New Land, New Life

As promised, there was (is!) more travelling on the horizon, and said horizon has been met!

Greetings from Szczecin, Poland, where I have chosen to hang my hat.

And I do, in fact, have a hat to hang; not just clothes.

Speaking of clothes...

I own 2 very nice, very large duffle bags in which to carry my earthly belongings. The black one, I ordered from an online merchant, albeit warily, because customer reviews stated that the construction of said bag was rather flimsy.

Many reported the bag actually tearing on the side with the wheels; the panel that acts as a base when the bag is stood upright.

I invested in a roll of Gorilla Tape to reinforce the bottom. After boarding no fewer than 4 planes, three buses and one train, that tape-covered bag base shows wear, but only a little.

The better reinforced bag that I bought in a store did not fare so well.

The stitching is still fine and the base side is mildly scuffed but... imagine my surprise when I opened the bottom compartment and found my clothes wet and moldy smelling!

Either being parked on the floor of a leaky roof’s house during Hurricane Florence or, somehow, in my travels, without the bag coming open at all, that compartment apparently flooded and it was up to my clothing to absorb it all.

And, arriving here on Thursday night, I saw no need to unpack everything because I would only be in this admittedly cute studio apartment for five days.

It was only in scrounging on Saturday night for something to wear when meeting the realtor on Monday morning that I felt compelled to inventory my wardrobe, thus discovering the horrible smell that permeated a quarter of my wardrobe!

All of that hand-washing to remove said smell did not do my arthritis any good, let me tell you!

I got way ahead of myself, there. Let’s backtrack a bit so you can hear all about the journey.

The train ride, from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to Penn station in New York went off without a hitch. Actually, there were several hitches, it being a rather long train, but there weren't any problem. Does that make things clearer?

That was a good thing because the panic and feeling of being overwhelmed the morning of my travels forbade any breakfast or peaceful thought.

Getting from Penn Station to JFK airport was only mildly stress inducing.

I had decided to cab it because I did not envision myself wrestling two large duffle bags, a backpack and a small lunchbox onto New York City’s public transportation in the rain.

That would have entailed a subway ride and two different buses: could there not have been an easier way to transit to the airport besides a cab? Nope!

That ride was a one step up from highway robbery.

True enough, the car’s decal advertised a flat fare to JFK, but I still questioned why the driver did not engage the meter.

“It maybe cost more use meter” he said.

I have a bit of experience with drivers who do not engage the meter. In China, before all cabs were outfitted with video and RF units, it was common practice for drivers to cheat passengers in that manner, especially if they were foreigners.

Had he not said ‘maybe’, I would not have wondered. As it was, I wondered but, already tired, felt it wasn’t worth the argument.

I did argue though, when he dropped me off. He complained about the $10 tip – after explicitly and repeatedly saying that tipping is optional! I sure gave him a piece of my mind... 

As that ride took all but $5 of my cash money, it was a good thing indeed that I had that lunchbox and all of the goodies therein. (thanks so much, Marjorie!)

Next came the airline. As I had made it a point of being at the airport extra early, intending to drop my bags off and head to a terminal with free WIFI access so that I could work on my Superprof assignment, I discovered that that counter wouldn’t be staffed until sometime around 9PM.

I arrived there at 5... and spent a significant amount of time wondering why only one terminal was outfitted with free WIFI; not all of them.

Unwilling to lug my bags half the length of the entire airport, I resigned myself to doing what I could: sending last minute messages to loved ones.

Oh, yeah: and calling the bank to let them know I was traveling. wouldn’t do for them to freeze my account on account of there being card activity in London and Poland.

I have to comment on this...

The young lady addressing my banking concerns was quite nice and very thorough; as she went through the steps to ensure I would stay liquid on my travels, she informed me that she wanted to celebrate her 30^th birthday in Dubai next year. That would be her first trip abroad.

“So... London is in... France?” she asked me, certifying my itinerary. No, I’m not kidding!

I hope you will join me in marveling at the fact that the person protecting my bank account is geographically challenged, yet has to power to revoke my access to my money and would have, had I not appealed to her.

Our plane out of JFK was late so I actually had time to chat a bit with those loved ones that were still awake, mainly those in other time zones than Eastern.

Around 2AM, it was time to board. Not surprisingly, totally exhausted, I soon fell asleep on the plane.

But not before fighting for the aisle seat I had paid extra for. This was a budget airline where everything costs, even a small bottle of water. 

Because we were late taking off, I worried that I would not make my connection in Reykyavik.

Fortunately, that plane was late too, so I actually got to set foot on Icelandic soil, if only for a few minutes, in their smoking area.

And then, after another minor skirmish for the aisle seat I had paid for, it was off to London.

I knew I would have a 23-hour layover and I anticipated just overnighting in the airport.

