Haircut, Round III

I'm an alley rat. I get some weird pleasure taking random turns through the alleys near my apartment with loosely defined missions of finding some random service or product. Little business districts pop out of nowhere - an entire alley of seafood with water running out of a hundred tanks and into the streets, a used-furniture alley, the chopping block alley with live ducks and chickens awaiting your execution orders. Dotting the alley's are people running phone rooms, tailors, game rooms with 80's arcade games, neon lit brothels, cigarette & baijiu stores, and salons. I was on the prowl for a massage joint. It costs about $3 for an hour long and thoroughly strange massage and I figured I'd treat myself for no particular reason.

Bright lights caught my eye reminding me that I needed a haircut. I detoured into an alleyway salon and took a seat. I whipped out my pocket dictionary and pointed to the side of my head and said, "short", then pointed to the top and said "not short." Hopefully that would do and they'd get my point - which explicitly was to not shave my head like had happened in Tianjin. I made little visual cues as to how short I wanted it.

I was bombarded with a long, fast stream of Chinese. "Wah boo hway shwaw Hanyu [not pinyin, I know]/ I don't speak Chinese," I told them in a horribly mangled accent. More Chinese. Not even a little bit slowed down. I repeated myself. I gave up. Maybe the inflections in my English would get the point through: "Dude, I don't speak Chinese."

They got it.

A young lady grabbed a clearly marked "shampoo" bottle off the shelf in front of my chair with proceeded to spray four inches of white foam on the top of my head. She began a 15 minute process of massaging it in.

It began again. A million questions in Chinese. I picked out one I thought I was hearing correctly and told them I was American. I told them I was an English teacher. Confusion. People start walking into the salon from the street to see the laowai getting his head massaged with white foam who doesn't speak crap for Chinese.

A man kept getting closer in closer. Without my glasses I could only see a blur of him in the mirror. I turned right and he was staring at me from about six inches away with the wild eyed joy of a six year old poking a dead alligator with a stick. We both broke into maniacal laughter.

For the remaining 12 minutes of my massage was a endless sequence of someone asking me a question in Chinese, me shrugging, and then uncontrollable laughter - especially from the girl rubbing her hands through my hair with the white foam. There's some strange acid trip of a feeling of having someone else touching your scalp and there being no ability to communicate. It gets weirder when sharp objects enter the picture and the actual haircut begins.

Now is a good time to point out a big cultural difference between Americans and Chinese. The Chinese viewed my presence with curiosity and benign humor. Never did I feel like I was being made fun of. Everyone felt bad for not being able to speak in each others language. In America, most barbers would be profoundly annoyed if a Chinaman came in speaking hardly any Chinese and wanted a haircut. You're in America, speak English[!], right?

I think that's been one of the biggest buffers keeping me sane in China as a non-Chinese speaker. The Chinese seem to have endless patience for foreigners, want to be helpful, and what comes off as rude - the endless staring - really is just an inordinate amount of curiosity. It's nice living somewhere where a sense of humor can come across even without words.

Tags: Treyopia short stories stories haircut hair cut language humor China Chinese Shenzhen alleys streets salon

Chinese Wedding

My roommates description of a Chinese wedding...

I accompanied two friends to a Chinese style wedding this past weekend. I figured, why not go? I've never been to a Chinese wedding and I haven't seen my friends in awhile. The bride is Chinese and the groom is actually British. He doesn't understand a word of Chinese and the bride's guests don't do so well with English.

There was free wine and beer. Everyone was drunk before the event even began.

So, the ceremony, if you will, was conducted by two friends of the bride, half in Chinese, half in English. The happy couple were then asked to exchange something like vows. The bride give a heartwarming speech about how she met this fat, ugly, boring Englishman and fell in love with him...awww isn't that sweet. Then the groom's turn. He explains how he couldn't stand the bride when they met. He thought she was bossy and annoying....but he loves her! awww

Then for the dinner. The groom goes around to every table (about 8 of them with 10 people each) and does bottoms-up with every person. His face was the color of the red wine by the time he got to our table.

The dinner was followed by "games". These included a line of females and the groom, blindfolded, had to feel each one and guess which was the bride. You'd think it would be easy to tell which one was wearing a wedding dress but, he was so far gone he had no clue.

The rest of the evening is a blur. (not because I was drunk. No, I was quite composed. But because everyone else was so drunk and off the wall that I couldn't keep up with everything that was happening) Let's see, the groom tackled the bride and they were rolling around on the floor, the groom decided to chew out a work colleague for acting above everyone else at work (I thought I saw a fist fight coming), and the bride, who knows why, got angry and started to smash plates on the floor. She then took a large knife, slashed her wedding cake in half, threw the knife against the wall, and stormed out.

As entertaining as this was, I thought it was a good time to leave.

tags: Treyopia China Chinese weddings weddings stories short stories

Addiction

The first step in solving a problem is admitting a problem, right? I've grown up terrified that if I ever touched a drop of alcoholic I'd turn into a raving drunk. Not even close to true. I've played with things I shouldn't have and haven't done the worst more than a few times with little desire to try again. But, alas, I am an addict.

I love Coca-Cola products. Love them. I mean I hate them. Love them. Hate them! LOVE THEM! HATE THEM!!!!!

I can't win. I destroy myself over it, but it's clear now. Coke and Fanta have a hold on me.

