Things About China

I am already more than two months into my residency in China. I have been teaching for nearly that long as well. I have eaten at a variety of restaurants and drank many different things that have not been super good for my body (baijou!). I have used a squat toilet with differing results, been nearly hit by more cars than I can remember, signed up for a gym membership, have taken Chinese lessons, have failed miserably when attempting to speak Chinese, went running everywhere and anywhere, finally watched “Schindler’s List”, been to Pizza Hut twice, and have shopped for live snakes at the supermarket.

What I’m trying to say is, in the past two months, I have done a lot of random things that I usually don’t get to do. Also, I have written about a lot of them. In this post I just want to tell you about a few different things that make China a little more interesting than your average trip down Archwood Ave.

Slit Pants

Probably one of the more detestable and odd things you will see in China is the potty training system, or lack thereof. I am sure that potty-training your child is a lot of work and takes patience. When I become a parent I will probably not be incredibly keen on wiping the poop from my child’s bottom, but I will still understand that that is a required part of having a child in diapers. Unfortunately for me at this moment, that is not a concern for Chinese parents. Why buy all those expensive diapers and go through that messiness of changing your child when there is a way around it? The Chinese wonder that very thing, and so have found a way around it. So I give you: ‘Slit Pants”. Yes, it is exactly like what it sounds like. It is very common to be on the streets in China, maybe buying some delicious food, and just when you are about to take a bite of a pita wrap full of meat and lettuce you look over at the small cute child to your side. It is at this point, while your teeth are grinding through the tough meat and juicy spiciness, this child decides to take a squat on the sidewalk.
What is he doing? You may think. And then you realize. He is going the bathroom. With his clothes on. On the street. How is this possible you ask? Why, all you have to do is cut a large hole in the back of the child’s pants and underwear and you have yourself a portable toilet! Go anywhere, anytime. If you just can’t hold it, no worries – let it fly. Surely some poor person is hired to walk around and clean that stuff up. Surely.

Mopping The Floors With Toilet Water

As I was typing this post another foreign teacher, Chris, came into my office because he wanted to show me something. He led me out of my office and to the men’s restroom, which already concerned me. He pushed open a stall door, and to my horror I saw all the cleaning ladies supplies (mops, brooms, brushes) soaking in the toilet water. Twice a day, they take these mops and mop the floor of the bathroom, and I, thinking I have a nice clean bathroom to use, go in there happily to use the restroom, only to realize that the slightly wet floor that I am walking on may as well be the rim of a squat toilet.

I’ll have to clean the bottom of my shoes more often.



Squat Toilets

Briefly mentioned in past posts, such as “Chinese Dinners and Hard Liquors”, squat toilets are one of the more genuinely and uniquely disgusting things about China.

(I realize now that many of my posts revolve around either my own unabashed self-disclosure or relatively repulsive things, and for that I apologize. But both prove to be enjoyable source material, both to write and, hopefully, read. So I will continue to do both.)

What most of you readers use back home is what we refer to here as Western toilets. They protrude out of the ground, have a nice round hole, and a seat that you can comfortably sit down in like a Lay-Z-Boy while you do your business. This sort of arrangement makes it easy to take your time, read a magazine, chat on the phone, and possibly even get some work done. All in all, it is just a great way to outsmart nature and multi-task to your heart’s (and bottom’s) desire. Though, I do not condone too much of this type of behavior.

The squat toilet on the other hand, allows you only to do one thing and one thing only. Of course, that is what you came there to do in the first place, but still. Don’t expect a relaxing time to read your magazine or the morning newspaper. Don’t think there will be a phone next to you where you can call home and catch up on the family news. If the squat toilet allows you to do anything but the required business you came there to do in the first place, it is that it provides a good workout. For those unfamiliar with the squat toilet, the explanation is in the name. Unlike a Western toilet, where there is a seat, usually padded and equipped with a massage machine, the squat toilet has nothing on which to rest your haunches. Just empty air. The toilet is basically a hole in the ground, in which you practice your aim that you learned during your stint in the U.S. Army. If you have no formal training than you just whiz it (pun intended). On either side of the hole there are usually traction areas that look like the bottom of those padded socks you used to wear as a kid that prevented you from sliding across wood floors and bouncing off the walls at the end of the run. Actually, now that I think about, I realize now why I got a pair of those every Christmas for like six years. Very tricky mother. Anyway, these ‘traction’ areas are usually so wet from what I hope is water they do little good. In fact, they are probably more detrimental than helpful, because all they do is give you less surface area for the bottom of your shoes. With your feet in position you have to lower yourself down towards the toilet and, with the strength of a professional bodybuilder, you balance your entire weight in this position; knees next to your face, pants around your ankles, feet slipping forward and backwards like you’re cross country skiing, and your bottom shaking out into empty air.