Ironically, even though I planned and prepared for every step of this journey, I didn’t think to check Sleeping in Airports. Had I done so, I would have learned that Stansted airport, in North London, does not permit anyone sleeping on the floor or anywhere else.

I probably wouldn’t have hit the floor, but it was a good thing that there was a hotel within walking distance of the airport. Making use of the free airport WIFI after collecting my luggage, I booked myself into one of the few rooms they had left.

At nearly $200, that was a pricey stay! But so well worth it because I was simply exhausted, and there would be breakfast the next morning. And, I wrote 2 articles in one sitting!

That’s a good thing because I am so far behind on my assignment this month... fortunately, my boss is really understanding. 

Finally, at 3:30PM, it was back on a plane, this time bound for Szczecin.

In flight I reflected on my difference in attitude in moving here, as opposed to moving to China.

Not that I have anything against Europe or Europeans, but China is where I wanted to be. On China-bound flights I could hardly sleep for excitement; on these flights it seemed all I did was sleep.

Nevertheless, arriving here held eager anticipation.

By this time in my world travels I know better than to let preconceived notions cloud my mind; I was quite matter of fact – not gleeful at all – when the customs agent stamped my passport, entitling me to a 3-month sojourn here.

I got a stamp in London, too. These stamps look so nice among my collection!

As I was able to prearrange everything from transport to lodging online, all I had to do was sashay out of the terminal with my bags, ask the waiting driver if I may take a minute to get some money out of the ATM and then sit back while he whisked me to my hotel.

As when I moved to China, everything here is uncertain: I don’t speak the language and I don’t know the culture. Unlike moving to China,  where I had an advocate, Sam, who arranged everything for me; here, I will have to take care of everything myself.

Let’s take a minute to think about this whole situation.

I am now in a foreign land where I know nobody and my chances at communication and human interaction are virtually nil at this point.

Nevertheless, I was able to secure transportation and lodging online and, within my first 24 hours here, managed to buy food at a grocery store, get phone service and engage a realtor to help me find a permanent place to live.

None of this lands me any accolades; technology gets all of the credit.

I feel emboldened because I typed a few phrases in my phone’s translator, screen-shotted them and, when I need to use them, I simply whip out my phone, select the right picture and show it to whoever I am trying to communicate with.

Ok, I’ll take credit for a bit of ingenuity in thinking that plan up.

So far, I’ve been able to buy a bottle of water from a vendor and order food in a restaurant, all without saying a word.

Well, I do say dziecuje – thank you.

People seem really happy to hear that.  

The American Travel Nightmare

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it is exceedingly difficult to travel in America.

Don’t get me wrong: this is a beautiful country, with wide vistas and plenty of one of a kind sights to see and, along the way, there are wonderful people to meet, greet and talk with.

The problem is that you really have to work at traveling, in America.

Unless you are on either coast, there are no trains to speak of. America being a car culture, one might think that that is not so bad; after all, who wants to stop at railroad crossings all the time?

And there is really only one long-distance bus service: Greyhound. I’ve written about them before, generally in flattering tones.

You won’t get that in this essay. More on that later.

The great shame of the American traveling system is that it is only a point-to-point system that permits you to see nothing along the way, unless you drive there.

You can visit any tourist attraction – say, Branson, in Missouri. You can get there by car – from wherever you start out at, or you can fly in and rent a car.

You can also take a bus but, generally speaking, those who ride buses aren’t looking for fun times at the end of their journey.

In fact, the average American does not ride Greyhound. This is a service generally meant for poor travelers, those who wear their desperation as a physical stink or as an umbra of hopelessness, or both.

I don’t consider myself poor or hopeless; merely economical. And longing for travel opportunities available in such countries as China, Japan, and all over Europe: trains galore!

I can wish all I want but the fact remains that, unless I want to fly everywhere I go in the states, I am compelled to take the bus.

Taking the bus from Fort Worth to Jacksonville, N.C., my next port of call (as it were), went fairly well, even though the bus out of Fort Worth was late, risking my Dallas connection.

Fortunately, the early bus out of Ft. Worth was late also, but just in time for me, and that driver kindly allowed me on, putting me in Dallas just in time for the announcement that the bus out of Dallas would also be late.

On my last Greyhound foray I expounded on the fact that this bus system is a marvel of inefficiency; I just didn’t write about it because... how often do you need to hear how bad this service is?

You’ll hear about it this time because this one is a doozy. 

I’d been in North Carolina for a few weeks and, bearing in mind my departure overseas was imminent, scheduled a fare out of Jacksonville for the Thursday the so-called storm of the century was due to hit.

Ever mindful of the ominous radar images, I pondered whether I should rebook my passage. My daughter suggested I plan to leave on Wednesday but I found myself unwilling to leave my family in the lurch – “great hurricane headed your way, see ya!” is not my style.

Greyhound took matters into its own hands by sending me an email saying my trip would be impacted by the storm, and that I should call customer service.

