I'm not going to fill in all the details about my "escape/flee" from China just yet, you will just have to purchase my forthcoming memoir, which I have not yet even begun to write, but trust me, I'll get around to it. I think it's best for now, for emotional reasons and other, if we just skip over all the bull shit. Don't get me wrong, it's incredibly interesting and climactic, but it's way to intense for me to look objectively at for the moment. We are at the part when the climactic bullshit has slowly fizzled out, and now we are beginning to establish some semblance of normalcy again. There's also the pretty scene where the main character falls in love. [I love the fact that this blog reads like a screen play, and it definitely follows the Odyssian model.]
In the past week, I moved in with a friend and found a job. That's the highly synopsized version. What happened between getting fired from my last job and now, is a shit load of bull shit, and it's way too complicated to get into at the moment. You'll just have to wait, and if you want it faster, you will have to pester me to write more stuff.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
And then what happened?
So then, I start walking out to where I think I will find a taxi, and I walk and I walk, lugging this heavy ass suitcase, and totally struggling and suffering, and I say to my self, "Margit, you've got to choose your battles!" And so, I surrendered it. I left most of my possessions sitting on a sidewalk in China.
I realized at this point, that I needed to get my physical body and my passport to that airport on time, and luckily, I knew I'd left enough time to do that. Beyond my body and my passport, my next two priorities were my computer and my guitar, and the little bit of clothes and shit I had in my backpack. I kept those.
There were no taxis on the street, but there were black taxis. Black taxis illegal taxis. They are basically people who own cars, and they offer you rides, and they are known to have ridiculously high prices, especially at the time of night that it was. Knowing my options I tried to get one, and he was going to charge me 300 yuan. He was not working with me. I tried to bargain. He wouldn't work with me, so I said, "fuck you," to him and I moved on, and kept walking...
I realized at this point, that I needed to get my physical body and my passport to that airport on time, and luckily, I knew I'd left enough time to do that. Beyond my body and my passport, my next two priorities were my computer and my guitar, and the little bit of clothes and shit I had in my backpack. I kept those.
There were no taxis on the street, but there were black taxis. Black taxis illegal taxis. They are basically people who own cars, and they offer you rides, and they are known to have ridiculously high prices, especially at the time of night that it was. Knowing my options I tried to get one, and he was going to charge me 300 yuan. He was not working with me. I tried to bargain. He wouldn't work with me, so I said, "fuck you," to him and I moved on, and kept walking...
Friday, November 12, 2010
The aftermath
I think I went a little crazy with those last few posts, though everything of what I said was true, or at the very least the truth as I knew it at the time. I think I totally broke down as I was fleeing the country. The night before the morning I left, I got to bed around midnight, and set my alarm for 2:30 am. I packed up my shit and I left to get to the airport on time.
I walked to the gate of my complex with my suitcase full of my clothes and gifts for my friends and family back home, which I had accumulated, including a wedding gift for my brother and his fiance, and other things that I knew my mom wanted, like those tea bottles with the filters, and a hell of a lot of my stuff too. I had a backpack with my absolute necessities, like some underwear, and my cute little stuffed gorilla, books and magazines, and shit for the plane ride; and I had my guitar, and my passport, and 2000 yuan (almost $300).
I walked lugging this super heavy suitcase to the gate of my apartment complex where I attempted to get the people there to call me a taxi. They didn't get it. I got pissed and moved on. My former boss from my Sunday school job had offered to drive me to the airport if I needed it, when I told her what happened the night before. I took out my phone to call her, and my phone was out of service...
I walked to the gate of my complex with my suitcase full of my clothes and gifts for my friends and family back home, which I had accumulated, including a wedding gift for my brother and his fiance, and other things that I knew my mom wanted, like those tea bottles with the filters, and a hell of a lot of my stuff too. I had a backpack with my absolute necessities, like some underwear, and my cute little stuffed gorilla, books and magazines, and shit for the plane ride; and I had my guitar, and my passport, and 2000 yuan (almost $300).
I walked lugging this super heavy suitcase to the gate of my apartment complex where I attempted to get the people there to call me a taxi. They didn't get it. I got pissed and moved on. My former boss from my Sunday school job had offered to drive me to the airport if I needed it, when I told her what happened the night before. I took out my phone to call her, and my phone was out of service...
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Whatever will be will be
I have a very strong feeling in my heart and in my intuition that my coming to China, and seeing what I have seen, and doing what I have done, was somehow written in the stars for me from my birth. I don't know who or what wrote it. You can call it God, or you can call it whatever you want. If you want it to be many Gods, or Goddesses, or even nothing at all, that's fine too. There is one thing I am certain of, and that is that it is.
Everything I have experienced seemed to hit me at precisely the right moment to teach me precisely the right lesson that I needed to know right then to move forward with my life. I have had a massive spiritual awakening. When I came to China, my world was so small, I could fit it in my hands. I could look at it and understand everything about it, and know exactly what everything was, and exactly what everything did and why. Now my world is so big, I don't even know where its limits lie, or if it even has limits (and I don't believe it does).
I have conquered all my fears here: my fear of loud noises, my fear of crowds, my fear of bees, my fear of dying, my fear of being alone, my fear of being stranded without money, my fear of being hungry, thirsty, tired, my fear of riding the wrong way down a busy street on the back of a motorcycle without a helmet on (a fear I didn't even know that I had until coming here--one of those things that's just thrown in your face as it is happening), my fear of waking at three in the morning to a girl having sex with man in the same room as me (another fear I didn't know I had), my fear of doing what I want, when I want, however I want to do it, without fear or regard to rules or consequences, my fear of others thinking I am crazy. I stopped caring what anyone else will think of me, I stopped always trying to be everything to everyone, and please everyone. And I learned a lot about loyalty, and integrity, and honesty, and true friendship, and what it means to be a part of a family, and what it means to be a part of a life form on a planet...This stranded, desperate planet.
I am so fucking deprogrammed from all the brainwashing I have ever been subjected to through schools, and media, and parents and teachers, and I realize that none of this really matters. I have learned that life is absolutely meaningless, and the only thing that can give a human life any meaning is to do absolutely, positively meaningful things.
Now, I don't know what the future holds for me exactly. On Thursday, 11/11/2010, at 5 or 6 in the morning, my ass will arrive in Chicago. I don't know anything about what's going to happen then. I cannot guarantee that all my parts will arrive together or if I will even be alive. There are some things I should make clear to the world before I make this move, and I know what the potential consequences are and I must do this anyway.
I am carrying a potentially deadly pandemic of the Chinese flu. And I know it was the CDC's mission to prevent this pandemic, and so far they have succeeded, and by publishing this fact to the internet, I am giving the world a choice in the matter as whether they are ready and willing to face this shit or not. I will tell you one thing: it is inevitable. I have told you exactly what it will do to you if you catch it, and it will not kill you if you want to live, but it will kill you if you want to die. It will get inside you, and take you down to knocking on deaths door, and give you a very beautiful experience, and then give you a choice as to whether you want to live or die, and you will make your decision, and what will be will be. And, in my case, the Chinese flu fucked a lot harder with my head than it did with my body, and it will probably do the same to you if you get it.
And if the worst of what I envision right now comes to fruition, and becomes a reality, and you need some human form to blame for all this, look to Darren, of Expertise Education Company Limited, in Beijing China, because Darren lied.
But also realize, that I don't know what will happen for sure. I am a human, and I am a writer, and I tend to weave great and complicated scenarios in my head. And whether this great and complicated scenario becomes real for the world, is not up to me, it is up to you, the other humans. And if someone wants to stop this badly enough, they can. We do have choices, you know. Now go out and do something meaningful. Now.
Everything I have experienced seemed to hit me at precisely the right moment to teach me precisely the right lesson that I needed to know right then to move forward with my life. I have had a massive spiritual awakening. When I came to China, my world was so small, I could fit it in my hands. I could look at it and understand everything about it, and know exactly what everything was, and exactly what everything did and why. Now my world is so big, I don't even know where its limits lie, or if it even has limits (and I don't believe it does).
I have conquered all my fears here: my fear of loud noises, my fear of crowds, my fear of bees, my fear of dying, my fear of being alone, my fear of being stranded without money, my fear of being hungry, thirsty, tired, my fear of riding the wrong way down a busy street on the back of a motorcycle without a helmet on (a fear I didn't even know that I had until coming here--one of those things that's just thrown in your face as it is happening), my fear of waking at three in the morning to a girl having sex with man in the same room as me (another fear I didn't know I had), my fear of doing what I want, when I want, however I want to do it, without fear or regard to rules or consequences, my fear of others thinking I am crazy. I stopped caring what anyone else will think of me, I stopped always trying to be everything to everyone, and please everyone. And I learned a lot about loyalty, and integrity, and honesty, and true friendship, and what it means to be a part of a family, and what it means to be a part of a life form on a planet...This stranded, desperate planet.
I am so fucking deprogrammed from all the brainwashing I have ever been subjected to through schools, and media, and parents and teachers, and I realize that none of this really matters. I have learned that life is absolutely meaningless, and the only thing that can give a human life any meaning is to do absolutely, positively meaningful things.
