When my contract was up, and my visa expired I decided to not renew. Instead, I decided to leave China. I was ready to leave China. I had experienced the greatest loss of my life while I was living there, and that was the loss of my mother. Not only did I go through my experience of grief, which I still deal with, I had also simultaneously experienced culture shock. Culture shock is a strange beast and can be a bit difficult to recognize, but looking back on my time there I can say with certainty that I had had culture shock. Some days were worse than others. One would imagine that with death and shock that I would have been ready to run home, but for me there was no home. My mother was my home, and now that she was gone there was no place to call home. I did not want to return to America, but I didn’t want to be somewhere as challenging as China, yet I wanted something foreign; foreign to me. I decided to move to Prague in the Czech Republic.
My flight went first in the direction of South Korea and then towards Europe. I had decided to extend my layover to 24 hours and used the opportunity to see some bit of South Korea. I literally had 24 hours, and so I used that time to try to see as much as I could in a very short amount of time. There are many palaces in Seoul, and fortunately the Gyeonghuigung Palace was close to the hostel where I was staying. I can not for the life of me even begin to imagine how to pronounce the name of the place, but my single day in Seoul was a silent one anyway.
I wandered around the palace and walked around the district where I was staying. I had no idea of what kind of district I was visiting. Was it expensive? Was it where the foreigners lived? Was it a college area? I didn’t bother to figure it out. I only had two goals. One was to see something like a palace, and to get a small perception of what South Korea was like, in case I ever would want to return, and two, to find some food.
It was a solitary and quiet visit, and I can honestly say that a day is not enough time to spend in Seoul. It is a huge city with many different districts, and even in a single day I was not able to see the entire palace. Still, I’m glad I took the opportunity to take a peak. Compared to Zhengzhou, China, Seoul was a clean city. There was no trash on the street and the air was more clear although they did receive some of the pollution from China, and like China it felt very safe. So as I wandered through the streets I never felt worried that I would turn the wrong corner. There is so much freedom in this feeling of wandering.
After I left the palace I decided to find somewhere to eat. I had wandered through the district for about two hours before I got lost in a market and then wandered down an alleyway. Here I hesitated because I was very hungry at this point and my hunger was clouding my ability to pick a location. It was at this moment when a Korean woman ushered me into her tiny little shop and she served me the special of the day.
I cannot emphasize how much I love Korean food. I love the textures, the spices, the colors, and I love how it is served. Every food item has an individual plate and it is all served in a sensible portion size. You feel full, but never stuffed.
After eating I returned to my room that had pastel dots and square on the wall, and prepared for my long flight to Prague, and a new chapter of my life.
I am writing about all of this in the past tense because it is past. It has been over a year since I stepped foot onto a sidewalk of Seoul, and at the time of typing these words it has been almost two months since I’ve left my beautiful Prague. I currently sit in the dining room of my friend’s house where I am staying as I plan my next move. A dear friend of mine asked me recently, “So what is your plan? You always have a plan.” I wasn’t aware of this, but thinking back on my life and the choices I’ve made, I think it is true. I do always have a plan. I don’t always succeed in that plan, but it doesn’t matter because when one plan fades or fails I’ll soon have another.
So what is the plan? I plan to update this blog with the thoughts and memories and photos from the last two years of my life. I plan to return to my revery and release through writing, and I plan to have all of it documented here before I leave again. I am leaving again. At least that is the plan, and while it seems fairly strong that I will be returning to China, (and I’ll write more about that later) it is not impossible to imagine that I will also be returning to South Korea. I have too, because now I have a friend there, and I owe her a pillow.
I woke to the sound of the bus as it slowed to pull into the gas station. I had fallen asleep for a few minutes during the ten hour bus ride from Prague to Warsaw. It wasn’t really sleep so much as that floating space in between being awake and sleeping. When your eyes are resting, and to some extent your mind is quiet because it is too tried to think, but still, you are not asleep, you are not resting, you’re just floating. I slipped in and out of this sleep/wake phase for nearly the entire trip. I’ve done this bus ride before back in November and in December, but both times I had taken the overnight bus, and the darkness had allowed me to easily fall into the necessary sleep that I needed to be able to fully function for the following days. This was my first time traveling the full ten hours during the waking hours. I was going to be very tired for the upcoming week. I could feel it.
