Two Things I Find Liberating About Living in China

1. Making a mess at the dinner table
At all the Chinese restaurants I've been to, it's expected to make a complete mess of the table by the end of the meal.  When you're finished, the waiter comes over and picks up the tablecloth, with all kinds of crap inside, wipes off the table, and puts on a new tablecloth.   Some of the mess is unavoidable, but most could be controlled by Western dining standards.  All the food is placed in the middle of the table, so that everyone shares, and with chopsticks being what they are, sometimes stuff is dropped before it makes it to your bowl.  Also, you don't eat off a big round plate like in the states.  Instead you use a little dessert-sized plate underneath a small rice bowl.  So sometimes stuff is lost to the sides of your dessert plate before it makes it to your mouth.  Chinese food tends to be drenched in some sort of sauce, so splatters and drips are also common.  At the beginning of the meal, your dishware is all wrapped up in plastic, so after you unwrap it there is usually some stray plastic hanging around the table that didn't get picked up.  The teapots ALL have inefficient spouts and pour sporadically - even when the waitress does it - so there are always wet spots on your tablecloth.  Meat in Chinese dishes almost always has bones, which you're supposed to spit out (I can't bring myself to do this and use my chopsticks) onto your little plate or onto the table.  So there are usually bones and meat remnants all over.  Restaurants (unless you're at a fancy place) don't give you a napkin for your lap, but instead have either a roll of toilet paper sitting at the table or a little packet of paper napkins.  Both kinds are thin and get used quickly and end up in bunches on the table.  So you can imagine what the table looks like at the end of a meal, even just with two diners.  In the states, even at fast food joints, you purposely try not to make a mess while you're eating.  Whether you are aware of it or not, you're constantly checking that all your food is on your plate, there's no sauce smear across your cheek, you don't drip the ketchup on the tablecloth.  And if at a slightly-above-average place, you make sure you're using your silverware nicely, and not talking with your mouth full, and when you're done you put your napkin right next to your plate.  If you were on a date you might consciously not order spaghetti, for fear of fork-twirling messiness.  At normal Chinese places there is none of that.  At first the lack of Western politeness habits scared me, naturally.  But now... I think it's so much more comfortable.  It's like playing in the mud when you're a kid.  You know you'll get dirty and you don't care because you're having fun in the meantime.  I dunno.  I think it is freeing to make a mess and not have to feel guilty about it, or think people are judging you, or worry about cleaning up after.
Obviously I see the benefits of our Western practices in this regard.  We're more civilized, by Western standards.  But the Chinese don't use Western standards - they don't use our definition of "civilized" - and I also see the benefits of their methods, in this case.
I was thinking about this because last night me and C had plans to go out to eat, and I wanted to try a new restaurant.  We weren't going to do anything fancy, but I still worried about what to wear, and put on some perfume, and when I got to his room he was also wearing dress pants and his nice shoes.  So we felt very special.  We found the place that one of my friends had recommended, and there were two people waiting at the front doors who said "Good evening, welcome to our restaurant, just two guests?" like we were indeed very special.  And they brought over cold salads, like fancy places do, and a menu with (hilariously whack) English descriptions, and were very friendly and helpful and the food was really really good.  But even at a nicer place like this (although 'nice' wouldn't be the first word that popped into ya'll's head if you saw it, but just trust me)...everyone still eats with the sense of restraint of a three-year-old.  And I like it.   

