One for the Road

 

This will probably be the second to last blog I write. I blog whenever the mood hits me and rather than hitting me frequently, it tends to hit me at times when I have a lot to say/write. I'll be leaving Kaili in 2 days, China in 3. It's definitely blog time. As of now, I'm expecting the mood to hit me one more time. I'm sure that many interesting experiences, goofy stories, and many of my weird thoughts will come to me before I land in O'Hare. Onward to Boston. So, expect some kind of returning home blog. I promise that I won't call it “Honey I'm Home!”

Maybe this is supposed to the blog that sums it all up. The one that wraps all of my experiences in China into a nice presentable understandable package. That's just not going to happen. First of all, I've traveled a lot but had never truly lived in a foreign country until now. It's a whole different experience when you stay for a long time. I almost feel bad for the CIEE people who left China after 5 months. It took me about that much time to get over the 'Excitement Phase' and the 'What the Hell is Going On Phase.' Ok, I'm lying. I'm not really done with either one of those phases although their hold over me has lessened considerably in the past 5 months. Second, I've never been to a place that I wanted to hug one second and hit the next. This is, without a doubt, the most confusing place that I've ever been to. I'll try to fill this blog with the silly anecdotes and stories that people really seem to read for, while I'll try to avoid ranting. I've ranted a lot in my blogs and I think I've made many of my points within those rants. However, I need to be permitted one more rant in this blog. It's a big one. The big one! I've been thinking about it all year and have never written about it. Maybe that's because it makes me more angry than anything else I can think of. Anyway, I'll try to focus on silly stories, interesting stuff, one last rant, and saying goodbye to China.

Warning: If you don't want to read about how much I utterly hate the treatment of dogs here

then it's best to skip the following paragraph. I'll start with the thing that every foreigner has heard and wondered about regarding dogs in China. The answer is Yes. The Chinese do eat dogs. At least they do here in the Guizhou Province and probably other places as well. I have also heard people say that some people eat cats as well. In the west we have a set view of dogs as companions and pets, but here in China there is a confusing existence of two very different attitudes toward dogs. There seem to be people who view dogs as pets and who take care of their dogs but there are certainly those people who see dogs as just another animal like chickens or pigs. A few months ago, one of the restaurants that I frequented underwent construction and when it was finished it had changed from its former noodle house self into a place with a giant butcher table set in the front window. They specialize in selling dog meat now and I haven't been there since the change. There are restaurants that display dog haunches all over Kaili. I've seen dog heads on display once or twice. This has all lead me to the realization that there is a massive difference between having an academic knowledge of something's existence and being accepting of it. I've been aware of the eating of dogs all year long but even if I lived here for the rest of my life, I could never be ok with it. Sooner or later, I'd see someone kill a dog, I'd hit the motherfucker, and I'd be viewed as the bad guy. But eating dogs is not the only problem. People here keep extremely dirty dogs unleashed near busy roads. There have been numerous times when I've run into the road to grab a runaway dog because the dog owner was too lazy to watch the dog or was simply not present. Even though I'm sure not every dog that looks homeless is homeless the fact that the dogs appear that way is bad enough for me. There are also sidewalk vendors that sell puppies to any asshole who walks by. Maybe the person who buys the dog will leash it and care for it. Perhaps they will leave it unwashed and unleashed on a regular basis. They might eat it. I don't think the vendors really care about what happens to the dogs. Just another item to sell. Another product. The treatment of dogs in China is actually one of the reasons I've decided to leave. A guy like me does not belong in a place where people think so little, or not at all, of caring for dogs. The maltreatment of dogs is a big part of the general lack of care about nature that I've mentioned so many times in these blogs. Ok, rant's over.

I'm in the process of saying goodbye to everyone here. Some of my students have cried and given me gifts. Some don't seem to care at all. A lot of the girls have given me cards that have my name written as 'Cute Rob.' If they were college girls, I'd be much happier about that. I've gotten few hugs, an unusual practice for Chinese kids, and suddenly everybody wants my email address. One student gave me a copy of “Walden: and Other Writings” by Thoreau. Smart kid. Many of the lessons that I've taught this past year have been old Environmental Education classes that I've revamped to have an English learning twist, so if I've managed to slip a bit of the old 'Nature is Important' lessons in with the “Pronunciation is Important” lessons then I'm proud to be guilty. China has serious environmental problems. I hope that these kids will be among the ones who realize that you can't treat your own home like a trashcan and an expendable mass of worthless land. The mountains here are being carved away for new buildings day after day and in a few years this small city will be yet another giant, overcrowded, ugly, super-polluted piece of shit like so many other cities already are now. How could anybody ever think of that as progress? Seeing those carved out mountains makes me think that the world might be better off if nature were to deliver some kind of specie-centric earthquake, targeting humans and only humans, thereby getting rid of the stupid animals so the rest may live. That was a mini-rant. Doesn't count.

