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[love-the-bug-blog]

An Expats Exit Strategy

China 1 - Tourism 0

The following words are an opinion only. It’s meant to enlighten, educate and please anybody who decides to read it. Enjoy…with Empathy.

June 2016

We decided to move from Hanoi, Vietnam to Beijing, China.

First mistake….

August 2016

We left Hanoi to fly to Beijing.

Second mistake….

The best place to begin is at the beginning.

Boarding the plane with a promise of riches, glutenous food and a life of leisure punctuated only by bursts of culture and short periods of teaching English in a popular language centre seemed like an idea sent from the heavens. The phrase “If it seems to good to be true then it probably is” springs to mind.

And, in a nutshell, it was.

We should have known from the second we got on the plane that things were not as they seem. The surprisingly long flight from Hanoi to Beijing started in a regular fashion. Joyous excitement and mild IBS mixed with a dodgy airplane meal and trying to figure out what the lady at the check in counter was gesticulating at when she spoke to us in Chinese for several minutes despite our protests. Being Irish, and naturally positive we nodded with vacant smiles on our faces and decided she was probably just explaining the usual tripe that gets explained at check in desks. Don’t bring liquids through security, your bags are marginally overweight, the country you’re traveling to will suck the soul out of your body etc etc.

Despite us booking our flights directly to Beijing we were forced to land in Guangzhao where we were forced to exit the plane (with all our baggage) and go through customs. At this point it might serve us well to mention that we had a very short layover, somewhere in the region of two hours. Which, in any other country in the world would be plenty to get through customs and make it to the boarding gate with some time for a bathroom visit for the IBS to rear its ugly head. No pun intended.

Customs was/is/will always be a joke. There must have been 300 people lined up like cattle at a mart waiting to get to the customs booths. Only a few of the booths were open and housing some of the meanest looking agents you could possibly hope to come across. Long story short…we missed our flight.

We approached the desk and pleaded our case. We met a young gentleman, lets call him “Bruce”. “Bruce” was of usual Chinese build. 5’ 4” and about 55kg with absolutely no muscle tone on him at all and in dire need of a ham sandwich.

We explained to him that we had missed our flight because of a delay in customs and we wanted to find out the quickest possible way to rebook our flights.

“Bruce” stared back with a blank stare…

This was to become a stare we were forced to grow quite accustomed to over the preceding 12 months .

“Bruce” and his bowl haircut tapped furiously on his keyboard and shouted loudly at his colleagues sitting beside him for what felt like an eternity. He guided us to a steel bench and asked us to wait. Or at least we think he did.

Sitting on the bench thoughts drifted to the collection agent who was supposed to pick us up in Beijing international airport at 10.00pm that night. We took out our phones and found that they didn't work in china. No shock here. One was an Irish phone and the second a Vietnams phone so why would they work?

But Wifi….wifi works everywhere. And especially in an airport. An airport..where people wait for hours for their flight, where access to the internet is quite important and sometimes, a vital necessity.

No joy. No wifi in the airport. No hope of getting a message to the agent who was supposed to pick us up.

IBS decides to say hello again…FML.

“Bruce” has seemingly forgotten about us. He seems to be smiling a lot considering he’s very close to being pulled across the counter.

We sit patiently until I approach him, under strict instructions from my partner NOT to assault him. Which i thought was a bit much.

He saw me coming and quickly resumed furiously tapping on his computer. The cheeky bowl topped fucker!

I stood menacingly over him and asked through gritted teeth what our plan was.

He didn’t blink, he printed off two tickets and handed them to me.

The dick!

We probably would have sat there for another few hours before he would have thought to approach us and hand us the tickets.

He got off with a light verbal warning and we headed to our gate of choice. Hereby known as Hells Gate.

We landed in Beijing nearly three hours late. We frantically debarked the plane and frantically searched for our luggage and then we frantically made our way through the arrivals gate hoping against all hope that somehow the collection agent had pieced together that we experienced difficulty on our journey.

Nope. Not in China.

We were on our own. In a strange country. No phones. No wifi. No internet points.

But hey, this is china. The most populated country in the world. Where 1.6 billion people live and work and travel. An information point will surely be able to help us sort out the predicament we have found ourselves in.

Nope. Not in China.

Not a word of English. This waste become a regular thing throughout the year.

