Tai Tu Le!

I suppose this should be included with the "American road trip" posts, except that I'm not traveling now, I'm more or less home. My Chinese wife says Texas is tai tu le, which translates roughly to "too dirt", or extended to "too close to the soil". The phrase is used for places or people who are not so sophisticated, not so rich, maybe work outdoors, or without all the city conveniences and glories.

Now, I think you could say that she's correct. With the exception of Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, Texas is rural. Maybe tai tu le means too rural, and can be extended to people who don't wear fancy clothes, have expensive haircuts, or drive a new imported car.

Now, out here you can pee off the back porch if you want: Off the front porch too! Nobody gives a damn if you park old cars on the plot, long as they don't uglify the whole neighborhood. When people want to visit, they don't make an appointment first, they just drive up and bang on the door. The neighbors live far apart, and often you can't see them at all. You can go for several days without seeing a policeman or dodging a BMW driver on a cell phone. For neighbors, we have a fellow who paints race cars out in the barn, another who is a musical saw player, a blues guitarist, and a playwright who brews his own beer (very nicely). Around the corner there's a fellow who gets out his pistol and has target practice every so often, which is illegal here. No one's bothered to call the police, but someone will get tired of it and drive around saying "who's the sonofabitch firing a gun within range of my kids?". Word gets around and he stops for several months. Neighbor power!

Considering all these things, I've been trying to explain a western concept to my wife: In this particular case, tai tu le is a feature, not a bug.