Strangers and Fun Places
Shanghai, China
“Hola” said the little boy, and China just got a little bit weirder.
I debated what I would do with him if he was one of my students, as he was a bit cheeky, and decided I would put him at the front of the class and make him read. Started to worry as he burst into tears, and the adults in the class were looking at me sternly.
I was on the Nanjing Road, downtown Shanghai – ‘Most wondrous shopping emporia in all of Asia’. I had just left McDonalds (sanctuary of the confused foreigner) because the cheeky boy had thrown me a bit and I needed to get some air and clarity. His Spanish was impressive but confusing, as I had not actually heard any English spoken since I left Hong Kong. The expected interrogation at the airport for being a stinky mess didn’t materialise much to my dismay, as I had my routine all worked out, something like this:
Interrogator: Capitalist pig!
Me: (Heroically; and bracing for a pistol whip) I resent that.
Interrogator: You have drooled on your collar and your shirt is sticking out of your fly. What kind of western debauchery have you been engaging in??
Me: Debaucha – wha?
Interrogator: And what do you think you are doing wearing coloured clothes?
Me: Well I did plan on buying a nice grey Mao suit, to wear to fancy dress parties like.
Interrogator: What are these ‘partees’ you speak of?
Me: You know, meet people and have a bit of fun.
Interrogator: Wearing the uniform of our glorious leader to western fun partees. This is interesting. You are obviously a fool and will be easily ‘educated’… you will go forth and spread our socialist philosophy.
Me: Yes I will.
Interrogator: We will be watching you! (His jabbing finger following me as I walked out)
Me: I like to be watched, beeatch.
Eat your heart out, James Bond. How hard can these things be? My chance to find out almost happened as I went through passport control as they put me to one side and ran off with my passport. I was going through the routine in my head complete with facial expressions and gesticulation when it was suddenly slapped back down on the counter. I’m glad they interrupted my reverie as the crowd was obviously not used to sweaty schizophrenic westerners.
Instead, I ended up in the arrivals hall fairly quickly. Banking on my ‘travel experience’, I neglected to read any guidebook, get a Chinese phrasebook or do any research whatsoever on my new home. I figured there would be time enough once I got to my hotel and settled in – sure I always winged it before. However I also neglected to book a hotel in advance. In retrospect, I blame the surfers. Imagine my joy when I realised no-one in the airport could speak English? Not a lot let me tell you. I now understand the difficulties of those poor Spanish ‘explorers’ who landed on the shores of the New World and tried to communicate their wishes to the benighted natives. A completely different language, culture and surroundings. How did they ever articulate their complex intentions?
Native: (in own language) Welcome, large and hairy water-borne beast. Please have a wife.
Conquistador: (in own language) Gold. Seen any? Ahh what’s that on your neck eh?
Native: Come stay in my house. Share my meagre possessions.
Conquistador: Where did you get the bloody gold you fool??
Native: (Smiling broadly) Take my wife! Help yourself to my house. You are welcome!
Conquistador: See this muchacho? It is a rifle. And I’m pointing it at your head.
Native: I appreciate the offer of the peace pipe. I will partake.
Conquistador: What the fuc…aahhggh ok smart guy you asked for it!
And so the foundation of Spanish-Native relations was laid. As you can see, a total lack of cultural communication can have interesting but disastrous consequences. However, as my intentions in China were less demanding, I didn’t need to start massacring the arrivals hall crowd. I would just have to try harder.
And hard it was. With a lot of gesticulation and ‘charades’ I finally managed to get a hotel booked and a bus into town. If you ever happen to wake up in China unexpectedly, perhaps after a particularly adventurous stag party, here are some helpful tips:
– Rub thumb against upturned index and middle finger while waggling eybrows and grinning = “Money, mmmm!”
– Shrug shoulders, pout a bit, give upturned palms in supplication = “How much?” (Combine with the above)
– Demonstrate out-turned empty pockets and look sad = “No, a cheaper hotel”
– Squat on haunches and jerk clenched hands up and down a little = “I need a bus” (This can possibly cause problems; they may think you are having bowel trouble…just ‘beep the horn’!)
They will giggle and point a lot, and quite possibly bring their mates over too but this is ok, they just think you’re nuts.
The hotel turned out to be unexpectedly fine; the receptionist could even speak a little English! It was a Chinese business hotel, the type they build for themselves all over Asia. The room was small but spotless, and I had a window to the street where I could watch the drama. I was still too shell shocked to go out and directly experience it.
In my compact room I found a little writing desk with pens, headed paper and envelopes which was nice and very 1950s in a Graham Greene kind of way. I felt like posting a few blank letters home to confuse people, but then I remembered I had to send an email to my school the next day to tell them where I was. I hoped that the writing desk didn’t mean that email wasn’t too popular in the hotel. Well as it turned out it did, and I had also left the bloody number to the school in an email. At least it would get me out of the hotel; though not before I had finished poking around.
