Border Crossing

After a week in Northern Vietnam I was ready to be on my way to Laos, a land mythically beautiful and less touristy. Unfortunately, given my current financial situation, my expedition was defined by my budget. This is sometimes a good thing, and sometimes a bad thing. In the case of reaching my destination, Vang Vieng, Laos, from Hanoi, it was… painful. “A 27 hour bus ride from hell”, a fellow passenger later described it.

 I met people in Hanoi who had made the trek in reverse, “DON’T DO IT MATE!” an Aussie begged me with a crazed look in his eye that told me some parts of that bus ride would be with him for the rest of his life. I didn’t really have a choice, given it would swing an extra $180 dollars to fly. I’m young, if it can be done, I will do it.  I strapped in at 5pm on a Sunday in late January. I had some vodka to help ease my sleep, but upon noticing that there wasn’t a bathroom on the bus, I knew that it was useless. I have the bladder the size of a 3^rd grade school girl. Drinking vodka in this setting could only come back to haunt me, possibly for hours on end. Who knows how often they stop? After I finally nodded  off, the bus stopped at 7 am. “Passport.” The Vietnamese driver stated. The entire bus passed forward our passports in confusion. The driver could not speak English. We all decided to use this opportunity to go to the bathroom. Who knows when we will stop again? This was truly a bus wreathed in mystery by the language barrier. I was the last to get out because I was in the back, but the cognitive wheels of the group had already started to turn. There, in maximum distance of visibility, 10 feet because of the misting rain and fog, was an official looking Vietnamese building. There’s something to this we all decided. We got our passports back, went inside and paid our exit tax for Vietnam. When we came out on the other side of the building we looked all around for our bus, but we could not find it. It wasn’t where we left it and it wasn’t on the other side. We all were wandering around this building in the frigid cold, on top of a mountain, I might add at 7:15am.

Eventually, we started asking the Vietnamese soldiers what was going on. They too, had limited English, but they had clearly learned one phrase in tandem with a gesture. “Walk to Laos”, one man said as he pointed vaguely into the mist. “Excuse me sir, I didn’t know that I should have gotten my compass, local map, and thermal goggles out of my bag before I got out of the bus. I figured I would just get them out on this side of the building and then run into the mist looking for ‘Laos.’” No luck. “Walk to Laos.” He repeats again and again while pointing. Our group was all thinking the same thing, “This guy can’t be serious.” Girls were in sandals, guys were in tank tops shivering, it had to be around 32 degrees, and nobody knew to prepare for this when getting off the bus for a pee break. We began our long blind walk into the mist searching for Laos as if it were a single treasure jest. I almost expected to hear somebody to my left or right, “hey guys, I found it. Yeah, it was right over here under this rock the whole time. We are so silly.” But, no. We were looking for a country. After wandering around for about an hour which included a trip back to the man/robot who sent us on this treasure hunt, we found the Laos border. We all bought our visas and found our bus on the other side. I have never been so happy to get back on a bus-- knowing that I have almost 12 more hours to go.

I Smell an Ambush

Upon my return only a few days before my second semesters as a teacher would begin I received an email that read something like this, “Welcome back. Tomorrow we will have a staff meeting at 3:00 p.m. to discuss this semester, and afterward we will go get something to eat.” Hmm, I read this message to Joe and Gillian. They had received similar ones. We kicked it around. Something’s not right I concluded. “This reeks of an ambush banquette”, I warned  them. They agreed, but also reasoned, “No, maybe not, the last Christmas banquette should have taught them a lesson.” All banquettes involve the ceremonial baijiu alcohol hazing. I think I have talked about this before. Even if you abstain from alcohol completely they will judge you and try to force the liquid fire down your throat.

 The Christmas Banquette was by all accounts… “debacle” is not the right word because the Chinese administration loves to get all the waigouren five sheets to the wind and see what happens-- but the Christmas banquette was different, there was music. Somebody hooked up their iPod which completely changed the dynamic. People drank harder and starting dancing - the banquette yielded several blackouts, somebody threw up on the bus on the way home-- one of the other foreign teachers tried to kiss a Chinese teacher who was married, and the next morning I’m pretty sure almost everybody involved woke up with a headache and thought, “woah, that was a bit much..”

