Is it a Social or Commercial Relationship?

I just returned from China trip last week and am still in adjusting jet lag.  Mid-July and August is  the hottest and the most humid time of the year. Dramatic climate change and living environment changes made me somewhat listless. Only in the first few days, I helped my aging parents declutter and discard many things even they themselves consider useless but kept just because they have space to store them. 

There are two occurrences that shocked myself in my one month staycation with my parents, a village in the center of Zhejiang province in China where it was mostly agricultural y before I came to the US 1998. 

These two occurrences woke me up and showed me clearly how my American experienced have shaped me: my scope of social relationships has become narrower,  restricted to selected few close friends and family members and treated nearly all other relationships as commerce, mediated through money.

Nearly Free Treatment at My sister’s old boss’s brother in-law’s dental clinic

 Like other middle-aged 1st-generation immigrants, I took the opportunity of visiting my home country to see a dentist as I knew a deep cleaning will help cure my periodontic problem and the treatment for sure is cheaper than in the US even without checking up the prices.  Healthcare service in the US is no doubt the most expensive in the world!

My sister took me to a newly opened clinic near her neighborhood. It turned out the owner dentist’s sister, who is managing the clinic, is her former boss’ wife.  Let me call her “Drew”.  I received a VIP treatment.  Root scaling and replanting (deep cleaning) is not that cheap either in China, costing about a month’s average salary. However, it is still way cheaper than in the US. 

The whole process took at least three hours, starting from x-rays. the dentist’s diagnosis, and the actual treatment. The treatment includes three following checkups, which cannot be done in my case as my visit is only a month long.  I thought I should negotiate a discount if possible. However, my whole mouth was numb after the treatment, so a negotiation was not possible.

Because I do not have platform payment accounts such as alipay or wechat pay, I asked my sister to send the payment  instead.  The next day, my sister said her payment was returned by Drew. My sister guessed that her old friend Drew probably did not want to charge me for the treatment. 

How is that possible?  Receiving treatment and not paying certainly is not in accord with my conscience!  I will pay on my 1st check-up visit—about 10 days after the treatment , as I found I have an Alipay account  and a debit card.

Ten days later I went back for the 1st check up,  and the clinic did more cleaning on one bad spot. At that time, I still quite not seriously  considered the possibility that Drew was not going to charge me; so I took the courage  to ask Drew for a discount as the 2nd and 2rd checkups are not possible for my case and told her I can pay through my debit card.  I noticed a taken-aback unhappy micro-expression flashed over her face, then she responded with “No, you do not need pay”.   I  responded, ” of course i need to pay, I bring my bank card this time.”  She said, ” we don’t take bank card; maybe you can ask Xing (my sister) to pay.”   So I obeyed.

On my way out, I called  my sister. At this point, my sister was sure that Drew had decided not going to charge me for the treatment and suggested me go back and pay by scanning Alipay barcode at the reception desk. “That’s how businesses take payment nowdays in China: Alipay or Wechat pay”, she told me.     

I went back and checked with the reception desk. Drew was there; she immediately took the Alipay barcode board and hided it.   I asked  my sister for advice again. She suggested me stay at the clinic, and she would come as it was her lunch break time.   I felt indeed and ashamed of my asking for a lower price as Drew wasn’t planning to even charge me.  I apologized to Drew.

Soon my sister came. After many pushes and pulls between Drew and my sister, Drew finally agreed to take a fifth of the price quoted earlier. Drew confessed that after my sister’s initial payment, her husband suggested not to charge for the treatment as my sister was almost part of their extended family.  That’s why she sent the money back to my sister with an excuse–she does not accept money for business through that account.   

Drew’s  husband was my sister’s ex-boss in fact, and my sister told me that she often visited her boss during Chinese new year.  It seemed their working relationship has extended and transformed into a close social relationship which benefits not only the relationship with my sister herself but  my sister’s extended family, me.

Wow! That’s educational. I now realized that despite traditional values in China have quickly receded or weaken under the forces of market and capitalism. Old values and traditions still prevail and remain strong in those who were born in the 60s, 70s, and 80s!   

And, money certainly does not run all aspects of our lives.

There is no clear-cut demarcate line between coworkers and friends.

My sister said she will not take my parents to the clinic because they do not charge the fees. In debt to Drew, she will pay back in one way or another.

A family of three invited me to try out their dish in a restaurant

After living in the US for over 26 years, part of me becomes an American—-the scope of social relationship has narrowed.

Yet, part of me remains Chinese; I still see my childhood friend as nearly identical as siblings.   Hong is such a friend. She told  me that herself and her father and brother all have heart problems after Covip and CoQ10 would help.  I bought three bottles of CoQ1o back home for her as gifts. 

In return, she took me to a famous Daoist temple in a mountain where the temperature is comparable to that of the footage of Rocky mountains even in the hottest time of the year. After visiting the temple, she took me a  to family-run restaurant that faces a reservoir. 

The restaurant sells mostly common dishes and has no menus. Instead, Customers stand in front of all raw ingredients and order there.  The owner strongly recommended a fried duck dish—ducks grew in the area and are super lean.  I guessed the price of fried duck must be high and suggested not to order it as Hong and I cannot eat so many dishes.   

After ordering, Hong and I went to the seated area. Hong obviously had not given up the idea of ordering a plate of fried duck in order to treat me well. She noticed that  a family of three were eating there with two dishes—a plate of fried duck and pork rib, so she ushered me there to check the fried duck out. 

 “Get a pair of chopstick and try it out”, the father invited me wholeheartedly, with a broad of grim, “pick a piece with more meat”.

 A fuzzy and warm feeling  filled me. The family are treated  me as a friend.

” The duck indeed is very delicious, ” I said to  the family and Hong.  It’s impossible to taste otherwise when I felt so welcome and well accepted by complete strangers.

Remarks

Despite I have become a stranger in my hometown, at the moments I felt I were reconnected with my root and my past, and understood why I sometimes felt deeply lonely in the States despite I lived a life of abundance materially. 

Despite I love my adopted country–USA,  unfortunately, I realized  market and commerce rule way too many areas of our lives that used to be part of communities/family or extended family relationships.  That’s why I felt lost and isolated in my adopted country. 

When money rules most of our relationships, we are bounded to feel lonely and depressed.