6
Iceboxer Rebellion

September 15th, 1988

Dear Mom and Dad Allison,

Some good news – we finally got a refrigerator of our own…

A fridge was a status symbol for Chinese but a necessity for the foreign inmates of Holi-day Village. If nothing else, we needed to store the precious jams, mayonnaise and cheese we’d brought from Hong Kong. So we asked XMU’s leaders for a communal fridge.

“No need,” they replied. “Refrigerators are luxuries, not necessities.”

The next day, I complained to my Chinese teacher, “I thought Chinese were indirect? You said Chinese never give a direct ‘no,’ just a ‘maybe,’ or ‘we’ll think about it.’”

“True,” she said. “But we know your culture. Didn’t you appreciate them being frank?”

“I would have appreciated it if they’d said ‘Yes!’” I said.

Denied the luxury of a fridge, Holiday Village’s 40 foreign adults pooled their funds to pur-chase a Panasonic fridge 1/4 the size of our double-door behemoth in the U.S.. The leadership bemoaned the extravagant waste of electricity but we pointed out it was energy-saving and they relented. Besides, when they gave tours of their foreign students’ Holiday Village, it looked good to have a fridge in the kitchen.

We allocated each foreigner four square inches of shelf space and set rigid rules to preserve the peace. Containers without name and room number or shelf space left empty overnight were fair game. If we had no food in the fridge, we left our empty box lest someone annex our four inches.

I marveled how otherwise peaceable folk fought tooth and nail over the tiny territory occu-pied by an empty jelly jar. No wonder mankind has wars.

And the Chinese, it turned out, were right: we really didn’t need the fridge. There was no place in Xiamen to buy the jams, butter and cheese we’d brought from Hong Kong. Within a month, the fridge was half-filled with empty containers marked, “Do Not Remove! Property of XXX, Room 208!” One wit wrote on an empty bottle, “You touch, You die.”

2nd Fridge　The fridge fights proved so ferocious that Sue and I discussed buying a fridge for ourselves but opted against it, lest we appear too extravagant. The very next day, we received a letter from Elvin M., a fireman in California. “It is midnight and I felt compelled to write you a letter. My friends and I have decided to get you something for Christmas… and what comes to mind is a refrigerator.” Yuánfèn!

Chinese may have laughed at our tiny TV but they almost bowed to our 6.2 cubic foot Goldstar fridge.

Inducted　Officials had refused us a fridge but they did sympathize with the plight of 40 foreigners cooking on two propane burners. Food is, after all, Chinese number one priority. Chinese are not only the best cooks in the world but the best eaters as well. So one Saturday morning, several officials showed up with a $100 hi-tech induction cooker. It was beautiful –but utterly useless.

“These are safe!” they explained. “Only the pot gets hot – not the stove.” But they only worked with steel pans, which they hadn’t provided. I cycled the entire island, several times, searching for a steel pot, but Chinese shops only sold aluminum – which didn’t heat. When I pointed this out to the leadership, they looked uncomfortable. We realized this was a “face”thing. They’d bought the induction cooker before realizing no one sold the steel pots and pans. So we thanked them for the beautiful induction cooker and displayed it prominently in the kitchen. We never used it but it looked cool.

Give our love to the family – and write when you can.

Our love,

Bill, Sue and sons