Recently our good friend Mike D (No, unfortunately not the one from the Beastie Boys) spent a year teaching English over in the happiest country on earth: China. Not only did he come back with a small fortune in counterfeit designer bags, he also came back with enough strange, funny, and sometimes scary stories to last a lifetime. So I sez to 'em I sez "Hey D, why don't you write down some of these stories and we'll post them on Pausedesigns.com? They're really interesting, and it's not like you've got anything better to do." He agreed, and here we are. Enjoy.
The great myths about white people in China are so powerful and persuasive, when living within the culturally diverse confines the whispering country, that I half-expected to walk into my first Chinese bar and see foreigners doing fourteen pounds of blow off of sweaty Asian prostitutes that were dying to move to a different country. We are greeted with such an amazing out pour of disgust and worship that it is hard to believe that we are even from the same planet. We are rock stars. We are disease ridden. We are lose-moralled and sex dominates our very existence. We bring the powers of convulsion, jealousy, and idolatry to this culture. We are the same people that you walk by every day. We are the average, white foreigners that come from countries that have mixed reviews, and we have all come here for one purpose—to experience the miracle of being born in a different world.
I have always noticed the contrast in people’s reactions to great and small things. If there is something that people love intensely, you can be guaranteed that it will be met with an immense disdain from opposing characters. Whether it is a musician or an artist that is greatly loved, there will always be an equal hatred from the other side. Things are no different here in China. We are mysterious, and some of the Chinese people have only seen us on television or posters. For the past year, I have been living in China and every day has started off the same way; I wake with a feeling that this is all a dream because I have no familiar faces to prove that this is reality. I go through my daily routine of scrubbing, brushing, combing, and eating before I start my perilous journey to work at a kindergarten. I walk passed the guards at my building-gate and we exchange a good-morning nod as we don’t speak the same language and it is rather useless for me to try and start a conversation, because I am about as good at speaking Chinese as a Pygmy Hippo is at not looking like a giant turd when it’s floating in its bacteria infested aqua enclosure at the Toronto Zoo.
I keep my head down and just listen to my music selection as I walk for about ten minutes until I get to my bus stop. I don’t know why but I always walk up to the sign that has all the bus numbers and destinations written on it and try to read it. Every character looks the same and I couldn't’t tell you if one said ‘Yes’ or the others said ‘Exciting, but tasteful, donkey show this way.’ As I wait for my bus to arrive I watch as more and more people gather around the stop and continually stare at me. In Canada, if someone thinks I look interesting they will take a quick glance and then avert their eyes once they see that I have noticed them watching me. In China people stare and don’t care if you know that they’re doing it. The bus picks me up and I stand in a crowded tube with about eighty people giving me smiles and frowns. I know a little bit of Chinese and can pick out certain things like, “So tall!” or, “Where’s he from?” If I understand a question, I do my best to give a response, but most of the time I can’t understand a thing. A lady in a crimson t-shirt that says “This is happy place time,” gets on the bus with eight live chickens that are hung upside down and held together at the feet by a big rubber band. I try not to think of the market where she is probably taking them to be decapitated and de-feathered because I will never forget the smell of that place. Most of the people don’t even give her a second look, because I’m on the bus. The bus driver is on acid or something and apparently doesn’t know how to use the breaks properly. We nearly get whiplash every time he stops about three inches from an old man who is crossing the street and doesn’t give a shit if he lives or dies. Suddenly we come to a complete stop too quickly and a girl loses her grip and falls into the chicken-woman. The sudden knock finds one of the chickens free from its rubbery confines. It takes one look around and decides that any place is better than this and starts a frenzy of trying to fly and weaving through the passenger’s legs. I nearly fall over as the crowded bus begins to pulse as one solid mass of panic and comedic relief. The chicken-lady starts screaming at the chicken as though it is supposed to come when it is called. She keeps saying, “Chicken!” in Chinese with an overtly scolding tone in her voice. This chicken is probably going to catch one hell of a beating for its unrefined display of disregard for the safety of eighty people on this bus. The bus driver is distracted and keeps coming closer and closer to crashing into various people, cars, and bicycles. Finally he decides that he can’t drive while this chicken promotes anarchy in the back of his communist bus and literally brings the bus to a screeching halt. He announces that everyone has to get off the bus so that they can catch the renegade chicken and bring order back to the world. It takes about twenty minutes to get everyone off, catch the chicken, load everyone back on, and settle any squabbles about who was seated where. When all this is said and done, no one is staring at the lady with the chickens: all eyes are on me.
-Mike D ¶ 5:04 PM