Now, I don't know what the future holds for me exactly. On Thursday, 11/11/2010, at 5 or 6 in the morning, my ass will arrive in Chicago. I don't know anything about what's going to happen then. I cannot guarantee that all my parts will arrive together or if I will even be alive. There are some things I should make clear to the world before I make this move, and I know what the potential consequences are and I must do this anyway.
I am carrying a potentially deadly pandemic of the Chinese flu. And I know it was the CDC's mission to prevent this pandemic, and so far they have succeeded, and by publishing this fact to the internet, I am giving the world a choice in the matter as whether they are ready and willing to face this shit or not. I will tell you one thing: it is inevitable. I have told you exactly what it will do to you if you catch it, and it will not kill you if you want to live, but it will kill you if you want to die. It will get inside you, and take you down to knocking on deaths door, and give you a very beautiful experience, and then give you a choice as to whether you want to live or die, and you will make your decision, and what will be will be. And, in my case, the Chinese flu fucked a lot harder with my head than it did with my body, and it will probably do the same to you if you get it.
And if the worst of what I envision right now comes to fruition, and becomes a reality, and you need some human form to blame for all this, look to Darren, of Expertise Education Company Limited, in Beijing China, because Darren lied.
But also realize, that I don't know what will happen for sure. I am a human, and I am a writer, and I tend to weave great and complicated scenarios in my head. And whether this great and complicated scenario becomes real for the world, is not up to me, it is up to you, the other humans. And if someone wants to stop this badly enough, they can. We do have choices, you know. Now go out and do something meaningful. Now.
This is what I know happened
Nobody will tell you anything here, so this is what I have figured out from the clues that I have put together and now everything adds up:
On Monday morning, I called my assistant Darren and told him I was sick. He said to come in anyway, and I told him that technically I could come in but then I would just be sick at school and unable to do my job.
In order to satisfy the school, Darren told the school I would be there. When I never showed up, the school called Jolin, 0ne of the higher-ups within the company, and said the teacher never came. Then, when Jolin asked Darren if Margit called in, in order to cover his own ass, he lied and said Margit never called in.
One thing led to the next and when Darren showed up at my door out of no where to take me to a restaurant to tell me that the company decided to terminate my contract, you could see it in his twitchy face that he knew he'd fucked up. And everything was highly suspicious.
In my contract, it said that I must call in if I'm sick, and I am allowed up to thirty days sick leave before they have the grounds to fire me for being sick. If I don't show up at all and don't call in, the company has grounds to terminate the contract after TWO days.
How many days did I miss? 2. And Darren lied. It makes perfect sense to me. This is not some corrupt company, it is one corrupt liar of a man named Darren!
And when Darren told me that they terminated the contract, and I said, "well you have to pay me my breach penalty right?" and he got this look of shock on his face, I knew something was up.
He knows what he did, and he feels guilty as fuck for doing it because the school really did like me, and he's scared, because now he knows that his ass is on the line.
And now, my dad has helped me get my ass out of here, when I am sick, and have almost no money, and have almost no options, and so beyond desperate and helpless in this foreign fucking country, and so far beyond frustration, and so far beyond ting bu fucking dong, that I have reached absolute enlightenment, but still, for Darren, and the company, to allow this to happen to me is so far beyond grounds for a lawsuit, it would be retarded not to pursue it.
I will go tomorrow, and see if they can give me some sort of a settlement so that I will not sue, and then maybe I will be able to pay my dad back the money I owe him, for getting me here, and now getting me out of here. We'll see.
"The parents complained" my ass!
On Monday morning, I called my assistant Darren and told him I was sick. He said to come in anyway, and I told him that technically I could come in but then I would just be sick at school and unable to do my job.
In order to satisfy the school, Darren told the school I would be there. When I never showed up, the school called Jolin, 0ne of the higher-ups within the company, and said the teacher never came. Then, when Jolin asked Darren if Margit called in, in order to cover his own ass, he lied and said Margit never called in.
One thing led to the next and when Darren showed up at my door out of no where to take me to a restaurant to tell me that the company decided to terminate my contract, you could see it in his twitchy face that he knew he'd fucked up. And everything was highly suspicious.
In my contract, it said that I must call in if I'm sick, and I am allowed up to thirty days sick leave before they have the grounds to fire me for being sick. If I don't show up at all and don't call in, the company has grounds to terminate the contract after TWO days.
How many days did I miss? 2. And Darren lied. It makes perfect sense to me. This is not some corrupt company, it is one corrupt liar of a man named Darren!
And when Darren told me that they terminated the contract, and I said, "well you have to pay me my breach penalty right?" and he got this look of shock on his face, I knew something was up.
He knows what he did, and he feels guilty as fuck for doing it because the school really did like me, and he's scared, because now he knows that his ass is on the line.
And now, my dad has helped me get my ass out of here, when I am sick, and have almost no money, and have almost no options, and so beyond desperate and helpless in this foreign fucking country, and so far beyond frustration, and so far beyond ting bu fucking dong, that I have reached absolute enlightenment, but still, for Darren, and the company, to allow this to happen to me is so far beyond grounds for a lawsuit, it would be retarded not to pursue it.
I will go tomorrow, and see if they can give me some sort of a settlement so that I will not sue, and then maybe I will be able to pay my dad back the money I owe him, for getting me here, and now getting me out of here. We'll see.
"The parents complained" my ass!
This is what I believe actually happened as to why they fired me
Between when I was hired by this company and now, there was a policy change. Before, anyone with a collage degree and who was a native English speaker could get a work visa applicable to the work I do. Now, a person must be out of college and must have gotten that degree over two years ago in order to do the work that I do. While it is possible to obtain a work visa inside of my current circumstances, it is much more expensive, and not worth the price of keeping me to the company. If I had graduated collage 2 or more years ago, a work visa would cost about 400 yuan, and with my current circumstances, it would cost around 10,000 yuan, obviously a huge difference in price, and not worth it to the company. Of course, now that I am demanding my breach penalty, they may change their mind, though I hope that they will pay me to just to get me off their back and/or prevent me from sicking my lawyer on them.
Of course, they would never admit to this, but I hear rumors. Not all of these rumors are true. In fact, what I just said may not be true at all, but it seems to be the most plausible reality and reason for all the recent deportations, and it seems like a believable reason to fire me. And there have been many deportations for a huge variety of reasons. I honestly think there are going to be some massive changes in this country (and the world, for that matter) soon.
The other reason I think they may have fired me was that I just started at this school two weeks ago, and now I have asked for three sick days. They may not have realized exactly how sick I was from the time I got food poisoning from the century eggs, and from this Chinese flu that I have right now. (They may assume, that myself, like their last teacher, calls in sick all the time because I am hungover, which, as anyone who knows me could attest to, is not at all like me.) And these two incidents happening so close together was kind of just an accident, but when you live in a foreign country, getting sick from something is an inevitability. And when you teach little kids, getting sick is also an inevitability. My poor housemate, he happened to get food poisoning and the Chinese flu both at the same time. I honestly do not understand how he managed to survive that!
But from the schools perspective, I was a new teacher in a ritzy school, with no masters degrees and only two months of experience (compared with their other teacher who has two masters degrees and three years experience), so I guess I had a lot to prove to them if I wanted them to keep me. And during those days that I was a substitute, I worked my ass off to prove I was capable, and I continued to during these past two weeks, and I know the kids were learning from me, and they were learning well. But when the new teacher calls in sick three days out of those two weeks, and...now wait a minute...hold on just a minute here...I think somethings coming in...what's that?...what are the parents going to say to that...?
Ah, okay. I guess the parents may have actually complained. NEVER MIND! I guess the dude was probably telling the truth. I just wish he would have just told me the damn reason why. But then, why won't they find me another school? I honestly can't say. I think they assumed that because now I've been through two schools, that they will be unable to find me another, and they simply don't have the patience for that, and they think that, with the cost of a work visa now, and everything else going on, it's cheaper and easier just to get rid of me than to continue hearing complaints about me. Well, in that case, it's not my problem, it's theirs for not having the patience to work with me.
Now, I have not actually bought the ticket home yet, but if I choose to stay, I will have to pay 1,600 yuan to renew my visa, and that's not something I am willing to do, with my limited cash, in this smog filled, shit hole of a country. My visa expires Friday and it's Tuesday now. There is a lot that I am going to miss, especially my Hebrew school job, and more than anything, the kids, but oh well. I can't even begin to explain all that I have learned here. I will tell you more in future posts but what I can say is that what I have learned here in three months would have taken me over 1,000 years to learn if all I did was sit and read books about it. And so I'm very glad I came here and now I'm very glad I'm leaving.
Of course, they would never admit to this, but I hear rumors. Not all of these rumors are true. In fact, what I just said may not be true at all, but it seems to be the most plausible reality and reason for all the recent deportations, and it seems like a believable reason to fire me. And there have been many deportations for a huge variety of reasons. I honestly think there are going to be some massive changes in this country (and the world, for that matter) soon.
