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From Magic City Morning Star R.P. BenDedek
Chapter 2 Arriving in Communist China.
Geoffrey at that time was in the business of placing foreign teachers, but since then his business has branched out and he no longer takes on new teachers. Together, he and my brother met me at the airport, got me settled into a hotel room, and gave me a quick tour of Beijing and the Great Wall of China. Because my brother had promised to stay with me during that first year, Geoffrey organised it so that we could both teach in the same school, and after several failed attempts, managed to secure us positions in the Number One Senior Middle School in Hong Hu, in Hubei Province in Central China. Once that was settled, we were packed up and sent off by plane to the Capital of Hubei, Wuhan. We were met at the Wuhan airport (Tian He Ji Chang) by our Co-ordinators and immediately taken to Hong Hu which is about 165 kilometres south of Wuhan. It would be weeks before we had any idea at all where we actually were. Hong Hu is a designated city, but unlike Western cities which consist of city center and suburbs, Hong Hu could be described as a Rural Area in which are located many small towns. The Administrative center of Hong Hu is called XinDi or Xinti (depending upon which dialect you are speaking). The drive to Hong Hu took us past Xian Tao located at the end of the highway, through some towns and villages belonging to XianTao, then on into the Hong Hu greater area. It was late February (from memory) and there was some snow on rooftops and a little on the fields. I had seen snow for the first time the year before in Austria (only because it snowed 3 months early, and then only saw it on the distant mountain), and some slush up at the great wall. What I saw on the trip into Hong Hu captivated me. It was just so beautiful. It was nevertheless a shock to see some of the housing in the villages that lined the main road leading into XinDi. I could not take my eyes away from the window; a phenomenon from which I still suffer 7 years down the track.
Something that becomes obvious to foreigners when travelling in China, is just how easily the Chinese fall asleep. Train, plane, bus or car (not to mention school classrooms) the Chinese just nod off at the drop of a hat. It really is so unfair to someone who has great difficulty switching off his mind come bed time. One of my pet hates about travelling is that when I travel by plane (last month I took 3), I invariably get assigned the aisle seat. Now that is a great place for me on international flights, because it means I can go to the toilet or go for walks without disturbing the others in my row. On international flights that fly at night however, I invariably get the window seat. On domestic flights in China, it is always the Chinese who get the window seat. I wouldn't begrudge this except that instead of looking out the window, they either fall asleep or close the window; and I get to see nothing. I flew into Wuhan one Summer and via an empty row of seats, was able to grab a window seat and see the province from the air. The countryside was amazing. The whole effect looked like someone had used far too much oil and had used far too surreal colours in painting the landscape. The sunlight reflecting off the many fields filled with water, the colours of the different crops and the distinct outlines of different fields, left a deep impression on my mind. What one sees from the air of course, is far more beautiful than the perspective on the ground. Nevertheless, as a person who both as an adult and a child spent a lot of time in 'rural' type settings or actually out in the country, I really do appreciate the countryside; warts and all. You can keep Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong (Xiang Gang), Wuhan and other major cities, give me the countryside anytime. Oh! I just had a mental flashback to the TV series Green Acres! I would be Eddie Albert of Course, and my ex-wife would be Eva Gabor. I used to bake bread while she would fix electrical appliances! True!
