DisOrientated - A Weblog by Philip Sen - Christmas Thoughts for Those I Know

December 20, 2004

Christmas Thoughts for Those I Know

Forgive the pretension and the neo-plagiarism, but this excerpt from a recent article in Time magazine says it all for me:

'The foreign observer is likely to be happy only if he sees his foreignness as an adventure, and recognizes that he has given up a sense of belonging for a sense of freedom, traded the luxury of being understood for that of being permanently interested.'

That pretty much sums the Asian expat experience. It's nearly 18 months now since I stepped on British soil but, aside from the beer and quality TV, there’s not all that much I miss.

Another reason for not writing is that in some ways there is no longer anything to say. I’ve been here long enough for many things that were once a major hassle to become routine, for incidents that once seemed outrageously funny or fantastic to be borne with a mere shrug (or expletive). Though I can safely say I have never busted my guts to learn Chinese I speak enough now to get by, which again detracts from the newness and exoticness of the place. And with three semesters of experience in my job behind me, few things young Chinese students get up to surprise me any more. Though there's still time yet.

This is not to say that life has become boring: it has not. There are of course some things I can never get used to: the pushing and shoving in queues; the rudeness and often corrupt behaviour of petty officialdom; the almost complete absence of beauty in the polluted, noisy and overcrowded urban environment. But this notwithstanding, I feel that I have taken some small steps in gaining an understanding of what to us will always be an almost alien culture - but one that in the near future those in the West will increasingly have to deal with.

Unfortunately, problems with my fifty-dollar scanner and computer gremlins have interfered with updating the photography part of the site, but hopefully I’ll be able to address that sooner or later.

July saw a couple of brief trips: first a week in Hainan, the large island dripping off the south coast of China that passes for an Oriental Costa del Sol and hosts the Miss World competitions. Lay on a beach, read a book. No further information necessary. Feeling somewhat guilty about not doing much serious travelling, I did also venture to Kaifeng, an ancient walled capital, for a couple of days and was punished by a dearth of sightseeing material and unavailability of return sleeper tickets – another 12 hours overnight sitting in third class with the great unwashed. Of whom there are very, very many.

August – a sprint around of China's major highlights with a British tour group during a maternal visit. All the usual: Hong Kong (an urban 'unChina' with a few unexplored crevices of history and nature); Guilin and Yangshuo (heavily touristed but the stuff of picture postcards, tall and jagged lumps of rock poking out of the rice paddies); Xian (Terracotta Warriors, anticlimactic to the extreme); Beijing (Great Wall of China, yadda yadda yadda).

Apart from a trip to what had to be the world's worst air show at Zhuhai near Macao in November, that’s pretty much it. I have all these big ideas of places I should go, but perhaps I’m too settled now to get myself in gear. I’m lazy and overweight. I have a girlfriend and even a cat. Perhaps I'm coming of age. I'm nearly 30 or something.

The cat, who was found abandoned and starving by acquaintances back in September was originally named Zapata but is now just 'Pisi' (Romanian for 'cat' is 'pisicuta'). I wouldn’t wish this name on him back in the UK, but it’s stuck. A ginger tom by nature he isn’t the best of house pets, perpetually play-fighting, biting and scratching but he’s calming down with age. It’s sad sometimes to acknowledge how much we spend on toys and food for the cat gets while the majority of people in China get by on under 200 dollars a year. If nothing else it’s nation of deep and painful contrasts.

Still doing the occasional bit of writing, sometimes for local English-language magazines, which is useful pocket money and exposure. Quite a portfolio building up now. And by the end of the year I hope to have finished the first draft of my book, something I've always wanted to do but until now have never had the time or inclination to get round to. There’s still many months of painful revision and rewriting to go, but if anyone knows any literary agents that might be interested in a historical novel about the events preceding World War One please let me know (even if you’ve bumped into a literary agent once while shopping at Tesco's, let me know.)

The semester is now drawing to a close: exam time beckons and then it's six weeks off for Chinese New Year. I’m writing this fresh from a bizarre experience called the 'Culture Anglar Soul' awards. Basically a popularity contest run by the students for the foreign teachers, a nice gesture but last year they flew us to the seaside in Xiamen which I would rather take any day. Don’t ask what an 'Anglar' is, some kind of misinterpretation of the concept of angels we think. So in return for a little trophy (and a bonus wad of notes stuffed in an envelope) I fulfilled my duty as a foreign teacher and performed a karaoke version of ABBA's 'Money Money Money'.

The irony was of course lost, but that’s life in Shanghai: a mixture of the weird, the wonderful and the wearing but always the interesting.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and best wishes to all.

Phil

Posted by Sendover at December 20, 2004 08:26 PM | TrackBack

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