#8 - china

Group shot before Departure!

In September 2012, I traveled to China with the Goh Ballet for a five city tour including Beijing where we performed a contemporary ballet work of mine, Composition in Rouge along with Giselle and some other works.  It was the experience of a lifetime and gave me many new perspectives I had not anticipated would have such a profound impact on me.

Traveling through China made me highly aware of the British influence in Canada.  You know how sometimes in life, what you know is all you know so you almost don't consider things could be different until you find yourself in a country where things do operate drastically differently from what you are used to?  I had my assumptions about China, especially about the level of structure and rules I thought day to day life would be influenced by due to it being a communist country.  Turns out my assumptions were quite wrong.

So lets start with the driving.  In China, your horn is used to communicate, if you want to turn left into three lanes of oncoming highway traffic, you do it, and then the cars that were forced to stop by your interrupting left turn, honk at you to let you know that they aren't happy about it, and you honk back to let them know that you want to get through, incase they weren't sure by your left hand turn in the first place.  And so what ensues is a chorus of honking and bumper to bumper action until you finally fight your way through the three lanes.  In Canada, you have a lane on a highway clearly outlined by white or yellow paint and you stay in it, in fact you don't even think to leave it without first asking your neighbouring cars around you by flashing your signal. Once you are sure that everyone around you has seen your request, you then make your move.  And when someone comes over into your lane without asking you make sure to let them know that they cut out side of their line by honking at them.

In a hotel I actually got stuck not making it off the elevator because I waited for people to let me off at the bottom floor, where in China you push your way on and off, you don't wait for people to let you off.  Of course my judgments came in again that this was rude behaviour and that people should learn to be more polite. And then I stopped and thought, well how and when did I learn to wait for people when the elevator arrived?  In one hotel I saw this little kid with his parents waiting for the elevator. He was excited beyond belief and as soon as the elevator came he ran on, pushing right into the group of people who were getting off.  It made me realize that at some point growing up, I was that excited little kid waiting for an elevator with my parents and when the elevator came I likely tried to run right on and my mom or dad pulled me back and said, "no, you have to wait for others to get off first."

With taking out right or wrong and what should and shouldn't be, I realized the structure and politeness we live by in Canada and that I judged a country for being rude because they didn't ask to do things first.  But in reality, I just grew up in a country with a different set of rules.

Visit to the Birds Nest, the Olympic Stadium in Beijing.

Now lets talk food.  We were served some of the most intricate and unusual meals I have ever seen.  Starfish at the bottom of a beautiful soup that you cut up with your chopsticks, deep fried baby birds, full fish in the middle of the table and more.  Our hosts in one city taught me that they eat food that looks like its original form (ie. a full fish on the table, chicken heads etc.) because its their way of honouring the animal that they are eating.  Here I was squeeming at the dinner table when I had literally never thought that this way of presenting food was a part of their culture out of respect for animals.  It also made me realize how much we mask our food from its original form in North America.  What we eat looks nothing like what it came from. We even dress it up to make it look all fancy and very far from its original form.

While we're on the topic of food, in China they don't differentiate between meals. What you eat for dinner is very often what you eat for breakfast, whether it be rice and vegetables or vegetables and noodles.  This for me was one of the toughest things to get used to, I mean lunch/dinner are somewhat interchangeable meals but I didn't realize how much I was used to eating food that tasted completely different for breakfast and how much I disliked waking up and eating the same thing I had just eaten the night before.  That was something I never got used to.

And now for the arts and culture part...We performed in some of the most exquisite theatres I have ever seen. Actually some of them were more like Opera houses with intricate golden decor and stunning architecture.  I will never forget the grandness of those stages and how amazing it felt.  Performing for new audiences was quite an experience too.  We learnt very quickly that if the audience talked through your performance it meant that they were enjoying themselves and that it was also culturally acceptable to walk up to the front of the stage and take photos during the performance!  On top of that we had to cut most of the bows because the audience leaves the theatre as soon as the show is done, no one likes to stay around and clap for three or four curtain calls, they just get on with their night!

Although these things can seem shocking compared to the theatre culture I am acquainted to, I actually find it quite fascinating to understand that people express their interest for art in different ways and that there is no one right way to do things but rather a myriad of options available to us in the world if we'll only open ourselves up a little bit to something new.

Dress rehearsal in China.