Culture Clash (A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers - Xiaolu Guo)

Member Name: MALU

Product:	A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers - Xiaolu Guo
Date:	11/06/09 (115 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a realistic description of cultural differences

Disadvantages: too much sex, too little imagination; weak part on travel

Some years ago I took part in a seminar for teachers of English on the cultural differences between GB and Germany. The lecturer talked for over an hour and when he had finished it was clear that he hadn't exhausted the subject.

Try to imagine the cultural differences between countries from different continents! The 23-year-old Chinese woman Z (as she's called because no Westerner can pronounce her name) has been sent to London for a one-year language course by her parents so that she can later help them with their export business. She comes with very little English and the knowledge about the country she's got from her schoolbooks and films.

One day she meets an Englishman in a cinema, twenty years her senior. After some encounters she tells him, "I want see where you live". He replies without thinking, "Be my guest." which makes Z pack her things and move in with him.

The story deals with Z's discovery of sex and love and that these two things don't necessarily have to go together, her coping with the Western lifestyle (food!) and her struggle with the English language. The novel is written in the first person from Z's point of view, she addresses her lover who remains nameless as 'you', it's a mixture of a diary and a Briefroman (novel in letters). It's ordered chronologically following the months of the year, each chapter begins with an English word and its definition from the dictionary, a personal experience or insight then connects the word with her life. In the beginning she writes with many spelling and grammar mistakes, by and by her language skills improve, and the text reads more fluently.

On 7th May, 2009, the author Xiaolu Guo was invited to The Bookclub on BBC Radio 4. The moderator, James Naughtie, opened the conversation by supposing that the decision to publish a book in English when she didn't know the language well yet must have been scary for her. "No, not at all!" I had the impression that she wasn't any too pleased about his idea, she told him that she had been an experimental writer already in China. A member of the audience said that the wrong use of the language was annoying for her which the author liked to hear. "So it's working!" For her it's a means to express the childish personality every foreigner with an incomplete knowledge of the language in question acquires willy-nilly. It doesn't annoy me, though, forty years of teaching English as a foreign language have toughened me, I've seen or heard it all!

The moment a book is published it multiplies so-to-speak, it becomes as many different books as it has readers each bringing their own preconceptions and experiences to it and changing it. The intention of the author may be interesting but it isn't relevant for the interpretation. Still, I want to mention what Xiaolu Guo sees as the main idea. For her it's not important which nationality her protagonists have or which culture they've been socialised in. They're just two people whose paths cross and who try to communicate with each other, and as we all know communication and understanding are never easy.

How odd. Of course, deep down this is correct, but the novel wouldn't have the appeal it has if the protagonists were, say, an Englishman and a German woman notwithstanding the existing cultural differences I mentioned before. The English and the Chinese culture clash in a most dramatic way and provide for entertainment and empathy. I don't understand why the author sees this as a neglectable issue.

Some of the cultural differences make for funny moments, some are sad. Z takes everything literally at face value. "Humour is a Western concept" as a Korean classmate from her language school remarks. She studies the Western lifestyle as seriously as the English language, she reads porn mags and goes to peep shows. They fascinate her so much that she thinks it must be wonderful to work as a prostitute. If you like the explicit description of sexual encounters, this is the book for you. If you don't, I'd rather you stayed away from it. I was caught unawares, I survived it but didn't enjoy this aspect especially.

The tragic note comes from the fact that as a Chinese she doesn't know the concept of self. In her country everyone is always a part of a group, be it the family, the school, the staff, the party or whatever, the individual as such does not exist and is obviously not something Z aspires to. When she and the Englishman have become lovers, she wants to be together with him *all the time*. What would he want to be together with his friends if he's got her? He's bisexual and Mr Non-commitment, but even if he really loved her, he'd feel suffocated. She's a spider monkey, a cling-on, like ivy covering him completely so that he can't breathe any more.

As we only see the situation from Z's point of view, many readers will sympathise with her and see her lover as a heartless baddy, I'm sure. But I can understand him when he sends her on a four months Interrail tour through several European countries. He wants her to have experiences that only belong to her, to get a personality so-to-speak, and he needs to relax a bit emotionally.

This journey is the weak part of the novel in my opinion, I'd say that *nobody* who studies the Lonely Planet Guide as diligently as Z does is able to see so little in the cities she visits. The chapter on Venice makes me doubt that the author knows what she's writing about at all. Admitted, Z doesn't want to travel but rather be in London with her lover, but really, she comes over here as a complete dumb-ass.

Some members of The Bookclub audience were clearly not content with the ending which also amused the author. She finds it OK, it expresses her view of life. Do you agree with her or do you think a different ending would be more plausible? You'll have to find out yourself if you want to know.

Summary: a Chinese woman tries to get along in the West