Reflections on the Chinese man I spat at

The sight must have been amusing and alarming: a tall, young Chinese man doing a flying kung fu kick and bouncing off my back. He then dashed off and I was rather relieved. The Chinese government takes a dim view of public scuffles; we could well have both ended up in a police station.

What happened was this. My wife and I were walking down a very popular shopping street in Shanghai called Nanjing Xi Road, my wife trotting on ahead as she usually does, me with my head in the clouds, enjoying the sunny day, the sky a vivid blue made more so by its sudden appearance after days of misty, grey weather. I saw the young man trying to give my wife a brochure and starting to harass her, waving the brochure in her face even though she had said no. Harassing is something those pamphlet-distributors like to do when a woman is on her own. He hadn’t seen me. I shouted hey! Just then I saw his hand descend on her breast — that’s what it looked like to me. He then saw me coming up very fast — I am a big softy but to a Chinese person I am a formidable sight and he backed off. As is my wont in situations like this I had already seen red and told him to f— off. He replied in kind, and, enraged, not thinking, I spat at him and immediately regretted it. I saw him go into kung fu mode and turned my shoulder to his shoe as he came flying through the air. He merely bounced off me; it was all show and then he ran off. Bystanders were gob smacked and stopped and stared. We just kept walking.

I regretted immediately and enormously my actions (spitting). It could have been an ugly scene indeed. Wisdom through the rear view mirror, which, as we know, does not get dirty. What I should have done was just left it at “f-off” and saying “watch it” in Chinese as he had seen me, sized me up and had started to back off. I would have actually liked to have apologised to him. Marion said he had not touched her breast, it just looked like it from my point of view while he was trying to stuff an unwanted brochure in her face.

I have my wife’s dignity to uphold and she has had a boob or another part of her body yanked at by Chinese beggars before (when I was not looking). She has also had paint “accidentally” splashed on her shoes by a shoe shiner in a desperate attempt to get her to give him business. She has had money stolen off her by a taxi driver who stopped near her school where no one could see, grabbed the 50 RMB and started shouting at her and refusing to give the change, which should have been about 40 RMB. She arrived home terrified and in tears.

I am left alone though twice I have had my butt fondled and a few times had my tummy patted. On both butt-grasped occasions my fist was automatically swinging back at the offender and I thought — police, court case for assault, keep your nose clean — dropped my arm and just shouted at the twat. With the tummy-touchers I usually block their hands before they get that close. I can see the signs.

Generally Marion feels extremely safe in Shanghai but there have been petty small-crime events over the past four years. So what had happened that day when I spat was a build-up of lots of resentment. I didn’t like that bit of me that I saw — but it’s there. Popular teacher of children, yeah, Mr Funny Guy, yeah, poet and writer, yeah, good hubby, yeah, usually generous, yeah, but resorting to sordid behaviour? Nah. So yeah, writing this little piece made me realise that puerile scene (I admit my puerility at the time) was a lot of little incidents that hit critical mass.

What would I have done if it was a black or white person harassing my wife? Well, I doubt it would have happened in the first place. My experience, broadly speaking, of both race groups in South Africa and Zimbabwe (when it was a country worth visiting) and other parts of the world is a respect for private space which mainland Chinese do not have. Touch, prod, poke, feel…beggars shove their cups of money straight in your face, pull on your arm. There is no build-up of petty resentments towards other people of other races. It’s just a certain kind of mainland Chinese man (women on the whole have more respect for private space) that can get to me.

What I am happy about is my genuine sense of remorse. All I did was add fuel to racist tension — of which there is precious little between foreigners and Chinese. They are just genuinely curious about us and cannot understand why we don’t like being stared at, singled out, laughed at. The laughter comes across as mockery but I realise more and more it is a kind of delight and also nervousness. They are, as my Chinese friends tell me, genuinely shy.

But I would apologise humbly to that young man but also request he learn not to harass. I don’t know if he would understand.

Well, I seem to have got that out of my system. Remorse led to relief and more learning curve.