The other reason I think they may have fired me was that I just started at this school two weeks ago, and now I have asked for three sick days. They may not have realized exactly how sick I was from the time I got food poisoning from the century eggs, and from this Chinese flu that I have right now. (They may assume, that myself, like their last teacher, calls in sick all the time because I am hungover, which, as anyone who knows me could attest to, is not at all like me.) And these two incidents happening so close together was kind of just an accident, but when you live in a foreign country, getting sick from something is an inevitability. And when you teach little kids, getting sick is also an inevitability. My poor housemate, he happened to get food poisoning and the Chinese flu both at the same time. I honestly do not understand how he managed to survive that!
But from the schools perspective, I was a new teacher in a ritzy school, with no masters degrees and only two months of experience (compared with their other teacher who has two masters degrees and three years experience), so I guess I had a lot to prove to them if I wanted them to keep me. And during those days that I was a substitute, I worked my ass off to prove I was capable, and I continued to during these past two weeks, and I know the kids were learning from me, and they were learning well. But when the new teacher calls in sick three days out of those two weeks, and...now wait a minute...hold on just a minute here...I think somethings coming in...what's that?...what are the parents going to say to that...?
Ah, okay. I guess the parents may have actually complained. NEVER MIND! I guess the dude was probably telling the truth. I just wish he would have just told me the damn reason why. But then, why won't they find me another school? I honestly can't say. I think they assumed that because now I've been through two schools, that they will be unable to find me another, and they simply don't have the patience for that, and they think that, with the cost of a work visa now, and everything else going on, it's cheaper and easier just to get rid of me than to continue hearing complaints about me. Well, in that case, it's not my problem, it's theirs for not having the patience to work with me.
Now, I have not actually bought the ticket home yet, but if I choose to stay, I will have to pay 1,600 yuan to renew my visa, and that's not something I am willing to do, with my limited cash, in this smog filled, shit hole of a country. My visa expires Friday and it's Tuesday now. There is a lot that I am going to miss, especially my Hebrew school job, and more than anything, the kids, but oh well. I can't even begin to explain all that I have learned here. I will tell you more in future posts but what I can say is that what I have learned here in three months would have taken me over 1,000 years to learn if all I did was sit and read books about it. And so I'm very glad I came here and now I'm very glad I'm leaving.
Monday, November 8, 2010
I've done China, China's done me, and China and I are done with each other
So, as you can assume from the title, I'm coming home. Yes, I know I said I'd be here a year, yes I know I said I signed a contract. For reasons which nobody will tell me, the company has decided to terminate my contract. I don't know why for certain. They have this excuse they always tell you that is an outright lie and I know it: "the parents complained." Of course this isn't true, it's just the bullshit they say to get you off their back. They lie a lot, but in Chinese culture, lying is not wrong, it is a face protecting strategy. If they say the parents complained, then they don't specify any further, they won't tell you specific complaints, they won't tell you exactly what you did wrong, than not only is it a lie, but there no way for you to know what you did wrong, or how you can change to make the problem better. It's a real lose-lose situation for the employees and this company, and we all believe it's going to be their downfall, and I'm glad that we are separating. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not going out without a fight. I'm going to get my breach penalty, and my paycheck for this month, and my TEFL certificate, no matter how hard I have to fight for them. I may need to go down to the office right now. In fact I should, to get those things. Let me call the fucker who told me this and see if he got the shit from the accountant.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
The Chinese Flu
The Chinese flu is nothing like the American flu. That's a very good place to start with describing it, because that is a very good place to start in describing anything that exists in America for which there is a variation of the same thing in China. Basically, it's just like the flu, but in Chinese form. Picture the American flu in your head and make it Chinese, with slanty little eyes and rice farmer hats and whatever, and there you have it.
The bugs that get inside of you, they're like little microscopic kung-fu masters, totally Trojan-Horse-like in their approach. They enter under cover of darkness, completely invisible, completely undetectable, and they bide their time and they wait, and they build up their numbers, and those numbers get so high by the time your immune system get's word of them, you might as well call it quits before you even begin.
In comparison, they make the American flu look really stupid, lazy, and disorganized. Go figure. I mean, you can see the American flu coming at you weeks before it actually hits you, and when it takes that first blow, it's kind of like a sissy slap. And then it keeps sissy slapping you for a long-ass while, until it gets tired or bored or hungry, or frustrated that you won't die, or just doesn't feel like it anymore, and then it gives up and goes home.
But, before the Chinese flu hit's you, you feel great! Everything is fine and dandy, with pretty rainbows and happy sunshine. And then, for some reason, and totally out of nowhere...you start to feel a little bit sleepy, so you go lie down to take a little nap. And when you wake from your little nap a few hours later, you've got these waves of searing agony so intensely penetrating every molecule of every cell of every fiber of your being, you have to pause to ask yourself, "whoa...have I died and gone to hell?!" And every single muscle and bone and joint in your body is in such unbearable pain, that you might as well be being beaten up from the inside, and effectively, that's exactly what it's doing to you. It kicks you and beats you and throws you all around like a god damn rag doll, with all of its fancy martial-artsy moves.
So you try to sit up, maybe get yourself a glass of water, maybe take a piss, and your head is so dizzy, and your headache is so intense, that you just kind of plop right back down for a while and wait until you get really, really thirsty, and you really, really need to take a piss, before trying that move again. And as these waves of attacks start hitting you, the pain gives way to intense paranoia and confusion because it's fucking with your head now. You look around and shit is changing colors, and things are moving that are not supposed to be moving, and your visual field is really distorted, and it all kind of looks just like a drug trip. Then, later, the real fun begins...
So, yeah, you know you're dying at this point, so you decide to try to relate to another human being about it, and you will say something, and they will say something, and you will loose your train of thought, and ask, "what...what...what," not because you're deaf and can't hear or that you don't understand the words (or maybe you're a little of that, too), but you keep forgetting the meaning of the thing before the last thing that you just heard, and you keep forgetting what you are trying to say, and you kind of loose touch with everything going on around you. And you have to close your eyes, and think really fucking hard, just to form a god damn sentence. And that's if, and only if, your own voice doesn't give out first. And it does.
So then, you know you're probably dying, and you kind of just start to accept that. And you kind of just fade into it, and the pain doesn't really hurt as much anymore. You kind of feel all floaty, and you drift off and fall asleep. Then you wake up again, maybe 13 or so hours later, and you realize you're not dead yet, but you know that you're close. And you start to contemplate your own existence like dying people do, and imagine what the world would be like if you were dead, and what death is going to be like, and it all smells a lot like roses.
And then, you have the inevitable vision of your dad getting a random phone call from someone in China, because you know he's the one you put on your contract as your emergency contact. And when that vision clicks in, of your parents getting that phone call, and their reaction to that reality that seems so pretty and peaceful to you right then, all reality starts flooding back. So you do your damndest to get over your miserable self, because that reality is not so pretty anymore. So you grab onto the side of your bed. And you put all your energy into it and you hurl your ass into a sitting position. And...oh my god...at this point...your head feels just like a hot air balloon that is made out of concrete. It keeps expanding and trying to float away, but then it's too top heavy or whatever and it plops over, and it repeats this shit for a while, but you do what you have to do at this point to get your sorry ass to a hospital because you don't like that reality you just envisioned.
So, whatever. You call that dude from your agency, and insist that he help you go to the hospital. And he comes over, and you get your ass together and dress yourself like a big girl, and you walk, YES, WALK, to the hospital. Good. Fucking. Grief. But you do it. And as you're walking, everything is loud and bright and penetrating, and the fucker is trying to talk to you, and you've lost your voice a long time ago, so what's the point in even trying to talk back? So basically you just watch where he is walking and you follow.
And you get to the Chinese hospital and you are in all this pain, and you can't keep your head up, or focus your eyeballs, and he tells them about your headache, and shit, and they've seen this before, and of course they know what's going on. It's an everyday thing to them. But, as you feel like you are dying, they don't seem to care very much, because to them, this is not that big of a deal.
I will digress at this point to tell you about the Chinese hospital. Just like the Chinese version of the flu, the Chinese version of a hospital is nothing like the American version of a hospital. When you go to a hospital in America, you wait in a room with a bunch of other people for about eight hours. Then you go to a private bed with a curtain around it, like it's your own little room, and you hang out there for about five hours. You meet with nurses and doctors who come to you, and who all speak the same language as you, and you tell them what's wrong, and you get some drugs or whatever, and you leave. Then a few weeks later, if you don't have insurance, a bill arrives in the amount of several thousand dollars, and there are many and varied ways to handle that and get around paying it if you so choose, but that part is an absolute nightmare. In fact, the whole thing is an absolute nightmare, except for the private room. And while the Chinese hospital experience was far from pleasurable, especially when factoring in the condition I was in, it was, by far, less of a nightmare than an American hospital, all things considered.
In my case, since the agent did most of the talking, my experience was not the same experience that a Chinese person would have, and I may have been given proprietary treatment because I am a foreigner. But, basically, for a foreigner, you go in, and you pay the equivalent of $.75 for a consultation with a nurse. Then you pay for each service you receive before you receive it. It's all very cheap, and if you're Chinese, get this...it's free. But still, the whole thing cost me the equivalent of about $25. And as far as time, it took around two hours.