I was winning the battle earlier this week and last week. I thought about why I wasn't loosing more weight walking everywhere and eating healthier. I get more exercise than I ever did back home, and yeah, I've lost a little weight... but... not as much as I should. And then it hit me: I'm downing two soda's a day. One in the morning as a caffeine boost and one after lunch as a sweet desert. I needed to cut it.

So I switched to black tea. It has all the caffeine [plus booster alkaloids] I need to take me through a long day of teaching, but it's mostly just leaf flavored water. All Chinese businesses and homes have water coolers with hot and chilled water on tap. I went out and bought a special tea mug [it has a mesh net to keep the tea out of your mouth] and now drink about five classes of water a day with no high-fructose corn syrup. I can feel it working already. I feel more energized. I come home and not only want to ride the bike, but I get up and do it instead of vegging out!

Then today came...

Things were good till lunch. Then I had a craving. I needed an orange Fanta. I was in luck... the closest ATM was a fifteen minute walk and I had only enough change on me to take the bus home. Soda or a ride home... easy pick. So I got through it...

When I got home I coaxed Lyndsey to hop on the bike with me to go to a pizza place I found about a mile away while exploring. So we ride out, China-style, girl balanced on the small carrier-rack on the back and arrive after much wobbling. Pizza! I can splurge... I've been good, right?

It comes with coke. I devour it. I order another. I devour it. I come home. I need more! I find leftover coke from the party. I drink 2 cups worth with one gulp. I tell myself to stop. Another giant gulp.

I looked over and noticed an empty 2-liter of Sprite bottle left over from the party that I destroyed without even realizing it. I felt like I was staring at a pile of used hypodermic needles I suddenly realized were mine. I half expected to see the baby from Trainspotting crawling up the wall.

And so, friends, I pledge now... no more. I will not let soda keep me the skinny guy stuck in a slightly chubby body. No more!! For now, anyways.

Hong Kong, Pt. I

Henry David wrote that we always devolve into systems. That was one of his primary observations after an experiment in anarcho-primativism at Walden Pond over 150 years ago. He left society and all it's nuances and found that he was only creating new systems and recreating old ones - habits, thoughts, patterns - deep in the woods away from civilization.

"Hong Kong, Pt. I"

Half a globe away from home I find myself repeating similar systems I've routinely employed. I find a few restaurants that I visit often. One has to be quirky, another has to be imminently simple and family run, both have to be cheap. I have to visit the simple one before I travel. In Jacksonville that was Flip's, in Tianjin and Shenzhen it's the local Muslim noodle restaurant with the horrific Photoshopped wall-mounted menu [on the right side] of a lake and mountain with the most common dishes and their prices floating in the foreground. An occasional copy + pasted sheep and cow are added to the side of the lake. Every cow and every sheep are the same, with the same pose, no matter where by the lake they stand. I love it and bask in it's ugliness.

And it so it went, systematically, that R. and I downed a plate of noodles before heading to Hong Kong. A week earlier I was angry that I was being made to go to Hong Kong to get my work visa during my break. But as the planned trip to Guilin fizzled for everyone and I read more about Hong Kong I was getting excited.

Shenzhen is to Hong Kong what Tampa is to St. Petersburg - right on top of it. I can see the mountains of the New Territory in Hong Kong coming home from school. Shenzhen was built because of Hong Kong. It was Deng Xiaoping's first bold experiment in making China what it is today when he established a Special Economic Zone where free markets could flourish. A city larger than New York has arisen where a sleepy fishing village stood 25 years earlier. Getting to the border, then, is a 30 minute subway ride from my apartment.

Hong Kong has been a part of China for most of a decade now, but the "one country, two systems" policy extends beyond just politics and currency though. Getting into Hong Kong is in every way like crossing an international border. I get new stamps on my passport, you fill out customs sheets, and not everyone is allowed in - especially poor mainland Chinese.

The line was about fifteen minutes long, much less than the hour that Frommer's predicted. I pushed down my traditional anxiety I always get when confronting authority like this. My mind digs deep wondering if there's anyway someone else's bag of high-grade heroin somehow accidentally found it's way into my satchel, whether my passport was pickpocketed sometime in the last 20 seconds, or any number of ridiculous suppositions.

"Your visa is expired."

"What?," I responded.

"Your visa. Is expired. You overstayed your visa."

I stared back blankly. Rage consumed me. My company needlessly waited till the absolute last second to send me for my work visa and they miscalculated.

"What do I do?" I pulled out 100 RMB expecting a small fine.

"You see," the agent said as he pushed my passport back at me, "you overstayed three days." He started writing down how many days were in each month to prove beyond doubt that I had indeed overstayed my tourist visa by three days.

"Do I pay you or... ?"

"No."

"I was going to Hong Kong to get a new visa."

There was no response as he stared at my visa more.

I was beginning to worry. They weren't taking my money, they weren't letting me through to Hong Kong... what were they going to do?

After a minute or so of waiting a lady came and escorted me to the side. She stayed behind railing and went into a room, leaving me without any directions or expectations. I frantically started calling staff. They were clueless. I tried explaining as unbiased as I could, saving as much "face" for the responsible parties as I could while still clearly letting them know ACES was to blame for waiting so long. It was senseless... I was in Shenzhen for two weeks not working. I asked repeatedly to go to Hong Kong to take care of it. "It would make a lot of sense to do it now," was the best reply I got.