Enclosed in the hotel information wallet was a wad of information about my new city. However, this led me to believe teaching English in China would not be the ‘easy gig’ I had envisaged. This was apparent from the opening paragraph of the hotel brochure: “Shanghai – the formerly brilliantly illuminated Ten-li metropolis infested with foreign adventurers is stirring up charms and spangled with stars”…I would later understand that Chinese translation is generally done with a dictionary in a literal manner, with lots of delightful sentences resulting. And sure I did fancy myself as a bit of a foreign adventurer infesting the city anyway, so maybe they weren’t too far off the mark.
I was aware of the phrase ‘to be Shanghaied’ and thought about the chancres, shylocks, con-men and ‘interesting’ women (perhaps looking to stir up my charms) that I was likely to encounter. As the trading port to the west for the Chinese empire, it does have a colourful history and I was looking forward to it with trepidation. In the pack I found a welcome from “The General Brigade of Security of Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Public Security” and to my delight it was followed by a laminated sheet with little cartoons to warn you of the rules and dangers:
“Safety, the best wishes from the world over!”
This title was followed by a picture of a grinning man gesturing toward a gyrating scantily clad woman – “Follow no strangers to the fun places!” This obviously indicated the local rap video shoots, but could possibly have meant a brothel. “No fireworks in the hotel room” was followed by a disappointed looking man about to light a firecracker in his room being told off by a stern looking hotel employee. I presume he was aiming it out the window, but that idea was definitely out. “Hotel room not to be used for other purposes” disturbed me the most. It had a picture of a man sitting nonchalantly at the writing desk. I started to feel like doing anything other than sleeping or sitting quietly was breaking the rules (a bit of badly needed yoga stretching was definitely a no-no). I felt quite rebellious staring out the window.
Still too culture shocked to venture out (it was akin to being in the company of your girlfriend’s parents, where you just want to sit grinning like a Moonie until you get your bearings, or perhaps an accepting wink from the father), I went down to the hotel lobby for a mooch. I really liked this hotel. I didn’t encounter one other westerner in my whole stay there; they were presumably all at the Four Seasons looking at the plastic fireplaces. There were a lot of painted gold and gilded statues around the lobby, a few chairs, newspaper rack and a restaurant. The reception girls were watching my every move with interest, as was the lift girl and the door girl, and quite a few cherubic businessmen. This became claustrophobic – I felt like a wandering TV set showing a disrobing beauty – so I grabbed a couple of English language newspapers and headed back up to my cocoon.
The editors seemed to be native English speaking and I soon started to relax into familiarity again. They obviously toed the party line though, which made for some very optimistic reading:
“Half of Graduates employed!”- China Daily.
“China buys 40% of the world’s concrete!” – China Daily
“World Expo to highlight emergence of Shanghai as the world’s premier city!” – Shanghai Star
Optimistic, but thankfully a good distance off North Korea’s party line – “Glorious leader takes up golf, hits 12 holes in one in first game!”
They even had an article of the type you find in our weekend papers, the ‘Aren’t foreigners crazy?” article, e.g. “Man blows himself up launching fireworks from the petrol tank of his motorbike”. I can’t remember where that one came from, but a sizeable proportion of them seem to come from India. Perhaps people feel the need to distinguish themselves as an individual in such a densely populated country, and this would induce you to take up smoking through your ears, walking on your hands for a few years, grow your fingernails into spirals or raise your arm above your head indefinitely. Sometimes the attention hasn’t been actively sought but the world seems to love it.
Dangerous Priests (Shanghai Star)
(New Delhi) A nine year old Indian girl was married to a dog amid religious chants after a priest told her parents the wedding would ward off evil. The marriage between the girl and a mongrel called Bachchan after an Indian movie star took place earlier this month north west of Calcutta. The priest told the girl’s family who are poor tribal farmers that because new teeth appeared on her upper gums it was a bad omen and she would die. The priest said to ward off danger to her life, the parents should marry the girl to a dog, which they did, he said. Officials and witnesses said they were married amid hymns and feeding the groom rice.
Well that’ll teach her to get rid of her milk teeth and I doubt hubby will be much of a breadwinner either. Life is sometimes so cruel. A possible undertone too about the benefits of an atheistic society I fancy but perhaps I’m just getting paranoid.
I was finally induced to go out and explore this wonderful city after reading about a tourist attraction that had come to town.
The Beast, World Carnival, Pudong: Also featuring dancing from Scotland and Ireland (Shanghai Daily)
A thrill seekers science lesson, debuted in Hong Kong in November. Experience the sights and sounds of its internal organs as you travel into this strange, dark world. The journey begins in its colossal fangs, listening to its powerful breath and groaning. Then you’re enveloped in a gust of strong wind as you travel to the lungs. After that, the gigantic heart chamber, an organic cathedral of globules and veins with the resonant drumbeat of the heart. Then it is onto the belly of the beast, with its stomach and intestines.
It didn’t say where the exit door was and whether the gust of wind was a part of it, so the possibility of being farted out the rear end of a giant Chinese beast to the accompaniment of an Irish jig and some bagpipes appealed so much to my sense of the surreal I got up to go out immediately. One other headline caught my attention before I closed the paper, but I didn’t read it for fear of what reaction this would produce in me, as I was becoming increasingly erratic. I regret it to this day.
“3 escapees shot dead, baby monkey still at large”
And off I went.