So then, they take your temperature, and while I don't know what mine was, I'm sure it was screaming something very loudly in Celsius. Then, they send you to a different room, and you stand in line to have your throat looked at and your heart listened to. The nurse looked at my throat, there was some dialogue exchanged between the agent and the nurse, and then the agent turns to me and tells me the obvious: "There's something wrong with your throat." Oh, wow! Really??
Now, I don't know if it was because I was white, or if it was because I was super, extra, pale-white, but a lot of people were staring at me in that hospital. And I know they have no word for privacy here, and the concept is totally foreign, but as that woman was prodding me with that stethoscope and this girl less then six inches behind me in line, and a bunch of other people were staring at me, and kind of moving in to get a closer look at the foreigner, I totally felt like I was being violated. So I turn to my agent, and whisper as loudly as I could, "can you please tell them to stop staring at me!" I think my body language spoke louder than my words, because the whole hoard of them immediately backed away. It might have been my breath for all I know, there's no way to tell for sure.
Then we went for a blood draw, which probably said some more obvious shit about my white blood cell count, and then, the goodies. We got some drugs. I got some throat spray, and some pills, and some tea. And two of the three drugs had a tiny bit of English on their packages, but one did not have any. I told my agent that I need all the instructions to be translated and written down in English. This was, apparently, way too big of a request to him. This man's English is not bad for a Chinese guy, but translating the instructions inside of the medication packages was way beyond him.
For the pills, First he said, "take two, twice a day," So I started with them, because they looked like real medicine, and I swallowed them. Then he turned around and said, "no wait, it says take one every six hours." Well I'd already taken them, so whatever. He said I'd be fine. I don't think I could get much worse than I was, so he was probably right. It was sort of a choice between being fine and being dead at that point. So I got some mixed messages for instructions and then he left.
I went online and looked up the English words that were on the other two packages. The tea, apparently is useful for treating neurological problems. Well, I can live with that, especially considering that I suspect I had some degree of meningitis from the delirium and visual hallucinations, but who knows. And the throat spray, well, it's throat spray, and while it tastes like medicine, I think it works like medicine, and fuck the instructions, I just take it as needed.
So now, the medicine has kicked in a bit. I still feel a bad headache, but not so much like I am dying, and I'm going to take them all again soon and go to bed. I hope I have it in me to go to work tomorrow, and from what I've heard from others about the Chinese flu, once it takes you down to knocking on deaths door, it lets up pretty quickly. It's all martial artsy, so maybe it just does what it does in self defense.
The bugs that get inside of you, they're like little microscopic kung-fu masters, totally Trojan-Horse-like in their approach. They enter under cover of darkness, completely invisible, completely undetectable, and they bide their time and they wait, and they build up their numbers, and those numbers get so high by the time your immune system get's word of them, you might as well call it quits before you even begin.
In comparison, they make the American flu look really stupid, lazy, and disorganized. Go figure. I mean, you can see the American flu coming at you weeks before it actually hits you, and when it takes that first blow, it's kind of like a sissy slap. And then it keeps sissy slapping you for a long-ass while, until it gets tired or bored or hungry, or frustrated that you won't die, or just doesn't feel like it anymore, and then it gives up and goes home.
But, before the Chinese flu hit's you, you feel great! Everything is fine and dandy, with pretty rainbows and happy sunshine. And then, for some reason, and totally out of nowhere...you start to feel a little bit sleepy, so you go lie down to take a little nap. And when you wake from your little nap a few hours later, you've got these waves of searing agony so intensely penetrating every molecule of every cell of every fiber of your being, you have to pause to ask yourself, "whoa...have I died and gone to hell?!" And every single muscle and bone and joint in your body is in such unbearable pain, that you might as well be being beaten up from the inside, and effectively, that's exactly what it's doing to you. It kicks you and beats you and throws you all around like a god damn rag doll, with all of its fancy martial-artsy moves.
So you try to sit up, maybe get yourself a glass of water, maybe take a piss, and your head is so dizzy, and your headache is so intense, that you just kind of plop right back down for a while and wait until you get really, really thirsty, and you really, really need to take a piss, before trying that move again. And as these waves of attacks start hitting you, the pain gives way to intense paranoia and confusion because it's fucking with your head now. You look around and shit is changing colors, and things are moving that are not supposed to be moving, and your visual field is really distorted, and it all kind of looks just like a drug trip. Then, later, the real fun begins...
So, yeah, you know you're dying at this point, so you decide to try to relate to another human being about it, and you will say something, and they will say something, and you will loose your train of thought, and ask, "what...what...what," not because you're deaf and can't hear or that you don't understand the words (or maybe you're a little of that, too), but you keep forgetting the meaning of the thing before the last thing that you just heard, and you keep forgetting what you are trying to say, and you kind of loose touch with everything going on around you. And you have to close your eyes, and think really fucking hard, just to form a god damn sentence. And that's if, and only if, your own voice doesn't give out first. And it does.
So then, you know you're probably dying, and you kind of just start to accept that. And you kind of just fade into it, and the pain doesn't really hurt as much anymore. You kind of feel all floaty, and you drift off and fall asleep. Then you wake up again, maybe 13 or so hours later, and you realize you're not dead yet, but you know that you're close. And you start to contemplate your own existence like dying people do, and imagine what the world would be like if you were dead, and what death is going to be like, and it all smells a lot like roses.
And then, you have the inevitable vision of your dad getting a random phone call from someone in China, because you know he's the one you put on your contract as your emergency contact. And when that vision clicks in, of your parents getting that phone call, and their reaction to that reality that seems so pretty and peaceful to you right then, all reality starts flooding back. So you do your damndest to get over your miserable self, because that reality is not so pretty anymore. So you grab onto the side of your bed. And you put all your energy into it and you hurl your ass into a sitting position. And...oh my god...at this point...your head feels just like a hot air balloon that is made out of concrete. It keeps expanding and trying to float away, but then it's too top heavy or whatever and it plops over, and it repeats this shit for a while, but you do what you have to do at this point to get your sorry ass to a hospital because you don't like that reality you just envisioned.
So, whatever. You call that dude from your agency, and insist that he help you go to the hospital. And he comes over, and you get your ass together and dress yourself like a big girl, and you walk, YES, WALK, to the hospital. Good. Fucking. Grief. But you do it. And as you're walking, everything is loud and bright and penetrating, and the fucker is trying to talk to you, and you've lost your voice a long time ago, so what's the point in even trying to talk back? So basically you just watch where he is walking and you follow.
And you get to the Chinese hospital and you are in all this pain, and you can't keep your head up, or focus your eyeballs, and he tells them about your headache, and shit, and they've seen this before, and of course they know what's going on. It's an everyday thing to them. But, as you feel like you are dying, they don't seem to care very much, because to them, this is not that big of a deal.
I will digress at this point to tell you about the Chinese hospital. Just like the Chinese version of the flu, the Chinese version of a hospital is nothing like the American version of a hospital. When you go to a hospital in America, you wait in a room with a bunch of other people for about eight hours. Then you go to a private bed with a curtain around it, like it's your own little room, and you hang out there for about five hours. You meet with nurses and doctors who come to you, and who all speak the same language as you, and you tell them what's wrong, and you get some drugs or whatever, and you leave. Then a few weeks later, if you don't have insurance, a bill arrives in the amount of several thousand dollars, and there are many and varied ways to handle that and get around paying it if you so choose, but that part is an absolute nightmare. In fact, the whole thing is an absolute nightmare, except for the private room. And while the Chinese hospital experience was far from pleasurable, especially when factoring in the condition I was in, it was, by far, less of a nightmare than an American hospital, all things considered.
In my case, since the agent did most of the talking, my experience was not the same experience that a Chinese person would have, and I may have been given proprietary treatment because I am a foreigner. But, basically, for a foreigner, you go in, and you pay the equivalent of $.75 for a consultation with a nurse. Then you pay for each service you receive before you receive it. It's all very cheap, and if you're Chinese, get this...it's free. But still, the whole thing cost me the equivalent of about $25. And as far as time, it took around two hours.
So then, they take your temperature, and while I don't know what mine was, I'm sure it was screaming something very loudly in Celsius. Then, they send you to a different room, and you stand in line to have your throat looked at and your heart listened to. The nurse looked at my throat, there was some dialogue exchanged between the agent and the nurse, and then the agent turns to me and tells me the obvious: "There's something wrong with your throat." Oh, wow! Really??
Now, I don't know if it was because I was white, or if it was because I was super, extra, pale-white, but a lot of people were staring at me in that hospital. And I know they have no word for privacy here, and the concept is totally foreign, but as that woman was prodding me with that stethoscope and this girl less then six inches behind me in line, and a bunch of other people were staring at me, and kind of moving in to get a closer look at the foreigner, I totally felt like I was being violated. So I turn to my agent, and whisper as loudly as I could, "can you please tell them to stop staring at me!" I think my body language spoke louder than my words, because the whole hoard of them immediately backed away. It might have been my breath for all I know, there's no way to tell for sure.
