A few of my fellow foreigners have chosen to stay in China for a second year. I don't understand why they want to stay. What have they found here? I guess I don't know because I haven't found it. Is it the fun goofy moments when people swarm around you and treat you like a celebrity? Maybe it's the fact that you're constantly surrounded by interesting and new things you've never experienced before. Maybe it's a desire to learn more. The language barrier does keep a lot away from us, after all. There's a culture barrier too and it's every bit as thick as the language one.
I have a very long list of countries that I want to see and China has always ALWAYS been on it. When I was little I'd hover over the TV during the following shows: Creature Double Feature, The Muppet Show, and a show called Kung-Fu Theater. Creature Double Feature always showed monster movies because monsters were and are kickass awesome! The Muppet Show was pure genius and anyone who disagrees is just plain stupid and wrong. Kung-Fu Theater always showed martial arts movies. I was one of those goofy kids who grew up idolizing Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, and all the guys who could do the triple flip spinning double-axle back kicks. I had a mental image of China as a place full of Kung-Fu masters, where every building was an ornate temple, and I never had anything but fondness for this image of mine. It seems as though movies don't always project the truth because reality has presented me with a different picture.
I have not seen a place full of Kung-Fu masters and I've had reactions other than fondness for China This is the place I've seen in the past 8 months: A place where the fantastic architecture of a temple sits right in the middle of a street full of businesses and restaurants. A place where it's socially acceptable to throw garbage on the sidewalk. A place where a foreigner like me is held in this elevated celebrity kind of status that can be enjoyable at times but can be incredibly annoying and exclusive at others. A place where it's basically ok to spit and fire snot missiles on the sidewalk A place where your taste buds will do the dance of joy (as long as you can handle the spice). A place where some people, at least some of my students, seem to view Kung-Fu as a joke. A place where your taste buds will do the dance of joy even if you can't handle spice. A place where mountains are being continuously carved away for new developments. A place with beautiful birds. A place where it's ok to push people and to cut in line. A place filled with interesting clothes, such as many of the colorful outfits that the Miao women wear. A place where people love English songs even if they can't understand them. A place where people work too damn hard. A place where people sleep on the job. A place where the pressure to get married is intense! A place filled to the brim with extremely thin people. A place with wonderful fruit. A place in which people seem to believe that pale = beautiful. A place with certain kinds of 'music' that I can't really refer to as 'music' because it doesn't have any discernable rhythm or beat. A place where parades of drum-banging women walk through town every time a new store opens up. A place where anyone who isn't toothpick thin might be referred to as a little bit pong-pong (fat). A place full of low doorways. A place that loves to light itself up with neon at night. A place in which students claim that there is no racism in their country and then fail to recognize their own racist remarks. There's too much to write, but these are some examples of the details of everyday life here that have made my experience in China whatever it happens to be right now.
I know that I usually save the “What's Rob planning in the future?” section for the end of the blog, but I just want to get it out of the way now. I missed the application deadline for the Teach in Spain program by a long-shot, so I was considering the CIEE Teach in Chile program as a backup. Ultimately, I've decided that I don't want to bounce away to another country so soon. I am not applying to any overseas jobs right now. I have checked out Teach For America and although I have more to learn about it, I am not really turned on by what I've read. It seems to be an organization that is looking for incredibly impassioned people who want to work as hard as possible for their cause. They would find me lacking that passion. The only reason why I'd consider the program would be for the chance to earn a teaching qualification without going back to school. After reading about TFA, I'm disappointed to learn that a teaching qualification is not a guarantee (ashamed to admit that I misspelled 'guarantee' 3 times before this). Therefore, I'm not interested. If I'm going to spend 2 years of my life dedicated to a program that I don't necessarily care to be part of to begin with then I damn well want to come out of it with a qualification that will magically improve my career options. Right now, the only option that really 'turns me on' is heading home and seeing whether or not my experience here in China has spruced up my resume enough to land me a good ESL teaching job in the states. After all, this has been great professional experience for me. If I can teach numerous classes of 60-70 students with minimal equipment in a school with a severe 'lack of communication' problem in a small Chinese city in which people almost never see foreigners, then you bet your ass I can handle a lot of the stuff that an ESL school in America could throw at me. The funny thing is, besides wanting to see family and friends of course, I don't have any particular need to remain in the U.S.A. forever. I think there are numerous places that I'd be more than happy in. Places like Canada, England, Ireland, Norway, any place in which everyday life makes the slightest bit of sense to me. So I'll be headed home in early July. I'll smell that scent that I've always associated with Logan Airport (some kind of cleaning fluid perhaps), meet up with the family, eat all the cheese that New Hampshire has to offer, and plug away at the job search. I'm currently looking into various ESL schools in any part of the U.S.A. that seems to have a decent amount of ESL positions open.
