suggests that we get out, despite the coldness and practically show her how they do it. I do not resist, because I am used to her abrupt decisions about doing things, insisting on them to be done the way she wants. We go out in the cold night together, we then sit in an old VW Jetta that belongs to Li Gengnan. I start with simple tasks, which she grabs quickly, and masters in a few minutes. Hong is thrilled and jokingly says that I could become an excellent driving instructor. I smile back, thankfully.
"Yes, I mean teaching only beautiful women how to park", she says, pointing her upper lip towards me.
“Wait a minute, what is all this? Is this a market gap?” I tease her back.
She shruggs me off, pretending to be annoyed, but later huggs me with a lovely kiss and a smile.
“Yes, ideally you are a quick learner, I am now going to teach you how to play billiards, and dancing”, I say, looking directly into her eyes. The night is cold again. When I go for a shower in the morning, I realize that we hardly had warm water. As I explained earlier on, in the West, red colour on the water tap stands for hot water, blue stands for cold water. I was still tipsy because of the previous night's drinking. So, when I opened the red tap, ice-cold water gushed out on to me. It instantly sobers me back to my senses.
I scream still wondering why in China red colour stands for cold water and blue for hot water. It does not make sense to me at all. The theory of the Five Elements, which include wood, fire, metal, water and earth, was born in Daoism China, about 2000 B.C. It is these Five Elements around which the dynamic process of change, were assigned in China.
This theory started with four cardinal elements. Since then, endless assignments such as shapes, seasons, animals, and even colours surfaced. For Westerners, fire is logically represented by red, and metal with white/grey. In China, I am confused even up to now, why yellow represents earth; black representing water, and wood with green. I don't understand a thing. In China red colour, as you may already know, stands for wealth and joy. Green is also associated with wealth, harmony, and health, which does not differ much from us in the Western world. However, when it comes to colours of items of clothing, a green hat, for example, symbolizes infidelity, and a cheated husband. Yellow colour as in dress stands for neutrality and happiness. Yellow is the most prestigious colour, which is why the emperor's clothes, palaces, altars and temples were all decorated in yellow colour. Black is the colour of the northern sky, revered as the colour of kings. Despite its brightness and purity, white symbolizes death and suffering, it is common at funerals.
It is now time for breakfast. I will have to take "
yan wo
", an expensive traditional Chinese medicine. It is translated in "swallow nest". The drug is a product of dried mucus of birds. Before taking it, you must mix it with hot water. Uuuuhhh!! I can guess that you are thinking what I am thinking, but as the saying goes, "good medicine does not always taste good". It is not cheap to buy either.
Taobao, the most prominent Chinese online auction shop sells five grams for just under one hundred and ninety RMB. That is around twenty-five euros according to the current exchange. What I am not sure about is its curative capability.
From the neighbourhood, I can hear the roar of loud music. In this neighbourhood, everybody knows everybody, where most of the residents are pensioners living amicably and peacefully together. As a child Hong lived here for many years. She is known to everybody here. At breakfast table, we discuss many things. Our conversation is mainly about the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), at Microsoft. He is an Indian. Chinese believe that Indians have conquered Silicon Valley. The way things are unfolding, it is one thing after another. The purchase of nine robot companies by Google, robots and the speed at which they are taking over human resources, and many others. Hong said that soon we are going to see robots cooking, or even taking care of children, we already know that they can do cleaning work. When it came to discussing robots "looking after children", I reserved my words, for fear of being misunderstood by in-laws. They consider grandchildren as unique gifts from God, and therefore their care should not be equated to anything other than the unconditional love of their grandparents.
I was not surprised about how precious, and unique grandparents take their grandchildren to be, because Hong, as a child, was deeply loved by her grandparents. Li Gengnan was in the military according to reliable sources. It was on a one-month leave, when he got married to Wu Meilan who conceived, later giving birth to Hong.
Hong owes her life to the then Chinese party leader Mao Zedong, who stopped the invasion to Taiwan. He called for the end of the war, apparently saving Hong's grandfather from fighting and so he could take care raising Hongś mother.
Li Gengnan had to go to Russian border to prepare for fighting, but this war was stopped as well, shortly before his marriage to Wu Meilan. He was on the border with Russia. They were on the verge of war. To their surprise and relief, the conflict was settled through negotiations, and so the fighting did not take place. The one-child policy in China that prevented Hong from having siblings, is now being swept under the carpet because it is relaxed a little bit. The fact that girls are not necessarily on the procreation wish list is deeply rooted in Chinese culture and tradition. In Germany whereas a woman's name can be assumed as a surname, in China, only men that can use surnames. Traditionally girls have no inheritance rights.
It is boys who get the assets, but the tradition is slowly fading out.
With all this knowledge, I am grateful to my in-laws, for embracing modern efforts to fight for gender equality
On the last day of our holiday, we drove back to Taicang. We stopped at a local bank in Suzhou, to open a fixed-rate deposit account, to transfer my salary from ICBC Bank aiming at earning a reasonable interest rate. Because of the bureaucracy of the Chinese banks, there are several forms I must sign in Chinese language to confirm that I have taken note of the final print. Cash withdrawals from other Chinese banks with foreign names, cannot easily be made from that bank. The machines were designed differenty. It was better to withdrawal cash from the bank next door which were compatible with various features, and then deposit cash in this one.
Oh God! I said to myself, this is too complicated, I remember doing this twenty years ago.
“At that time, online banking was not yet operational. Hasn't the world changed here?”
Hong said that withdrawing cash from one bank and deposit it into another was possible, if it could help you save on transfer cost and avoid bureaucracy. By the time we did all that, it was three o'clock in the afternoon, no bank was open, so I did not have a chance. I thought of using a cash machine, but with ATM, the maximum amount you could withdraw is RMB 20,000, the equivalent of 2,750 Euros, on the exchange rate of the day. So, I rightly abandoned the idea. I then opted to use online money transfer.
The problem is that in China, all online transactions go through the Bank of China in Beijing. Hong looked at me and wondered why I wanted to transfer the money in a hurry.
"Tomorrow is the first official working day after the New Year, what is it that cannot wait till tomorrow?" she asked, shaking her head in disbelief.
It was still cold outside. We had nothing to eat except for the hard Chinese kiwis that were given to us by Hong's parents. We decided to go to a Chinese barbeque restaurant. Such restaurants are often crowded, making it hard to get a place where to seat. We had to wait. I needed to use a toilet, when I went there, I met a man who told me that he had come from Australia, specifically for this Chinese New Year celebrations.
I grabbed a raw fish to put it on the grill plate. As soon as I did that, Hong hurriedly pulled the fish out of my hand; she believes that women were the masters at this work.