I've been wandering the mountains a lot and one day when I happened upon a somewhat hidden waterfall I became so excited to photograph it that I completely overlooked the large paddy of mud near my foot. Zoop! Next thing I know I'm hanging one leg on one leg off a cliff that I'd hadn't even seen. It was hidden behind a bunch of scrub. I was probably a solid 20 feet above water that looked like regurgitated pea soup. I was more frightened of the pollution in the water than the thought of falling. I grabbed some roots that proved strong enough for me to pull myself up. I stood up, backed away from the cliff, and snapped my photo. It was a little scary but it I actually thought of it as being more toward funny. One thing crossed my mind afterward, ”Maybe it wasn't mud. Here in Kaili it could easily have been Ox dung.” I've been trying to block out that thought ever since. My clothes were covered with it, after all.

I like Kaili. I think it's clear that I haven't enjoyed every moment of my time here, but when I think back on it I always land on the words “Pretty good.” My time in Kaili was, however, punctuated by extended periods of boredom and loneliness. One reason for this is the fact that even though the city's small size can be nice it also limits the amount of stuff there is to do. My job there was easy and it left me a lot of free time, which was great because I've gotten more writing, drawing, and reading done this past year than I have in a very long time. But there are only so many hikes I can go on and so many old online movies I can watch before boredom sets in. Another reason for this problem was the fact that even though I had a large number of friends in Kaili, they were always so busy. Most of my Chinese buddies were teachers or college students and had to attend classes when I was free. My friend Wudan once told me that she thought I'd be happier in a big Chinese city. I don't necessarily agree, but perhaps a larger city would have offered more chances to meet people who had as much time as I did.

The school is currently looking for new foreign teachers to replace me, Dave, and Lucia. Dave and Lucia have decided to stay in China and are leaving Kaili for some pretty good opportunities teaching in Shenzen. That's the difficulty that Kaili No. 1 Middle School is dealing with right now. Even though they are, more or less, a decent school to work at, they are not in a city that is very attractive to foreigners. Sure you see foreigners in Kaili, but 99% of them don't show up until the summer time and until that time you can bet that any foreigner you see there will be wearing a giant backpack and be headed straight for the bus station. It's a sad thing that foreign travelers and teachers seem to be so interested in the big tourist destinations but not so much about the little places like Kaili. People go there, check out a few Miao villages, and then hit the road. A lot of people who teach in China become very demanding snobs and criticizing jerks who do nothing but complain about their working and living conditions. I've certainly had my snobby American moments but I've tried very hard not to be that way. I learned early on in the year that I was being paid twice as much money as the Chinese teachers were and although my English is significantly more impressive than theirs the fact that I receive twice as much money for half the work time just isn't fair. Kaili is not a place that foreigners will flock to when they consider working in China and I'm worried that the next batch of teachers who come to Kaili will act like demanding snobs, giving Ms. Fu and Tan Yen a hard time. I don't particularly mind if they annoy Henry. Kaili No. 1 High School is a good little place. Ms. Fu and Henry asked me to speak to people at American schools I have contacts with, asking them whether or not they'd like to form a sister-school connection. I think that's a good idea and I have every intention of doing that. I'll start with my high school, Souhegan. Perhaps they'd like to send some little yuppie Amherst kids overseas to experience firsthand a place that will teach, teach, and reteach them nature's oldest lesson. Adapt! I'd tell Souhegan, “Don't send the kids with the best grades. Send the kids who are fascinated by change. Those are the kids that will thrive on a trip to Kaili.” And I know a whole bunch of Kaili kids who would absolutely love to come to an American school for a while. They'd be amazed by how easy our high school is. I imagine that many of them would look around little ol' Amherst NH and think, “Wait a minute. This doesn't look like America in the movies.” It seems to me that most of their knowledge about the U.S.A comes from movies and advertising. Maybe we're the same. Beyond Kung-Fu movies our fear of China's economic might, what do we really know about China? I think the answer is 'not much.'