It’s a pretty uncomfortable position, I assure you. The only redeeming part is that in public restrooms you don’t have to worry about small children and grown men being lazy and careless and urinating all over the seat. The bad part is, that instead they urinate all over the floor. Also, hopefully you aren’t sick or usually take a little too long in the restroom, because your legs will begin to fall asleep and your hips will start to get sore. Numbness will take over your toes and you knees will begin to creak in this unnatural position. So, make it quick.

Also, public restrooms never have toilet paper for you to use, so bring your own. I promise you, it is no fun to find this fact out too late. No fun at all.


Running Red Lights

I have more than once mentioned the traffic in China, both in my posts and in my podcast. But one thing has really started to bother me. As we leave the relatively peaceful roads inside the campus fence, we come out into the bustling streets of Xuzhou. Directly outside the gate we usually go out of there is a crosswalk and even a light that turns different colors (like green, yellow, and red), which apparently means something, but I have yet to figure out what. Previously, I lived in a land where vehicles powered by engines would see red and would magically come to a complete stop. It just happened. And then, once the red light changed into green, they would begin to move again. It is a phenomenon that if I had lived in China my whole life, I would be unable to wrap my head around.

I took this notion of ‘red light, green light’ that I learned from my previous home to this new, wild frontier. What a mistake this was. Green means “go”, yellow means “caution”, and red means “stop”. It seems so simple. Wrong! It is the most confusing concept for drivers in Xuzhou. I will admit that some people understand it, but the majority believe there are exceptions to this rule, and that they are the exception. Bus drivers, anyone on two wheels, which is about 50% of vehicles, taxicabs, black cars, and yellow tricycles all believe themselves to be above this rule. So when the green light shows that it is safe to cross the crosswalk there will undoubtedly be at least six or seven cars or buses and many more bikes and motorcycles that you will have to dodge. It really gets quite frustrating and I usually walk very slowly when a car is coming at me, and stare the driver down as if I was able to shoot fire out of my eyes. This doesn’t work, he usually honks loudly, revs his engine, and in fear I scamper towards the sidewalk. But at least I tried to show my unhappiness with this inability to follow basic rules of the road.

Instead of getting angry I now approach this situation as a type of game. Think “Frogger” with maximal ramifications. I am actually thinking about having a little friendly competition:

How quickly can you get a cross a road that is full of bikers, swerving taxis, and reckless buses?! Come to the West Gate at the old campus and find out! The winner gets the wonderful street food that awaits them on the opposite side of this death trap of a road. The loser gets pancakes… oh, I’m sorry. Not pancakes – I meant ‘pancaked’. Much less exciting and much more painful.

Yes, that game will be a hit. A fantastic hit. Call NBC.

Endless Noise

Apparently, the Chinese don’t like to think in silence. Ever. They must always be stimulated in some way with some noise or entertainment. Every morning, at 6:23am, the loudspeakers that cover the entire campus kick on and some nice music begins to play, acting as an alarm clock for millions of people (hyperbole!). For the first six weeks I lived in gorgeous Xuzhou (sarcasm!) the song was a very nice reminder of home. Just like “Country Roads” by John Denver that I heard in the bar last month, this song also reminds me of home, mainly because it is by the same singer. That’s right, every morning for the past six weeks I woke up to the instrumental version of the John Denver hit “Fill Up My Senses”.

You fill up my senses, like a night in the forest… I would sing it every morning while I shampooed my hair and put on my nice, classy work jeans. After “Fill Up My Senses” some other American songs would follow that I recognized but couldn’t name. Ashley told me that one of them was called “The Flight of the Bumblebee”. Either way, as the name suggest, it was crazy fun. The American-ness that I woke up to every morning was soon drowned out by the Chinese National Anthem, which was intertwined with either the morning news or Chinese propaganda, which are basically the same thing.

In the past week or so, much to my disappointment, John Denver has been replaced by the theme song from “The Pink Panther”, which isn’t nearly as fun to wake up to as you may think.

The music played every morning until classes started. And then, at work, after everyone was let out of their classes for lunch at noon, the theme song from “Chariots of Fire” pumped students and faculty full of uplifting determination for the vehement rush towards the dining halls, which fill up ridiculously quickly and never have enough hot food. I always enjoy looking out my window, eating my peanut-butter and honey sandwiches as every single person in this thirty-thousand strong university goes throttling towards the dining halls. So fun.

This music lasts for the entire lunch break until 2pm, and then shuts off your classes again. Once I return home at 5pm, there is news/propaganda and even stranger music playing over the loudspeakers again. It rarely stops, and I usually shut all my windows and play my own music really loud to drown it out, because I have much better taste in music than the loudspeakers do. Plus, they’re always speaking in Chinese, and I don’t know that yet. So that just makes it frustrating. Gosh darn it.