De Bananengeneratie by Pete Wu

Pete Wu in his tv series by VPRO Dorst Pete en de bananen

‘I’d rather cry in a BMW than laugh on a bicycle.’

My very first friend in Shanghai, Vicky, taught me to say: ‘I’d rather cry in a BMW than laugh on a bicycle.’ Apparently it was said by a girl on a dating show to an unemployed contender who asked her to ride with him on his bike in 2010.

As Palmer explains in his article on Chinese youth, the preference to cry in a BMW can be used to explain China's society both in its favour and against it. Personally I think it is one of the ugliest aspects of contemporary Chinese life. And it goes hand in hand with the lack of religion and the vacuum that has created. Because every society needs values, needs 'Sunday' activities, needs reasons for and ways of celebration to flourish.

Religion is almost non-existing in todays Shanghai unless you regard 'money' as a god, then all of a sudden the city is filled to the brim with devotees. If 'money' is the upper god in this religion, then 'real estate', 'big cars', 'gold' and 'LV handbags' are in the slightly lower ranks.

Values are the likes of 'foreign' is better than local, owning is better than sharing. 'Sunday' activities include shopping, lots of time online for more shopping. Celebrations look like 40% discount on clothes (women's day), 30% discount on toys (children's day), or everything on discount (single's day on November 11). When people will go home to pay respect to the dead next weekend, they will burn not only the traditional paper money, but paper iPhones, and paper houses as well.

Money god has many temples: shopping malls, housing estates, banks and karaoke bars. All worshippers are invited to these temples (enjoy the cold/heat of the airco in the mall, sit on comfy sofas at IKEA) but its high priests have some outstanding features:

• Buick or BMW with a driver parked outside on the curb. Or, self driven Porsche parked halfway on the curb (because driving skills are hard to buy).  
• iPhone 6 (or two) 
• Tiny dog in LV bag, LV bag, golden necklace, too high heels for the occasion
• Big eyes, white skin, toneless arms and legs for lack of exercise, impeccable black hair
• Seldom a smile

To get back to the saying about the BMW versus the bike, there are roughly two types of people who still bike as a means of transport in Shanghai, (remember the song 'nine million bicycles in Beijing'? That's no longer a fact, mrs Katie Melua..) it is the really poor buggers, who cannot even afford an electric bike, or the bus, or the metro. And, the foreigners and overseas Chinese, who cannot shake off their habits. 

Are these bikers unhappy? Or are they laughing despite the general wisdom that a bike is never a BMW? On many days it is hard to tell as more and more bikers are wearing PM2.5 masks to protect them from smog and exhaust fumes. But on days like today, when AQI is pretty ok, and people go out unprotected, few people are laughing. 

It remains one of the unresolved mysteries of Shanghai for me, why it is hard to find people looking happy, looking relaxt. Both high priests in their imported Porsches and the poor bastards who are only marginally surviving, but also the hard working middle class: neither of them seems to enjoy life much. Or at least not so in public.

(All pictures stolen from the www: citilab.com, viiphoto.com, luxuo.com)

Ode to Alan

After we sat down in a restaurant in Singapore our beautiful host asked us: "so, how did you meet each other?" We looked at each other, lost for words and because the tone in her voice suggested that we were the strangest of combinations, it felt like bringing a date to your parents for the first time.

"..looking for a job in China... friends in common..." I tried. "Had a coffee together and was hired on the spot..." That was the cue for Alan to chip in. "She was the tallest woman I had ever seen. I had no idea what I should talk about. So I hired her."

Alan being 1.70m and Chinese with the build of an amateur basketball player, and me being 1.85m with the build of a Dutch woman (wide hips, flat behind, flat chest, legs that betray 10,000 kms of cycling, don't we all look the same?) I guess our host was right in her surprise. I have always admired Alan for his wild guess of hiring me, a wild card, someone so different from the rest of the team that it would either work, or not at all.

Alan is from the generation that only just remembers the Cultural Revolution. Being from a smaller
city it didn't impact him as much, he says. But it took his parents away to spend their lifetime teaching in the West, leaving him to grow up with his grandmother in a courtyard full of family but no one to really care for him. From age 12 he looked after himself, with three big half brothers and sisters to teach him accidental life lessons.

