Ouch my face!

I have got myself a teaching job, which was fairly straightforward. All I had to do was turn up to the interview and speak English. They then presented me with the contract, which was a little scary, but I decided that the contract probably wasn’t very binding so it’d be ok. Like most of my speculations about China this is based on absolutely no information.

The job is great however the hours are terrible. I work 3pm-8.30pm Wed-Fri and then 8.30am-7.30pm Sat and 8.30am-6.00pm Sun. I teach one class on Thursday evenings and then do a load of demos to try and encourage perspective students to sign up. The kids are aged between 3 and 12. I have discovered that children will do anything for stars even though they don’t actually mean anything.

Now I’ve been there three weeks and it is the summer holidays the head master decides the whole company is going on a team-building trip. So they pack 100 employees from all of the different branches of Best Learning (the company I work for) off to Ye San Po. Ye San Po is 4 hours from Beijing and is in the mountains and consists of one street with a few newsagents and a load of rubbish. Everything that could be seen in the distance looked great though.

The first team building exercise was a cheap version of the TV programme Total Wipeout (an obstacle course made from floats in water). It started with the travelator (think gladiators, or if that means nothing to you think a conveyer belt which is going in the opposite direction to the one you want to run in). After this you do some leaping from float to unstable float. Then there are some spinning floats that you jump from and you grab a bar, which you then glide down. From the float you land on you walk along a tight rope style float and then run across some rollers and end it all by leaping onto a rope net and climbing to the top of a small tower. Where you turn around and face your cheering adoring audience.

I was somewhat worried about having a go. I knew deep down I should just do it or I’d regret it and after almost everyone else had done it and a fair amount of peer pressure. Sentiments such as you only live once and you might never get the chance again were directed my way and I thought fuck it! So I gathered my team around me and told them if I fell off the travelator more than 3 times I was giving up. A lot of people had been falling here since it was pretty wet. The man with the microphone that was commentating asked me if I had something to say and I explained I would be falling in a lot. I got into position. I prepared myself to run fast. I took the first step. I immediately slipped and attempted to break my fall with my face.

I learned an important lesson this day - breaking your fall with your face leads to concussion. Also it causes your face to swell up like a melon. I was rescued from the water by two of my co-workers. Everyone was concerned and chose to surround me and express their concern in both Chinese and English and all at once with lots of gesticulation or by holding hands over open mouths and directing their shocked eyes first at me, then at each other. Obviously all of this was very comforting. I was given a cold drink and some cold spray to put on the wound. One of the foreign teachers was worried I might have broken my cheekbone so I was whisked off to the local hospital. The doctor had a prod and decided to give me an X-ray.

After it was concluded I had not broken anything I was given 3 different lots of pills to take - 2 of each, 3 times a day and some stuff to rub in. One set of pills for pain, one in a miscellaneous paper bag with no label on and one set for my heart. I decided not to take them.

The rest of the day was spent eating and watching karaoke. There was an attempt at a fire however it was very small and didn’t last long.  Although I would say the team building exercise was rather pointless I feel that my injury did bring the team closer together. We ended the night playing a card game called killer, eating Chua (meat on sticks) and drinking beer.

Day two was supposed to consist of a cruise however it turned out that cruise actually meant rafting. And obviously I’d decided to wear a nice dress for the cruise only to have to buy some shorts and persuade one of the boys to take off their T-shirt so I could wear it. A kind lady saw me getting undressed in the queue and blocked me from view with her umbrella just before I exposed myself. I then handed her my dress as I was pretty sure she was the tour guide from our bus. 

We get in our raft and then proceed to paddle down the shallowest river ever until we all get a bit stuck and a digger comes along and using it’s digger arm thing pushes people out of the really shallow water into the marginally less shallow water. We eventually make it to a fake cave, which is full of fake clay stalactites. We did not gaze in owe at the unnatural wonders instead we pushed off of them with our paddles in order to manoeuvre through the fake cave.

We end the trip in the dirtiest river imaginable and feeling quite disgusting head back to the hotel to shower, eat and leave. So people, the next time you’re feeling swore about the extensive health and safety regulations at work think of my bruised and swollen face and be thankful you don’t work in China.

