haonowshaokao

A couple of weeks back I was walking from my house to the internet café when I saw an Australian girl I vaguely know heading toward me. As she got within a few yards she waved and said “Hi. How are you?” It was clear that she wanted a conversation. I said “Hi. Not Bad. Sorry, got to be somewhere,” and began walking again, a little faster than before. That I was lying must have been obvious. As I turned I could see from the dismissive scowl on her face that she thinks I’m a complete arsehole.
It’s a minor incident and not a particularly important one, but it did start me thinking, over the last couple of weeks, about the way I interact with other people, and I can’t help but reach the conclusion that she’s probably got a point.
Ever since I can remember I’ve found the experience of talking to vague acquaintances in the street acutely unpleasant. Strangers I can deal with fine, friends are usually no problem either, but people I barely know? What am I supposed to say to them? After 27½ years on this planet I still don’t have a clue. If I was sitting down in a more relaxed social situation there wouldn’t be a problem. The street, on the other hand, is an alien environment. Ignoring everyone I pass seems like the only option in a crowded city, if I’m in anything but a very good mood. I suppose I could put on an insincere little crocodile smile but then I would’ve become everything I hate. Suddenly having to re-calibrate into a social frame of mind is just a bit too much for me sometimes.
I don’t know what exactly to call this kind of behaviour. Ten years ago it was shyness, but it would be disingenuous to call it that now. I’m not afraid of people or what they think of me, I just don’t really care and really don’t want to talk to them sometimes. Does this make me an arsehole? Quite possibly. I’ve spent a lot of time ignoring people in Europe and getting away with it but here it’s different. It just isn’t feasible to ignore white people when coming across them is such a rare occurrence.
So does this make me an arsehole? Possibly it does. I don’t think it’s good to be rude to other people for no reason, but there really doesn’t seem to be another option available. There’s really no need for me to feel either ashamed or proud of myself. I’m just not an outgoing person and I don’t care any more.

Today marks the end of my year-long contract with the school, though technically speaking I’ve only been here for about eleven months and three weeks. Let’s call it time off for good behaviour.
The last few weeks have been pretty relaxed and even perhaps fun. For a short while it looked like I would be teaching something called “winter camp” which involved getting up at 7am every weekday morning to teach a class of 20 middle school kids who had been forced to give up their school holiday by their parents. That was fortunately canceled, though the money would’ve been nice.
There was a end-of-the-Chinese-year party last week, held in the function room of a fancy hotel. Every member of staff was there, except the TAs who don’t seem to count. After speeches, awards and dinner there were performances from all the different departments and branches. I joined the rest of my Chinese class on stage to read and sing some poetry, in Chinese. After the organised party was over we went out for drinks and snooker.
Recently I’ve been over John & Macro’s house quite a lot. Last friday I brought round civilization 4 and we started a game. Nearly a week later and the end is still not in sight. It’s as addictive as crack, and probably even worse for my health. A couple of days ago it looked like I was going to win, but a concerted effort by John & Macro to kill off my country has put paid to that. They have to move out at the weekend, so it must end soon whether it’s finished or not.
Off to get a new visa now. Two hours of waiting on a plastic chair. Should be utterly tedious.

There was an earthquake in Taiwan on Tuesday, which severed undersea fiber-optic cables, cutting China off from the internet. Only East-Asian web pages were available, not a huge problem if you can read Chinese, but a major annoyance for anyone trying to access, for example, Livejournal. It wasn’t until last night that I could so much as get into my e-mail account to read the usual selection of share tips and requests for my passport from Nigeria. Fortunately access seems to have trickled back to the level where I can post this, though delays are to be expected for a couple of months, apparently – co-incidentally the same couple of months I’ll be staying here.
In the meantime here is my review of the year. I’ve been cut off from British popular culture to a greater extent than ever this year, so it’s a more personal selection.

