Geopats Abroad
Join Stephanie Fuccio, a serial expat of 20+ years, to explore nuances of countries and cultures around the world. Through candid conversations with fellow internationals, she explores daily life culture and norms in places where her guests (and herself) are not from in an attempt to understand where they are living and the lovely people around them.
Geopats Abroad
Dog culture and class in China (replay clip)
Evan was expecting cultural differences when he first moved to China in the early 2000's but he wasn't ready for the nuances of dog culture. Here's a clip from our conversation about pet adoptions, status pets and more from 2018, when we both lived in Shanghai, China.
Full episode:
----------------------------------------------
Traveling Mailbox: https://travelingmailbox.com/?ref=3422
Top 3 services that have help me while living in different countries: Affiliate links so I'll get a small commission.
🔥 Traveling Mailbox: scan/forward postal service for Americans. It's saved me time, money and headaches.
https://travelingmailbox.com/?ref=3422
🔥Chase Sapphire Credit Card: annual fee, NO currency conversion fee. Used this in many countries globally.
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/19Q/MDNYO68N38
🔥 Stackry: Shop in the U.S. and have the items shipped internationally.
https://www.stackry.com/register?referral=7118738
--------------------
🤸🏽Music from
Damon Castillo: https://www.damoncastillo.com/
and
Key Frame Audio , https://keyframeaudio.com/
Steph:
There was a sentence that you said about, I think it was about halfway through, the Richard the City, and you were talking about the dog types changing with the wealth quotient of the population. Does that still ring true today in the places that you've been in China?
Evan:
No, actually, not so much. I think the rescue Community has really grown and people, at least in the expat Community, people want rescues. They don't want purebreds. Adopt, don't shop. That's the way.
Steph:
That's a good.
Evan:
That's what we say in America. I think the local Chinese population, they do want the purebred dog and those little Brown man poodles. are very popular because they're well behaved, they're smart, you know, they're pretty, you know, and their nickname in Chinese, not their nickname, but their name in Chinese is Teddy, which sounds like Teddy because they look like teddy bears.
Steph:
Oh, what is Teddy stem or Teddy translate into poodle.
Evan:
Oh, but it's a, it's a, it's. It's a, what's the word? Frenetic. When you translate something like because it.
Steph:
Just sounds like, I don't know the name for that in linguistic terms.
Evan:
I forgot what it is. I've said it like 10 million times. I want to say it's almost a.
Steph:
Lone word, but it's probably... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Evan:
You could say it's a lone word. Yeah. Except Teddy is a poodle. Okay.
Steph:
Because they look like teddy bears.
Evan:
Poodles look like teddy bears? In China they do. Two Chinese people they do.
Steph:
I have to think about that one.
Evan:
Yeah, it's not logical.
Steph:
It's their fur is kind of bunched up like that.
Evan:
Yeah, and the way they get them groomed makes sense.
Steph:
Yeah, okay, that's true. But the general structure of a teddy bear versus a poodle, I mean, just the standing.
Evan:
It's false in translation, for sure. Yeah.
Steph:
Okay, so in English or in Western culture, there's a lot of comparisons. between a dog and its owner and a lot of people say that the two start to look like each other after time.
Evan:
I think so too.
Steph:
Is that, does that hold true over here?
Evan:
Yeah, actually, I've seen, there's a couple women in my neighborhood who have long haired dogs and floppy eared dogs and they have like perm bob, you know? And Chinese people don't have curly hair.
Steph:
Right.
Evan:
Right, so these women have perm hair, it's a bob cut and so they look like they have the dog's ears.
Steph:
That's awesome. It's nice to know similarities of places that seem so different. I don't know, there's something comforting in that that we've put us in some situations.
Evan:
Humans are all the same and all different at the same time, right? All the places I've ever been, I've always realized people just want to smile and a please and a thank you or whatever the equivalent is in that culture. So true. That's how I get around the world.
Steph:
Yeah.
Evan:
Please and thank you.
Steph:
And lots of giggling and making fun of myself and that seems to go over well. Exactly. So 12 years later, what do you think of your own post? What are your reactions to it?
Evan:
I would write it differently as a writer. I would write it differently.
Steph:
Okay.
Evan:
But as content, it's fine. I don't know. There's a couple attempts at comedy that fall flat. Let me think again here.
