First Impressions
Well, this is the first despatch from Chengdu, from a conservatively sized internet cafe of about 150 or so, and what an incredible week and a bit, seems to have lasted far longer the way everything does when its all new and diverse, like Xmas day when you are a kid, but to the power of 10. To the Chinese guy chainsmoking 5 inches from my face and staring at my e-mail, well if your english is that good then you’ll understand me when i call you a tw*t.
First things first, I travelled to Singapore from Melbourne, where I faced a 6 hour stopover after a restless overnight flight, and avoided passing out by striding up and down the length of the commercial area about a hundred times, and then went to the gate for my flight to Chengdu where I was the only Lao-wai on the flight. Lao-wai will be the first Chinse you will learn, before hello (ni-hao), because you will hear it barely within earshot wherever you walk, persistent and faint, and you twig it roughly means white foreigner (it literally means old outsider). So sitting in the lounge, the flight was called to board, first in English as is the standard, then in Mandarin. However, the English was solely for my benefit, I shifted in response to board the plane, and when the Mandarin translation came over, the remaining 100+ passengers went to board. A similar feeling of alienation on the flight. The stewardess mechanically dished out Chinese newspapers, offered me one, then glanced at me, and giggled. After reading my phrasebook for a while, the crew promised us some upcoming entertainment. I sat in anticipation of my first real insight into modern Chinese culture. The screens came down. A darkened, sombre street. Then a beam of briliant light, into which a figure fell. A murder mystery? Avant garde dramatics? Nope, Mr Bean. All the way through, the guy next to me was p*ssing himself with laughter, trying to eat his meal, and then on the final sketch, where Mr Bean loses his trousers and has to steal them back from a guy on the kazee, I thought he was going to choke. Mr Bean was followed by a very strange Chinse talent show where groups of people combine to create animals, objects, i.e. pendulum clocks, dinosaurs, coffee machines, anything you can think of, and when they finish, the audience cheer, a meter rises to the red top, and then everyone to the front and joins in some kind of crazy Austin Powers style dance. Hmm. So much of what you would associate with Japanese culture is present over here, the bright flashy advertising that assaults you at bus stops, on tv, in neon everywhere, much more developed than you could ever imagine. I exited the baggage claim, and within notime, I was surrounded by a pack of taxi drivers, quoting ridiculos prices to get me to the city, and none of them squared with what the trusty Lonely Planet said, so I thought I would look for the bus to the city. This took a long time, a lot of questions, and furtive reading of my phrase book, but I found it, and the word for bus (gong gong chee cher) has a nice onomatopeiac ring to it. I was lucky to sit with a guy who knew some English, and he taught me the 2 vital components of bartering, how much and too expensive!, the latter delivered in an melodramatic vein.
You can’t get an idea of Chengdu from the air. It is covered in mist. It sits in a basin in the crook of mountain ranges that are offshoots of the himalayas. I have seen the sun maybe three times, and even when you do, its as clear as the lights on the side of a swimming pool, bright, but in no way can you discern the shape. Some of the foreign teachers who have lived through the winter here complain about it, but fortunately we’re about to enter spring and summer which is recognised as pleasant.
I stayed in a hostel for 4 days, and spent time walking and walking around the city. A japanese dude studying Chinse was in my dorm, so luckily we went around for a while, and I got some functional Chinse drilled in to me. You get here, particularly from the money trap that is the east coast of oz, and everything seems so cheap - 20p for a bowl of beef noodles, same for a big bottle of beer. The trouble is, I’ve been converting back to home currency for the last week or so, and have accordingly spent a vast majority of my wage - you really have to get out of that mindframe and start thinking in terms of your salary.
