Goodbye from FNiC

In July 2011, almost four years after moving to China, I returned to the United States to undertake an MBA at Duke University. As I’ve left China (for now), I don’t plan on updating FNiC any longer. For those of you who are interested in following my journey there, I plan on keeping an occasional blog: markhiew.blogspot.com. Through this blog, focused largely on business school, social enterprise and other related affairs, I plan on describing some of the challenges that non-profiteer/social sector folks like myself adjusting to the new world of business.

I started the “Flatnose in China” blog/email series in August 2007, as a young Australian/American-Chinese man about to embark on his first visit to China. Over the years, the blog has been an enjoyable way to share my experiences and thoughts with you, my loyal reader, as I went about the complex task of simultaneously ‘discovering my roots’ and ‘understanding China’ (to say nothing of broader existential struggles like finding a career path and breaking down cross-cultural barriers.)

My stint in China was, like for many other foreigners, an incredibly varied experience, with numerous moments in which I felt utterly intoxicated with the place, and equally many in which I longed to escape it. Among the things I will miss most:

- The food: It bears repeating that Chinese cuisine is not simply the gluggy, battered, “General Tso’s Chicken” Western-Chinese cuisine that one associates with paper take-out boxes and Kikkoman sauce. It is infinitely better. I will miss the diversity of flavors and ingredients and regional variations so readily available in Beijing, and which I have grown so fond of in my time there. In particular, I will miss the cuisines of the southwest, from Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan, and their fiery, delicate brilliance, as well as Chinese-Muslim cuisine, particularly that from the local Xinjiang restaurant across from my old office.


- The friendliness: Chinese people are, on the whole, very friendly to foreigners. They may not be the most subtle or well-informed on occasion, but they have shown great generosity, openness and curiosity to my foreign friends and me during my time there. One of my favorite memories of China is of long train rides, during which colorful conversations with strangers would unfold, giving me wonderful insights into the lives of locals from all walks of life (as well as much-needed Mandarin practice!).


- The freedom: This last one might seem counter-intuitive, but in many ways, life in China is a lot freer than that in America. Not in obvious terms, but more in terms of daily life. There is a lack of regulation which, while at times maddening (see: traffic), can feel really liberating, such as the first time one walks down the street drinking from a beer bottle (Americans always get a kick out of that, even though Chinese don’t actually do it themselves). As a young expat in China, one is also freed from the constraints one would normally have to tolerate back home (mortgages, family obligations, general society) while remaining outside the pressures that local Chinese face, as well as enjoying a standard of living far higher than that afforded in the West (endless meals out, affordable taxis, maids, etc.). It’s why some of my foreign friends are staying put in China: they’ve got good jobs, and they’re living the good life!

While I’m not trying to get into a long political rant here, I’ll mention a point that I made both at my work and personal farewell parties: In recent times, I’ve noticed a steady increase in insecure nationalism in both China and the US. Anti-China rhetoric continues to win cheap voter support for American politicians, and the country makes for a convenient ‘enemy’ figure in people’s own political narratives. At the same time, thin-skinned angry fenqing and Chinese exceptionalism (the notion that “China is different” and that foreigners “cannot understand China”) remain the standard in China.

If anything, my four years in China have shown that these caricatures of the other side are inaccurate and unnecessary. I’ve acquired a collection of Chinese and foreign friends who are actively helping to break down these artificial barriers and forge greater understanding between these two critical nations: indeed, between China and the West at large. While indeed very different, it is possible for Westerners to understand China (Peter Hessler is my favorite example) and it is possible, if not politically convenient, for US elected officials to demonstrate a more nuanced perspective toward US-China trade relations.

Hopping off of the soapbox, I’ll end by nothing that I will certainly be returning to China in the future, and am interested in finding ways to support mutually beneficial, sustainable growth between China and other countries.

Thanks for reading,
-Mark

Taiwan travails

Four years ago, not long before moving to China, I had a brief conversation with a fellow AIDS activist from Kansas.

“Don’t call me ‘Chinese!’” she barked suddenly. “I’m TAIWANESE.”

Unfamiliar as I was in the semantic delicacies of the anti-mainland Taiwanese diaspora, I apologized immediately. It reminded me of the tongue-twisted embarrassment I felt talking to a classmate after I’d just arrived in America, and was still acclimatizing to its racial complexity.

“Is that common amongst Black…I mean, Afro-American…I mean, African-American…” I stammered.

“Just say ‘Black’, man!” my friend interjected, mercifully.

Having finally made it out to Taiwan, I found myself trying to remain sensitive to wording in conversations with locals. Cross-strait relations are an obvious point of discussion, and thankfully, I was able to use the term “mainland” to distinguish between the two groupings. But in contrast to my Taiwanese-American Kansan friend, locals displayed no anger or militancy towards mainland China. Snobbishness is standard—mainlanders are commonly referred to as ‘uncultured’ or ‘barbaric’—though such sentiments are carefully tempered by a more open-minded younger generation. Curiosity is widespread. But by far the most common sentiment I’ve noticed is one of pragmatism.



