Guo Yifan is my extremely enthusiastic, outgoing, hilarious, and welcoming 35-year-old next-door neighbor. He and his wife have essentially adopted me as their surrogate daughter (or perhaps I should say little sister), and for this I am forever grateful for their warm hospitality. I can honestly say that I might not have survived the winter without them looking after me (I probably would have moved out by now if it weren’t for them). The examples of their patronage are countless: they arranged my current housing arrangements, negotiated the rent and electric bill with my landlord, took care of me when I got food poisoning, spent Chinese New Year with me, and bought me a birthday cake. Not to mention the fact that they provide my Internet connection (I connected a wireless router to their Ethernet cord so I can go online in my house) and invite me to eat dinner with them at least 3 times a week.
Guo Yifan, not only being a supportive big brother, is also my most enthusiastic research participant. He always has good ideas for interview questions and research topics. For example, he thought a good project would be to interview the meat and vegetable sellers at the market and do a little report on food market culture and how rising food prices are affecting Chinese society. He also clips newspaper articles for me and help introduce me to people who would be good to interview (including the local government officials). He currently lives in his grandfather’s house, and is passionate about the value of Old Nanjing culture and the importance of cultural preservation—not by advocating to literally preserve the houses, but rather by supporting the preservation of culture through participation in my research, which seeks to capture the life of the Old Nanjingese. I teach his daughter English, he teaches me the Nanjing dialect.
Guo Yifan talks loudly in the local dialect, smokes frequently, and drinks often. He is a social butterfly, always talking to the grandmas and aunties on our street and hosting dinner parties with his relatives and friends at the house. He scolds me frequently for being too polite, saying that I’m his little sister and I can come in and out of his house and eat his cooking whenever I want. The angriest I’ve ever seen him was when I got sick and I didn’t tell him. He found out two days in, and scolded me for not telling me while he proceeded to give me homemade remedies, like garlic, porridge, and washing my feet, and lectured me on Chinese medicinal practices for an hour.
He loves to joke around and is quite hilarious. He always makes me laugh. He likes to tease me about being fat and not speaking good enough Chinese. He teases my roommate even more, always telling her, “Why can’t you be more like Sarah? You need to study more. Your skin is so dark, the only way you’re ever going to get a boyfriend is if you go to America and find a foreigner.” I’m not kidding. He actually said that to her last night.
He and his wife have also adopted my roommate, by the way. We are these two lost girls without parents right now, and Guo Yifan and his wife have stepped in to fill that role. It works out quite nicely for all of us. He is a good cook, and likes to make Chinese food for me that I’ve never eaten before. His wife wears the pants in the relationship, and it’s quite obvious. She is older than him (something that almost never happens in China) and is a successful accountant. He never went to college and is a self-employed construction contractor. He frequently tells me that he is afraid of her.
I've written blog posts about him before. Here is a story about his daughter going to first grade. Here and here are some pictures of us celebrating the Chinese New Year together.
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| Big Brother and me |
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| Big Brother Guo's wife and him |
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| The Guo Family: Big Brother, his 5-year-old Hannah, and his wife |
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| Here is a map of his house. His house is TINY, it's only two rooms, and they don't have a shower. He and his wife share a room with his daughter. His wife and his daughter sleep in the same bed. |
Without further ado, here is his story, told in his own words:
My name is Guo Yifan, but you can call me Big Brother Guo. I was born in 1976 in Old Nanjing. My parents were married in this house and I was born here. I’m an only child because they started the One Child Policy the year I was born. When I started first grade, we moved away, but my grandparents still lived in this house. The happiest time during my childhood was coming to visit my grandparents in this house every Saturday. All of my aunts and uncles would come to chat and catch up with one another, and bring my cousins along so we could all play together. That was the best, happiest time of my childhood.