In conversation with them, I was informed that buses had been canceled for the two days leading up to the weather event, and it was uncertain when service would resume afterwards.

I couldn’t have left early if I had wanted to!

I tentatively reset my ticket for the Sunday after the storm, assured that I would still have time to visit with Marjorie in Pennsylvania – the next stop on my itinerary, before heading to New York to catch my flight out.

Going overseas, I understand having to fly. However, if I could, I would book passage on a freighter to get overseas.

Travel plans made, there was nothing left to do but ride out the storm, and it was a doozy.

We hurricane-proofed the house as best we could and then hunkered down.

The power went out at 8PM, Thursday night. All of our batteries were charged and we had already had dinner, so it was all good. I volunteered for first watch – we were going to sleep in shifts, in case things got so bad we had to flee our shelter. That meant that someone had to be awake at all times.

During my shift I wrote an article for my Superprof assignment, finishing it just as my computer’s battery was dying. At 2AM, I woke Jennifer up; it was her turn to watch.

It was a disquieting time, hearing branches hit the roof and the wind howl. Somehow, all but Jenn, we slept.

In the aftermath, it rained for days. Try to stay busy; try to find something to do: rake leaves out of the gutters so that they don’t dam the road up and cause flooding. Pick up and stack large branches out of the yard.

Have a competition: how many roof tiles can we find?

And so, we passed the time until Sunday, when I expected to travel.

With no connection to the outside world, we had no idea that the town was flooded. I had no idea that Greyhound had again canceled the bus, until I called them. They shifted my ticket to a Monday departure, still with no guarantee that there would actually be a bus.

By now, weary of the isolation, the humidity that set in after the massive rains and the demands of a bored 8-year-old, and ever mindful of my imminent departure from the country, I was rabid to leave.

Once again, Greyhound canceled the trip. This time, I asked if they had buses going out of Raleigh; they assured me they did. They would not refund my original ticket so I had to buy another ticket to depart out of the city located 70 miles from where my daughter’s family lives.

I didn’t simply take it upon myself to decide a trip out of Raleigh should happen. It was Jenn, with her unlimited data plan, who scoured the ‘Net to find me a trip.

And it was she who drove me to Raleigh, in defiance of her husband’s superior officer ordering all Marines and family members to stay on base.

We arrived at the bus depot in Raleigh with no problems: no flooding, no sinkholes, no backed up traffic and no devastation along the way.

In retrospect, I daresay that some of those storm damage reports were overdone, and so was the attitude in the aftermath of the storm.

Much to our surprise, the Raleigh station’s doors were sandbagged shut, the lights were off and there was a notice taped to the door: “In light of Florence...”

How could Greyhound sell tickets for buses out of a depot that wasn’t open for business?

I wasn’t the only angry passenger: there were about a dozen people, waving tickets and shouting in their phone.

I lost it. Poor sleep, days of inactivity and frustration, the urgent need to be elsewhere or forfeit my plane ticket out of the country... I broke down.

Jenn took charge, booking me into a hotel overnight and scoring a cheap plane ticket to Harrisburg the next day (she paid for one and I paid for the other; bless her!)

That night’s sleep in the hotel was not much better than in the stuffy, now moldy-smelling house I’d left my family in. Still, I was grateful for the internet connection; rebooking my flight for a week out and arranging for a place to stay once I made it to Poland.

That’s two stressors, knocked out of the way!

Visiting with Marjorie for 5 days, I had opportunity to talk with Greyhound about refunding the price of those two tickets, and here is where any esteem I had for that company evaporated.

First, they wanted me to call back the next day, ostensibly to verify that the bus I was scheduled to ride was, in fact, canceled.

When I refused that illogic – surely they know whether they’ve canceled a bus, don’t they?, the customer service clerk demanded ALL of my credit card information, to include the security code on the back of the card.

I am aware of the purpose of that code: it proves to online entities that I am in possession of that card; I didn’t just lift someone’s information off the face of their credit card for nefarious purposes.

I don’t mind that layer of security when I make online purchases but there is no need for a customer service agent to demand that code in order to process a refund.   

My next attempt to request a refund on both tickets was via email, which Greyhound never responded to.

I printed out the email, but not before I added a judicious summary of my attempts at redress so far. I had intended to mail that letter while still on American soil but did not get the chance.

I wonder if my missive will have more impact, coming from a foreign country? 

I am done riding Greyhound. If I ever return to America to visit, I will have to figure out a way to travel around them.

   

I Have a Room

It contains a double-decker air mattress with a slow leak, meaning that, by morning, I generally have to fight my way out of it – literally out of it, because it engulfs me overnight.

There is a desk, too, for me to sit and write, albeit with no chair in front of it. 

I’ve been writing, I assure you! I’ll tell you more about writing in a minute.

On the walls hang a mismatched collection of art, as though the landlord had no other space for these works yet intended to display them, arranged in any fashion.

