Cacophony

Today I was riding home from the main consulate, which is inconveniently located a 50 rmb taxi ride away from the consular section, where I work. A 50 rmb ride equates to about eight dollars and 40 minutes. I went to the main consulate because the U.S. government doctor was in town from Beijing. I’ve tried going to “western” doctors on the Chinese market, but have had mixed experiences. One told me that my daughter’s fever was caused by allergies, another gave me an ultrasound because I had a stomach ache, and the third correctly diagnosed my daughter’s persistent tonsilitis, but provided an odd form of powder antibiotics that I had to dissolve in water, which I found to be “mafan.” Mafan is a word used to describe a situation that is annoying, troublesome, bothersome, etc.  The taxi driver who took me home after my appointment used that very word to describe an odd scene out the window. On a bicycle with a built in sound system sat a very long-haired Chinese hippy. In the five months that I’ve spent in China, I have not before seen anyone who looked like this guy. Approaching the non-harmonious scene, the taxi driver shook his head and with disgust mumbled, “mafan,” but must have also been a bit intrigued, because a moment later he rolled down the window.  In China, harmony is the ideal. In the United States, we’d probably use the word conformity to pessimistically describe what the Chinese positively refer to as harmony.  Nearly all Chinese men wear their hair very short. Some younger men opt for a slightly longer style, but this isn’t the norm.  I’m not competent to critique Chinese music, but I didn’t find the street musician’s singing to be anything special.  The background music was pre-recorded--only the singing was live. Sitting along side the Pearl River, he sang without a visible audience. No one stopped to listen, not the track suit uniformed students walking home from school, the fisherman hoping to catch dinner out of a river so polluted most admit that the water isn’t fit for agricultural use, nor the local merchants transporting their wares by bicycle. But my taxi driver couldn’t hide his intrigue. The car slowed considerably and the window stayed down until the artist’s notes were beyond earshot.  I suppose showing visible interest in something so inharmonious may in itself also be cacophonous.  But what of my driver who feigned displeasure? I dare say, in most circumstances, the appearance is all that seems to concern us.