Whilst foreign books were still unavailable in China, people were stencilling them illegally and Alan read every bit of English literature and poetry he could lay his hands on during his university days. In the early days of the Tiananmen square protests he joined the masses in Beijing, experienced the self organising mechanisms of the students but also their weaknesses in expressing their cause, and left to see a friend in another city before the government decided to intervene.

After marriage and a corporate career in marketing in Singapore, Alan switched to research on education and later philanthropy. Alan sometimes describes his life as having 'lost a chance to get rich three times' first by not buying property, second by not buying stocks, third by not pursuing a corporate career. Most of Alan's classmates and childhood friends have made it big and occasionally we run into one of them, leaning out of their SUV to great him warmheartedly. Something about wealth and rich people makes Alan shrug every time he talks about it, as if deep down he despises it.

I came to learn that I was very fortunate to work for a boss who has an MBA, but who is also PhD candidate in educational philosophy, has an extensive corporate, government ánd philanthropy network, loves teaching himself, and has a pretty good understanding of what is happening outside China. This is a rare combination of traits in the Chinese NGO world. He is a famous for those who know him kind-of-guy.

Alan is weary of big visions and strong statements. Rather he is proud that after building his organisation for 5 years people are starting to pay attention to this little but steady force that is delivering consistent results. And hardly can we say that his baby is still small. With over 35 staff, and more than 500,000 (direct and indirect) beneficiaries in 5 years Be Better is starting to reach scale. It is only through his good relations everywhere, his pragmatic way of operating and his business smart to settle for financial education that has brought him so far.

If you ask him about his real passion, it is basketbal. He plays every Saturday morning, before his family wakes up. But being short one has to be realistic. There are many different stories I have heard him say in forums and conferences around the world about 'why Be Better'. Only one that I believe to be really true is his wish to establish a family in China, a community of people who relate as equals, with laughter and hugs, and who create a safe place to teach their children life skills. He experienced this 'family' during an Aflatoun conference in Cairo and I think it is this dream that keeps him at Be Better beyond his usual start up years. So strong is the dream that he is even willing to keep transforming himself and his leadership.

I feel much gratitude and respect, which can never be expressed enough in gift boxes of nuts, English literature, gifts for his children or Chinese tea - although I keep trying. Being the kind of people we are, we express it by getting the work done. Even now that I have resigned, I am still there, and do my part.

Many small windows together give the best view

As it goes, I started off writing posts about my colleagues, as they have been the most intimate relations I have with anyone in Shanghai and my best windows to China. First there was Demi, and then Sophie and Peipei and more recently I wrote about my experiences with  Leona on our Philippines trip and a paragraph on Future. I always intended to write about each and everyone at the office, but then the team expanded so fast, and relations deepened and widened so quickly that I got lost and paused.

Little windows onto people's lives
Having read a lot on Chinese culture, I 'know' many things that are happening here. But as we worked, had lunch, traveled and drank together, sharing the little things of life that you never tell anyone but your colleagues, I continued to be surprised, and shocked as these stories got a face, and societal problems turned out to be my friends' personal problems.

A few of the sentences that rang in my ears long after they were spoken:

• The incredible influence that parents have on their (one) child's choices in life: "My mother won't let me have a baby this year, because it is the year of the wooden sheep, and the baby will feel cold and hungry all its life." 
• The long distance relations that many people have "I only see my husband once every two months / once every two weeks etc he is very busy and I live with his mum, who is old and sick"
• The complex relationship between women and their in laws who usually come to live with them after childbirth "My husband and I want to let our baby cry until she falls asleep, but my in laws come into our bedroom and take her away from me when she cries" 
• The enormous pressure from society on girls to marry early "After coming home for Chinese New Year, I had to explain 1000 times why I am not married" "After 30 they say my life will be over if I am not married" 
• Wondering what my assistant was chatting about with her boyfriend from morning til night:  hundreds of Hello Kitty emoticons back and forth, shaping a story in a language that I am too old to understand. 
• Materialism is everywhere, and in short the 'new religion' "My husband and I are always talking throughout the day (on wechat) usually about what we will buy, or what we have bought." 