 

Tiger Momma

 A few weeks ago I quit my job with my Aunt. I had been with her 5 months and she was becoming incredibly suffocating and I realised that I was never going to be the materialistic, money hungry, business savvy, “lady” that my Aunt wanted me to be. When I was a kid I asked my mum what the difference between a woman and a lady was and she told me that ladies were proper and followed a bunch of rules some idiot men had thought up many years ago whereas women gave as good as the men and generally had more fun.

I first meet my Aunt when I was 4 but my first memory of her is from her wedding to my Uncle Leo when I was 6 or 7. She was very beautiful and looked very exotic to me. She gave me the silver bracelet she was wearing and I remember thinking she was very generous. I think this was when I decided to go to China one day.

She and my uncle were married for 20 years and I would see her every Christmas. I always looked forward to seeing her more than anyone else in my family. I think this was just because she was the most interesting one. She told me when I was working for her that she always hated our Christmas meals because they were so boring. Which in all fairness they were but that’s just because none of my family feels they can be honest about what they get up to in private.

About 4 months before I came out to China I meet my aunt for the first time in 4 years. She had a baby with her. He was 1 years old and she told me he was her brother’s second child and she was bringing him up because of the one child policy. I accepted this at the time although I could tell that the baby obviously saw my Aunt as his mum.

When I arrived in China I was kind of disappointed by my first glimpse of Beijing out of the window of the plane. It doesn’t look great. I love it now but it’s not because it’s pretty. DD meet me at the airport with the baby and a man named Da Long. Da Long’s role in the family was never really explained to me. He seemed to be the father figure to Niu Niu (DD’s baby) however he was never referred to as baba, which means dad in Chinese. He shared a bed with DD and the baby. Although I didn’t know for definite I had assumed my uncle Leo and DD had been separated for a while as DD was never in England and Leo always was. I knew however that she stayed with him when she was in England and he visited her once a year in China.

There were lots of photo’s of the baby around DD’s house and some of them had her in them and I kept thinking she looked a bit chubby in them. After a few months DD asked me to sort out the photos on her hard drive and whilst doing so I found the photos of DD heavily pregnant and in the hospital and I knew she had lied to me when I was in England. She may have done this for my Uncle sake rather than her own though.

For some inexplicable reason when I first got to China I became obsessed with the magpie rhyme. You know, one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told. I kept seeing two for the first week and kept thinking this is an excellent omen. Then we had Chinese New Year which I will right up at some point.

After this I started seeing one magpie all the time. And then my Nan died. My mum called me on the house phone and got through to DD. She asked to speak to me and told me the news. I think I was a lot more upset than I would have been at home. She had died in her sleep in her own house. I just kept thinking about how horrible it must feel to wake up and realise you’re having a heart attack and to just feel helpless. You can’t get up, you can’t call for help you just die. She might not have even woken up but it’s all I could think about.

My Nan had been run over by a bus when she was 10 and had had her leg amputated. For most of her life she had not let this affect her. She was fiercely independent and until the year before she died having one leg had caused her few problems. However as well as being independent she didn’t like to be a bother either. And when her leg got really bad and started bleeding all the time she didn’t tell anyone because she thought it would get better on it’s own. She was in and out of hospital with ulcers after this. And this last time she had just been out a week or so. I know she would have been much happier to have been out of hospital and that she had kept her sanity (she was a bit worried about this).

After my mum told me the news I was upset and I knew Leo was going to ring DD next and tell her so I went down stairs looking for some comfort. I felt pretty stupid about this because I’m not big on the whole getting emotional in front of people business (far too British for that!) Unfortunately the Chinese appear to view death of an old person as just one of those things. “It’s just life” DD said “she was old”. Her comforting words were that “she had lots of children so she’ll go to heaven”. Not a prerequisite for heaven that I was familiar with but hey-ho.

I was sat with the family and they told me that a few days before I had arrived Mr Guo’s (the old diplomat that works for DD) brother had died. DD’s brother Xiao Liang said Mr Guo’s brother had smoked everyday and then his doctor told him if he didn’t stop he was going to die, so he gave up and just afterwards he died. “So you might as well smoke” he said and offered me a cigarette. I smiled a little and DD explained that he was making a joke to try and cheer me up, she said it as though I were being ungrateful and should have smiled more.