Then we went for a blood draw, which probably said some more obvious shit about my white blood cell count, and then, the goodies. We got some drugs. I got some throat spray, and some pills, and some tea. And two of the three drugs had a tiny bit of English on their packages, but one did not have any. I told my agent that I need all the instructions to be translated and written down in English. This was, apparently, way too big of a request to him. This man's English is not bad for a Chinese guy, but translating the instructions inside of the medication packages was way beyond him.
For the pills, First he said, "take two, twice a day," So I started with them, because they looked like real medicine, and I swallowed them. Then he turned around and said, "no wait, it says take one every six hours." Well I'd already taken them, so whatever. He said I'd be fine. I don't think I could get much worse than I was, so he was probably right. It was sort of a choice between being fine and being dead at that point. So I got some mixed messages for instructions and then he left.
I went online and looked up the English words that were on the other two packages. The tea, apparently is useful for treating neurological problems. Well, I can live with that, especially considering that I suspect I had some degree of meningitis from the delirium and visual hallucinations, but who knows. And the throat spray, well, it's throat spray, and while it tastes like medicine, I think it works like medicine, and fuck the instructions, I just take it as needed.
So now, the medicine has kicked in a bit. I still feel a bad headache, but not so much like I am dying, and I'm going to take them all again soon and go to bed. I hope I have it in me to go to work tomorrow, and from what I've heard from others about the Chinese flu, once it takes you down to knocking on deaths door, it lets up pretty quickly. It's all martial artsy, so maybe it just does what it does in self defense.
Friday, November 5, 2010
A rant about the food
I'm finally sick of the food here. It's taken me a while, but it happened. To start with, the Chinese food in America is a joke compared to what they actually eat in China. Last night, I ate what was probably the most treif part of the most treif animal on Earth: a pig's hoof. I thought I was ordering duck. That's what it looked like in the picture. Don't ask me why; I'll explain later if you ask me, but it doesn't matter. It was very sticky, and fatty, with very little meat. I guess the flavor wasn't bad. In fact, it was better than a lot of the food here in China. There were metatarsal bones (larger and fewer than a dog's), and some smaller tarsals, with lots of cartilage surrounding them, and claw-like, hoof-like hoof parts. That's when I knew! ugh! Still, I had to try it. I promised myself I'd try anything when I came here. But honestly, the pigs hoof was the first food I have had here that I could so severely not get over the thought of eating that I couldn't just enjoy it for what it was. That, in and of itself, was a sad moment, because I have always thought of myself as a person who can eat and enjoy literally anything they eat.
Last week, Wonder and I went out for dinner, and he told me that I just must try the century eggs. The smell was something to get over, but the taste and texture was amazing. I thought they were delicious. I must have had about four or five slices. We had other dishes too, which included pigs' kidneys, and sheaps' liver, both cooked with vegetables in an unbearably spicy sauce. The sheep's liver was good and reminded me of haggis, though I've only tried the canned variety so far. The pig's kidneys were...well...pig's kidneys...the parts of a pig that process it's urine. There's not much more I can tell you about them beyond that. They totally were what they were.
So, the next day, I wanted more century eggs, so I went back and ordered a plateful and ate the whole thing and nothing else with it for dinner. During the night I woke up, and was ill, but then I went back to sleep. The next morning I got up and was still ill, but I went to school anyway. Then after my second class I felt so bad that I went home. That evening, when I shat them out, they were completely unchanged from the way they were when I had swallowed them!
I think that during the fermentation process, whatever it is they do to them with the lye and whatever, it kills everything, including the enzymes that break them down. I don't think there was anything really wrong with them. I think the problem was that I ate them alone. I don't want to dissuade anyone from trying them. They are, in fact, a delicacy. Just be sure to eat other stuff with them.
I, personally, probably will not be able to eat them again. I had the same experience with kumquats. When I first had kumquats, I was like, "wow, this is different. I want more!" So I bought two packs of them and ate them all in one go. What I believe happened was the acid from the kumquats was so strong, that it, combined with my stomach acid wore away the mucosal lining of my stomach, which allowed some bacteria to enter and cause an infection. I had gastritis for over a week from that, and it was so painful, I have not been able to eat a kumquat since. I know my greatest sin is my gluttony and I pay for it over and over again. Now, all I want is a god damn steak or a hamburger, and some potatoes in any non-Chinese form. I feel very ashamed now. As I once read in another person's blog about China, "you've done China, when China's done you." And I've been had.
Last week, Wonder and I went out for dinner, and he told me that I just must try the century eggs. The smell was something to get over, but the taste and texture was amazing. I thought they were delicious. I must have had about four or five slices. We had other dishes too, which included pigs' kidneys, and sheaps' liver, both cooked with vegetables in an unbearably spicy sauce. The sheep's liver was good and reminded me of haggis, though I've only tried the canned variety so far. The pig's kidneys were...well...pig's kidneys...the parts of a pig that process it's urine. There's not much more I can tell you about them beyond that. They totally were what they were.
So, the next day, I wanted more century eggs, so I went back and ordered a plateful and ate the whole thing and nothing else with it for dinner. During the night I woke up, and was ill, but then I went back to sleep. The next morning I got up and was still ill, but I went to school anyway. Then after my second class I felt so bad that I went home. That evening, when I shat them out, they were completely unchanged from the way they were when I had swallowed them!
I think that during the fermentation process, whatever it is they do to them with the lye and whatever, it kills everything, including the enzymes that break them down. I don't think there was anything really wrong with them. I think the problem was that I ate them alone. I don't want to dissuade anyone from trying them. They are, in fact, a delicacy. Just be sure to eat other stuff with them.
I, personally, probably will not be able to eat them again. I had the same experience with kumquats. When I first had kumquats, I was like, "wow, this is different. I want more!" So I bought two packs of them and ate them all in one go. What I believe happened was the acid from the kumquats was so strong, that it, combined with my stomach acid wore away the mucosal lining of my stomach, which allowed some bacteria to enter and cause an infection. I had gastritis for over a week from that, and it was so painful, I have not been able to eat a kumquat since. I know my greatest sin is my gluttony and I pay for it over and over again. Now, all I want is a god damn steak or a hamburger, and some potatoes in any non-Chinese form. I feel very ashamed now. As I once read in another person's blog about China, "you've done China, when China's done you." And I've been had.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
You can't make this shit up
Today I met a man by the name of Wonder who has offered me free airline tickets in exchange for English lessons. That's scary lucky if you ask me. He works for United Airlines and I met him at a bus stop, then we talked on the bus. Also I got that job at the school near the airport. I am moving to a new apartment tomorrow to be closer to the school. I should pack now, but I don't have the energy. I set my alarm clock for 4:00 in the morning, and I plan to do it before I leave. My (soon to be former) assistant, Emerson, is coming at 6:15 to help me move to a new apartment. I wouldn't have met that man, Wonder, if I hadn't had a two and a half hour commute, and arrived at the bus stop which goes to the airport at the ass crack of dawn (the time when airport workers go to work--as I would know (and thank you, Robert Moseley, for that phrase). And that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't relentlessly complained about the awful school in pinguoyuan, And the company wouldn't have decided to put me there as a sustitute, if a man who was working at the school near the airport hadn't decided to ditch the school out of nowhere at the exact same time as I was threatening to leave. There is no way this school would have hired me, considering my level of experience, had it not been for absolute desperation. Man, I think the law of attraction is working in my favor now. What are the fucking odds?
Monday, October 25, 2010
I think I have overcome the culture shock, and things can only get better from here.
I think things can only get better from here. I started at another school today. I am technically a substitute. There's no guarantee that I will have this position permanently (for the remainder of my contract), but the odds are in my favor I believe. If the school out in pingouyuan was hell, this school is heaven. This school is legit, it is legal, it is accredited. Today, when a child was crying, because he's three years old and he misses his grandma, they consoled him. When a girl threw something, she got yelled at. It's amazing. I have just come from a place where a kid got kicked and picked up by one arm for stomping his feet on the floor, after I told him to, for god sakes. If a child at Golden Apple decided to throw something, they would have probably been thrown out a window from the third floor! At the school in pinguoyuan, when kids cry, the are, at best, ignored, and at worst, hit and abused. I don't want to think about the school in pinguoyaun anymore. I hope that it changes soon, for the kids' sakes, but I don't want it to be a part of my life anymore. I don't want to think about it. I am glad I don't have to dread it. It doesn't have to be my problem anymore. I am just so happy that I have a chance at something so much better. There was an amazing stroke of luck involved that I will talk about in a future blog, but for now, I need to get to bed. All I know is that my quitting that job at Golden Apple was a massive risk, and I believe that risk is paying off, and it is turning out to likely be one of the wisest choices I have ever made. There was so much luck involved in this, it has been unbelievable.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Is this what culture shock feels like? Or is it a culmination of something else?
I quit my school today. I can't take the child abuse and the way things are run there. It's really hard to witness. It's impossible to take. I gave it two months. Another second, and I would have lost my mind. Some people can take it. They say, "This is China. That's just the way things are run here. You just have to accept it." I am not like most people. There are things that one cannot accept. You just can't! I can't watch children being beaten on a daily basis. I can't stand to witness the injustices and violations of human rights. I feel sorry for the children. It hurts me to see them being hurt, and feeling like there is nothing I can do about it. I can't take the ridiculous rules, that make no sense. Meanwhile, I'm in a foreign country, working illegally for this illegal agency in this illegal school, stranded, and desperate, and helpless.
