The Swimming Pool – The Worst Place to Hide White Skin

A neighboring university offers a 15 Yuan ticket (10 if I fib and say I’m from said University and then act really confused and pretend that I cannot speak Chinese when they ask for my ID card) for unlimited time in their swimming pool. I go once a week for a dose of Chinese culture and some exercise on the side.

After misunderstanding the complex directions of the locker room rules, and having every inch of my white skin inspected by the other women as I change, I make my way to the Olympic style swimming pool. I must be glowing as every goggle wearing swim cap covered head (that is not face down in the water) turns to look at me. I scramble to disappear into the water. There is a play area where adults and children alike use floaties and flail about. Next there are two slowish lanes with older men and women wallowing through the breast stroke. Finally the inside two lanes are for those a bit more athletic. I pick the slow lane. After a couple of laps, I’m hanging out by the spittoon located at either end of the pool (yes gross but not as gross as if all those coal dust loogies were going into the pool) and a pink swim capped lady with enduring pink lipstick is staring. Here it comes, “Where from?” “Meiguo (America)” “[in Chinese] Ohhh your Chinese is SO good.” And I smile and return to the crawl thinking, “remember pink cap, remember pink cap”. On the way I’m interrupted by some unapologetic cross traffic from two high school aged boys. I rest at the other end because I’m not a good swimmer. A blue capped, heavy middle-aged man emerges from the water and greets me with a strong hot misty exhale reeking of his garlicy lunch, his most recent cigarette, and the consistent sort of moldering smell that never really gets brushed away here. I turn my head to the spittoon, and nearly gag. Off I go, “remember blue cap, remember pink cap.” At the other end, I pause too long. A university student is there also resting. He is extra skinny and his Speedo makes him even skinnier. Confident from his last oral English class, he asks, “Where are you from?” “America,” I say. Next question: “Have you a telephone number? I want to practice my oral English.” I’m thinking, not only would I never give my number to a guy in a Speedo after 15 seconds of conversation (30 if you count the awkward staring before) but I don’t know where he would put it even if I wrote it down! “Umm, I have to keep exercising.” And I’m back to the crawl thinking, “This lane is on to me.” At the end, I duck under the lane line and switch lanes. This group will take a few more laps before I can no longer keep all the swim caps straight, which buys me at least 10 more minutes of blending in as just another color of swimming cap.

After a couple more strategic lane swaps, its back to the showers where even through the steam I can watch women watching me. I know they think it is strange that I wash my hair with my head thrown back because I think it’s strange that they wash their hair bent over forward. Either way, while I’m looking up and they’re looking down, that is a couple more moments of being unnoticed.

Since Where? Eastern What?

If you have never been to modern China, you are probably picturing some modernized version of misty mountains and silk dresses. But now when I think of China, I picture a hazy skyline of half built high-rises, each topped with a crane, and all twinkling from the working welding torches within. Many of the new luxury building projects are obviously emulating some sort of western style (though usually missing it). Two traits stand out in particular for the newest luxury construction projects. First, regardless of how recent the building or business has been in place, there is often a placard inscribed with “Since (a date)”. Now, when I see “Since 1800” on a sign or label in America, I think, “Wow, this business must be great, having such enduring business and all.” Or, at least that is what they want me to think. However, here the placard stating, “Since 2002,” simply does not evoke the same veneration. Frankly, it seems like an oxymoron.

The second feature is a naming trend. Often months before a new 40 story apartment complex pops up overnight, the name is already proudly displayed. Names like: “Eastern San Jose”, “Eastern Camp David”, “Eastern Manhattan Towers”, and “Eastern Stanford Place.” The intent is to associate the new landmark with the revered place names of another culture thus boosting the new construction’s legitimacy as luxurious and developed. Yet to me it reinforces the infatuation for western luxury lifestyle that irks me so. Why can’t they name it, “Fresh Forbidden City” or, Modern Ming Magnificence?” Ok so, maybe the alliteration is going a bit far. My point is that developing China is quicker to honor western tradition than the historical treasures of their own deep history. Or, at least that’s what sells!

"You know, this is the Chinese way"

My trusted Chinese friends in have been exceedingly helpful to me in my new life here. However, from those less concerned with my best interests, I have experienced a chronic social phenomenon dodging responsibility. Often when someone can feel me reaching my wits end, they say, “This is the Chinese way, no one wants to do more than they must.” Please note that in contrast, any inconvenience, weather it be expended money or time, is willingly endured for the sake of close friends or family. But, the work place is a different story all together. Here are two such examples, one from the University and one from travels.

The classrooms in my university are completely dysfunctional for a discussion class (which is what I’m supposed to be teaching). They are designed for lectures and for students looking straight ahead being perfectly silent. Jealous of other foreign teachers that have rooms modified just for their conversation classes, I was eating lunch in the teachers’ cafeteria, thinking of a solution to my problem, when in walked the Dean of the English department. I quizzed him as he slopped a tray full of Chinese dishes and rice into his mouth in record time. Here is how the no language barrier English conversation went.

