Вот что хотел рассказать вам, друзья.
Наверное, многим уже известно, живу я, волею судеб, не совсем в России, а немного наоборот – в Китае. В городе-побратиме Петербурга, между прочим – великом и ужасном Шанхае.
В Китае, как справедливо заметил в свое время Ганс Христиан Андерсон, живут китайцы, и даже император (теперь, по-модному – «президент») у них тоже китаец. Вот такой парадокс.
И всё бы ничего, но в Китае, помимо китайцев, еще кто только не живет... Одних лаоваев целая куча, этих «заморских чертей» и «длинноносых сурков». Иногда случается такое – лаовай и местная девушка вдруг взглянут друг на друга... один круглыми и водянистыми глазками, другая - узкими и томными, как южная ночь... и случится между ними Большая Любовь (ну я писал об этом).
Хорошо. Любовь – любовью, но ведь иногда люди идут бесстрашно дальше. И начинают Сожытельство.

А меня всегда интересовало – тут со своей-то, славянкой, русской, из своего же города, своего социального круга, схожих религиозных взглядов («бога нет», «слава тебе, иисусе», «аллаху акбар» - нужное подчеркнуть), в общем, довольно близким тебе человеком - ужиться трудно... А уж если межрасовые отношения – вообще туши свет, сливай воду, надо полагать.
Мои предположения отчасти подверждают соседи – англичанин и его девушка, из местных. Джо, так зовут парня – высокий, здоровый парень, чем-то похож на Бреда Питта. Девчонка его – Грэйс, невысокая, худенькая, этакая канарейка... Но симпатичная. Люди они приветливые, общительные. Почти спокойные.

Но иногда на них находит – как начнут срач за стенкой, так на весь вечер, с ночным продолжением. Сначала менторские крики Джо – «лисэн ту ми, ай толд ю мэни таймз!» Потом всхлипывания Грэйс. Ну и как полагается – вопли, крики, битье посуды, хлопанье дверьми, погони, завывания... Раз в неделю, а то и чаще.

Мой детский ум внимателен и любопытен, особенно к мелочам и деталям. Как-то, встретив Джо одного, я ему сказал – дружище, я щас пишу лав-стори, о лаовае и местной. Не мог бы ты обогатить меня рассказом о своем опыте? Так сказать, каково это – не просто встречаться, а именно жить с китаянкой? Плюсы и минусы, нюансы, оттенки - ну, в общем, всё, что скажешь. «Нам тут всё интересно» (с)
- Легко! – Джо согласился с какой-то нездоровой радостью в глазах. – Напишу в виде тезисов. Только боюсь, плюсов будет мало, а минусов – целый список.
- Тем лучше. Пиши.

И вот что я получил.
Признаюсь, я ожидал несколько иного. Не знаю, если уж не «пикантных подробностей», то каких-то бытовых, повседневных неурядиц. Может быть, забавных стычек менталитетов – Запада и Востока. Они, эти стычки, безусловно, у Джо и Грэйс происходят. Но почва, для них приготовленная, меня ошарашила.
Текст я переводить не стал – решил сохранить аутентичность. Кто англиццкий  диалект знает, тот поймет. А кто не знает – так и в переводе вряд ли поймет.
И скажите, пожалуйста – как, по-вашему, это вот нормально для пары, или господа с Запада совсем ёбнулись на политике? Я, помню, в юности девушкам стихи читал, о литературе рассказывал, о театрах беседовал. Ну, частушкки матерные пел, тоже было дело. Червонец до стипухи клянчил... По-разному, короче.
Но вот чтобы так... Уж о чём, о чём, но о политике с девушками на полном серьезе (да и в шутку) беседу завести - мне даже по пьяне в голову не приходило.
Впрочем, читайте сами.


«When the tragic moment occurs that you realise you love someone, it doesn’t take long to also realise that you are destined and indeed willing to suffer any inconvenience, any crippling loss of dignity and tolerate any hardship in order to provide the best environment, opportunities and care for that person.
All in the name of love.

Some may disagree with this, and declare that if they really love you. they would never allow themselves to inflict such an inbalance upon a relationship.

It is with this in mind that I explain the difficulties of being in a relationship with a Chinese girl, and indeed describe my resentment towards the cause of these problems.

