Housework and Cigarettes

We were invited a few weeks ago to a coffee shop to get free coffee and talk in English with Chinese! I’m always up for coffee because it is not cheap here! (They are way more into tea.) This sounded like a win- win situation. I would get a free coffee and I would be able to help some people practice their English in a controlled environment. We’ve gone to the coffee shop a few times and have learned many interesting things about Chinese culture! Today the leader had planned a debate about who should do housework. The men all took the side that women should do it. The women took the side the other side. Amy started the discussion saying that both men and women can have jobs outside of the house and that one gender shouldn’t be forced to do all of the housework. The men quickly replied saying, “Always female do housework.”

“It is female’s role.”

“Males are born with more capability and capacity (those were two hard words to say… but they did) than females so they should get the jobs outside of the house leaving the female to do housework.”

I had to sort out my intense emotions on this. So I spoke up and said that housework itself is not the issue. Housework has a stigma attached to it. With the confused faces I started to explain what stigma is. I said that it is like a reputation. Over time forced housework has been associated with inferiority. When I said forced I had to qualify myself. There are plenty of people who enjoy doing housework but that’s not what we were talking about. I explained that in America if one spouse is FORCED or EXPECTED to do the housework it is a statement of inequality and inferiority and sometimes control. I could see at this point that I had caught their attention. However, I was stopped to explain what inferiority meant. So I pulled out my sign language. I lifted my hands to the same level and explained what equal meant. Then I lowered one hand and explained that my lower hand was inferior, lower and unequal to the other. I saw that they understood this so I went on to explain that these characteristics are not healthy in family relationships and can result in abuse.

I was indeed proud of myself for having explained the issue so well. That didn’t last long as I asked the men if this went on in China. “Oh, no housework is the role of the female!” So I recoiled and resigned myself to thinking that maybe it really was a happily agreed upon role that the women take.

At that moment one of the Chinese women piped in courageously and said that recently women have become more economically independent by getting jobs. Because she earns part of the money she has more say in the family. This has resulted in splitting housework more fairly. She agreed with me and said that in China it is an issue of inequality too. The men just sat there blankly. I couldn’t pick up if they either just didn’t understand the issue or they had just never thought about it!

The next debate was about whether or not smoking should be banned. I was very interested in learning about the smoking culture here because it really does seem like EVERY man smokes. I was shocked to learn that everyone knows that it is bad for them. Not that this has stopped behavior in the past but… still. The men explained to me that cigarettes open up business opportunities between businessmen. At a business meetings smoking together is a sign of sharing a common bond or something along those lines. To refuse is to be impolite and rude. Also, they think that it is impossible to stop. The gov’t won’t do anything about it because they get the taxes from the cigarettes and because most of them smoke too.

I was appalled.

But then I quickly thought of all the “bad” things that Americans do in social situations because of pressure. I think we’ve all been in those situations where we are pressured to think that if we don’t participate then we think we won’t get the job, we won’t get respect, we won’t be included or we won’t make a friend. Of course this is bad logic but this is the smoking culture here in China. Because it is so ingrained in the culture one of the men resolutely said that the smoking issue will never be solved in China even though it is the biggest health problem in China. We tried to explain where America had been and where it is now with tobacco but I saw no hope in anyone’s eyes as I looked at the faces of these people.

They sat there with a disinterested look that said, “You just don’t understand.”

For one day I feel like we covered a lot of ground. Next time I hope we talk about abortion, the G. Bush, their president and homosexuality! Then I'll feel like I can come home having covered every issue.