In the beginning of December I met a guy called Diego who works at a new Chinese Language institute in the Guo Mao (World Trade) area of Beijing. He is originally from Ha’erbin in the north of China. I went to meet him at his office and to interview for free Chinese lessons as their first student. He initially found me through one of my ads in That’s Beijing, and asked me to come try out his company’s new Chinese course for free. He confided in me later that the only reason he was a recruiter for the company was to meet new people, primarily foreigners. I spent a couple days at his office trying his company’s language software, and hanging out with his afterwards. I was eventually told that in order for my study there to be completely free, I would have to find some other people willing to try the program as well. Since I didn’t know anyone who wanted to learn Chinese, I went and talked to the boss of company to see what I could work out. I brought their advertising pamphlet with me and showed him all the mistakes they had in English on it. I also mentioned that there were several errors in their language software, and that if they took me on for free, I would help them to correct their advertising English and also refine their software with some of my Java skills. The boss offered me free Chinese lessons as long as I would help critique their teaching and lessons.
I spent more time with Diego and he eventually disclosed that he was gay and living with an American boyfriend. I went to Diego’s house and met the American, Devin. The two also had a small dog named Subway….it was named this because Diego found her in a subway, abandoned. Also staying at their house was a guy named Lisu who was temporarily homeless and a former classmate of Diego in Ha’erbin. I stayed overnight with them a few times and slept on the floor with Lisu. (Well, not literally with him…he had his own patch of floor in the second bedroom while I had mine in the TV room)
Since my rent was expiring on the 7th, I went out with Lisu to look for apartments in Beijing. We tried to find some near the subway, but they tended to be very expensive. The ones that were affordable often had leaking ceilings, no western toilets, or extremely old appliances. Over the next few days, we worked our way farther away from the center of the city. We found a place about forty five minutes outside of the main city, literally next to a train station. The apartment was big…2 bedrooms, a kitchen, nice bathroom, and it was very clean. The rent was a bit expensive, but it would get us much more than in the city. Unfortunately, the commute was too much for me, and I was still unsure of what job I would be taking.
4 days after my rent expired at the music school, I paid my overflow and went to live with Diego, Devin, Lisu and Subway. I slept on the floor in their TV/living room. To earn my keep, I walked Subway every day while they went to work, did some shopping for them, and washed the dishes.
One night when I came home to the apartment, I found Diego sitting on the couch with blood running down his face and onto his shirt. There were also some splattered on the wall. Devin had answered the door and his face was all bruised. They had obviously had a fight. I asked if everyone was okay and if I could help. They said they’d be alright and I went to have a late dinner. When I came back they had showered and were in a slightly better mood. Lisu had luckily decided to stay at another friend’s house that night.
Lisu and I did a bit more house searching over the next few days. I rejected my job offer to teach Korean students how to write English essays because I didn’t think I’d be reliable enough at them moment because I didn’t have a solid home of my own.
I received a call around the 12th from a woman at CCTV inviting me to participate in the shooting of a show on Hainan Island. The show was going to be a reality TV show about weddings and honeymooners. I was to choose someone to be my “bride” so I chose Terry, my best friend in Beijing. We were filled in about what the show would involve later in the week at one of the CCTV offices in Beijing. It would involve Terry and I having a mock marriage, while a handful of other couples actually got married, and then having a series of fun competitions against them later on. The contests included things like charades, as well as weird concoctions like: I would boost terry up the side of a palm tree to grab a small sack of 10 Taiwanese tobacco leafs, then she would place them in one of two bowls on the ground, from which I would pick the leafs up in my mouth by doing pushups and placing them in the other bowl….meanwhile she would be wrapped in a blanked for however long it took me to complete the transfer. Once I was done, they would unravel her (she would be dizzier the farther she had been wrapped) and then she would have to hit several marshmallows into my mouth with a badminton racquet. The fastest team would win. We would not be paid, but given plane tickets and accommodations for the tropical island.
For the first time since I started coming to China in 2004, I went to the cinema. I went with a new friend I made who works at the World Wildlife Foundation in Beijing. She took me out with a bunch of her friends to see a movie called the “Knot” in English, but which is actually translated literally into, “The ballad of cloud and river”. It is a love story set in Taiwan and China during the 1940-60’s and includes scenes of the Korean War.
I went to a few Christmas parties, one with my soccer team, where we sang a semi-drunken rendition of Yellow Submarine with lyrics about the Barbarians Soccer Team, one with my second-cousin Adam Harr, held at his house, who I discovered was living in Beijing, and one with my friends Lac, Terry, and Caroline.
During the pre holiday season, I seem to have run into many of my fellow teammates from the Barbarians Soccer Team, at restaurants, cafes, and bars.
