No Pain No Gain?

In the previous two entries I have written about loss, but what have I gained from all this?

Actually, with hindsight I'm not so sure that I have gained anything. I know that I'm hurting emotionally, physically, mentally and financially, but I'm struggling to identify anything positive that has come from this situation. However that's what we keep telling ourselves, isn't it? If we've been through the mill there's got to be something to show for it.

No pain, no gain.



I'm writing this entry partly to get it straight in my own head, but also to serve as a note of caution for anyone who is thinking about making a similar move. True: my situation was entirely my own and many people would be unaffected by similar circumstances. But the way in which the whole thing unravelled still took me by surprise. I had taken every possible consideration into account—or so I thought. I signed a 6-months contract (not a year!). I have travelled extensively since I was nineteen, have lived in foreign countries, have been separated from friends and family for prolonged periods since early childhood and—quite frankly—I thought the workload would be a great deal heavier than it actually was. I should have been prepared for it. There is no reason why I should not have succeeded, aside from my own shortcomings and assumptions. And it's the latter that turned out to be the killer.

Three words summarise the reasons for my failure. These three little words reinforce each other and lead a merry dance, but there is a clear hierarchy among them. Conversely, tackling either of these three issues may have helped to alleviate my circumstances, but as it turned out each spin and twirl left me more dizzy than before, sucking me in further, until I was looking down a spiral stairway to hell. I had no choice but to leave.

The three words in question are: Isolation, Anxiety and Alienation.

Infinite Sadness—Part II

The plane was going the wrong way. But I felt a huge sense of relief when I looked out of the window and saw the Union Jack on the wing tips.



They must have held the flight for me. Yesterday I'd done what I have never done before and jumped off the bus without my suitcase, eager to get to the hotel to have a rest and shut everything out. I didn't notice that the thing was missing until the taxi had left. There wasn't going to be any relaxation that night, let alone anything to eat.

The receptionists didn't know what to do. Waiting for something to happen, I dozed off in one of the chairs in the lobby until some time after three to find them both asleep as well. I had to wake them up to ask what my room number was because I had lost it somewhere along with the wallet and the ticket stub and my mind. At least the key card was still in my pocket. They eventually showed it to me and—to my surprise—at that precise moment John called. I felt like Amy Pond getting the Doctor on the phone from somewhere beyond the Horseshoe Nebula. It was the first time that I had heard his voice in over a month. Maybe I had managed to tunnel through another dimension and was, in fact, already back home.

Infinite Sadness—Part I

Some forms of sadness go around in circles. They have no beginning and no end. And so it is with my time in China. There hasn't been a day when I wasn't hurting. It's the old curse* at work again.

I was often giddy with the strangeness of it all, frequently frustrated and nearly always sad. But, oh, for all that I have gained! I have gained and I have lost. Is this better than not to have tried at all?

No, I think I'm with the old bard on this.

A Morning of Fans and Swords

I didn't sleep well yesterday. The heat is still getting to me. I abhor aircon, but I keep waking up and having to run it periodically just to cool down. This is annoying since I could probably operate the remote control in my sleep but I need to get up and close the window first. Whatever happened to ceiling fans?

Anyway, I woke up just after dawn, with salt-encrusted sweat stains on my pyjamas. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep so I decided to go to the local park for a cigarette. People were already out in the streets, loading up bicycles and scooters, sitting outside reading the papers or embarking on early-morning cleaning rounds.

The approach to the park was busy. I'm used to seeing people exercising outside, while there were no card players or musicians out yet, a gathering was taking place on a little cobbled square ahead of me. Sunlight gleamed on a sword. Blood-red fans flashed open in unison. Bodies contorted in slow motion, crouching impossibly low to the ground.

The kung fu masters were back!

What they were doing was not tai chi. It was something more ancient, and possibly peculiar to this neighbourhood.

I stood and stared for a while, my cigarette quite forgotten. It wasn't long before the man in the white silk uniform, whom I had seen on Sunday, paused and waved me over. He smiled and and bowed slightly to a plain elderly woman in a striped T-shirt who stepped up next to him. Before I knew what was going on, she had positioned me in a painfull stance and applied gentle pressure on my shoulders.

Lower. The message was quite clear. Lower!