It's not all clichés

But at the same time, just working for an NGO means going against mainstream thought about what is deemed important in life: money, a stable job, buying a house, buying an expensive handbag, an expensive car, an expensive holiday, etc. So where in general many people have a hard time trusting each other, because that other person might have bad intentions with our money, or break a deal that we are about to sign, we as a team were pretty harmonious and open, maybe because we had nothing to loose, and had already stepped off the societal ladder to fame and wealth. This openness has been one of the biggest sources for gratitude for me. 

The biggest window of all

That being said, my next post will be about my now former director, Alan, who was much more than a window to China because he was among the few who actually provided subtitles to my experiences. A bit of an intelligentsia, he told me the things (sometimes in a whisper) that are beneath the surface, culture, history, religion, rebellion, and that put together gave me many new perspectives while looking at Shanghai and I got to see old things with new eyes. 

Missing out on well cooked love during Spring Festival

In every day life, I find it more than justified to eat only vegetarian food. Better for my health, for my ecologic footprint, for animal welfare, for my yoga practice, just about everything. Right? Vegetarianism is never easy to maintain in China where eating meat is a human right for some and the highlight of the day for others, and I have often bent my own rules to not go hungry. But I still try, and it has become an integral part of how people describe me here.

Buddhist cuisine

Last week I visited my friends home in a smaller town, and we spend much time at his parents house celebrating the Chinese New Year. For ten days, parents have a chance to spoil their children to death. Nainai and Yeye (grandma and grandpa) were busy from morning til evening in the kitchen, preparing all the dishes for our lunches and dinners. Because how better to show your love than through food? And how better to show your love than through slow cooked mutton, or Yeye's home salted and wind dried pork, or his carefully chopped and fried beef? The finest, most expensive, most complicated dishes lovingly all prepared for the guests at this special time.

Word had traveled that I wouldn't eat meat or fish and my habit was taken more than seriously. Dishes were always arranged so that I was surrounded with veggie food. Lovely, refined, delicious vegetables and tofu. But the frown on Yeye's forehead showed his disappointment. He knew I missed the best part of the festival.

Three small acts that made a world of difference

For the past 2,5 years I worked with a Chinese NGO, called Be Better or 上海百特教育咨询中心. I started off doing some translation and proposal writing, and when I left last weekend my title had transformed to ‘Deputy Director General’. All this time I was the only non-Chinese in a team of eventually 33, and for most of my colleagues, their first foreign acquaintance or friend. It wasn’t always easy, or smooth to say the least. Three reflections after a few rewarding years. 

Cupcakes for a better team spirit

I found myself in a small team that was very task oriented. Our weekly meetings where a series of one-on-one talks with our director who told us what to do and how. There was hardly any talking at all, but for the occasional whisper or QQ chat message. A very awkward situation in my eyes, and while I tried very hard to blend in with the culture, I must have broken it at the same time, because at some point I found myself teaching English every Monday afternoon and bringing home made cupcakes. Once our director came in and found us all having a great time discussing how foreigners declare their love to each other. Would he be angry with me? Tell us to get back to work? He joined us of course, and carried a big smile that day.

During a teacher training in Yangzhou 2012

If scared… act

The first time I fully step forward and bring everything I have to the team is scary beyond imagination. I will organise a day at the end of the year, providing a safe space to discuss difficulties. I have kept the schedule a secret, demanding lots of trust from the busy team. We start with a long check in where the first tears start to flow. There is room to speak with people you are not familiar with, and for a while everyone is buzzing with questions and talk. Then we get to the scariest part: our two program managers are put in the middle one by one for a sort of family constellation exercise. I ask them to invite all their aides and tell them where to stand, then reflect together. The number of less than perfect relationships is endless. I am shocked but confident, the tool works wonders. I have demanded trust, but more than anything, I have given my trust in their ability to be honest but soft. Afterwards, we did many similar days and meetings, but it never reached that level of magic again. 

A program management training in Shanghai 2015

Manoeuvring girls politics...

With a huge female majority our team suffered lots from hormonal fluctuations. One week a month, we all had a depression, felt sick and demotivated: everyone at the same time. Some colleagues where friends before, and disliked each other now, and newcomers usually made it to be accepted into the inner circle at once, or just never. As things are always organised last minute, everyone depended on personal favours for help from others. Building friendships was essential, and given the 24/7 dedication of most staff, private life completely mixed up with work. I managed to do what I always try: put work first, and build relations accordingly. If I was work-friends with two girls who hated each others guts, so be it. I wil listen to all your blackmailing, and draw my own conclusions (after all, I am a girl too!). But we get the work done and others know they can trust me on my word to deliver. 

