“I Heart Beijing”Shows Expats Lives in China

Like many expats who came to Beijing to explore the charm of this ancient and modern city, 26-year-old American blonde Elyse Ribbons began work in Beijing after her graduation. However, she has brought her real life onto the stage just as Chinese filmmakers tackled the subject of Chinese struggling to adapt to western culture abroad. Running last weekend in Beijing City International School, the drama "I Heart Beijing" has taken a humourous look at foreigners' lives in this fascinating metropolis.

This comedy focuses on the lives of a group of Americans and locals in the capital. It unfolds with the scene of an American girl named Sylvia who's just moved to a new apartment. Her Chinese flatmate Tingting is a naughty girl brought up in a traditional family in Beijing. She is always caught between her family and her desire for western-style freedoms. Sylvia's friend John, a womanizing "Laowai", speaks bad Chinese and has to name all his Chinese girlfriends Apple for the sake of convenience. Lucy, an ABC (American-born Chinese) often doubts whether she fits in Beijing due to her dual-nationality. She also has an orgasm at the merest of mention of Stephen Colbert's name. Tingting's brother Liu Ming, gruff and strong-minded, always finds the group's lifestyle clashes with his traditional sense of morality. Gradually, a romance starts between Sylvia and Liu Ming, but it is undermined, as both of them are unable to compromise - partly because of cultural differences. But they finally get along well and learn from each other more than they had expected. So, life in Beijing seems just as it should be.

Written in a mixture of light and amusing English, Mandarin and Chinglish puns, the drama touches on what "Laowai" love and hate about Beijing. Many vivid scenes from life could be found in the play: laughter, frustration, quarrelling, intrigue, insults and more.

The playwright and director: Elyse Ribbons, who plays Sylvia, is currently working for the US embassy's website. She said the stories occurring in the play were all inspired by her life: "Every single thing in my play is based on either my life or one of my friends' lives or stories I heard from people. For example, on Valentine's Day, I was having dinner in a Chinese restaurant. It was too hot and I just couldn't eat spicy food. Then I asked for a dish called "Paihuanggua", known as mashed cucumber. As shown in the play, what the waitress brought back was covered with peppers. I wish I could yell. But I didn't at that time. That's one of these things. That's definitely from real life."

Though Elyse said audiences could find lots of similarities between Sylvia and herself, the heroine is a little bit different from her real personality, which often troubled her Chinese friends.

"I'm very bossy. Many of my Chinese friends will be upset with me because I'm so bossy sometimes. I usually talk in a loud voice and very aggressively. In America this is considered polite and normal, but in other places of the world, people are offended by it or get scared. They would ask why is the woman yelling at me. It is just the way Americans speak? But in China, I have some difficulties. People think I 'm too forward."

Elyse has been living in Beijing for four and a half years. She said it is hard to describe her feelings towards this city in simple words just as every coin has two sides.

"As you can tell from the name of my play I Heart Beijing. It doesn't mean I love it and doesn't mean I hate it. It's somewhere in between. Some days I really love this city really exciting different and interesting, and sometimes it's so smoggy that you can't breathe and the traffic gets so awful."

Like most of the foreigners preferring to live in the eastern part of Beijing, Elyse thinks Beijing's eastern and western areas differ a lot.

"If you live in the east, things are convenient, everything is close by. Too many "laowais" live in the east. But if you live in the west there are not many foreign restaurants. That's too Chinese. You want something in between."

As a fluent Chinese speaker, Elyse has used a great deal of bilingual dialogue in her play. She attributes her excellent Chinese capability to her Chinese friends.

"My degree in college was Chinese. I 'm a big Chinese nut. I think Chinese is a lot easier than learning French - the grammar is very simple, and so are the verb tenses. People here are willing to teach you Chinese. They love their history and culture. So it is always easy to talk to anyone here. They are more than happy to talk to you about it." 
 
 However, considering those clashes that took place between herself and her friends, Elyse thinks language skills can't always bridge the cultural divide. What she expressed in her play is a desire to start a dialogue for foreigners and Chinese to handle the divide in a humorous way, rather than getting angry with each other.

"The fiance of one of my female friends from college is Chinese. So often I hear stories like they really say the same thing but they approach different and they get the arguments. So with my character Sylvia and Liu Ming, they both think Tingting shouldn't smoke. Because they have different ways of approaching it, it seems like they're arguing. Most of the times they have the same mindset, but they express it differently."

Elyse also mentioned is the fact that a Chinese girl who has dozens of foreign friends often gets misunderstood by the Chinese people around her.

"She often gets insulted. People say she is too western. She is that girl who likes to sit around with a ton of white guys. She is educated and smart. She just happens to have foreign friends."

In the final act of the play, Tingting's arrogant brother and Sylvia fall in love with each other. Elyse said romance for lovers with different cultural backgrounds never goes smoothly and life is always full of surprises.

"The point of the romance here is not magical and beautiful, like pretty little fireworks burning in the air. Their real romance is a struggle and a fight. Every day, there is a new challenge. So it is especially like walking down the street during Spring Festival. It seems like it's peaceful. All of a sudden, right next to you, a firecracker explodes. I guess it is a funny way to put it."

Elyse started up the Cheeky Monkey Theatre Company when she debuted the production at the end of last year. Out of her strong passion for writing plays, she wished to put more of her life stories on to the stage in the future.

"Authors can only write things they know. I really know Beijing. I love Beijing, so there are so many things to write about. For me I try to keep the play in English so that I can take it to other countries well, maybe anything about Beijing and Chinese culture. I think it will be more successful to westerners as well."

Liu Xiaolu, who plays Tingting, is a 27-year-old English teacher in Beijing. In the play she is torn between what her brother expects of her and how she wishes to lead her life. When she joined the play, she also had difficult time in persuading her parents against warnings of getting too close to foreign actors. She says that actually, she has benefited a lot from knowing her foreign friends.

"I have many foreign friends from America. Sometimes I have been under their cultural difference. Part of it comes from my family and my local friends. I think my western friends gave me more ideas. I really enjoy spending time with them. Now I really want to express myself. I think it is a good influence on me."

Dan Ouyang from the US, who played Lucy, works for a magazine in Beijing. She said many difficulties encountered by Lucy are true problems ABCs (American Born Chinese) deal with in their real lives.

"I think the problems shown in my role are problems ABCs will face because you look Chinese. People will think you can speak Chinese really well. They are always very surprised when you don't speak perfectly or exactly like them."

Many audiences were attracted to the show. Duzepo from Italy said the characters it portrayed would be familiar to any foreigner who lives in Beijing or Shanghai.

"I found it very entertaining. It's a kind of honest portrait of my life - for foreigners and for Chinese who hang out with foreigners. I've been living in China for 4 years. I've had many of these situations before."

Though Elyse herself called the play a satire, and it seems to make fun of everyone, she hopes her play will lead to a better understanding between Chinese and foreigners, so as to help them resolve their conflicting preconceptions.