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 ;)