Just after the 2 month mark of my stay on the 19th of December, Diego and Devin had another disagreement. This one was actually quite a bit worse than the first one. Some keys were thrown away, someone was locked out (along with me), I helped him get in by appearing to be alone (all with good intent!), one stole 3000 yuan from the other, each threatened to withdraw all the money from the other’s bank account, passports were stolen, wallets were hidden, cigarette cartons were thrown out of the window, someone was pushed on the ground and cut their hand, someone picked up a small coffee table and hit the other with it, I was splattered with yoghurt (that was the extent of my physical involvement). These types of things went on for some time (until 4:00am, to be exact), and eventually I stashed all my gear in the guest bedroom (again, Lisu fortuitously had been staying over at his friend’s house for a couple of days), and locked the door. Diego locked himself in the other bedroom, and Devin went to sleep in the TV room. Over the whole course of the ordeal, I had threatened to leave the apartment and sleep on the street at least 5 times, putting on all my winter gear and strapping on my backpack. This always made a lull in the fighting… as I made my way to the door each time I told them how childish they were being, and how things could be solved by talking it out (neither would listen).
The next day I called my contacts at Cummins Guangzhou and told them that I wanted to get a plane ticket to Guangzhou as soon as possible, and that I would be interested in starting my job there as an English tutor as soon as possible as well. They booked me a plane ticket on Southern China Air for the following day, and said they would start my authorization process immediately towards becoming a temporary employee there.
I packed almost all my stuff into my one trekking backpack and left a bag full of books and clothes at Diego and Devin’s house. (I talked to them in the morning and told them what I had decided to do and wished them luck with their relationship). I strapped on my computer bag and tripod and headed onto the street.
Luckily Terry was flying to Hong Kong the next day as well, so I planned to stay overnight at her place and catch a cab with her to the airport in the morning.
That night, I called up a friend of a friend, a woman named Mariana, who I had wanted to see for quite some time. Unfortunately she moves around quite a lot, and I had been previously unable to meet up with her. I got her on the phone and explained my situation, and we agreed to have dinner, along with a young woman who was staying with her, near her home in the San Li Tun bar district.
I thought I would call my host family from 2005, because their house was en route to where I would be meeting Mariana. I still had their phone number in my wallet from 2005 and gave it a try. My host father picked up and said I should come over for a bit before my dinner. He said that his son and wife were both still at school and at work, but that I might get to see them if they came home early. Their house was much as I had remembered it, and pictures of me still hung on their walls. My host father had recently gotten a new job at Eurocopter as an engineer, and my host brother was devoting his entire life to studying for his college entrance exams. When I arrived, my host father was so excited that he called his wife at work and I got to talk to her for a bit. Neither she nor her son returned before I had to leave though, so I promised them I would come back when I returned to Beijing. Apparently the only time I will be able to see my host brother is on Sunday because every other day of the week he is at school from 6:00 am until 9:00 pm preparing for his exams!
I had dinner with Mariana, and found that she is a really nice woman. She took great interest in my travels and endeavors, and offered me a place to stay if I ever needed it in Beijing. I would like to have spent more time talking to her, but I suppose I can do that when I return to Beijing.
The next day I got to the airport early with Terry and waited about 4 hours until my flight. I finally was able to board, and we took off from Beijing.
The flight was short, and I was picked up at the Guangzhou airport by a nice guy called Vincent who works at the Guangzhou Cummins office. The weather was worlds better than what I had left in Beijing. I stripped down to a t-shirt, removing the sweater, scarf, winter jacket, and gloves I had needed up north.
The ride from the airport to the Cummins office was long and we arrived at nightfall. I checked into a room Cummins had reserved for me at a hotel near the office, and immediately attempted to connect to the internet. The hotel was supposed to come with free broadband internet, but I, along with an IT guy from the hotel, attempted to connect for 2 entire hours without success. I eventually gave up and went outside to look for an internet café. I finally found one and tried all my friends in Hong Kong to tell them I was going to try to come in the next day by train. Luckily I was able to get a hold of a couple of them, and at least get their cell phone numbers. Vincent took me out for a late meal at 11:00pm (almost unheard of in Beijing), and I found the food quite different and tastier than the food I had gotten up north. Well, Canton is known for its food.
The next day I figured out which bus I needed to get on to get to the train station. I was unsure whether I would be able to get a ticket or not without reserving one, considering it was a Sunday, and also Christmas Eve. To my relief I was able to get a ticket and hopped on a train at noon. I called my friend Sharon Ng from the train and told her when I would be getting there, and she was nice enough to offer to pick me up, since I would be pretty lost on my own. The train ride was fast (around 2 hours) and comfortable. I struck up a conversation in Chinese with the guy sitting next to me and we talked about computers and cameras the entire way.
I arrived in Hong Kong and headed into Kowloon with Sharon. I called my friend Nicholas Kent (roommate in China, summer 2004) and arranged to stay with him for a while. He lives on the opposite side of Hong Kong Island, so another one of my Choate friends, Clement Cheng, met up with me and Sharon, and took me across the harbor and stuck me on the right bus headed for Nick’s place.
I eventually arrived at nicks place in one piece and had a relaxing Christmas Eve with him and his parents.
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