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Ralph Jennings, 50 Useful Tips on China, from a Guy Who ALMOST Got It, Earnshaw Books, 2024. 260 pgs.
Ralph Jennings is a seasoned journalist who has spent the last couple of decades in China and Taiwan. He now calls Hong Kong home, where he writes for the South China Morning Post. He has raised two daughters in Asia, and he ran an advice column in China Daily while living in Beijing. Itโs from this experience that heโs penned his new book, 50 Useful Tips on China, from a Guy Who ALMOST Got It. It might be tempting to think that foreigners who have also lived in China donโt need a book like this, but after reading it I feel that it will resonate with anyone who travels internationally, who is an expat, or who lives or works among people from different cultures.
Rather than giving us simply a book of tips, Jennings incorporates personal experience and many examples from his China Daily advice columns. He stresses that he doesnโt set out to generalise, which is impossible because each province, each county, and each city, town or village in China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong is different and has its own culture.
Like all countries that have experienced extremely rapid increases of growth in a short amount of time, no matter how comfortable one may live now, there is always going to be insecurity about food, money, and jobs. Weโve seen this in the United States with people who grew up during the Depression and those in Europe who grew up during the Second World War. And now with middle-aged people in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, the scarcity of resources going back a hundred years sometimes still resonates today and affects the way they view the education of their children and the professions the children choose. In other words, people are more likely to push their kids into either achieving high levels of education or they will put their own jobs first, even if it means leaving their families to move to another city or country, to support the family. It could take another generation or two before this insecurity wanes.
Food plays into much of Chinese culture, from the way people interact with friends and the way they celebrate holidays. Jennings also understands the levels of respect that are part of Chinese culture, going back to Confucius. Iโve certainly had my own instances of not knowing what to do in social situations when Iโve been invited to dinner in Hong Kong.
One example I havenโt forgotten in almost 35 years is when my host family during my exchange year in Hong Kong invited my dad and me out to dinner when we were passing back through the city a month or two after the academic year had ended. I thought that since my host family initiated the invitation there was an expectation that they would pay the bill. I also felt mindful about not making them lose face and thought I could damage our friendship if I told my dad to insist on paying the bill. I really had no idea what to do, so when the dinner was over, I thanked my host family profusely after they reached for the bill. But was that really the right thing to do? Should my dad have taken the bill and insisted he pay, battling like I would with friends a few years later when I moved back to Hong Kong? Jennings answered this decades-old question in his book, and I feel like I can rest a little better now!
Those with higher status should feel an obligation at the dinner table toward those without status, so they pay the bill. Equals at the table seek harmony. The codes give everyone there a sense of safety and predictability that can be hard to find in an otherwise opaque, hyper-competitive modern China.
I also found further confirmation in a quiz question at the end of the book. By the time the reader is finished with the book, the answers should all be pretty easy to figure out. This one also made me feel better.
A Chinese colleague invites you to dinner at a ritzy restaurant. He does all the ordering, places food on your plate, buys more beer than you can handle and tries to pay. What to do?
- Stop eating so your plate stays full and canโt be stacked higher, send some of the unopened beers back and insist on splitting the bill. Letโs just chat, you say.
- Compete to fill his plate, out-drink him and pay the bill before he does.
- Realize the colleague is being a typical Chinese host and would be offended if you resisted his food, drink and largesse. Treat him at a future meal.
I also enjoyed the part about public and private space that Jennings writes about at the beginning of the book. He cites his advice column and a university student who wrote in about the noise and light in her dorm room, even late at night. I could relate to that, too! I used to be a light sleeper, but my years living in Hong Kong dorms turned me into someone who slept much more soundly. The student who wrote to Jennings asked what she could do to make her roommates not talk so loudly late at night. There wasnโt really anything she could do. They outnumbered her.
I learned from Jennings about Chinese cooking methods and hadnโt heard these stories before. He writes about going on a food tour and meeting a hotelier in Taiwan, who explained why Chinese food is usually diced and sautรฉed, and served in sauces.
Chinese food, whether in China or out in the diaspora, is almost always well done and inundated in heavy sauces because people would once eat that was half rotten, though still not at the disease-carrying stage. And it would taste half rotten if cooked medium-rare without a sauceโฆthe same went for soggy tomatoes and soft, waggly carrots. For those reasons, family chefs would cook everything to the point of super-well-done to rid it of any toxins and soak it in sweet, sour, salty or spicy sauces.ย
Jennings has a deep understanding of the cultural differences, both large and small, that heโs experienced in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong over the last couple of decades. As the world becomes more connected, itโs always a good thing to make an effort to understand one another, no matter how much we think we already know. ย
How to cite:ย Blumberg-Kason, Susan. โResonating with Anyone Who Travels Internationally: Ralph Jenningsโs 50 Useful Tips on China.โย Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 12 Jul. 2024,ย chajournal.blog/2024/07/12/useful-tips.
Susan Blumberg-Kasonย is the author ofย Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair With China Gone Wrong.ย Her writing has also appeared in theย Los Angeles Review of Booksโ China Blog,ย Asian Jewish Life, and several Hong Kong anthologies. She received an MPhil in Government and Public Administration from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Blumberg-Kason now lives in Chicago and spends her free time volunteering with senior citizens in Chinatown. (Photo credit: Annette Patko) [Susan Blumberg-Kason andย ChaJournal.]