I'm still with my agency. They suck too, but I have a contract (however invalid and illegal it must be--and I know it is!). However my company is embedded into the system just so, that if I stay with them, I will probably be okay for now. Here in China, money means everything. It's a place of mobs and cronies, and of shady, gray-market ritual practices. Functionally speaking, there are no laws here. If you have money, and you can pay off the right people, anything can go down, and anyone can do anything and get away with it (Yes--on paper, this place is a commune. In practice, however, it is an anarchy...How psychotic is that!? All it takes is just a couple of red notes). I will try to stick it out another day, and take this shit one day at a time, but I don't know. I'm feeling pretty fucking scared right now.
My agency/company, expertise education, are going to try to find me a different job in a different school. I will see. All I know is that something here is amiss. Something here is not right. Something here is not working. I don't know if the problem lies with me, China, the school, or the agency, or all of the above, or something else. But maybe switching to a new school is the right thing to do. Maybe it can offer great improvements. If changing schools within the agency doesn't help me, I may have to leave the agency, and figure things out on my own or go back home. If I am still here after that, I can try another agency, or another job all together, or a different city in China. If the problems and the feelings that something is amiss still exist after exhausting every option, I will know that the problem lies with either China or myself. If it is with China, I can try another country and start from zero there, and If the problem lies with me, I will just have to accept that. I will just have to change, or find something that works well for me.
This is all I know: my dream is not to be an English teacher for the rest of my life. My dream is to be a rock star and a writer and an artist. That is what I love, and that is who I am. And if it took me coming to China to realize that, and witnessing and understanding reality in all it's glory and misery, than it was worth it just for that. But for now, all I have is right now. And I will have to work within right now as best as I possibly can...for now.
I'm still with my agency. They suck too, but I have a contract (however invalid and illegal it must be--and I know it is!). However my company is embedded into the system just so, that if I stay with them, I will probably be okay for now. Here in China, money means everything. It's a place of mobs and cronies, and of shady, gray-market ritual practices. Functionally speaking, there are no laws here. If you have money, and you can pay off the right people, anything can go down, and anyone can do anything and get away with it (Yes--on paper, this place is a commune. In practice, however, it is an anarchy...How psychotic is that!? All it takes is just a couple of red notes). I will try to stick it out another day, and take this shit one day at a time, but I don't know. I'm feeling pretty fucking scared right now.
My agency/company, expertise education, are going to try to find me a different job in a different school. I will see. All I know is that something here is amiss. Something here is not right. Something here is not working. I don't know if the problem lies with me, China, the school, or the agency, or all of the above, or something else. But maybe switching to a new school is the right thing to do. Maybe it can offer great improvements. If changing schools within the agency doesn't help me, I may have to leave the agency, and figure things out on my own or go back home. If I am still here after that, I can try another agency, or another job all together, or a different city in China. If the problems and the feelings that something is amiss still exist after exhausting every option, I will know that the problem lies with either China or myself. If it is with China, I can try another country and start from zero there, and If the problem lies with me, I will just have to accept that. I will just have to change, or find something that works well for me.
This is all I know: my dream is not to be an English teacher for the rest of my life. My dream is to be a rock star and a writer and an artist. That is what I love, and that is who I am. And if it took me coming to China to realize that, and witnessing and understanding reality in all it's glory and misery, than it was worth it just for that. But for now, all I have is right now. And I will have to work within right now as best as I possibly can...for now.
this place is a cult/a prison/hell.
I feel like sometimes I am in prison or hell, and this is what prison or hell feels like. This place, that I am witnessing every day. It's really difficult. I think I just feel like I'm losing my mind. I feel like we are all cogs in a machine here. There are big cogs, and small cogs, and important cogs, and unimportant cogs, but all of us are cogs. And the more rare and necessary a particular cog is, the more it is worth, and the more it gets paid; and the more common and unnecessary a particular cog is, the less it is worth and the less it gets paid. But no matter what type of cog we are: big, small, important, unimportant, common, or rare, when one of us breaks, they just throw us away, stick in a new one, and away the machine works. Away, the machine pumps out cheep, petroleum-based clothes and shoes, toys, games, electronics, steel, and wood, to be shipped to these far away lands. Products as disposable as the hands that made them. And away the machine pumps out Education, and English as a second language, because the government demanded it. And that is who controls the little buttons that makes this machine run, the government, and the policy-makers. And there is no communication between the people and their government. The people are the parts, and the policy-makers are the controllers, and that is just the way it is. And it is hell. The government doesn’t care about the people. If the government decides to push a button, that turns off a particular set of cogs, say, English as a foreign language for example, it can do it. Just like that. They press a button, the foreigners are deported, and away the machine works, pumping out more and more disposable, low quality goods, which will continually need to be replaced and repurchased by the user, the addict, the consumer; and anything else it decides to pump out. It is a real nightmare here sometimes. The truth about what it means to be a human becomes apparent, and it becomes real. And the experience of witnessing the juxtaposition of the ways of life of humans on these two separate continents, these two sides of the globe, has changed me. I am still human, but everything else has changed. I feel like I’m breaking down, mentally and emotionally, a little more every day here.
I feel stranded and desperate.
It's between 35 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit here, and the school has forbidden us from wearing hats and gloves. Why? because the kids can't do it. Meanwhile, 40% of the kids are sick, and they're not allowed to wear hats and gloves. I don't get it. This is a society where people will roll up their pant legs up to their crotches, and their shirts up into their armpits when it gets too hot, but they're not allowed to wear hats and gloves when it gets too cold? It's insanity! No wonder I feel like I'm loosing my mind here. All because the school administration (policy makers) pushed a button and decided it has to reach a certain temperature before the kids can wear hats and gloves. They fail to take individual differences into consideration. They fail to consider that some people are more tolerant to the cold than others. As far as us foreign teachers, we are wearing them anyway as we feel like it. The Chinese teachers and administration are suffering for the sake of suffering, and for the sake of setting a good example for the kids, and for the sake of following this rule. This absolutely retarded, and senseless rule! One foreign teacher has quit. She is from the Philippines, and has almost no tolerance for the cold. The other day, when they informed us of this rule, she broke down crying. She was already very sick, and they had told her to come in anyway. She's not the type of person who can easily say no to authority. So now, the school lost a teacher. Us English teachers are rare, important, and valuable cogs, and worth a lot more to the school than we make, though we do make excellent money compared to the Chinese teachers. And I suspect the school will be loosing more English teachers soon, myself, probably being one of them.
It's important to note, that the school is not heated, and because it is made of concrete and steel, it's actually colder inside than outside, less for the human body heat we all produce.
I feel stranded and desperate.
It's between 35 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit here, and the school has forbidden us from wearing hats and gloves. Why? because the kids can't do it. Meanwhile, 40% of the kids are sick, and they're not allowed to wear hats and gloves. I don't get it. This is a society where people will roll up their pant legs up to their crotches, and their shirts up into their armpits when it gets too hot, but they're not allowed to wear hats and gloves when it gets too cold? It's insanity! No wonder I feel like I'm loosing my mind here. All because the school administration (policy makers) pushed a button and decided it has to reach a certain temperature before the kids can wear hats and gloves. They fail to take individual differences into consideration. They fail to consider that some people are more tolerant to the cold than others. As far as us foreign teachers, we are wearing them anyway as we feel like it. The Chinese teachers and administration are suffering for the sake of suffering, and for the sake of setting a good example for the kids, and for the sake of following this rule. This absolutely retarded, and senseless rule! One foreign teacher has quit. She is from the Philippines, and has almost no tolerance for the cold. The other day, when they informed us of this rule, she broke down crying. She was already very sick, and they had told her to come in anyway. She's not the type of person who can easily say no to authority. So now, the school lost a teacher. Us English teachers are rare, important, and valuable cogs, and worth a lot more to the school than we make, though we do make excellent money compared to the Chinese teachers. And I suspect the school will be loosing more English teachers soon, myself, probably being one of them.
It's important to note, that the school is not heated, and because it is made of concrete and steel, it's actually colder inside than outside, less for the human body heat we all produce.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
~A New Beginning~
This weekend was amazing and beautiful; by far, the best weekend of my life. Finally, after two months of frustration and helplessness; two months which have felt like an eternity; I'm finally starting to speak and understand the language. The feeling is amazing: the feeling that happens when you are able to say something; ask for something, and get something you want; hear a reply, and understand it. It's like a switch turned on in my head, and the feeling is glorious.
I feel like my life is changing for the better. I feel like the world is changing for the better. And I feel like I am a different person than I was when I left. I feel like I have opened some kind of Pandora's Box within myself, and nothing that I could do, onwards from this point, could ever change me back into the person that I was when I left Albuquerque.
