This is it folks. Today is the end of the 8th week/beginning of the 9th week of my time here in China. To slightly bastardize a quote from Samwise Gamgee, if I stay in China one more day, it will be the longest time away from home that I have ever been.
My time in Germany was 8 weeks, almost exactly.
It is weird how time and experiences change a person, though. Back in 2010 I was so homesick I couldn't believe it. As much as I had loved Germany, I did not want to be there another minute. As much as I loved (and still do!) the friends I went to Germany with, and the friends I made there, I was ready to be done and not see them for a while. I wanted to see my family, and my other friends. I wanted American money, American toilets and TACO BELL. I wanted to be in a place where I understood 100% of what was being said 100% of the time.
On the other hand, I feel as though I've just gotten here. I have seen almost nothing of this crazy wacky country. I don't even think I've seen 3% of Foshan, let alone Guangzhou, or any of the other hundreds and thousands of cities in China. I haven't had nearly enough of the weird food or the weird social habits. Sure, I miss a lot of things from home. Friends? You bet. Family? So much. Taco Bell? More than you'll ever know. But unlike last time I am not even close to being ready to come back. Comfort zones? They're pretty overrated.
Strange social observation time: People exercise in a weird way here. I try to go running every day, as I have mentioned a few times. As I have also probably mentioned, there is a nice strip of park/social area that surrounds the river near our apartment called "The Greenway". Exercise and personal health are a big deal in China, so every evening as the sun goes down, (or "The pulsating fire demons from hell take a nap", as I have started referring to the daily event. It's really GD hot here), people flock by the thousands to the Greenway to walk, run, ride their bikes, and exercise in one form or another. It's especially popular with people over the age of 50.
Now, when you think of exercise and running you probably think of someone wearing running shorts and a t-shirt from a 5K they did; maybe they have fancy running shoes or expensive compression clothes they bought just for the activity. Not here. In China when people go running they are usually wearing whatever they wore that day. Think of traditional church clothes. Think of skinny jeans and polos. Think of button down shirts, khakis, and work shoes. I suppose that I should admire these people who apparently are so dedicated to satiating the sudden urge to be fit that they cannot be bothered to go home and change into something practical, but all I can think of is how ridiculously uncomfortable they must be. I brought 5 pairs of jeans with me to China. 5 Pairs! I haven't even touched them. The very thought of experiencing this subtropical hellhole in something so unbreathing and constricting is so reprehensible to me that I cannot even be brought to move the 5 pieces of damning fabric from my suitcase to my closet. How are these people doing fun runs in this stuff?
That's not even the weirdest thing. The old people just walk, which I will admit is not weird in and of itself. I mean, frankly it is probably healthier for them. It is the way they walk, though, which is why I am deeming it worth mentioning. When old people in China go for a brisk healthy walk, they do the strangest things! Most of them just like to hit themselves a lot. They clap their hands rhythmically in front of their bodies and then behind their bodies, or they slap their shoulders and forearms constantly. This is always done in time with the tempo of their steps, and it's also quite forcefully hard. Slapping oneself on the head is popular, among bald old men specifically, and slapping oneself on the butt is also a popular location, among no groups specifically. They also like to walk backwards a lot.
I will be the first person to admit that I don't know everything, and I know even less about eastern culture and China. There may be a perfectly good reason that they do this. There may even be tangible health benefits for behaving in such a manner. All I am saying is that I cannot begin to fathom what those tangible benefits are, and that is really freaking weird to be out and about and see a saggy shirtless octogenarian slapping himself alternatively on the head and on the butt as he briskly walks backwards and sings along with a classical Chinese aria that is blaring loudly on his portable radio because nobody in China has discovered headphones yet.