I’ve found the the favorite part of my journeys have been the actual physical process of transportation. I don’t know why; when for many people this is the most exhausting part. It is in the decision making process, the planning part, where I think most people find joy, and where I have the most stress. I fill with anxiety over the what-ifs of the process, as if there is just too much on the internet to sift through, and I am not capable of doing it. I find it confounding that I can not seem to do the simplest part of the journey which is to plan ahead. I wonder how a person can carry so much worry, so much anxiety and still manage to cross the ocean and visit other places. I often think I am doing it all wrong. As if there is some kind of rule book to this whole life thing and I never got the book and I especially didn’t read the chapter, “The Accidental Vagabond: How to travel the world and not worry about it.”
“What do you do in your real life?” Asked a man on the bus who was sitting beside me. I paused a second in my response and then shrugged. “This.” I said.
I was on my way to Poland to a place called Zawidowice, three hours outside of Warsaw. I was volunteering with a program called Angloville. I had done it before in November. It is an English immersion program where Polish participants pay to stay a week in an isolated spa or hotel with native English speakers in order to converse for nearly ten hours a day all in english. It is a really interesting program and you can meet some very interesting people and it also does help to improve their english skills, but all this interesting was not my main motivation for signing up again. I did enjoy the program the last time, and I made some friends with the Polish participants, all of whom were adults with adult lives and serious careers and families, but, this time my motivation was about finding shelter.
I’d been living in Prague for nearly a year- give or take a few excursions to other countries for volunteer work or paid work. My time there was coming to an end. My work visa expired, and now I am back to the allotted 90 day tourist visa. Originally, I had intended to return to Portland in August in order to get prepared to move back to China, but I couldn’t find a flight back to the states that I could afford so I had to wait until I was able to find a price within my meager range. My return date is set for September 22nd, but my visa was up at the very end of July which put me in a bit of a predicament. I had no place to live, no visa to legally find work, and I had to make what little money I had made stretch for almost another two months. In my fantasies I took this time to just back-pack and travel around, but in truth I was worried that I didn’t have the money to actually do this, not with the cost of travel, and accommodations being so high at the height of summer. I had a friend that was letting me share his room, but I knew his generosity would become strained, and that eventually I would outwear my welcome so I needed to find a way to have shelter and food, but to spend as little money as possible while having these necessary things. Angloville is a volunteer program, but if you are the “teacher”, but they put you up in a room and they feed you. They feed you quite well. I eat far better while I am at Angloville than I do on my own. I decided to sign up for two weeks meaning two programs.
My visits to Warsaw have been brief. I have a moment to check into a hostel, then wander around the city, but in a state of ignorance, not knowing what I am looking at or where I am going. This time I had even less time to visit. I just checked in; met up with a friend of a friend; had a couple of beers; went back to the hostel, went to sleep, and then was woken by the other travelers who were leaving early. I got up. I grabbed my pack. I checked out. Lastly, I searched for the bus that would take me to the Angloville site. There were another three hours on the bus to go.
Although, I have done this before it won’t be the same because it is the people who create the environment whether they know it or not. The Polish participants will be taking a break from their lives to work on their english, their motivations ranging from the need to speak english for work, to improving for school or for personal growth. The English coaches come in different groups of intentions: Twenty-somethings on break from school or extending their travels their last summer freedoms before entering the work market. One or two people in the 30’s to 40’s range the rare group that is difficult to find because they are already in the work market or the family world, and the retired mostly former teachers. These are only the surface groupings, but over the course of six days the individual lives are exposed and then suddenly we say good-bye and return to the separate seas from where we came. Most of us will never cross paths again, but we will always remember each other because we communicated. Really communicated- and this for me is the beauty of traveling. It is difficult to allow fear to create a hate in your heart for a nation when you have communicated with a person from that place. When people speak of war against a place- you no longer think of some unknown place from far away, you see the face and the smile of that person you sat across from at the table; the one who you shared bread and the one with who you communicated.