I just found out that Bin Laden's dead. I'm not about to get into the rights and wrongs or goods and bads of the situation. I'm no journalist, just another schmuck with a blog. All I know is that I want to find some Americans here in Guiyang tonight because I think we are all in need of a beer or two.
Funky Andy. This is my new friend in Kaili and that is his DJ name. He's hilarious! He's a DJ and hip-hop dance teacher in Kaili and he's sooooo enthusiastic about showing off his brand new, shiny, American friend to everybody in town. He's offered to give me a free hip hop dance class so, as everybody knows how incredibly hip hop I am, I've decided to take him up on the offer. I think it will be a great way to meet new people in Kaili and since I've never really had any problem with embarrassing myself in public I think it will be fun. I first met him when he was DJing at a food court area. He was so excited to meet me that he decided to get up on stage and sing me a song. He said the song was dedicated to me and proceeded to sing some hideous boy band song that I'd never heard and never want to hear again. On one hand I was thinking that he had merely chosen that song because it was in English, but I wasn't really sure what to make of it because it was kind of a romantic song. A lot of Chinese guys have a habit of putting their arms around one another. Andy kept doing this and I kept telling him to cut it out. He asked me if my coworkers Lucia and Dave stayed at home so often because they were afraid of being touched. Put yourself in my shoes, this guy who you barely know is putting his arm around you a lot, singing boy band songs for you, and telling you that he wants to be your 'Special friend.' All of this leaves you to wonder “Is this just the language barrier and culture differences playing tricks on me or is this guy looking for something that is...not my style?” We went to a club with some of his friends and after I'd given him clues about which girls I found attractive, he asked me, “Rob, do you know gay?” I said,”What?” He said, “You know gay? Like two men together.” I nodded as I sat there thinking, 'Ok. This is it. Any second now he's going to hit on me or ask me out or something. Just remember, he's a nice guy so you're going to have to be calm, cool, and friendly when you shoot him down.' Turned out that all he wanted to do was point to some pretty girls that were all grinding on one another. Culture differences can really mess with your head sometimes. Andy is a straight guy with a girlfriend who just so happens to have that arm around the shoulders habit that so many Chinese guys have. His English and song choice lead me to consider signals that he wasn't really sending.
Still at the club with Funky Andy. One of his dance students was a 5 year old boy with revolting fake blonde hair, but damn this kid can dance! He was all over the place in the club, pulling off moves that most adults can't do. Apparently, he's been featured on some big Chinese dance shows. After he tuckered himself out dancing, he sat with me on the couch and I showed him how to throw peanuts into the air and catch them with your mouth. His aim was better than mine. Probably around 3AM, two people showed up. The first was Andy's brother in-law. A nice guy who just so happened to be turning 33 that day. I looked at his face and really really really hoped that I didn't look as old as him. We were, after all, the same age. The second person to show up was a beautiful girl I'd seen dancing earlier. I managed a few Chinese sentences that were trying to push their way up to official conversation level when Andy came over and told me we were leaving. When I asked why, he told me that they were going to have some special food to celebrate his brother in-law's birthday. Not a lot happens in Kaili, it can be very boring sometimes, so when I'm having a good time at a club and talking to a pretty girl I sure as hell don't want to leave. But Andy wouldn't let up. He actually made it sound as if it would be insulting to his brother in-law WHO I HAD JUST MET 5 MINTUTES BEFORE if I didn't come. I verbally fought for a few minutes and then figured 'Ok. Just once. It's the guy's birthday after all.' We went to a restaurant on the far side of town and Andy kept telling me about the special food he wanted me to try. It was exactly what I didn't want it to be. Pig dick. Again. I ate the rice, the eggs, and every surrounding dish, but I steered clear of the 'special' food. Accuse me of being close minded and not being open to new experiences if you want to, but I'd already eaten pig penis once before and it was not something I wanted to try again. One is enough to last me a lifetime. Andy kept telling me that he really wanted me to try it because it was special food. I gave him every excuse I could think of and I grew progressively irritated as the minutes ticked by and he wasn't letting up. I've met some people here who don't seem to understand that there is a thin line between being a generous host who would like for their foreign friend to try new things and being a pushy annoying asshole that won't take 'No' for an answer. I'd decided that Andy had already convinced me to leave the club I'd been having fun at to come to this dinner that wasn't much fun so there was no chance in hell that he was about to convince me to do anything else that I didn't want to do. I've been open to trying new things during in my time in China, but I have limits. Sometimes people just have to be shut down before they start thinking that they can get their shiny new foreign buddy to do anything they want. Andy's really a good egg, this was just one crazy night. We'll hang out again and I'll be taking that hip hop class soon.