Anyway, a river cuts the city into north and south, so its easy to navigate, or so I thought until I realised that the river is comprised of 2 branches, cue me getting hopelessly lost in the middle of some authentic chinese neighberhood, wandering around, badly pronouncing dsai nar (where is) and then the name of the central square. What was most insulting is that my Chinse was so bad that they replied in broken English, don’t understand English. Mandarin is tonal, each sylable is pronounced as flat, rising, falling or rising-falling. The grammar is not so hard, the sounds are difficult in some respects as many do not exist in English, but tones are hard. Example. The word for mother and horse are the same, but have different tones. It is important then for children not to use the wrong tone on mothers day. Similarly, the words for where is and there is are the same. I walked up to a local with the intention of asking him where is the bank. He seemed confused, although I was pronouncing it correctly - I realised that to him it seemed as if i was saying there’s the bank! There’s the bank! repeatedly, accompanied by increasingly frantic gestures and stronger tones. Crazy Low-wai. In situations like that, you quickly gain an audience, become a spectacle. You generally are given quick glances in the developed centre of town, longer gapes out in the old neighborhoods, but as soon as you try to interact in Mandarin, it really is street theatre. If you’re vaguely competent, then you get admirable, maybe astonished expressions. This has not been my experience. I have garbled simple, baby Mandarin, which has had the same effect on passers by as if I was riding a unicycle and covered in custard. Babies and kids are the most frank, and stare and stare at you unabashaedly - they are obsessed. Anytime on a bus (which is an experience in itself), a typically fat-faced red-cheeked baby will stare at me. I have made two of them cry by suddenly pulling a face or sticking out my tongue.
I did not expect to be in an Irish bar on my second night. Chengdu has a multuitude of western bars, Australian, Jamaican etc but only when you get to the Irish bar does it feel surreal. A city cannot be modern unless it has a Leprechaun / Scruffies / Shamrock etc. The Irish bar is the vanguard of civilisation. South of the river on Renmin Nanlu road and all the small side roads, you will find dozens of western bars sitting below dazzling neon, the American consulat, at least 2 Maccy Ds, a KFC, pizza hut, English bookshops, specialist shops that stock M&Ms/vegemite and other expat omfort foods, Nike, Umbro, Intel and about a hundred images of Beckham. This is really the cultural impression I had of Japan. Directly north of the river on the same road you find a square that compacts all these brands into a Times-square style knock off. This westernisation is spreading through the city, old style apartments are being knocked down, the skeletons of modern skyscapers in construction border the skyline, seemingly every road has a flyover arching over it or an underpass undercutting it, and you can see the spires of TV towers, and stooping backs of cranes everywhere on the horizon. Having said that, old China inhabits the cracks of this modern city, and the two seem to co-exist without much friction. The apartment I have been given is modern, but directly behind the back of the building is a small market town that snakes through the narrow ravines between the buildings. A rooster wakes me up every morning, or if not that a market seller yelling something imploring and unintelligible. In front of every offical brand shop you will find knock off shops neighbouring it, or even street sellers offering the same products 2 feet outside the entrance. Dogs and cats wander around collarless, while cars park liberally on any pavement space they can. Transport-wise, cars and numerous taxis compete with any manner of bike form you can think of, the bike, the three wheeled bike taxi, bikes loaded with carts, or with squat baskets loaded on the back and transported with great labour, silent electric scooters that bump and rattle off uneven road surfaces. As the stereotypes go, intersections, red lights and pedestrian crossings are suggestions rather than mandatory. Saying that, I have seen one crash in the whole time I have been here, which is pretty good going considering the 11+ million people miling around either as motorists or pedestrians.
Im starting work on Monday, and Im teaching ages between 7 and 18, 4 fairly busy days on, and three days off a week. I’m apartment sharing with a strict religous American girl, who had to argue with her folks for a whole morning to be allowed to share an apartment with a boy. Lucky her. She’s pleasant, and as she’s studying chinese, extremely helpful. I’ve acquired a basic survival chinse, but if they answer me back i cant understand anything then i say wo ting bu dong Im hearing ya, but i dont understand. It snowed and was around zero last week (that was tough coming from Cairns) so when I met the head of the organisation she had to take me shopping for a big coat. She tried a strip of local clothing shops first. The system was the same. She would walk in, spek mandarin, point my way, then raise both her arms parallel with her shoulders, then bend them and shrug, and point at me. I think the charade would loosely translate as can i have a coat for the white gorrila. The sales people would either giggle and find a large coat, or look aghast as if they’d been asked to put an elephant in a fridge. None fitted. She decided to take me to the central shopping area. The same process repeated, this time with a travelling audience of amused little kids because the shops were so close together. Also comically bear in mind that my chinese escort is considerably smaller than 5ft. As each coat was being rejected for being too small, I started feeling Truman-like and began looking closely for any concealed cameras that there might be. I’m pretty sure that my show would be a big ratings winner along the line of Some Mothers do ave em. Or perhaps Some Maoists do ave em . Anyway, found a coat, and it ended up being an Umbro coat. It really had to be an English brand didn’t it.