SPEAKER 3
Yeah.
Evan:
I mean, to judge my own writing from all those years ago.
Steph:
Not just your writing, but the cultural stuff that stuck out to you. Are you surprised by anything that you wrote?
Evan:
No, I think it still holds true culturally, anthropologically. But I think data-wise, I mean, 12 years ago, Shenzhen had 5 million people. Now it has 15 million people, maybe 10, I don't know. But it's a lot more, right? Guangzhou is the same, right? Hong Kong doesn't really grow because it's an island. Yeah. And I'm sure Jiaxing probably has a million people by now.
Steph:
How far is Jiaxing from Shanghai?
Evan:
I would say it's probably 50 miles.
Steph:
Okay.
Evan:
Just about an hour.
Steph:
That's not far at all.
Evan:
No, no. It's like the, it's like the first big city outside of the Shanghai metro area. Like Suzhou is north of the lake or on the lake and Daxing is south of the lake.
Steph:
Oh, okay. That is very close.
Evan:
How did you- Halfway between here and Hangzhou. How did I end up there? Well, when I was an undergrad, I was an Asian studies student and taking Chinese, and I knew that after graduation I wanted to come live in China for a year and then go back to New York and go to a Chinese medicine school.
Steph:
For a year.
Evan:
Have a gap year. And I didn't quite know how to get that all done and stuff. And so one of my Chinese language teachers said that he knew a guy who helps place English teachers. And so he kind of helped me. He found an agency and, you know, just squanchy, just connections. And this agency offered me three jobs. One was in Wen-Jo, which I didn't know anything about, but it's probably five hour train ride away. Well, and the Wen-Jo job was kind of like a kindergarten or an elementary school. And then the second job they offered me was in Hang-Jo, and that was at a technical college.
SPEAKER 3
Oh.
Evan:
And then the third job they offered me was Jiaxing, which is even closer to Shanghai. And it was at a private school.
Steph:
Okay.
Evan:
And I looked at the geography, I looked at the distance, and I was like, well, Shanghai is where I need to be, but I can't get a job there because I don't have any experience. And Jiaxing's just a little bit far away, not that far away. And it's also like a half an hour from the coastline. And here I'm thinking, oh, I can go to the beach in the afternoon. little did I know that there is no beach in China because it's just a rocky coast in water.
Steph:
I've done this in a few countries. Yeah.
Evan:
Okay. So I took joshing because it was a private school, and the name of the school was joshing foreign language school. And it was a boarding school. And I was like, oh, foreign language school. Boarding. The kids are always there. I just have visions of, like, Massachusetts or New Hampshire, you know, some kind of Cambridge kind. thing going on in my head and I get there and I'm the only foreigner.
Steph:
Great. Yeah.
Evan:
They only do English.
SPEAKER 3
Oh.
Evan:
And yeah, it was not very good.
Steph:
No.
SPEAKER 3
Yeah.
Steph:
How strong was your culture shock?
Evan:
It was pretty strong.
Steph:
Pretty strong.
Evan:
Pretty strong.
Steph:
How long do you think the worst part of it lasted?
Evan:
It probably lasted till Chinese New Year. The first month was cool. The first month was cool. I was just kind of get used to it. And then I went to Hong Kong and I wrote this post. and I started, like, just, okay, I'm here. You know, I didn't know about the holidays in China. And so for the October holiday, they told me, oh, you have a week off. I was like, a week off. I'm going to big game. Because I, all my life, I'd been dreaming about seeing the Forbidden City and everything.
Steph:
Yeah.
Evan:
My favorite movie is the Last Emperor by Bernardo Bertolucci. And it was made in 1987, which is the year I graduated high school. So, you know, I think that that's special for some reason, you know, and I just love the movie and everything, and so. I wanted to get to Beijing as soon as I could and see the Forbidden City and the Great Wall and stuff, but I didn't know about October holiday. I didn't know about Ren Shan Ren Hai, people mountain people sea. And so I went to Beijing and I was in Tiananmen Square on October 1st. And I never saw so many people in my life before. And I'm from New York.
Steph:
Oh my God.
Evan:
You know what I mean?
Steph:
Yeah.
Evan:
So I, tried to go through Tiananmen Square to Forbidden City, and I tried, and I was like, this. I. I'm overwhelmed too much.