Virtually every bit of wall space a meter off the ground is covered: with velvet prints, with oils, lithos and posters.

The window in my garret is framed by gauzy green curtains that are entirely too long and absolutely ineffective at blocking out streetlamp glow. Still, they add a nice touch to these otherwise spartan quarters.

This stateside sojourn was meant to last 9 months, after which I should have departed again.

Obviously, it lasted a bit longer...

At the outset, I did not know if I could endure 9 months in Trump country, where people believe gun ownership is a right but healthcare is a luxury – one that few can afford.

Or whether I would be able to function in a car culture, as a pedestrian/bike rider.

Or whether my grief at leaving my life in China would ever subside!

I have a job.

This position I am privileged to fill keeps me busy: researching, reading, learning, writing, editing, uploading...

With everything else that has happened, in this year of my silence, writing for Superprof has been my one constant: my anchor, my escape and my tether to sanity.

Writing articles for them, I've learned about painting, yoga, physical fitness and the British education system. 

I've learned about language learning, too - a favorite activity of mine! 

And, as I move, so does it: Superprof = portable learning! 

Departure from here is imminent.

It’s been a rough year: all the reasons I left here in the first place, eight years ago, still exist – but seem magnified now.

The political divide, the social stratification, the haves versus the have-nots and the in-your-face of it all.

The self-righteousness and the religious fervor – either extreme which, sometimes, leads to violence.

Next month I will leave, perhaps never to return, save for the occasional visit.

You’re coming with me: are you ready?

The Littlest Wedding Crasher

My ties with Sam's family go long and deep. I've been to his hometown and met his parents. I've been to his sister's house, which she shares with her husband and 18-month old son. His daughter has known me all of her life; it was I who named her 'Erica'. My feelings of hurt and betrayal at Sam's hand notwithstanding, his family and I have forged bonds over the 7 years I've been here. 

I have been proof-reading and editing his brother-in-law's physics papers ever since Peter earned his doctorate, 4 years ago. Never mind the fact that I am only minimally educated and he is a professor; when it comes to English, I excel.

It doesn't hurt that I am a total science geek and read constantly and voraciously of everything I can get my hands on with regard to chemistry, maths and, of course, every physics discipline.

Three of his four papers that I edited have actually been published, and he has been awarded a several-million Yuan grant from the Government to study the effects of viscosity on irregular-shaped particles, with the intent to deliver a solution for injecting nanoparticles into cancerous cells. And I helped!

He has long intended to treat me to a nice meal as a thank you for my efforts. When Sam told me about it 2 years ago, I demurred. I was happy to help, and I would take any chance to get my science on! Still, nothing would do but to enjoy an expensive lunch at a fancy hotel.

Today was the day.

These past 2 weeks have been so hectic! On top of my regular schedule, I have been covering night and weekend classes for David, who is up to his eyeballs in senior thesis defense. Besides that, I won a contract to research and publish articles on becoming a tutor in various cities in the UK.

I'd never been to the UK, so I had to do a lot of research to make the articles sound like I knew everything about Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol and Glasgow, Scotland. No mean feat considering the limits on Internet pages I can access from China, my time constraints and a flaky WIFI connection.

Needless to say, last week was not the best time to suffer an allergy attack, but what does pollen care?

Starting Monday night, I was rudely awakened in the wee hours of the morning, heart pounding and gasping for breath. For the first 3 days of the week, I operated in a fugue of fatigue and lack of oxygen. Wednesday night, I gave up trying to lie down and just dozed, sitting up on the couch.

Thursday, my killer day, nearly did me in. At least I did not have any impromptu visits like I had the week before, but I did run into Tina, who wondered why I am never home in the evening. Apparently she couldn't see any light through my drapes and simply assumed I was out. I'm guessing she would have dropped in had she thought I was home, as is her wont. I am glad she didn't, because...

For the second time ever, I was working under a deadline. I had to get those articles written and formatted according to my client's wishes by a specific time.

Incapable of entertaining a thought beyond conducting classes, putting food in my mouth and trying to sleep, I didn't write a single word all week. That left only Friday, my deadline day, to get everything written and formatted.

No problem with the writing. I finally managed to get some decent sleep Thursday night, after teaching 9 periods (45-minute sessions). Friday morning saw me up at 7AM and at the keyboard shortly after.

I was banking on the fact that my client lives in France, meaning I would have an extra 6 hours to work, thanks to the time difference.

Unfortunately, he was online and messaging me at 2PM, my time, wondering where we stood on publishing. I had the articles done, but could not access the publishing platform! Could it have been because of the WannaCry worm attack?

Fortunately, he was very understanding and gave me an extra day.

That would have been great, except for the fact that I had to be in class nearly all day Saturday. And my computer was acting decidedly strange; it wouldn't load any pages. When the client's page finally did load, it refused my logon. After much cajoling and a few well-chosen curses, the Internet cooperated and...