Alas, systems pervade everything. The Chinese business system is not like the American system. Things take time, things take clearance and consensus at all levels. It is not a system that encourages quick movement, prodding, or making someone lose face by telling them they're not doing their job well enough or fast enough. Unfortunately I was at the nexus of a governmental system that demands arbitrary order and a business system that demands slack. I stood on the sidelines and waited for the results.

To be continued...

Tags: Treyopia short stories stories Hong Kong customs passport visa l visa z visa Shenzhen Thoreau Henry David Thoreau anarcho-primativism Frommer's

Robot vs. Tweaker Methods

At some point this week I decided that it was easier being robot than a foriegn English teacher. I was getting too serious and too frustrated with a group of third graders who wouldn't stop talking while I was teaching. Honestly, I don't rightfully have the skills to teach kids that young. It's too early for all-English classes. It's hard listening to a teacher who speaks half gibberish no matter how much you want to learn. This biomechanical transformation was one of two methods that worked this week.

The first method was acting like tweaky Jim Carry on meth. As soon as the Chinese teacher left I'd say my standard, "Good morning, class!" They'd respond plenty loud, but then I'd stand on a chair and yell it. I'd yell it again trying to scream louder than they could. I had their undivided attention. I'd then hop off, write a category on the board like "food" or "animals." I'd then run around picking students whose hands were shot a mile high. "Cat," they'd say. "CAT!!!!!!!" I'd yell back while giving an enthusiastic and exaggerated high-five crouched down to their little seats. If I was really into it I'd give a psychedelic meow or two.

"Hot Dog!"

"HOT DOG!!!!!!!!"

High-fiving and fake vomiting follows.

The Tweaker Method works perfectly with the little tykes excerpt for two issues that emerge after class. I lost my voice and energy. Out-screaming and out-crazying 9 year olds saps a 25 year old pretty quickly. I'd go into my next class with all the enthusiasm of Ben Stein.

I was going around the room asking them easy questions and I could barely hear the answers under the dull roar of laughter and talking of other students. I couldn't speak over them because my voice was gone. I couldn't dance about acting out "MONKEY!!!" because I didn't have any energy. Getting angry wasn't working. That's just loud and mean gibberish. So I decided to be a robot.

I walked to the other side of the room. I stared at the class. They shut up and stared back. I extended my arm forward making the high-pitch mechanical grind similar to an electric drill. Every move was slow, deliberate, and accompanied by it's own whirring.

They were transfixed. I pointed my finger and asked, "What. Is. Your. Name." in the best monotone android voice I could muster. "My name is...!!!" followed by a squeal of laughter.

When a kid in some distant corner would start talking I'd gun him down with my robo-pencil machine gun and he'd fall over dead on his desk and shut up for a bit. The other kids would giggle and quietly make their own robo-sounds. I was even able to shut the whole class with one swipe of my robo-pencil gun.

It works. I highly recommend the Robot Method to other TEFL teachers with classes to young to know what's going on.

Tags: Treyopia stories China Shenzhen TEFL teaching EFL ESL TESL methods English Chinese children elementry school

Beardless

I've had sleeping issues since coming back from Jixian. My schedule has been light with only three classes at 6:30pm lasting a mere 6 hours a week. Nothing holds my schedule together so I revert to my natural nocturnal circadian cycle. The difference is this is even more whacked out than my college years or even high school summers. Waking up at 5-6pm wasn't uncommon.

I saught help. After a little bit of convincing I got a prescription for a Chinese varient of Lunesta. Things would be different now, I was sure. I had tried Ambien back home and the stuff knocked me out like a brick to the skull.

"Take only one half a pill," John Chong told me. He's our go-to guy for getting things done here.

I tried that a week ago. The wikipedia entry that described hallucinations as a byproduct was spot on. I typed away till 5am on the computer. Dazed, yes, sleepy, no. Meanwhile my periphereal vision was falling apart to changing colors and movement that did not exist.

The next morning Andres stopped me and asked, "dude, what the hell... like, you're alarm clock went off for like five minutes, off, then on again, then off again for like 20 minutes!? What was that about?"

"Yeah... I took the other half of the pill and and fifteen minutes I was trying to set my alarm clock... and... yeah... I was having difficulties." It was a battery powered old bronze round clock with a manual hand you moved to set it.

I guess I don't take sleeping pills right. I look at them as a challenge and not an aid. I expect them to win me over by making me clunk out at the keyboard as a victory knockout. Turning the lights off and slipping under the covers isn't an option unless I actually feel tired. So I've returned to the old falling asleep at 7am routine... but now I sleep soundly and guilt-free until 6pm. Like today.

Today I woke up late, but there was a difference. I woke up without my beard.

Last night, a few restless and confused and blury hours after taking the pill, I came to a very ill-conceived conclusion the an itch on my beard was causing my sleeplessness. Something needed to be done and quickly.

In a half conscious daze I lathered up in shaving cream and... I took a long swipe. And then another. Three deep gashes later and I'm still trying to get used to my new old look. I think it's time to grow the mountain-man beard out again.

Tags: Treyopia Stories Tianjin Beard Lunesta Sleeping Insomnia

Dinner Guest, Part III

[previous installments, Part I and Part II]

Before the food arrived Alan asked me if I liked Superman.

