Guangzhou Diary III

Random weirdness: In my e-mail the other day, I got an ad for a “pocket hose” – one of those curly garden hoses that are so compact.  What’s weird about it is that for some strange reason it made me homesick!  Go figure! A couple of days later, I really WAS homesick – certainly not for Oklahoma, per se, but after spending a year+ there and hanging out with my family, I was missing them.  It didn’t help that I was feeling like shit with sinus headaches and a REALLY sore throat thanks to the pollution here and their mold-spewing air conditioners. Finally broke down and got a bottle of vinegar on the advice of a Disney teacher who dealt with the same thing after she’d arrived in Guangzhou. A shot of vinegar in the morning and the evening eventually cleared it up. And luckily, since I found some not-so-strong apple vinegar, it’s actually not too bad.

I’m still liking my apartment, like the location, etc.  Found a good and cheap Chinese place (surprise!) around the corner where I can get enough food for almost two meals for less than $3.  Woot, woot!  Also, a couple of good grocery stores and fruit/vegetable markets nearby. On the down side, they recently started renovating the place next door – COMPLETELY gutting it and re-building it so there is a ridiculous amount of noise.  It actually sounds like they are fucking jackhammering over there.  Sigh.

Back to the bright sides: there’s an Irish Pub downstairs!  J Actually, this area I’m in – Zhujiang New Town – has a fair number of western places and expats.  You generally pay through the nose for Western stuff/food here, though. While I can get a good meal, as mentioned, at some local places for around $2, I generally pay at least $10 - $15 for a decent “western” meal – and that’s pretty high for China.  Although, to be honest, on the whole, China is not as cheap as I thought it’d be.  Of course if I lived in the countryside or some small town it would no doubt be cheaper, but as I’m in the “big city”, it’s more expensive.  I’m actually paying more, when the money is converted, for my studio with loft than I was for a 2-bedroom house in Oklahoma.  But, again, the real estate maxim is still, everywhere, location location location.  And I’m paying about a third what I’d pay for the same thing in San Francisco.

Speaking of “western” food, I hit the one Mexican restaurant in Guangzhou with some Disney folks a couple of weeks back: Tekila’s.  It was decent, not great, but I’m sure the longer I’m here the better it will seem.  J  I spent about $10 for a couple of enchiladas that had SOME cheese in them!  Cheese is VERY expensive here.  The Irish Pub downstairs has a great pineapple margarita and during their happy hour, it’s “only” about $5 – cheap for western stuff in China.

Another fun food note: as I was wandering around, nearly lost, in one of the gargantuan, maze-like malls here, I passed a McDonald’s where a local was eating French fries by using two straws as chopsticks.  I’m sorry, but that’s just sad – and more than a bit ridiculous - on several levels.

The number and size of malls here is amazing.  I know part of it has to do with just the sheer number of people and needing to ‘accommodate’ their shopping needs, but honestly, it boggles the mind.  Both here and in Shanghai, and with others or alone, you get lost in the malls they’re so big and byzantine.  Particularly the ones in the metro stops.  Most every large metro stop has at least something of a mall connected to it.  My boss at Disney told me about a Magic: The Gathering shop at a mall here in the Martyr’s Square metro stop mall so I had to try and find it.  HA!  No way.  She warned me ahead of time it was one of the more ‘challenging’ malls even by China standards.  And indeed it was.  It actually ends up connecting to another, separate, multi-level mall.  I ended up laughing at myself for getting so lost.  But it’s still fun to wander around in them, see the bizarre shit for sale, and snicker over the, um, “interesting” translations when they put stuff in English.

Speaking of Chinese/English fun, some of the kids here have comical and/or sometimes quite tragic names.  Some of them are simply Chinese names that have “unfortunate” connotations in English: e.g., one of my favorite students is named Du Du.  She is THE sweetest little girl you would ever want to meet and it pains me to say her name every time.  Then, you’ve got the “Anglicized” names folks have picked for their kids.  The best/worst?  In Shanghai, I had a little boy in my class whose name was…..wait for it….Hymen.  Sigh.  They even told the mother what it meant, but in typical dismissive/arrogant Chinese fashion, she said, “I don’t care.  I like it.” 

I have to say, though, as fucked up as China is, after hearing the Zimmerman verdict – coupled with the black woman who got 20 years and couldn’t use the same “stand your ground defense” for firing a gun in the air to scare off an abusive husband – I am shamed by the U.S. “justice system” and kinda glad I’m not living there right now.  Seriously, it’s an embarrassment.