Long and short: the work was completed on Saturday evening!

I was looking forward to enjoying a quiet Sunday, taking care of mundane tasks like laundry and house cleaning that I had been neglecting for the past 2 weeks. But first, maybe a small round of my favorite game app on my phone...

Oh, wait! A text message from Sam: his brother wants to treat us to lunch on Sunday. I was sorely tempted to beg off but, in the end, I agreed to go. And so it came to be that Penny, Erica and Sam turned up on my doorstep a full thirty minutes before they were expected.

It's all good. We've been friends long enough that they could see me put on my makeup. They sipped coffee while I primped and little Erica, ever my buddy, played with my deck of Uno cards. And then, we loaded up.

Not only was the lunch rush was in full swing, but the restaurant we were to eat at was hosting a wedding! Only flimsy pink panels segregated the wedding revelers from us ordinary diners. 

Erica payed little mind to the surroundings, still absorbed with the Uno cards (and me), until the MC intoned via loudspeaker on the other side of the partition. And then, the room was so loud we could do nothing but eat: talking was out of the question. 

My little darling nibbled a glutinous rice cake, gnawed on a braised rib and scooped a few potatoes out of the duck stew. And then, she was up and at'em! Parting the pink curtains directly behind us, she gaped in awe at the lavish event before her until a hostess chided her and pulled her back, decisively closing the curtain with her other hand. Undeterred, Erica waited until the Gardian of Pink Gauze disappeared and then she was back, taking in the whole scene, even snagging a decorative balloon.

                                                        The waitress, pulling her back.

She has to be the littlest wedding crasher ever!

Now that I was not so focused on matching green, red, yellow and blue cards, I could participate in the luncheon and, to an extent, the conversation.

Sam's dad has lost a lot of weight, and he looks much older than when I first met him. When talking  with him I couldn't help notice his breath had the unmistakable odor of ketosis. I wonder how his health really is.

Peter and June, the physicist and his wife, had brought their baby son. It was the first time I'd seen him in the flesh. You might think it strange that I didn't ask or want to hold him. The reason is simple: I can't fall in love with another child only to leave him behind in 6 weeks.

As it was, my eyes were stinging with repressed tears. How dear these people are to me! How ordinary, how casual to meet for a meal in a fine restaurant! How crushing the knowledge that, in less than 2 months, we will most likely never sit around a table together again.

Erica, her burst of food-induced energy spent, crawled up in my lap and we cuddled while she colored pictures on my phone. The tender weight of her, the sublime peace of this beautiful, trusting child. The joy of knowing she draws comfort from me just as much as I cherish these infrequent moments of closeness.

I can't bear it. It's easier to think of her as the world's littlest wedding crasher.     

                                                         The fate of the purloined ball

A Handwritten Note

One reason Thursdays are so terrible is that, smack in the middle of the day, just before lunch, I have the worst class I've ever had, including a group of ill-mannered future Chinese teachers of a couple of  years ago, who demanded I teach them something useful. In the end they turned out all right and grateful for my efforts.

Not that undying gratitude is my goal. I would rather see kids change from spoiled brats to thoughtful, conscientious young adults. That group I had before, they've done that. This group, I have my doubts.

There are a few good apples. Gayle, the best of the class, who I believe takes pity on me because hardly anyone participates. Loen, with her heart of gold, who wrote poetry when all the assignment called for was a bit of introspection. Serena, who, no matter how encouraging I am, bears the weight of every Chinese female before her: “You'll never be good enough; you're just a girl!”. Even though she is whip-smart, she shies away from participating in class, choosing intead to mouthe answers to questions I might pose.

And I know she mouthes them because I make it a point to watch her.

Mention, an angry and militant girl at the outset of her university experience, has mellowed into a seemingly ordinary freshman - who secretly reaches out to me. Over winter break she had taken a part-time job in a restaurant. Just before Lunar New Year, she slipped in the kitchen and shattered her right elbow. Naturally she had her parents nearby but, when she could, she was texting with me, keeping me up to date on her many surgeries and her hospital stay.

You should note that the Chinese are not big on pain killers. I can't imagine what this poor child had to endure as they manipulated her arm thrice daily, under the guise of therapy. One of the videos she sent me was of her howling in pain as the doctor repeatedly stretched and retracted her arm. Torture aside, as soon as she was able to grasp a pencil in her left hand and train it to write, she was practicing English, doing lessons that nobody demanded she complete. 

It is for students like her that I became a teacher.

Not for students like Victoria, Deana, Zoe and Major, who spend all of class time sitting in the back of the room, playing games on their phones. So little do they participate in class that I've taken to giving them a zero for that day's grade.

But the ones that really grab my goat and skin it are Gloria, Andi, Queena and Daisy. Gloria in particular.