"Sure... I watched the movies as a kid."

"The new one?"

"I have not seen it," which was true. My roommate had a copy laying around but it was in Chinese.

"We watch it!"

"Ohh wait, I have seen the new one!"

It was too late. He started the movie.

Alan was not getting the hint that I couldn't stay forever. It was already 7, when I was supposed to meet for David's farewell dinner, and food hadn't even come out yet. I had been with Alan for two hours already.

Alas the food came. I had the seat of honor - the computer desk chair. We had lo mien with tomato and pepper. I'm not going to lie... I'm spoiled on Muslim noodles downstairs from me... it was horrible. It was lukewarm and the noodles were soggy. I ate though. I ate with the largest smile I could muster. "Delicious!" I repeated.

"If you don't like it, you can throw away."

"I love it," I said as I shoved more lukewarm noodles sitting in Chinese tap water into my mouth.

I asked Alan why his girlfriend wasn't eating with us. He scrambled through his dictionary. That earned me just such a going-away prery for the right word. "D-i-e-t. She's too fat! Too fat!" My five foot two programmer now was pointing at his only slightly overweight girlfriend as he said it. She giggled. I daydreamed how any American girl would respond to that. Visions of violence and screaming flashed through my head. I used this oppurtunity to get the movie off his computer by pulling the translation program up again for a word.

I left a my plate only half empty, as was custom. You're supposed to demonstrate that you were fed as much as you could eat, which was true in that I couldn't take another bite of the soggy cold noodles. "I think I need to meet up with David soon," I said.

On queue, "we get ice now!!"

Ice. It was a Tianjin speciality. Small chunks of fruit and sweet red beans piled on top of crushed ice. It tastes at least 7 times better than it sounds. Alan had the idea of us getting ice because in our previous class - about American music - one of the assignments was to come up with information on a make-believe band you starred in and draw a flyer. My band was called the "Slushee Kababs" and had a picture of such. Obvious confusion ensued and I described a slushee as the Tianjin ice treat inside a cup. Once a Chinese person knows something that you desire, they will aquire it for you. When I was in a gift shop near the Chinese Wall I picked up a bull horn turned into a musical horn. That turned into a going-away present from The Face back at Jixian. It's the way of their people.

We took a ten minute walk down the main road near his apartment. It was night now and cooler than before, which is to say it was as pleasent as weather gets. We made it to a street corner with three or four Tianjin ice stands with numerous low tables and low chairs all across the street from a McDonald's. Alan's girlfriend saw her sister and nephew and we joined them.

The nephew was a chubby little guy for a six year old Chinaman. Like most Chinese, the idea of sitting at his street corner with a laowai was comedy gold. He giggled incessently and hid behind his ice. I might as well have been a talking cow.

"He's studying English," his mother informed me.

"Hello, how are you?" I asked.

Giggling. Endless giggling.

He whispered something to his mother, which was repeated in Chinese across the small table where it came back to me, "You are very dear to his heart." It wasn't a mistranslation because Alan was putting both hands over his heart when he said it.

"When do you to leave to see David," Alan asked. An hour ago.

"Soon."

To my surprise, Alan and his girlfriend began shoveling the Tianjin ice into their mouths.

"No no no, you don't need to hurry. Finish, then I will leave."

They pulled away from their plates and started grabbing for their possessions like they were about to stand up.

"No no, eat. Enjoy it!"

They started shoveling again. I let it be.

I called Brian for directions and walked to the cab. Alan, his girlfriend, and her sister and nephew followed me to the cab.

"Please, come back anytime!"

I repeated my offer to cook them spaghetti before I leave.

I left. They stood around and waved me goodbye until out of sight like family used to do.




Tags: Treyopia China stories Tianjin life Dinner

Dinner Guest, Part II

[scroll down one for Part I]

The normal modis operandi when invited to an Americans house for dinner is that things are already relatively prepared. A couple things will still be in the over but the overall operation was launched well before you got in the car. Not in China.

"Do you like fruit? Yes? We will go to the fruit market."

It was a perfect day. A cool breeze was blowing through the city hinting at a rainstorm that never came. Despite being poorer than my neighborhood I enjoyed the five minute walk. Alan and his girlfriend became minor celebrities walking the baggy clothed laowai with a Key West baseball cap through a small park and into the market.

The Chinese find deep humor and in seeing foreigners in unexpected places. The first three or four times I went to Muslim noodles in the alley behind my apartment a 12 year old boy working there would sit across the restaurant staring at me giggling. Any request for cola, napkins, or my check was comedy gold. Here an old man chuckled out a "Meigouren [American]?" as we walked past.

I was at least relieved to know I'd have some veto power over food choices. Before arriving I was preparing to faux marvel at the wonderful taste of shrimp or fish. I hate seafood. Chicken hearts, lung, brain, and testicle can all be had easily at any restaurant. The Chinese believe eating the animal part will strengthen that part of you. Anything could have been served and as humble guest I'd be forced to eat it. Buy the ticket, take the ride, right?

Chinese vegetable markets are something to behold. It's a photographers dream of contrasting colors and rawness. Fresh and bright tomatoes with peppers with beans with yellow peppers with grapes and bananas and watermelon stacked high above them. Meat is pulled from coolers and diced up for waiting customers. We picked up some noodles, and about seven samples of tomatoes, peppers, peaches and watermelon each.