Before I reached Hong Hu I already knew that I loved the place. I also knew that I was desperate to go to the bathroom. We arrived at the school and were escorted to our single story ground level apartments. It seemed to take forever to get from the front gates to the apartments which were located in the far corner of the enclosed residential complex, and nobody seemed in a rush to actually enter the building. Seeing some sort of brick structure over by the Security wall, I asked what it was. Upon being informed that it was a toilet, I immediately made a dash for it. I ran in, and although shocked by it's interior appearance, including the 'ditch', I was nevertheless relieved to be relieved. It was sometime before I discovered that I had entered the women's section. In fact, so difficult was if for me to remember the Chinese Characters for man and woman, that it took 2 years to be able to differentiate them. In country places it is difficult to spot public toilets, even when there is a sign stuck somewhere indicating that there is one 'somewhere'. And when you do find it, you have to wait to see which gender enters or leaves which side of the building before you feel safe to enter. Whether or not you feel safe once you go in is another question altogether. The first time I had to use a squat toilet was on a visit to Wuhan, and I was fortunate to be in a shopping center. What a shock I got though. I still don't know how the Chinese can so easily drop their gear without losing everything from their pockets; do their business without urinating into their pants (yes I have!); and all without needing to brace oneself with one's hands firmly wedged against opposing walls. The only saving grace in that particular experience, was that I was in a cubicle with both door and high walls. I'm not sure I could 'Go' in one of those places where there is either no door, and/or the walls are only 4 feet high. At any rate, upon entering my future domicile in Hong Hu I was mightly pleased to discover that I had a Western Toilet. Well by 'Western' I mean that it was a regular toilet seat with flush tank. It took me ages to realise that the smell outside was because the toilet merely flushed the effluent to the other side of the bathroom wall, to then be gravity fed through a hole under the residential compound's security wall, to be collected into a little pond. I actually had to climb the wall to discover that fact, and immediately felt both guilt and concern because I constantly used detergent and bleach to wash both the toilet and the bathroom floor, and all that 'non natural' material was draining through the soil into the rice paddy located beside the collection pond.
Since I have at this point already degenerated to toilet humour, I may as well stay on subject. Unlike my current western one, my bathroom in Hong Hu, like the one I had in Wuhan, was a spacious room that contained a toilet, hand basin and shower apparatus. So efficiently designed were they, that you could kill two birds with one stone, and you could both sit on the toilet while waiting for something to happen, and take a shower at the same time. Alternatively, if you are one of those who finds that his/her bladder gets activated when you jump into the shower, and finds it a nuisance to have to run to the toilet, then once again you can just kill two birds with one stone. Such is the design of the Westerner/Chinese bathroom! The Chinese/Chinese bathroom is smaller however, and this by virtue of the fact that the actual 'effluent disposal point' (squat toilet) is directly under the shower, and as a westerner, let me assure you, it takes concentration not to step in it while you shower. I can't speak for foreign women, but as a foreign male, I can assure you that using the more 'common' public toilets requires a lot of determination. For those suffering 'performance anxiety' and/or are shy, the common public toilet is not the place to 'go'! If you are a white person reading this, then you will no doubt be aware of the urban legend that black men are better 'built' than white men. Well in China, that urban legend relates to Chinese men and White men.
Although the unspoken western custom at the urinal is to look straight ahead, that is sometimes really too difficult to do, when out the corner of your eyes you can see men bending forward as far as possible to get a look at your 'equipment'. What is worse are those times when in the process of doing so, they begin to step closer and closer to you. It used to completely unnerve me! Now I just take revenge. I just turn at a 45 degree angle and say in Chinese: 'You want to look? Here! Look!' Of course if your position is somewhat changed, you will find people standing immediately in front of you, or peering down on you from the next cubicle with it's 4 foot high wall. Last semester I entered the toilet at school to find one boy at the far end of a long row of urinals, using his left hand to play with his mobile phone, while his right hand searched for his 'you know what'. I chose a urinal at my end of the room and proceeded to stare at the wall. Next instant there was a 'flash' to my left. I immediately looked left, and honestly, I have no idea as to whether he took a photo of me at the urinal, or of himself. (Use your imagination!) Now while you might at this point be a little grossed out (if so you are probably female), it must be stressed here that while the Chinese are on the one hand very moral, their cultural customs leave them at ease in the type of same gender situations that would leave most westerners ill at ease, and I have at times been accused of being 'too Chinese', because I do not feel disgusted or ill at ease with certain customs. I have at times, even been accused of being a 'closet gay', because I am at ease with Chinese Customs.
