Week 10: All Time Low

I take back what I said about last week.

Honest.

Last week was nothing. I thought last week was dark, but it was really just the afternoon. This week was midnight.

I came pretty close to pulling the plug on this whole operation. There was a point when I decided that it was worth missing out on a year of new experiences, a year of pay, and also having to pay a very large fee to my school for quitting and inconveniencing them. For a minute, I thought it was all worth it just to go home back to where things make sense and are not awful all the time.

On Monday we went to the Nanhai Visa office to plead our case for why we were here illegally, and also why we deserved to stay in China longer. This sounds quite dramatic, but ultimately there was just a lot of waiting. We went to an empty waiting room, just Laura and Jason and I, and we waited. We were the only "customers" there, and yet we had to sit there for over 2 hours before we were seen by anybody. After they took our papers, we had to wait for another hour. Even Jason, who is obviously Chinese and obviously used to this sort of thing, was starting to get really impatient. He kept getting up and walking over to the counter to ask what was taking so long. "It will just be a few more minutes", the receptionist would gently tell him in Cantonese. A few minutes later he would go and ask the same thing again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Finally a man came and got us and took us deep into the facility. We walked past offices, corridors, computers from the 1990s, and many government officials. It was at this point that I was starting to get a little bit worried. At no point had anyone assured us that "everything was going to be alright". Whenever I asked Jason or our boss, Angel, about the whole process of getting our Visas approved, they gave strange and dodgy non-answers. Up until this point I had chalked it up to language/culture barrier. I assumed that everything would be fine because nobody had done anything wrong.

But as we walked deeper and deeper into this giant office building, going down more and more sets of stairs, I started thinking that maybe Jason and Angel did understand me. Maybe they gave strange and dodgy non-answers because they didn't want us to know what was coming next. I felt a dread in the pit of my stomach that grew with each progressive step. I realized, for only the second or third time so far on this trip, just how far away from home was. I realized that, aside from Laura, I didn't really know ANYBODY in this country. Could I really trust them? I didn't really know anything about China or what the government did behind closed doors. My worst fears appeared to confirmed when we reached the culmination of our downward journey. We arrived at a room simply marked, in uncharacteristically clear English, "Interrogation Room". We were led into the room and I could not help but notice the bars on the windows, nor could I avoid the rusty handcuffs hanging from those bars.

I am sure that it didn't help that I have been reading the book "Wild Swans" by Jung Chang this month. First published in the early 1990s, Wild Swans is a first hand account of China spanning the entire 20th century. It's an autobiography, but Chang also interviewed her mother and grandmother and includes their entire lives in the book as well. It's really fantastic and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about China during that 100 year stretch of time. Unfortunately, it is largely an unhappy tale, and it focuses a lot of its time on the various oppressive regimes that have occupied China at one time or another. Since it is an autobiography, it is definitely a very narrow and somewhat biased viewpoint of China, but it is also worth noting that the book is illegal to read here, and the ban has been in place ever since the day it originally came out. (I am reading a digital version on my Kindle, plus it is the English version, so I am not worried about being "caught" reading it here).

Now, granted, it is 2014 and the combined terrors of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were fifty years ago at this point. China has progressed such a crazy amount in the last 50 years, and that progression has increased exponentially in the last 10 years. The "real" China of today is very very different from the "real" China of that book. Furthermore, as I am sure you have surmised by the fact that I have written this blog entry, I was not tortured, interrogated, or incarcerated on that miserable Monday morning. Still, having literally been reading one of the most awful chapters of that book while in the waiting room was probably not the best idea for my already strained nerves.

We ended up being in the "interrogation room" for another hour. Most of this time was spent waiting, although we were also asked to sign a number of documents regarding our visa applications. Before being taken back to the original waiting room, we also had our fingerprints taken. Jason, who was allowed to stay with us the entire time, did not explain anything about what the purpose was behind all of this. I am still a little annoyed and perhaps a little nervous regarding all of those documents without knowing what they said, but we have since been assured that it was all necessary and above board. Frankly, there was not much that we could have done about it. If we had refused to sign everything we would have been deported or worse.

After that we were sent back to the first waiting room. We were told that the person who we were actually waiting the entire time to see had gone to lunch. We were asked to come back in a few hours. Jason was so hungry that he stopped at the first place he saw once we left the office and he bought us all lunch. This was nice of him and the soup that he bought us, which was cow stomach soup, was pretty good.

After lunch we went back to the waiting room and waited another hour. The guy we were waiting for showed up and had us review all of the documents that had been typed up regarding our case. They managed to spell both Laura and my name wrong, and since this is China and we learned from setting up our bank account that little mistakes cause a big fuss, we informed them. This meant that we had to wait for another hour while they corrected the error.