“I heard Citi just opened up a hundred new positions in the mainland,” Tobias, a local Taiwanese who works for the German insurance firm Allianz, told me. He studied in Germany and speaks the language fluently. “But they hardly have any openings in Taipei.” This exemplified, he told me, the trend amongst multinationals to ignore Taiwan in their obsessive rush to get a piece of the mainland market. I asked if he was frustrated by the situation.

“Of course,” he said, with deep resignation. “We don’t have the English colonial influence of Singapore and Hong Kong, so we can’t compete with them. Basically, it’s hard to get a job with a foreign company here.” He said he was open to moving to Beijing or Shanghai in the future. When I asked if his parents would have any political reservation, he shook his head.

“Before, when China was still ‘communist’, they probably wouldn’t like me to go. But now that it’s opened up, they’d be fine with it.”

It was all so far removed from the narrative of my university international relations courses, where American classmates would go on Cold War-era diatribes about America’s role in protecting freedom and democracy in Taiwan. One classmate, who was in the armed services, talked of how she “just can’t understand how the world can accept Communist rule over China.” At the time, although I’d never been to the region, I had bristled with abstracted Chinese indignation—although my parents were born in Malaysia, I’d been raised to believe that China remained the country of my family’s roots. The brash arrogance of my classmate back then—pre-financial crisis, extended wars and long-term recession—now feels like a distant memory, drawn from those final days of cavalier American invincibility.

Starting from June 28th this year, Mainland Chinese tourists are being allowed to visit Taiwan independently (previously they could only come with tour groups). Local newspapers run stories on night market vendors and holiday spot hotels that are busily negotiating special deals to lure mainland tourist business. According to a friend, the Taiwan government issued a helpful set of guidelines for mainland visitors to Taiwan.’ Top of the list was: “Do not shout ‘Long Live Chairman Mao!’ in public.”

I think a far more appropriate point would have been: “line up” or “stop at red lights.” Such concepts, while they exist on the mainland, are still not regularly followed. For example, in Beijing, subway riders look upon transport etiquette guidelines the way that many motorists regard speed limits: while technically you’re supposed to line up and allow others to get off before boarding a subway train, common practice holds that one must rugby scrum for a seat as soon as the doors open. I’ve seen riders attempting to disembark from the train get literally thrown back into the carriage by a tidal wave of ferocious seat chasers. For all the government’s efforts to promote civility, such behavior exemplifies how much still hasn’t changed in China: intense competition over scarce resources, a tribal take-care-of-your-own mentality, the constant need to budge as far forward as one can go (metaphorically and literally).

Taiwan is different. Like Hong Kong, people line up. They stop at red lights. They say “sorry” in public. One friend described Taiwan as somewhere in between China and Japan in terms of culture, and though I’ve never been to the latter, the analogy seems accurate (Taiwan was ruled by the Japanese from 1895 to 1945.) Coming from the intense struggle that daily life in Beijing evokes, this past week in Taiwan felt refreshingly easy. Services are plentiful and convenient. There are less people to compete with, and going through one’s day is smoother, cleaner and, in many ways, far more pleasant than in the mainland. People even speak more English.



Coming to Taiwan after four years spent on the mainland has given me the chance to see the country from the other side of the fence. It leads one to wonder, as many must do, what the mainland would have been like if the Nationalists had won. Would they have been able to perform the same economic ‘miracle’ with a population some seventy times larger than Taiwans? Would its sovereignty have been undermined by excessive Western influence, as the CPC claims? How well would these well-established tech and manufacturing companies, like Acer, HTC and Giant bicycles, do at the mainland’s national scale?

Such questions are, of course, in this age of growing Chinese power, merely academic. But I can easily see how Beijing and Shanghai may in the future come to more closely resemble Taipei, in terms of civility and the efficient, urbane culture of its citizens. As economic and tourist ties grow between China and Taiwan, Taiwan’s already heavy cultural influence over the mainland’s younger generation will only grow.

But in the mean time, I enjoyed the friendliness of local Taiwanese and their island’s myriad pleasures. Known as a foodie’s paradise, their xiao chi offerings lived up to my judicious expectations, and then some. Snacking my way through town on local delicacies ranging from crunchy, salty xian doujiang - a typical breakfast broth, to fresh oyster pancakes in the coastal city of Tainan and night market rice sausages, I would have gained another belt inch, but for all of the walking I did in between. And to counteract the humid heat, their ‘snow flake’ ice dessert stands—think Italian ice but served in powder soft layers with flavors like mocha, peanut and passionfruit—are the closest thing to dessert heaven that I have ever come.



In Taipei, I discussed philosophy with a local TED talk discussion group, courtesy of my couchsurfing host, and traversed its national palace museum and Taipei 101. And in Taroko Gorge National Park, I zipped through winding tunnels, carved into the mountainside, opening up into stunning vistas of towering white marble walls and crystal azure water. For such a small, politically complex island, Taiwan offered a stimulating mixture of current affairs relevancy, sensory delight and natural beauty that makes for a well-rounded holiday, and a population that is savvy, capable and deeply accommodating to visitors. I hope it never loses that charm.