Me: So, I’m having trouble with my discussion classes because of the design of the classroom. You know all the desks are bolted to the floor. It is designed for a lecture, not discussion.
Dean: ah ah ah (Chinese sound for ok/yeah/understand/listening)
Me: Can you think of any classroom that has tables and chairs so that we could move around?
Dean: (looks up from his tray towards the ceiling) No they are all like that.
Me: Ah, ah. You know, in other schools they have made a classroom for foreign teachers.
Dean: Ah ah ah
Me: Do you think our univeristy could to this?
Dean: No, because the desks are fixed to the floor.
Me: Umm, I know, that is my problem. Do you think they could change one classroom on this campus for this kind of class?
Dean: No, because they are all the same.
Me: Umm, I know, but if I asked someone higher up, and had the students request also, do you think we could do it?
Dean: No, because we use a private company to supply our classroom materials.
Me: I see…. (pause and look around covetously at the mobile chairs in the cafeteria) Well, could I have class here?
Dean: Absolutely not.
Me: Why?
Dean: Because this is a cafeteria, not a classroom.
Me: But it could be a classroom, if we had class here.
Dean: But the door is locked most of the time.
Me: But we could arrange to open it during non-lunch time periods.
Dean: Impossible, it is a different department of the university.
Me: Ok
Dean: What about on the second floor of the main building, there are some couches there?
Me: Sure, could I borrow a chalkboard or a white board from another classroom?
Dean: No, I think there are no extras.
Me: Ok
[Here comes feigned helping but really are dodging responsibility part]
Dean: You could have your class outside.
Me: It’s December
Dean: You could all sit on the floor.
Me: My students don’t even want me to put my bag on the floor, they will not sit on the floor!
[The shoveling of rice has ceased] You know these things are very complicated I think. Ok, you know, I have to go. Have a good day Laura.

And I knew I would never hear anything of it again.

Another example is perhaps more humorous yet at the time just as frustrating. When traveling with my parents in Yunnan province in Southern China, we stayed in a historic village called Lijiang. We stayed in an admittedly sparse lodging house but comfortable enough for one night. But, there was a problem. The toilet didn’t flush and the seat was half gone.

I called in the boss, a long haired woman with gray streaks and a strong Sichuan accent wearing a cheap masculine looking boxy sport coat. I explained the problem in my best Chinese. She said she would come fix the flushing part. But, I said the seat was broken too and my parents are tired and old (sorry parents I had to play up the severity of the situation a bit) and they need to be able to sit on a whole toilet seat. There we stood, the two of us in the sparse, poorly redone bathroom, staring at the toilet. She dove right into “helping” me with my problem. Without speaking, she creatively and acrobatically demonstrated about five different positions from which my parents could choose to use the crescent seat and still carry out their business. I was trying my hardest to remain stern and hold back my smile as she danced and posed around the pot. Finally, the seat remained unfixed and I demanded that we change rooms.

Parents come to visit from the Midwest Motherland

My parents came to Dalian in the dark. I was almost offended when in true American style they continued to wear their shoes past the threshold of my apartment. I asked them to kindly remove their shoes. They did so obligingly, but mostly likely thought they were humoring their daughter who is trying to live Asian style. The next morning, they saw the city in the daylight. I took them to the market where we walked over slimy fish guts, rotten vegetables, and vendors’ yellow spit wads. Throughout the day I am sure they noticed the piles of dirt and dust from the ever-present construction and maybe even one or two young children squatting to take a leak (or more) on the sidewalk. When we returned to the apartment they took off their shoes immediately, the day’s sights explanation enough for the new custom their daughter has apparently embraced.

It took me weeks of confusing meetings and phone conversations with the Chinese travel agency, but I finally successfully planned a much too ambitious vacation to visit the city of Xi'an and multiple locations in Yunnan province for the three of us.

Yunnan is a mountainous province in Southern China bordering Tibet to the West and Laos and Myanmar to the South. It is famous for holding 26 of China’s 56 and some odd ethnic minorities. We hired a private driver which was key to reaching some remote mountain towns and stopping whenever we pleased. I was astonished to realize that my freshly learned Mandarin Chinese did me no good in most of the places we visited. I held my breath while my mother traipsed out into a rice paddy to converse (in English) with a minority farmer who surely did not even speak Chinese! I am sure the story of the day that the white woman came to his field made him the center attention in the village for months! As far as I could tell, these people’s daily life, language, and culture has nothing in common with and is most likely indifferent to Beijing and the central government.

Other travel highlights include: the old minority woman who guffawed at the mud slick on my mom’s backside from an unfortunate topple in the old woman’s banana field; all of us cringing during the crazy Chinese driving on mountain roads and my father demanding that the seat belts be released from under the seat as a direct result; my mom riding a yak across a mountain river; and the live chicken that got loose in our ATM booth! My father reported that in Ohio, he probably encounters three new images in any given day, giving his brain plenty of leisure time to process these new encounters. Yet on this trip, each day felt like a marathon as hundreds even thousands of new images were packed into his brain. What troopers!