The Barrie Connection and other stories.

So, tomorrow school restarts and we'll see if my conviction to blog at least once a week (holidays notwithstanding) holds true.

Last time I posted I made a cryptic reference to synchronicity and Barrie. I thought I'd expand a bit on this this time.

Many years ago, while I was in the Army Cadets (2596 Royal Canadian Dragoon Cadet Corps)—where I met Canada's current Chief of Defense Staff while he was still a lowly 2nd Lieutenant—I went to Ipperwash Army Cadet Camp over the summer and had my first real romance. That first romance was with a girl (Marie Ruddy) from Barrie, Ontario. Fast forward a few years and we come to the story I related last week about my half-sister Anne. Who lived, at the time, in Barrie Ontario. Rounding it out, I've done on-and-off searches for various classmates and friends over the years and finally, just a short time ago (as in less than two weeks before today), I tracked down one of my buddies from Lahr Senior School, Brent Kogan. Who after a stint in Winnipeg wound up running a business in Barrie, Ontario.

I wonder how many other Barrie connections I will uncover in the upcoming years?

So, enough reminiscence and back to the present. Joan bought a bicycle over the summer because she was tired of taking very inconvenient buses to get to work. (Walking to catch the bus that took her to work was basically almost half the distance to work to begin with.) That bicycle was stolen last week when she went out to Huazhong University of Science and Technology to register for her Master's program. As a result she had to get a replacement and this time chose to do what she was supposed to do in the summer: get an electric scooter. (I still don't know what made her think a bicycle was a good idea.) After five hours, 38 minutes, 25 seconds (I was counting!) and visiting at least ten different places selling these things we finally bought one. It's a cute little unit which I'll have pictures of shortly when the weather lets me take pictures that don't suck. It's a dark-ish red bike designed to hold one person Joan's size comfortably. (When I get on it it's comical how wide I have to spread my legs to be able to turn the handlebars!)

The theft of the bicycle, however, reminded me of something that's been in my thoughts for a while in reference to China: honesty. For all practical purposes it doesn't exist here. Or, rather, it exists as long as you redefine it.

As far as I can tell when someone is introduced to you in China as "honest" it means "he probably won't steal money from you". In terms of speaking the truth there seems to be very little to no honesty outside of the family unit. Lies drop from Chinese mouths like they do from fishermen or cops telling stories of their exploits. Even during the negotiations for the scooter I saw glimpses of this. Joan was not entirely enthused at the price of the unit she eventually bought (directly as a result of me telling her to buy it because she so obviously liked it!) so the price dropped by a token 100RMB to help sway her decision as "the lowest we can possibly go". Later a man bought a black version of the same model and was getting it outfitted while Joan was still dithering. She boldly approached him and asked him how much he paid for it. (Signs of mistrusting the sales staff, obviously.) He answered 2580RMB (Joan was being offered the bike for 2480). Later he came in while we were (well, Joan was) still dithering and asked quietly what we'd been offered. Without missing a beat Joan told him "the same as you".

This is a small example, of course, and not that different from what you'd get in an equivalent situation in Canada (with the exception of boldly walking up to raw strangers and asking what they bought something for, I think), but it's the proverbial thin end of the wedge. This is how absolutely everything is done in China: you say whatever the other side wants to hear to get your goals accomplished with no regard for the truth. The only place where honesty in the sense we mean it enters the vocabulary is within the family unit (as I mentioned before) where, in typical Chinese fashion, the dials are all turned to eleven and the honesty verges on the brutal.

Food for thought. I'm not sure where the thoughts will lead or what will follow from them, but it's still something to ponder I suspect.