Touch

"What do you mean we don't dance close? Have you seen the way they dance down south? It's the same as here."

This is Cam's reaction to me trying to explain to him that they don't dance quite the same way we do here in China. The problem is he's right, there's no way for him to be able to tell that their dancing isn't the same as here. The reason for this is because it's the men dancing that's different, not the women. And being of the male sex means that he has no way of knowing that the men dance differently with the women in the two countries.

I just took one of Cam's Japanese classmates (Yuki) home from dancing. She thanked me for helping keep her away from the "dangerous" men. She told me that she likes dancing just not with the dangerous men and she doesn't know who is going to be dangerous and who isn't. That made perfectly good sense to me simply because I understand the difference in dancing between American/Western men and Asian men (we're not talking Asian American). Japanese women and Japanese men have their own space when they dance together. There is no opportunity to feel any part of the male body when you're dancing with a Japanese man. As Yuki pointed out to me, if they try to dance with any part of their body (we're not talking hands here) touching the women, they are quickly responded with "Are you serious? Are you okay? What's wrong with you? Are you drunk?" A bantering that quickly tells the Japanese men that they are out of line. So to Yuki anyone who dances like that is "dangerous" because she doesn't know how to tell them "no".

The problem is that the majority of western men are used to dancing like that, that's just how we dance here. Every male here is going to try and dance with you like that. And we have some mechanisms that are our ways of telling the men "no" which are innate to us but have to be learned by the Japanese and Chinese women. These ways which we use are several - turning one's body away from the man (which often doesn't work as the man just moves with you), dancing around someone else or somehow getting another person in between you and the man, stopping dancing and do something else, get a drink or something, and the last one that I can think of right now is to simply lead a friend into your dance. If I'm with American friends and we're all dancing alone and someone comes up to dance with me, all I have to do is grab the hand of another guy OR girl friend of mine and they immediately know "hey, I need some help" or "hey, I don't want to dance with this person" and start dancing with me, taking me away from the man. I got into trouble in China once because my Chinese friends don't understand this, so when I tried to grab one of them they just ignored me and let me keep going with the guy.

So I guess in a way it's a little "dangerous" for me to go out with Yuki & Cam dancing. I end up having to dance to keep Yuki out of the way of a "dangerous" man and if I get in a situation I don't want to be in Cam doesn't understand that I don't want to be in that particular situation and there's no one else around to "help". I end up going back to the other ways for telling a guy "no". But to answer Yuki's question about how to find out which man isn't "dangerous" unfortunately the answer is every man in the west is "dangerous".

Sometimes

Sometimes I don't know why I do this.
Sometimes I don't know why I'm here.
Sometimes I don't know why it's here.
Why ARE we here?

Sometimes it makes me angry
Sometimes it makes me frustrated
Sometimes I just don't want to help

Sometimes I want to give up.

But what I want more than that
is for it to get better.

complaining

We all do it and everone knows that, we all complain. But being around Americans complaining and being around foreigners complaining is two totally different things. When a fellow American complains about their doctor you know that they're complaining about that individual and while you can see similarities maybe in that doctor and your doctor, or in a friend's doctor you know that the fellow American isn't making a generalization. Foreigners, on the other hand, have a problem with one doctor or one hospital and assume that the entirety of the American system sucks and that their countries' is obviously better.

You end up telling the same story over and over again. One foreigner tells you "American passenger train system sucks" and you say, hey, you're right! The second foreigner comes by and says "the American passenger train system sucks" and you say yes, but we are doing our best to try and fix it. The third foreigner comes by and says "the American passenger train system sucks" and you say yes, and this is the reason why, and Obama is trying to fix it. Sheesh!

sayings

When two people live or work together they learn to compromise. That seems like a very basic saying that everyone knows and understands. That is maybe unless one is married, or maybe it has more to do with the fact, once again that he's Chinese. You see in Chinese culture, and many others, there is no such thing as compromise. Women obey and men do or say. There is no need to compromise.

"Put your toys away when you're finished." becomes "let the girl put it away" or if there is no girl "don't worry mommy will put them away"

Women

After reading a section in Dancing Skeletons about the Mali belief in circumcision for both male and female children and their surprise that Americans don't circumcise their females but do circumcise their males I became curious. Do Christians believe in circumcision? I asked and was told that originally the apostles all believed in circumcision except Paul who fought them and believed against it. I was also told that in Africa circumcision helps prevent against AIDS in male children so they sometimes do it for that reason. What about Jews? I asked and was told that of course male children are circumcised but when asking about female children I was told that that was considered genital deformation. Why is it considered genital deformation for females but not for males?

Upon meeting with Krisztina today we started talking about things like circumcision. She told me in Hungary they aren't religious and don't believe in circumcision for either male or females, believing that it doesn't help or harm so why should they do it. She also told me about their ways of childbirth. She said that the woman goes to the hospital at least 3-4 days before their due date and in cases of high risk up to a month before the due date and live there. They are allowed to be visited by family members but no family members are allowed to stay with them in the hospital and the partner and family members are only allowed to view the birth from afar. There's a camera in the delivery room that connects to a waiting room where the family and partner watches the birth. The mother also stays in the hospital for a week after the child is born during which time the mother is taught how to breastfeed and what to do if the child gets a cold/cough/fever. They don't do very many shots. She believes that they take the same shots we get here in America as children and spread them out over the years so the child doesn't end up getting as many shots at once. She said that in the first couple of months the only people allowed to visit the mother and child are the mother's family members. Friends are not expected to come visit the mother, in fact they find it strange if the mother invites them over in the first month. Also the mother doesn't take the child out in the first few months. Both of these are done to prevent the spread of germs from the general public to the child who is more suseptible to infections and disease in their first couple of months. Also in the first year the child is not expected to eat certain foods like broccoli because they are too difficult to digest. She said in Hungary no one gives their infants formula because the majority of people breastfeed and if they can't breastfeed they can go to a milk donation center and get breastmilk from other mothers which they believe is much better for the child than any formula could possibly be. They also don't believe in going out to buy baby food and start making their own baby food (by boiling apples and mashing them into applesauce or mashing bananas) one or two months before the baby is born. That way they can store their own baby food, by freezing it or putting it in the refridgerator and won't need to buy baby food unless in an emergency situation. They also believe in boiling everything that the child is going to put their mouth on. This reminds me of the belief of not eating the skin of fruits and vegetables and boiling everything in India because the skin and the outside is dirty (a belief mostly held by foreigners).

This stuff really fascinates me. I remember being in India and noticing after noting the every day behavior of one family that every now and then certain women wouldn't cook and wouldn't eat with the other women for a couple days every month. Noting this I asked them and they said that they were having their period, a way of being punished by the Gods for being a woman, and cooking food would make it dirty for everyone else. This family had obviously grown from the belief of keeping the women in a small hut away from the family while the woman went through her period but they still hadn't grown away from the belief that they were being punished by the Gods and hadn't grown from the belief that their cooking at this period would be dirtying the food for everyone else.