Fall into the Sea

Snack packet from my local mom-n-pop convenience store — just one of a yearful of glimpses into the Chinese mind that passed without satisfactory explanation.

Xia hai: fall into the sea. The term for private enterprise, it conveyed more than a little Communist apprehension.

Yet in 1993 the Communist Party was crafting reforms to allow average people to start their own businesses. Strictly speaking, the nation was no longer Communist – it had become a “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics.” Suddenly anyone with proper licensure could sell goods and pocket the profits for themselves.

Not everyone was eager to fall into the sea of competition, but many tried. At Wu Dao Kou people rented stalls to sell veggies, fruit, beans, rice, eggs, beef, fish, chicken – anything that could be bought from surrounding farms. (I was unwise enough to watch a chicken being slaughtered. A man sitting on a stool kept live chickens in a small wire pen. When a woman bought one, he scissor-snipped a hole in its neck, then dropped it into a covered basket to flap and bleed itself to death.)

The mom-n-pop convenience store near my apartment was actually the front room of a family’s home. In addition to snacks for evening free talks, at this little shop I bought toilet paper, sugar, powdered milk, jiao zi (dumplings with meat/veggie filling), bottled water, Coke, and a delicious Chinese yogurt-type drink. They sold many products I didn’t understand; although I was able to ask “Zhe shi shen me (What is this),” the answers were usually unintelligible to me. The shopkeeper’s wife, who tallied each bill on an abacus, was pleasantly plump – a sign of that they were doing well.

At major subway stops, candied cherry stands lined up side by side, all tended by young men who watched, owl-eyed, people passing them by. Each stand was identical to every other. In a land where Communism had stressed the value of fitting in, many who ventured into business did so as Communists, taking their cues from peers and leaving customer choice up to fate. I’m no businessman, but growing up in America you can’t help but absorb a baseline of business sense. I wanted to grab some random man out of the candied cherry row and say, “Come on, get aggressive! Move to another spot, make a sign, offer some other treats and a family discount! And for Pete’s sake, smile at people!”

To be fair, my reaction was based on limited exposure to China’s true business. At Lin Da, on the north edge of the city, I was well removed from Beijing’s movers and shakers, who were making out remarkably well. Nearly every issue of China Daily heralded new joint business ventures with foreign corporations. Some of my own students rode this wave, with better-paying jobs as liaisons and marketers and salespeople. The first non-Communist, truly corporate ladders were being erected, and these students relished in the opportunity to climb.

A small group of these students invited me to join them and their spouses for dinner and a Chinese acrobatics show downtown. Picture me: 22, unmarried and clueless, even in my own country; them, between their late twenties and mid thirties, married, established, sharply dressed, able to navigate the more sophisticated Beijing of fine restaurants and cultured entertainment with smooth confidence.

At the time I, their foreign teacher, received their invitation as natural, and I appreciated the outing as if I were one of them. Looking back, their inclusion of a knucklehead with dorky clothes and an afro (I didn’t know where to get my hair cut) demonstrated a level of class I didn’t even know existed.

Outclassed: photo session with several of my business-savvy students before our night on the town.

At a restaurant before heading to the acrobatic performance.

Widely considered as one of the most successful transliterations from English to Mandarin, Ke Kou Ke Le (可口可乐) meant “Happy Bubbly.”

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