I grew up comparing my life to others. “Oh their life is so much more interesting than mine.” Comparison only breeds envy and envy breeds discontent and discontent equals a pretty low perception of life. After awhile you can no longer see what is special or unique about yourself you can only focus on what others do and how they do it better than you. This comparing (that I have no idea where it came from) has sometimes attached itself to my life abroad; Facebook doesn’t help. Everyone’s life looks amazing on Facebook. This is something I’m working on this comparison crap. It is not healthy, and it’s ridiculous. Where it comes in is when I think my travels are not exciting enough or I don’t have anything interesting or worth writing down on this here blog. Ridiculous. This must change. There is no need for an exciting story there are plenty of exciting stories out there. My stories are mostly about the people I meet, passing and greeting strangers in deep and thoughtful ways and then like the tide we pull apart and I find myself on another shore, or mixed in the silt of the ocean floor or in the belly of a seal. In many ways it is a very normal life. It feels like my daily life, but at times I am in a new country. Perhaps that is why I like the actual travel part and not the planning because it reminds me that I am going somewhere that I am indeed traveling which is not a daily activity. There’s no comparison to explain all the unique moments I have with people because every moment is different and this is enough. All this is enough, I’m grateful to have this much.
I’m curious as too how different this Angloville will be compared to the last. The only proper what to make a comparison. Will I make a good a close friend or will a do a lot of reading on my down time. Either is okay. I will find out very, very soon- as soon as the bus arrives.
A year has already long past and the memories of this trip have faded. Memories that include the details of names and dates. This post will be useless to anyone looking to find the perfect tour and route because I’m empty handed or headed. I had meant to keep a journal and I think I even kept the tour guide with the brochure and name of the company with the intention of sharing the information. It was a great tour as far as tours go. A two day trip with an engaging and friendly tour guide. I had plans of sharing, but three days after I returned from my vacation in Australia my mom died, and then none of it seemed to matter. So the details are lost, and all I have left at this point are some photographs, and some small memories- everything else seems to have erased.
All you have to do if you are in Melbourne is go to the center of the city and ask about tours along The Great Ocean Road. It’s really easy. I had zero information which is usually the case because I am an inefficient traveler- hell, I can’t even tell you what I’m going to do, so if I can book a tour anyone can book a tour. In the center of Melbourne there is a huge tourist center complex. It’s all underground beneath one of the art museums. I believe there was a choice for a one, two or three day tour. I don’t think one day is enough you can’t see much, and three would have been great but I didn’t have the money or time so I picked two days, and it was a great choice. I’d never done tours until this year (which was 2014) except a couple of walking tours many of year’s before, and normally I’m a little hesitant. I picture many white hairs and slow movers- although I’m quickly aging into the white hair population, I still like a mixture of ages. This random grouping of people was high on the diversity list. I was the only American, and the driver was the only Australian. There were a couple from Sweden, two couples from different parts of China, a woman traveling on her own from Hong Kong, a boy from Japan, a boy from Germany, a lesbian couple from Argentina, three twenty somethings from Italy, a couple of girls from England, and an Irish girl. I can’t tell you the route or anyone’s name, but I can tell you every country people came from. Our tour guide had offered up the front seat and no one was interested in taking it so I took the seat which honestly I think was prime seating. I felt a little guilty, so on the second day I offered it to the others, but no one wanted it. Shame in a way, but for me it was fantastic to see the distant ocean rising to greet us.
They picked us up from the various places that we were staying. I was at a hostel that had the word “space” in it’s name. It was a nice place. I’d recommend it if I could remember. Then we drove off toward the famous Australian roadway. On the first day we stopped where you could see the famous Twelve Apostles which are enormous rocks that had once been a part of the land mass but due to millions of year’s of ocean slamming up against the land and eroding away the softer parts we are left with these giant bits of rock.
Pre-helicopter ride
We had the opportunity to ride in a helicopter (price not included) which was a splurge for me, but I thought since I had never ridden in a helicopter before, and I’ll probably never do it again that I should take the opportunity. I got to sit in the front seat for this one too; it was my lucky tour. I think the yellow pack around my stomach was a parachute, but it didn’t seem like enough to float my body safely into a sea filled with Great Whites. Obviously, we didn’t crash.
