Welcome to your Chinese apartment

My apartment, in China, is probably a bit different from yours in the US. 

Are you ready for the tour? 

It’s a decent place with a lot of ‘character.’

Please turn left off the crazed Wudaokou main drag onto the Geography University Campus. It will look like a little community and is a respite of quieter tree filled streets- complete with hole-in-wall convenience shops, restaurants, alleyway stalls, high rise apartment buildings and lots of families among the students.

Park your bike in the shed amongst 200 other cycles and the jolly old men playing Ma Jong at the end of the row.

You spot the adjacent building and its squat doorway, but hesitate to go in as the unfinished concrete, low-ceilinged entry looks like it was abandoned long ago. Fear not! Cross the threshold with a firm stomp and the low lights will illuminate.

                 

 

As you climb the stairs black and red stamped numbers crowd the concrete walls and make you feel nervous. Far from their imposing appearance, this ink advertises various companies who can do service work on your apartment unit- ostensibly free advertising on what you thought was your personal space. 

You’ve reached the 3^rd floor and thus arrived at our unmarked apartment on the right. Notice, the key inserts into the lock sideways- how neat. Welcome home! First order of business, always, is to leave your shoes by the door- most likely on the elaborate shoe rack. Slip on your cheap plastic house slippers instead- you don’t want to trek any of the omnipresent Beijing dust into your safe haven. Now hit the lights- but wait a minute, there are no light switches in any of the rooms! You finally discover that the long colored lanyards hanging from the ceiling near each of the doors will do the trick.

Head to the narrow kitchen with the luscious fruit (mini pears, ground cherries, dragon fruit & watermelon) you purchased from the smiley stall owner down the street who asked to learn prices in English but was to adorably baffled to repeat the price back to you. Reach past the imposing cast iron wok, large cleaver knife and broken battery-powered stove to grab your specialty fruit soap- crop pesticides here are that prevalent and harmful. While in the kitchen, don’t worry about recycling your plastic water bottle. Someone will dig through your trash later when you deposit it into the receptacle- brilliantly welded onto the back of a bike- and return your plastic for petty cash.

Now take a stroll to the indoor porch area to check on your laundry. Push past the assortment of old dusty furniture and trash items your landlord has left behind to feel the dampness of your hanging clothes. Warm sun happily streams in through the pane-less window, and as you glance outside you spot a wily vine with a pretty looking squash growing on your neighbors shed roof below you.

 Back inside you plug your computer adaptor into the only outlet in the entire bedroom- most conveniently located 4 feet above the head of your bed. You gaze at the magnificent posters of Las Vegas style fruit cocktails and sepia toned forest scenes that grace your walls.  If you need to, take a trip to the bathroom- but don’t put any of the toilet paper in the toilet!  Reminisce about how nice it was when intense construction drilling downstairs and 1.3 billion people honking their horns woke you up at 7am this morning.

Now that you are at home you are pretty content. Beyond your front door it might resemble a squatter’s temporary residence, but inside your apartment the walls are white, your floors are (mock) wood, the whole place is clean and the lighting is decent. Besides, both bedrooms are actually pretty spacious, and you are paying ½ the price your sucker friends in New York are forking over for a place not as comfortable.  It feels like home and you are actually very happy to be there. The best part is that you live with your best friend from Vassar, Julia! And she has put an adorable sign on your door that says “Roomie/Bestie” so everyone knows this is the happy home of two good friends.

The Naming Ceremony

I have successfully arrived in China, surpassed jet lag and started to make Chinese friends. Unfortunately no one knows what to call me. I need a Chinese identity! Taking on a Chinese name as a foreigner is very common and an almost necessary practice- no Chinese will remember your strange and ridiculous western name. Additionally introducing yourself by a Chinese name shows that you are making an effort, and locals will really appreciate it.

Unlike western names, Chinese names are constructed in a different order- last, middle, first- and with an emphasis desirable personal values and qualities such as elegance, hard work, and beauty instead of just attractive sounds- like the names Zan or Julia. If you are a foreigner, receiving a Chinese name is a special privilege that is often facilitated by a close Chinese friend or language teacher. Your western name will be evaluated according to its sounds and meaning so that your new Chinese name may resemble your western one- yet often with a twist- you can ask your teacher/friend to update the content of your name to express traits you admire such as intelligence, speed, loyalty, grace.

My own (impromptu) naming ceremony took place during recent trip with Julia’s language school to the 13 Ming Dynasty Tombs outside of Beijing. As the group meandered through shady courtyards, beautifully restored ceremonial halls and of course the mausoleums, Julia’s friends realized I was nameless. Shocked, they quickly ushered the language teachers in my direction. 

Giddy to have yet another befuddled American to brand with a Chinese identity, the teachers asked about my name and its meaning. I told them that ‘Zan’ in Urdu means ‘woman’ (after further research I don’t think this definition is not true- oops!). The teachers thought about my statement and spent a few long moments being confused, but then began hysterically laughing at me. Apparently they thought I had translated ‘Zan’ into Chinese, but what I had said made no sense. In Chinese the word pronounced ‘women’ 我们 means ‘us’ and therefore I was telling them that my name meant ‘us’-  which seemed incoherent and bizarre. Awkwardly we moved on to my formal name, Alessandra, for inspiration instead. After some deliberation and sly glances the teachers honored me with my very own Chinese name- too bad I cant remember how to pronounce it ! Here it is:

司爱娴

Pinyin:

sī àixián

(Pinyin is the Romanization of Chinese characters)

Pronunciation:

sī  as in the ‘si’ of sir

ài as in “I”

xián as in “shii-en”

(my personal phonetic interpretation)

Meaning:

sī means ‘to take charge of’ or ‘to manage’

ài means ‘love’

xián means ‘elegant’ and ‘refined’

Order:

sī is my surname and resembles my English last name Schmidt

àixián is my first name and resembles my English first name Alessandra

As you can see, my Chinese name was created to loosely allude to sounds of my American name but is also considered to be a good name because it represents personal qualities that have positive connotations in Chinese culture. In contrast to Western names, which are often pretty straightforward and meaningless, my Chinese name seems a bit over the top and romantic. But here in China it is a very attractive and desirable combination. 
Hey, I’ll take it! 
So now it’s official, you may call me 司爱娴 。