Caught Between Two Cultures – My Story, My Dilemma

So I’ve put myself in a dilemma here in Chile.

Last weekend, my Chinese friend Fang called me on the phone asking my help to look for people to work in her hotel. You see, she just fired her receptionist because she caught him stealing cash from the till.

She needed someone asap to man the front desk from 12 midnight to 9 am for $18. Who wants to work for that kind of money in those insane hours?

Apparently, a lot of Chileans.

Almost cements the culture stereotype Chinese are cheap.

So I said I’d help her and asked my host family’s housekeeper if she knew anyone. She said her friend in Valparaiso needed work desperately. So I waited to see if the housekeeper would contact her.

She didn’t. Instead she calmly went back to ironing our clothes.

Uh- what part of ‘urgent’ did she understand? Perhaps my Spanish wasn’t good but necesita and importante should ring bells, right?

I found Chileans are big fans of I’ll-do-it-later. Their heritage from Spain.

My host brother once told me he needed work so I gave him a number to call.

The next day I asked, “Did you hear back?”

“I’m going to do it.”

Two days later. “Did you call them?”

“Nope. Not yet.”

At that point, I simply gave up. No way was he going to call. I gave the housekeeper my phone so she can call her friend and practically wrestled the ironing board away from her. Finally, we secured an appointment for her friend to go to Fang’s hotel.

Today I was surprised the housekeeper raged at me. “Muy feo  [gun fire rapid Spanish I didn’t undertand) tu amiga!” I think it meant my friend was a bitch.

So later I got the story from Fang that the houseekeper’s friend did show up. Except what we didn’t know that the friend was really short.

Like extremely short. You can guess the non-PC term.

It’s bad. Should I have asked what her friend looked like? Uh I’m sorry- I don’t think my friend could hire people with height problems or with missing arms and legs? And the housekeeper shouldn’t have to tell me either. “Uh- one tiny thing…”

That would be completely wrong and I’d look like a total dick. I can’t ask that and I shouldn’t.  But I know the exact words Fang thought when she saw her.

Oh hell no.

And she shoed her away.

In other cultures, that would be totally and outrageously rude. And rightly so. Not to the Chinese.

See, I’ve lived there for 5 years. To be rude is being polite in China. If my Canadian friend had been spit upon in the bus. If someone threw a glass of water at my Navajo friend’s face. If someone beat up my Kiwi friend just because he had a Chinese girlfriend. If people stepped all over me in the train station just because I tripped and couldn’t get up fast enough… What’s to stop Fang from just telling her to go?

This is why you wouldn’t see people with disabilities in public in China. They are probably locked up in some mental ward by the government. You know what they did during the Olympics. Beggars in the streets of Beijing just magically disappeared overnight.

This was the English translation in one of the public bathrooms in the Chengdu airport in Szechuan province.

Now our housekeeper probably thinks I’m crazy for still wanting to be friends with Fang. But I couldn’t explain that it’s cultural. For all their rough rude spots, they also have their moments of kindness. Like I do remember getting lost in the train station in Guangzhou and this guy just helped me buy a ticket and even alerted the guard to ensure I get on the right train. Or my friend Mike surprising my mom with a big bouquet of flowers when she arrived in China. I told my friend Champion I didn’t have breakfast and he suddenly showed up with a bag of fruits at my doorstep. My student surprising me with a long scarf for Christmas. Fang would invite me to have Chinese food at her hotel after I kept groaning how I miss shao kao (street food), sio mai and fried noodles.

So not all that bad. You just have to take them with a grain of salt.

The cultures of Chinese and Chilean are cultures that couldn’t be more distinctly different from each other. When the Chinese go to bed at 11, the Chileans wake up ready to party. When Chileans finally go to bed at 6, the Chinese are up and awake ready to start the day with some ping pong and noodle soup. No wonder both thinks the other culture is absolutely boring.

Ah well, that now means I can’t return the favor and invite Fang to my home.

Might as well. Nothing to eat here anyway except hotdogs and bread.

How To Create A Budget for Your Travel in Just 3 Steps

I’m the type of girl who asked her accounting class while rooting for my calculator, “What’s 11+9?”

Or counts with her fingers when adding simple sums.

Heaven knows why I haven’t been diagnosed with dyscalculia.

This was why it was often a pain in the neck to me to budget for my travel expenses. Excel sheets were too complicated for me. Finally, I’ve hit on a simple plan that required few gadgets and no software. All you need are:

1. calculator
2. pen and paper
3. envelopes
4. and your money, of course

STEP 1: If you’re traveling abroad, get the exchange rate of the country you’re going to. I usually go to XE for that and then when you’ve gone over to their site –take shortcuts. If you’ve got friends who stayed or have traveled to that place, ask them how much they spent on certain stuff. When I went to Thailand, a couple of friends have told me that they usually spent 300-1,000 baht a day on food and shopping. Since I work in China, 200-500 baht meant I would spend at least Y195/day. This is based on today’s exchange rate 1RMB-5.11 baht.

STEP 2: Ask yourself, “How many days are you staying?” and then calculate or do a rough estimate (I usually do a lump sum) of your travel expenses. I keep my list to a minimum of 5 categories. You’re free to tailor it to suit your needs:

· Your plane tickets

· Your pocket money, entrance fees, travel packages, food and shopping

· Hotel (don’t forget the deposit if you’re staying in a swanky one)

· Transportation

· Buffer

A buffer is very important. This is the emergency money you dip into when you gasp find that you have spent almost everything you have on that supposedly priceless antique. Always have a buffer. I’m always glad I’ve got one when I discovered I’ve got to pay for either excess baggage or airport terminal fees.

Here’s a sample of my estimated budget to Vietnam in which I stayed for 9 days. If you think you’re a big spender, you might want to have a bigger leeway on your estimated expenses. Again this is based on today’s conversion rates = 1USD -6.82 RMB and 1USD- 48 PHP or Philippines pesos.

· Plane tickets from Manila to Saigon – $191

· Pocket money, entrance fees, travel packages, food and shopping – $300

· Hotel – $200

· Transportation- $100

· Buffer- $150

STEP 3: Now comes the fun part. Take out some envelopes and label them with a travel category and then put the money inside. This prevents you from withdrawing money that might otherwise be used for your hotel expenses rather than if you keep all of the cash in one place. This often happens if you’re a big spender and love shopping. So whenever you pay for your hotel bills, you just fish out the money from your envelope and voila! You never have to worry if you’ve still money left over for your other travel expenses because you know they’ve got their own compartments.

The envelope method would also come in handy because you can easily see when you’re running low in one category. Your pocket money envelope almost empty? No problem. You see you’ll be leaving the country the next day and your hotel envelope still has a sizeable chunk left. Dip your desperate fingers into it (be sure to leave some for tomorrow’s bill!) and transfer the bills.

TIP: I always travel with some US dollars and some currency of the country I’m going to (since I’ve often go around Southeast Asia. I carry about $20 worth till I get a better exchange rate in the city center). This way it’s easy to get around and immediately hop on a local bus or taxi to go to my hostel without worrying how to pay the fare. This’ll also be extremely useful if you’re arriving in the middle of the night and the exchange counters are closed.

You can also use the envelope method for your daily expenses in life. Just swap the categories for food, rent, transportation, utilities and shopping.

Here’s a useful link you can use:

Travel Budget Calculator

Pink Pig Photo by: weddingssc1

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