A Loss of Face

Friday afternoon Drew's college threw a welcome party for the international students. It was a hyped-up, loud conglomeration of performances, emceed by a pretty Chinese girl in red and a suave Chinese man whose styled hair looked more put together than most of the girls in the room.

Performances included traditional Chinese music and dance, martial arts (actually very cool -- one guy was doing flips), audience-participation games, and a Russian belly dancer.

Titus and I went down to participate in a balloon race. The girl emcee started speaking to me in Chinese...I had no clue what she was saying...so with an embarrassed red face I sat back down. 

I lost face. She lost face.

I thought she might have been saying that the game was dangerous for a baby, but actually she was telling me to wait until the next round. A bit later the girl then asked me to come back up, but Titus was fussing and I was frustrated so I tried to kindly decline, though my frustration was undoubtedly displayed for all to see. The emcees, left in an awkward position, made up some excuse "if the balloon pops it might scare the baby". At the time I didn't understand what was going on -- my teammate filled me in later.

She lost face again.

The party was dragging on, the room was hot, Titus was hungry -- so after a few more minutes Drew and I left, trying to look as though nothing was the matter.

She lost face again. The administration lost face.

Later that afternoon, one of the administrators, called Drew on his cell phone to ask if I was upset. She said that the emcee girl was very sorry, and that I should come by their offices next week to play some games. She was trying to rebuild face! So next week I shall go to see her and say "It was nothing! No problem! Don't worry about it!" And smile. And offer for them to hold my baby. And compliment them.

This is the expected and culturally appropriate means of restoring face and ensuring that the relationship has not been hurt.  

Maybe someday I'll get this Chinese culture thing down -- and aarrrggg -- maybe soon I'll begin to understand more Chinese language.

- Rachel

p.s. Here's some pictures from the party. Although leaving early might have caused some to wonder if I was upset, it at least caused us to miss the belly dancer performance, which we heard was completely awkward.