"If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit!"

About ten years ago, Trey Parker and Matt Stone penned a fantastic little episode of South Park entitled "Chef Aid." In the episode, Johnnie Cochran is hired to defend a record company against a copyright infringement suit brought by Chef. Parker and Stone use this opportunity to satirize Cochran's closing argument from the O.J. Simpson trial, which they label as the "Chewbacca Defense." The Chewbacca Defense reads as follows:

But, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense! […] Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, [approaches and softens] does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

I was reminded of this episode several times this past week when China, like the Chewbacca Defense, did not make sense.

The first reminder occurred when Katie had a bicycle accident near our apartment. We were headed to class on Thursday morning through a hutong when, out of nowhere, a woman walked out of an alleyway in front of Katie with a four year-old child. Katie swerved to avoid hitting the little emperor, in so doing falling off of her bicycle, rolling, and banging up her shin pretty badly. (She's fine now, aside from some bruising)

However, rather than thank Katie for not crashing into her child, the mother began to yell at Katie in Chinese, telling her that we had been going through the hutong too quickly which, on our bicycles, is impossible. And, as is typical in China, a crowd gathered to watch the ensuing display, and a grandfather got in on the action, adopting the mother's position and also criticizing our nonexistent speed.

Meanwhile, this woman lives in a hutong that has a major street going through it. And we were, by no means, the fastest people coming down this road. So I have to believe that this was not the first time her kid almost got ran over, given her quickness in blaming Katie. Why, then, would we be to blame for almost hitting her child, when she was too foolish to look before she walked out of a blind alleyway? That does not make sense.

The second reminder occurred when we came back to our apartment that evening to find two guys getting out of our elevator. As is often the case in China, we bear all the signs of a revenue source for some people, so they started to talk to us in rushed Chinese, clearly trying to sell us something. But we couldn't understand what they were saying, much less figure out what they were selling, and we informed them as such.

Rather than give up on the sale, however, they decided to show us a laminated card that was written entirely in Chinese. Where, might I ask you, is the sense in this? If we can't understand the spoken language, how then would we be able to understand the written language, which is about a billion times more complicated? This does not make sense.

The final reminder occurred when, as has been previously covered elsewhere, Beijing modified a ban on smoking in public places. Evidently restaurant and bar owners complained about the impact on business, so now restaurants and bars are only required to have a designated non-smoking area starting on May 1st. This is like designating a pee-free section of the pool. And so, this does not make sense.

I will never pretend to understand China because, in many cases, you simply can't. Claiming to understand China is a little bit like claiming to have learned to speak Mandarin fluently as a second language--it's simply impossible to do, and anyone who claims they are fluent is often overconfident in their abilities. All you can do is walk slowly, as Chinese shopkeepers often urge you to do, and simply practice the art of being here.