The next morning I got up later and they were gone. The square was packed with people dressed in tracksuit bottoms and short-sleeved T-shirts practicing tai chi to gentle music, but the spirit was no longer there. I lingered for a while, but it didn't feel right to join in. I slunk off home, my thigh muscles still complaining and reminding me that it had not all been a dream.

A Walk in the Park

A fresh breeze rustled the trees when I reached the park but the sky was an even egg-shell blue and the only noise came from the whine of the cicadas, people chattering and the clatter of children's skateboards on the cobbled pavement.

I was planning to hide in the shade of one of the pavilions for a smoke or two when something caught my eye. A man with a sword was performing a slow-motion kata.

So far I have seen people dancing and playing badminton or musical instruments in the open air, but no sign of martial arts. The man was surrounded by people going about their business: children skateboarding or skipping, mothers leading their toddlers along, people sitting or standing in small groups. Nobody took any notice.

The Master completed his kata and stood in silence for a while. Then he took out his cell phone and walked away. Soon another took his place, a nimble man in a white silk kung ku uniform, instructing a couple of bystanders in a sequence of careful motions. Behind him a muscular man in a vest performed a similar sequence for an octogenarian woman with fluffy white hair.

More than ever—more than being able to read the menu, or even the odd street sign—I wished at that moment that I could speak Chinese. I wanted to know whether bystanders could indeed walk up and join in this impromptu martial arts practice. I was haunted by an age-old vision of people performing the careful motions of tai chi in a park at dawn that had always made me want to come to China. And here they were: on a Sunday morning, in ones or twos, quietly practicing while children and bystanders looked on, without the slightest hint of embarrassment or self-conciousness about them.

I stuck my nose in my notebook and started to scribble. It wouldn't do to stare.

Not that I ever stood a chance of passing unnoticed. The kung fu masters sat down on one of the benches so I lit a cigarette, conscious of everybody's health awareness around me. The man in the vest looked over and blew out a crafty cloud of blue smoke. He politely looked away again before I could grin at him.

The air suddely grew fresher and the clouds started to move in. Mindful of yesterday's weather forecast I gathered my things and left with the strings of the er a man was playing in one of the pavilions still sounding in my ears.

I realised that I'd been sitting in the park for over half an hour without any sign of stomach cramps.

Am I finally finding my peace?

An Army of Worker Ants

[EDIT: the timezone for this blog is out. It thinks I'm in America. Today is Sunday, August 7th. Shame on Google!]



They call this a typhoon? When Fitow hit Tokyo in 2007 I could feel it in Hiroshima for about three days. All we got here was a shower and a bit of drizzle yesterday. Today dawned bright and sunny and I was woken by birdsong from the nearby park. I put on the washing and headed outside. By now I knew the way to the park's back entrance.

I carried a bag of plastic bottles down with me. Not sure about the local recycling scheme, I'd at first put them next to the bins and they disappeared soon enough. Today I was stopped by one of the women sitting outside. Apparently they get a few kuai for gathering plastic bottles and cardboard. Trolleys piled high with recyclables pass through the traffic at any time of the day. A somewhat sadder picture is that of elderly people rifling through rubbish bins, carefully extracting discarded drinks bottles. Hangzhou is combed over by an army of micro-recyclers and street cleaners. It's possibly the cleanest city I've ever been to, but it is maintained by a vast and poor underclass.

Storm Clouds Gathering

The sky has turned to lead and gusts of wind are whipping leaves and twigs around the pavements. People in fluorescent jackets gingerly pick up debris and sweep away the leaves, but it's an exercise in futility because a typhoon is coming.

There are no classes this afternoon. We've been on an outing, cut short by the ominous weather forecast. I'm going home early, stopping on the way to stock up on bread, water and candles.

See you later.

Transition

Something is trying very hard to make either friends or enemies with me—I don't know which—and has been for about a week. It's trying to the extend that I'm now shitting biofilms. I can't help wondering whether this is some kind of Anne McCaffrey-style Transition.

The comparison is fitting as symbionts are certainly involved, whether they turn out to be friendly or not. It also feels as if I've been taken to an alien planet. There are few breaks, but it's exciting enough for me to stay, rather than run.

Perhaps it's worth remembering that—in the case of the Crystal Singer universe—there was no way off-world.