They saunter into class late, even though they have twenty-five minutes to get there from their previous session. They also 'play' on their phone, usually sending messages on QQ and WeChat, and discussing whatever messages they get amongst each other. Not quietly.

Gloria likes to ridicule. The first time was when we were talking about money: I was illustrating the differences between Chinese currency and American. Apparently, she thought I was mispronouncing a particular denomination, even though its name is written on the bill and I can read (at least that much) Chinese.

The second time is when I was assigning their mid-term exam. I informed the class they could use any means possible to improve their presentation, including PPT (Powerpoint software). “What's PPT?” she asked.

“Do you know PPT?” I asked, pointing to the presentation currently on display through overhead projection.

She turned to Gayle, whom she happened to be sitting next to. Gayle explained, again using the term 'PPT'.

“OH! PPT! Why can't she just talk clearly?” Gloria sneered in Chinese, perhaps unaware, but most  likely simply not caring that I understood her.

I've been bullied before, and I remember distinctly how it feels. I'll be darned if I will let some teenager bully me in front of a classroom full of her peers, whether most of them focus on their phones or not. I vowed to draw my boundaries at the very next opportunity.

I don't think there will be a next opportunity.

Out of sheer frustration of trying to get this class to talk, I've taken to bringing paper to class and having them write down their thoughts. If there is time before the bell rings, they can read what they wrote out loud, but I planned to collect, correct and comment on their efforts, giving them their work back the next week.

ASSIGNMENT: Is it harder to be a boy or a girl in China?

It was meant for them to reflect on various social inequities and ponder a solution to same. A lot of their ideas were mundane – the girls have already been made scared of the pain of childbirth, for example. My lone boy, Durant, stated it was much harder to be a boy because boys are expected to be stoic and pay for everything.

The standout assertion was Gloria's: being a girl is harder. “You have a hard life until you grow old and ugly and nobody loves you, and you can only wait to die.”    

I know bullies get their meanness from somewhere. Until then, in her case, I thought it was simply that she was 'a little princess', the uniquely Chinese phenomenon where there are too many grandparents with too few grandchildren to spoil. Such children generally end up uncaring of others and totally self-absorbed.

I was forced to reconsider my rudest, meanest student. Clearly she has suffered, most likely a great deal, at the hands of some older woman. So much so that she hates older women in general.

Now I understand her attitude toward me.

What is this child facing? Her attitude will bring about a self-fulfilling prophecy: she will be continuously rejected, thus proving she is only worth the abuse she apparently grew up with. How much rage, masked in scorn, does she harbor? And, heavens forbid!, what will happen to her if it all lets loose? Even worse: what will happen to her if she continues to internalize it? 

For every other student, I wrote encouraging messages along the lines of: “Childbirth doesn't hurt that much thanks to modern medicine...”. Mention got a special message: “You are a strong, good person...” On Gloria's paper, I wrote only: “Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Gloria. I understand you much better now.”  

The very next week, much to my surprise, Gloria and her gang walked into class a few minutes before the bell rang and they all took their seats in the very front row. They stowed their phones and paid attention even though I was not firing on all cylinders (see previous post).

I put it down to the power of a handwritten note: those few words built a bridge between me and a girl who is doing her best to not seem troubled and hurt, but whose pain and rage exploded off the page she expressed it on.

We're not going to cuddle and cry together, but perhaps now she doesn't feel so all alone, even as she surrounds herself with as much noise and as many people as she can. This broken girl needed to know someone understands her, and now she has written testimony of it. And who knows? Maybe, after I am a safe distance from her, she might feel comfortable enough to chat with me via text message and open up even more.

I misstated earlier that students like Mention are the reason I became a teacher. Her ilk make the separation from my loved ones bearable and bring joy to my class, and that is indeed great.

The real reason I became a teacher is for the Gloria's who have sat in my classes over the years. Helping kids like her, even with such a little thing as a few words on a scrap of paper, making a difference to a kid begging to be validated.

To me, that's what being a mentor is all about.   

We Are at War!

This is not a reference to anything political, in spite of growing global turmoil and tensions. It has to do with a plague I suffered my first year here, when rats availed themselves to my living space (See The Rat Party entry, posted September, 2011).

The first year I lived at this school, my accommodations were dank and dark and moist and fetid, on the ground floor of a girl's dorm building in the original part of the school. After returning from a stateside visit, I came home to find telltale signs of rodents: streaks left by long tails in the dust coating my countertops. Droppings everywhere. Eerie squeals and squeaks at night. And once, horribly, a rat the size of a chihuahua, crawling on my leg as I slept.

The school's leaders did everything to ensure my comfort and safety, going so far as to pay for my hotel for the three days needed for an exterminator they hired to rid my home of rodents. Shortly after, as promised, I was moved into the under-construction housing area where, for a year, I was the only tenant. Since then, I've had swarms of mosquitoes, a colony of ants and a few roaches, but they didn't stay and they didn't necessarily bother me.

