Friday, June 3, 2016

Iron Cocks





Where is your boyfriend?” Wang Xiu Ying, the Chinese shopkeeper at my corner store asks me when I’m in there alone without my children. I’m in the mood for a Mandarin conversation, because if I wasn't I’d go to the East side of the intersection to the Korean-owned store, where we don't make chitchat and I can shuffle around in peace and quiet. I pause to recollect which 'boyfriend' she means exactly, and deduce it to the most plausible suspect.


We broke up.” I reply. Her eyes and mouth go wide with surprise but once she sees my serene smile and languid shrug, she leans across the counter at me with a knowing look and scrunches up her face as if she is smelling a fart.


Ah, you dump him because he is yi mao bu ba”.


Here we go. Time to indulge in my chéngyǔ lessons, the popular Chinese idioms consisting of four characters. Her English is great except for her pronunciation. My Chinese is absolute shit. Watching the two of us stumble back and forth in broken languages is like watching a pair of idiots - or as the Chinese say, a couple of turtle eggs. But my garbage Chinese makes her feel better about her English, and she is the only thread I have in my life connecting me to that complicated language I’ve barely spoken in over 10 years. It’s win-win.


He is like Iron Cock -- one feather won’t pull out!” She says in her slurred voice. I deduce she means rooster, having taught British English in China, I frequently heard students boasting how China was shaped like a big, giant cock. It’s true but without Taiwan, no foot, without Korea, no beak.


Wang Xiu Ying is implying boyfriend was a penny-pinching cheapskate. The pun here being the word “mao,” which can mean either a small coin or a feather. Thus, an iron rooster is a rooster that won’t part with even one of its feathers — they’re so hard to pluck out it might as well be made out of iron. Chinese insults almost always involve animals or numbers. Insults in English involve sexual terms or body parts. Almost universally in any language if you throw in female genitalia or someone’s mother, it sadly ups the vulgarity.


I gently tell her no, we didn't break up because he was cheap, but yes, he was cheap. Very.


Seeing an opportunity to practice my Chinese narrative I humour the Beijinger with the tales of pettiness shown by the various men I've dated that no doubt send her into culture shock:


That time a date and I stopped into a Tim Horton’s and he asked me to buy my own donut. That time at a concert when a date lined up for drinks, bought two, one for each of his fists and none for me. That time I was invited to a barbecue and was expected to bring my own meat. That time I was invited out to dinner and my date bought us an entree to share. Those times absolutely everything from TTC fares and five-dollar cab rides were expected to be split right down the middle. More awkward moments over donuts at Tim Horton’s. I should probably stop going there. Especially on dates.


The judgement on those dates came only in the looks of disapproval and concern for me from bus drivers, concession stand workers, waiters and taxi drivers. I waited until after the date was over to judge them.


But not once did I ever speak up about how their cheapness bothered me, instead I recluse, become unavailable, and hope they would just go away. They always do.


I am content with being a woman who pays the bill; for friends, for lovers, for family. I’m agreeable to splitting the costs of dates, I get by fine without lavish displays of chivalry, and I’m cool with cinema coupons and dinner at fast food drive-thrus. But I suppose my notion of without money we’d all be rich just wasn't working in a practical sense. Yet dumping a guy I’m crazy about just because he is petty seems really….well, petty.


You’re a poor man’s dream!” my friend says. “Your problem is that you are not judging enough!


The truth is, I do not want to live in a world where women expect men to pay for everything. I’m not even sure I believe men are obligated to pay on first dates. Who pays the bill because of the absence or presence of a penis isn't the entire issue. Money and feminism aside, I remember a chéngyǔ that goes: yán xíng yī zhì; simply put: practice what you preach, sexy bitch.


Seems the one common thread between all the tight-wads I've dated is me. And not once did I communicate my values to them.


Wang Xiu Ying dusts off the lotto machine with her cloth and offers me a plastic-wrapped candy which judging by the wrapper is bean-curd flavour and will be disgusting. I accept.


You know, in China, man pay for EVERYTHING. If man doesn't pay, woman must never marry him”. She says.


I nod knowingly because I've seen it and I've been there. And I explain to her in simple Chinese phrases:


I suppose deep down I’m purposely seeking non-marriage material. My heart is not ready to find another husband. But I do gravitate to love without all the bells and whistles.


You will soon be ready but you should NOT love any man who doesn't give you the whole wide world. A gold ring for your mother and long-life vitamins for your father. And save his money for university for your children.


I laugh at how culturally inappropriate those foreign expectations are, and are as relevant to me as a red herring sitting on the Great Wall of China in a thunderstorm.


But you deserve the whole wide world!” she exclaims and it sounds so natural, like something my native-English-speaking mother would say.


What is your worth? Do you know your worth?” she probes sternly.


I pause and carefully construct my sentence using a mix of complete honesty and lyrics from Chinese karaoke pop songs. It’s delivered with quite sturdy pronunciation:


Yǔ shìjiè gèdì dì dìfāng hé tián tián quān”.


It takes her a moment but she clues in.


“Somewhere in-between the whole wide world and a donut.” We say in unison.


***