The troubles which occur when people of different nations or beliefs get together are well documented, and in China outwardly at least, is it the general concensus that such relationships don’t work, or are even decidedly ‘un-Chinese’.

But when the concept of being ‘Chinese’ is in itself a debate, should we listen to these warnings?

As the governments choice of what the current generation of students should and should not be aware of continues to come up against the same generations hunger for knowledge and ‘foreign’ culture,  this ‘system’ has created a very uneven youth. It is my belief that this is the reason for the constant nurturing of the governments ultimate defence system into peoples minds; what I call the ‘nationalist religion of being Chinese’. Their thinking is simple. Everyone is from China. This is the single thing which they all have in common. Therefore by using that to bind everyone together, and proclaiming themselves as the upstanding conscience of this group, they can be certain of their obedience. Rebellion against this concept would therefore result in you being labelled ‘un-Chinese’ – the perceived worse sin for a Chinese person.

Here are links to just two examples (both in reference to Tibet, a topic about which the majority of Chinese know nearly nothing) of instances where the ‘Chinese people’ have been written into government statements, including them in whatever topic is being discussed and thus creating this concept of ‘Chinese people’ being defined by their agreement with the government..

(“The Chinese government and people are strongly dissatisfied with and resolutely opposed to the approval of…” - http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/12/content_10999122.htm)

(“Otherwise, they can only hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and undermine the foundation of cooperation between the two countries...” - http://eng.tibet.cn/news/today/200812/t20081207_441694.htm)


As is clear, the goverenment did not call themselves ‘the People’s Republic of China’ for no reason.

Hold that thought.

If the girl you love has not had the fullest education, or is unfortunately bound by the multitude of stifling restrictions of her country, surely (in the spirit of my opening paragraph) it must be your duty to provide as much information and opportunity as possible? Of course you can provide her with a priceless amount of round-the-clock English coaching, along with helping with her geography and history.

Hypocrite, you shout? Yes, of course the danger then occurs that you simply exchange the governments biased ‘teachings’ for your own biased opinons – but even if you were actively aware of this, if you were to try very hard to be objective and neutral – to teach with the intention of simply ‘filling in the gaps’ of her scattered understanding, you would still of course have to mention truths which are in conflict with the few things she already has been led to believe.

And so that’s where this idea of ‘nationalism as a religion’ becomes relevant. The government’s ultimate defence system, as I referred to it. The instant you mention something which puts ‘the motherland’ in a bad light, an alarm goes off in her brain. Warning bells sound. Everything you say henceforth is filed away as ‘foreign lies’, and all time you devote to helping her to develop her understanding from then on, is simply a waste of time.

And that causes cataclysmic problems amongst even the most loving of relationships.

Though politics does not have any place in a discussion about relationships, unfortunately in China this is an impossible dream. As everything filters down from this one single evil.

Once again, allow me to indulge a relevant tangent, but hold that thought.

Living together with someone provides many instances to agree and disagree with each other. Two sensible adults can usually agree to disagree on topics where they have differing opinions. Not so in China. As most people are aware, the concept of ‘losing face’ is very prevalent here. And, as most people respect the ‘cultures’ of other countries, this is taken into account when communicating with the Chinese.
Yet, as people who spend lots of time around the Chinese will know, the term ‘losing face’ is simply a euphamism for ‘being caught lying’.

In a relationship, it is important to admit when you do something wrong, or hurt your partner. This way, misunderstandings and carelessness can be avoided in future.
Suppose however that your partner was concerned about ‘losing face’(being caught lying, remember). How can mutual understanding and respect be formed? In most places, people simply say ‘sorry’ to avoid confrontation, so imagine the growing resentment you would feel, if your partner learned to disregard your feelings and know that she would never be held accountable for it, for that of course would lead her to ‘lose face’.

Difficult, right?

And, as an extention of that, the ‘cultural differences’ continue: In China, the words ‘please’ and ‘thankyou’ are rarely spoken, and virtually never between couples, married or otherwise. I assume that this would also be considered loss of face, though I am unsure. But if you are unfortunate enough to have a girfriend from the city or coastal areas of the country (the materialistic and shallow Shanghai in particular) then be prepared to deal with many types of character flaws, which are well-known even amongst the Chinese!