A few weeks ago, I heard restless, frantic tearing, coming from the dining room. From having lived in squalor in my younger years and from my experience in the Concrete Bunker – as I'd dubbed my first apartment on this campus, I knew what was going on: rats! Rats were attacking my store of flour!

I keep my flour in the dining room, with all of my other baking stuff, next to the oven and bread machine. My kitchen is too small to fit all of my western conveniences in and I have very little cabinet space. It just makes sense to keep the baking goods near the instruments that do the baking, don't you think?

Because I'd not suffered any type of pest invasion in this house, at least not on any significant or recurring scale, I'd seen no need to 'protect' my goods. Now I needed a change of plan.

And I needed to figure out where the rats were coming from. It seems unlikely that, after six years of my living here, they suddenly decided, en masse, to invade my home. Even more bizzare: while my former home in the girls' dorm was truly ground level, this apartment is several feet off the ground, ostensibly to discourage pests from trekking the four feet or so up into ground floor apartments.

However, with scavenging neighbors continuously attempting to turn my balcony and any area under my apartment windows into a recyclables storage facility (see Fighting with the Neighbors entry, posted February of this year), it stands to reason that some crafty rodent might have wanted shelter from the cold of winter just past, and could have made its nest inside someone's cardboard haul. From that bundle, it would be but an easy leap onto my residence platforms – the balcony or the ledge under my kitchen window. From there, any inlet would do: the hole drilled through concrete to feed the gas line into the house, for example.

Or, they could be coming up through the pipes. We've had flooding rains recently and my kitchen sink doesn't drain well while the campus is under water. However, I saw no evidence of any rodent activity or occupation under the sink. Still, as a precaution, I stuffed steel wool around the gas line and took to keeping the kitchen door closed at night. It is a sliding glass door, which removes the possibility of rats squeezing under. And, in fact, the rats were quite angry about the closed door. Furious scratching and squealing ensued.    

And then, nothing.

I thought I had my rat problem whipped until I did laundry. Because the washing machine draws its supply from the kitchen tap and that connection is not watertight, I drape a towel over the fixture; otherwise, water would shoot out all over the sink and backboard. That towel hangs on the kitchen window bars when not in use.

So, on this fine day of laundry washing, I placed the towel over the tap and noticed that my window screen had a rat-sized hole gnawed into it. Said hole was formerly concealed by the hanging towel. Clever rats! Gnawing a hole where I couldn't immediately see it...

Knee-jerk reaction: retract the screens and close the windows.

Brilliant move, I realize in retrospect. Now the rats are trapped inside my house. I should have just let that screen alone because, the next night, more commotion from the dining room. This time, sounds of claws on fabric. The rats were crawling up the inside of my closed drapes!

True enough, the next morning I found another screen ruined by another rat-sized hole.

Being fundamentally averse to killing anything, even a rodent or other pest, I despaired over how to drive these rats out, combing the internet for a humane solution to my problem.

Gary came over on Saturday. We were going to celebrate our mutual friend Shane's birthday but, before leaving, he and I were going to have breakfast together. As I was cooking, I could hear rats scampering in the dropped ceiling.

In the ceiling?

Let's think about it. These building are concrete shells. Unless I am sorely mistaken, even rats do not have teeth strong enough to chew their way through concrete. Unlike wood-framed houses, an infestation inside the walls of a concrete building is not likely. The only way I could reason rats in my ceiling is that they came from some apartment upstairs, via the vent hood chimney: there is only a plastic hose, similar to a dryer vent hose, connecting the vent hood to the concrete chimney. 

And then, rat logic kicked in.

Neighborhood scavengers living in this stairwell, who occasionally carry their booty upstairs, must have inadvertently introduced rats to our building. And, I suppose, with winter temperatures being so unkind, the rats must have been very happy to live indoors and feed on whatever was left laying around in the apartments above mine. But now, with spring dawning, they must want to return to the great outdoors, where food supplies are no doubt greater. In order to do that, they must find a way down, and then out. My apartment being on the first floor, it is here that they make their gamble for freedom. Finding nothing edible to induce them to take up my residence as theirs, my home was no more than a pit stop for them. With nothing but a plastic mesh screen between them and fresh air, they were but a few moments' gnaw away from restrictive human dwellings.

Telling are the bits of screen mesh, left on the dining room windowsill, indicating that the screen was gnawed from the inside. Equally revealing is the fact that last night, after clearing up some clutter in the dining room and the floor behind the dryer (which is also in the dining room), I heard no rat activity.    

Little did I know, at the outset of this rat adventure that I needed to do no more than to store my flour in a plastic container, thus making the only food source I had that rats were interested in unavailable. Once they found nothing they liked to eat, they were decamping on their own: a win all around!

