REDISCOVERING CHINA
A NOVEL IDEA
By Ian Ransom
Swedish native, Catarina Lilliehook, has done what many foreigners dream about: written an acclaimed book about the experience of living in China. The twist ? She wrote it in Chinese, for the Chinese people. Beijing Talk found out what her story is.
For almost all foreigners living in China, at one stage or other, it's bound to happen. Walking through the hutongs, nature calls. The need is strong - urgent, even. You're not concerned about finding an outlet - they're ubiquitous; a wafting stench provides an all-too-clear hint of their location. You duck into one, electing not to breathe through your nostrils, perhaps gritting your teeth in anticipation of the sensual assault that awaits.
And yet, to your surprise, the public conveniences are modern and recently mopped. The sinks have soap and electronic sensors for water flow. The toilets are subdivided, have loo paper, doors that shut, doors that even lock. You exhale - not necessarily in pleasure but something damn close - an occasion such as this is to be savoured.
There's just one thing that's bothering you. It's the person watching you impassively from a squatting position. The person that has no need for doors or locks or other such frivolities when performing digestive necessities. The person that chooses not to be distracted by toilet-wall graffiti, a good novel or a scrap of newspaper in the presence of another. The person that simply stares. Meanwhile, noticeably or not, you squirm...
In "Rediscovering China," Catarina "Cats" Lilliehook's chronological tale of her life in China, the author doesn't shy away from mentioning her classic foreigner's toilet paranoia.
"I describe a lot about going to the toilet because that was my biggest shock when I first came here," she says. "There are no walls, no doors and when there are doors, people often don't use them. Of course, my reasoning was that most people in hutongs never have doors and walls, so it's just natural not to. But then I explain that to a westerner going to the toilet is very private and we would never dream of going if there are no doors or walls!"
Running the gauntlet of Chinese conveniences is well-documented in books by foreigners for foreigners, but Cats' novel is the first that describes to a Chinese audience the mixed feelings of awkwardness, horror and revulsion felt by a typical westerner using a typical public loo.
These and other cultural land-mines involving privacy, space, face and personal questions are all addressed with unfailing candor.
"I don't want to be condemning. It's not about right or wrong, it's just about different ways of thinking. I do bring up the things I find hard to understand."
And how have Chinese people responded to Cats' blunt observations?
"It's done remarkably well. I've had great feedback," she says. " They (the publisher) printed 8000, which I hear is good because I think it's very common that they start with only 3 or 4000." Add TV appearances, magazine and newspaper interviews and countless speaking invitations from universities and corporations - it's quite obvious that Cats' experience has struck a chord amongst local Chinese readers.
Clearly, the trials and tribulations of a western woman grappling with Mandarin and adapting to life in Beijing's hutongs makes for interesting reading. Cat's book starts at day one - arriving at the airport, getting in a cab - and getting ripped off royally. "I was so determined not to be cheated... but..." A smile and a shrug finish her sentence.
Cats' China story is one that many relate to. As a writer in her 30s, Cats suddenly realized she was bored to tears with the lack of challenge and excitement in her home country, Sweden, so she moved to China - "for something new - for the adventure."
She started a Mandarin course at Beijing Foreign Language and Culture University and quickly got frustrated with her language progress in an institution swamped by foreigners. Following a successful application for a scholarship, Cats undertook further studies at Beijing Normal University - a move that proved more fruitful.
"I didn't have any foreign friends - they probably thought I was a big bore. I didn't go to foreign parties, I just met with Chinese friends to talk. I made sure I was in a class with only one other foreigner, so it meant that I had to speak Chinese which was great."
Her husband's eventual transfer to Beijing meant a move from student dorms into comparative luxury in serviced apartments. Nevertheless, after a couple of weeks, the novelty of a swish bathroom and kitchen was all but dead. The couple found an agent who found them a restored courtyard property in the hutongs south-west of the Drum Tower.
"It was a trauma when we first went there because everyone stared - the whole hutong," Cats recalls. "It was a lot of work and I cried in the beginning. Everyone talks about you...it's not like people were mean, but it was just like alienation."
Enduring arguments with her crusty landlord, maintenance issues, rats and a freezing house in winter, Cats would not be deterred. "Apart from the hard work, it was like a fairy tale, especially at night when the moon was out. I'd have to pinch my arm every day...this is my life, I'm living here!"
She slowly began to forge friendships with the surrounding hutong residents. Similar to her bafflement and desire to understand local ways and mindsets, she found her neighbours equally as curious about her and her husband, "foreigners" and "western" ways of thinking.
Like almost every foreigner living in China, she'd toyed with the idea of writing a book about her experiences, but it wasn't until her old Chinese teacher suggested that rather than write a book for foreigners, she should write the book in Chinese for Chinese people.
A casual suggestion led to a tight collaboration between teacher and student. "I wrote directly in Chinese, then my teacher would just correct for me. She knows me very well, my character, my personality." The collaboration led to a book and an approach to a local publisher. Banking on the interest generated by a blonde, blue-eyed Swedish woman's interpretations of China, the publishing house loved the idea and hastily snapped up the rights.
Whilst Cats concedes that the regular embarrassments and hilarities of wrestling with cultural differences in China provides good material, she feels that a large part of her novel's appeal is that it reads like a Chinese book. "I didn't want people to say, oh a foreigner wrote this," she says. "My teacher would read my work and say, okay, I know what you mean but that's like a foreigner writing it. This is how a Chinese would write it."
Despite minor frustrations with local distribution, "Rediscovering China" has created enough of a buzz to attract the attentions of a big publisher back home in Sweden. Cats has been invited to write a similar book, in Swedish, regarding her China experience. She anticipates it will also be translated into English and be broader in scope:
"It's still the same story of how I come here and live in the hutongs and go to university. But it deals with a lot more China issues in general. Where is China now? How is it developing? How is it to do business here, to travel here?...It's much broader."
With several projects in the pipeline, Cats is fortunate to have an excellent environment to write in. Now based in Shanghai, her and her husband occupy a gorgeous apartment - the ground floor of a villa designed by the famous Czech architect, Ladislaus Hudec - a place once known as Amhurst Avenue and home to young Jim in J.G. Ballard's "Empire of the Sun".
Despite the lush tropical garden and the smart art-deco interior, one gets the feeling Cats would happily trade it all for another courtyard pad in the hutongs.
"I like Beijing a lot more. It's developing very fast, but it's still full of culture... Shanghai is modern, it's business, its thriving... the whole feeling of the city is more shallow. You have to dig to find culture. Here, I feel you can find it anywhere."
Choking on a rare feeling of civic pride, I ask her how her novel ends. "In the end, I talk about happiness," she says. Like a true Chinese, she uses a proverb:
"In the book, I talk about feeling as though I'm the odd camel and the Chinese are the mountain sheep because they really just run everywhere, no matter how difficult the terrain is. Me, I feel like I'm lost and slouching around. But in the end, I say that maybe there are a lot of odd camels out there... wanting to come to China. We're slow and not steady but we really have to be here and we're learning... For me, happiness is in China. I never get bored here. There's so much to do, so many differences. That's how I feel, and that's how I end the book."