this is not a drill

These past couple of weeks I've been caught up in a mad rush of activity as I prepare to leave for fieldwork in rural Yunnan. This is it: not a dip-your-toe-in-the-cholera-infested-water preliminary visit*; not a high-altitude holiday with fleas. Nope, this is the real deal; The Stuff Theses Are Made Of. I hope.

There were train tickets to reserve, a cellphone to buy, a hard drive to back up and a visa to purchase. That's not counting the hours and hours of House, MD I had to watch as preparation in case of medical emergency.

So I'm off along the rocky roads on the night bus, with fingers crossed to protect against rockslides and fugitives. The owner of Salvador's Cafe just told me some scary stories about the area I'm headed for -- the time his motorbike snapped in two as he drove up one of the high mountain passes, and the time his friend's bus got hit by a falling rock, flipped over and narrowly avoided a cliff...

Why am I doing this again? Oh yeah, I'm an anthropologist.


*Not really. They have TB, rabies, hepatitis, HIV, occasional malaria, and any number of diarrhea-causing bugs, but no cholera... yet. So don't get your hopes up, Painted Veil fans.

odd one out: three conversations about foreigners in china

That stuff you've heard about Chinese people all looking the same is a giant pile of White House Press Release-caliber bullshit. There is a huge variety of features, coloring, shapes and sizes within China. Nevertheless foreigners stick out like a sore nose, provoking responses that range from friendly curiosity to lust, greed, indifference and puzzlement. In the China hole, foreigners are Martians who metaphorically (and sometimes literally) get poked and prodded to see if they're like normal people.

I am fortunate to count several well-educated, cosmopolitan Chinese among my friends both here and in Cambridge who would never be so crass as to call me a laowai (at least not to my face ;) ). However, if you have ever travelled to the PRC as a foreigner, you may be familiar with the following. Here are three conversations I've had this week, translated from the Chinese by yours truly.

Conversation I

In a taxi from Wudaokou subway station to Tsinghua University

Cab driver [looks at me in mirror]: So you're a foreigner, eh?

Me: Wow, you can tell. What gave it away?

Cab driver [immune to irony]: You don't look like us. Your face, it's... different. So, where are you from then?

Me: I'm French.

Cab driver: What language do they speak in France? English, right?

Me: Um, actually, they speak French.

Cab driver: Yeah, but it's pretty much the same, right? I mean, y'all understand each other.

Me [tactfully]: Not quite. There are similarities but it's not automatic.

Cab driver: Yeah, but everybody in France speaks English. It's the universal language.

Me [lacking vocabulary to elucidate complex interplay of geographic and political factors underlying linguistic diffusion in postwar western Europe]: Umm... sort of.

Conversation II

At the newsstand

Me: Hello, I'd like to buy a long-distance phone card to call Gansu.

Newsstand Guy 1: Gan-sow?

Newsstand Guy 2: She said Gan-su.

Newsstand Guy 1: Gan-sow? Gan-sow?

Me [enunciating]: Gan-su. I'd like to buy a phone card to call a friend in Gansu. What kind should I get?

Newsstand Guy 1: Eh? Gan-sow? [Turns to Newwsstand Guy 2] What kind of card does she need?

Newsstand Guy 2 [to Guy Buying Newspaper]: Here's your change.

Guy Buying Newspaper: You want to call your friend in Xinjiang? She wants to call her friend in Xinjiang.*

Me: I want to call my friend in Gansu.

Guy Buying Newspaper [to Newsstand Guys]: Sell her an IP card, that'll do it.

Guy Buying Newspaper [to me]: Are you from Xinjiang?

Me: Funny you should say that. A lot of people think so, but no, I'm from France.

Guy Buying Newspaper [evidently a Renowned Commentator on International Politics]: Ah, you're French? Xinjiang people are related to the Turks, and France borders on Turkey, right? That's why you look like you're from Xinjiang.

Me [lacking vocabulary to explain distribution of ethnicities along Mediterranean coast]: Ummm... not really. France is near England and Spain.

Guy Buying Newspaper: Yeah, but you're all mixed with those Turks anyhow. You're all mixed-bloods. [Walks away]

Me [to Newsstand Guy 1]: So how about that phone card?