I'll take a second and repeat that I am not trying to be judgmental or racist in any way, shape, or form with this blog. The things that I mention on this blog are meant to be taken humorously with a grain of salt. They are all things that I personally observe, and when I say "The Chinese people" do something, what I mean to say is that I have seen it almost constantly since I have been here. The strange and bizarre things that I report are only strange and bizarre to me because I have never seen anything like it before and because I do not understand them. Technically over 1/6 of the planet is doing these things which definitely makes it qualify as "normal" by any global definition you choose. If I get anything 'wrong' about how China and Chinese people are, I apologize, and invite anyone and everyone to share with me your experiences and your knowledge.
That being said, I have had many interesting conversations with Laura and my other companions while I have been here on the nature of racism. When you are completely surrounded by an innumerable mass of people who are fundamentally culturally different from you, and who look different from you in a very visible, if not superficial way, it is hard not to think of a lot of interactions in terms of race. This is also the first time in my life that I have been the minority race or culture, and yet I am to such an overwhelming degree. People treat me noticeably different than they treat other Chinese people. Sometimes it is positive or good intentioned, such as when a waitress comes to my table first. Sometimes it is less positive or good intentioned, such as when people stare and us and laugh at us, or when they take pictures of us like we are some sort of novelty. These things happen all the time.
I do not want to be like that college freshman who makes their first friend from a different culture and tweets emptily, "I finally understand racism". I do not claim to know or understand the experiences of any one person or any group of people other than my own personally. I also do not want to imply that spending time here has made me understand all the stereotypes toward Asian and Chinese individuals and say that living in China has MADE me racist. What I am trying to say is that this environment is so fundamentally different from the comfortable, every-day sort of life that I led in Royal Oak that it has forced me to think about issues of race in a different way from before.
So after that semi-serious note, let's talk about semi-sweet chocolate chips. They don't really exist here. Actually, people don't really do baking here at all. It's really the worst. Laura and I both like to bake things like bread and cookies and pies and meatloaves and shrinky dinks, so it's really a downer that we don't have an oven. It's doubly upsetting to know that, even if we had an oven, we probably couldn't make anything we wanted to anyway. But, just as every cloud has a silver lining, the freezer section at Wal-Mart is not all depressing. We found some Dino-nuggets today, and apparently you can cook them in the wok! Now I just have to find the one bottle of ranch dressing in this hemisphere and I can finally achieve happiness again.
Enough talk of racism and dino-nuggets! What did I do this week? Well.......
Monday was a day off work, because it was the actual day of the Mid-Autumn festival I was talking about. Laura and I decided to celebrate it like any good Chinese person and go to Ikea. Finally choosing to accomplish our goal of home accents and scented candles, Laura and I awoke early on Monday morning and plotted our route to Guangzhou.
Foshan has a subway system that is relatively new. It was opened in 2010, and over the next 5-10 years they plan on expanding it greatly. At this point, though, its primary function is providing a cheap and expedient trip to and from Guangzhou. Actually, the subway line in Foshan is called the "Guangfo" line, really hammering home the fact that it borders between the two cities.
We paid the delightfully reasonable price of about $1 US per person and rode the subway for a brief 90 minutes to get to our destination station, which was only about a 5 minute walk from Ikea.
My first impression of Guangzhou is that it is absolutely massive. Let's not kid around here, Foshan is not very tiny by American standards. It is more than 3 times the size of New York geographically, and has about the same population. Guangzhou, though, is an entirely different animal. It is 7 times the size of New York and has more than twice the population. I only saw a small sliver of a percentage of it on Monday, but it just heaved with a palpable weight that made Foshan seem downright suburban.
After peeping the Ikea we had a quick lunch at the bus station (McDonalds; we were boring). As we left McDonalds a frantic looking Asian woman approached us. "Do you speak English?" she asked? Wary of potential scams but still curious, we both said yes. "Thank god", she said, her accent hard to place. "I do not speak any Chinese. I am lost, can you help me?". Having only been in town for about 10 seconds, we said we probably couldn't. "I am looking for the Ikea!", she exclaimed.
