bighairylaowai.com

Summer in Chengdu progresses like the JinJiang, the river that flows through the heart of it; an indolent, viscid drift deviating reluctantly around sluggish bends. Just occassionally, the stolid current will squall over a decaying bank of rubbish and human faeces, or to persist with the analogy, an anecdote.

1. Wrath of the Golden Yeti
A nation of dreamers, subjugated and censored by the greater logistical might of a neighbour regarded as coldly bureaucratic and soullessly pragmatic; limitless creativity bursting out in performing arts; a tradition of oral story-telling; isolated by geographical features from the rest of their continent; a resulting psychic symbiosis with the land itself; the irresistible onset of an international religous movement subverted by a far older native mysticism; crudely romanticised by Americans (whose philanthropy towards non-oil rich sovereignties is known the world over) - which country do the previous generalisations suggest?

If you’re still reading, two should spring to mind, Ireland and Tibet. And as I’ve learnt in Chengdu, Tibetans share the proclivity for a few drinks and then acting as mad as f*ck. After laying out generalisations about 5 countries in the space of a single paragraph, I’ll use the standard Brent (Office reference #236) get-out clause and say I belong to two of them, OK, and one of those owned a third for a fair while, so yeh, not larfing at them, but larfing with them, at us…

Sitting outside Dave’s on a creeping, humid evening, drinking cold beer and playing cards after a week of teaching is normally a pleasure. Traffic bustles past, dusk sets in, and the effervescent Chengdu night lights up. Not tonight, for I would encounter the Golden Yeti.

A fizzing, swarthy Tibetan man came and sat down in our group, a friend of an acquaintance. Small talk was made, and in rasping tones he introduced himself as the Golden Yeti, with business card to match, a tour guide for excursions to neighbouring Tibet. As I was talking, his pinched little face curled into an unassailable simper. He asked:

So where are you from?

The evening was too languid to bother with the 5 minute spiel of:

Jersey, not the one in America but the island between England and France well actually you can see French streetlights but no we’re really English but the placeneames are all French and there is a dialect of French still spoken we have our own parliament and money and its where all the stinking rich invest their dubious reserves of money and there’s this detective show called Bergerac but we also have potatos and cows and milk and cream…

Instead:

England.

So, his suspicions confirmed, he continued:

Yes, so you remember the war we defeated you in.

I didn’t. The old maxim goes, History is written by the victors, but Brits are remarkably self-deprecating, and our defeats are not so easily glossed over, nor are the inherent calamities of victory, nor the crimes of Empire. Our Textbook Controversy is just the opposite of Japan’s; we denigrate our recent past, every sordid detail dissected in a harsh spotlight. I knew we’d been around Nepal, and were fairly into heavy-duty drug-dealing in China, but had never heard of the Anglo-Tibet skirmish. I didn’t think you could get gun-boats up on a land-locked plateau averaging more than 5000 metres. I made my apologies to the Golden Yeti. His little face was squashed in dejection.

But we defeated the British Empire!

This statement, and its frenetic delivery, made me laugh, the haughty laugh of a callous citizen of the Empire, fresh from cutting down a few spear-throwing natives on an inpromptu safari it would seem. I was under the conception that the financial burden of the First World War did for Britannia, not the slaughter of 4 surveyors and a tea-lady who took a wrong turning at Burma. After the couple beers I had drunk, I stoked the fires a little, I admit. Adopting the delivery of the stately, bumbling Major from Fawlty Towers, I began waxing about us having won so many wars previously, why would I hear about a poxy skirmish like that? It was not the correct tack to adopt with a proud, p*ssed Tibetan.

His already pinched face compacted into a dense series of hard, bitter lines, as he leaned towards me, grievously complaining of my myopic attitude to history, imperialist insensitivity and basic lack of understanding. He lurched to his feet, and I considered briefly that he may have shivved me, but he stormed inside to pay his bill, all the while lamenting to the non-plussed owner that he should meet such a f*cking ignorant person who doesn’t know f*cking anything.

He sat drinking beer and glowering at me at a cafe 3 doors down. I shifted subtly so that I should be facing him and not my unguarded kidneys. Advice for an Englishman in Tibet:

Do mention the war.

2. Feel the (Chinese) Burn
In a week, I plan to leave Chengdu, catch a train south to Kunming and make my way north-west through the ridge of mountains separating the Tibetan plateau from Han China, and then complete a circuit of the Old Silk Road around the Gobi Desert in Xinjiang province. As such, I considered a little preparation for high altitudes and scorching desert heat may be in order, particularly in light of my 4 months living in Chengdu’s intoxicating bubble of laowai hedonism. The price of beer and water is the same, people….