It is interesting in a helicopter. You have to wear giant headphones because it is too loud to hear what anyone is saying. It’s probably too loud for your ears in general. If we wanted to talk to each other we had to push some button, but we didn’t really feel like talking. Inside it feels like you are moving really slow, but when two helicopters are passing in the sky you can see that you are actually moving quite quickly, but something about the size and the shape slow down the sensation of speed. Even watching the cliffs pass underneath us seemed slow.
Apparently, enough people have washed their dishes in the toilet that this sign was needed. I can’t fathom actually thinking of washing the dishes in a toilet as being a good idea, but I guess something about the freshness of the toilet discolored water really caught someone’s fancy. Or many fancies.
What was unique to this tour, at least according to the tour guide, was that we did the route backwards. We started at the Apostles while most tours ended at the Apostles. He said the reason behind the backward approach (which made it take a little longer to get to the coast) was to beat all the major tour buses. I don’t know how unique this tour route really is, but he was right. It was the height or tourist season, and we never met a tourist bus, but about five would be arriving as we left a place.
Apollo Bay
I don’t remember the names of any of the places except for a few. One of those places was Apollo Bay. It is a sleepy beach community that is also a popular destination. A friend of mine had lived there for many years and he is the artists of one of the wooden sculptures. I also remember Bell’s Beach which is a popular surf spot. There they have surf schools which we watched for a bit, but Bell’s Beach has a greater significance other than just being a prime spot for surfing. It is the greatest surf in the world according to the movie Point Break. In fact, in 1991, according to Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) that year at Bell’s Beach there was going to be a record monster wave that he and his gang of surfer bank robbers were going to ride. That was the motivation behind all of the bank robberies. If that isn’t a major plot line, I don’t know what is (alone with the whole screw the system and the banks theme). Point Break had a special place in my teenage heart since my friend and I saw them filming a small part of it in Portinfino, California. We were 16 and thought we saw Patrick Swayze, and we began screaming and jumping up and down until we realized it was his stunt double. I really wanted to see Keanu Reeves. I think I may have had a teen heart attack if I ended up seeing his double.
We ended up staying the night in a surf hostel a little outside of Bell’s Beach. Can you imagine? A surf hostle. I think I was standing at the edge of one of my major life fantasies.
Our friendly tour guide
A traveler from China, and an Australian parrot.
Before settling into our sleeping arrangements we wandered through a rain forest, and then an open park with wild and sleepy Koalas, and wild and hungry parrots. Then we ventured to a famous lighthouse that had something to do with some British show that I had never heard of, and then we stopped at a beach named Torquay. I remember this place because there was something special and powerful about it. It was a surf spot, and small, and looked like the other surf spots but there was a powerful energy in the air and with all my heart I wanted to stay. I was hoping they would just forget me, and I would have to make my way surviving in the town, and learning to surf; raising a family; and teaching my dog and cat how to be surfers or at least to ride skateboards. I pictured it all. I would have sand-stars hanging from my hippie windows, and wear wrap-around skirts that would make Stevie Nicks jealous, and be incredibly happy with my partner Bodhi. Or Keanu. Alas, they did not forget me.
That night our wonderful tour guide made us a bbq of seafood and other bbq meats, and a huge salad. This was also included in the price. We all sat together and ate and chatted. It was at this time that we began to get used to one another and started learning the very basics about each other. The Swedish couple were both bartenders traveling during the dark dismal winter of Sweden. They were traveling for a few years in as much sunshine as possible, but they both agreed that when they decided to have children they would go back to Sweden to raise them even though the winters were awful. One couple from China were traveling through all of Australia for a month which was really unusual to find a couple from China that could take that much time off, but they had saved for a few years. And, there were more stories like that.
Australia is known to have fires. Many fires. Especially, in the Melbourne area, and on our second day there was a huge fire that was spreading and filled the sky with so much smoke that I thought I was back in North China. The day was dark and warm and all the colors were subdued.
We took a ferry somewhere, and ended up at a small park where you could hand feed the Kangaroos, and the Wallabies. They also had some pretty lazy Tasmanian devils. They are said to be nocturnal creatures, but that’s no excuse for laziness.
