Wite-Out

I do not pretend to be the Know-All, Be-All and End-All of anything, least of all of Chinese culture. When I write about the various topics I try to be as informed as possible. Sometimes I am misinformed… or just flat wrong. So, every once in a while I need to make corrections. In the old days of typewriters or cursive, such corrections were done with Wite-out – sometimes called Liquid Paper, something that glue sniffers took to like ducks to water. The fumes were toxic and those with an affinity for sniffing toxic substances took to sniffing it to get their jollies. I think one would be hard-pressed to find the old, toxic formula anymore; nowadays there is Wite-Out on a ribbon that one traces over lines of print or in a pen that does not emit toxic fumes.

But this is not about Wite-Out, no matter what the title says. It is about me being wrong. I accept being wrong, as long as I have the chance to correct my mistakes once they’re pointed out to me.

The first and most important mistake I need to correct is the Singles’ Day entry. My daughter informed me that her husband’s best friend, the one that died in Iraq was named Tanner, not Taylor as I originally published. Far be it for me to disrespect my beloved son-in-law’s best friend and the Tanner family by ascribing his valiant acts and shortened life to the Taylor family. And, I certainly would not want any Taylors to find out about the death of their loved one, albeit misreported, through my humble blog. Thus I correct my mistake: please keep the Tanner family in your heart and prayers. Although I’m sure there are Taylor families worth consideration, there are none with regard to this blog. At least, not yet. And I hope, considering the circumstances connected to Tanner, there will be none. Tanner was hard enough on everyone concerned.

Next I need to correct the name of the restaurant that George and Chris took me to in ‘The Entry Devoted to Food’ post. Originally I had listed it as Corky’s Barbeque, a famous restaurant chain in Tennessee. As A. Chris and George do not live in Tennessee and B. to my knowledge have never patronized Corky’s, it seems a mite unfair to give credit to an eatery they’ve never even heard of. It is in fact Outlaw’s Barbeque that they treated me to, and the food was succulent.

None of these have anything to do with Chinese culture, as I alluded to in the opening paragraph. These were just wrongs I had to right. With those mistakes corrected I can now move on to what I misreported with regard to life and culture in China.

I have often reported that the kids who move onto our university campus are most likely away from home for the first time. That statement is accurate. I have also reported that young children are cared for by their elderly relatives. That is also true. The inaccuracy is that I reported they were away from their family for the first time. I have recently found out that that is mostly not the case.

Young children – mostly under the age of 10 are in fact, for the most part, cared for by elderly relatives. At some point, usually when the elderly relative turns sixty or shows signs of ailing and failing, the child is enrolled into a local boarding school. There the child will live 5 days a week and return home on weekends. Or, he/she will come home when one of the parents has a day off.
I stand firm by the impression I’ve created that Chinese parents and families in general are devoted to their children. By no means do they shunt their kids off to boarding school to get away from the kids or because the children are difficult or unmanageable, as the running impression goes of boarding school children elsewhere in the world. Also, I stand firm with the statement that there is no such thing as a ‘latchkey’ kid here in China. One way or another, kids are monitored and well taken care of until they turn eighteen and go to university. That is why our freshmen tend to go a bit wild once they discover the freedom being away from home and out from under watchful eyes offers.

A long time ago I reported that there were no dumpsters in China. One simply throws trash into an open pit, or, as is the case on campus into a little hut. Such disposal methods make combing the trash for recyclables easier. While the last sentence is true, the rest is not. China is in fact rife with trash cans and dumpsters. At the time I reported it, very early in the blog – see ‘Paradoxes and Oxymorons’ entry, posted in the dim and distant past: October of last year, I did not have a wealth of exposure all over town. Furthermore, our campus trash was disposed of in just the way I reported previously.

Things have changed. I now know that Wuhan has dumpsters everywhere, lovely green and white ones. If you do not get too close to them, they are quite nice and serviceable. If you do get close to them the smell will knock you over. Hopefully you will fall to the side of it and not into it. Either way I discourage sniffing dumpsters.

Besides dumpsters there are trash cans. Two-sided trash cans, to be exact: one side for recyclables and the other for ‘normal’ trash. As long as the general citizenry makes the distinction, the people who routinely pick through the trash have no problem picking up bottles and other plastics to cash in at the local recycling plant.

As part of the campus beautification project most, if not all of the green barrel type trash cans have been replaced by stainless steel, two-sided trash cans. Also, along The Street such disposal containers have been anchored into the sidewalk. It seems that, even here in the armpit of the city, civilization is catching up. However, in front of the dorms there are still little brick huts with a steel dutch door where the students are to dispose of their trash. That trash, as I’ve previously reported, gets raked out and shoveled into green handcarts, and then taken off campus to be sifted through for recyclables and then burned.

Also, as you’ll see in my upcoming blog post ‘To Get to the Internet Bar’, there are still open pits for burning trash. You don’t want to be around when that happens. It does not smell good.

I believe I’ve corrected everything I’ve misrepresented or otherwise got wrong. If you note some deficiency in my narrative, please do not hesitate to let me know. Especially when I give credit where none is due or misspeak something you know to be false.

Confession time: I do like to research what I write before I write it. With no Internet connection at home, research is a bit difficult. I try to remember to make notes to research whatever I’m writing about while at the Internet café, but oftentimes I neglect making notes or forget the notes altogether.

On the bright side I did hear workmen monkeying around in the telecommunications box just outside my apartment this morning. Maybe I’ll have an Internet connection soon, so I can write you and research what I’m blogging about. Believe me: as soon as I’m connected, you’ll be the first to know!