Three days later DD calls me down to speak to me. She asks if my mother had known it was her (DD) that had answered the phone the other night when my mum had called to tell me about my Nan. I said probably but I wasn’t sure. DD asked me if my mum was aware of what she (DD) was doing for me. She said my mum should be very grateful, she (DD) didn’t need me, she could find a hundred pretty girls, models even, that had business training and that she was doing me a favour. She said she was very angry with my mum for not at least making conversation with her when she called. I explained that my mum was probably somewhat preoccupied with telling me about my Nan but DD didn’t feel this was acceptable. She told me I had to ask my Mum to apologise.

From this point onward things went down hill. She asked me why I had studied Maths at university. She said it was a pointless thing for girls to study. “What are they going to do with it?” Exactly the same thing men do with it obviously! She then explained that if she had been my mother she would have sent me to modelling school. Which is just absurd, I’m a geek through and through plus I can’t fake smile and I have trouble keeping both my eyes open fully (as an annoying large amount of people have seen fit to point out to me – see facebook for details).

She told me my clothes were all wrong. Every time I’d come down for breakfast in the morning she would tell me what I was wearing didn’t suit me, was too baggy or that the colour looked faded. Eventually she got me to bring down all my clothes and she went through them all. Most were too young/studenty and I shouldn’t be wearing them anymore. A few were too old and a couple of things were acceptable. She told me I wasn’t to wear the ones she didn’t like anymore. She did take me shopping to increase my wardrobe however it was mostly with clothes that were too big for me.

So basically she wanted me to be Chinese. She said that when people saw me they expected to see London fashion and that I wasn’t showing them this. Which is bollocks. That’s how Londoners dress. In London it is perfectly acceptable for 20 something’s to dress like students. In China girls wear ball dresses to work. They bleach their skin white. In fact this was something else DD wanted me to do. All the lotions and shower gels she gave me had whitener in. I meet someone not that long before I quit my job and they said I had very pale skin. I told them I have olive skin and she looked at me as if to say “in your dreams you pasty bitch” and my eyes tried to say I have Jewish, Romanian Gypsy blood actually, my mum’s so tanned she sometimes looks Indian but then I looked at my arms and knew it was pointless. I have regained my colour now though I’m pleased to say.

I was told that when we had meetings I should wear a full face of make-up and the little bit I usually wear wasn’t enough. I have a bit of an issue with this as I’ve always had this weird fear of seeming vain. When I was little I wouldn’t look in the mirror if I went to the toilet because I was worried it would look like I cared about what I looked like. So I’d just look down at my hands. Then I got older and a whole load of other insecurities crept up and I decided I had to accept that I did want to look good but I still find it hard to show that I care about it in public. Being vain is a very private thing in my eyes.

I was told I had to be a morning person. I was forbidden from coming down the stairs and keeping to myself, I had to be cheerful and make everyone feel happy. Which I’ll admit is a nice sentiment but it’s not me. I’m a moody teenager in the morning and I need a good few hours to get my head together. I’ve always felt that some of us our morning people and some of us are evening people and it’s not something that should be messed with.

DD went to military school from the age of 14-18 and because of this see was taught to eat fast. “If you didn’t eat your food within a minute you went hungry” she explained. And this was something I had to do as well. Now most people that have had a meal with me pre-China will know that I like to take my time. Not just with food but with all things. It’s one of those traits that people find both irritating and endearing (or so I tell my self). So eating slowly was also banned.

Next up for scrutiny was my lack of confidence. When she brought it up I explained that “I know I’m just being pathetic” and she said “yes, pathetic, that’s the word for it”. She then went on to tell me to treat meetings like they’re a performance. You should practice at home and then when you’re in the spotlight you should be better than when you practiced. You have to relish the spotlight. The trouble is I get stage fright and I hate the spotlight, I’m definitely a behind the scenes kind of gal. She also told me that whenever I walk into a room I should walk like a model and I should feel the power. People can see that you feel it and they will treat you differently. This is true as far as I can tell.

DD wouldn’t let me take Chinese lesson as she felt I should be able to pick it up through osmosis. This is a completely insane idea. Maybe some annoyingly gifted people could do this but I cannot. I have to study hard to remember words from another language. DD was willing to admit that she had no patience with me when it came to teaching me Chinese. She told me she would only say a word once and I was to learn it, she would not tell me what it meant again so I wasn’t to ask. In meetings I would often be asked questions in Chinese and I would do my best to reply. Unfortunately when I try to remember a word I screw up my face and this was another thing I was banned from doing as it was unattractive.