Now the sad part. I had a goodbye dinner with Ms. Fu, Henry, and Ms. Cheng. Great food, we ate some kind of complicated duck specialty. But it is not the big fancy teacher dinners that I'll remember so much as the little moments with my friends. In China, like any other place, it's the people you befriend that matter most to you. Yes, I know that sounds cheesy, but it's true. I'll probably forget about the big goodbye dinner someday, but I don't think I'll forget the lunch I had the next day. I went to one of my favorite restaurants with Tan Yen, Liao Long Liu, Dave, and Lucia. It was the day before I had to leave Kaili and we just had a casual friendly lunch with some plain old-fashioned good food. The big fancy teachers' dinners might slip my mind someday, but the little casual times with my friends are glued in too well for that. That was the last time I saw Lucia and Dave. I wish them well in Shenzen. That night, I went out for one last KTV karaoke night with Liao Long Liu, Tan Yen, and their friend Wong Hwe. My last night in Kaili, and there I was singing “Yellow Submarine” with two old friends and one new one. Three lovely young ladies and one happy guy. That was a good night and a wonderful send-off for me. I'll miss them very much. So I like pretty girls, sue me.

The school drove me to the airport in the morning and I was worried that the only person who would be there to see me off was Henry, annoying until the last moment, when I happily learned that my friend Joy could make it to the airport to say goodbye. Thank you Joy, because of you the last person I said goodbye to was actually a friend of mine. I'll miss Joy, Tan Yen, Liao Long Liu, Ms. Fu, Long Tso, Wu, Dave, Lucia, Andy, Funky Andy, June, Wudan, Liana, the smiley guy at the convenience store, the nice lady at the nearby bakery, the milk tea guy, the funny soup vendor lady, the school security guard with the receding hairline, the guard with the Elvis hair, and too many others to name. I didn't want to spend more than one year there, but you don't walk away from people like that easily.

So you'd think that the blog should be over now, right? Or maybe you just wish it was. After all, I just left Kaili. Yes, but I was stuck in Shanghai for 3 days before leaving China. Guiyang doesn't have international flights so I had to catch a plane from there to Shanghai and fly out on June 15. This next part is all about my 3 days in Shanghai, they were fast but interesting. In some ways, I think that being in Shanghai made it emotionally easier to leave China.

My year in China started in Shanghai and ended there as well. I didn't like Shanghai then and my 3 days there made me like it even less. I liked having access to western food, seeing westerners, being in a place where no one stared at me and so on, but Shanghai is a giant crowded mess of people and buildings with dark scary haze that sits on top of the city as if to suggest that the end is near. And a bunch of weird things happened to me there. First, I'll mention the annoying street vendors. I went to The Bund, which as far as I could tell, wasn't much more than a glorified shopping district with what would've been a nice view, if not for that haze of impending doom that hung in the sky. Street vendors approached me from every direction. I'm glad they're not pack hunters because it's hard enough to deal with them one at a time. They all had the same kind of sales-pitch,”You want shopping? Bag, watch, DVD?” It was always, “...bag, watch, DVD.” Vendors would walk right up to me and would occasionally be so intrusive that they would stand in my way as I tried to walk by. One vendor cracked me up when he said, “Shopping? Bag, watch, DVD.....lady massage?” I've been offered “lady massage” quite a few times in China. No mom, I did not partake. The only massages I got were at the awesome place in Kaili where you get massaged right before a haircut. So mom, if you absolutely must worry about something, worry about me falling into a lake. That seems to be the most Rob-like thing I've mentioned so far.

