Seeing Through Different Eyes, by Karen Rees

A few months ago a British transport minister on a trade visit to Taipei made the headlines in this part of Asia because of a diplomatic blunder. She presented the mayor with a pocket watch. She didn't know that giving a timepiece is taboo in Chinese culture. Because of the similar pronunciation of “giving a clock” and “attending an old person's funeral”, her gift suggested that the mayor's time was running out.



During the years that my husband and I worked with a Chinese church here in Hong Kong, we learned of another similar taboo. Never take flowers to someone in the hospital; flowers are associated with funerals.

Later we began working with household servants imported from the Philippines. We discovered that Filipinos point with their lips, hospitality is high priority while punctuality is not, and wives handle the family money. If they manage it badly, it brings shame on their husbands.

Our current part-time involvement with a Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seeker family from a Hindu background has exposed us to the habits and values of yet another culture.

These three cultures are different in many ways. But, all being Asian, they share a basic value: the rights of the family take priority over the rights of the individual. This value is seen in a tradition of arranged marriages that benefit the family, in the expectation that money earned by one is available to all and in the requirement that individuals put the wishes/needs of the family before their own.

This “family first” value is in direct conflict with the “individual first” culture of the West.

As writers we know that conflict drives the story. We usually create conflict by giving our characters, all of whom have likely Western values, different backgrounds, personalities and desires. Consider the additional conflict possibilities if one or more characters came from a culture with different values.

Countries, and couples, have gone to war because of clashing cultural values. It's not uncommon for a Western husband and a Filipina wife to do battle over how to spend the household money. He, being an individualistic Westerner, wants it all used for themselves and any children they may have. She, with her “family ­first” values, insists that they send money to her extended family in the Philippines.

Cultural differences can add interest, and conflict, to international contemporary novels. Recognizing cultural differences also helps when writing historical fiction.

As I researched Tudor England for my novel THE RUBY RING, I discovered that the Middle Ages shared the same 'family first' value as 20th century Asia.  Choosing a spouse in the 1500s or, more likely, having one chosen for you, was primarily a business matter, not a matter of the heart.

Because of this, the couple in my novel who wishes to marry for love faces much greater family opposition than they would have in today's individualistic Western, 'all we need is love' culture.  Since they also are caught up in England's religious turmoil, I had enough conflict to keep many readers up well past bedtime.

But to maintain a feel of authentic Tudor England, I had to allow my characters to deal with the conflicts in a manner suitable to that culture. I had to see life through their eyes.

Returning to the present day and the Chinese view of clocks and flowers, how's this for a contemporary romantic thriller?

After graduating from a Western university, a courageous young Chinese female reporter begins working in China only to receive death threats for her honest reporting of government and business corruption. She flees to the relative safety of Hong Kong. There she meets a handsome young Western businessman. After a whirlwind romance, they become engaged.

At their engagement party they receive an anonymous gift – a beautiful clock. He is pleased. She is fearful. Are her enemies still after her? A few days later she is injured in a freak accident and spends a few days in the hospital. Her fiancé brings her flowers.

Her previous apprehensions abruptly intensify as a new and terrifying possibility arises. Is her fiancé merely a thoughtful but culturally ignorant Westerner? Or is he actually in the pay of the corrupt Chinese businessmen who, through the clock and flowers, are telling her that she can't escape them?

It all depends on which cultural eyes you're using.

Karen Rees and her second-generation missionary husband Benjamin have served in Hong Kong since 1975. Besides her involvement in the mission work, Karen loves history, quilting and writing. They have two children, Matthew and Megan, and two grandchildren, Hadessah and Arthur. She is the author of the historical novel, The Ruby Ring.

Guess Who I Saw?

Writers are supposed to be people-watchers and eavesdrop on the conversations of strangers. As a writer living in Hong Kong, doing this has its problems.

Hong Kong is a collection of extremely compact cities with an international population that's always rushing. The most frequently pressed elevator button, in both commercial and residential high-rises, is the one that closes the door. We can't wait the extra few seconds for it to close automatically.