Buddy talk during a team building day 2014

… but appreciate the boys best

My most unexpected work-friendship was with Future, our bookkeeper. He picked up English from my endless questions and requests, and started teaching me finance, and excel, and Chinese tax, and I knew we were really good together when he got angry with me twice for being late and sloppy. Looking back, we together changed how project managers should deal with their finances, and it never felt heavy or boring as Future is the most comical person in Shanghai, if not China and has an unforgettable KTV performance. 

On Philippines and what you can learn from being different

Upon arriving home, I found a huge flume on my suitcase. In the one hour that it takes to get home from the airport, someone had felt the need to clear his throat, and aim the result at my luggage. 

It was a telling end to my trip with two Chinese colleagues to Philippines. After the initial excitement

Aflatot class in Manila

and anxiety that comes with traveling to a new destination settled down, the word that kept coming back in our conversations was “politeness”. Mostly related to how extremely friendly, polite and hospitable our Philippine hosts were, always smiling, always relaxt, always helpful. But later on, also as a reflection on how impolite many Chinese are. 

Among the cultural differences we found was the resilience of the teachers that we observed, and how at 30 degrees Celcius, they were pulling off amazing classes, singing, clapping, engaging the children all along. All their teaching materials were handmade, low-cost, traditionally inspired, and colourful. The parents maintained a beautiful garden around the school from which they sold the produce to the community. Where was the examination stress, the lack of time, the pressure from parents, the complicatedness of large classes of over 50 students that Chinese teachers tend to complain about, and use as excuse for not delivering high quality education? 

Riding a Jeepney in Manila

As the trip was intense, and took us up and down the country from one meeting to the other, we got more and more tired. And as we got tired, it became harder and harder to show the better sides or ourselves to each other. As I became more and more Dutch, my colleagues became more and more Chinese and the cultural gap between us became wider and wider. Just as I find it hard to speak any foreign language when I’m exhausted, I found it more difficult to understand why we had to bring back three overflowing bags full of presents for relatives. I found it more difficult to understand why we couldn’t communicate directly about what we wanted, but always needed to form a small talking chain. I found it more hard to live with the fact that at dinner 8 of our Philippine hosts were waiting to start eating until everyone was served, and that 2 Chinese guests weren’t able to know or sense there was such etiquette. 

The trip reminded me again of what I already know: that an intercultural setting is the most fertile possible soil to grow your personal leadership from. At any time, we can perceive of the foreignness as hostile, for example while driving through a slum area after sunset, depending on a taxi driver who doesn’t respond to our questions, and might or might not know where he is taking us. And we can hate it, and try to stay away from it, look for things that we understand: shopping malls, hotels, airports, because they are close to what we have in Shanghai. One of my colleagues dropped out from our trip, and opted for the latter: sleeping & shopping. My other colleague did the opposite. Through all the many misunderstandings, because English in Philippines isn’t quite like English in Shanghai, she smiled bravely, asked more questions until she got it, she stepped forward to arrange things even if people didn’t understand what she was asking them to do. 

Bay of Manila

One late evening we went out to the pool, I had promised to be her swimming teacher. The sky was lit up with stars, the pool surrounded by palmtrees and her heart raced with fear when she stepped into the water. Had she told me it was the first time in her life to swim, I wouldn’t have started by doing some floating. But once I found out, and let her to hold on to the stairs for as long as she wanted, the tightness around her chest became less, air reached her lungs again, and she trusted me her two hands to slowly make our way to the other end. Her two wide open eyes fixed on me, scared like hell, but never giving up to try the next step, and the next, and smiling all the while. There isn’t a more beautiful thing in the world perhaps: fear meeting with trust and bravery. While she took a long rest on the other end, I swam my laps feeling like a fish in the water. Not literally. I’m not a great swimmer. More like the fish being a giant foreign redhead in a foreign country, with other foreigners, being able to make sense of it all, easily.  