Alan's computer wasn't hooked up to the internet, but he had several files on his 4 60g drives. The first was a Powerpoint of college pranks and scandal - girls kissing girls! He blushed and giggled when he showed me that. So that fetish is international, check. Next were foreign TV commercials he didn't quite understand but knew were funny. Then an Spanish American Idol-esque video. And then, my favorite... a 45 minute collection of Michael Jackson videos and special behind-the-scenes footage. For joy...

Before dinner came out he pulled up an English-to-Chinese translator he practiced with. I told him Michael Jackson went to jail in American. "Jail?" I then typed in pedophile, then behold, there was a Chinese definition. Shock. Disbelief. "Sorry, man. He wasn't found guilty, but this was the second time... ya know?"


To be continued tomorrow...

Tags:Treyopia China Stories Life Tianjin Students Teaching dinner

Dinner Guest

On Tuesday I put my email address on the board for the class to copy. I invited them to free one-to-one's, something that would normally cost them through the center. A one-to-one typically is just a 30-minute conversation with a teacher addressing the more pressing grammatical issues. My work schedule has been lite and for the first time in my life I've been looking for *more* work to do. The responses were interesting.

Sample 1: An email from a cute female college student in my class with her posing sexy in a doorway wearing a skirt and knee-high boots. She offered to introduce me to the "younglings" of Tianjin University.

Sample 2: "Trey: How are you?" with nothing but Chinese script for a name. "I'm very good, but who is this?" I asked back. "Do you have QQ?" was the response. What??

Sample 3: Another girls offers a tour of the local history museum and proposes a time for a one-to-one.

Sample 4: And my favorite, titled "Welcome You Are Home";

Trey, my lovely teacher. I'm busy for my works over today. So I'm sorry that I answer your email later.

First,I thank you for helping me to have a Gmail. I'm glade to go to our classroom and take you to my home by bus at 5 p.m this Sunday. Furthermore,If you will, I and my girlfriend welcome you to our home at any moment.

Sincerely yours,
Alan

When I first met him he shook when he spoke. He was terrified, like most other students, of speaking English. He was short with homemade tattoos on the top of both of his hands. It contrasted with his sharp dress - he was a JAVA programmer.

"No meaning," he would say of the faded version of Chinese "tribal" design when I asked what they meant. They were two-inch boxes and lines that looked like Chinese script. I had shown him my tattoos when I first met him. "I did them as a child. I wish they come off."

Over the past two weeks his English confidence had improved significantly. He didn't shake anymore when he spoke. Half the job of a foreign English teacher is getting the students comfortable enough to speak so that you have the opportunity to both correct them and show them that a native speaker understands them.

***

We met at the office to take a bus to his apartment. I informed him early I was on a tight schedule. One of the other teachers was flying back home the next morning and we were all going out that evening. Unfortunately, speed would not be a major theme of the night.

It's Chinese custom to bring a gift when meeting someone for dinner so I regifted a giant gift that I had been given when I left Jixian - a big box with dehydrated rice, beans, and nuts. I was told fruit would do well enough, but I knew I'd just throw the box away when I move to Shenzhen.

Alan's apartment was at the end of the bus route, a colorful but poor neighborhood in Nankai district. He called his girlfriend and we made our way up the stairs. Walking up I put my hands on the rail leaving a near permanent stain of ancient dust.

There are two apartments per floor in my building. There were four per floor in Alan's.

I was shocked stepping in. I had assumed Alan was wealthy... he was a programmer and always dressed sharp. Our classes aren't the cheapest service in China either. His apartment was perhaps 50% larger than my bedroom here in Tianjin. The entire bathroom was hidden when you opened the front door. A small "living room" with a bicycle and bookshelf was perhaps five foot by six foot. The kitchen had a wok on a small stove, no refrigerator, and a small plastic sink like you would see outdoors to clean fish in. The kitchen was maybe 3 foot deep and 6 wide with almost no walking area. An even smaller porch to dry clothes abutted it.

His room contained the hardest bed I've ever sat on, a small dresser, a computer and computer desk, and a couch that was really a bent-in-half mattress with wood cushioning. I stared outside at the tattered drapes on the porch of another apartment across the road.

I was confused... there was no food and no table to eat at.

"Do you like fruit?" Alan's girlfriend asked. She was involved in real estate and lived with him. Both were from different provinces in China - rare in Tianjin.

"Sure... fruit is very good!?"

"We will go to the fruit market then..."

I was envisioning some weird fruit kebob when we left...

***

To be continued tomorrow.


Tags:Treyopia China Stories Life Tianjin Students Teaching dinner

Recovery, Part III

[Part I, Part II, and this is Part III. If you're new to the blog, read this first for context]

"I've missed you."

She recognized me. Maybe the rest would go just as smooth.

I didn't know what to say. Did I miss her? Err... even I did, that wouldn't be the right answer. Not in America... but this is China. Cute is more important than cool. Cool doesn't even exist as we understand it. I need a comeback. Quickly

"I missed you too?"

Fumble. Dru snickers.

"How've you been?" I hate those moments of clarity when I realize just how bad I am courting women.

"Tomorrow is my last night working here."

Great, it's obvious I just hopped a cab across town to see her and thinks I'm a stalker and is quitting now...

"Why is that," I ask. "I thought you liked Cozy's?"