Hangzhou: The First Two Weeks

When I arrived in Hangzhou the skies were silent, but during the last week fighter jets have been droning above our neighbourhood every night. For a while I was worried that war had broken out. It could have happened and I'd never know until the bombs start dropping. Even with a proxy I spend almost all of my time online preparing lessons or blogging and hardly ever glance at the news. And without internet, there are no news at all when I get home.

But things seem peaceful enough. There must be an airbase nearby. Hangzhou also has an airport (not much beloved by expats), but I have still not seen any evidence of civilian aviation.



Yesterday I saw six foreigners—as many as during my entire first week—but that is because I've visited the main tourist attraction in Hangzhou: the wonderfully scenic West Lake (see previous entry. EDIT: yet to come!). Although it is the main draw for foreign visitors in town I was still enough of a rarity that people stopped to take pictures of me, despite my dress being the wrong way round and my face glistening with sweat. I actually took makeup with me in an attempt to look presentable during corporate training, but nobody gets away with wearing makeup for very long. These are what the locals describe as the 'dog days', with the thermometer rarely dipping below 30 degrees. All through the neighbourhood the aircons wheeze and drip through the night. Rain falls from the ceilings of packed commuter buses where people stand face-against-armpit. It is as if the city itself is sweating. I thought that I was a fan of the tropics, but I am pretty certain that one of these days I'm just going to melt.

I walk for miles every day in this heat, working out the hard way where the bus routes are. One cannot get truly lost in Hangzhou as long as one succeeds in flagging down a taxi. Even my minder relented when we got stuck outside the hospital where I had my medical. I showed her the map with the bus numbers indicated in millimetre-high faint red print (there are hundreds of them), suggesting that she'd find the way, and she shook her head and flagged down a cab. However, it took 15 minutes. You can't call taxis here and they pass by entirely at random. Drivers are also known to turn down fares if they don't like the sound of them. However, I have yet to be ripped off. That is probably because I haven't managed to stop a cab when I actually got lost and continued to walk in circles around the landmarks until I found the right bus stop.

Circling around landmarks is the way to do things here. Our flat may only be two stops from where I change buses from the 23 to the 188, but the 188 goes for up to ten minutes between stops. You might think it's annoying that certain London buses only stop at certain stops, but at least these are less than 5 kilometres apart. Hangzhou's public transport system is creaking at the seams. A metro is under construction. One of my colleagues remarked that she won't be a guniea pig when it finally opens. She'll wait six months or so before she'll get on it. She may have a point. Last week the Qianjiang No.3 Bridge collapsed because a heavy lorry drove across it (that may have been the reason why we were stuck in traffic for 90 minutes on my first day of corporate training). The motto for the metro is: 'Expecting Unexpected'. Indeed.

But perhaps I'm getting into the zen of things. I always get home eventually. And overshooting the bus stop can have its advantages. The next stop up from our flat is probably the closest together along the entire 188 route: a mere ten minute walk. And on the way I passed a night market where most of the dinners sold are still alive. The huge seafood hall has become my daily haunt. I ogle at the fish, crabs, mantis shrimp, sea anemones and various species of mollusk on my way to eat chargrilled lamb skewers and chicken wings, washed down with a litre of weak but tasty beer. Just the thing at the end of a long day.

Hangzhou, First Impressions

What is happening to me? Culture shock? Not so much. Not anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be, although it's true that I need my all of my quarter of a century of travelling experience just to get by here. It is also true that I have not listened to a single podcast or looked up a single Mandarin lesson on my phone yet. If my job would let me, I would probably show the typical response of going into hiding and denial, but my job won't let me and that's not what is happening.

I just find China incredibly hard, in a paradoxical way. I don't seem to be getting any breaks. There is no pinyin map of Hangzhou, and while almost everybody has a smartphone, Chinese SIM cards won't work in mine. It is almost as if the country is rejecting me, but at the same time it wants me here.

Yes, it's not at all what I expected. We landed in thick, sodium-yellow fog, but that was all it turned out to be. The air is breathable. The cars are modern, low-emission models. Electric scooters glide soundlessly through the night. The buildings are painted with neon. Hangzhou is the size of greater London, but it is a city in cyberspace. And yet there is no metro, just an antiquated bus network. There is no internet to speak of. You need a Chinese phone number to get online at Starbucks, and that number is only good for five attempts. This is my third, and I had to rely on people helping me out every time. No matter how many hoops they make me jump through, there are always more. An unending chain of them.