As it’s still early yet in my stay, I go back and forth over how long I’ll stay.  I will definitely do one year, as that’s what my contract is for.  I think anything beyond that, I would need to move into an admin. job.  It’s not that I don’t like teaching, but it is wearing.  And the schedules are screwy.  Yeah, I get to sleep late for my M-F classes, but then need to be up at 7am for the Sat/Sun classes.  But if I’m able to adjust, I may renew and teach for another year as Disney just added a pretty cool benefit for renewing your contract: they will reimburse you to get SELTA certified, which is basically the "premium" certification for teaching English as a foreign language and allows you to teach adults.  I did just finish my TEFL-C which formally certifies me to teach English to kids so if the weather here starts to get TOO bothersome, I could look elsewhere.  I also heard from one of the other trainers here that will be doing it that they offer a SELTA course in Bangkok, Thailand that's a month long.  Another benefit Disney recently added is a 28-day unpaid vacation break if you renew your contract, so come next May/June, I may head off to Bangkok for a month and do the SELTA.  Kill two birds with one stone by getting to see Thailand and getting the SELTA.  Disney will even continue your housing allowance so you don't have to worry about losing your apt. while you're traveling.  Pretty cool.  Apparently, they're making more of an effort to keep Foreign Trainers coz there's a lot of turnaround.  Dunno if I mentioned this previously, but the group that trained after us lost HALF their folks during training (5 of 10).

Finally did my first real “tourist excursion” the other day: Samian Island.  As noted at their entrance marker, “The Island has great historic significance. From the Song and the Qing Dynasty, it served as an important port for Guangzhou's foreign trade. It became a strategic point for city defense during the second Opium Wars (1856-1860). In 1859, the territory was divided into two concessions, given to France and United Kingdom (of which 4/5 went to the British and 1/5 to the French). It was then embanked and provided with streets, drainage, and imposing buildings and became home to a prosperous foreign enclave. After 1949, the mansions became government offices or apartment houses and the churches were turned into factories. But later they were restored, in many cases to their former splendor.”  I’ll be posting pics on Facebook.  It was really interesting/cool to see the architecture and note the history.  A bunch of funky statues dot the island, too, showing various populations and lifestyles on the island throughout its history.  To read more, check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamian_Island

Guangzhou Diary II

Interesting difference between Shanghai and Guangzhou: Often in Shanghai, you will see female friends walking arm in arm. One night at dinner, we actually asked one of the Disney Learning Partners about it (the LPs are the local translators/assistants to the Foreign Trainers in Disney classrooms). We were joking/teasing about it, asking what the Chinese word is for lesbian. This particular LP, an awesome young woman named Ray (yes, spelled that way), gave it right back to us, saying “There are no lesbians in China.” J In any case, she said that it simply is what it is, that “girl friends” like to feel close. You virtually never saw the same thing with men in Shanghai, though.


But in Guangzhou, oddly enough, it’s the opposite. I have seen literally NO women walking arm in arm here, while I have seen a fair amount of male friends walking with one’s arm flung about the other’s shoulder. Even more interesting – esp. for such a homophobic country – is that many Chinese men dress and/or accessorize in ways that Americans would consider to be quite girlie. Many guys have little man purses with them, for example, and many wear quite “colorful” pants and shoes – including, for example, teal or orange Capri pants or culottes. You will see guys in floral print shirts and prissy shoes in colors and prints and combos that no straight man in America would be caught dead wearing—or even me, for that matter! But it’s very interesting.

Speaking of men’s “fashion choices,” while you will see the occasional guy – most usually older – walking around shirtless due to the ungodly heat/humidity, more often you will see guys that have simply rolled the lower half of their shirts up, exposing their stomachs to help cool off. Frankly, it looks silly, and I would also imagine would then make your lower chest even hotter with the rolled up additional fabric. Gives a whole new meaning to “hot” guys – as often most of them are only literally so. ;)

Back to differences between Shanghai and Guangzhou. It appears I will not need to get a walking/hitting stick after all. This is good news and bad news. The good news is that the drivers/cyclists here aren’t quite as insane as they are in Shanghai; the bad news is I now don’t have an excuse to whack locals with a stick. But seriously, a big reason it’s not so bad here is that scooters are actually forbidden in the bulk of the city. I don’t know if that’s a chicken-egg thing that has also led to the drivers not being so crazy, but I will actually see SOME drivers here pause/stop in an intersection if pedestrians are in it! Ooooh! Don’t get me wrong: on the whole, they still drive like maniacs, switch back and forth and cut people off, etc. – somehow thinking that will get them along faster rather than grasping the fact that all their stupid and constant maneuvering actually makes the traffic worse – but still, on the whole, not as insane as Shanghai. It helps, no doubt, as well that while a huge city, Guangzhou is still not on the level of Shanghai (largest city in the world!).