But we’ll get to that.

So there we are, stuck in the Airport, exhausted and genuinely confused. We had no way to contacting anyone. No one knew where we were. What had happened to us? Did they care? Apparently not.

We wandered around for what seemed like hours, up and down escalators, looking for some sign of familiarity that might be our saving grace.

Nope. Not in China.

Eventually we found a nice lady who agreed the let us hotspot onto her wifi and send an email. We did.

And got a response saying the collection agent had left and headed back to the city.

After a long and arduous day traveling we had eventually sorted out our issues and things were starting to look up.

Nope. Not in China.

Our collection agent spoke broken English and was about as pleasant as a sexual education class from your granny. He greeted us coldly and grabbed Emily's bag and walked off through the sliding doors and off towards his parked car where we had the pleasure of meeting a loud, brash American girl who despite being only 22 had 6 years teaching experience under her belt.

After maybe an hour of driving we pulled up outside a dive of a hotel and he gruffly told us to get our as he grabbed Emily's rucksack from the boot and walked crankily towards the reception area.

At last. A hotel with a reception. Someone will speak English here.

Nope. Not in China.

After much moving of hands and sweating of brows and slight grumbles suggesting the IBS was not yet finished we produced our passports and were pointed to an elevator where we made our way to a room with two single beds and a prostitutes business card slid under the door. Classy shit.

A quick shower and a good nights sleep and a full day tomorrow with nothing to do but explore this city looked promising. As our heads hit the pillow we gratefully accepted the sleep that quickly descended upon us as the promises that were made to us overshadowed the disaster of the last 24 hours.

Surely things would get better.

Nope. Not in China.

Now we have the start of this little rambling out of the way we can get down to the nitty gritty of recanting some funny stories and situations have found ourselves in over the past year. They are all as true as can be…unfortunately for us.

THE ‘MY FIRST DAY’ INCIDENT

We joined First Leap. It’s a huge language centre based in China. We requested Beijing because we thought the language barrier and western society might be more prevalent here than in some of the other cities.

We were wrong. Fuck!

We trained for two weeks at the company HQ where we were brought to our nerves end by a group of “trainers” who were barely in their twenties telling us both to smile more. This didn't go down well. The more they told us to smile the more we scowled.

Now, let me be clear, this was my first teaching job so I did find the training helpful but they went about it all the wrong way. Making us teach certain scenarios in front of the rest of the trainees who pretended to be children wasn't as industrious as they probably planned. Either way, we did it. Two long hard weeks and we were ready to step into the fray and impart our wisdom. Needless to say…the training did fuck all to prepare me for what was to meet me.

Now, Emily has plenty of experience. Many years of standing in front of young minds and trying every possible method to try and get them to remember what a Cat is. She was and Is a natural.

Me…No one would describe me as a patient man. Nor would they ever suggest in good conscience that I would make a good teacher. Either way, this was the life I have chosen for the next year.

First day, First class.

I had a Scottish teacher, Darren, rampant closet case who had the uncanny ability to turn his thick Glaswegian accent into a south Californian twang at the drop of a hat and his job was observing me to make sure I didn’t scare the children or make them cry.

So I step into the classroom and see all the children running around and I decided to express my authority as the new teacher in a proactive way the best way I knew.

So gather up all my courage and let a mild roar out of my mouth “Hello everyone, It’s time for class now SIT DOWN”.

I didn't see the kick coming, it was all a blur, all I can tell you is that it was possibly the sweetest hit you could possibly imagine.

BOOM. Some little Chinese fucker spin kicks me right in the family jewels.

Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Down I go…like a Thai hooker.

I don’t remember who started laughing first but I can assure you it wasn’t me.

I retreated to the safety of the hall to nurse my wounds and think to myself where I went wrong in life.

THE SHOPPING INCIDENT

China has their equivalent of Tesco. They call them Lotus or Lotte Marts.

They are huge sprawling building where you can find all the basics one needs when residing in China. Bread, Vegetables and Washing detergent. All the basics.

Now, we were fortunate to live quite close to a aforementioned facility. Warmly known as “Ram Alley Shop”.

