High tech and hot pot, p.7
High Tech and Hot Pot, page 7
On every corner in Yangshuo there are bike rental stores. Recently, one of the large national suppliers of public rental bikes wanted a piece of the cake, which incensed the local dealers to such an extent that they threw quite a number of the interloper’s bikes into the Li River. The business moved elsewhere.
At the beginning of the famous West Street, I stop to immerse myself in the stream of people moving along the cobblestones. Behind a tour guide holding a red flag and a loudspeaker on a lanyard, a group of Chinese tourists marches on like a moderately well-disciplined trailblazing force, with selfie sticks at the ready, always prepared to shoot objects or creatures that could look good behind or next to their own likeness.
The purpose of security camera–lined West Street is to provide these visitors with as many background motifs as possible while also wringing as much money out of them as possible for snack stands, hotels and bars. Tour operators in traditional silk costumes advertise “Bamboo, bamboo”—boat tours on bamboo rafts. And souvenirs, souvenirs, souvenirs. I wonder whether, in the course of their travels, it dawns on some of the tourists, on viewing the group outfit daily, that maybe the free cap and backpack with the travel company logo are not quite the awesome goodies they thought them to be when making the booking.
There are plenty of streets of this kind in China, and they all look remarkably similar. The standard fare is: Kentucky Fried Chicken, a drum and ukulele store, a T-shirt printing service, a store for combs made out of antlers, a virtual reality simulator store and a fast-food restaurant courting racist guests with the slogan “We don’t serve Japanese.” Additionally, in Yangshuo there are a conspicuous number of bars selling German beer or bratwurst. And there are a number of bars with dancers wearing very little and entertaining a mostly male audience that waves snake-shaped balloons to pop music. R-rated entertainment meets a kid’s birthday party. Is there a sadder sight than middle-aged men conducting the song “Despacito” with orange, sausage-shaped balloons, always slightly out of sync, while clasping bottles of overpriced Tsingtao beer and staring bashfully at the hips of a bunny-eared beauty? Some of them wave plastic sticks with two plastic hands fixed at the top that make a clacking sound. The ignominious gimmicks are handed out by the bar staff and accepted gratefully—hurrah, freebies.
Outside, twenty policemen dressed in black with anti-riot helmets and batons look like sinister counterparts to the tourist groups, like a black shadow following them. Nothing should get out of hand on Wild West Street. I return to the e-scooter and head back to school.
• • • • • •
CLASSROOM 301 HAS a grated window, a couple of chairs arranged around a table, on the blackboard a few words from the previous lesson: “career,” “fulfillment” and “trade.” Here, I meet a few English students in the following days. They spend nine months here and at the end of the course receive a certificate. During our conversations I learn a lot about everyday life in China, about their career plans and about earning money. The main topics are business in the past and business in the future, the transitory nature of profit and the necessity of flexibility in order to remain successful.
Lisa, twenty-seven, sold bras for her mother’s company, and then went on to open with her sister a nail care studio that initially brought in a lot of money, until five other nail studios opened on the same street and the business was no longer worthwhile. She’s now considering joining her cousin’s travel agency, but business isn’t so good anymore because everyone is booking on the internet.
Rooney, thirty-one, worked for eight years building engines for General Motors but is unsure about the future because of Donald Trump; growth cannot continue as it is now and exports to the USA will probably take a nose dive.
Win, nineteen, worked in a cutlery and tableware store, six days a week, up to twelve hours a day, but dreams of working abroad, possibly in Thailand as a tour guide.
During these conversations I sense a considerable difference in mentality between Europeans and the Chinese. Europeans have an almost tangible fear of change, a romantic notion that, to a large extent, things should carry on just as they are. In China, however, change is accepted as a natural state you must adapt to; life is a continuous construction site, and “arriving” is not envisaged.
