Getting Settled in the City of Perpetual Gloom
20 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Teaching Tags: China City Living, markets, shopping
A green-eyed monster was here. I knew it when another foreign teacher complimented Sarah, a post-doc student assigned to help me transition to life in one of China’s largest cities, the City of Perpetual Gloom. To me, the green-eyed monster was a minotaur which shook its head furiously and threw its horns to either side. They were big horns too. The kind that would pierce, rip, and crush if they ever connected with your heart.
“Wow, your English is very good,” the other teacher said. Ingratiation oozed from his pores.
He was one of those nice guys. He reminded me of myself, actually. Maybe that’s why I wanted to smack his bitch ass up. Yes, welcome to China. There are people here who speak English as a second language better than those who call it their first and only language.
Now that I was back in China I was reminded of harsh climate. At first I thought the bone white sky would get to me. I felt like an alien crash-landed on a strange world. I told myself to be thankful the place had more visibility than Yoda’s swamp planet, Dagobah. There was drizzle that made the sidewalks slippery from a mélange of dried cooking oil, mold, phlegm, and the undifferentiated effluent of this country’s Industrial Revolution.