The band was playing loudly in the background. I felt bad that the dancefloor cleared whenever they came back on and the DJ stopped spinning.

"I'm going to Beijing for university!"

Her face lit up when she said that. You had to be smart to get out of your hometown. Of all the high school teachers I met at Jixian, only two had scores high enough to go somewhere else besides Tianjin Foreign Language University. Going to Beijing was gold. This girl had brains.

I could tell she was looking for me to be excited. I wasn't.

"That's awesome!"

It's funny how communication works like that here. Most of what native language speakers say is loaded with subtextual meanings, things other native speakers naturally pick up. She had told me she'd like to go to Beijing for college last we spoke. I took it as that - a wish - not a fulfilled desire.

"And you leave this weekend?"

My small dreams were crushed. I wasn't looking for anything serious or particularly devious. Just some flirty company if nothing else. Something to think about other than what to read next, watch next, or blog next. I knew I'd be leaving Tianjin soon.

I tried having a deeper conversation about leaving home. Conversations like that are hard with non-native speakers, even harder with a Fillipino band blasting a Will Smith cover behind me. The conversation petered out and she went to get someone else a drink.

Dru left for a moment and I sparked up a conversation with an Aussie sitting next to us. I told him the story of the lost phone number and we got a laugh. We got into a long conversation about expat life in China all the while ignoring Ju. I have a tendancy to ignore that which bothers me.

Dru wins Wingman of the Year prize. He sparked a conversation and snagged her email for me while I was deep in conversation analyzing the materialism in Chinese culture. He also found out her boyfriend worked at the bar too.

"Dude... no use on the email. Seriously... boyfriend and she's moving out of town."

"Shut up. Email her. You can be her first Beijing boyfriend. Jesus, man, I leave you alone for five minutes and you're talking to a bald man! Come on, stay with it!"

We left Cozy for Tsingtao and grilled cheeses at Ali Babba's for a post-situation round-up and laugh... which brings us to the end. Dru wrote the email down wrong, but it's all good. It wasn't really about just her, it was about getting out and doing something... an adventure. Something to think about besides my next lesson or my next meal.




Tags: Treyopia China Stories Life Tianjin Recovery clubs expat night life

Recovery, Part II

[Part I, this is Part II, and Part III goes up tomorrow. If you're new to the blog, read this first for context]

Dru and I made for a table. Some weird subconscious tick made me grab a table with a large pole blocking my view of the bar where she was working. We ordered two Tsingtao's and talked women.

I gave him my grand theory of men and women, well, one of them anyway. Men have game, then they don't. If they're lucky, they get it back. A man must stay on a role, without any lengthy lapses in seeing women, if he is to keep his game. Any lapse will result in the instant loss of his game. For years, sometimes. It happens. Ask any man. Clearly, it was absolutely vital that I get this girls number and take her on a date or two before I leave Tianjin if I was to keep what little game I have and continue having any level of success with women.

Dru kept me focused.

"Great speech man, look, here's the gameplan... when we get to the last few sips of these beers and the we go to the bar for the refills. What do you want to do then?"

"Good plan," I said. I knew there was a reason I recruited an Ivy Leaquer for this mission. "I guess the first step is get up there and see if she recognizes me."

"Good good."

Two sips later we made a bolt for the bar, me running into several chairs along the way.

We get the bar and I instantly turn my body away from Ju, who is chatting up other patrons. "Nevermind, abort mission... she gives that same smile to everyone!"

"That's her job, man..." Dru retorted.

"I know, I know..."

An overweight Chinese girl came to refill our beers, and we avoided eye contact. She came again moments later and caught me off guard. As smoothly as possible as blurted "Wha? No no no..."

I continued twisting my body to avoid eye contact while she was talking to other customers. Dru punched me on the should, "What are you doing?"

I mumbled something about the mission.

I turned around as she was walking towards us, we made eye contact, she smiled... "I missed you," she says.

My inner monologue chimed in, "Me?" Things were starting off good so far.



To Be Continued...



Tags: Treyopia China Stories Life TianjinRecovery

Recovering Operation

[If you're new to the blog, read this first for context]

It took two days to assemble a recovering operation team. My original crew of three - Dru, Andres, and I - was whittled down to two when my own private D-Day came. Khaki's ironed, shirt tucked in. Check. No stains from lunch. Check. Hair combed... nevermind. Count my yuan; there's not a lot, Beijing was expensive, but I can pull off going out one night this week if I eat street food till Tuesday's payday.

"Let's do it."

Dru and I ran off for a taxi. I had wisely grabbed a business card with a map on the back from Cozy's during my last visit. I handed it to the cabbie who began yelling at us Chinese. The print was very small. Dru tried reading the street names off, but our pinyin pronuctiations are horrible. The cabbie got out and looked at the card with the his front headlights. More confused yelling. They don't mean to yell.. it's just one of their intonations.

We got out.

"Let's just give up, watch a DVD or something..."

No!," Dru replied. He would prove an excellent wingman all night. "We're gonna get this girls number again for you!"

We tried a second cabbie. Equal confusion, less yelling. He made a hand motion mimicking drinking a beer. "Yes, yes, that place!" He told us the Chinese name and we took off.

We pull past an NSX, the first real sports car I've seen in China, and popped inside. Like most Chinese businesses, inefficiencies are put at the forefront. There are two people to take coats and purses at the top floor - the entrance - with hosts ready with a warm "Hello!" and a seat downstairs. There's a marble spiral staircase that makes it's way downstairs to the dancefloor and tables.