Best things of 2006

10. Being away from British media culture – something I don’t miss at all. There may be celebrity magazines and reality TV here but as they are in Chinese I can ignore them easily and go have fun instead of being sucked into the vortex.
9. Adult classes – Teaching adults English may well be the first job I’ve ever really enjoyed. Hopefully next year this is all I’ll do.
8. Hong Kong & Macau – Every time I feel like a holiday I can just cross the border or take the boat, and go to these two very different places. Macau, especially, is like nowhere else on earth.
7. Writing the foodtube blog – My only real creative outlet for the year, and one that has had a lot more interest than I’d expected.
6. Chinese food in general – Nothing like the stodge we get in European “Chinese restaurants”, more like a whole continent of flavours, mostly delicious and inexpensive. Most eaten; Steamed dumplings with peanut sauce, Dan-dan noodles, Yangjaou fried rice, Red-fried aubergine
5. Pulp and Jarvis releases – this has been a great year for Pulp obsessives like mesself – three albums re-released with a host of new tracks, a double CD of Peel sessions, and best of all the solo album from Jarvis, which was a genuine pleasant surprise.
4. Mandy – we may have had our differences from time to time but she’s still one of the happiest, funniest, most fun-to-be-with people I’ve met, and I wasn’t bored with her for a second.
3. June & July – perhaps the best month of the year, living with John, Brent & Macro in a fantastic apartment, going out and watching the world cup, followed by a month of beach parties at what was the best bar in the city.
2. Going to Manila – a real eye-opener and the furthest out of my safe-zone I’ve ever been. It was the biggest adventure of the year by far.
1. Moving to China – it was a gamble, but it really paid off. There may be some things I don’t like from time-to-time but my lifestyle here really can’t be matched anywhere else. Every now and again I stop and marvel at how lucky I am to be able to live and work here.

Worst things of 2006

10. Liverpool Fc – this was supposed to be the year they bucked their ideas up. It wasn’t.
9. Badly behaved kids – though controlling them has got easier and easier I still don’t like having to shout and cajole. Fortunately there are only another two weeks of classes and then I won’t have to any more.
8. Arthur Lee, Syd Barrett and Ivor Cutler dying – three of my favorite people in one year was a bit much
7. Being away from my family – something I’m fairly used to by this point. I’ll see them all next year.
6. World events – a fair amount of bad things have gone on in the world this year. On the plus side Bush looks like a lame duck now.
5. Sands Bar changing management – for four or five months we had a the perfect beach-bar to go to, now it’s just another shitty overpriced disco-pub. It’s a bit too cold to go there in the winter anyway.
4. Expat twats – take an already fairly obnoxious person, put him in a country where the exchange rate makes him rich and the colour of his skin makes him a novelty, and watch him become a monster. There are too many people like this in China, and they give us all a bad name.
3. Accomodation problems – I’ve lived in five different flats this year, four of them in the first six months alone. The landlady in the third place (Miss Lay) selling it right from under our feet was probably the low point.
2. Working all day weekends – I really just wasn’t built to get up at 7 on Saturday and Sunday mornings and then spend all day working. It’s led to me not getting enough sleep and being unable to socialize with anyone I meet as invariably their free time is my work. Next year this will change, though.
1. Health problems – move halfway around them world and you are bound to find strains of every communicable disease that your body just isn’t used to. I’ve never been the healthiest of people at the best of times, and so it seemed that I was constantly ill for the first few months here. The cherry on the cake was being diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome in February. I’m feeling pretty good now, though. Must be all the fruit.

I’ve seen a lot of films this year, but most of them were old. Of the new ones the best were United 93, A Scanner Darkly, Borat and Capote. Easily the worst were World Trade Centre (immensely boring) and Material Girls (where to start?).

On the whole, then, a very good year. Let’s hope 2007 is even better.

Everyone knows there is no Christmas in China, but walking around my neighbourhood would give everyone and anyone a completely different impression. Here, for example, is a street just round the corner:

This isn’t some freak anomaly either. The city is currently more heavily decorated than, for example, England – or at least the parts of it I’ve lived in. I was hoping for an escape from Christmas music this year, but this too seems to have been imported wholesale, and is even more chirpy and cloying.
Behind the facade, though, is a great big nothing. No Chinese person I’ve spoken to is doing anything special today, not even the couple of Christian Chinese I know. It isn’t even a day off, just a normal Monday. I’ve just taught an adult class this afternoon and other teachers have to work all evening.
Last night I joined all the other “ghost people” (foreigners) for a fairly decent party. We all brought a present and played “Yankee Swap”. I ended up with some chocolate, which is fair enough as non edible presents are not suitable for transit across Siberia. After that the Americans and Australians “shared Christmas stories” and the Englishers kept quiet and puzzled. It was a lot of fun. Tried proper made-from-a-packet eggnog too. It was fairly nice but a bit lumpy. I’d always imagined it was the same as advocaat, but it wasn’t at all.
After I post this I’m going to skype the parents, then go off for proper Christmas eating and drinking with the other ghosts.