The downside was that, because of the rats, the brownies I baked for Shane's birthday party collapsed. Unwilling to leave them on the table to cool overnight, I put them in the fridge immediately out of the oven. The next morning, I found the brownies had sunk in the center, resembling a shallow, chocolate volcano. I deemed them too ugly to serve to my friends.

Now I have a whole pan of brownies to eat and no rats to help. Not exactly paradise, but not too bad a deal!   

A New Record?

Thursdays – how I've come to hate them!

This semester, that day is my busiest, with 3 classes, back to back (including a 2-hour lunch break between the second and third set). In spite of having requested no early classes because of my anticipated late night tutoring sessions online - what I had hoped would be my nest egg to fund the next step in my vagabond adventure, with the possibility of it turning into my sole means of support - I have early classes every single morning.

Come Thursdays, I am already through the ringer, what with having to get up early all week, something that is definitely not suited to my circadean clock.

And now, there are night and weekend classes! I knew to expect them sometime this semester because we had a meeting to kick off the Double Majors program our school has embraced just this year. Until now, David, one of the better teachers here, has spearheaded the extracurricular classes but he is now overwhelmed: his regular course load plus assisting graduating students with their theses.

The first night class, last week Tuesday, wasn't so bad, even though I wrapped my last regularly scheduled class of that day at 5:15 PM and had to be back to teach at 6:30, until 9PM. Getting up Wednesday morning for 2 back-to-back classes was a struggle, but all in all, it was not a bad experience.

And then, the night classes suddenly and mysteriously changed to Thursdays. And the afternoon class schedule changed too: sessions now start at 2PM instead of 1:45.

And I had promised to help tutor a former student with a speech she was to give in a few days' time.

Thursday:

Up at 6:20AM for some quiet time before the day's madness starts. Breakfast, a peanut butter sandwich, is included. And coffee. A BIG mug of coffee.

8:10AM – first class.

10:10AM – second class.

11:50AM – break for lunch. And I was hungry!

12:10PM – no gas to cook with! In spite of changing the meter's batteries, I couldn't get any flow. I resorted to heating a bratwurst in the microwave and ladling out a portion of potato salad that I had prepared last weekend in anticipation of this most hectic week.

12:30PM – just as I am preparing my plate, the phone rings. Long-graduated student and dear adopted daughter Vanessa was paying a surprise visit with her boyfriend! The call was not to notify me of a later visit; she and he were outside my door right now!

I wonder if the Chinese will ever learn that surprise visits are really rather rude?

We had a great visit, sadly cut short by my need to be back to teaching and by their need to catch their train back to Hangzhou. The downside is that I had no time for food. I offered my guests to share my lunch but they declined, and it would have been rude to eat in front of them.    

3:35PM – end of last class. The 7AM peanut butter sandwich long digested, I was dizzy and shaking from hunger. I jumped on my bike and steered towards home only to be accosted by Martina, the student I'd pledged to help that afternoon (before I knew the night class had been moved to Thursday).

I mumbled an excuse about not having had any lunch and rode home to wolf down a few bites of potato salad. The bratwurst was wasted: dried out and hard.

4:00PM – back at Teaching Building 3, room 106 to coach Martina with her speech.

5:00PM – wrapped up tutoring; rushed home for dinner. Fortunately there was gas to cook with. Grilled a couple of Brats and had more potato salad.

6:30PM – back in Teaching Building 3, this time on the 4^th floor, for my night class. (Why all of the night classes seem to be held on the 4^th floor is also a mystery but at least I am getting some after-dinner exercise by climbing all of those stairs.)

No one had told me where this group was, study-wise. The last night class I taught, the students were on unit 5 of the book I was provided; this group was on unit 4. I was completely unprepared. Still, we muddled through, even though I was visibly lagging during the last hour.

9:00PM – finally back home! Finally can take off my boots, change out of my jeans and remove supportive undergarments – although, after being in them for more than 14 hours straight, I can honestly tell you that they weren't all that supportive at that point; more like chafing.

Is fourteen hours in class a teaching record, or do I just feel like it should be?

Even when I was earning $1K a week, I didn't work this hard, in part because there are labor laws in other countries that prohibit working more than ten hours a day (with some exceptions, of course).

I find it ironic that, the first years I was here I begged the school to make more use of me. Now that I am fed up with being here, with my eye on what's next (What's Next is a good question...), I am now being made such hefty use of that I have no time to eat and I drag myself to bed at night.

I guess what Jonathan (Vanessa's boyfriend) said is true: the more adept you are, the more work you get saddled with. At the end of his tenure at the language training school he worked/met Vanessa at, he had been promoted to Teacher Supervisor and was putting in 14 and 16 hour days that included recruiting students and new teachers, as well as teaching as regular course load and covering for absent teachers. He finally quit, after being run completely into the ground.

That rule seems to be true everywhere. I too have witnessed better workers getting more assignments, simply because indolent workers can't be counted on. Which makes me wonder once again: what will this school do when they have no foreign teacher to overburden?