Cozy's would be a classy place if there were almost anyone else but the same Filipino band playing the same American hip-hop covers and oldies every night.

"What's the game plan, man?" Dru asks.

"To make it look as much as possible like we didn't just drive across the city to recover a phone number I lost the same night I got it. I haven't thought it out beyond that."

"True."

I spot her as I come down the spirals and point her out to Dru. She was telling the truth; she works there every night.



Too Be Continued...





Tags: Treyopia China Stories Life TianjinRecovery clubs expat night life

A Telephone Conversation

One of the Chinese staff walked into the teachers lounge and handed me a phone.

Dru: "Big Tree*, hey man, big favor - "
Me: "What's up?"
Dru: "Umm, can you cover my class today? It's 2 - 5. Middle school kids. The lessons are already made up."
Me: ::looks at watch, it's 1:45:: "Sure..."
Dru: "Dude... man... so a few of us went to Scarlet's** last night***... and umm, well, we drank. A lot. Two bottles between four of us. We thought you guys were there and went looking for you****, and then we drank a bottle of tequila..."
Me: "And then..."
Dru: "Well, I don't know exactly what happened next, but there was one guy dancing with four girls and Gary went to go dance with the girls too... and then the guy took off. He came back with like 15 guys."
Me: "Say what?!?"
Dru: "Yeah, like, huge brawl. Four of us against 15 Chinamen. They don't fight very well. Karate chops don't hurt. Gary was like throwing them across the floor. So a couple of them followed us into the bathroom and pulled a knife - "
Me: "SAY WHAT!?"
Dru: "Yeah... just a pocket knife. I took it from him and beat the crap out of him. I have little cuts all up my arm..."
Me: "Dude..."
Dru: "Ohhh, and then the police got called because David and I started arguing in the cab and freaking the driver out. Appearently we were arguing over who had who's back during the knife incident... neither of us remember it. We carried it into the street and I vaquely remember two police vans outside our apartment. Luckily Brian speaks Chinese... but I look like hell and feel worse, you can cover me?"
Me: "You have to cover one of the rich kid morning classes."
Dru: "Deal."

* Chinglish form of my Chinese name
** Scarlet's is a Westernish dance club near Nankai University
*** late night partying, Brian was flying to America for two weeks the next day for work
**** there are many communication failures caused by reliance on stateside cell phone habits (moving, then wondering where people are, calling them to find out) when few of us own cell phones or even know our home numbers

I've never been a drunk, but I can hold my own when appropriate. Until I came here. The long-time expats here drink like feigns. I have no intention of trying to keep up with them when we go out. I learned my lesson early when I got here. They step inside a bar and order a bottle. Deja vu at the next bar. I used to think Izak ordering a pitcher at dinner was excessive.

I remember the man sitting next to me on a flight to L.A. was a defense contractor. He flew around the world setting up U.S. weapons systems. I told him I envied the job and wish I had one that had that kind of mileage to it. I told him one of my favorite parts of travel were the people that you met. There always seemed a certain kinship between vagabonds. He warned me then that the social life of most expats* generally involved way too much drinking. Knowing is half the battle.

* I use expat loosely the way my Dad does... anyone working outside of their home country, not someone who renounces their citizenship.

Tags: Treyopia, China, Dru, Tianjin, clubs, fight

Yuen Fun

The Moment had arrived. Finally. After more than a week of flirting I had finally been given a sign that maybe I could have a temporary Chinese girlfriend for my time in Tianjin. The Face and Trey, sitting in a tree....

L.D. was chatting me up about topics deeper than her language allowed. The topic kept turning back to girls, partly because Dru had jokingly made effort to set up something between Gollum and I. Gollum was a co-worker of L.D.'s. L.D. desperately wanted to find me a Chinese wife.

"Yuen Fun is the Chinese word for when two people see each other, they love instantly," I was informed. It was also a word that generally meant fate... that people meet for a reason. It reminded me a little of a karass because Vonnegut’s Cat's Cradle was still floating around my head.

"Random. I think all life is random." I pretended to throw dice on the table to make my point. "Random things happen to us. The people we meet are random. We must make the best of them." It was the most simplified way of explaining the concept of free will as I cold. I like the idea of some sort of fatalism concerning the people we meet, but I don't believe it. Again, Vonnegut has a way of clouding all your deeper thoughts after reading him.

The Face stepped in thinking I was having difficulty with the word. She had been listening to our conversation. I had been paying attention the other clique of attractive girls sitting next to The Face's clique of coworkers (the coworkers from the various schools would stay together in the same rooms and eat together) playing The Game as best I knew how.

That's when The Moment happened. The Face, object of my attention that week, pointed to herself and then to me. "You and me. Yuen Fun," she said.

SWEEEEEEEEEET!

I was hoping she dug bearded Americans with hemp sandals, but damn... this was fate now.

I pointed at her and then to myself. "Fate? Yuen Fun? You and me?"

"No," she said.

My heart dropped.

The Face pointed to herself, Stash, and then me and said "Yuen Fun" again.