Steph:
Yeah.
Evan:
So I left because I didn't want my experience to be ruined.
SPEAKER 3
Yeah.
Evan:
And I went back on October 2nd, and it was awesome. I was like, hardly anybody was there. It was great. It was great. And. And then I. came back to, went back to Jiaxing and just started getting into the teaching mode and just trying to figure out how to do it. And I found a gym and make more friends and start playing badminton and that kind of stuff. And then around Thanksgiving, Christmas, couldn't go home cuz Chinese school calendar. And, you know, some days I would be just too tired to go out and try to battle over finding food.
SPEAKER 3
Yeah.
Evan:
You know, even though I spoke a little Chinese, nobody understood me. Yeah. I used to fight with this lady at this one restaurant about spinach.
SPEAKER 3
Yeah.
Steph:
You'd fight over spinach.
Evan:
Like, the pronunciation of spinach. Yeah, the pronunciation of spinach. Oh, yeah. I would go and I would always get spinach, and it's both side. And every time I'd go, I'd ask, can I have the both side? And she'd be like, I don't know what you're talking about. And I'd bring a dictionary, and I'd say both side, and she goes, Bo Tai. And I was like, what's the difference? She's like, you're not saying that right? And I'm like, I'm saying exactly the way you're saying it. And I come here twice a week. Come on, I get the same thing.
Steph:
Every time I come. I lived in Taiwan. I had a, there were tons of street carts everywhere, food carts. And there was a woman who sold only chicken wings. Actually, I think they were drumsticks. Only drumsticks. They were fried, they were beautiful. And it was easy because that's all she sold. So I thought, I learned how to do the numbers on my hands very quickly. although my tones were off when I was trying to say them, I was like, you, Greta, which I still can't even do right. But she only sold one thing, and I'm holding up one, and I'm saying Iga, right? And she's just like, no, same thing. Same exact thing. And I'm like, you sell one thing, I'm holding up the number one. I am one person. This is very easy. Context.
Evan:
Context.
Steph:
Context. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Evan:
But yeah, just the same. My language teacher told me, that because I have a Anglo-Saxon face.
SPEAKER 3
Yeah.
Evan:
Chinese people will forgive me for my tones because they'll be able to. They'll be able to put it into context.
SPEAKER 3
No. No.
Evan:
If I'm trying to say a whole sentence, right. If I'm doing, like, a word, right. Then they'll say, I don't understand. But if I do a whole sentence, then they'll. Then they'll be able to get it.
Steph:
Do you find that that's true?
Evan:
Some people, yes. Some people, no. and another thing that's very telling about coming from America, especially New York, and I hope this doesn't sound the wrong way, but it was just anthropological observations. In New York, different people from different parts of the world, different facial features, different races, they have tend to have different jobs. New York's a very segregated Town.
Steph:
Yep.
Evan:
We all get along unless there's some disagreement. Yeah, but that's usually personal, not racial. But the jobs are very segregated. Right. And so when I came to China, I had a really hard time knowing how to treat people based on their job because they looked like they shouldn't have that job. And then I realized, wow, I really do judge people by their race. And it was a big eye opening experience for myself.
Steph:
Like what?
Evan:
Like, yeah, the woman at the convenience store.
Steph:
Yeah.
Evan:
Very pretty.
Steph:
Yeah.
Evan:
Pretty people like that should be in the magazine or, or, and working at Vogue or something. You know what I mean?
Steph:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Evan:
You know, in America, I don't, I don't want to, it sounds horrible to say it, but, but, you know, if people who are very attractive usually get things in a certain industry or two.
Steph:
Yeah.
Evan:
And people who are not conventionally attractive do other things.
Steph:
A lot of people have covered this, but the difference between what Chinese people deem attractive for their faces versus what Westerners deem attractive does tend to have a difference, too.
Evan:
That's true. Yeah.
Steph:
For me, I had a really hard time, and this will probably sound bad as well, but I had a really hard time telling differences between people because I wasn't used to, although I was in California and I knew tons of Asian Americans and I'd been exposed to Asian culture. I had never been around so many of one type of Asian face that I had a hard time telling people apart. And where I started in Taiwan, the girls, I taught children under 13, and the girls all had the same haircut.
