Thursday, May 22, 2008

Reverse Culture Shock

Jason and I had a big case of reverse culture shock today. Former and current expat readers won’t be surprised at all, but others of you might find it odd that our culture shock happened at, of all places, IKEA. (We went to buy JR a bed frame as the babies are taking over his old room.) Now, what could possibly happen out of the ordinary at IKEA? That’s the problem; nothing happened. It was totally boring. Just a typical, ordinary, non eventful trip to IKEA. That’s where the reverse culture shock comes in.
A trip to IKEA in Beijing was anything but normal. The first time I went I tried to go shopping just like I would have here in Houston. I had the driver drop me off at the door, (okay that part is different than Houston) loaded JR up in the stroller, and in I went. It was winter so I was wearing a coat, a sweater, and a short sleeve t-shirt underneath my sweater. JR was still a baby then, so it was just easiest to dress him in a fleece, pajama type onesie with feet. The only part of JR’s skin that was showing was his head and his hands. I thought this was fine, especially since I walked in the store and thought I was sunning myself on the equator. The heat was cranked up so high that I immediately pulled off all my layers until I was only wearing my t-shirt and jeans. Immediately I was bombarded was Chinese women touching JR, shaking their fingers in my face, offering me their own coats, and rubbing JR’s hands in theirs like they might save the poor child from frost bite. Of course I’m trying to show them the sweater I have tied around my waist, the coat I’m carrying in my arm, and the beads of sweat running down my forehead. Since I was still new to the country I was still under the impression that if I screamed “It’s okay, I’m hot!” loud enough, they might understand me. But no, nobody understood my English no matter how loud I got. And I had yet to lean the all important Chinese law that states, “If it’s winter, it is cold. No matter what, you must wear 10 layers of clothing. Period.” My next winter trip to IKEA (yes, a summer trip is quite different, we’ll get to that) I had my army of helpers with me. I was ready. I brought JR’s Ayi along to run defense against the other Chinese women. I’m pretty sure she was telling them, “I know, the white American woman is crazy. She won’t dress the baby in enough layers, but don’t worry, I’m taking good care of him. I can’t vouch for what she’s doing to him when I’m not around, but I’m working really hard on making him think he’s Chinese.” Whatever she was telling them, at least they were leaving me alone. I also had our driver come in with us. His main job was to scream loudly at the IKEA employees to follow us around, carry things, and get things off high shelves.
So what was a summer trip to IKEA like? So entertaining. As hot as it was in the winter, it was that cold in the summer. So what does that mean for Chinese people who have no air-conditioning? (which was pretty much the whole city of 16 million people) Go hang out at IKEA. There was not one couch, bed, or chair that wasn’t taken. Whole families would be laying on the beds taking a nap. A couch would be filled with old men reading the paper. Chairs would have kids eating ice-cream cones on them (the ice-cream at IKEA was 1 RMB, that’s 12 cents for us). Jason and I used to laugh that if you wanted to buy a couch you’d have to ask 5 people to move so you could try it out. Supposedly this is pretty common throughout Asia, one of my friends that lived in Indonesia said that people would spend all afternoon reading a book at Borders, dog-ear the page, and put it back on the shelf for later!
Unfortunately, there wasn’t one person doing anything but shopping today. Ah, the good old days, when a trip to IKEA was fun and exciting.

2 comments:

Kristi said...

I LOVE Ikea!
Funny story!!!

Anonymous said...

Macy's needs to take a hint from the Chinese IKEA. I was there today and it was SO HOT! I think they've turned the AC off at the Macy's in the Woodlands Mall. M R