First stop, a gym on the fifth floor of 100 Sports Department Store. I was to be the only laowai regular. The gym’s location on Chun Xi Liu, Chengdu’s principal commercial street, and its proximity to the CBD led me to believe that it would be a standard post 9 to 5 workout place for office workers. But as in so many other instances of Western culture being assimilated so rapidily over here, there is little time to develop a sense of irony when perceiving the new import. China plays its own unique variation on the global theme, whole-heartedly adopted at the incandescent surface-level.

As such, the small floor space of the gym at once accomodates the two contrary stereotypical extremes of modern fitness culture. The central area contains free and fixed weights. The walls are decorated with glossy posters of body-builders erupting from pools of water and sitting on Harleys in the desert, faces contorted into ecstasy or profound manly contemplation, amazonian women hanging off them in disbelieving lust, all the while facilitating poses that best flex their pecs and biceps. Aside from dank meat-head Bouncer hang-outs, no gym at home could display these posters without its patrons collapsing alternately into hysterics or self-righteous tirades.

In China however, these are figures for emulation. Gangs of surly-looking shirtless young males wander around in torn denim shorts and brightly coloured bandannas, accumulating unliftable numbers of plates on the showy bench press or squat machine, and grunt in feral effort as their companions co-operate in lifting the bulk of the weight through its motion for them. A few exercise bikes and steppers fringe the far side of the weights area, and an aerobics studio the near side. This accords to the stereotype of the delicate female, ranging between languid grace on cardio machines and lissome grace in the studio.

It also coheres to the Daoist philosophy of Yin and Yang, extremes at balance. Nowhere is this more evident than the Cable Cross-Over machine, aside the clear glass wall of the studio. Though you can perform this action facing either direction, it is inevitably performed looking in at the on-going aerobics class. As the lifter strains to lift the ballast on both pulleys and so cross both handles across his chest, there is something massively exhibitionist about him, entirely conscious of the drama of his masculine exertion and worryingly confrontational in the intense stare he fixes on the women in the class.

Men shall never enter the studio, women never cross into the weights arena. Occassionaly, men demean themselves and use the cardio machines. Considering the physical antithesis between lithe Chinese males and the Big Hairy Laowai, I would have to bite the bullet and be one of these girly-men. The first part was getting on one of those machines. Though gyms at home are filled by day with people pedalling or strolling lethargically while turning the pages of a book, at peak times there is a tacit obligation not to hog. Not so here. You can wait up to half an hour for a treadmill, and when you note the electronic record of the last user, and of those still walking nearby, the average stat can be as low as 4 kilometres completed in over an hour; which is the same as walking… very… slowly…. to…. the… shops, which as we all know is nigh-on impossible to replicate outside a gym, save for, mmm, actually walking to the shops and letting me use the machine you greedy f*cker.

It may have been better that I didn’t get to use the machines too often. The adjustable saddles were far too short at their maximum and slipped down under my weight anyway, meaning that I was cycling wide-legged and clown-like within seconds. The resistance of the step machine did not resist quite enough and I was sunk. The treadmills, or teradmill as they were labelled, suffered a process of trial and error from the heavyset laowai. On some, the track would moan, stall and grind to a standstill as I piled each successive, lumbering step after another. One wouldn’t start at all. Another seemed in perfectly rude health until a minute spent pounding it at 14km/h caused the track’s motion to terminate instantly, and as I clung desperately to the guards to prevent launching myself through the window, preternaturally bright patterns danced mesmerisingly in the LED display.

As you may by now suppose, my visits to the gym drew a large audience. There were the now-standard semi-competent English speakers who wanted to practise or show-off, often when I was at the heart-pounding apex of my run or ride, when any attempt to answer would have been accompanied by coughing up blood. You are very wonderful! I was informed, when I upped the speed to 14km/h for a short time.

I ventured into the weights enclave for the first time, lifted to gasps and stares and wandered straight back out….

I returned on later visits, but each time the resident Fitness Advisor would watch me avidly, call over a bilingualist and convey certain deficiencies in my technique:

The Coach says your legs should not straighten… The Coach says your hands should be wider… The Coach says this exercise is better… The Coach wants to know how much you weigh…

The Coach, The Golden Yeti, The Big Hairy Laowai - everyone refers to themselves in the third person over here it seems, in the manner of The Maestro from Seinfeld.

