Making Sense of ChinaRomain Vuattoux1 For many foreigners, China is a mystical faraway land with a strange difficult language, an ancient complex culture and an inexplicable economic miracle, sometimes praised and sometimes demonized by Western media.Much of these perceptions are stereotyped and biased, and it is not until these foreigners come to China that their mind begins to change and their preconceived ideas shatter to pieces. Yet more confusion and strong feelings, such as surprise, frustration and loneliness, usually arise from the experience of living in China. One can only wonder: How can such a foreign place feel so much like home yet be so diff erent? How can such a place generate so many contradictory feelings?2 From the first day I arrived in China, it has been an explosion of the senses. The first sense stimulated was the sense of smell. China has a specific smell, which you recognize when you land at the airport and when you walk on the streets. In the warm humid summer air of southern cities such as Shanghai, it is a mixture of food, sweat, pollution, exhausts, garbage and sewer. The fragrances that many a foreigner may associate with China is that of street food and especially the odor of “choudoufu” (stinky tofu)and that of “baijiu” (rice wine). Every foreigner who has lived in China remembers the first time they wondered what animal had died nearby, and many have great tales of their fi rst trial at eating “choudoufu,” or drinking“baijiu.”3 Hearing is probably the sense that is excited in the most unpleasant manner. From people yelling on the phone in a congested metro or bus, to the constant honking of motorbikes, e-bikes, cars and even bicycles, or the bells of street seller and collectors, the noises made by construction sites,the ears are never left alone and silence is often hard to find. My personal funniest story about sound was the first morning I woke up in China. It was early in the morning, I was jet-lagged and a rooster was singing to the rising sun. After getting up, I investigated the origin of the sound. The rooster was not outside, but inside the echoing staircase, tied by the leg to the handrail of the building. As I inquired about the disappearance of the rooster a few days later, I learned that this loud creature was in fact the dinner of my upstairs neighbors. Fresh as it comes!4 The sense of sight is aroused daily. Walking or cycling on the streets requires paying attention to all the obstacles on the sidewalks or on the roads all the time. Yet, the bigge st “visual attack” is probably the urban development going around at all time and at indefinable speed. I have seen cities changing, disappearing or being built at amazing speed where there were only rice paddies and vegetables. Beyond the architectural feats, I have seen some of the most modern and advanced technology in Shanghai, and traveled back in time in underdeveloped, remote villages in the mountains,where people live a simple and quiet life, far from the speed and stress of the cities and far from all the advanced technologies. I have seen the fast movement of commuters amidst the immobility of old people sitting in the sun on the sidewalk, or the slow motion of “taichi” disciples in the park among the square-dancing women. Even once my eyes are closed, I often dream of these sights.5 The sense of touch is best illustrated by one experience I had when I first came to China. I call these “being an unknown superstar” and “being touched.” In my f irsteducational establishment, I sometimes had to teach in another campus on the other side of town. I would ride my bicycle across town to get to class, and it often felt like being in a movie. All the kids and adults stared and pointed to the “laowai” (foreigner) on his bicycle. As I took an excursion in the “deep” countryside, many people would approach me while I was buying some water or some snack and would start touching the hair on my arms.6 For foreigners as for Chinese, the most important sense is the sense of taste. It is also certainly the one that provides the most pleasure and the base of many relationships.I have been invited to many meals and took part in ceremonial drinking. I have seen food displays that are as elaborate as their tastes. Thousand-year-old eggs, snake, turtle, dumplings, bamboo,lotus root, pigs ears, lacquered ducks, duck neck and head, chicken feet,spicy fish head, the hundreds of ways of eating tofu are just some of the dishes that one discovers and appreciates. A lifetime would never suffice to try to taste all the specialties in China.7 Orderly chaos, disorganized order, old and new, beautiful and filthy,clean and dirty, rich and poor, kindness and arrogance ... All are opposed sensations and situations living together, side by side. For me, China is a collision of feelings, a juxtaposition of experiences and perceptions that are usually contradictory. China is all these contradictions and diversity that somehow manage to live together almost harmoniously.参考译文解读中国罗曼·瓦图对于很多外国人而言，中国是一个遥远而神秘的国度，有着奇特难懂的语言，古老深奥的文化，以及难以解释的经济奇迹，时而被西方媒体戴高帽，时而被他们妖魔化。
