Best Friends Forever

I don't know if it's the language or the culture, but the concept of friends is much different here than in America. I present to you, the reader, three examples. The first was last week when I was riding the bus to class. I was tired. I was grumpy. I wanted my nap to be a little longer. I'm still not used to having 8am classes. In the midst of my radiating grumpiness the lady behind me wanted to strike up conversation. I was browsing through a Chinese language book and she wanted to confirm that that's what I was studying. I agreed and went back to reading. Fifteen questions later her stop was coming up and she wanted to exchange numbers. This is very, very common. She asked, "You and me - Friends?" I reluctantly agreed and had to spent the next day ignoring her phone calls. I take Brian's line. If the only reason they're interested in you is because you're white, they're not worth much time.

Case two. I found an alternate Muslim noodle shop the other day. I love Muslim food but my local shop is relatively expensive, so I've been on the lookout for cheaper places. I found it. When I finally ate there, I spend the next twenty minutes being baraged with half-English/half-Chinese questions while I ate. My more-than-subtle body language of turning to face the wall didn't work. My new friend, who would be mistaken for a coke feign anywhere else on the planet that actually had drugs for poor people, still kept asking questions and doing weird things - like putting his hot sauce on my table despite the fact that I already had [and was using] the exact same sauce. I had the pleasure of being chased down and screamed to in a crowded alley when he saw me pass by tonight. He had his own little street-food stand selling bakery goods and I tried to buy a small cake, but had to force money into his friends hand. He really was trying to be friendly, but man... come on.

Case three. Eating a table with a stranger is common here. If a restaurant is full, you find a table with a roughly equal number of empty seats as people in your party. Thus, you and a friend can sit at another table with two strangers. I can sit at a table with another loner, like I did tonight. it began well. We shared our dishes and conversed a bit in Chinese. We even split a beer at the end of the meal. He wanted my number. It's normal, so I gave it to him. This is an aspect of Chinese culture I just don't get. We have very, very obvious communication difficulties. We barely made it out of whether we had girlfriends or wives, which part of town we liked, where we were from, and what our respective jobs were. What in the hell could we possibly talk about on the phone? I gave it anyway. I spent the rest of the night answering texts with him ascribing us to be brothers. I replied that no, we were new friends. Not brothers. I received only silence. Somewhere in the Middle Kingdom a heart broke.

* * *

I do have Chinese friends here that aren't part of the company. It took a long awhile to acquire them. We hang out the same way I hang out with friends back home. I go over for a few beers, maybe watch TV and complain about work or women or the weather. The fact that I'm a foreigner means little to them anymore, at least compared to almost everyone else. I might not call them every night [largely because the words "I really need to get home" mean nothing before 11:30 at night to them] but we enjoy each others company because our personalities mesh. They get to practice English, which they like, and I get to practice my Chinese. It's nice. They've even flipped my own sense of humor around on me. They were there for me when Hera needed to go to the hospital and I'm there for them to provide American music other than John Bolton and Michael Jackson. After all, what are friends for?

To Tianjin and Back, Pt 2

Read Part 1

One of the problems with low-end Chinese electronics is that they suck on a whole new level. They're cheap and there's a damn good reason why. Chinese phone chargers and electrical outlets top the list. Sure, you can buy a phone charger for under $2 but it gradually stops working. I'm no electrical engineer, but I don't understand how you can get diminishing results from a charger. It's not an engine or computer, it either works or it doesn't, right? There are no buttons, no switches, and no adjustment knobs. Wires touch wires touching my cell phones special place giving it the negatively charged juice of life.

The only reason I bring this up is because the day I left for Tianjin I had no juice in cell phone even though it spent all night on the charger. This was a double cell phone folly because I was having to use my old phone after dropping my new one in a waterfall whilst mountain climbing. I was having to turn it on once an hour to see if, as I suspected, I would receive my departure plans from the company. I was expecting a "you fly out tomorrow morning," not a "your train leaves 3 hours after you get home from classes," but hey... minor details, right?

I spent an hour searching for a charger in the neighborhood around my school during my [2.5 hour] lunch break. After scolding two businesses for selling Motorola phones but supposedly no chargers I found a guy selling phone accessories out of a cart. I charged up and napped while waiting for my next class

The phone was important because this was a homecoming of sorts. I had a few Chinese friends in Tianjin that I desperately wanted to see. There were two teachers from the Jixian retreat when I first came to China. The other was my "Tianjin girlfriend," a one-on-one student of mine who was in grad school at Tianjin University. My last night in Tianjin I became the second boy she ever kissed.

My biggest fear was that I was going to get to Tianjin, run through whatever process I needed to do and get flown right back down to Shenzhen perhaps even Wednesday night. We have a teacher shortage in Shenzhen and I was sure it was extremely difficult to cover my classes. That's why I had assumed they would spend the extra $60 and fly me instead of playing with 27 hour trains. I was afraid then I'd have to pick who I wanted to see and snub others, if I had time at all. It didn't wind up being an issue. I wound up staying up north till Thursday. Furthermore, my "Tianjin girlfriend" was in Shandong for a chemistry conference. Sad, sure, but definitely logistically convenient.

* * *
It was like a dream coming back to Tianjin. I didn't realize how much I missed the city. It seemed strange to be returning to a city I used to call home that's so far from Florida. It's all so relative now. I forgot how well I knew it in those two short months I was there. I knew where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I missed the street food, wide roads filled with cheap taxis, and massive bike-lanes. The things I hated most about the city had changed for my arrival - there wasn't a hint of smog in the air and the weather was perfect.

I began my day coming to the office. Coming up the marble steps into the company HQ, the first person I saw was my John LǎoShī [pronounced Laowsheer, Chinese for venerable/old teacher], my Chinese teacher. In a moment of instant recognition, we feigned a Hollywood reunion and ran towards each other for the bittersweet embrace of parted lovers. We went to Muslim noodles where I showed off my new-found Chinese skills and ordered for us and we traded stories of the past two months. I couldn't stop wondering wondering what it'd be like when I finally go back home to Jacksonville, how many lunches and dinners I'd have and with whom.

I spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for dinner with friends in my old hangout at the 4-story electronic store next to the company building looking for new headphones. I hadn't realized I missed playing with haggling over cheap electronics so much. I spent another two hours venting frustration with the local operation to the sympathetic ear of Brian.

Six O'Clock rolled around, it was time to catch a cab to He Xi District dinner with my two Chinese English teacher friends...