How much of a coincidence is that? We had spent all of 15 minutes in a town of 14,000,000 people and 7,434 square kilometers, yet we actually knew exactly what she was talking about and where it was!
We both headed in the same general direction, and entered the Ikea.
I won't go into too much detail about Ikea. If you have been to Ikea anywhere in the world, it was all exactly the same. I was curious if the aesthetic would have been tailored for Asian markets at all, but it wasn't. I saw a lot of the same exact furniture that I have seen there a million times before. I will, however point out some of the things that were very different:
1. It was more packed than the one in Michigan. This, altogether, is not surprising, but it is one thing to realize that such a fact makes sense and another thing altogether to live through it. We assumed that the holiday would be a BETTER day to go out and about, since Mid Autumn Festival is a big deal around here. Chinese people spend the whole day with their families, and usually spend it at home or in a park or somewhere outside. The whole purpose of the festival is to enjoy the full moon in the evening. Why were so many people buying "MALM" and "SKOGABY"? I'll probably never know
2. Everyone was sleeping. Like, sure, in America people will try all the beds and couches and things, but there were whole families taking full-on midday siestas on the furniture! This one, at least, I have figured out. You see, Chinese people LOVE their hard, unbearably painful to use furniture. You'll recall from a previous post that our beds are literally made out of wood and that our pillows literally have rocks in them. Ask any Chinese person and they will insist that it's the way to go. "It's better for your back!" is the most common response. But, you see, deep down, I just don't think they know any better. I think these poor souls just assume that that's what life is: hard beds and harder couches. These lucky few who ventured into Ikea on this balmy Monday morning (jk it was 102 degrees) discovered what a soft bed was like for the first time in their lives. If you think I'm joking, just you wait, I took pictures. This was all over the store. People slept on couches, on chairs, on beds, everywhere. In the children section were HUNDREDS of children tucked away in the little model cribs that they have out, all getting what will probably be the only good nap they will ever have in their lives.
3. The cafeteria area still had the signature meatballs, but also a wide selection of Chinese food too.
That was it, otherwise everything was the same. We bought a bunch of stuff and now we have a uniquely American-flavored Chinese apartment.
On the way out we grabbed some ice creams (they still sell ice cream and hot dogs at the exit, just like every Ikea) and took a brief look around. We didn't want to venture too far because we now had a shopping bag full of glass, but I wanted to at least take a peak. I spotted the Canton Tower far off in the distance. Briefly the tallest structure on the planet, it now sits at the lowly boring old spot of 5th place. Still, at almost 2,000 feet tall, it was a site to behold. You can go to the top, and even though I hear it is quite expensive, it may be worth it. Atop the tower is the world's highest Ferris wheel, which may be worth a look-in. Also, they went there on The Amazing Race, so I just HAVE to do it, right?
After a few minutes we went home.
This week at work was pretty hum-drum. We were informed, last-minute as always, that anyone who teaches first graders is FORBIDDEN to teach them how to write in English. Eventually we were able to get the excuse that it is because in first grade the children are learning how to write in Pinyin and also their first Chinese characters. I suppose I understand that it could be a bit of an overload for them, but then again they are also still learning new words in Cantonese every day, and also new words in Mandarin. The argument could easily be made that English would be "overloading them". Laura and I are probably going to bend or break this rule as best as we can, because the textbooks that we have been given to teach the first graders are heavily writing-based, and we are both of the belief that a language needs to be taught on all four tenants: speaking, reading, listening, and writing.
The other highlight of the work week was "Teacher's Day". Yet another government-enforced national holiday, this day (which was on Wednesday) is set aside to honor all teachers for doing such important work (you hear that, America? Teachers aren't just people who suck at all the 'real' jobs like defrauding the government and stealing money from poor people). We didn't get the day off, but there was an assembly planned in the afternoon.