An inspiring afternoon

As part of my class on Social Entrepreneurship I had invited Andreas Heinecke to come and share his two decades of experience with Dialogue in the Dark with us. It was a wild guess, I had never met him, heard him, or seen him, and so I was even surprised to see one of the students make a poster with his face on it. But the odds were good, and I want to share in a few words what I learned from listening to him.

"I define succes as making something simple, reducing complexity" that is when it can spread to other countries, people, organisations.

Andreas started his first dialogue in the dark in his garage after having an encounter with a blind person who opened his eyes to all the prejudice that lived inside him. Upon starting his social enterprise, people blamed him for things as bad as "being in the dark is anti-humanity" which eventually led him to believe that "when everyone says it cannot work, that's the first guarantee that it can work."

But also, "only one out of a million people make their innovation work", so "stick with your idea, and never give up." Now, after 20 years, there are 100,000 copycats of dine in the dark, and other 'in the dark' experiences. After his initial bad feeling about that, he is now happy that more people are working towards a bigger social impact.

To become successful, he had to find people complimentary to himself, one of them being his wife who has been his left and right hand for all this time. In other words "it's about followership, forget leadership".

On finances, Andreas had a few radical ideas to share. He calls his company a "full profit company" meaning that all the profit will remain in the company. If franchises are not losing money, he tells them congratulations.  He as the CEO never gets more than 3 times the lowest income in the team. Dialogue in the Dark has had to stay very lean in order to survive.

Even after so much success, Andreas is still very humble. He reminds us "after every award, after every increase in numbers, we have to think if we are really doing the right thing". At any point we need prove of our work, show evidence of the impact, and be very self-critical. So far we have been growing the elephant, but we're at a point where we have to find another way to increase our impact.

And even if sometimes Andreas has thought about leaving DiD and enjoy a quiet time with his wife and family, he says that "being a social entrepreneur is a one-way thing. People have invested their belief and time in you, and I cannot leave. If I leave... It's just not possible."

"Our currency is people, not money"

"We change pain into laughter"

And at the end, in a beside: "do you think I confused them enough? I enjoy most when they're confused, that's when they learn"

The things I cannot say (yet)

9.10 am

The sink leaks, and I've arranged for the property manager's guys to come have a look. The guy in question misses quite a few teeth, speaks a language of his own, and the first thing he always says when he comes is: "ah, it's not broken!" So it's the same again today, he observes how we've fixed it with a plastic wrapper, sees it's not leaking right now, and makes to leave. 

The thing I cannot say: "you listen to me here, I call you to fix something for me, I will pay you double because I don't know the real price, I give you business, you just fix it NOW. Broken or not, what do you care?" 

10.04 am

Three people waiting for the elevator. One of them is moving some stuff upstairs. He carries a big bag with things. When the elevator comes, the bag falls over, all the stuff falls out. While bag and elevator move upstairs, the guy is busy picking up his things. Two other people just check their phones and wait for the other elevator. 

The thing I cannot say: "hey, let's just give him a hand, shall we?" 

2.32 pm

It's a nice day and the one place in the park where it's allowed to walk on the grass is covered with little tents. Families have made themselves comfortable for the day with food, music and drinks. A few groups of musicians are practising their repertoires and different singers have a try at singing a song with improvised microphones. It's loud, the speakers are not good, and on top of that, the music itself is out of tune, and not out of rythm. We're hundreds of people on a square kilometer of green and my head goes spinning. 

The thing I cannot say: "Sing, sing as much as you like, every moment of the day, bring your friends, make music together, enjoy the fresh breeze of the park while you do it. Just PLEASE don't use the mic. Don't you all agree, everyone? Don't we all come here for our peace and quiet? Isn't it enough to have the children's corner blaring songs into the park, and the four big roads around the park busy with traffic, and all the children and their parents shouting at each other? Isn't a harmonious society what we're all after?" 

2.45 pm

We cycle home from the park, manoeuvring between cars and carts, scooters and buses. Cycling is a trade off between enjoying the effort and freedom, and suffering from the fumes, the smog, the chaos and last but not least the noise. We patiently wait for the green light, and as I start to make my way, a taxi cuts me off, honks honks HONKS all the way, pushes my stress levels up to 100 and 

Yet the thing I cannot say: "Stupid. CAN'T YOU SEE MY BABY..? 