I'm about to make myself sound like Super Man but before I do, let me assure you that there was nothing intimidating about this man. He was a skinny, little, wimp with a bad temper. Nothing more. I was walking back to my hotel when I saw a man and woman arguing on the sidewalk nearby. He kept grabbing her arm and that caught my eye. I didn't like what I was seeing, so I loitered nearby and wondered whether or not the situation would get worse. After a couple minutes, it seemed to me that she was trying to walk away, but he was grabbing her arm and pulling her back every time she tried to leave. I considered calling the cops and then realized that I had no phone. The school had bought my mobile phone for me and had taken it back when I left Kaili. But, I realized that even if I had a phone, my Chinese wouldn't be good enough to explain the situation. And I wondered, would the cops even care? The guy was grabbing her but not hitting her. I'm not entirely convinced that Chinese cops would consider that a problem. As I was thinking about this, I noticed that they had walked out into the street. She was trying to get a cab, but when a cab came he grabbed her arm and pulled her away from it. The cab drove off. People were staring but no one was doing anything. I'd been standing around like an idiot doing nothing for a few minutes when suddenly a scary thought ran through my head, “All it would take is one little push to send her into oncoming traffic.” That's the thought that got me moving. I walked out to the street where they were and tapped the guy on the shoulder. When he turned, I mimed grabbing his arm and then pointed to her, saying, “Bie.” (Don't.) I did this a few times and even though my Chinese is weak I think he understood what I was telling him. My intention here was to play interference for her long enough for her to walk away. She was smiling a little, perhaps amused by my crappy Chinese. He was clearly fuming, but he kept somewhat quiet. I was surprised by the fact that she chose not to walk away and actually walked off with him. They walked off of the road , me not far behind, and ended up walking in the direction of my hotel. I had to go that way anyhow, so I kept a short distance and watched as I walked. He wasn't grabbing her any more but they were still arguing. After a bit they stopped walking. So did I. I wasn't convinced that he had gotten the picture. They argued, getting more and more angry, when the guy looked over and saw me standing nearby. I wanted him to know he was being watched and that I wasn't frightened of him. I smiled and waved. Next thing I know, he starts an angry speed-walk in my direction and I'm standing there thinking, “Here we go. One day until I leave China and I get myself in a fight with some random asshole in Shanghai. Guess I will get to see the interior of a Chinese prison after all.” But in my mind, this man was the scum of the earth and he fully deserved to have an angry laowai beat the shit out of him. That was her second chance to walk away, but not only did she let it pass by but she actually pulled him back to her. They continued arguing, walked off toward the intersection near my hotel, and I was left there thinking that all of my knight in shining armor tactics were completely futile. If she wasn't going to walk away when she had the chance then what the hell could I do? We reached the intersection to my hotel and I had to decide, go straight and continue following them for who knows how long or turn right and go to my hotel. I didn't know what else to do. I turned right.

There is a kind of scam called the 'Tea House Scam' and I came close to being suckered by it. I was aware of it because the Lonely Planet Guide and Chris Wray's blog. Thanks for writing about that Chris. By the way,if anyone is interested in reading a very well written blog about China, I'd recommend going to the CIEE website and checking out Ross Katz's blog. Anyway, the Tea House Scam goes something like this: A Chinese person who speaks a fair amount of English comes up to a foreigner and starts up a conversation. It's all friendly small talk and the person invites the foreigner to a tea house where they drink tea and chat together. The trick is that person has an arrangement with that particular tea house and when the foreigner receives their bill it turns out to be absurdly expensive. So when the two nice ladies in Shanghai walked up to me and started a conversation I thought it was innocent enough. In Kaili, I could bet that people who did that sort of thing were genuinely nice people who simply wanted to talk to a foreigner. But Shanghai is a different story. Everything was fine until they suggested we all go to a tea house together. Shanghai had put me en guarde since day one. After all the annoying shady vendors I'd run into I had developed a a strong mistrust for people who approached me in Shanghai. I decided to test the waters by pointing to a random restaurant up ahead, telling these women that I was going to eat there, and inviting them to come along with me. I looked ahead and saw the face of my savior. The Pizza Hut logo. I told them I was going there for lunch and they refused my invitation, accusing me of disliking Chinese food. I had been in a place with nothing but Chinese food for the whole year, so I was completely immune to their guilt trip. They tried to push the tea house one last time, but I said no and went to Pizza Hut. Just because I look like a sucker doesn't mean I have to act like one. I remember having a ridiculous but funny thought, ”Shanghai makes me feel like Odysseus, facing challenge after challenge when all I really want is to go home.”

That's pretty much it. I left China the next day. I wish that I could somehow spill my memories onto this computer screen so that I wouldn't leave out any of the interesting things from this past year. I think of Kaili as a one year place. I'm glad I went, to Kaili and to China. There's so much that people don't know about China and after my year there I think that perhaps the most important things that I've learned are 1) The world 'culture' isn't accurate when describing China. China has cultures. That S is necessary. 2) Just because a place has major issues and things that drive you crazy and piss you off that does make it bad place. China is in the midst of opening itself up to the western world and I think that will a good thing. I'm just worried that we westerners will have such a ridiculously high opinion of ourselves that we'd end up overlooking the good aspects of China. China is huge. Comparing Kaili to Shanghai is like comparing Amherst New Hampshire to New York City. They're in the same country but that doesn't make them similar. I found the good aspects of China in my students, my friends, my employer, the mountains, the food, and the art. I want this to be as clear as possible: I have decided to leave China just because there is nothing that's happened in the past year that has made me want to stay. I don't hate or even dislike China. I just can't think of a reason to stay longer.

So goodbye China. I'll miss you and I'm glad I met you.