TITS AND TAT

So, it’s been a quiet week since I last wrote. I’ve since become a blonde again (Saturday 1/20) and found a wonderful Korean ("South" he was quick to clarify to the American, as if the South Korean flag pin he was wearing wasn’t enough.) hair stylist and elegant salon owner. He speaks a little English and quite a lot of Mandarin and when he discovered that I was single asked me, "Do you think Asian boyfriend?" to which I was utterly perplexed.

"Think?" I asked, confused as he put foils in my head with the attention only the hair on the blondes of the Sistine Chapel during the renovation have ever known. Surrounding us were a fleet of hair stylists fascinated to know how to handle my Western hair and even more fascinated to know what goes on in the head of an unmarried Western woman in her late twenties.

He broke his utterly intense hair concentration to flash me a conspiratorial look. "Yes, think" he smiled in the way that let me know that no matter what word he was using, he meant "desire" in all its connotations. I had yet to learn that the word for "want" and the word for "think" in Mandarin are the same thing.

"Keyi" I said the Mandarin equivalent of "It’s entirely possible" because I knew he wouldn’t understand, "It’s entirely possible." "Mei guo ren, Zhong guo ren, Thai guo ren; mei yi sa. Ta shi hao nan ma?" Or "American, Chinese, Thai; the value of that is nothing. Is he a good man?"
He smiled and nodded at this and then one of his 4 official assistants (the other five people were unofficial and there more as a tutorial than a professional position) asked me. "You are beautiful. Why no boyfriend?"

And though my mind raced from thoughts of, "What relevance does beauty have over relationship status" to "I’m in love with a boy but for whatever reason, he’s not interested in being my boyfriend" to "What business is it of yours?" So, I just shrugged because really, what does one say to the romantic equivalent of, "You’re tall so why don’t you have shoes on"?

The assistant then told me his five-year plan to go to LA and open a hair salon. It would appear that everyone in China (even if they’re Korean) has a five-year plan to go abroad. I’m often reminded of the college applications I filled out with that bullshit "Where will you be in ten years" question, as if you could possibly predict all the things that will effect (affect?) your direction. I never felt comfortable answering those questions and yet I feel utterly inadequate not having an answer to said question. Somehow, saving for your retirement and taking life as it comes doesn’t quite seem to be enough.

As the Koreans (and Asians in general as has been my experience) love them some big hair, the Korean hair stylist curled my hair effectively turning me into every blonde doll I’ve ever seen here in China. I returned to my Chinese Angel (she found the hair place and was getting her short hair permed, effectively turning her into a gorgeous Anime heroine) and she was bowled over by my hair. The irony of turning into another large breasted, curly, blonde haired, Jessica Simpson drone in order to reclaim my pride in my unique status was not lost on me.

And, as I got out of the cab that took me home and crossed the street to my apartment complex, it suddenly occurred to me that I had inadvertently turned myself into a Bentley. As my curly hair and breasts bounced across the street, men stopped dead in their tracks. One man even failed to stop his car all the way before he got out and started hollering, "Hello! Hello!"

Monday (1/22) I had my last bought of primary school classes but Z was nowhere to be found. (I had made a promise to myself that if I saw him I was going to ask him to come see some pictures from around the world as I miss him dearly and really just want to spend some time with him.) The one drawback to now having become a blonde is all the extra attention the males at school are giving me. Okay, not ALL the attention (it is flattering to see that the men who have always tried to be cool around me, now simply cannot help but stare for long, extensive periods of time; there is nothing better for a gal’s ego than seeing the impenetrable male’s faÁade crack at the mere sight of you) but the attention from my boss sucks. He spent the day making up excuses to come and see me, one of which was a "teaching summary."

I was asked to write a "teaching summary" for all my work in the primary school, the likes of which I am completely ignorant about. I have tried writing teaching plans and every time I try, the teaching plan is returned to me full of comments about how none of it is remotely adequate despite the fact that the things I am asked that I am familiar with in concept are, in fact, well documented within my teaching plan. The lack of English literacy amongst my English teaching colleagues is a little scary. Then there’s the small divide between East and West. Now, I’m no brilliant "teaching plan writer" however, I do know the basic structure of a teaching plan and how to execute one and the fact remains that "Western Teaching Plan" and "Eastern Teaching Plan" are nothing like each other beginning with the Eastern Teaching Plan’s focus on all the things you did wrong in each individual class and how you will promise to do better next class.
Consequently, I am more than a little anxious about having to write a "Teaching Review," to say nothing of the fact that my boss doesn’t read English or speak it nearly well enough to understand anything I would say, regardless of the simplicity of the words. Writing is one of the places where the divide between Mandarin conceptuality and English conceptuality cannot be made up. People who speak excellent English simply cannot write or read it. Perhaps once I am better at Mandarin, I will be able to make it more easily consumed by my Mandarin colleagues but I’m nowhere near that capacity now. In fact, I can think of about 4 people I know in China who might understand the gist of what I write but they would, invariably, return to me to explain the minutia. (It’s times like this I realize how I’m the only native English speaker I know and while it’s advantageous for everyone else around me that my high IQ rests primarily in my "Wordsmith" abilities, it sucks for me.) It seems like a waste of time to me, not to mention, earlier that day he came into the office to inform all the other English teachers that they were exempt from writing said Teaching Review.