How do I search for those distinctive details that sets one person apart from another when all I see are people's backs hurrying here, hurrying there?

Click to Tweet: Writers are supposed to be people-watchers

In this bustling population, I have found one good place to people-watch – on the subway. Once we've boarded, the train does the rushing. We stay put for a while. So there I am, sitting if I'm lucky enough to get a seat, people-watching and trying to sharpen my observational skills.

What do I see?

The man beside me with the dirty fingernails, rough haircut, scruffy clothing and yesterday's odors is most likely a mainland Chinese who is working here. Were he a mainland tourist, although equally rough and out of style, he'd be a bit cleaner.

Across from me is a rather simply dressed young Asian woman but with a more open expression than mainlanders wear. Is she Hong Kong Chinese or a Filipina with a touch of Chinese blood? Since she's wearing sandals, a few years ago her toenails would have told me. If they were painted, she'd be a Filipina. But now that Chinese women have discovered the delights of nail polish, her nationality remains a mystery.

Sitting near this mystery woman is a Chinese man giving himself a “shave”. Chinese facial hair being somewhat sparse, the method of some years ago was to locate a whisker by feel, pinch it between two coins and jerk it out. The man I'm watching today has a technology upgrade. He's using a small hand mirror and tweezers. Ten more yanks and he's done.

If I'm on the subway when schools let out, the train soon fills with students in uniforms. The younger ones are often accompanied by the family's imported household servants – either Filipinas with their painted toenails or Indonesian Muslims in various colored headscarves.

Most students are Chinese. But I also see Muslim girls with headscarves the color of their uniforms and boys with white cloth topknots holding the never-to-be-cut hair that identify them as Sikhs.

Now that China is building economic ties with Africa, I'm seeing increasing numbers of tall black men and ample-bodied black women. The other week I followed two such women to the train. They were effortlessly balancing massive bundles on their heads and their native costumes were as colorful as a flower garden. Only our local Hindu women in their saris outdo them in brightness.

Once in a great while I'll see saffron-robed Buddhist monks or nuns, with their shaved heads and religious beads, traveling in twos or threes.

I'm a people-watcher but I don't do much eavesdropping. Nowadays few people talk to each other. They're too busy playing with their smart phones. Those who are talking could easily be carrying on a conversation in any number of languages. Very seldom is it English.

Occasionally some blond-haired Western woman boards the train. In the past, with a train filled with black haired passengers, or in my case dark brown turning gray, everyone would stare at her. But not now. Now the bolder members of a younger generation are dyeing some or all of their black hair every color of the rainbow. Blond hair no longer stands out against heads sporting apricot, turquoise, violet, wine red or wheat. Sometimes two or three colors share the same head.

If I wrote contemporary international fiction, I'd be in the perfect spot. But I write historical fiction set during the English Reformation. You don't find nail polish and Sikh topknots in 16th Century England.

Click to Tweet: No nail polish and Sikh topknots in 16th Century England

Nevertheless, all is not lost. Some time ago I saw a man whose eyebrows bobbed as he talked. How's that for a tag? Of course I wouldn't give it to the hero. In a love scene those bobbing brows could be quite distracting both to reader and heroine.

Better still, I recently saw Paul. I'd never before seen him outside of my imagination. But there he stood – my wiry, little, copper-haired, Anabaptist Frenchman from a yet-to-be published English Reformation novel – only with Chinese coloring and eyes. It was hard not to stare.

Now I see Paul much more clearly in my imagination, especially his lovely cheek bones, although I do have to keep correcting his hair color.

People-watching, even four centuries later, is worth doing. You never know who you might see.

Karen Rees and her second-generation missionary husband Benjamin have served in Hong Kong since 1975.  Besides her involvement in the mission work, Karen loves history, quilting and writing.  They have two children, Matthew and Megan, and one granddaughter, Hadessah.  Karen writes historical fiction and has a special interest in the English Reformation.  Her first novel - The Ruby Ring - came out in 2013 and is a Finalist in the Religious Fiction category in the 2014 Indie Excellence Awards.  Find Karen on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/Author.KarenRees. Her mission website is http://www.hongkongmission.org/.