Part of the agreement I had with DD was that I wouldn’t be paid but that she would pay or provide everything for me. This was fine when I was with her and she was generous and did make sure I always had shampoo and the like. However when I went into town on my own I had problems. DD would give me 500 yuan (about £50) a month and she said this was my allowance. On my first outing into Beijing on my own I bought a coat and DD didn’t like the coat. She decided not to give me any more money for a while because I was obviously bad with it. This was rather frustrating as it meant that whenever I went into town I was spending my savings and they were supposed to be so I could do some travelling.

I realised after a while that if my aunt suggested “we” do something this was not at all what she meant. If for example “we” were going to the spa this meant she was going to the spa and I was waiting for up 4 hours in the waiting room with nothing to do. Whereas if she felt that “we” should clean out the water heater thingy she meant I should do it.

She felt it was important to explain to me on a regular basis that I was very lucky to have this opportunity. Also that she was very generous and very kind and fair. I suppose it was necessary for her to state this since the actually events that had been happening around me did not make it clear.

Events reached a head when we moved house. We moved from far away to the middle of nowhere. I could only leave the house if I got a lift from someone to the nearest subway station. Which made going anywhere very difficult. I hadn’t been given much freedom before this however suddenly having what little freedom I did have taken from me made me feel very trapped.

The new house was lovely and it was good to be out of Beijing’s smog. It’ll be a nice place for Niu Niu to grow up. But I’m glad I’m rid of it. She decided everything in the house had to be cleaned. And this basically meant I had to clean everything. The builder’s wife helped as well. But my God, DD owns a lot of crap. A lot of really dusty crap. 

For three weeks straight I was scrubbing things. More or less for 12 hours a day. My fingernails got so dirty I couldn’t even get the dirt off. The water wasn’t working properly so I was constantly smelly and dirty. I discovered that when you do a certain amount of cleaning there is no way to get your nails clean afterwards. You can scrub and soak but the dirt just wont come off. It’s rather upsetting.

One of my jobs was to sort out a load of tea sets and china cups and arrange them on some shelves “artistically”. So I attempted this. In my opinion it looked good but of course it was completely wrong. She informed me that I should be more practical and that she didn’t want all of the cupboards to have things in. So she squashed everything up into a few cupboards so that everything looked cluttered and told me this was much more artistic and that she couldn’t understand why I never put any thought into anything.

10 days after the move DD took a trip to London and left me with the study to sort out. Again she told me that I should arrange things in an “artistic way”. Also, that all the books were to be dusted before I put them away. So I sorted everything. I check with Mr Guo to make sure I’d done it in a way DD would like and he said it looks good. Whilst sorting the study out I discovered my aunt and uncle’s divorce papers from 2009 – just before Niu Niu had been born. I wasn’t at all surprised but I did wonder why my Uncle had never mentioned it. I also found a photo album with DD and another man I had not met. This was labelled 2005. I wondered if he could be Niu Niu’s father.

DD returned 2 days before my birthday. She had fairly practical presents for her parents and for Mr Guo and lots of things for Niu Niu. She hands me a birthday card as an afterthought, which I open on my birthday and can see has been written by my Uncle. Now in hindsight I can see that I shouldn’t have assumed anything and I know I can be a bit a twit at times when it comes to drawing attention to myself. I usually kind of hope that people will just notice things on their own without me saying. However because she gave me the card I assumed she knew when my birthday was.

I was wrong. On my birthday I woke up and DD was in an awful mood. She immediately put me to work. Telling me that the way I had arranged the study was terrible. Why had I put the books at the top and what was all the space in the middle for. I considered explaining that I had asked for help from Mr Guo and that he clearly didn’t know what her artistic vision was either but instead began to re-do the room. At 8am she told me that she needed my phone. The Mayor of Tang Shan was going to London that day and his phone wouldn’t work there but the one they had given me would. So I handed over the only form of communication I had (the internet had still not been set up). I considered mentioning to someone that it was my birthday but it just sounded so pathetic in my head whenever I considered doing it. I thought they would just say “so what, your 25, aren’t you a bit too old to be celebrating birthdays”.

So no one was able to wish me Happy Birthday on my Birthday and I decided to pretend it hadn’t happened. I moved it to Sunday and celebrated with my friends. And on my fake Birthday I finally made the decision to quit. I would move out and I would find a teaching job. And that is exactly what I did!