So, finally, after nearly 6 hours of waiting around (including the lunch break), we were done with that Visa office. Jason received a bill for 20,000 yuan (over $3000) and we went back to school. After this entire ordeal, Laura and I were still expected to teach all of our classes for the day.

During one of the class breaks, Jason informed us that now that the forms were filled out and the fine was paid, we had to wait for a while. We still had to go to a different Visa office, apparently. The office that we had spent all day in was the Visa office for Nanhai District (where we live and work), and we needed to go and do more waiting and form filling out at the Foshan city office, but we could not do that until all the paper work was cleared.

Tuesday came and went without much hassle. When Wednesday rolled around we received more bad news. Angel had received the phone call we were waiting for, and was informed that we could not go into the Foshan office until next week Monday. Once we went to that office, it would take seven business days minimum to process the forms. You may recall me mentioning that the first week of October is a national holiday in China (it's the anniversary of the PRC being founded, so kind of like their July 4th). This means that none of those days count as business days, and neither do weekends. So we were told that we would not have our visas until AT LEAST mid-October.

This was upsetting for two big reasons. First, it meant that we could not travel anywhere for the holiday. Secondly, it meant that we would not be living in the country legally for nearly another month.

To tell the truth, I was more upset for the first reason. I came to China for a number of reasons, but the biggest one for me was that I wanted to see the world. I knew, and still know, that I would not likely have an opportunity like this again. We only get 3 holiday times during the entire school year, and October 1-7 is one of them. Suddenly I was forbidden from doing one of the ONLY things I came to China for. It really did not help that the other 5 foreign teachers made awesome plans already. The three boys are going to Beijing for a week, and are planning on seeing the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Great Wall. Nathan and Shebaum, the other couple, are planning on going west and seeing a lot of the famous rural sights in China, such as the rice paddy terraces. All week we have been listening to their amazing plans, and while we have been extremely excited for them it is has been very hard not to be bitterly jealous.

In fact, since we were not in the country legally, and still are not, Angel has recommended that we do not leave our apartment except to come to work and to go grocery shopping. The police here are very nice and largely to not interfere with anyone's business, especially those who are obviously foreign, but on the off chance if someone stops us, we would be completely screwed. Since our passports have been in the visa office for over a month now, and will now be locked up for several more weeks, we would not be able to prove that we are allowed to be  here. Even if we had the passports, the visas in them are expired and not renewed yet. If we had a chance run-in with a less than friendly officer, we could easily be taken away to a holding facility or somewhere equally unpleasant.

All of this news hit me very hard. It happened in the middle of a week when all of my classes were really terrible. I thought I had been getting the hang of teaching these kids, and I also thought that they were starting to behave better. This week was a giant step backward for me on both fronts.

I started thinking to myself: if I am in China and I am not allowed to go anywhere other than work, and if I am not paid very well at all (at least by American standards), and if I am having an absolutely terrible time doing the job itself, then what is the point? I am clearly not getting anything positive about this entire experience.

With almost perfect timing, Nathan returned from his own meeting with Angel and brought more "wonderful" news. Apparently in China holidays don't mean the same thing that they do in other countries. Any time off of work is expected to be made up elsewhere and some other time. It's less "time off work" and more "rearranged work times". Nathan explained that since we were getting 7 whole days off of work, that we were expected to work on the weekend before AND after the holiday week. Thus, the upcoming weekend was no longer a weekend at all, and we were expected to be at work bright and early on Sunday morning.

This was the last straw. Now I wasn't even getting time off anymore! I hated the job, I couldn't leave to travel, I wasn't getting paid very well, and now I couldn't even go home to my apartment anymore.

Thursday, the next day, was also a bad day. Thursdays are always bad days because they are 12 hour days. Something else that was not clearly explained to us before signing the contracts and coming to China was how long a work week was. We were promised "40 hours per week or less", which sounded great. We were also told that "of the 40 hours per week, only 20 or less would be classroom instruction time". The rest of our work day, we were told, was for doing lesson plans and holding office hours ans such. What was not made clear to us, though, was that they do not count our lunch time, our dinner time, or the "nap" time as "working time". They also have several other times during the day that are not considered "working time". So, even though we are at work and we are not allowed to leave, they do not count it toward a work day. This, combined with the fact that we get to leave 40 minutes early on Fridays, means that they can make us work crazy hours on Monday-Friday. For me and Laura, Thursdays are days when we have to be at school from 9am until 9pm. I also happen to have 6 classes I have to teach on just that day.

