Chinglish, The Broadway Musical - The Funny Truth

Chinglish

This is a long overdue post, as the play, Chinglish, has concluded its run, and I saw it back in November. It's still worth writing about, however, as there are so many things that people can learn from a production like this, and so much that is timeless. It was written ny David Henry Hwang and written by Leigh Silverman, and it's essentially a comedy about an American businessman's first China experience.

From the Chinglish Facebook Page

The great thing about this play is that it wasn't just entertaining, it brought out a lot of the finer details of Mainland Chinese culture (and issues arising from cultural differences) that outsiders simply would never even have guessed. The underhand dealings (that were in turn, underhanded) made for a great plot, and this was probably the most easily accepted/expected part of the story. There were other humorous scenes like when the male lead, Gary Wilmes, tries to say "I love you" in Mandarin and it comes out sounding completely wrong because of the tones etc. Predictable, but well done nonethless. Other parts, such as the ex-English teacher, posing as a business consultant, admitting his waning popularity and novelty to Chinese people, was very true, and probably a concept less familiar to most outside of China.

The one point that I can't get out of my head is how they totally nailed the traditional Chinese view of marriage. When Wilmes professes his love for Jennifer Lim, the female lead (pictured above in my crappy photo of the play's programme), and suggests they divorce their respective spouses to get married, Lim talks about qingyi 情義. She says that she doesn't love her husband, and actually scoffs at the idea, but she will never divorce him because of qingyi. This is a word that doesn't really have a direct English translation, perhaps because the idea doesn't exist culturally in the Anglo world (per the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis). The closest I can think of is loyalty, but it's more like loyalty, along with love, which doesn't have to be romantic at all. It's funny because in Hong Kong triad movies they talk about this yi all the time. People brought up the Chinese "way" generally know this and put it in practice (hello nepotism - well, that's the bad part anyway) but we hardly ever talk about it. This qingyi is also seen between the English teacher and the mayor, who ends up being taken in by authorities on accusations of corruption.

To me, the way that it was presented makes it a sort of wake-up call. Even though its main impact on Americans (I suppose) was that they got an "inside" look into what China is really like (and the play did a very good job of that), I believe the play was a rather introspective experience for anyone brought up immersed in Chinese culture and with some first-hand experience of the Mainland. It was very exciting to see that the writer's observations, experience and analysis of China were so real and detailed (or perhaps just similar to my own?), and that he brought them to life, and to a wider audience, on stage. I've spoken to many an outsider who thinks that if they understand guanxi they know all about business in China; Chinglish would have been a great, harmless way to tell them "yeah, right".