Stereotypes Prior to coming to China, I really had never thought at all about China. All I knew was that it was a huge militaristic and Communist country that would one day try to take over the world. If I had ever stopped to think what it must be like to live in China, I probably would have thought that there were soldiers with guns standing on every corner, and that the citizens (read Students!) would be very disciplined, macho, and obedient. Although at the time of my arrival I was consciously unaware of having any preconceptions about China, that I did have subconscious preconceptions was made obvious by the fact that I was surprised (and still am) by the absence of 'armed' personel. Additionally, I simply couldn't get over how 'gay' everyone behaved. Chinese people are very affectionate with their 'same gendered' friends and relatives. My very first memory of walking through the Number One School in HongHu, was of boys holding hands with boys, and girls holding hands with girls. Boys had arms wrapped around boys, and girls likewise with girls. I remember turning to my brother who had already had one year of teaching in China under his belt, and saying: 'How come China has such a big population when everyone is Gay?' Three weeks after our arrival, we had to go to JingZhou to complete necessary paperwork, and on the road trip back, I was sitting in the minivan beside my co-ordinator, Lawrence. At some point, Lawrence put his hand on my knee. This did not effect me too much, but everytime he took his hand away and then put it back, it seemed to get higher and higher up my leg. I eventually came to learn that this is a common cultural behaviour between people who feel close. Those who have read the old testament might remember that it was customary for oaths to be taken with one hand on the other person's thigh. Over time I just accepted that Chinese men did not consider it odd to feel my pecs, my thighs, my forceps or my 'behind'. It took me a while to realise that none of this was sexual, and that this type of attention was a general indication of how I was viewed, and as such, was better than some of the negative treatment I have received at times.
Whilst there are many foreigners who feel 'obligated' never to mention anything negative about their experiences in China, I have througout all my public posts, discussed all of my experiences, be they good or bad. I am nothing if not completely and unabashedly 'not politically correct'. Furthermore, I know that many Chinese like to read my articles, because they want to know my 'true feelings'. In Chinese culture, civility in front of superiors or under certain circumstances, is the norm, and that civility includes not speaking the truth, and sometimes downright lying. It is part of the 'face saving' culture of China. In the West, I would just call it 'Political Correctness', which in my opinion, is the art of 'not saying what you really mean while saying something that makes you to appear to be a nice person'. Frankly, I much prefer the addage so often used by my old and dearly departed Scottish friend Alistair Renshaw, who would say: 'You can hit me - just don't sh*t me! The Chinese customs relating to honouring guests and visitors means that foreigners are treated very very well when being received by schools or other organisations, and our reception into the Number One School in Hong Hu was no exception. We were wined and dined, and had all our needs met. The school authorities bent over backwards to accomodate us and provide us with a suitable environment within which to live. (The classrooms were another matter.)
It was only the other day that I heard a horror story about the demands of a certain foreign teacher here in Suzhou, and it makes me wonder what expectations the teacher had or perhaps what lifestyle he lived back home in his own country. For myself, having grown up in traditional Australian wooden homes called 'Queenslanders', and being old enough to remember wooden stoves, ice boxes, outdoor toilets, and the introduction of the ball point pen, Television, computers and many appliances that today are taken for granted, the apartment provided me in HongHu was like something from the set of the television series 'Dallas'. It was a vast improvement over the flat I had been renting for the previous few years. All in all, from the first day in China up until my first day in Class, my life in China looked like a vast improvement over my life in Australia. Of course the real test was yet to come. I had yet to actually stand before a class of Chinese Students. R.P. BenDedek Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com First Three Articles published in 2004 at Magic City about Hong Hu: Hardcover Publishing inquiries welcomed! R.P. BenDedek is the pseudonym of an Australian who has been teaching in China since 2003. He currently lives in Baotou in Inner Mongolia. In addition to contributing to Magic City Morning Star News as a columnist, he also is an assisting Editor for the Newspaper. Additionally, BenDedek is the author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' at www.kingscalendar.com © Copyright 2002-2008 by Magic City Morning Star |