One day I'll be able to say all of this. 

In Chinese. 

What do you mean, religion?

This is not the result of painstaking research and thinking. It's what I learned over a cup of tea today, and it surprised me to the point of coming back to my blog and write about it.

Christianity is increasingly popular in China. Especially with intellectuals. They start their own family churches where they gather on Sundays and read the bible together. They don't go to official churches because they are controlled by the government. But the small family churches give a sense of community and belonging that many are looking for.

A yuan for luck @ Jing'An Temple Shanghai

When asked about Buddhism, historically very big in China, they answer that Buddhism is not a religion. It's a way of buying off your sins. Only when you have a problem you'll come to the temple to 'do business' with God. You cry, you pay, you pray and off you go. It's a lonely path, because there are no community gatherings and no priests to explain the books to you. Expectations are very high in Buddhism, and almost nobody is ready to let go of money in their life. Christianity on the other hand is a real religion, that has answers to day to day problems, and helps you to walk to right path.

I was shocked. The sex scandals, the idea of indulgence, the idea of going to a cold church to kneel down for a marble version of Jesus... Religion as a word even has a negative feel to it. But Buddhism! The path to enlightenment! The practice of yoga, and being a vegetarian. Even the idea of Karma has taken root in European society.

Two worlds, two languages, two cultures.

One street, two women

It's past sunset, on the ground floor of Rainbow City Mall.

Through the glass wall of the beauty parlour, I spot a young woman, relaxing on the seat. The otherwise quiet rows of nail polish now host a busy scene. Two girls squat at the young woman's feet, brushing up her toes. One girl sits by her hand, doing a manicure. One girl stands at her head, applying fake eyelashes. The centre of the picture is her little dog, not bigger than a kitten. It sits at her lap, it's curls and bows all neat and tidy.


6 hours earlier, two minutes away.

It's lunch time, and the construction site has opened its gates for the workers to get some noodles or dumplings outside in the street. Men covered in dust and cement flood the area. Their blue and yellow helmets creating a uniform impression. Sounds of their work have reached us since 6am. Until deep in the night will we see the light flashes of them welding. But I look again, one of them is a woman. The sheer strength she must have!

Finethankyouandhowareyou?

How are you?

Busy!

It's been a fashionable greeting for many years now. I'm not the first or only one to object to the celebration of being busy as a good thing. More and more people share the opinion that taking it easy is a good thing. They strive for something like...

How are you?

Slow...

The only person I know who always said this was my Moroccan neighbour in Amsterdam. Actually I think all his friends and family said something similar: relaxt, easy, cool. After two very intense months, this is only just a reminder to myself. Why don't I live a life that allows me to say I'm relaxt?

Remember:

The real stuff doesn't happen while I'm busy / The real life is not in my emails or online / The big ideas don't come when I run from A to B / The nice Selma does not flourish under an oppressive schedule. 

An extra challenge in Shanghai where work goes on 24/7/365, where people use their holidays to attend work trainings where Sunday is just as good a day for a work meeting as any other day. A city where holidays during the week are compensated by working during the weekend. Also a city where people check their phones more than 150 times a day. I've met very few people here who believe in taking it easy as a lifestyle. 

How am I?

Trying

Wanna play?

One of my favorite childhood reads was 'Pietje Bell' whose father always told him: Don't come back home until you have at least one hole in your trousers, or a bruise or blue eye.

(or so I remember)

Every since Nelson can walk I take him outside to play after dinner, before bedtime. There's a whole clan of neighbours doing the same with their children or more often: grand children, and over the months we've all been studying each other in depth.

I go by the idea that Nelson will learn by doing, and especially by making mistakes. So falling down the stairs of the slide, trying to climb back onto the slide 101 times without success. Tripping over his clumsy self and picking himself back up again in his own time. Etc.

Picture this group of people at the playground, parading around their babies in strollers or simply carrying them in their arms. But more important the 'gege's (older brothers) and 'jiejie's' (older sisters) who can also walk. They take a step, their caretaker takes one. They dive under the slide, their caretaker holds his hand in between slide and head. They make noise, the caretaker hisses. They don't want to share toys, they're forced to share. A little towel to wipe their foreheads at hand, another little towel permanently stuck in their neck to absorb sweat. The little princess falls over her feet and is immediately pulled back up. The little emperor makes his way to the stairs and his mother jumps up to pull him back. Too dangerous!


