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.
Visit to a Local Shop
02 Sep 2009 Leave a Comment
in Podcasts Tags: markets, people, shopping
A walk around town to visit some local markets, noting the products they have, and to make a purchase of rice wine. The streets are noisy. Many people recognize me as a Westerner and are eager to say…
A Shopper’s Paradise
31 Aug 2009 Leave a Comment
in Traveling Tags: markets, shopping
China has meant so much to my imagination that the reality shocked me. I still cannot get the images of Shaolin warrior monks out of my mind. Or workers in Mao suits brandishing Little Red Books. Or even just old folk practicing tai chi in a public square. I half expected to find them all going about their daily lives. I remembered growing up hearing that I should eat everything on my plate because there are starving children in China. I remembered Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan,” and James Clavell’s novel Tai Pan. The truth is that China is dirty, cruddy, and trying oh so hard to fit in with her modern siblings. Its beauty is found in the way a family values its only child, in the happiness of people coming home from work, and in the joy of sharing meals with friends. Perhaps someday China’s siblings will one day emulate her. But now, it is convenient for everybody to realize she is still a growing child.