In typical Chinese fashion, it was really weird. We stood in the courtyard thing. Nobody brought out any chairs. We watched a brief play, starring some of the children and some of our coworkers, about how teaching is magical and beautiful and important. After this, a random man appeared out of nowhere and did a Martial Arts routine. Then we had a "fun activity day", which was just 1 ill-devised game where all the men teachers threw basketballs backwards over there heads at the women teacher's faces. I'm not making this up.
Beyond that, there was not much to report this week at work. I am getting a better handle on working with the kids. They are starting to learn what things I will and what things I won't tolerate, and I am getting better at reigning in the chaos. The Chinese teacher assistant ladies are getting better at seeing when they need to get off their phones and help out, and everything is going more and more smoothly.
The aforementioned 1st graders are all adorable. I was worried they would be hard to teach since they would have more energy, be unable to understand me, and be less used to school rules. I was pleasantly surprised however. They are all still too nervous and unsure of themselves in the school environment to do much of anything, and they all seem to like me a lot. They are my clear favorites and I don't care who knows it.
Friday brought another birthday, this time for our British colleague. We celebrated the night by having a few drinks in the upstairs apartment, and then going out to Bad Monkey. Bad Monkey is one of the bars in Foshan where all the foreigners go. We ran into some of the friends we had made at the gala event a few weeks back, and I finally learned how to play the loud Chinese dice game that loud Chinese men are always playing at bars. Basically it's the card game "Bullshit", but with dice.
Saturday was a quiet one here, and Laura and I walked around an area of town close by that we had not explored yet. Surprise surprise it was more shops and markets. I suppose being the most populous country in the world means that you need more stores than other countries, but it is really unbelievable how many stores there are. Every street in all of China that I have been on so far is either full of malls (which are full of clothes shops and food shops), or outdoor markets (which are full of black market clothes shops and barbecue food shops). It's nuts. Every street is different, but it's all exactly the same.
We came really close to buying a turtle yesterday. I think it would be the ideal pet to have for a year or so. Low maintenance, cheap, but more fun than a goldfish. After a year or two, whenever we decide to come home, we could go set it free in one of the many turtle shrines we've found in China. Most temples have one, and they're just full of happy turtles getting fed and cared for by monks. Or, we could leave it for the next people who come live here. I'm not sure if we'll do it, because I don't know if I want to become attached to a living thing and have it either die on me or have to leave it behind in a year or so. We'll see.
Sunday (today) we went to the Zumiao temple, which is one of the biggest tourist sights in Foshan. Half Buddhist temple and half Wing Chun martial arts museum, it was a pretty cool place. Foshan is the home of Bruce Lee and also Ip Man, who, I learned today, revolutionized the Wing Chun style and taught Bruce everything he knows. The whole day was really cool, but also really really hot (the entire temple area was basically outside). Most of the architecture was from the Qing dynasty, which ended at the beginning of the 1900s. I was sort of disappointed when I learned that, but then I remembered that I'm in a country that is old enough that stuff that's over 100 years old seems lame. That made it all cool again.
The temple part was my favorite part, there were some incredible statues, sculptures, and carvings. The rooftops of the temple buildings were perhaps the most intricately carved parts. The site had many other cool things worth talking about though. I'd like to spend more time talking about the Zumiao temple, but frankly it looks better in pictures, so I'll explain more in my next picture post. The highlight of the day for our other friends though, was when a martial arts student gave us all a very brief lesson on some stances and how to spar with a sparring block. Once again, you'll see in the pictures.
On a final note, I am starting to think that I may not be asthmatic but just some kind of sick. Our groommate Jason has been sick these last few days, and we seem to have some similar symptoms. Also my wheezing has almost gone away completely (the cough persists), and has been replaced by a truly wretched sore throat. I had Jason pick me up some cough drop lozenges, but they're weird and Chinese and I don't think they are helping me at all.
So, assuming I don't drop dead in the next few days, you can expect another weekly update at the same time next week!
Stay weird
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