S - Salon (not affiliated w/ beauty)

For the two years I lived in Beijing, my main job was working in one of the government schools. However, I had half a dozen side jobs and one of them was the easiest money I ever made.

On Thursday nights, I took a bus to an adult language center in Shuangjing 双井 and got paid to sit and talk to people. This is called an English salon.

Now, if you know me, then you know talking is one of my favorite activities. I've had lots of practice. And I'm really good at it. In fact, I can talk for hours without even having anything to say. It's just second nature to me.

All I had to do was show up at 7 p.m. as their class was letting out and talk to the students. The students were all adults who were studying English. They could all speak English but were far from fluent. My presence was to give them an opportunity to converse with a native English speaker. The school supplied me with drinks and paid me to sit there for two hours and just talk about…whatever.

Since these were not guided lessons, the conversations could take any direction and since I was the obvious foreigner most of the time we discussed the differences in our countries. And there are a lot.

Once we got to know each other and got past the initial talk of food differences and what I did for a living, it got interesting. I went in every week knowing that we were going to talk a lot about politics, guns, and drugs. Other topics were covered as well, but these were the top three.

Now, when I say politics, I mean American politics. Political discourse does not happen in China. Not only is it a taboo topic, but it is very easy to get yourself into a lot of trouble for expressing the wrong opinion to the wrong person. It is safer to just keep your mouth shut. However, it is perfectly safe to talk about the politics of other countries and they always had questions about things they had seen in their heavily filtered news. After doing my best to explain the things they read (to the best of my understanding) and correct the mountains of misinformation they had about things, it sometimes moved to almost being an American civics class. I told them about federal law versus state, city, county, and municipal. We talked about how taxes work. I taught them about the election process. And they always had questions about why I could talk so freely about this stuff. They were fascinated by the idea that a person could insult a public official or even the president right to his face without penalty.

They asked me questions about the American "gun culture". In the year that I attended this class, I only met one student there who had ever even seen a gun in person. The idea that I grew up with guns in my house petrified them. I got the impression that they would be terrified to even be in the same room with one. Despite their fear, they had a lot of questions and sometimes it got technical. After I had done my best to explain the varying philosophies on gun ownership and control, it often moved into gun laws. This always got confusing because it was hard to get them to understand that each state has its own laws. This structure does not exist in China. One guy had heard about "concealed carry" and did not understand why a person who had this special license had to be careful about what part of the country he was in. What is legal in Indiana could get you in a lot of trouble in Illinois. He never stopped asking questions about how that could be.

They had just as many questions and lots of bad information about drugs in America. Drugs do exist in China, but they are locked down pretty tight. And the penalties for violating drug-related laws are severe. Of the people in that class, only two even knew a person who had done drugs. It is not something that is out in the open. However, because of American television, they all believe that in America drugs are everywhere. They are flowing freely at every party. High schoolers trade them in the hallways like baseball cards. Every businessman has a stash in his desk drawer and every public restroom is filled with people lined up to snort cocaine off the sink counter. Once again, I spent weeks just trying my best to explain reality.

These are three big examples, but there were many other topics covered and they were all complicated by the vast differences between our cultures, values, and way of thinking. We talked about parental responsibilities, employer expectations, property ownership, use of free time, educational philosophy, celebrity culture and many more. Every new topic showed me how little they actually knew about us. And also, how little I actually knew about them.

Spending time in a country can help you start figuring out the rules and see how things work. However, it takes a lot more time to start tapping into the reasons things are done the way they are. Everyone has heard of cultural practices from other countries:

• In Vietnam, do not point with one finger. Use your whole hand.
• In China, emptying your plate suggests that the host did not serve enough food. They will be offended.
• In Kenya, you should empty your plate. Leaving any food behind suggests that you did not enjoy the meal.
• In many Muslim countries, you should not use your left hand for eating. That hand is "unclean" since it is for taking care of bathroom hygiene.
• In India, always refuse your host's first offer for a snack or drink. You will be asked again.
• In South Korea, stay very quiet on public transportation. Noisiness is considered to be very rude.

To prosper in one of these countries, just learning the rules will only get you so far. With time (and intentional effort), you will begin to understand the reasons behind these practices. That knowledge can lead to helping a person understand a lot more about what they see around them. Understanding the mindset of people takes time and it involves a lot. Hundreds or even thousands of years of practice, literature, history, weather, politics, entertainment, war, famine, prosperity, diet, and many other things helped to shape the culture and no practice has a "simple" explanation about the why.

I talked to these people every week for over a year and there were many things that I didn't understand even after they explained them. Many times. This is because it takes more than an explanation to understand some things. Our backgrounds and worldviews are so radically different that we are not connecting on the underlying thought process that goes hundreds of layers deep. 

This experience showed me just how different people are and how ongoing communication is essential to understanding each other. Really understanding takes time. Seeing it in such large-scale differences made me realize this is a common problem everywhere and not just inter-culturally. Problems of not understanding where someone is coming from happens at work and even within the same household.

I learned a lot from those people, but my biggest lesson was not about the things they told me. It was about the need to be more understanding of people. We need to spend more time listening. Anytime we are struggling to be understood, we need to be sure we are also struggling to try to understand.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.