Easy to imagine the rift. We're playing just fine by the bushes when the clan decides there's too many mosquito's. 'We need to go!' There's a overly cute baby cat that just demands to be cuddled. Nelson takes a few steps in the direction and is pulled back by a concerned lady. No! And I just smile, and say yes, and we stay playing in the swarm of mosquitos and we do stroke the baby cat, just as we feel like.

'Tamen' means 'they'. It's the word that I understand best from the clan discussions that are then raised. They do it differently. It's better, some of the English speaking parents have told me. We Chinese are too concerned. But most think I'm just crazy. 'Tamen' foreigners who don't care about their sprout. She may need some help, let me just go ahead and tell the boy what to do...

Just a few more months before the kids will start to tell each other what is good and what is bad. Until then, I'm playing Pietje Bell's father and we don't go back inside until we're all wet from fetching fishes in the pond, or all bruised from running in the laurel maze.

XiaoFei

So there's more people that I work with of course. My most senior colleague is a few years younger than me. When I first started, she was the only one who spoke English and so we were made to work together on everything.

Sophie is very introvert. It wasn't until I signed up for QQ, and started reading her daily status updates that I understood more about her. She might be sitting at her desk, working really hard, while on QQ she warns us that today she has a very low mood. Don't talk to me! Sometimes her character flips. She becomes a warm person. Children do this trick, her face turns into a big smile, and they all love her.

XiaoFei, or Sophie in English has more responsibilities than all of us together. Having been working there for two years she is more experienced, more seasoned, more confident than anyone else. A recent leadership training has given her even more confidence. She can now take final decisions, something very rare in our work culture where our boss decides almost everything.

XiaoFei written with slightly different characters means 'responsible spending'. A perfect name for someone working in financial literacy.

More friends at work

My best buddy at work is Peipei, I usually call her pipi. She came to work and live in Shanghai after Chinese new year, all alone.

We always talk a lot, first of all we need to work together a lot, Peipei is very curious and extravert, and seeing her always makes me laugh. She is a living animation. One day she looked up from her computer and declared me very brave to leave everything behind and come to Shanghai. She asked to see a picture of Godert, he must be very attractive to follow him so far, she said.

Peipei always has a story that's she's dying to tell: they were in a concert with friends, and their picture was shown on the big screen behind the band. She was with her friend from high school and they drank Lambrusco until 5 in the morning. All her best friends are getting married or pregnant. She is the only one who is single. Her mother tried to send her on a date again with a boy from home. Her friend sent her a coffee machine, when she drank from it she couldn't sleep.

Peipei also always has pictures to show, usually pictures that she took of herself in strange positions, or pictures of her breakfast, or places in town that she's been to with friends.

Every Monday when we discuss our weekend, she's always been with friends who cook for her, I tease her that she never cooks herself. One day she made me sesame porridge. I had told her I really hate it, and she wanted to prove me wrong. It tasted better because she stirred it with such an effort.

Next week her parents are coming to visit her in Shanghai. Her mother has made her new sheets from their homegrown cotton. I hope they're proud of their daughter.

Friends at work

We have become friends at the office. After months of awkward silences every one started talking at the same time. So many stories to share! Now that I've made some friends, I want to write about all of them, just a little something, an ode.

Demi

Demi got married last weekend. It was a mass wedding at her university in Hangzhou. There were 120 people, all taking vows together. When she showed me the pictures afterwards she said she looked fat. It's a big concern to her.

I'm glad the wedding is over because we used to have lunch in the university canteen where food is a few kuai cheaper than in restaurants. Demi keeps track of all her expenses in an app, and she convinced us all to economize on our lunch while she was saving for her wedding. Food in the canteen is really bad.

Demi takes 80 minutes to get to the office. I often find her sleeping on her desk in the afternoon after lunch. Her days are very long, especially given that she works many weekends to give trainings.

One weekend I brought Nelson along to a meeting. Demi looked after him most of the time, and told me that she was taking 100+ pictures to show to her husband later. She is desperate to have a child. She'll make a great mum.