It received this strange yet highly significant name due to the large Ram who is tied to a car outside the alley leading to the shop. This Ram is morbidly depressed and fears for its life on a regular basis. It is tied to the old rusted structure of the car with a 6 foot length of frayed rope. We presume the ram, if blessed with nimble fingers, would tie a knot in the rope and hang himself. Either way, hence the name “Ram Alley”.

The story continues…Emily is in work, I’m home early from a field trip to the Coca Cola Factory with several dozen unruly Chinese children. I’ve decided to surprise Emily with a steak and potato dinner so I hit “Ram Alley” to get the supplies. Obligatory sympathy for the Ram ensues and I hit the market.

I’m wandering around picking up the essentials when I turn into the dairy section and I’m confronted by…and I have no nice way of saying this…A child taking a shit on the floor.

I freeze, mainly because I have never seen a child take a shit..in a bathroom let alone in a shopping centre.

My eyes dart around looking for the bewildered mother who is looking for her missing child hoping that when I point in the direction of the child she will do her motherly duty and take care of the…situation.

Nope. Not in China.

Mother approached, mother grabbed child. Mother exited the area with the child leaving an abnormally large pile of child shit on the tiled floor.

I quickly maneuvered the trolly past it and headed for the checkout still in a state of mild shock.  

Note: They recently built a large wall around where the ram was “housed”. We presume he’s still there. But hope that he’s not.

THE NOODLE LADY “RAIN” INCIDENT.

Noodle lady. Our mother away from home. Not a fucking word of english. Bad teeth. Worse Hygiene. And without doubt the best noodles and dumplings we’ve had in our lives.

She operates a very small and very dirty shop on the way from the Subway stop to our apartment complex and is a vital source of nutrients on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. We work late on these days and most places close in China around ten o’clock. So it provides limited options for cuisine.

Enter noddle lady. She smiles and makes our order most work nights as her small child plays paper, rock, scissors with Emily. He’s learning English in school and spouts random words at us.

“Chicken”…Yes, very good.

“Blue”…Excellent.

But thats about it.

About a month into “dining” there I felt comfortable enough to pick him up playfully throw him in the air. He was about 20kg so it wasn't exactly strenuous.

I grab him under the arms and lightly toss him into the air catching him as he descended. He didn't smile…in fact, he looked in a touch of discomfort. As devilment quickly turned to worry I lowered him to the ground wondering internally if I had hurt the young lad. He grasped at his chest and as he pulled his T-shirt away from his light frame I spot the eight inch scar on his breastbone. A sign of major heart surgery. Oops.

Needless to say I haven't touched the little fucker since as running the risk for manslaughter and spending twenty years in prison for killing a six year old boy with a mistimed game of “airplane”.

FML

Noodle lady has thrown us a few surprises in our time here too mind you. There was the old “cockroach” in our dumpling box. That one is always a classic.

Or quite recently, when we returned home from work with Jack, our large predominantly loud Scottish friend. Noodle lady beckoned.

We ordered and stepped to the door. People can smoke wherever they want in China. It’s shit. So we stepped just outside the door to get some fresh air and stay cool.

Just as we stepped outside Jack asked us did we “feel rain?” in his thick Scottish drawl.

We did.

It was definitely starting to drizzle. We didn't panic too much. It was a warm night and it was only a drizzle. It took us about ten seconds of looking up into the night sky to realize something was wrong.

It wasn’t rain!

We jumped out of the way when it dawned on us.

Right above the noodle shop is an apartment and in this apartment lived a little boy and sometimes the little boy likes to piss off the balcony onto unsuspecting foreigners trying to get fed after a day of teaching.

This is frowned upon in most countries.

Nope. Not in China.

Getting pissed on whilst waiting for dinner is a must do that the guide books sometimes neglect to mention.

Either way, Noodle lady is the bomb. She smile regularly and looks constantly exhausted. She is open at 7.45am every weekend when we are going to work and on numerous occasions when we have drunkenly returned from Sanlitun (Bar area) or from a late night Visa run from HongKong we have found her and her husband standing outside at midnight waiting for a stray customer to get his food or perhaps a late beer.

Our order usually consists of two portions of dumplings and two portions of fried noodles with veg. It costs us 26RMB which converts into about 3.39 Euros.

A bargain.

We leave next month and we have saved all the small coins and small notes that are not worth converting into our currency and we intend to give them to the young lad.

Not the one who pissed on us. The one I nearly killed.

Might get him something nice.