Sometimes I have experiences here that always raise the same question - is there some sort of cultural gap between myself and Chinese that make some of their suggestions/ideas seem ridiculous and illogical, or is there just a lack of common sense?
Yesterday I coached my boy's high school team. Like all basketball teams in Beijing, they practice outside. This makes rain a very formidable enemy. Although it was sunny and there were blue skies overhead, the day before it rained quite hard. Because of this, the good outdoor court that we usually play on had some large puddles that would make practice unsafe. I was with Sun Qiang and the athletics director of the school at the time and they said we were going to practice on the court spotted with puddles anyway. I asked about the issue of copious amounts of water on the court, and they said that a couple of kids were going to get rid of them. I was skeptical but decided to see what was to come of this. A couple minutes later, the kids came with large brooms. They walked over to the largest puddle and started sweeping the water around, making the formerly dry area around the puddles wet as well, and covered more and more of the court in water. After about 20 seconds of this, they stopped and declared that this wasn't going to work.
I had to fight back my laughter. I have no idea what they were thinking. I imagined it in America:
"Hey Jim, there seems to be puddles of water all over the court and the kids' practice starts in five minutes. What should we do?"
"Oh don't worry about that Bob, we'll get some brooms and just sweep that shit all over the place. Piece of cake."
"Alrighty."
20 seconds later
"Well shit Jim, it looks like sweeping water just makes the rest of the court wet as well."
"At least we tried!"
This is an example of the endless sources of comedy that goes along with living in China. As absurd as it is, it makes me love this place that much more. China is a wonderland of the absurd, preposterous, grotesque, fantastic, astonishing, breath-taking, of smells, of mice (or in this case, rats) and men, of chopsticks, of loud speaking natives, and of dumplings (among some other things). The longer I live here, the more I think to myself: there's something happening here. And what it is, it just ain't clear.
Yesterday I coached my boy's high school team. Like all basketball teams in Beijing, they practice outside. This makes rain a very formidable enemy. Although it was sunny and there were blue skies overhead, the day before it rained quite hard. Because of this, the good outdoor court that we usually play on had some large puddles that would make practice unsafe. I was with Sun Qiang and the athletics director of the school at the time and they said we were going to practice on the court spotted with puddles anyway. I asked about the issue of copious amounts of water on the court, and they said that a couple of kids were going to get rid of them. I was skeptical but decided to see what was to come of this. A couple minutes later, the kids came with large brooms. They walked over to the largest puddle and started sweeping the water around, making the formerly dry area around the puddles wet as well, and covered more and more of the court in water. After about 20 seconds of this, they stopped and declared that this wasn't going to work.
I had to fight back my laughter. I have no idea what they were thinking. I imagined it in America:
"Hey Jim, there seems to be puddles of water all over the court and the kids' practice starts in five minutes. What should we do?"
"Oh don't worry about that Bob, we'll get some brooms and just sweep that shit all over the place. Piece of cake."
"Alrighty."
20 seconds later
"Well shit Jim, it looks like sweeping water just makes the rest of the court wet as well."
"At least we tried!"
This is an example of the endless sources of comedy that goes along with living in China. As absurd as it is, it makes me love this place that much more. China is a wonderland of the absurd, preposterous, grotesque, fantastic, astonishing, breath-taking, of smells, of mice (or in this case, rats) and men, of chopsticks, of loud speaking natives, and of dumplings (among some other things). The longer I live here, the more I think to myself: there's something happening here. And what it is, it just ain't clear.
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