Anyway, our suspicions of an ambush banquette were justified. They took us to the same restaurant where we had our first banquette; it didn’t take a detective to know what was coming. As we all sat down they adjusted the seating arrangement to their liking, pairing weaker drinkers with stronger ones and mixing Chinese administrators with the waigourens as well. Our boss is a funny lady. Gao Wen is horribly over worked, but maintains a great since of humor, and she is always amusing herself. Part of this characteristic played out at this banquette-- seating the married girl who was kissed at the last banquette right next to her would be suitor. She knew exactly what she was doing, as did everybody else at the table. As the shots start flying I go to the bathroom. I come back to intermittent laughter, seemingly at me.

 Julian, a very small but funny Chinese administrator informs me that I have missed my turn and thus I must be punished. He makes his way over to me and tells me that I must take 5 shots to amend my cultural blunder. I square things up, and Gao Wen informs me that if I want to be rich I should take one more. I indulge her, before my arm can even come back down again she is already firing out her next baited question, “Do you want to be lucky?” Not too coy Gao Wen. No I think I will take the money and run.

This banquette was actually in honor of the lantern festival, and the last day of Chinese New Year. Also, it is arguably the loudest day as the remainder of all the fireworks should be used up. The result is a bouquet of noises, well really just two noises: fireworks and car alarms. Hopefully it is as close as I will ever get to a war zone. One must keep his wits about him walking down the street as strings of fireworks are simply placed on the sidewalk, lit, and run from. It is easy to be talking to someone and all of the sudden you’re under fire because you unknowingly walked into a timed explosion of light and noise. Anyway, at the end of the banquette we were all given our own lanterns and let loose on the city of Zhengzhou. Home again, home again.

Back in China

                After roughly five weeks of traveling around South East Asia, I was not sure how I would feel being back in China, a country I had not left in over four months. As I grabbed my carry on and made my way through customs in the Guangzhou airport I still did not feel like I was back in the strange land of smog, dumplings, and the horrific rice liquor. It only took one word to rip me back down to the reality of my stay in China, “HELLLUOHHH” a small boy yelled at me as I waited for my connecting flight. Ah yes, there it is. I am back. I am a novelty, a foreigner, a waigouren (foreigner in Chinese). Ni hao, I replied. It is very common for people to just see a white person on the street and yell to them, “Hellooo!”

In River Town by Peter Hessler, he says that in the town he lived in one general term for a foreigner was “a hello.” It’s clearly China’s lack of diversity and exposure to the outside world which creates the idea that this is acceptable, but I can’t help but think, what if I saw an Asian in Raleigh and as we passed on the street I yelled, “NI HAOOO!” I will add that most likely they would not speak Chinese, and could also be many other things other than Chinese - Chinese American, Thai, Vietnamese, etc.… but none the less this is per usual in China.

 I am rare in China whereas Asians or Asian-Americans are not rare in America. I believe that the number one reason that I am here from a pragmatic Chinese perspective is because I am a novelty, a status symbol for the college where  I teach. My students pay much more than students at nearby comparable colleges mostly because Henan Institute of Education has foreign teachers and is connected to an American University, Marshall. Like one of the many disturbing couples of older white men and young Thai women I saw in Thailand, we both get something out of our relationship. I get to come to China, study the language and culture and see some of this part of the world. They get to use my white face for publicity.

 I have heard of companies paying people like me to come to ribbon cutting ceremonies and pose as a “western contact.” It’s even better if this person doesn’t speak any Chinese. Like so many things in China this can be tied back to the concept of face, or saving face. Outward appearance is vitally important in this culture. There is even a club here where foreigners get free beers because it is free publicity for the club. It’s interesting coming back to China now because I do know something about the culture and people. I’m not trying to get my bearings; I am in familiar territory.

Glutton for Punishment

“No puede tener verguenza cuando esta aprendido una lengua” I told my Honduran coworkers last summer while on a church mission trip. “You cannot have shame when you are learning a language.” I think anyone who has learned a second language would agree. From a psychological perspective it comes down to conditioning, positive reinforcement and punishment. When you use a new word correctly that you have learned the other person’s understanding is a great reward, this reinforces what you have learned. The flip side is the punishment. I have been punished many times by lack of understanding. More often than not when I engage in conversation with people on the street they greatly over estimate my abilities and proceed to barrage me with all kinds of words that I don’t know. Sometimes it is frustrating, sometimes it is confusing, and sometimes it leads to large misunderstandings. 

