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.
No comments:
Post a Comment