During the day, I explore the countryside on the e-scooter. The karst hillocks in the silvery morning mists seem almost magical, like gigantic sleeping ghosts draped in green. The cormorant fishermen from the famous photos, however, only exist in a folklore show, as one of many entertainment options including a stunt car circus, water caves/mud baths and a “20-Yuan-Banknote-Photo” outing (the banknote shows a particularly idyllic spot on Li River). On some stretches of the river there are traffic jams when too many bamboo rafts are in use all at once. The locals have weather-beaten faces of the healthy color Chinese city dwellers try to avoid by using bucketloads of skin whitener because they don’t want to appear “poor.”
A French engineer named Sébastien becomes my roommate. “You like schools? Then I have an idea for you,” he says, and tells me about a Couchsurfing host in a village called Wenshi, just a few hours from here. “Charley—crazy guy but really nice. He’s in his mid-thirties and an English teacher and was also teaching here in Yangshuo until recently. Here are his contact details. I’ll write him that you might contact him. He’ll take you on for sure.” And sure enough, a message soon arrives.
From: Charley
Warmly welcome! I will be happy to meet you!
To: Charley
Thanks, I’m also looking forward to meeting you!
From: Charley
You’re a friend of Seb’s, so you’re also a friend of mine.
Could I listen to your voice?
Via WeChat, I send him a short greeting as a voice message.
“Stee-phen! What are your hobbies? Things that you like doing, hobbies?” comes back, also as a sound recording. His voice is unusually high-pitched and nasal, and he enunciates every syllable of the English words precisely, like on a language course CD for beginners.
“Travel, books, playing guitar,” I write, and it feels a bit as if I’m filling in an online dating profile.
He answers with another voice message: “Wow, that sounds great. But I think you could try to speak it out, not type it out.”
“Okay, from now on I will answer with voice messages,” I reply by text.
“Do you know why I want you to speak it out? Because I want to get used to your voice, your intonation. That’s why.”
A short while later, the next message from him arrives: “Do you sleep with Seb?” Whereas he has to get used to my intonation, I have to get used to his word choice.
“We share a room, yes. He’s sitting next to me.” Sébastien sends a “Hello, Charley” towards my cell mic.
“Good night, Stee-phen. You’re a friend of Seb’s, so you’re also a friend of mine,” he repeats.
WENSHI
Population: 30,000
Province: Guangxi
DOGS AND LOCAL POLITICS
THE MOTORBIKE TAXI takes me to a bus, the bus to Guilin station, then a cab to Guilin West station and from there another bus to Wenshi. It is always more complicated to travel from a large place to a smaller one than the other way around, and here my main problem is the local dialect. People don’t understand me when I say “Wenshi” because they pronounce it “Wen-si.” It is no less tricky with numbers, because shi (ten) sounds like si (four) in the local dialect. As if the subtle pronunciation differences of Chinese sibilants were not challenging enough.
After the decrepit Yutong bus has optimistically spent fifty minutes combing the city in the hope of finding further passengers on some obscure corner, it finally heads for the highway going east. The farther we travel from the city, the shorter the houses become and the taller the surrounding green hillocks. The wheels rumble, knotted plastic drapes flap against the windows and, from the seat behind me, I hear the sounds of some trendy smartphone video game: clinking money and a woman’s voice that keeps saying, “Great!” accompanied by a marimba triad.
From my seat, which is in need of a thorough cleaning, I watch greenhouses and red Sinopec gas stations flash by—“Great!”—little cloudy gray lakes and brown rivers—“Great!”—and regularly in the small villages, shop owners taking a midday nap on their counters—“Great!” The jingle of coins. Doo-da-loo.
Everyone on the bus has internet access except for the person who needs it most—me. Up to now I’ve neglected getting a Chinese SIM card, out of sheer laziness, actually, but I manage to convince myself that it is a rational decision, as it is more difficult to locate me without one. There is always a little bit of paranoia in a surveillance state. I pay my home network provider €1.99 for twenty-four-hour roaming, but it doesn’t work. I’ve been traveling since morning, and Charley doesn’t know when I am due to arrive. Without the internet in China, I’m an oddball without friends. “Great!” Doo-da-loo.