Every monday we discuss our weekend. Demi usually cooks fish and watches a movie. She plays table tennis.

Check out the mass wedding: http://122.224.97.137/Flash/jitihunli.swf 

Qing Ming Festival, or tomb sweeping day

This weekend was Qing Ming Festival, the day that Chinese honour their ancestors and sweep the graves of their deceased family members. Most activities are out of town at the cemeteries so we didn't see much of it, but I wanted to share a picture I found online.

As you can see, life in heaven is not necessarily easy for the Chinese. People up there need a little support every year in the form of paper money, cars, iPhones and houses. Let's hope the ashes made their way up and reached the right pockets.

Because we had two free days from work, today (Sunday) is a working day again. Such is life in China! Nothing comes for free.

http://hakkachan.files.wordpress.com

'Our' market

If I get up early enough, there's the delight of finding a market in our street. A market of almost anything imaginable. Buyers and sellers almost all retired, professional (window) shoppers and bargainers.

I love the ones selling things like this:

Others sell more antique, or jewellery, there's a lady with knitting stuff, a guy with bamboo things, a guy who sells bicycle saddles, leggings, underwear, just anything. This guy sells some type of liquor:

A little further down is where the wet market starts. It lasts all day, no need to get up early for this one.. 

Something I will not stop to wonder about: why are strawberries sold in baskets? In our market, in the supermarket, at the metro station, everywhere I see them, they come in baskets. And it's not just the strawberries. There seems to be a certain way to present products for many things. A this is how we do it way. Makes me feel uncomfortable always. Where's the diversity? 

Delicious, cheap and fresh: tofu, or doufu, in all it's variety. And some seaweed and sprouts. (these too: always sold at the same shop). 

And some veggies for todays lunch. A heaven for the eyes...  

Add a zero to that

There was a very important workshop at my work. The local government of Pudong had accepted our program to be part of the regular curriculum. The coming year is a test year and twelve schools are involved in redesigning the Aflatoun program to their needs. My colleague gave an open class for the officials, teachers and principals at one of the schools. Pudong district in Shanghai is special in that it hosts very poor, but also very affluent communities. And this particular school obviously had both.

One of the questions to the children was about how much money they have. "Not so much" said one girl "only RMB 100,000" that my parents gave me. "Not so much" said another boy "My mother always gives me the change when we go shopping. If she buys something for RMB 12 and she pays with 100 I get 82."

Our exercises have been designed for kids who own around RMB 1,000 and buy little things of a few kuai, and have bigger expenses of up to 800. Back to the drawing board for these spoiled brats! Obviously not everyone has that much money on their accounts. Many staid silent in the open class, overruled by their peers' stories.

At the wedding last week

Best wishes

Impressions from my first wedding in China

Very early in the morning, the bride and groom meet up at her parents house, and then at his parents house. There's a small ceremony, eating sweet beans from a bowl and sharing that with relatives.

Tons of firecrackers. Because there are many weddings at the hotel, there's one lady who's permanently sweeping the red paper, and one guy who's permanently shaping hearts out of fire crackers. Next!

The wedding pictures have already been taken some time ago. The album lies on the table for the guests to see.

All the red envelopes are numbered and registered by name in a big book at the entrance. There's another book for wishes. It looks beautiful with the characters.

The four parents are thrilled. This is their day!

The bride and groom sing a song together on stage. Wedding karaoke. Her voice is much better. At some point, they are allowed to kiss. He goes for it for almost a minute.

There's a cute little box on our plate with chocolates. There's a little gift bag with small snacks besides our plate. We all get coupons for big gift bags that we collect when we leave. At the entrance, we get a red envelope with a small bill. At the exit, we also get a red envelope...

The bride changes dresses three times. From white, to red, to blue.

There is enough food for a week. When it is time to leave, the remains are divided over the guests per table. Transparent plastic bags with whole chicken, ducks, but also the bottles of liquor and wine. Two women take out big plastic bags and fill them with empty bottles. A small extra income.

The bride and groom pass at every table to say cheers to the guests. Before they have reached the last table, someone has rolled up the red carpet, and someone else is taking down the purple decorations.

The MC has some small and big gifts for the guests. First they have to play a game and deserve it. Sing along with opera, rund around, say a tongue twister.

All the time, smartphones.