Ryan Winger
Hong Kong Columnist
I have a fun time with my roommate at the Baptist University in Hong Kong, whose name, I should tell you, is Aid. That’s not his Chinese name, of course. His real name is Cai Chao Qun, which roughly translates as “beyond other people.” Aid is from the mainland. Most of the locals here in Hong Kong want to have English names, but often they don’t have any idea of what a good American name sounds like. For instance, the cashier who took my order today at KFC was named Belt. If I ever run in to anyone named Shoe, I’ll be sure to get a picture taken with him.
Anyway, my Aid (I like to think of him as my personal aid for gaining cultural insight) is actually a heck of a nice guy, although, I regret to say, he is a die-hard communist. It’s a good thing the Cold War is over, or else I’d probably feel guilty accepting his kind-hearted, subtle ideological suggestions in disguise — like when he offered to share his bag of apples with me. At first I felt obligated to compensate him in some way. But then I realized something … Aid shares because he likes to share — it’s the way he is.
I started to catch on. The next time I made it to the Well-Come Market I bought some oranges, and Aid graciously accepted my offering. While consuming communal fruits, we got to discussing U.S. foreign policy in recent years. We stuck with the easy to understand topics, like “Clinton vs. G. W. Bush; who do you like better?” Translation always proves problematic, especially when each Chinese character has 14 unique, nuanced meanings, some of which I haven’t quite figured out. In spite of the linguistic hurdles, he’s still able to get his point across. Aid said that although Clinton is considered by many in China to be a “rascal,” he was well liked for his cooperative attitude and friendship with the great Asian hegemon. Bush, on the other hand, has generally acted a bit standoffish toward the PRC, and barriers have been set up for the sake of national security, which has made it increasingly challenging for ordinary Chinese people to visit the United States. Reciprocally, I sensed payback when our Pepperdine group went through the painstaking process of trying to arrange double-entry visas into China. That’s not to say it was overwhelmingly difficult, but it wasn’t uncomplicated or cheap. After all, we’re not wealthy Western businessmen – we’re just the children of wealthy Western businessmen.
As of late October, Aid is still a bit of a homebody. He has not yet ventured outside of Kowloon Tong in Hong Kong, where the Baptist University is located. His provinciality adds to his amazement at my weekend excursions. I could go on and on with stories of how I’ve spent my time riding elephants and buying cheap Armani suits in Thailand; becoming the first person in my family to heroically climb the Great Wall; or, while in Beijing, stopping by for tea with Bertha Sneck, the 88-year-old American expatriate, translator, and wife of William Hinton, the reputable cultural anthropologist and unfortunate target of McCarthy-era hysteria – but I won’t exhaust your patience with that. I could also tell you what a mysterious Indian guru told me in an alley near Khao San Road in Bangkok, but I don’t give away secrets so easily. Suffice it to say that Asia is a world all its own and one has to be here to discover it in a meaningful way. It’s worth your time — believe me.
11-11-2004