Censorship is everywhere, yet people openly bitch about the governmrent. I'm still looking for any spies that follow me around. I'm teaching telecom R&D engineers three times a week, but I can't get access to an MP3 player, or get my phone to work.

The flat is bare. The first thing I bought was a desk and some sheets. But at least it's quiet. There are no bars or pubs in the vicinity, just some noodle houses and a fast food joint that shuts at ten, half an hour after I return from my 90 minute commute across town where the school has sent me to teach. All around us, new buildings are sprouting like giant trees. Just after we cross the river, we pass through an area that feels like an undersea forest of tall, straight buildings that broadcast their neon fluorescence into the empty ocean of sky above. During the entire week, I have not seen a single plane. I have seen a total of six foreigners, four of whom I work with. Today, two other Western women passed me by without even nodding in acknowledgement. Maybe they don't want to pollute their China experience, but I thought that was rather rude.

I'm getting rude too. I swear a lot. When the school send me on a packed bus across town during rush hour to teach the first of my corporate classes for which they have prepared no materials other than messy, dreamt-up course outline that I'll have to somehow fill from scratch, I started to pop Xanax like Smarties. I have about three of them left. But that was just the first week. I think I'm adapting.

Today was my day off. I slithered through the rain in my flip-flops and decided against seeing the sights. Instead I went into a Starbucks that sold me over-priced bad tea but provided neither internet nor ambience. I finally got online for long enough to bitch that I'm not blogging about this shit, and thereby probably sunk my connection to the China blogging network. I can't get on my LJ, not even with the proxy (it won't let me post). I refuse to write at school, because no matter how early I turn up or how hard I work, every minute that I don't spend preparing will cost me dearly.

But every now and then, there is a glimpse of magic. Unlike in London, people don't sleep-walk. As a rule, the scooters that are gliding soundlessly through darkened streets (without lights, natch) won't hit you. The streets are clean, maintained by an army of under-paid sweepers. There is hooting but hardly any spitting. There is water everywhere, I catch glimpses of lotus ponds from the bus, bridges arch canals right next to four-lane traffic. There is music at night, and people dance in the open. The bus that takes me to my corporate classes turns from the city into a forest that surrounds the West Lake where pagodas rise above the calm water. There is a sense of peace in this city that tolerates my presence for now. But while I sense this peace all around me, I have yet to find it within me.

No, I'm not suffering from not culture shock. It's something else. I feel as if I'm being put through a spin cycle. And whenever I regain focus, I sense failure looming on the horizon.

Oddly, I haven't yet missed home. I haven't had the time. Strike that: in fact, I'm having the time of my life. I am a teacher. I'm independent, earning my own keep for the first time in ten years. If only I can make this work.

Only time will tell.

Blog Design

I'm sorry if the text colour is black and you can't read it. It would probably take me two minutes to sort this out if I were at home. But here things are not so easy. And since nobody is reading this anyway, I'm not going to bother.

China‒Don't Do It!

I am officially excused from blogging about this shit, and this is why:

Blogging from China is harder than climbing Mount Everest backwards, so do not expect regular updates. Do not expect romantic tales about Heavenly Mountain Roads and Monuments To The Revolutionary Martyrs‒all of which we have here. And all of which I do not have time to visit. Instead, all of my time is spent dealing with ridiculous amounts of frustration. The daily grind. The omnipresent censorship.

I have to take a bus to get online (and then I can't, because my phone doesn't work in China). In order to blog, I have to go through a proxy that took me 3 days to set up.That is three busy days, when I didn't really have time to deal with it. I mean, how much is Facebook or Blogger worth? I'm here to teach, not to chat.

But I've learned one thing during my first week here: China will give you no breaks. And because I'm getting no breaks, I'm unable to blog‒or to write‒for the time being. Everything has a cost. This is costing me too much.

I'll give it another week. ThenI'll book my flight home.

Denni logging off. I have yet another bus to catch to get home from this useless Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks. I think I am in one place that is pretending to be something else.

Teaching English in Hangzhou

I'm flying out to Hangzhou on Tuesday night. This will be my platform while in China. I'm currently trying to get the blog set up and linked and hope that I'll find the time to prettify it once I'm there ;)