Then we went to a place along the Ocean that reminded me of part of Hawaii. In this spot you could see sleeping boxes for penguins and wild wallabies. Lastly, we went to see the tiniest penguins in the world. Yes, I just about died. I really did. The penguins roll in on the waves. Literally, they wash up on shore from what ever rocks they’d been out playing on, and with each wave they tumble in little roll poly clumps like masses of seaweed, and the huge crowed of humans gasp and coo then they all rise from the stadium like seating and try to follow the path that the penguins walk on their way to their tiny beds. It’s well controlled they keep them roped off- I mean the humans of course. I was so caught up in awe of darlingness and daydreams of stealing one and bringing him back to my fantasy beach house in Torquay, he would definitely be the pet to surf, that I lost track of time and was late to the bus. This was a little embarrassing since the Italians held the record for being late, and I ended up beating them during the one time the tour guide said, “it’s important not to be late for this part of the trip”. Then he eyeballed the Italians. Little did he know that I would succumbed to the pull of penguin seduction. He even had to come and find me. I try to be remembered.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any photos of the darling little butter balls of cuteness because we were not allowed to use flash and it was night. They were seriously strict about the flash (people did try) because it’s like strobe lights to the little guys, and the flash frightens and disorients them to the point where many of them go crashing back into the ocean where sharks and other meat eaters are waiting for them.
Penguin in a box
At the end of our two day journey we were dropped off at our respective places of temporary habitat, and said our good-byes, forever. I left Australia invigorated and happy, but as I said, three days later I would be heartbroken by the loss of the most important person in my life. Now, that so much time has passed, and even though I still ache when I think too much on my mom and how much I miss her, I can finally share the events of January to February 2014.
It was a really nice trip momma- you would have loved it.
And for your extra entertainment, I present for you the trailer to the original Point Break:
After leaving China, I decided to get certified. You don’t have to have your TEFL cert to teach in China; I’m evidence of that, but I thought it would broaden my opportunities. It is a good idea if you want to teach overseas. You can get your TEFL pretty much anywhere, but there are a few things you want to keep in mind when deciding where to go. One is that you want to make certain that the TEFL school is accredited. This is really important. Your certificate must be internationally recognized. You’ll also want a program that offers over 100 hours of TEFL training and teaching. You want real teaching hours with real students. You want your teachers to be trained and certified, and you want some help with job placement assistance. If you want to read more in-depth information on hunting for the right TEFL Program you can link here and here.
Now, let me tell you why I chose The Language House in Prague. I’ll start with the completely impractical reason first, and then follow the more researched reason.
I chose Prague because I love Prague. I lived here in 2000, and I had always wanted to return. As some of you who have followed this blog know, I wrote my first (and so far only) novel about living in Prague. The city had haunted my memories for the past 14 years. Since, my mom had died in February, and I was heartbroken and completely lost without having any feeling of home, I thought why not continue to move on to the next place? And, why not have that place be Prague a city that had been on my mind?
There are plenty of places in Prague where you can get your TEFL cert, but I chose the Language House. Their certificate is recognized, fully accredited and externally Monitored by IATQuO. They offer 130 hours of teacher training including the actual teaching of real life students. The main reason I chose them was because they have an extensive social network that allowed me to get in contact with previous students. This network offered me real feedback about the program, and I felt I could trust them once I was able to read reviews, and contact a few folks. I could see that people were actually teaching and that they felt the program was a good program, and one that they were willing to recommend.
Now that I have completed the program I can throw in my two cents. I think The Language House is an excellent program. I can’t say it is the best in Prague because I didn’t go to any of the other schools, but I had met students from other schools who felt their program had lacked the teaching time and the teacher support that we received at the Language House. The teachers are excellent, but using the word excellent is empty without adding a few examples. So here they are:
Anthony, gave us an introduction to Phonetics. He was well versed in the subject and was enthusiastic in his teaching of the classes. He was funny, helpful, and I heard from other students that he was a wonderful observer. (I’ll explain observer in a bit.)
Andrea, is pretty much everything a person would want in a teacher. Hilarious, intelligent, informative, had an incredible command of the class, and during our lesson planning she was there to give us helpful advice. She gave us grammar lessons-focused on conditionals, and CV versus resume information. She is also the jobs go-to person and she is always quick to respond to questions.