The belief amonst most Chinese girls, is that men from Shanghai are very good. Supposedly they relish housework, earn immense amounts of money and treat their girlfriends and wives like royalty. Imagine! Treating like royalty a nation of people who are already reknowned as being ‘little emperors’ due to the one-child policy!

A lot to live up to! Especially if after your complete financial support, tireless efforts to help educate and repeated providing of travel opportunities result in no “thankyou”, no gratitude of any kind, no appreciation, and the genuine belief that after all that, it is infact you who are lucky to be with a Shanghai girl! Such arrogance.

(An interesting related link
http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20070320_shanghainese_girl_marry

So I hear you ask, why bother? Why not simply forget the obligation you feel you have. Don't bother trying to provide the information and opportunities which her ‘perfect’ motherland has denied her.
Allow her to develop the way the government wants her to develop. To become the perfect easily-controlled ‘Chinese’ person that the government is attempting to clone 1.3 billion times. Surely this would avoid the arguments and problems?

Yes. This would also mean she would be an obedient and easy-to-control girlfriend too! But it’s very hard to sit back and see so much potential in a person, and watch with horror as the character and achievements remain locked away inside. And it truly is soul-destroying to suffer so much conflict and personal abuse as a result of trying to free that individualism.

Is it wrong to try to change a person, even if that person has already been partially created by other people?

Are you simply also trying to control and shape them?
Or are you actually helping them – giving them access to new information and opinions?

What if they say they don’t want to be ‘helped’? Do you have the right to think for them? To attempt to override the government’s puppetry?

But how can you stand back and watch someone whose understanding of the world is so shockingly warped and incomplete. If you love them, you can't!

Occasionally, you come across instances where you can take encouragement. The ideas which my girlfriend  had concerning countries we had planned to visit, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and England were shocking.
Of course, Cambodia was at war (!) Vietnam was bound to give her AIDS, Thailand was hot and sunny, and therefore not a place that a Chinese person would want to go (!).
England was the only country I had no trouble persuading her to go to, but even then her ideas about what it was going to be like were extremely surprising.

Needless to say, her opinions of all the countries were considerably better after she had visited them, as was her understanding of other countries. Maybe she began to realise that there are other countries outside China… and, shockingly they are quite nice!

I wish I had kept a record of everytime the infuriating phrase “Chinese people don’t do that” was given to me as an excuse.for not trying something new. She seems happy with having the things she can do and the places she can go planned out for her by the government, just so long as it’s in the name of ‘all Chinese people’.
As I said though, I take encourgement from the fact that she has enjoyed all of the different activities I have introduced her to (things she had never done before), such as swimming, eating food from other countries, horse-riding, traveling and many many more. Even though she was under the opinion that these are things that ‘Chinese people don’t do’.

Maybe now that this progression forwards has begun to occur, it is now simply a case of her not wanting to lose face – of her being unable to admit the narrow-mindedness of her old ‘beliefs’, even if inside she knows it.

Domestically, life swings from being extremely lovely and sweet, to being horrendously infuriating. The arrogant ‘Shanghai-girl’ in her is unimaginably stubborn, and will argue about and refuse to even consider anything which wasn’t ingrained into her by the government. Her adamant insistance that she didn’t like (amongst other things) Pasta, Cheese and Bread before she had even tried it must also stem from this concept of ‘being Chinese’. Once again, needless to say, she eats all of these foods regularly now – with Spaghetti Bolognese being her absolute favourite!

I m 23. She is 26. At times I feel like a father, rather than a boyfriend. The lessons which she is learning are similar to that which a particularly head-strong child would learn around the age of 12 or 13 back in England.

I continue to do what I think is right. I am hoping that my insistance to introduce as many different places, foods, ideas and debates to her is right. To break down what I see as barriers, erected by the paranoid government, and which although are supposedly the best thing for continued stability in the country, yet a government which I can’t help but resent for the ways in which they have created such narrow, and inaccurate opinions amonst a woman who has the right to be informed, considerate and eager to learn – the woman which I love».


Вот такие дела.
Что это – частный случай миссионерского комплекса, или нечто уже массовое, характерное?
Что скажете?