To me, learning a language via practice with native speakers is like warfare on the brain, and sometimes self confidence and pride are casualties of my war. Yesterday morning I went to get some pants hemmed, and I started talking with the lady running the shop. The people in Zhengzhou are so curious sometimes about foreigners that they will tolerate and wade through my Chinese in order to gain some information about me. Anyway, at one point I thought that I had accidently said that Chinese people were ugly (in hindsight I’m not sure what I said), so I over corrected. “I think Chinese people are very beautiful.” This was a mistake that I should have known better to make. Many of my students often suggest that I should find a Chinese girlfriend (could be self promotion, but who am I to state their intentions); many Chinese men tell me that Chinese women are very good and that I should abscond with one, and most are shocked to learn that I don’t have or want a girl friend at all because at the ripe age of 23 I should certainly have one.  

 Back to the story, the seamstress lit up with excitement. She told me that the shop owner next door had a 20 year old daughter who could speak some English. She grabbed me by the arm with surprising strength and was well on her way to seeing me forcibly introduced to the young women. Wes you fool. I’m a glutton for punishment, but there was no need to pull innocent bystanders onto my playground of shame.  “nooo!” I made a stand at the doorway. She backed down and released me. “How much does that shirt cost?” I awkwardly and abruptly changed the subject. This was the perfect distraction because as a Chinese shop owner she could not resist pedaling her product. I tactfully backed out of negotiations on the product and we continued to talk about other things while we waited for my pants to be hemmed. This is one small example of the circus that is learning Chinese in China.

Dancing Queen and Cock Fights

It all started at that cockfight in Kaifeng… no, no it didn’t, our group “chickened” out before the fight , myself included, but that’s a hell of a hook to start a post with right? We did go to Kaifeng last weekend though, and the weekend before that was Halloween. Both events were not surprisingly, unique; one was serendipitous in its participation, while the other was an all too common miscommunication with our Chinese guides on what we actually wanted, or what they felt we wanted.

We (the foreign teachers) had committed ourselves to putting together a Halloween party for the college students the Saturday night before Halloween. On Saturday,  As we tried to shake off the chemical vestiges of the Friday night expat Halloween party the college Halloween party loomed over us as an onerous task. That afternoon we all scrambled to put together some activities for these kids. I don’t know If I have said this before, but Chinese college students literally have the maturity level of 6^th and 7^th graders. I mean this, so putting together a party for 400 of them was really a headache. We scrapped together some Halloweenish activities: bobbing for apples, face painting, ghost stories (we had no idea how this would actually play out in practice), and a few other flaky things to fill time; however, when we got there we learned that the students had actually prepared a party for us. Thank God.

Our parts were minimal, but fun. They sang, songs, had several dance routines, and the grand finale seemed to be out of “glee” with an Asian twist as many of my students danced to “Dancing Queen” by Abba and threw out candy into the crowd. It was a great time. Side note: they are curious enough about the foreign teachers as it is, taking pictures sometimes in the middle of class, but if you add Americans with costumes, the attention acts as a pressure cooker, pressing down on your abdomen, moving the pressure to your face, and finally manifesting itself as a painful smile. What else can you do? You can see some of the pictures, and maybe, just maybe you will have some idea of what I am talking about. Later that night we went to one of our local watering holes, Reds (where everybody knows your name), to unwind after posing with 200+ students individually to take pictures. I was worried that I would be permanently stuck with an awkward smile and a peace sign. My cheeks hurt. Reds had a mini pumpkin carving contest, which Gillian and I tied for first in. After that we went home and to sleep. I don’t think I could absorb anymore Halloween in China, as fun as it was.

 As I said, last weekend we went to Kaifeng. As a group we were excited about this. Kaifeng is one of the seven ancient capitals of China. It was China’s capital during the Song dynasty, and reached its peak during the 11^th century as a well connected industrial hub making use of canals and waterways to the Yellow River; however, this was not the Kaifeng that we would see or learn about. The closest we would come to this was seeing the old city wall on the way into town. This trip was orchestrated through our college. They were nice enough to take us to Kaifeng for the day, all expenses paid, but this committed us to their prepared agenda. 