I feel like my life is changing for the better. I feel like the world is changing for the better. And I feel like I am a different person than I was when I left. I feel like I have opened some kind of Pandora's Box within myself, and nothing that I could do, onwards from this point, could ever change me back into the person that I was when I left Albuquerque.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
A strange metamorphosis
I feel like I am undergoing some sort of a transformation or metamorphosis. It is happening somewhere deep within my psyche. It's ascending to all levels of my being. I don't fully understand it. I don't know if it's good or if it's bad. All I know is that it is. It is an is as far as what I understand an is to be. I really can't label it beyond that, though I have my suspicions. Still, I can't label it, for fear of trying to dictate its direction, when that could be catastrophic. I don't want to interfere too much. Whatever is happening, I think it knows what it's doing, though I don't, not yet. It's a little bit scary, but I cannot let myself be afraid, because that could prevent it, and I think it could be good, though like I said, I'm not sure what it is. Also, I don't want to prevent it because I feel like it's something that's been inside of me all my life. I feel like it's something I have prevented in the past. I feel like every time I have prevented it, bad things happened. I hope I don't sound to crazy. It's okay if I do, but I know what I feel. Well, really, I don't. But that's okay.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Today I went into a store near where I live and they sold stuff kind of like what REI has. I wanted to buy a winter coat but nothing fit. However I tried on a shirt, the shirt was RMB 138, but I saw the brand and felt it, and I tried it on, and you could tell it was high quality. I thought in my head, this would be about $40 in the US. I bought the shirt, came home, and looked it up on the internet. I was right. Here it is. And I only paid about $20 for it.
I think if I loose a little weight I will be able to buy a winter coat, but I will have to try because I will have to achieve this before it gets to cold. This is the best motivation I have ever had to go on a diet. I am going to try to eat fruits instead of ice cream from now on. At least it is impossible not to exercise here, because just going to and from work every day, I have to walk for a total of about 50 minutes, because it's 20 minutes from my building to the subway, five minutes from the subway to the school, and then both ways, that's 50 minutes, which is enough exercise.
Also, last night I went to Lampel's apartment, so did Andy and Joessette, two of my coworkers, and we had dinner. Joessette and I spent the night. Lampel and her girlfriend were very nice hostesses. Then they fed me breakfast. Lampel is very nice and she has proposed to me the idea of starting a business together. She wants to open her own school. I am finding my self becoming quite close to these people whom I have not known very long.
Monday, September 13, 2010
cycle of violence
Today at school one of the kids hit another kid in the face and he got a bloody nose. The kid who hit the other kid was the same kid who got kicked by the teacher last week. It pisses me off because it's obvious that the teacher did not teach the boy that it's rude to continue stomping one's feet after the English teacher has stopped, she taught him that it is okay to be violent, and to use violence to solve any problem that one is presented with. I guess it pisses me off the most because, 1) I can relate to that kid, and 2) I feel that there's nothing I can do to change this problem. That teacher is teaching that child how to be a bully, and very little else.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Sorry it's taken me so long. I had to get a VPN
I'm so sorry it has taken me a month to post my first china blog. I had to buy a VPN to access this website. In China, the internet is censored to prevent people from expressing negative opinions about China, and more so, to protect the Chinese from viewing other peoples' negative opinions about China. It's all well and good. For $5.99 a month, I am now over that. Factor that into the RMB 180/month that we pay for internet service (which my roommate and I split the cost of), and that's still a little less than what most people in America pay. Unfortunately, it comes at the cost of being a bit slower. About China:
The toilets. They are holes in the floor. You squat over them. One of my first days here, I was peeing in one of the squat toilets, and it's really hard to squat and take a pee without grabbing on to something for balance, so I grabbed onto the bottom of the door of the bathroom stall. I guess gravity was the only thing keeping that door on it's hinges, so as I was taking a piss, I accidentally removed the door from it's hinges. So there I am squatting. With my pants down. Taking a piss. And "boom!" the door crashes to the ground in front of me. There were other people in the bathroom. Actually, it was for the best, because they helped me put the door back on. Then I finished peeing.
Dragon fruit! I love dragon fruit! I made a video of me talking about them and eating one in front of you, but it refused to load.
I wrote a kids book last week. I wrote the text, that is. That's the easy part. It's about some dogs who go on an adventure. Now I'm working on the illustrations. They are tedious and time consuming, but they are fun. It worries me because I tried to set a goal for myself to draw/paint one page per week. It's just the first draft, by the way. I may decide two thirds of the way through the illustrations, that I want to change something, so I should try to do them even faster, just so I can have it all sketched out. I don't know if I mentioned this in one of the earlier posts, but one of my goals for this year is to create something publishable. I've been working on what I want to do for the first page, I've included a sketch. I know it's not dogs, it's horses, but I'll make them dogs later.
Work. Work is difficult. The Chinese teachers beat the little preschool age kids. By the way. I know I said I was coming here to teach kindergarten, but in China the word "kindergarten," encompasses everything before first grade, and includes kids as young as 2 years old. My morning class right now are two year old kids. They don't beat them as much, but my afternoon class are 4 years old, and that teacher beats those kids relentlessly. For example, I was teaching the word "feet" and to illustrate my point I began pounding my feet on the floor as if I was playing a double bass drum pedal. Then I stopped, but the kids kept going. The Chinese teacher approached them. They all started to stop, because they are afraid of her. One kid was the last to stop, only half a second later than everyone else. The Chinese teacher approached this kid, kicked him, then picked him up by one arm, carried him out of the room by one arm, and took him to another room, where she probably beat him some more. Then the Chinese teacher came back. The kid came back later. I was mortified by what I had seen, I'm amazed I didn't cry, but I went into some sort of autopilot mode. I just taught like a robot for a while. When the teacher beats the kids, the kids never cry. That's the part that probably blows my mind the most about it. I don't think they are allowed to express fear in China, or I guess they are strongly discouraged from doing so, but I will tell you one thing, I am afraid of that Chinese teacher.
On a more positive note, I made friends with a Chinese lady. Her English name is Sherilyn. At first I thought I'd been had by her because she sold me some Amway stuff, and I guess she works for them but I didn't know it at the time. I felt like I'd been tricked, but now I think her efforts at establishing friendship are legitimate. I guess the way things work here, is that people keep very close tabs on the checks and balances of relationships. If someone does something nice for someone, they see it as the other party has a debt to the other one. So Sherilyn invited me to her husband's sister's house for dinner. There was she, her husband, her son, her husband's sister, her husband's sister's son, and her husband's sister's husband's mother. Her husband's sister's husband was on a business trip. They served fish, chicken, mutton, pork, cauliflower, spinach, noodles, and rice. It's was like a feast. I also had beer and apple juice. Everything was very good. Sherilyn told me she is originally from Inner Mongolia. She asked me what I was doing for Christmas. I told I don't do Christmas. I told her I was Jewish already, but it took her a while to make the connection between being Jewish and not doing Christmas. I don't think Chinese people are good at making the distinction between Christmas as a Christian holiday and Christmas as an American holiday, but neither are Americans for that matter. When I got through to her that I had no plans for Christmas, she asked me if I wanted to go to Inner Mongolia with her over the winter vacation to see her family. She didn't try to sell me anything. I believe she wants to be my friend. I agreed to go with her to Inner Mongolia for winter vacation. Her nephew taught me a traditional Chinese game. I forgot what it's called. It's sort of like a yoyo, but not exactly. There is a long string tied between two wands. Then there is this hourglass shaped thing that is held horizontally on the string. the string is wraped around the hourglass shaped thing and you use the string to spin the hourglass shaped thing by manipulating the string with the wands. When you get the hourglass shaped thing spinning fast enough, it makes an interesting whistling noise. The nephew was also able to do some tricks with it, such as balancing the spinning hourglass shaped thing on one of the wands as it was spinning. I practiced for maybe half an hour and figured it out and was able to make the thing make the whistling noise. When I did that, Sherilyn was impressed and said I was "smart." The nephew's name is Robert. She asked me to give an English name to her son. I decided to call him Arthur, because it's English. I first suggested Orion, but when I said it was Greek, I think she was not into it. I think she wanted an English English name, so I thought of Arthur. She liked that it was a name of one of the kings of England. I told her that it was also the character of an American children's book and TV show. Hopefully, he will be okay with it. It's not that bad.
The thing about English names in China, most people have them, but they can change it whenever they want. There's nothing official about it. I met a girl during our training who was obsessed with giving Chinese people English names. She spoke decent Chinese, so she would give English names to bar tenders, bus drivers, waiters and waitresses, and pretty much any one she came across who she had a conversation with, and did not yet have an English name.