Stash... Stash was a 50-something year old colleague of Too Tall and The Face. She had an enthusiasm and a great spirit of adventure... and the unfortunate luck to also have a mustache. She was up for every adventure I invited The Face out to. Horseback riding, The Wall, getting dinner when we got back to Tianjin. There is a particular term in American slang that describes this sort of person well, but I will spare my diverse readership of the coarse language describing such blocking.

So Stash, The Face and I were meant to be. Friends. I would find out later from a male Chinese teacher that she was engaged to one of his good friends. This happened to the other American teachers too... hanging out a bit with a girl, and then finding out offhand from someone else that they were married or engaged. In all our talks, she never once mentioned anything about any other boy. So it goes.

We had a blast that night anyway. Dru and I had gone into the village and brought back enough quality beer back to supply The Leader's of Hexi District education coming, the male Chinese teachers, and ourselves for the night. No more Leelo... that stuff was horrible. The obviously re-used bottles with the "choicest ingredients" statement stolen from Budweiser together with the stories of fake Chinese beer that was half formaldehyde came to mind whenever it touched our lips. No, no more Leelo.

The night it started with an outdoor kabob BBQ and I sat with the Maneater, Gollum, L.D. clique and suffered much flirting. At one point L.D. said she would get a divorce so she can be put in a contest amongst the three women to see which would be my Chinese wife. I had to define the word "blushing."

The night progressed into karaoke and games. One of the games involved my boss being blindfolded and crawling on the ground looking for a marker in a room designed to hold 45+ people. Another was a Chinese variant of musical chairs. At one point in the night I plugged my iPod into the karaoke machine and sung "Garden Grove." I can't take the MIDI songs anymore...

The night closed off with everybody dancing to horrible techno. Then Dru killed it by plugging in his iPod and playing some Snoop. Seriously... the dance-floor cleared down to just Americans in less than three minutes.

In the morning more officials arrived and filmed 30-second fake lectures and fake one-to-ones. We had a closing ceremony where officials came and told the people who had been there how great a time they had. We joked that we could go back to our rooms and film us fake sleeping and fake brushing our teeth for five seconds if they wanted the whole thing. We had lunch, posed for a group shot, and said our goodbyes.

The Face and Stash were waiting outside the bus. They were waiting till we got onboard so they could sit next to us. They didn't realize we were taking a small van back to our part of Tianjin.

We exchanged our final glance-smiles. Smiles that kept my thoughts warm for a week, smiles that woke me up during my own boring lectures. I looked away and up at the majestic blue skies and the green mountains I knew would be mere dreams in a few hours. I closed my eyes and boarded the van.


Tags: Treyopia China Stories Life Students Jixian

Contradictions

I had to draw a map of the eastern half of the United States and the name of my hometown to make my point. Above the name of Jacksonville I wrote out "Andrew Jackson" and explained that the name of my town was a French way of saying Jackson's Town. My town, indeed, had been renamed after Andrew Jackson's exploits.

Those exploits were a consistent policy of genocide. If he had been a Balkan general in the 1990's, he would have been an "ethnic cleanser." He wanted nothing less than the wholesale relocation of the native American population to somewhere more convenient. Death, to him, was even more convenient.

I illustrated on my ad hoc map that I drawn on my Chinese language book where the mountains of North Carolina were. I drew a line showing how far Jackson had pushed the Cherokee Nation. I explained the conditions under which thousands perished on this hike, and many more after the relocation. I entitled this part of map the "Trail of Tears."

I then showed another line moving from west of the Mississippi River down into Florida. This time to persue and slaughter escaped slaves and other Natives hiding in the swamps of Florida who had rebranded themselves as Seminoles. I erased the line seperating Florida from the rest of America to show how he annexed Florida in the process of trying to slaughter even more Natives.

The point of all this was showing the contradictions in the national character of both China and America. I was extremely surprised to learn that Chinese textbooks very clearly explain that the Cultural Revolution was a terrible thing. How it is taught that Chairman Mao was a very good man during the Long March, but not such a great leader once in power. This is the official history. This is what children were taught in school. Students were made to memorize the missteps leading to the creation of the People's Republic.

I told my Chinese teacher, Dorothy (most Chinese working with Americans adopt an English name), that issues like the Trail of Tears were only briefly touched upon in American History textbooks. That no citizens really speak out against having there town named after a genocidal maniac. Likely this is because so few Floridians know what the Trail of Tears was and even fewer would know that Jackson was behind it. The same freedom that allows us to remember and talk about such events is the same freedom that allows us to willfully forget or shrug off as unimportant.

America, Home of the Free, chooses to celebrate Columbus Day and forget that there used to be a people called the Arawak. People can speak of such issues, but they largely do not. It is an inconvenient truth washing away the illusions of an illustrious past. It is mud in some uphill creek version of American history that we are people on the way to Providence... that every mistake we make is OK, because it's part of a progressive trend. After all, America would have never arisen as a world power capable of doing the world good without first building itself up with slavery, right?

This isn't some rag-on-America-history essay. As I told my history students in America, every nation has horrors in its past. Almost every nation that exists today has at its roots one people who displaced another violently. What is noteworthy though are the contradictions that arise almost daily when comparing China and America. In the land with less freedom, there is more historical criticism. In the land of the free, a shiny white gloss lays dense on all but the most recent historical events. It is sad to think that it takes an "official history" to make people aware of their own heritage.

Tags: Treyopia China Stories Life Students Teaching Jixian politics Cultural Revolution