International Man of Mystery

I think I now know what it feels like to be a celebrity. Walking around in China everyone pays attention to me constantly. People stare, point, take pictures, whisper to eachother. It is an odd sensation to be the center of attention no matter where you go. Beijing was not all that bad. I ran into other white people every once in a while there. We would then stare at eachother like we too had never seen a white person before in our lives. For some reason, we would not speak to eachother just stare. Such an unusual social experience, China.

Now I am in a city named Jiaozuo. Every chinese person calls this a small city. To me there is nothing small about it. There are people everywhere. I have been told this is a city of 600,000 people. In relative terms, that is not that large. Fremont is a city of 210,000 people. I would say that there are about 50 times as many people on the streets of Jiaozuo then there are in Fremont. The proportions just do not make sense to me. It crossed my mind that it may feel like this simply because there are more people walking or on bikes or scooters here then there are in Fremont. I then looked at how many cars were on the road and there seemed to be more of them as well. The numbers just do not add up. This city feels more like it holds a couple million. Who knows what the truth is. Lets just say there are a lot of people where I am staying and they all stare at me. It is funny to see their faces as I pass by on a scooter; some of them seemed so shocked at what they are witnessing.

Yesterday I went on a tour of a couple of hospitals, an orphanage and an old folks home. Everywhere I went I was being treated like a VIP. Processions of people were following me everywhere. A young woman's only job seemed to be to take pictures of me as I walked around and was shown areas of one of the hospitals. I am not even really sure what I was doing in these areas. My only thought was that at some point I might be doing some volunteer work in these places at some point. The old folks home could really use some help. Even just to organize some people to come and spend time with the people who live there. They seem very estranged and bored. I tried to put forth ideas of organizing some days to come down and spend time with these people. Ideas that did not seem to sit very well with Yao, the person whose house I am staying with and the person that I was warned about before coming here.

It is still to early to tell exactly how things are going to go here at this "volunteer position". I hesitate to call it that at this point. I suppose I am volunteering my time, but so far the only volunteering I have done has been spent with two young boys on two separate occasions. Basically I speak with them and try to get them to use their English that they have already been taught. It helps them to hear a native speaker and it seems like they might enjoy it at times. I am still not exactly sure what else I am going to be able to do here other then that. It seems that Yao really wants me to teach english and only english. I am not sure what his intentions are and there are some communication difficulties. I ask a question and it does not seem like he understands what I am asking. Or perhaps he does understand it and he deflects it. It is very difficult to tell.

I have been able to determine that Yao cares a lot about this project and its future. He hopes to turn this project into a self-sufficient volunteer project that has enough money to operate and a constant flow of volunteers both from within and without China. At this point, I am the only volunteer in the project and I am living with Yao and his girlfriend. Yao is very intelligent and cares about the people here in China both young and old. I do get the feeling that there are things that he is not telling me about. However, I am not sure if that is because he does not know how to say them or because he fears what I may do with the knowledge. It is very clear to me that Yao wants me to stay for as long as possible. He goes out of his way to make sure that I have everything that I may want or need. Well, he makes his girlfriend go out of her way, anyhow. I do not like the way in which he treats his girlfriend at times. I am not sure if it is just cultural differences or if he just has a little domestic violence in him. From my point of view he treats her very poorly. He makes her do things which she does not really want to do. His girlfriend picked me up from the train station when I arrived here, come to find out that he basically forced her to come get me. Yao told me that he was the one who would be picking me up. Later that night, Yao and I were going to go out to dinner but his girlfriend did not wish to go along and wanted to stay home. I cannot speak Mandarin, but I understood that through his words he basically forced her into coming along. I do not like this behaviour, but I am not sure if this is the norm in Chinese culture. Actually, I am not even sure if I care if it is the norm or not. Even if it is normal in all of Chinese culture, I still feel like it is wrong and that Yao needs an attitude adjustment.

I am not sure if the people of China know what stars look like. It is so polluted in this country that you can never see the stars. I am spitting much more then usual in an attempt to get all the crap out of my mouth. It scares me to think that the pollution is only going to get worse here before it gets any better. I hesitate to think what worse will turn into. I never feel clean here. I am constantly thinking about the pollution and about how much pollution is in the food that I am eating or what kind of bugs might be in the water that was used to wash the vegetables that I am about to put in my mouth. Bottled water seems to be a norm though, which is great. I just hope that it is bottled in a part of china that is clean.

Toilets in this country are just plain odd. The traditional western style toilet is a rarity in public places. It seems as though people have them in their homes, but every public toilet I have been to has been a squat pot, as they are so lovingly called. These are basically holes in the ground. One step above a port-a-potty...they smell about the same though. Actually, port-a-pottys might even be better considering there is normally toilet paper in them. In America, before I left the house, I would check my pockets to make sure I had my keys, wallet, and cell phone; here it is wallet, keys, toilet paper. If you are caught out and about in China without toilet paper on you, things can turn ugly pretty quick. I am crossing my fingers that I do not get a stomach sickness while I am here in this country. I just cannot image what would happen if I am in some squat pot in the middle of no where without toilet paper when I need an entire roll, meanwhile a mob of people are waiting outside the bathroom to take my picture.

Here are some pictures from China and I also added some more pictures to the Germany album as well:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ddb123/China#
http://picasaweb.google.com/ddb123/Germany#