 

The college administrators thought that we would be bored by the historical Kaifeng, completely missing the fact that this was what interested us. Instead they took us to a “historical” amusement park with lots of performances. I can see their conversation in Chinese playing out, “Yes, we will take them there. They have performances; the Americans will be impressed.” Unfortunately, this was not the case. We learned that this park was built in 1998. One of the activities that they tried to take us to was a cock fight, not understanding that most Americans are put out by this display of animal cruelty, so this was nixed. The park did have some cool things, but all in all, the day was frustrating. This weekend I seek the elusive driving range to get my golf fix… like all mundane tasks in China in its conception, this should be wildly interesting and anything but mundane. 

More pictures of the past two weekends

"Apologize"

Today I gave back quizzes from last week. Most of the grades were good. Some, however, were not so good. Jason failed. After class he stayed in his seat in the back row. This did not phase me; we have a 20 minute break in between my two, two hour morning classes. What was out of the ordinary was when he turned his mp3 player up as loud as it would go, stood up, and played/sung "Apologize" by Justin Timberlake. The main chorus - "its too late to apologize." This was an awkward situation. Being sung to in general is awkward. I anxiously checked Sunday's NFL scores while he was doing his thing. Oh look, the panthers won their first game. You hear that Jason? No. The only voice he was hearing was Justin's guiding him through this emotional catharsis that was apparently necessary in order to move forward with the day. At least he wasn't asking me to change his grade.

Qingdao

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post about the first part of my travels to Beijing and Qingdao. I have actually been a little sick this past week. When we got back from Beijing and got off the airplane we noticed something strange, literally, in the air. The airport was smoky and had the matching smell that something was indeed burning. As it was 1:00 in the morning, none of us felt the need to solve this mystery immediately. A very quiet and fatigued cab ride back to our barracks seemed much more appropriate than an ecological investigation. Unfortunately, the next few days also were smoky, for lack of a better word. Weather.com concurred. It listed the weather as “72 degrees, smoke.” Apparently, that is a weather condition in China. The smoke also made  me sick, and in the end was believed to be from farmers burning mass amounts of straw. But anyway, I’m better now.

 The Qingdao leg of my journey was incredible. In brief, Qingdao is a medium sized modern city on China’s coast.  The skies were blue, the temperature moderate, and the scenery, sublime. Qingdao is also China’s beer capital as they are home to China’s largest brewery, Tsingtao. At one point we saw a sign that boasted the city as the beer capital of the world. Ohh, the Chinese. Highlights included a tour of the brewery, a walk on the beach, and a nice hike to the top of a park where we could see much of the city overlooking the Yellow Sea. The strangest (the word “strange” is losing meaning to me and is an inevitable descriptor of at least one part of everyday) part of our stay occurred after a couple bags of beer while meandering about the winding streets of Qingdao which  has a tangible European feel as it was under German control from 1898 until 1914. As we were passing one alley way with seemingly not-too-out-of-the-ordinary Christmas lights, “Let’s check this way out,” Anna said. I was sold; after all it was curiosity in its purest form that brought me to China in the first place--even if I told you it was because I wanted to learn Mandarin and I was an Econ major or any number of official reasons, although most are true. We continued down this rabbit hole of an alley way that presented clues that this alley way was extraordinary. But it could be that we were all sharing a bag of beer with straws? no, the alley gives way to archways and  louder sounds… a hubbub. Joe, Anna, and I pressed forward with steeled resolve, and like Alice and her rabbit hole we found a bizarre world which seemed only the imagination could conjure.  

We entered what was called “Vallerium City.” This place was the strangest of strange. It was a two or three block European city replete with artificial sky. But in practical terms it was a really cool mall. There was a magician performing publicly as we entered. As we continued we saw a man dressed as a pig, a man dressed as a witch, a man dressed as a princess, and several other men dressed in ways that would not make their mothers  proud. Eventually, we pressed through Vallerium City and shook off its confusion to put some grub in our bellies. We spent a total of two days in Qingdao and enjoyed every second.