Walking into Thursday morning with all of the weight of the week on my shoulders made this the worst Thursday yet. It was truly never ending, and I was miserable from start to finish. I spent all day Thursday, including that bus ride home, thinking about how much I hated China. Everything that was different about China that I thought was weird and awful was co clear to me on that day. This is truly a terrible place, I thought to myself. I hate the people, I hate the weather, and I hate everything in between. I was determined to quit my job. I decided on the bus ride home that I would do it the next day.

As often happens, life does not work out the way you think it will. Even from day to day, things can change. I hit such a ridiculously low point on that Thursday night that I made myself exhausted. The stress of the weak literally fatigued me physically. I got home and went to bed immediately. I slept from 9:30 until nearly 8am the next day. It was a long and restful sleep. I woke up feeling immensely better. After reaching that low point, I knew that I could only go up from there. My body was starting to feel better after sleeping so well. Having finally come to the decision to go home, and admitting to myself that I hated it here was very freeing. It was therapeutic to finally vocalize all of the tiny little things that had been irking me for two months. The entire morning getting read for work, a work day I had decided was going to be my last, I could not stop smiling.

On the bus ride to work, I kept thinking about all the cool things I wanted to do this weekend. Things that had been annoying me so much about China lately seemed quaint and funny again, and the things that were making me so wretchedly hateful the night before all did not seem so bad on this bright and sunny (and not too hot!) Friday morning.

By the time I had gotten to school, I decided that it was not really that bad here after all. Heck, even the idea of not traveling didn't seem so depressing anymore. We could save a lot of money by not going anywhere!

All in all, the last few days since Friday have been really good. My attitude has been recharged, and even though we had to work on Sunday I still had a good weekend. Almost like magic, things have started turning around for us. Angel and Jason informed us on Friday that the whole visa process may not take that long after all, and that they had both pulled some strings with various friends of friends. In fact, while the jury is still out as of this writing (9/29), we have been told that we may be able to travel a little bit during the holiday week after all. I am keeping my fingers crossed, but I have already decided I'll be happy either way.

This week was entirely awful either, if I am being honest. The foreign teachers have played basketball against the gym teachers a few times after school. This has been a lot of fun. I was never a sporty person because, truth be told, I was never in shape enough to do it. After training for all of those big races last year, and maintaining a level of fitness since then, I am finally able to "keep up" with the other guys and play a game. Admittedly, I am still kind of terrible at basketball, but maybe with a few more months of practice I will improve.

The weekend was definitely the highlight, though. On Friday we went to a bar called Oasis. Well, it used to be called Oasis. According to Nathan, the bar was called Oasis last year, and then had a going out of business sale. They had an "everything must go" party, and sold off all of their furniture and booze. Then, surprisingly enough, the bar never actually closed. The owner is in the process of remodeling, but he keeps having semi-private parties every weekend.

This place was ridiculous. It looked like a construction zone. Like, if this place were in the US it would be condemned. There was piles of wood, nails, dirt, and sand everywhere. Yet, in typical China fashion, we were using it as a place to party. We had a pretty good time, and I finally learned how to play the Chinese dice game. I've seen people playing it for a few months now, but never caught the rules.

Essentially the game is like Bullshit, the card game in the US. Every player rolls five dice and looks at what they rolled, but keeps it a secret from each other player. Then everyone takes turns making predictions on how many dice a reading a certain number (e.g. "five 6s"). Eventually someone says a number that is too high for reason, and you call BS. Everyone then reveals their hand and you see who was wrong.

After Oasis/no name bar, we went to this club called True Colors. Now, I hate clubs in the US and I am somewhat pleased to say that clubs in China are just as awful. The music is way too loud and the bass is up so high that it literally hurts my rib cage. There aren't really any cover charges in China, though, and this was the only reason why I was willing to go. I am glad I went, though, because it was a very interesting place.

Firstly, it was SUPER FANCY inside. The club is apparently brand new, and they are targeting only the richest of Chinese people as their clientele. The drink menu was unbelievable, especially by Chinese standards. A glass of beer was over $12 US! The place was almost empty, which I credit to the fact that it was brand new. There were significantly more staff members than there were patrons at this club, and since it was so dark and so swanky inside, there was a staff member assigned to each and ever patron. The staff member's only job was to shine a flashlight near the patron's feet so that they could see where they were going.

I meandered over to the bathroom and experienced more weird, classically Chinese stuff. There was far too many staff members in the bathroom as well. There was someone whose job it was to hold the towels, someone whose job it was to turn the sink on, and SOMEONE WHOSE JOB IT WAS TO HELP YOU WASH YOUR HANDS. This was far too much for me, especially because the paper towel guy walked me to the urinal and MASSAGED MY SHOULDERS while I was trying to pee.

Needless to say, I was completely unable to go to the bathroom.