Chris Foxwell had the reputation of being the hard-ass out of the teachers. You know that teacher that really pushes you, and you think that he/she may be some kind of a sadists, (but remember you’re the masochist for signing up for the class) till you realize you learned so much from that teacher? That’s Chris. He’s a no excuses type of instructor, and you are going to learn from him. He went over grammar and methodology. You could tell he loved what he was teaching and wanted teachers coming out of The Language House to be the best.
Chris Westergaard, is the program director and owner of The Language House. He is a natural in front of the class. He is engaging and insightful. He offers an enormous breadth of information and TEFL teaching knowledge from ten years of experience. And, he has many funny tales of TEFL teaching life.
There are more people to mention at The Language House, but these were my core instructors. There was also Jitka our Czech language teacher, and Kirrily who taught Young Learners, both great teachers. I had mentioned in a paragraph above about observers. We began teaching real students in the second week of this four week program. We were observed every time, and at the end of classes we were given in-depth feedback on our teaching. You’ll have three different observers and teach three different levels during your course. Expect to feel tired.
Here’s more of what you’ll experience: You will learn your grammar. You will take a grammar test that you need to pass with at least an 80% in order to get your certificate. You will go to class everyday and teach everyday (except on Friday- no teaching). You will freak out about not having a lesson plan. You will freak out when you realize you don’t know your own language’s grammar, but your Czech students do. You will think that you were crazy for signing up for this program. You will get tired of your feedback, until one day someone say’s “that’s an almost a perfect grammar lesson,” then you’ll feel amazing. You’ll learn new teaching methodologies, but you will focus on the ESA method of teaching. You’ll meet really wonderful people. You’ll let loose like crazy on the weekends. Then it will be over.
During my first week of class, as Chris W. taught us about the ESA method (Engage, Study, Activate), right away my mind flashed back to my literature classes in China. It was obvious to me how much this type of training would have assisted me in my classes. I thought about how I could have done things differently and how much it would have improved my lessons.
No, you don’t need your TEFL to teach in China, but I think it can not only increase your pay and your opportunities, but it will help make your classroom experience better for you and your students. If you want to teach overseas I highly recommend you take a course, and if you decide to come to Prague for your training- I sincerely and emphatically recommend The Language House in Prague.
I had been warned to never eat hot pot from a street tent. At the moment that I was picking out what bit of food on a stick to put in my boiling bowl of soup, I didn’t really think about the warning or even what ‘hot pot in a street tent’ meant. It wasn’t until I was on the bus heading home at 7:00 in the morning, after a ridiculously late evening out, that I remembered that I was warned.
The bus gently rocked and lulled me toward sleep. I had a thirty minute bus ride to get home. I stared at the few Chinese denizens sitting on the bus. A man was asleep in the far back corner. His head was slumped over his right shoulder. It hung like a loose button on a thin thread, and I wondered if a jolt of the bus would break his neck. I wondered if he stayed out to late too. It was a Sunday morning, not a work day. What were these people doing on the bus? Shouldn’t they be busying themselves at home? Shouldn’t they be just waking up? I still haven’t grasped China. I’m not clear if it is really a five day work week or if people are working on the weekends. Some do. I was trying to justify why I was so wrecked on this bus at 7:00 in the morning. Trying to find some partners in irresponsible crime. I was concerned about being judged. Which shouldn’t matter, but I’m always stared at and examined. I didn’t want to join the ranks of drunken irresponsible westerner, but like I said, it didn’t matter what anyone thought. My life was only temporarily passing through this place. Temporarily passing through many places it seems.
I ate the hot pot from the street tent. I realized this while my thoughts were on the strangers on the bus. It is because of the gutter oil. The oil that people dredge from the gutters and reuse in order to save money. I figured I would be sick later. I’m sick often after the street food. It can be anything. It took a few months before my stomach toughened up some. I can’t figure out if it’s my age or the food. Maybe, a combination of both.