Conversation III

5 hours into the 41-hour train ride from Beijing to Yunnan

I'm sitting on the lower of three bunk beds pouring hot water onto instant spinach-and-egg soup. Across from me, two guys sit by the window eating takeaway dinner they bought from the service trolley. One of them also has a bag of KFC chicken. They turn towards me, look for a bit, then look away. This goes on for about ten minutes until the older guy starts speaking to a friend behind him.

Older Guy: Hey, where do you think that girl is from? I reckon she's from Xinjiang.

Unseen Friend: [mumbles something in incomprehensible dialect]

Older Guy: Yep, she's from Xinjiang. Check it out.

Just then a middle-aged man wanders in carrying what can only be described as a large bong made from a single piece of bamboo, about as tall and thick as three jumbo bottles of cola stacked end-to-end. These implements are actually used to smoke cigarettes; they can be found all over Yunnan, especially in rural areas, and probably in many other places in China. You're only permitted to use one if you have two or more homemade tattoos, of which at least one must depict a centipede, a scorpion or the word "BOB".

The bong-carrying one stops between the two rows of bunk beds, turns and looks at me. I surmise he is the Unseen Friend.

Man With Bong: [stares]

Me: [eat a piece of spinach]

Man With Bong: [stares; jaw slackens]

Me [sotto voce]: Don't look at me.

Man With Bong: [saves face by pretending he didn't hear; turns away to talk to Older Guy.]

Coming soon: "cheap beer and 'happy endings', or, why foreigners love China"

* Xingjiang is a largely Islamic area bordering on Tibet and Russia. The Han Chinese tend to stereotype people from Xinjiang as drug-dealing, knife-carrying, pickpocketing pimps. Does anyone else see an opportunity for China and the US to overcome their differences and unite against the Muslims?

l’ève future: new blog

I've just started a new blog for stories, articles, links, thoughts and ideas on androids, human-like machines, robotic additions to people, and inquiry into the nature of mind and consciousness. L’ève future is named after the novel in which Villiers de l’Isle-Adam coined the term android.

The first post is about wheelchairs and the time I met Stephen Hawking...

how to make money as an anthropologist

photos: flora

(Top left) At the Botanical Gardens, there is a light snow of cherry blossoms...

(Top right) ...and ornamental peach trees burst forth in impudent flower.

(Lower right) A willow tree decorates the banks of one of the park's many waterways...

(Lower left) ...while a fruit stall near Tsinghua University displays the season's first strawberries and pineapples.

photo: wonderland

The road past the Summer Palace did not bode well: human sardines, their faces pressed to the glass, gazed forlornly out of the windows of the 331 bus, while backpacked hikers fought grit and sweat along the multiway. So we were pleasantly surprised to find it a balmy afternoon in Beijing's Botanical Gardens.

Ms Wolfe sauntered off wielding Mr Smith's heavy Nikon like the Azeroth Sword of Destiny on an epic Warcraft mission. Smith and I were left to search for her among the hundreds of daytrippers with cameras. Somewhere near the Tropical Conservatory we saw this girl who immediately reminded us of Alice.

quote of the day: prayer

"Now I pray a simple prayer every morning, it's an ecumenical prayer. Whether you're Catholic or Muslim or Jewish or Hindu I think it speaks to the heart of every faith. It goes, Lord, please break the laws of the universe for my convenience." - Emo Philips

academics on sex in china

A group of behavioral scientists write about sexual practices and sexual satisfaction among Chinese urban adults and Elaine Jeffreys discusses media constructions of forced prostitution in the PRC. Jeffreys has also written a book on Sex and Sexuality in China, while anthropologist Sandra Teresa Hyde recently published on The Cultural Politics of AIDS in Yunnan.

The final word in participant observation goes to a couple of young researchers from USCD with their pioneering first-person study of sexuality among Asian immigrants in California... a.k.a. Yellow Fever.

photo: april showers

At Tsinghua University, daily papers serve as makeshift umbrellas for two language students caught in the rain.

Or perhaps it's an experiment to see whether Chinese newsprint will enter the brain through osmosis.