I gave up and started swimming recently instead. Again, I’m the only honkie, and again, curious locals try to initiate conversations mid-stroke (unfortunate phrasing), which nearly causes me to drown considering my poor skills.

Taking the unusual step of urinating before entering the swimming pool, I turned my head to a cough behind me, and noticed two old men squatting over the doorless communal sh*tting trench, lackadaisicaly smoking fags. As ever in such startling situations, I froze for a few moments in wide-eyed contemplation before running off to hide myself in the deep end.

3. Oh My God!
Walking one Sunday afternoon by the JinJiang, I was approached by a gangling, twitchy local who plied me with hasty entreaties to read for him, so that I can see the face of my God. To read and recite passages from the Bible, he needed a native speaker to model the words first. He produced a small microphone and beat-up tape recorder, gave me a frayed Sino-English dictionary and set me off reading each word and model sentence from the last 5 pages of U. Suitably it included Unusual, as in this bloke is fairly unusual. I adopted my very best Merchant Ivory pronounciation, and signed my name to the section. A Kiwi had modelled the words from the pages prior. Should this religous enthusiast read the good book aloud, it will rise and fall with accents from every native-speaking country.

Pleasingly, we wrapped on the first take. It was a keeper. He explained that his fervour had been impelled by the teachings of his American ESL teacher. Chengdu has a large pocket of Evangelical Americans, who all seem to break the bread (and tacos, tortillas and burger buns) on Sunday afternoons at Petes Tex Mex.

He thanked me, bowed repeatedly well below the level and offered me an Oh My God! refrain over and over. Teach a Middle School class for any length of time, and you will hear this endlessly; in response to a sudden disciplinary yell, an exciting game or unexpected laowai hi-jinx. It has clearly been adopted from American sitcoms. For this Sino-Bible-Basher to be uttering it as affirmation of his faith, but to instead be engaging in blase blasphemy, was a fairly ironic oversight on the part of his zealous mentor.

4. Pol*tics
The Japan-China fall-out over the recent Textbook Controversy has been plastered over international news in the last few months. A simple synopsis (that will no doubt offend Sinophiles who have kept stringent tabs on the situation) is that recently produced History textbooks for Japanese schools gloss over manifold atrocities committed by the nation in their occupation of China in the 30s and 40s. As ever, this was merely a single incediary incident that realised long-standing tensions over Japan’s refusal to accept culpability for wartime deeds.

Clamorous protests surged up and down the eastern sea-board, and Japanese embassies were vandalised. Way out west in lazy Chengdu, it was slightly different. The only protests I saw were from some of my Middle School students, fresh from the Two Minutes Hate (or Politics lesson), sketching Japanese flags on the chalk-board, striking vicious lines through them and wearing T-Shirts emblazoned with horrifying statistics. In terms of classroom management, You are Japanese! is an effective, if somewhat insensitive way to quell the more boisterous of your kids.

The Chengdu masses did rise up in unabated fervour once; what could be generously called a gathering made their way to Ito Yokado, a Japanese Department Store, and razed it to the ground. No, sorry, they tipped a few glasses over. The provincal government made a formal apology to the store and paid the crippling costs of that set of beakers in full.

Closer to home, it turns out that I may have been harbouring a terrorist cell unbeknownst. After negotiating his get-out from our company at the start of July, Eva lingered in his apartment for an extra week before being turfed out for an incoming teacher. Eva and my employer (as yet unnamed while I await my release letter) had what could be called an acrimonious relationship. So, I should have anticipated that my invitation for Eva to crash at mine for a few days would cause issues. Half an hour after his arrival, I received a phone call from my superior demanding he leave instantly. Evidently, my company had put the guards at my apartment complex on alert for a tall laowai. He left, and the next morning I was called in to a meeting with my teaching supervisor and the boss. The meeting dragged over a simple issue. This was partly because they seemed reluctant to believe me that Eva had not spent the night, and entering my last month of employment and awaiting my travel bonus, I had premonitions of being horribly gypped. Such unethical, miserly actions would certainly not be out of character for these charlatans. They are infantile, spiteful people. Being so wary of the words of others hints at their own fraudulent behavior. I was told of the favour I had received of being allowed to stay in a 2 bed-roomed apartment (they had already paid the lease for 6 months and didn’t have any other teacher to move in) and the favours they had granted Eva in releasing him early (a strictly business decision considering they barely had enough students to occupy the remaining teachers over the summer) and allowing him to travel on a Working Visa (would have cost money and dimnished connections to have cancelled it). I was also told that foreigners could not legally stay over at other foreigner’s apartments, as they were not registered. Again, a further modification of reality considering that I and the previous occupant have had guests over previously. The petty truth came out when the boss perceived I was being overly obstinate (alternately termed as asking pointed questions and not receiving answers) and spluttered but we don’t like him!

