In December
I made my first ever trip to the Far East. I’d been invited to talk about
children’s books to some academics in Taiwan, but it was a wonderful
opportunity to see the country, eat the food, and of course meet some of the
Taiwanese people – mostly students (see above) and lecturers. I was there for
less than a week, but I had a great time, and would love to return. (Yes, that’s
a hint.)
As well as
two suitcases my luggage of course included a plentiful supply of English self-consciousness
and pre-emptive guilt. This began, as so often, with the question of language.
It happens that I’ve been learning Japanese for a while, so I was able to guess
at the meaning of some of the Chinese characters (which are largely the same in
both languages), but my spoken Chinese was limited to a very few words I’d hastily mugged up from a phrasebook. No one seemed to mind, and it was no practical
impediment to getting around (these days, the world comes with English
subtitles), but it felt a bit pathetic.
Language
guilt was just the tip of the iceberg, though. I also noticed myself
continually pinging between two attitudes, both of which I wished to avoid. How
could I simultaneously refrain from a) seeing everything in Taiwan in Western
terms, and b) focusing too exclusively on the differences? How could I steer
between the Scylla of orientalism and the Charybdis of appropriation,
while still entering fully into an appreciation
of what I was seeing?
I soon
decided I was worrying too much, and that not quite understanding what I was seeing or immediately knowing how to process it was a valuable part of the experience, as well as an inevitable one. Why was it,
for instance, that in Taiwan (a country in which Christians make up less than
5% of the population) Christmas decorations and music were far more in evidence
than they had been back in Bristol? I didn’t know – but I could admire these life-sized cardboard cut-outs of the nativity, especially the psyched expression on the
Virgin Mary’s face.Why did approximately one in ten Taiwanese (especially young women) wear surgical masks – even in lectures? Was it to do with pollution? A fear of spreading germs? A measure against the unseasonably cold weather? Modesty? In the end I stopped asking. And what is the appeal of the Bunny King, skull-wielding Lord of Nature, whose mount is a
farting pig? I don’t know the answer, but I bought the mug.
The wish to remedy ignorance is laudable, but sometimes it’s
salutary to embrace one’s own lack of understanding. It can sharpen the senses
and the observation – just as a piqued appetite is more discerning than a sated
one. “Children are used to not knowing,” Diana Wynne Jones once told me –
explaining that this was what made them more observant readers of her books than adults, many of whom had let their curiosity slacken and their stamina
wane through surrounding themselves with people and ideas they understood and were comfortable with. It’s good training for writers, too, whose job is in large part one of making
the world strange and new by catching it at unexpected angles.
The trick, of course, is not to make ignorance one’s goal. But as long as I’m uncomfortable, I can relax.
The trick, of course, is not to make ignorance one’s goal. But as long as I’m uncomfortable, I can relax.
4 comments:
An exceedingly good point! May you continue to be uncomfortable in this fine way!
'making the world strange and new by catching it at unexpected angles' ... that's brilliant Cathy! I've never been to Taiwan but having experienced a few hospitals with an iill friend in remote villages in mainland China, I began to feel the world as very strange and new!
I've felt something similar in France, of all places. I was staying with a French family, and listening to them converse, catching only a phrase here and there, and wondering what they were saying, I began to feel just like a child, constantly puzzled about what the "grown-ups" were on about (while mainly thinking about the next nice thing to eat).
Emma, I used to have French in-laws and had a similar experience (my French is poor), especially when they'd switch from English to French halfway through a conversation!
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