After two hours, the bus stops at the terminal in Wenshi. My cell phone displays a number of password-protected networks, some of the names consisting mainly of special symbols that don’t inspire much confidence. Still, I try them out using “88888888” and “123456789” as passwords—without success. I walk down the main street, but there are no restaurants to be seen that could possibly have internet access, just a bank, general stores and a suntanned street trader selling large chunks of pork.
I go back to the bus station and ask a woman at the counter where I can find Wi-Fi.
“Mei you—there isn’t any,” she says, her voice distorted through the mic behind the pane. I ask her whether she could write a WeChat message for me. Instead, she rummages for her phone and shows me an app called Wanle Jaoshi (meaning “strong key”) that enables you to access many secure networks, at least for a short while. Spy technology for everyone. She asks me whether I have it. Sadly, no.
A customer in a red jacket offers to call my host if I have the number. I only have his WeChat contact details, but that doesn’t help, as she is the first person I have met in China without a smartphone, just an old-fashioned flip phone.
The bus lady has another idea. She points to a phone store on the other side of the street. I walk over and find a range of models by internationally unknown companies like Hero Tod, Redgee, F-Fook and Coobe. I am just about to buy a Hero Tod phone, simply because of the sensational name, when the sales assistant takes my cell and logs me in to a Wi-Fi network.
From: Charley
Where are you now?
From: Charley
Stephan?
From: Charley
Why aren’t you on time?
To: Charley
Really sorry, I had no internet. I’m now at Wenshi bus station
From: Charley
Wenshi bus stop? Wait for me there
Back at the bus station I thank the lady at the counter. A few minutes later, Charley arrives on his e-scooter with a pink plastic roof. He is wearing suit pants, an orange sports jacket and very thick glasses on a very round face.
“My parents are very happy to meet you,” says Charley. “They’ve specially killed the dog for you.”
There’s a short pause while I absorb the shock. Maybe he’s just joking.
“That really wasn’t necessary,” I then say. I have never meant the sentence more. From a side street I hear the banging of fireworks.
“It’s a special day. Welcome! Take a seat!”
I squeeze behind him beneath the plastic rain covering. Because of lack of space I have to sit slightly crookedly with my backpack so as to not bang my head, my legs sticking up like a grasshopper’s.
“I’ve told my parents you are Stee-phen, my old friend from Germany,” he says. “I’ve told them you’re very polite and very talkative. Because you’re a friend of Seb’s, you’re also a friend of mine. Maybe it’s better not to mention couchsurfing, because it might be strange for them. Do you understand?”
The village consists of a series of dismal concrete detached houses with stores selling bits and pieces on the ground floor and living quarters above. On each entrance there are red-and-gold images of the door gods Yuchi Gong and Qin Qiong, two warriors from the Tang dynasty in the seventh century. With beards in full flow and terrifying halberds, they are supposed to ward off evil spirits. Often hanging next to them are cartoons of happy dogs with saucer eyes from the New Year celebrations; after all, 2018 is the Year of the Dog. Some of them have tongues sticking out as if to mock me.
Charley turns into a side street with plenty of potholes. Instead of slowing down before them, he just shouts: “Be careful!”
We pass through a gateway into the yard of his parents’ house—or rather, two houses. On the right, there is a dilapidated old stone structure with traditional roof shingles, and on the left, a new three-story concrete building with yellow walls. Two red lanterns decorate the new house’s main entrance, which leads directly to the living room. A mother hen and chicks are pecking at corn in the inner courtyard.
Charley introduces his parents. His father is an electrician, a stout man with a high forehead and brown skin. He holds a Zhenlong cigarette up to my face; the Chinese always offer a cigarette when they want to smoke. Thanking him, I decline. Charley’s mother has gray hair and plenty of laugh lines; to welcome me, she presses a handful of ultra-sweet candy and peanuts into my hand. She then disappears towards the kitchen. I try not to imagine what she might be doing there.