Friday, August 13, 2010
The big day is finally here
This blog post is coming a day early, and I'm writing it from the airport in Seattle. I'm waiting for my plane to China, it's in an hour and 15 minutes. I'm to exhausted to be anxious, which is a really amazing thing when you think about it. I had a series of mishaps here in Seattle today, which have worked themselves out now, and in the grand scheme of things, probably appear minuscule, but at the time, could easily have registered as the most difficult and stressful situation I have ever faced in my life. First, I thought I had to go to baggage claim here in Seattle because I was to change airlines from United to Hainan, and I was mislead by my dad, but it's my fault for not doing my own research, plus he was only trying to be helpful (pardon the run-on sentence). After learning that I was to go to the Hainan Airlines' ticket counter, it was probably a walk of about half a mile. That, with guitar in hand, and a backpack on my back, borders excruciating. When I got to the ticket counter, I was told that I had to check my guitar, and that I had no choice but to pay $110 to do so. So I cried. Thankfully, for once, crying got me somewhere. The ticket counter lady bumped it down to $80. I took it. The woman asked for my baggage claim ticket, at which point I realized...I lost it--yay! So I had to walk another half mile down to United's ticked counter, where I stood, still crying, for like half an hour, waiting, and finally got that. Then I walked the half mile back to Hainan's ticket counter. Well, I finally got my ticket and everything, and for $80, at least I didn't have to lug the guitar through yet another airport, freeing up my fingers for other things, like posting this blog for example. Also, I am grateful for this four hour layover, as I may not have survived anything less. I feel like when this is all over, it will wipe itself from my memory like a bad dream, so long as, I hope, the rewards are worth the sacrifices. And like a bad dream, I can't wait for this airport shit to all be over.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
If I can survive this last week I have here in the states, I'll be in pretty decent shape, because honestly, it causing me to want to kill myself. The idea is very tempting, but I guess I have to remember that if I can hold out for five more days, this shit will be over. I just feel completely powerless to my surroundings. This has a lot less to do with my moving than it does with the fact that I'm staying with my family right now. It nearly drove me to commit suicide as a child, and it's doing the same thing again. (I guess if I've changed in any way, it's that I no longer make half-hearted suicide attempts. If I were going to do it, I would overshoot the possibility of death by a long shot.) Maybe it's a combination of both. I mean, there is stress coming in from all directions, and much of it, I have no immediate control over, and for some retarded reason, the shit that I do have control over, I seem to be doing nothing about. I just have a lot to worry about, and worrying seems to be all I'm doing about it. I'm slightly questioning my decision to quit taking my antidepressants, which I did like three or four months ago, shortly after finishing school (by the way, I credit them for my ability to even finish school), but I didn't want to be dependent on something which I stood a chance of being unable to obtain in China at an affordable price, if at all. The depressing, and realistic, voice in my head is telling me that I am going to be no better off once I'm there. I have no idea what my life will be like when I'm there, but that voice is probably right. If I think shit is bad now... this place will probably seem like heaven, retrospectively, once I'm there. In all honesty, I will probably experience the same ups and downs that reality tends to dish at you, and I think a person's location on this planet probably has very little to do with that. It just happens.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
My anxiety is still kind of high, though for some reason it's actually subsided a little since last week. I still feel like I'm a little behind schedule as far as the moving process is concerned, because I have not gotten done as much as I planned on this past week. However, I think I can count on having the old place cleared out completely a week from now. Considering the fact that I still have a week and six days, that is not too daunting of a task, but while considering that that is where I wanted to be by now, it's a little disappointing. Part of the problem is that I'm dependent on my dad to bring his truck to take out all the large pieces of furniture, so that aspect is out of my control for the most part. Still, the parts that are in my control: all the cleaning and packing and loading and taking to my parents house of the small stuff--I was hoping would be done by now. I expect will take another few days of work to finish. I don't know why my anxiety has reduced though, considering that I'm roughly three days behind schedule. I think it's the fact that the task is seeming more and more manageable.
On another note, I bought RMB5000 this week. I doubt that will be enough to get me through the two months it will take me to get my first pay check, but if it can get me through most of that time, I may be able to mooch and borrow my way to my first paycheck. This prospect scares me, but what else should I expect of myself, or should anyone else expect of me. I just finished school a few months ago, but I wish I would have been able to procure a second job over the summer. I don't know why I didn't just consider working in food services again. If that field is good for anything, it's a pretty decent way of making some extra money. And also, it tends to have a higher turn around rate than some sort of desk job, which is the kind of thing I sought. If anything, I should just be grateful that I'm not in debt, though I have my dad to thank for that.
On another note, I bought RMB5000 this week. I doubt that will be enough to get me through the two months it will take me to get my first pay check, but if it can get me through most of that time, I may be able to mooch and borrow my way to my first paycheck. This prospect scares me, but what else should I expect of myself, or should anyone else expect of me. I just finished school a few months ago, but I wish I would have been able to procure a second job over the summer. I don't know why I didn't just consider working in food services again. If that field is good for anything, it's a pretty decent way of making some extra money. And also, it tends to have a higher turn around rate than some sort of desk job, which is the kind of thing I sought. If anything, I should just be grateful that I'm not in debt, though I have my dad to thank for that.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Planning For My "Big Advanture"
I know there are a few good blogs out there done by expatriate Americans (or other westerners) living in China, but there are not enough to read them all and never run out of material. I feel that in my preparations, I have scoured the Internet for all the first-hand information on this subject I could find, and yet, there appears to be a finite amount of it. That's not bad, because most of it is good material. My hope in doing all this, is that others will be able to benefit from my experience, and (my attempt at) an objective report of it. My hope is to post at least one blog a week reporting my experience, and progress.
So before I start, let me fill you in on a little back story. When I was nearing completion of my bachelors degree (in psychology), I was feeling anxious about finding work, particularly relevant to my degree, and at the very least, relevant to my having a degree at all. I have had a few friends who had taken jobs at some point teaching ESL in other countries, and one thing that I knew was that it was a job relevant to the having of a collage degree. And with the state that the American economy at the time, all signs pointed to teaching ESL (English as a second language). I asked my friends where they got their jobs, and both my friend Abby, who taught in Japan, and my friend Stephan, who taught in the Ukraine, recommended Dave's ESL Cafe. I went to check it out and began applying for jobs in various countries, and researching the idea of teaching ESL. My research led me to believe that my odds of finding work in China would be higher than most other countries because of the higher demand, due to in part by the high population, but also due to the fact that they are required to learn English in school. I applied for jobs in Thailand, South Korea, and China. My hunch turned out to be accurate, because, of the three companies I applied with in China, two asked me for an interview, while none of the companies in the other two countries did. I was offered a job with Expertise Education (the other prospective company was Edcomasia), and took it.
This was about three or four months ago, and I was still in school. In the mean time, I have graduated, gotten my tickets, visa, luggage, stockpile of tampons for a year (I was told they are hard to find, and if there's one thing I won't compromise on...) and other necessities, meanwhile continuing to work for the same company I worked for for about the last year or so that I was in college (part time). They could not afford to hire me on full time for the summer, but I am okay with that, knowing what lies ahead for me. Now with less than three weeks until I leave, my anxiety, and apprehension, fear, and excitement are through the roof. I'm busy packing, moving my stuff to my parents house for storage, and trying to figure out what to take and what to leave behind. This is probably one of the most anxiety provoking experiences of all because it's so hard to decide.
As far as this blog is concerned, I really hope to just tell it like it is to the best of my ability. I want to write what I would have liked to have known before hand as much as possible. I want to give you an honest look at my life and my interests, and various endeavors. I feel like I am about to embark on the most difficult thing I have ever chosen to do.
So before I start, let me fill you in on a little back story. When I was nearing completion of my bachelors degree (in psychology), I was feeling anxious about finding work, particularly relevant to my degree, and at the very least, relevant to my having a degree at all. I have had a few friends who had taken jobs at some point teaching ESL in other countries, and one thing that I knew was that it was a job relevant to the having of a collage degree. And with the state that the American economy at the time, all signs pointed to teaching ESL (English as a second language). I asked my friends where they got their jobs, and both my friend Abby, who taught in Japan, and my friend Stephan, who taught in the Ukraine, recommended Dave's ESL Cafe. I went to check it out and began applying for jobs in various countries, and researching the idea of teaching ESL. My research led me to believe that my odds of finding work in China would be higher than most other countries because of the higher demand, due to in part by the high population, but also due to the fact that they are required to learn English in school. I applied for jobs in Thailand, South Korea, and China. My hunch turned out to be accurate, because, of the three companies I applied with in China, two asked me for an interview, while none of the companies in the other two countries did. I was offered a job with Expertise Education (the other prospective company was Edcomasia), and took it.
This was about three or four months ago, and I was still in school. In the mean time, I have graduated, gotten my tickets, visa, luggage, stockpile of tampons for a year (I was told they are hard to find, and if there's one thing I won't compromise on...) and other necessities, meanwhile continuing to work for the same company I worked for for about the last year or so that I was in college (part time). They could not afford to hire me on full time for the summer, but I am okay with that, knowing what lies ahead for me. Now with less than three weeks until I leave, my anxiety, and apprehension, fear, and excitement are through the roof. I'm busy packing, moving my stuff to my parents house for storage, and trying to figure out what to take and what to leave behind. This is probably one of the most anxiety provoking experiences of all because it's so hard to decide.
As far as this blog is concerned, I really hope to just tell it like it is to the best of my ability. I want to write what I would have liked to have known before hand as much as possible. I want to give you an honest look at my life and my interests, and various endeavors. I feel like I am about to embark on the most difficult thing I have ever chosen to do.
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