I don’t go out much. I’ve turned into a sort of hermit a kind of recluse. It could be culture shock, but I know it’s a combination of many, many things. Things not worth writing about yet. The nights out are rare, but they always end the same- It begins with drinks at one place, and then a move to another place to have too many drinks and then to a club. Drinks are bought together because you can’t have a table unless you buy the bottle or a rack of beers. The crowd is mixed- Chinese, Americans, Mexicans, Arabs, Africans, English, Russians- mostly young, but sometimes there is a range in ages. After a bottle is bought (usually Red Label Whiskey) and the worst sweet tea mixer ever designed, the dancing starts. Dancing on spinning dance floors, raised dance floors, floors that have hydraulics- the works. At times I think the Chinese are absolutely crazy. There seems to be so little concern for personal safety. I’m aware that I grew up in a world of hyper-saftey concerns sometimes over the top, but I was raised in the 70’s and 80’s so I did experience pre-seatbelts and all of that, and I did live in Germany where there is a kind of ‘go at your own risk’ type of safety concern. I really liked Germany’s take on it. It allowed you to take personal responsibility for your own actions, yet you still could take a risk if you wanted because it’s your life, but you better be aware of the consequences. I liked that. I’d say maybe China is like that, but then again it seems like there is no idea of consequences. As if people go about their day never even thinking that anything bad could possibly happen to them even if they are driving on their e-bike at night with no lights driving the wrong way on a one way street while reading a text message. What could possibly happen? There’s never any helmets worn and people drive on the wrong side of the road, never give right of way cut people off. I’ve seen children as young as four standing on the shoulders of the front seat of the car with their heads out of the sun roof. This lack of safety concern is in everything. The way buildings are built, pavements are laid, toys are made, how a person crosses the street. The dance floors reflect this nutty wildness. It seems to me like the worst idea in the world to create a dance floor that spins in a club where people are drunk. I don’t know why we don’t see more Chinese people in extreme sports because they seem fearless.
The clubs and bars are smokey like America in the early 90’s. It can be hard to breath especially when dancing on the stage. It isn’t really a stage, but more like a runway raised four feet from the floor, and made of metal. I love to dance, but I find it difficult to get into the dance scene here. The crazy amount of smoke with absolutely no air circulation, the narrow dancing space, and the great noticeable distance from the stage to the floor. There are tables all around the runway dance floor so if you were to fall then you’d fall onto a table. I find it hard to relax even with too much Red label Whiskey mixed with the god awful sweet tea. The music, er, well, I’ll just say the music from one club to the next is not that much different, and in all fairness, to give a bit of perspective, bars and clubs in this part of China are still a new thing. I’m also a secret curmudgeon. I don’t really like clubs. I like dancing, but club scenes are not my thing (even though I continue to find myself in them). Still, in retrospect it is a worthwhile experience mainly because of the fact that I’m living in China. When my mind is in a state of complete discomfort which it has been often while living here, I’ll have this sudden realization that I’m in China on a spinning dance floor with a group of people from all over the world, and that this is just a moment; a rare blip of a moment that will be over in a couple of hours, and how strange that all sounds to me.
The hot pot night was a little different then the usual night out because it was morning with strangers and four different possible languages, but English was the one we all had in common. At five in the morning I could care less about the gutter oil.
What do you get when a Russian, a Chinese, an American and a Mexican walk down a dark alleyway… food and conversation about love. A red tent with a hot pot eatery. Five am beers are ordered. The soup is ordered. The noodles are ordered and we pick our own food. The soup is in a plastic bag placed inside a bowl. I don’t think of sanitation which is the best way to get sick. I only think of eating and then going home to sleep, but it is so far to where I live (another reason why I am a part-time recluse).
Outside the sun is rising. The smog is rolling into the city like fog off a bay. Pictures are taken and taxis are waved down, and I wait for the number 7 longing for my hard bed. I wonder what the hell compelled me to stay out so late. I give myself a little reprimand then think about how often I stay up till morning at a dance club with people from all over the world, and then stumble down a dark dirty alleyway to a double sized red tent to find a hot pot inside filled with Chinese men that work late or start their day early. Not very often. I forgive myself and look forward to sleep. This is a year in China. It won’t happen again. Not in this city.
An Accidental Vagabond 