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U.S. Foreign Service Officer headed to Wuhan, China

The mission of a U.S. diplomat in the Foreign Service is to promote peace, support prosperity, and protect American citizens while advancing the interests of the U.S. abroad. The work that diplomats do has an impact on the world as they serve at one of any of the more than 270 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions in The Americas, Africa, Europe and Eurasia, East Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia.

The duties of a Consular Officer include to provide emergency and non-emergency services to American citizens and protect our borders through the proper adjudication of visas to foreign nationals and passports to American citizens. We adjudicate immigrant and non-immigrant visas, facilitate adoptions, help evacuate Americans, combat fraud, and fight human trafficking. Consular Officers touch people’s lives in important ways, often reassuring families in crisis. They face many situations which require quick thinking under stress and develop and use a wide range of skills, from managing resources and conducting public outreach to assisting Americans in distress.

Some curious habits of the Chinese

Lately, every time something about Chinese culture catches my eye or makes me wonder I write it down. Here are a few of my random notes from the past two weeks:

Many Chinese use a straw to eat/drink yogurt. In fact, in the Chinese language, the word "drink" is used to talk about consuming yogurt. For example, "Did you drink some yogurt today?" When you buy little cups of yogurt at the supermarket they all come with individual straws. This makes sense because Chinese yogurt is very runny and is pretty much like flavored milk.

It's common to use an umbrella when it's raining as well as when it is sunny out. This is because white skin is highly sought after and the market for whitening lotions and bleaching creams is booming. On sunny days sometimes it seems like there are more umbrellas out than if it were raining.

Even if it is sunny and kind of warm out, many Chinese people are shocked if I am in short sleeves or shorts. The difference in our opinion of the weather/temperature is pretty big. A warm day for me is not a warm day for a lot of Chinese people. Just the other day I was in a tank top and a skirt and I met a friend in the office who was wearing long pants and a sweater. She was surprised to see me in summer clothes and concerned until I showed her that I was already sweating. What often happens is that they want to feel my hands or arms to make sure that I am really warm. It's hilarious. When I walked in to work the other day in summer clothes eating an ice cream cone the employees were extremely alarmed and told me that if I dress like this and eat too many cold things I will get sick (I didn't).

On a related note, babies and small children are often bundled up in clothes to the point of heatstroke. It is not uncommon to see little kids toddling around in winter clothes when it is seventy degrees out. They look like little marshmallows roasting in the sun. Maybe it's just extra cushion if they fall? In any case, their little cheeks are always red and their little faces sweaty.

An interesting but common question that Chinese people ask each other is "How much can you drink?" I have been asked this quite a lot and I think it means how many bottles of beer you can hold until you are drunk. Sean gets asked this all of the time and it's funny because everybody has a specific and personal answer ready when you fire the same question back at them, i.e. "I can drink 5 bottles."

It's pineapple season which means that there are loads of street vendors selling fresh pineapple on sticks to passing students. Qin Chen bought some the other day and served me some at home. I was shocked to discover that she had cleaned and rinsed it off with salt water. Thus we snacked on salty pineapple which really wasn't that tasty in my opinion. Qin Chen said that eating pineapple with salt is very common and helps to combat the strong sweet/sour taste. She said, "What, don't you eat pineapple this way?"

I noticed something else kind of interesting about my Chinese roommate. Whenever she uses the microwave in our kitchen she presses the Start button and then dashes out of the room. When I asked her what was going on she said that being near the microwave while it is on is very unhealthy. While she is probably right that standing next to the microwave isn't great for you, I never knew it required such drastic and evasive action.

Since the weather has been very hot out lately, I have been walking around in bare feet in side my house. Every time she sees do this my roommate scolds me. Apparently, bare feet is a recipe for disaster and is extremely unhealthy. According to a lot of my students, it disrupts your bodily energy or chi. Similarly, women who wear flats or heels will always wear some kind of stocking with them. It's very common to see women in skirts or shorts wearing flats with an ankle-length nylon stocking in the summer.

There's not really a recycling program per se here in Changzhou. But if you want to get rid of your cardboard, glass, plastic or aluminum, all you have to do is wait for the noise of a stick banging on a metal pan which announces the arrival of a man driving a small motorized cart who will buy your materials and haul it away. This metal banging can be heard a long ways off and there are many independent collectors who drive around all day and pick up stuff.

Similarly, the noise of firecrackers is always heard. It is not uncommon to hear firecrackers going off in the wee hours of the morning on a normal day. Perhaps the family wanted to celebrate a new job or the birth of a new baby. You can buy firecrackers cheaply and easily in any store.

The Chinese are pretty superstitious about a lot of things, one of them being numbers. The numbers 6 and 8 are lucky while 4 and 7 are not. This is because the sound of the numbers in Chinese is similar to good or bad things. For example, when my students asked me when I was getting married, I told them that I was getting married on August 11 (8/11). They immediately wanted to know why I didn't choose August 8 (8/8) - a much more auspicious date on which to be married (duh).

That's all I have on my list so far. It's hard to believe that we will be going home in about two months. I'm trying to soak up all the peculiarities and hilarities of China before I run out of time.
Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Sarah Sanderson edit post

1 Comment

  1. Ken F on May 3, 2011 at 11:38 PM

    Drinking yogurt in a straw is an incredibly pleasurable experience, especially if you buy the wide straws so you can suck up the peach chunks.
    I saw similar attitudes towards bare feet in Spain-some equally unreasonable story about spirits or something. I've seen plausible information that Asians don't sweat as much as whites-which can explain the summer clothes thing. The baby thing is redonculous. Costa Ricans do the same thing with fruit and salt-fruit that isn't even that sweet or sour. But, love the list. Tell Qin Chen to read this: http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/phys_agents/microwave_ovens.html

     


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    I am currently in Mandarin language training as a new diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service. Sean and I depart for Wuhan, China in November 2019 for my first tour in consular affairs.
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