Tuesday came and went without obvious note as I realized that my blonde hair is rather threatening to the women at work in the middle school. All the men noticed and all the students returned to their jaw-on-the-floor, "teeeeeeeacher" breathless declarations of my great beauty, however, not one of the teachers commented on my hair. Both my naughty classes were well behaved and they both asked me to take off my glasses so they could see me without spectacle, as it were. However, there was nary a word from the teachers. I’ve long ago noticed that Chinese men will not acknowledge openly anything that their female friends, colleagues and relatives find threatening and the silence of the men spoke volumes. The one exception to the silence was the tall gym teacher with the rambunctious son and whose ass I kicked in volleyball. He went from not making eye contact with me to asking the students to introduce us. (A man in China is not allowed to initiate casual conversation with a woman unless he’s been introduced formally.) I think the thing I like most about Chinese men is that, unlike most of the American men (and women) I know, a true interest in a woman leads to his ability to speak. Generally, the more a man is romantically interested in a woman, the more he has to say to her and not in the nervous-talking-thing way. It’s a genuine conversation with full back and forth and a genuine interest in her opinion. Such comfort with one’s own self makes me quite comfortable myself. Fortunately, most men are willing to attempt basic English and that makes me more than willing to butcher Mandarin. Between the basic Mandarin/English conversational skills and rather advanced comprehension skills, the simple act of conversing with men in China is really, really fun. The men are silly without a hint of cynicism and are willing to do anything to make a girl smile.

I then got home to realize that the repairs of the cable between Taiwan and the US have taken a major step backwards as I am now unable to get my AOL mail again. We’ve been assured it will be fixed before February but I highly doubt it. Back to Gmail. Again. Google, thank you for "selling out" to the Chinese government.

Wednesday, (1/24) I was supposed to go shopping for things to turn this apartment into a home. However, my Brazilian Angel has been dying to get me to a specific sweater shop for ages now and I finally relented. Wednesday morning, we took the bus to the sweater shop and instead of just seeing where it was, I ended up shopping up a storm. The store is an "irregular" store, selling lots of high-end tops that have a little something wrong with them. Most of the sweaters (as it is winter) are Merino wool but the tags were sewn on the outside of the seam instead of the inside or perhaps there is a small hole in the sleeve near the seam. As the store sells them for 19 yuan (a little under $2.35 at a 7.5 exchange rate) a pop I can certainly bust out my scissors and needle and thread. Hell, I have to do that at the start of every fall anyway what with the occasional moth hole and whatnot.

"Chris, you really need to start wearing tighter clothing." My Brazilian Angel said as I reached for a sweater I was sure would be loose on me.

Frankly, I have always liked the Annie Hall look as I just feel naked if people can make out my shape beneath my clothes. I guess, rationally speaking, there’s nothing wrong with my figure but I have always loathed it nonetheless. The fact that I have giant breasts in comparison with the women here and the Chinese women I’ve met are more obsessed with weight than I am doesn’t help the fact that I feel disgustingly fat.

However, at 19 yuan a pop, I could afford to (guilt-free) indulge in a little, "What if" shopping.
"Okay," I stated firmly, putting down the oversized hoodie and picking up the form fitting, rather daring top the store clerk had picked out for me. "I know I’ve lost weight but there’s no way I’m this small," I thought as I took the sweater. "Stop it," my inner Michi argued with my inner Chris. "Her job is to know what size I am by looking at me. You haven’t bought clothes since you were in the US and even in the US most of your clothes were baggy." So I bit the bullet and continued to shop in a similar size range. I finished shopping and asked if there was a changing room where I could try all the stuff on. I was offered the utility closet with a full-length mirror and bad lighting.

I knew my ego would never survive seeing myself in any state of undress, much less in fitted clothing under such environs so I made the rash decision to simply purchase everything and try it out at home. For less than the cost of a normally priced sweater in China, I got seven. I took them home, tried them on, realizing they all fit by Chinese standards (tighter than my fragile self-confidence is comfortable with).

Without my primary school classes, I only have one class on Wednesday. I figured that would be the perfect time to give a new sweater a test run. I chose the eggshell, Merino hoodie with two Adidas-like orange stripes running down the sleeves. Beneath the hoodie, I wore my matching orange Wonder Woman t-shirt. I tried to forget the fact that the cousins haven’t really changed size since I lost weight and I headed off to class.

In the teacher’s office, I took off my jacket and wasn’t given a second look by any of the women there. As everyone has commented, ad nauseum, on every aspect of my appearance save my newly blonded hair, I tried to take the appearance of my new sweater and my old cousins to no comment as threatening. In other words, I forced myself to think I looked pretty good. I tried to ignore my urge to believe I looked like shit because they also don’t comment on my appearance when I’m dying of the flu and look beyond awful. The true litmus would be my kids. My students love to tell me (in English) exactly what they think of me, brutal or kind. In fact, they take great pride in know exactly how to articulate their always-strong opinion. Hell, their opinion is so strongly articulated that some of the young women teachers are swayed towards anorexia when their students tell them that they’re fat.

