“You stick to your side, I’ll stick to mine! A strange denial of the common pulse of humanity.”
Lady Chatterly’s Lover
I love China. There you go, I’ve said it. I’ve been here for one year, am no longer ‘fresh off the boat’. I’ve worked with Chinese people of all ages; I’ve written about Chinese culture and had first-hand experience of media control and social rhetoric. I’ve been spit on, crashed into and almost certainly decreased my life span by a good few years. Yet, I love China; not in spite of but because of these strange, very cultural, very different experiences.
In Shanghai there are many glittering, glowing towers where one can hide from the Chinese-ness of China. However, in my last couple of months living in the pearl of the Orient, I choose China..the real China. For it is China that has opened my eyes and changed my perspective. Shanghai that has given me the opportunity for professional and emotional growth; I will return home with China on my mind.
And so we rumpachuump on a China-finding mission, discovering the real Shanghai, un-marred by the sheen of opulence...
Dinner is a mix of different vegetables selected from a stand, which has been erected at the side of the road; we avoid the massive aubergine and fish heads. There is a long, narrow grill holding a selection of unidentifiable meats which are brushed not-so-sporadically (far too often for my taste) by a combination of oil and spices. We are surrounded by street vendors, each cooking up their own variation of classic Chinese ‘street food’ dishes: Vegetables, meat, rice, noodles and oil, each with its own composition. There is a jumble of plastic chairs and tables and although the time is 9.30pm, the side of the road is heaving with people. There is no pavement, so really the side of the road is the road, and precarious tut-tuts occasionally weave through the crowd. We share our dinner, embracing the Chinese ‘family-style’ dining experience. The evening is warm, the mosquitoes vicious.
After dinner we head to the massage, urm…I want to say parlor but it’s really more of a succession of living rooms adjoined to a busy kitchen, which seemingly houses a large Chinese family. On route, we try to find a toilet and stumble into the local health care centre. Enter the third floor and a whole lot of awkward shuffling, accented by desperate attempts not to stare in at the small, somewhat grimy rooms housing patients of all ages. Many are hooked up to ancient-looking equipment and catheters, lying under duvets sporting an array of designs and variations of Mickey Mouse’s face (really?! Is there no escape!??)
Laura: Urm, maybe we shouldn’t have come here.
We find a office, suspiciously clean and swanky pants and creating an even more drastic contrast to the outer surroundings. Quick ad-lib, hand gesture (how do you say 'I need to pee' without looking like a demented water-melon?) and we're back shuffling awkwardly up the corridor, escorts in tow.
The toilet is a massive trough and my first experience of such an urination station. I look over the door (it reaches my shoulders), wave at Laura and casually inquire as to the logistics of such a design. She suggests I go shoulder to wall and door and kind of straddle the trough, while at the same time holding the top of the pretend door with one hand and my trousers with the other. Our guides, there is now four, stare at us from the doorway. In the stall next door, there is an antique wooden chair which is perched over the trough. It immediately reminds me of Karl Pilkington’s make-shift loo in the Amazon jungle. Useful. We chat a bit with the women, who clearly have no idea why these two gargantuous foreigners are using their bathroom. So it goes.
The beds in the massage (???) are comfortable enough but there are three of them, shoved into a tiny alcove which adjoins the main living-type room which is used for foot massages. I’m in the middle; it’s my turn to be the attraction. Laura is to my right and random Chinese man, we’ll call him Bob, is to my left. Bob and I become more and more intimate as the massage progresses. Due to the lack of room in the alcove, each bed is turned constantly, as the three masseuses maneuver themselves around. At one point Bob and I are practically holding hands. The whole time, the three masseuses, and Bob (who turns out to be a very in-gracious boyfriend), laugh at Laura and I. Even if I didn’t understand a fair amount of what they were saying, which I do, it would still have been pretty obvious that their incessant laughter is aimed at us. I am particularly tickled by a quivering, jelly sort of feeling as my behind is thoroughly ruffled…and laughed at…for a considerably large length of time. So it goes.
China is amazing and everyday is an adventure. Anyone who says otherwise is probably looking the wrong way...possibly up their own anus. More to come...
