Alice Hindanov
China Summer Fellow 2015
Shanghai, China
There is, in China, a type of build-your-own soup called málàtàng. The má flavor numbs your mouth, while là burns chili-oil hot (tàng means soup). Towards the end of my stay in Shanghai, someone would put out the call for group málàtàng nearly every day; it was one of the weirder things we’d tried and liked, but delicious, cheap, and good vocab practice to name the ingredients we wanted.
It’s terribly cliche to begin with an extended narrative metaphor, but the numbing/burning sensation of málàtàng reflects something of what I felt in China. On the one hand, my experiences were seared with bright foreignness and vibrant cacophony—I was in China, after all. On the other, my constant refrain since returning has been, “I’m pretty sure someone else went to Shanghai while I was in a coma, here, and I’m assimilating their memories or something.” The air quality and long hours of studying didn’t do me any favors, and neither did the fine patina of rust on my friend-making skills.
More importantly, however, I went in with too many expectations. Traveling, it turns out, requires first and foremost presence of mind and then an ability to throw away your other concerns, in favor of engaging with your surroundings. Otherwise, you’re all mouth-numbing má with no spicy là to bring out the flavors of the dish.
I took the photo above in June from the second-floor balcony of the City God temple in Zhujiajiao. I’d been there in January with my friend and had a grand (mis)adventure involving a man silently waving us into a side passage and conducting us through the motions of worship with the kind of clarity and speed and authority that sweeps you along without a chance to protest. There was incense and a little gong, and two little red envelopes handed to us from the bowl on the altar. My friend and I were directed to desks in opposite gloomy back corners, where other men used English (!) to tell us our fortunes.
Then they asked for money, displaying a list of previous donations ranging from 100–200RMB ($15–$30).
Which was all very novel, and I have no trouble saying I was broke and gave a fake name and address and scooped coins out of my purse with a believable sheepish grin. So, in the end, it was bewildering and fun, with little downside.
When I returned to the temple in June with a group from NYU Shanghai, I pointed out, excited, the same guy standing by the same passage, waving us into it. Our group, however, bypassed him with a quick sneer and some “no-no” hand waving. We did take the proffered incense and lit it, and a few even went as far as to kneel at the altar. The gong was rung, the envelopes retrieved. At the sight of my classmates’ wariness, I explained, excited, what would happen next. Fortunes! Translations! Getting yourself out of an uncomfortable situation with minimal financial losses! China!
Everyone quickly turned heel. The fortunes went back in the bowl. My Chinese-American classmate in particular found the perfunctory actions and silent guidance discomforting. Her mother actually worships, and lights real incense, she said. This fake, tourist-trap bull was, quite frankly, insulting, and it would be wrong of us to participate. We, after all, are enlightened, scholars. We know better.
I’d had enough conversations about “authenticity” during my January trip to be deeply suspect of anyone who demanded it.
So, food for thought: at what point do we stop checking and re-checking ourselves and simply enjoy the experience of being a foreigner in a foreign country? Can we—should we—be Westerners in China without continually reminding ourselves of what we think that means? Of course we must stay conscious of the ways in which power dynamics influence our behavior, but I think we should keep those concerns on the back-burner, for later discussion.
I think there’s actually something dehumanizing about looking at ourselves and the people we’re interacting with as part of a system in which I always have more privilege/power than a Chinese citizen. This goes back to being present while traveling; how are we to ever experience the “truth” of a place or even find new perspectives when we so desperately cling to our systems? I’m also thinking about Americans trying to understand Russia through politics, and me, a Russian, responding again and again: “Literally no one cares about politics. The Russian people are just trying to live.”
“Systems thinking,” I’ll call it. It’s absolutely indispensable as a preventative measure, to catch any truly glaring cultural, racial, etc., errors before you make them. It’s crucial to breaking down oppression and aggression. But when traveling, it’s best applied in hindsight, over the pattern of your experience, matching scale: a systematic approach to help find patterns in a collection of experiences. A series of sieves with progressively smaller holes to help sort through buckets of sand, once you’ve collected your buckets of sand. Useless and inefficient when used a grain at a time.
Systems thinking gets in the way of human stories. When you’re so locked in watching yourself through the lens of haughty militancy, you destroy your opportunity for spice—for uncomfortable, exciting, thought-provoking interactions. Especially since, you know, maybe your system is wrong and you’ll only realize that after you pour a few bucketfuls of experience in a foreign country over it.
Find new patterns. Check yourself again. Learn. Let the spice hit you right away, and savor the numbness and aftertaste later.
That’s why we travel, right?