So I headed off to class with a matching scarf wrapped around my neck in a vain attempt to partially cover the cousins up. I started class, noticing that there were several jaws on the floor but no one said anything.

"Okay, so I look strongly something," I thought. "Thank god I’m a foreigner and can get away with looking like shit from time to time. I may have to just chalk this one up to a loss."

As I made the rounds collecting the verbal answers from each student, one of the boys grabbed my scarf and caressed it. "Teacher," he said, "this beautiful."

"Thank you," I said as I watched him formulate the words to say something else. "Here it comes. Brace yourself," I thought.

He reached up and touched the sleeve of the sweater. "This beautiful too," he said breathlessly. All the students (boys and girls) around him nodded in agreement.

And then it occurred to me that men like things that bounce. Tight clothes show the lines of nudity with the bounce of movement. The cousins bounce. Curly hair bounces. Blonde, curly hair bounces most visibly of all. It always comes back to sex. Such a tortured topic sex is and yet it permeates every-fucking-thing. Silly, really.

Yesterday, Thursday (1/25), was my last day of classes before my vacation. I had my Chinese class first thing in the morning and my demure, kind teacher made no comment to my hair. She does not approach topics of envy without my bringing them up first. Case in point: She mentioned something about my glasses and I told her that blue eyes are, in fact, a genetic mutation of green eyes and therefore they are the, genetically speaking, weakest make up of eyes around. Consequently, most people with blue eyes need vision correction of some sort.

"But in China everyone has black eyes, so we think blue is beautiful." She said.

"I think black is more beautiful that blue. Besides, black is healthier than blue."

She smiled and nodded at this. She is aware that I had/have something going on with a Chinese man, so she knows that I’m not just patronizing with that comment; I truly mean it.

Nonetheless, she looked surprised at the first sight of me and then said nothing. I worked hard at my terrible Mandarin and the class ended all too quickly.

I headed off to the teacher’s office first and settled into my seat as my beloved colleague came over to pump me for more information about the US. He also offered me help on continuing my Chinese studies. His English is (obviously) very advanced, so the books he uses in understanding English are ideal for the early English speaker learning Chinese. He loaned me two of his books and I plan to go to the bookstore today to purchase them if I can find them.

I held my last two classes of the semester as rather loose affairs. In my first class (the period just before lunch) they had just received their English homework for the night. I told them they could work on it in class and I would help them if they had questions. It worked out pretty well as all of the students did have questions and I was able to answer most of them in a succinct and clear manner. I then corrected their homework, explaining which answers were wrong and why they were wrong. It’s nice to feel like a real teacher from time to time and not just training wheels for foreign exchange.

At lunch, the Dreamy Teacher you may remember from photo day who looks unsettlingly like my younger brother, showed up. He’s one of the male teachers who’s really interested in talking to me but afraid to use his English. I was walking to lunch with a flock of girls from my favorite 7th grade class who love to dramatically declare their love for me and toss themselves about in the most operatic fashion. While I was walking with the girls, Prof Dreamy (who teaches history) showed up and the girls all forgot me entirely while squealing over Prof Dreamy.

"They adore me but the moment you show up, I disappear." I teased Prof Dreamy. He’s a nice fellow who isn’t put off by the fact that we have no common language. He’s also a polite fellow who is rather unaffected by the notion that he is the essence of male beauty as understood by his culture. I respect little more in a conventionally beautiful person than their lack of attempts to trade on it. Being the jealous girl in the back of homeroom class who always wanted to be accepted by the cheerleaders but wasn’t and so made fun of them instead, I am given to looking for the first sign of people trading on their looks and find it a most distasteful quality.

He looked at me, smiled broadly, a little nervously and said, "Ting bu dong." (I don’t understand your foreign language.)

I shrugged, "Wo ting bu dong han yu danshi zhe shi zhong guo bu mei guo." (I don’t understand Chinese but this is China not America.) I always do my best to own the fact that in someone else’s country, it is the foreigner’s responsibility to meet the locals in their native tongue not the local’s responsibility to meet the foreigner in their native tongue. The Chinese really would like to meet English speakers in English, so I feel it imperative to remind them of the fact that this is THEIR country, not mine.

He smiled and nodded, turning back to the girls and using them to translate between us.
As our entourage piled into the cafeteria, I was met with lots of "Lao hao"s. "Hello teacher" is "Lao shi hao." "Lao hao" is "Hey teach’!" In other words, it’s my greatest victory in China. I am fast disappearing as "Teacher" and not just becoming "Lao shi" but rather becoming "Lao," the ultimate in casual student/teacher relations. I stick out like the sorest of sore thumbs but somehow, in a mere six months, I’ve managed to become accepted as utter normalcy.

Even as a blonde with large cousins.