There are SOME scooters here – they are allowed for business/delivery purposes, and as opposed to Shanghai, Guangzhou has a decent size fleet of motorcycle taxis. Haven’t used one myself, but there may come a time I’m brave enough/need one. Some are tricked out quite nicely, almost like a motorized rickshaw, complete with shade umbrella, although many simply have a longer rear saddle, which for some reason seems to be coated in aluminum foil – as if your ass needs to be any warmer in this nearly constant mid to upper 90s heat with ungodly humidity.

Speaking of Taxis, they are as numerous here as in Shanghai, and even cheaper. But, as in Shangahi, half of them don’t know where the hell they’re going. Honestly, I’ve never seen an industry so poorly trained in what their basic job knowledge should consist of. And they don’t know SHIT about street numbers. You have to give them intersections, tell them what part of town, give them major landmarks, etc. And, because they are Chinese and arrogant as fuck, they will STILL argue with you when they try to drop you off somewhere that isn’t where you asked to be taken. It’s amazing.

BTW, have I mentioned lately how fucking hot and humid it is here? You’d think we were in a sub-tropical region! I am waiting breathlessly (breathlessly coz it’s so fucking hot) to see if my body ‘adjusts.’

One way the Shanghainese and Cantonese are the same, though, and I’ve heard it’s the same in Beijing, so probably all the Chinese, is How. Very. Rude. they are on the Metro. Anywhere transit related, actually – driving, “lining” up for the escalator, etc. You can call it a cultural thing all you want, but at the end of the day they are astonishingly (and even with italics I can’t emphasize this enough) uncivilized when it comes to boarding a metro car, getting on an escalator, etc. As I mentioned in my previous post, partly due to my experiences in other countries, and partly due to my study of Chinese history in college, I have been trying to give the locals the benefit of the doubt, snickering in a borderline condescending manner when all the other Westerners prattle on about what “assholes” the Chinese are, but I’m sorry to say, in this matter at least, it’s true. They are TOTALLY rude, selfish, inconsiderate, and downright savage when it comes to this. COMPLETELY uncivilized – which is ironic considering that for hundreds and hundreds of years, the Chinese were probably THE most civilized country/people on the planet and they still think they are to this day. Sorry to break it to you, locals, but those days are long gone now, no matter what your smug, condescending selves think now. And don’t for a minute think I’m being overly critical on this matter. I challenge any non-local to experience what I did just the other day, for example, and not be COMPLETELY appalled at their savagery in this regard. It is appalling beyond belief and makes you want to avoid the metro at ALL costs during any “busy” times.

This is not to say I’m hating it here. Again, I’m still grooving on the “cultural experience” thing, and Guangzhou is still a cool (well, not literally), vibrant-without-being-overwhelming-like-Shanghai city. I like all the trees and flora. I like the mix of cultures, the more laid back atmosphere (again, excepting the subways), etc. But it’s still amusing/ironic that, on the whole, they feel so superior when in so many ways they simply are not (don’t get me started on their public spitting and letting their kids piss in the streets – although, to be fair, I have not seen THAT in Guangzhou like I did all too often in Shanghai). I should also add that I am certainly NOT presuming America is any better or superior, on the whole. In fact, ironically, seeing the “dark side” of China only seems to highlight the “dark” sides of America – the violence, the racism, the greed, the materialism, etc. China has all of that, outside of the violence.

Back to their smugness: the other day, I snagged a couple of ice creams from the local Family mart next to our center. They were out of strawberry and chocolate, so I grabbed a couple that showed a mix of red and green on the package pic (I got two coz the cones were two for 6 RMB). In the Disney break room, there were a couple of locals/LPs, so I asked what the flavors were. Astonished, they said, “Can’t you tell from the package/colors? It’s green tea and red bean!” And shook their heads like I was the biggest retard in the world. I didn’t even bother explaining to them/reminding them that China is NOT the center of the universe in real life and that no, just because it was obvious to them, it would not be obvious to anyone else to think to make an ice cream flavor mixing red bean and green tea. As it was, the green tea half wasn’t too bad, although still odd, but I was not feeling the red bean half. I ended up giving the other one to another Foreign Trainer who actually likes the flavors – but what does she know, she’s British and they still call cigarettes fags and car trunks boots. ;) When I told the story later to another trainer, from New Zealand, she shook her head and said, “Why couldn’t it have been cherry and pistachio like a normal ice cream?” Ha!