2. Spending a lot of time speaking in Chingibberlish
I know you all are sick of hearing about this African person I happen to be dating, but he is my best friend here and my experience of China is completely intertwined with my experience of him.  So you'll have to just deal.  So.  Obviously, it's restricting to have to communicate with a language I speak so little of, with such a limited vocabulary.  Furthermore I'm an illiterate Chinese speaker, as pretty much the only characters I recognize are those for "bathroom," "woman," "today," "person," "month," "exit," "the," and "Sun Yat-sen University."  My language skills do limit my opportunities for engagement with the culture, as well as my ability to express and understand ideas with non-English speaking Chinese people.  That said, although it is absolutely easier to communicate with my American friends than it is with Cheikh, at this point, six months in, it is rare for us to have trouble communicating a main idea or feeling.  The verbal language we speak doesn't allow for communication of too many details - we get some details from non-verbal communication - but this is the point.  Ok so wait, this is complicated:
First, I am constantly learning more and more about Chinese as a language.  I've come to believe that one of the main differences between Chinese and English is that Chinese is shorter, with less words, and generally more concise.  Whether this makes it more clear, or less clear, I think is debatable.  Chinese has nowhere near the amount of grammar that English does - in Chinese, I go, you go, he go, it go, I is, you is, we is, she is, they is.  What did you do yesterday? = you yesterday do what? What will you do tomorrow? = you tomorrow do what?  Comparatively, English has all these little stupid words, all these confusing sentence structures, no rules to follow.  When I say something, and C wants to know how to say it in English, I usually struggle to find a way to say it that's easy enough for him to understand.  Like,
Z: Deng yi xia, wo xiang xiang.
C: OK. How say English?
Z: Um...'wait a second, I have to think about it.'
C: What?!?
Z: uhhh...wait, I...uh...'wait a second, I will think.'
C: ...wait second, I ...what?
Z: you can say, 'wait wait, I think.'
C: OK.  wait wait, I think.
Z: good.
The English translation always seems more complicated than its Chinese counterpart.  And I don't think this is something I made up.  The other day my new Chinese tutor was explaining to me that in ancient Chinese, there might be a very long and detailed story told with just one line of characters.  And there was no punctuation - you had to add that yourself.  Like, Chinese favors brevity where English favors countless "to"'s and "the"'s and "for"'s.  Even that sentence I used in that example - How say English?  Now, in context, I'm pretty sure you all had no trouble understanding that in this case, "How say English" means "How do you say that in English?" but what the hell is with all those other little words? 
So, Chinese is already by nature more straightforward than the language I'm writing in.  It's language with less nuance-y details and more specific ways of saying things.  Add to this the pronunciation of tones, and I don't think anyone would argue that there is markedly less freedom in Chinese than in English.  I have felt that all along in terms of pronunciation - I think the reason I have such a knack for speaking, and why I genuinely enjoy speaking in tones, is the same reason I loved my ballet class at Skidmore, and one of the reasons I love playing classical music.  For some reason, working within a very structured system feels good to me.  Being constrained - following set harmonic structures, balancing four independent lines, pointing your toes at just this angle, keeping your torso unnaturally poised, using a predetermined inflection to say every syllable in a phrase - somehow allows me to feel more free. 
But this isn't the point.  So, if Chinese is already more concise than the language I'm used to, the language that me and C use to converse is even more so.  We don't speak Chinese together - we speak Chinese-based syntax-free gibberish with big words like "internet," "government," and "semester," in English.  The language we use takes Chinese, and simplifies it even further, so that we essentially speak in meaning rather than in any particular language.  And why do we need anything more than meaning?  Obviously I know that there is a lot more that goes into modern language than absolute meaning.  Cavemen speak in meaning.  Poets and journalists and Skidmore college students speak in intricacy.  But what I'm saying is, maybe, it feels good to be a cavewoman.  And you don't need anything more than that to relate to or love someone, obviously.  At times when I have a more complicated idea I need to express, or when I have to resort to google translate or a dictionary, then I feel restricted and frustrated.  But most times, when we can have a meaningful conversation using the most rudimentary words and structures, I feel liberated.  At times like that I feel like we are conversing in language free of culture - like a bigger language that is based on meaning that everyone in the world might understand, rather than something particular to a certain people.  And this is refreshing.  Like when I say, "Hey, C, ni yao bu yao wan shang qu...nage...wo bu zhi dao na li ke shi wo men last week qu le, you shu fu de yizi." = Hey, C, you want not want tonight go...that...i don't know where but we last week went, has comfort chairs = Hey, C, tonight do you want to go to that place...I'm can't remember where it is but we went last week, it was the place with comfortable chairs. 
If I said that to a Chinese speaker they would first have to wade through the incorrect sentence structure before they understood the meaning.  Same with an English speaker.  But because the compromise between English, Chinese, and Arabic for us is just meaning, he has no trouble understanding.
Last night, when we were walking back from the restaurant, we had a real conversation about Chinese people.  Here is an approximate literal English translation:
C: They think what? They want what things?
Z: I think they want happy.
C: Every person wants happy.  They only think think this and this *indicates stomach and crotch
Z: True.
C: They have no democracy, but no think that, their brains closed, but no think that, don't have foreigners, don't want to go to other countries, them it doesn't matter.  They are crazy! They are doing what?!
Z: I know but, China very old person.  no no, old country. old country not person.  America has many countries, very open, because America not old.
C: I know but in Mauritania, university people, every time every time, why is this government bad, why is this law bad, this is good, this is not good, etc. etc.  Mauritania people can think!
Z: I understand.  But Mauritania has many French people.  and not too old.  China 2,000 years very closed - 2,000 years! Every year Chinese people marry Chinese people, do not go other countries, China afraid other countries, 2,000 years Chinese people think and live China China China.
C: Right! bad! Why? 1.3 million people think China China China, not good!
Z: 1.3 billion.
C: Right.  What can be done?
Z: Yes, I don't know, you're right, what can be done? 

Funny, at first, but if I forget about how silly it might sound to someone who has never had to converse in an unfamiliar language, it feels so natural.  And also, it's like, taking your brain out of the patterns and structures you're used to and utilizing different pathways.  I mean this is always what learning a new language is about.  Picking up your brain, extracting your thoughts from the thought patterns you're used to using, and setting it back down on top of a different roadmap.  Learning anything new is like this I guess.  Calculus.  Guitar.  I guess it just feels more extreme for me, because I depend on the new roadmap to take me places every single day. 
So although at first it seems like dealing with this situation would prove limiting, but actually I feel like I've gained a whole new manner of expression.  Like now, I have more to work with instead of less.  This has got to be the end of this post.