At one point, a man who looked shockingly like Kim Jong Ill walked over to me and put his arm around me. He said "come to my table right now". I was a little perturbed, but I decided to just go with it. He gestured to the rest of the group and we went to his table. Come to find out it was the owner of the club. The only other man at the table was introduced to us as his assistant. "He has to do whatever I say", the owner told us.

The man brought over a hookah, a bunch of food, and a bottle of wine. We all had a really good time, but I was secretly worried that this man might be the owner. I took a peek at the menu and the cheapest bottle of wine was over $100 US, and I was worried we would get stuck with the bill. In the end, everything turned out fine. He really was the owner, and he just wanted to be our friend. He even gave me his WeChat information, and said that if I ever come back to his club he will give us a private table, as well as a free bottle of vodka.

I can't believe how nice this guy was. I have a feeling he just wants a lot of foreigners to come to the club and help create buzz so that he stays in business, but maybe he was just a really nice fellow.

Saturday we decided to make another trip to Guangzhou. I know we were technically breaking the rule of not leaving Foshan, but we decided to risk it for the afternoon. Along with Laura and I, Zac and Leon also joined.

Our first stop in Guangzhou was Shamian Island. Originally owned by the French and British government during the Qing dynasty (1800s), the island is a quiet little oasis in the middle of one of the busiest and loudest sections of the city. It is also remarkable for having lots of European architecture on it, which looks pretty strange up against the backdrop of the very Chinese Guangzhou.

The island was very nice and it was quiet, as advertised. One of the other reasons I personally wanted to see the island is that it was the Pit Stop for the first leg of the last season of the Amazing Race (season 24). I wanted to see if I could find the place where the pit stop mat was, and if maybe there would be some sort of signage denoting that AR had been there. Unfortunately there was no obvious signs, but I did recognize a lot of the spots and buildings featured from the show. I have now been to a place that Phil Keoghan has been!

We ate lunch on the island at a place called Lucy's. Shamian is clearly an attraction for westerners. In fact, I saw more white people during the two hours I was on Shamian than I have seen for the last 2 months combined. All of them were at least 60, and all of them looked absolutely miserable. I wonder why they are in China, because it certainly didn't look like they were here voluntarily. Lucy's itself appeared to be a bit of a haven for westerners. The staff spoke impeccable English, and the menu was decidedly American in flavor. The prices, while much higher than your average Chinese restaurant, were actually some of the lowest I have seen for western foods. I ordered some fried chicken and I have to say it was the best fried chicken I've had since I got here. Between that and the perfect onion rings, I felt like I was in a Coney Island. It was excellent!

After that we spent a lot of time looking for a somewhat infamous outdoor market called Qingping. Qingping Market is renowned for being a place where you can get ANY kind of meat. ANY. KIND. The government has apparently really clamped down on it over the last decade, since they were notorious for selling dog and cat meat at this market and China is really trying to separate itself from this practice. From what I have read, it's still a pretty crazy market but the more illicit materials are not really sold there any longer. I personally have been on the lookout for fried scorpion, a treat that I heard about before coming to China, and I thought that Qingping was as good a place as any to find some. I've eaten freeze dried scorpion once or twice before and I think it's really good, so I can only imagine that freshly fried scorpion is awesome. Unfortunately we did not locate the market, so we will have to try again some day soon.

After the market we did some more exploring, walking through another district full of shops. The zone we were in was absolutely insane. Every shop was hyper specialized (like a ball bearing store, or a tiny little plastic tea light store), and there were thousands and thousands of shops. It was a Saturday afternoon and so everyone and their parents were out shopping. It was one of the most "Chinese" moments I have experienced here so far, topping nearly everything else we have done so far. I really wish I had taken some pictures of this area, but I was just so astounded by how much STUFF there was that I didn't think to take the camera out.

Our day ended at the Sacred Heart Cathedral, an honest to goodness roman catholic church right in the heart of the shop area. It was built by some french missionaries in the 1800s, and it looked just like all the churches in Europe. I was having flashbacks to when I was in Germany and France back in 2010. We took all of our prerequisite pictures and came home.

Sunday came and we had the fabled work day. Despite having to work on a Sunday, which sounded so awful, the day itself was not so bad. They decided that the Sunday would be treated like a Tuesday in terms of what classes we would have, and Tuesday is one of my lighter days. Especially nice was the knowledge that after Sunday, we only had two more work days before our week long break.

As of me writing this, we still don't know if we will be able to do any traveling for the break, but I am really looking forward to just having some time off to collect my thoughts.

The week was definitely my lowest point in China so far, but I have heard that "Culture shock" and homesickness tend to bottom out during the end of someone's second month in a new country. The worst feels like it's behind me, and I once again feel like I can totally handle the rest of the year here.

Things are definitely looking up.