I have a feeling that this email might actually compete with Tolstoy and Proust, so you guys have been warned.
I’ll start off this little episode of “Life in the Land of Mao” with a small story about my trip to the Visa office and my friend Mr. Li the Cabbie. I needed to go to the central Visa office last week and had no idea where it was. The lovely helpful people at the school wrote down the name for me in Chinese characters and after some pleading on my part, helped spell it in pinyin – the phonetic version of the characters (like the Chinese hooked on phonics!)
But I digress…So with my trusty English-Chinese dictionary (thanks Barsky!!), my Visa documents and passport, and nothing more than a piece of paper with hastily written down characters and pinyin, I hailed a cab near my apartment.
Two weeks ago I got hit by a bike on the first day and accidentally thanked the bike rider in my broken Chinese instead of apologized.
Last week I accidentally ordered cold horse from a restaurant.
This week I manged to get in a cab with what could be – hands down – the WORST cab driver…no, driver…I have EVER had the misfortune to observe in action. While in the car with him, I was seriously trying to look for the word ‘hospital’ and ‘broken arm’ in my dictionary just to be on the safe side. My god, people…at one point in time we were simultaneously on the sidewalk AND driving against the traffic pattern. All the while, Mr. Li the cabbie was the happiest and friendliest person that I’ve talked to while in China. So I get in the cab, tell him what I’m looking for and then off we go. The first two minutes were fine (it was a red light) and we were talking a bit about what I was doing in Nanjing and how long I’ve been here, after that it was all a blur. Traffic here is seriously nuts. Two lane road had three and a half lanes of cars (sidewalks seem to count as holding traffic overflow).
So I finally get to the Visa office and after kissing the ground, I went inside. Again, I can’t stress enough that the whole idea of a ‘line’ or ‘queue’ really is lacking in this city. I got in line (read: behind the only person) in my foreign Visa dept. and all of the sudden 6 people rush at me from the sides and are yelling questions and trying to get their forms signed and all that jazz. I’m standing there trying to give them the evilest eye and disapproving glare while seeming polite (as all good people in the US have been somehow been taught to do) while they yell and get serviced and I stand there like a moron.
I’d like to say that I yelled and pointed out that I was in line first, but I just went somewhere else basically set up a perimeter so that no one could butt in front of me. It’s like 2nd grade all over again “no butting!” “i was here first!” “nu-uh! yeah-huh!”
This weekend was spent “Hashing” around the countryside. The whole idea of the ‘hash’ was apparently thanks to our good friends the British Army. So they were hanging out in Malaysia a couple of decades back and the troops were kinda bored. So, they decided to get a group of troops and to get out of Kuala Lumpur and to go visit the countryside to get a feel for what Malaysia was really all about…oh, and being British and all, they brought a ton of beer and food with them for after all that strenuous walking/running. Hash is essentially a mobile happy hour.
So this weekend, I met up with Marc and BuNu at the Sheraton and we joined a group of about 30 other people and got into two vans and drove about 30 minutes out of the city lines into the ‘real’ Nanjing.
Again, I have to comment about the driving. Again, it was a 3 lane road and there were four lanes. To our right was a beat up rickshaw, to my left were pedestrians (we were in the middle lane, by the way) and at one point in time, there were seriously cars driving perpendicular to us…I wish I was kidding, but yeah. It was nuts.
We got to the site and it was absolutely beautiful, people. Going from the city in which I really haven’t seen much grass at all to what really felt like an entirely different place. Nothing but farm land and the people working the fields. It was really incredible and hope to have pictures up soon. The group of people in the hash were from all over. India, Australia, US, UK, Japan, New Zealand, Germany, Canada, and Holland. The ages were pretty varied as well, there were some people near my age, there were 45 year olds, and there was one 8 year old (she didn’t join us in the drinking).
After the lovely hike, they had big cases of lovely beer waiting for us at the vans. China seems to have an affinity for 40oz beer bottles, so there’s a picture of BuNu, Marc and I each holding our own 40’s. While in the States, drinking out of a 40 basically means you’ve hit the bottom of the bottom, it’s super common here. Actually, the only place I’ve seen the smaller bottles was that Australian Pub.
So, after the beer(s), we get in the vans and start going home only to find that one of the townspeople died and they were holding the funeral procession which blocked traffic towards the city for over an hour…so, what to do in a van full of strangers? Marc (age:45); Peter (age:24), the Belgian whom I had just met; Thomas (age:50+), the Nanjing Hash founder; and myself proceeded to see who could drink ‘the most’.
Honestly, after the 3rd bottle (in the van), a lot of things are a blur, but there are pictures of all 4 of us looking very pleased with ourselves and life in general.
We got back to the city and we had a huge huge meal with even more drinking (I have a newfound respect for the people of Europe. These people drink like they’re about to be invaded by Germany or something.)
On a side note, I now have 22 DVD’s and CSI seasons 1-4…I think I might have a problem. In three weeks, I’ve managed to start quite a collection and I found a place that sells them for 6 RMB!! That’s about 75 cents a DVD!!
Classes are getting more and more challenging by the day, and I’m increasingly getting stressed about the things to come. I’m planning on trying to take an examination at the end of the semester so that I can apply to jump up ahead a level or two (I’m in D1 right now, my goal is to jump up to the B-levels for the fall semester. In the B levels apparently I’ll be able to understand about 70% of the newspaper)
In general, I’m slowly getting more and more accustomed to Nanjing. It’s not the big differences that startle me most – like the traffic – but it’s the smaller things and their related consequences.
China is currently home to about 1.3 billion people. It should be noted that the total world population is about 6 billion, which means that China has nearly 22% of the world’s population. In order to control the population growth, the CCP established a ‘one-child policy’ in the late 70’s/early 1980’s. One of the results of this policy has been the emergence of the “Little Emperors”. Children with 4 grandparents, and 2 parents who dote on them and spoil them rotten. China has been seeing the emergence of a group of children who are accustomed to always getting their way and never sharing or needing to learn to compromise. It’s really interesting looking at these kids who get everything that they want, and watching the parents who simply give it to them, regardless of how rude they children are. The oldest generation of these children are now about my age, and a lot of them are starting to have children of their own, so we’ll see what happens with that.
Ok, I told you it was going to be a long email, and I apologize. I miss all of you guys and wish you could be here. To the people of K&A, you would’ve absolutely loved the Hash and I’m starting KTrippleA with Peter the Belgian and Thomas the Brit.
Mom and Dad, please disregard anytime when the words ‘beer’ ‘alcohol’ or ‘debauchery’ are used, it’s code for studying and working hard.
Cheers,
Alberto
Monday, 8:51pm
March 21, 2005
Nanjing