I’ve neglected to mention that Sergio, our Spanish teaching friend who squatted like a hobo in Eva’s former apartment for a month, was in his company when they came to my apartment. The issue of the unknown foreigner was raised in a series of oblique, non-committal statements:

There was also another…
China has different security…
We must know everybody who….
Look recent at the… bombs in London….

It dawned on me that the Ibizan in question is particularly hirsute, and his skin swarthy;we jokingly refer to him as a Xinjian (semi-autonomous Muslim region in North-West China) farmer, a trick that he seems to pass off with locals, using his half-baked Chinese.

Sergio - poor at altitude and Dodhizou, Eurotrash bisexual leanings, classic literature afficianado, international terrorist mastermind.

The broad-minded tolerance of my superiors was at its philanthropic best a fortnight later. A middle-aged American teacher, S-, arrived a week early, audited (her words) my class, taught 3 days, or 12 lessons, herself and then developed an unusual teaching-allergy, an illness that smacked of hokey melodrama. Considering that the summer ESL workload is light compared to term-time, and that your class size is 5 as opposed to 50, I don’t think she would have made it even if she had persisted through the first week bump. Indeed, her lesson-plan for the second and third days was to watch The Incredibles. A pleasant homebody who came out with the nebulous notion of adventure, but couldn’t adapt, though the lack of support and crushing work-load that working for our company entails doesn’t make for a comfortable welcome. She returned to America 5 days after teaching her first class.

During the clean-up spin-operation that inevitably followed, the teaching supervisor jabbed a persistent finger at her temple and, searching for words, informed me she is… mental….

Anyway, I’ve readied myself for my first contribution to Chinese politics, regarding the re-valuation of the yuan. Courtesy of an e-mail from a friend:

Oriental gentleman goes into bank, says in poor English: Prease to change money for dorrars.
Teller: How much?
OG: Thousand Yen.
Teller checks his computer. Here you are, Sir. Eighty-five dollars.
Next day, same bank, same teller, same OG, same request. Teller checks his computer. Here you are, Sir. Eighty-three dollars.
OG frowns. Yesterday eighty-five dorrars. Today onry eighty-thlee dorrars. How come?
Teller: Oh, that’s the exchange rate fluctuations.
OG squints at him, not understanding: Solly?
Teller gets impatient: Fluctuations! Fluctuations!
OG: Ah, so? Well, fructu Eulopeans, too!

5. This is not a Kinky Porn Site
Like watching Big Brother, blogging is an egotistical showpiece, easy to sneer at but insiduously addictive should you be drawn in. I’ve written much, read a few, and sad to say, even consult my stats on a near-daily basis. The number of hits is well up this month, but with the following key-phrases, is that a good thing?

pure filth jokes
xenephobia jokes
big hairy woody
chinese hairy women
mongloid
massage chengdu masseuse
gimp ball

******************

So, I’m off soon. The summer has been lazy, sometimes it dragged, but has also been a good opportunity to get prepared for travels and to write all this down too. Blogging has been a little bit of a labour of love though, as late night Chinese internet bars can be f*cking purgatory, particularly when it passes into the illicit business hours of the early moning. Lights are switched off, and curtains pulled together, and the lack of visibility and more importantly female clientelle, gives rise to incessant cycles of hocking, snorting and spitting, the ostentatious slapping and sucking of noodle consumption, tuneless warbling, abrasive mobile or MSN conversations, suspicious stares at laowai’s computer, and pissed-up Johnny-Come-Latelys crashing chairs around in search of a more comfortable ones, thumping unresponsive keyboards and obnoxiously berating the staff.

Despite this now-nightly vexation, I’d consider myself tolerant and adaptable; despite using terms like roundeye, godless devil and so on, I like to think of it as a playful counter to being pointed at and called laowai 700 times a day.

On my first muddling, sleepless night in China and coincidentally the last one of the Spring Festival celebrations, innumerable, boisterous fireworks fizzed and cracked blindly outside my hotel room; six months on, I slump back on an indolently humid evening, tap at a keyboard before heading for a chat with Grandma at the noodle shop, play a few hands of Dodhizou with the guards, and finally hit the sack.

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