Needless to say, there are quite a few cultural differences between the US and China that we run into everyday. But this week in particular Kevin and I have been confronted with even more than normal. Several of them have to do with health issues. For example, I learned at school that when a child is coughing or choking, rather than patting them on the back like you do in the US, here you pull on their ear! This supposedly helps because the ear canal is connected to the throat. (?) The other fun one was what to do if you get something like dust in your eyes; you are supposed to swish water around in your mouth and spit it out! Not sure exactly what the reasoning is on this one, but the friend who explained it to me was adamant that it did work. When I heard these, my initial reaction was to scoff at the absurdity of tugging on a choking kid's ear or rinsing your mouth out with water to remove dust from your eyes, but I must admit that I am learning that there really is some foundation for many of these somewhat "strange" cultural differences. The price of garlic really has gone up since the swine flu has increased. I found out this is because the Chinese people believe that eating a ton of garlic will help keep you healthy. Again, I laughed when I first heard this, figuring that the Chinese folks would use any excuse they could to cook with more garlic! But I have since found from reliable sources that garlic really does help boost certain immunities in our system, possibly helping to prevent the flu or other illnesses. So while I have yet to fully understand them all, I do realize that there may be some truth to an ear tug or mouth rinse that 20 years down the road we will all appreciate!
Kevin had one other funny one at the baseball field this week. He had one of the players do a palm reading on him! (This didn't ever happen during his playing days in the States!) The guy's analysis of Kevin was that he must have a very pretty wife! (Kevin was tempted to dismiss or deny the complement, which would be in good keeping with what you are supposed to do in China when given a complement, but instead responded that he thought she (or I!) was!) I just figure that the guy knew Kevin's baseball background and the rep for Big League wives--which doesn't require a great deal of special insight to "read"!! Oh, what will tomorrow bring?!
The photo is of one of Kevin's stocking stuffers. I found a plastic baseball bat filled with chocolate candy (rare to find anything baseball related in China!). The words on the bat read, "Eat chocolate to add your physical strength. Encourage for baseball with your enthusiasm. And the audience of whole field shout together." Pretty sure it was written by a non-native English speaker!! (I say this realizing that at this point, my comprehension to understand and ability to speak the Chinese language is not even close to this person's level of English!)