“Maybe you want to take a look at my school—then we have to go now,” urges Charley.
I quickly take my backpack to the first floor, where a room with a freshly made king-size bed has been prepared. The decorations on the wall in the anteroom are sensational: a propaganda picture of Xi Jinping and his wife next to a bullet train hangs nearby a huge photo of naked twin babies, a kind of lucky charm that is supposed to bestow on the people living here plenty of offspring. The highest authority in the state hangs on one wall and the most helpless beings in the country on the other, and everyone entering the room is somewhere between in the pecking order.
At regular intervals, red rectangles the size of CD cases are stuck to closet doors, walls and windows, rather like the tags left by debt collectors in preparation to auction off your possessions, though these rectangles are actually meant to bring good luck. The living room on the ground floor is guarded by a larger-than-life portrait of Mao on the wall tiles. He looks on seriously but kindly, his dark gray collar tightly buttoned, the outline of his head highlighted in white like a halo. Next to him are children’s and grandchildren’s school reports and certificates, as if they’re offerings to the former supreme leader.
On the scooter, with plenty of “Be careful” warnings from Charley, we hurtle off towards the school. Again, we pass several doors with New Year decorations showing happy dogs.
“What kind of dog was it, then?” I ask.
“A normal dog. My parents are a little sad about it, but we wanted to show you how hospitable we are.”
“It’s. . . a great honor. But I feel sorry for the normal dog!”
“He wasn’t a pet. He just lived here for nine months and guarded the house. He was called Xiao Bai, Little White One.”
I’m about to start a discussion of the meaning of the word “pet,” but he changes the topic.
“There are forty-seven kids in the class and they are already very curious about you,” he shouts into the wind. “Maybe you could start by telling them about the methods used in learning English in your country. Then you could go on to ask them about the scenic spots in this region. It’s important to motivate them to learn English. Many of them are not all that good.”
The school is enclosed by a wall and consists of a number of elongated buildings resembling army barracks. There is a basketball court and a soccer pitch, a hall of residence and a four-story main building with red lettering reading: “Education is the national plan, education brings prosperity to the people.”
Elm trees line the path to the schoolyard, and the whole complex looks clean and modern with a capacity for some thousand pupils. Charley leads me to a classroom. We enter to applause, forty-seven pairs of sixth-grader eyes looking towards me expectantly. On the desks are heaps of books and notepads.
My grasp of the language is enough for a short introduction in Mandarin: “Ni hao, wo jiao Stephan. Wo shi deguo ren. Renshi nimen wo hen gaoxing!—Hi, my name is Stephan. I come from Germany. I’m pleased to meet you!”
The audience cheers. Curious onlookers are gathered at a grated window in the adjoining hall, and I feel like a rock star. From now on, I’ll speak in English. Which topics had Charley suggested? I’ve forgotten. Never mind, I’ll just explain why English is so important in my country, that I write books, that I like China and that I’ve been to many countries.
“Stee-phen! I have a suggestion—maybe you could talk a little slower,” says Charley in his inimitable way. “Maybe” seems to be his favorite English word.
So I speak more slowly; nevertheless, he translates some terms. The job title “writer” he puts on the blackboard. If the kids become too loud he makes a “time-out” sign with two flat hands, like a volleyball coach. Sometimes he questions them to see if they have understood me, and in unison they all shout the answer. Towards the end of the lesson, the kids are allowed to ask me questions, which they do with earsplitting enthusiasm.
“Why are you so tall?” “How much do you earn?” “Have you got a girlfriend?” “What kinds of food do you like?” “What is your favorite animal?” “Can you use chopsticks?” (Much applause when I reply yes.) “Do you like flowers?” “Can you swim?” “Have you tried ginger tea?” “Can I shake your hand?”