One Saturday morning, after an intellectually stimulating Skype conversation with my nephews and niece (every 5th word was 'fart' or 'poop') I decided to head off to Guiyang because I had few days off. Upon exploring Guiyang rather thoroughly, I learned two important things: I can walk that city North to South in 40 minutes and Chinese Papa John's pizza is much better than Chinese Pizza Hut pizza. Important info.
I was in Guiyang, walking to meet my friend Joy, who is possibly reading this right now, Hi Joy, when I noticed some guy following me. He had a creepy smile on his face and after a minute or so he sidled his way over to tap on my shoulder. I sidestepped, gave him nasty look, and sped up. I thought that I left him far behind me but right about the time that I found Joy, I noticed that he was there again, walking right alongside me. I stopped to talk to Joy and this guy stood a few feet away, just staring and smiling like a freak. He had followed me for nearly a quarter mile and I wanted him gone as soon as possible, so I stepped forward and shouted, “Fuck off! Bu ni mao (impolite).” He got the message but only a little bit. He backed away only as far as the nearest bench where he sat down and continued his freakish staring. Joy half smiled at my use of Chinese and the weird situation. We walked away one minute later, me constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure that the guy wasn't still following. Joy, via these blogs, has learned what many of my Chinese buddies haven't learned yet. I can really
an asshole sometimes.
I just returned from Guiyang. It's May 3. Ms. Fu had told me that I was off between April 30-May 3. This morning she called me just after I settled into the Guiyang train for the return ride. She asked me where I was and seemed shocked when I told her. She told me that I had classes today. I told that she'd previously told me I was off that day. Turned out she had given me the wrong dates. On one hand, this job is very easy. On the other hand, stupid miscommunications like this happen too often and after 8 months I'm pretty damn tired of them.
I mentioned the arm around the shoulder habit that many Chinese guys have, but that's not nearly as common as the habit of Chinese women holding hands with one another. This is extremely common in China. I've seen women of various ages walking hand in hand in many different cities. One more interesting habit is the habit of walking backwards. I've seen quite a few Chinese people who walk backwards for short distances as if it's some kind of healthy thing to do. It's just another interesting Chinese thing that I don't understand.
Holy umbrellas Batman! One of the first things I noticed upon my arrival in China was the number of people carrying umbrellas. It was a bright sunny day in Shanghai and there was a sea of umbrellas in front of me. I just didn't get it. But there really does seem to be a strong belief that pale=beautiful here. Many people don't want to become tan, so they carry umbrellas on sunny days. I've seen Chinese women who are so pale that they're almost ghostly. I had one class that was all about wishes. Each student wished for one thing and one of the girls wished to be as white as paper. Another student of mine, when asked whether or not she would ever date a black man said,”No. I'm already so dark! I don't want my children to be dark too.” Umbrellas come out on rainy days too. I don't see many people wearing raincoats in Kaili. I used to think that rainy days would the only days that I could blend in here because everyone would be covered in raincoats, but nope. On rainy days I appear as a tall, bright blue, hooded figure amongst a giant mass of umbrellas. My raincoat is very long with a large hood, so on rainy days I amuse myself by thinking of myself as The Blue Ghost of Kaili. I keep my head down, hoping that my hood will protect me from getting my eye poked out by the onrush of umbrella tines that always seem to be at my eye level.
Ok.. I think I've written everything I had in mind for this blog. Just a closing thought. On my train ride back from Guiyang I was treated with another marvelous view of the surrounding mountains. Lately, I've been feeling as if a lot of my interest in China is waning away as my date to head home draws nearer. However, those mountains still fascinate me. I want to dedicate these next 2 months to exploration of the mountains. They're nearby and the weather has warmed up considerably. It's time for as much hiking as possible. But, why are you reading this blog when you could be reading the story “RED” by John Foster? It's a short story inside “Book of Horror 2.” You should get it right now. It's the only way to stop the monsters from eating you.
