My Roommate's House

On this past Sunday, I had the honor of visiting my roommate’s home in Chaoyang district and having dinner with his family for his birthday. I was surprised by a few things that night, some of which I want to share.

First, China truly is a place of rapid growth, this is most visibly seen in developing places like Beijing and Chaoyang being a hub of commerce is a great example. On either side of the hutong-like housing that my roommate and his family lived in were giant neon covered buildings that demanded your attention and your money. However, in-between was the small rundown abode of my friend. This very visible and clear separation between development and ownership of money was almost staggering.

Second, was the utter squalor. My roommate’s house, the place he’d grown up in and lived in for the 20 years of his life was smaller than the suite I lived in last year at Kalamazoo. Not smaller by a little bit, but about 1/3 the size. His entire life had been experienced in that place, and he’d not known what it was like to live in a more grandiose, or to me normal, room until he moved to college. He shared a room with his parents, and his bed was a table with a blanket on it. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to live in such a constricting place, and I can only guess at what he must think about me and how I seem to spread out over our dorm room like a blob with all of my stuff.

Third, was the complete and utter warmth with which his family accepted and welcomed me into their home. I was given every luxury they had to spare. Our meal was full of meat, an expensive alternative to tofu and vegetables, and all of the seats I used had cushions on them. Not only that, but the stool I was seated at was directly in front of the electric heater that I’m sure they use sparingly and was larger in all dimensions than the small uncomfortable looking wood blocks they were using. They demanded I eat more food, drink more beer, and tell them more about America.

I’d been told to expect all these things, either by my roommate or by my Chinese teachers, but still the huge disparities and wild exaggerations still caught me off guard. I talked to his parents and him for several hours while we feasted on dumplings, chicken and tofu. We talked about our new president, new opportunities and mistakes made by both America and China.

What was most interesting and most striking however was something seemingly small and insignificant that my roommate’s dad said to me. He told me he was afraid that when I came to their house he was afraid I would 看不起 (kan4bu4qi3) them. I’d learned this grammar structure before, but I wasn’t aware of the special meaning behind this phrase. 看 means to look 不起 means to not be able to afford. So the three together effectively mean “Not able to afford looking at.” It means colloquially, to look down upon someone because of their poverty. I told him that that would be impossible for me to do, mostly because the food was so good! But joking aside this really struck a chord with me.

China is full of those that are in extreme poverty. They know it, and yet they still live on in a happy existence with none of the amenities we believe are necessary for life. When he said that he was afraid I would look down on them because of their poverty, it made me very sad. It made me sad that he assumed I would do that, but it made me sadder because if I didn’t know them at all, I probably would have.

I don’t know what that means for me now, but I do know that it changed something, fundamentally. I had a similar experience this summer working in a factory for my dad, watching and befriending people who lived paycheck to paycheck, often because of circumstances far beyond their control. These are still people, and they never asked for this kind of life.

Staggering experiences aside, my roommate’s family is amazingly gracious and I had one of the best meals in China at his house. I only hope I can repay them in the future for the gift that they gave me.

Although, I still think that eating the bones as well as the meat, especially with chicken, is weird as hell.