Things I just LOVE about China

One day I will leave this country and I will never forget:

In the humid summers I perspire a lot and whenever I walk into a shop an assistant offers me tissues. The other day the newspaper vendor lady insisted I take a whole packet, no charge.

Sheez … I will never forget the little green rattletrap of a bus in Nanhui, a farming area outside Shanghai where we once worked. The bus driver would actually go off his bus route to take me to a particular destination. He is only supposed to stop at bus stops but several times when I was walking down the street from my school he would come to a grinding halt and ask if I needed a lift, his huge grin further brightening my day. (Don’t try that in Shanghai, the laws are far stricter. Imagine that happening in London or New York?) As the bus clattered off again, he, the conductor and I would all sit chatting, me trying to keep up with my pidgin Mandarin.

The way the children at my school just love me and in letters tell me that I have helped them learn to enjoy English and have the confidence to speak it. They are usually so shy when it comes to speaking English. They have come to know me as a big softy and during breaks we sometimes have sword fights with empty bottles. Okay, I confess, sometimes during class time too.

The boisterous fireworks display of children’s laughter whenever I get up to my slapstick antics in class. Children’s laughter is a special gift, and Chinese children especially put the merriment back into life. I know; I have taught children for virtually twenty years, obviously not just in China.

When we first got here we knew no Chinese and my wife hurt her foot and needed to go to hospital. A university student who spoke English took us to a hospital and did all the translation with the staff. He refused some form of compensation or gift and also paid the taxi fare there and refused to take our money. And oh, we never got to know his name.

On several occasions I have had trouble explaining my needs in banks to staff and a Chinese stranger who knew English helped me. (My Chinese is at the intermediate level now and I need less help.)

The little old ladies in the city of Hangzhou who loved to run over and touch my Bhudda-like boep. At first I was indignant. Then I got over myself. “Ni fu qian!” I learned to cry. You pay money!

The maid we have now, Mrs Tang, fifty-something, two bricks and a ticky, for doing things without us asking around the home like sewing back hems onto our curtains and mending my trousers. And also for straddling our windowsills, leaning far out and washing the outside of our windows. I really implore her not to because we live on the twenty second floor and between her and the hard tarmac way way below is a whole lot of scary nothing. She even sometimes stands on the windowsill and leans out to wash the windows … at that point I leave the room as I can’t take it any more.

The man who came running up to me in a subway station with a fifty-buck note he said had fallen out of my pocket.

The elegant coffee shop manageress who let me buy a packet of tea for less than twenty bucks at her shop and served me tea whenever I went there from my packet at no extra cost.

My wife can walk the streets where we live in Shanghai any time of the night and feel safe.

We are easily able to get jobs teaching English that pay well, given the amount of hours we teach (I work a sixteen-hour week). It is like a working holiday and fun.

S’true (starts to rap with hand drumming the desk): To start my day in a great way this is what I say — if we focus on the kak we start to smell of the kak and our mood gets swak. Instead of ignoring them and not appreciating them I’m gonna smell each flower, not miss any hour, I’m not gonna cower, my milk’s not sour, and now, baby, mmm hmmm … I’ve got the POWER! (Nods to the pop group Snap! Gets dressed for work.)