I got it.

We pulled up to the house and as I reached to get the flowers resting on the floor of the very clean van, the driver leapt out and rushed to open my door. I thanked him and wished him a good night in Chinese. For the first time, the stone-faced man broke into a warm smile and reciprocated my sentiments. I then said a little prayer that he was unable to understand the bulk of what his boss says, despite the fact that I think that prayer was in vain. Nothing unsettles me more than thinking that my babies at school have careers full of such vulgarity and racism ahead of them. My babies did nothing wrong. In fact, they are helpful, kind and generous to a fault and it upsets me to no end that someday, they will understand the brutalities of the world. In moments like those, I realize why “knowledge” is the true fall from grace.

And there I was, standing with my Brazilian Angel and the man from Bern. The Nouveau-Renaissance influenced house complete with mosaic water fountain (in a desert city) and glass walled house (in a city crunched for power) stood before me in a stunning display of Baroque, disposable income akin to a storage room full of Thomas Kinkade paintings. I had a brief flash of learning in Middle School that the Robber Barons lit their cigars with hundred dollar bills.

I must admit, a childhood spent amongst the wealthiest of the wealthy, an education from the top economic and academic spheres and a professional career that has afforded me access to some of the most exclusive places with the most exclusive people has rendered me somewhat weary of such nouveau shows of money. I am cautious of anything that tries too hard to prove itself rich (because it never stops once my pedigree is revealed) and I had the sinking feeling we were entering the realm of new money.

While it was somewhat true that we were entering the realm of new money, my hosts for the evening quite lacked the stench of it. They were incredibly gracious and unbelievably kind. I very much enjoyed their company but I knew that inside that house there would be no mention of my China. All night I kept glancing at and fidgeting with the steel ring with the small piece of violet glass that one of my babies gave me and only fits on my left ring finger as a reminder that my China was still out there, somewhere, awaiting my return.

I must admit, I was perplexed by the party’s apparent distaste for China. While in China, they only frequent French or American eateries and shop for groceries only in European markets. Now, I’m the first to admit that I need a few staples from the West (hello bread and salted butter!) but the bulk of my life in China is (highly privileged) Chinese. I slowly began to realize that the incredible warmth extended to me was not “to me” but to what I represent; ironically the exact opposite of my current situation with my Chinese friends. As a professional (read: not student here on daddy’s money) “foreigner” in China, the presumption was that I was experiencing the same difficulties, trials and tribulations that they were with the uncouth Chinese. As a “New Yorker” in China with my pedigree (that always proceeds me), it was presumed that I would be the truly erudite commentator on said suffering. “Foreigners” in China really stick together in a way they don’t in the West. Try speaking English in Paris and spitting on you is too good. Speak English to a Parisian here and they’ll hug you. The Swiss Germans find me to be a philistine with my Swiss German heritage. In China, mention your father’s family is from Bern and suddenly you’re long lost cousins.

Amongst the foreign community, English is embraced as the language of the civilized and even fellow countrymen not of Anglo countries speak English to each other. Parisian French is embraced as the language of the sophisticated civilized and spoken amongst those who have proven themselves capable of English as a way to discuss the romantic elements of life. Having attended classes at the Sorbonne, I am one of the few trusted with the subtleties of translating the notions of French-speakers’ with limited English into English. Everyone is jealous of those who speak Parisian French and their inherent, cultured backgrounds. Regardless of where we have lived, we have all been members of an Alliance Francaise at one time or another. For some of us, it stuck, for others it did not. Canadian and Swiss French are merely joked about as bastard children of Parisian French and if anyone speaks either Canadian or Swiss, they do not admit to it. German is the language of business and spoken amongst the men, despite the reprimands of their wives. German is considered practical but too crude for dinner parties. Spanish is considered an extra talent; like being able to split a check and sort out tip. Portuguese is considered a thing of superfluous beauty; like a Fabrige Egg. My rudimentary Welsh, Hungarian and Arabic simply reinforce the concept laid by my capacity for French. Chinese is merely mentioned from time to time as a strange language that has taken Western language noises and turned them into the most “silly” of words or phrases. I guess we shall let them eat cake, non? (And yes, I know she probably did not say, “Let them eat cake.”)

My American hostess clearly has the same issues as I do with America and subsequent baffling foreign policy but I was unable to figure out exactly what country she’d prefer. I am unable to make peace with America for what she has inflicted upon people I love, not because it’s hip to hate the establishment. I am willing to accept alternatives and am fascinated by exploring other options. However, I was unable to sense any real openness on her part towards other options. Most perplexing of all was how much she felt like a belated echo; you recognize it as your own but it was something you never thought you’d see again. It was truly bizarre but I couldn’t quite figure out why I was so unsettled by her.

And then I put my finger on it.

Though many years my senior, she was precisely where I had been in college. If I had coupled with the hypothetical guy I concocted in my head in college, I would have remained in the place where she is. Frankly, it was the most unsettling feeling I had felt in a while. It upset me so much that I got no sleep last night. I saw her there with her comfort and her money and her dogs and her husband and it was all lovely but it is all clearly a bubble. She studies art and life and beauty but never engages the countries she lives in beyond the good shopping. Hell, she’s never even taken a bus much less lived without a driver for most of her adult life. I immediately recognized her ability to host a party and maintain the light banter just a little too well as a former forte of mine.

And I don’t begrudge her those things, I am just entirely unsettled by what a near miss that was for me. I love my “uncivilized” little babies and my maid-free messy home. I love my friends who speak this funny language and expand my world in ways and with a kindness I never thought possible. For whatever monies I lack, there is passion, affection, love and life in my world. I am engaged in my community. I am not plagued by loneliness. I feel like, as much as I may lack and as short as I may fall, I still was able to move to the other side of the planet because passion drove me to it and find a home. I gave it all up back home and was still able to find a little piece of the world where I can just be me… nothing imported.

What I fear is that my voice is not the voice of the “Foreign” experience in China. Theirs is.