*The Town*

So I’ve been in Liaocheng for about a week now, though it seems much longer. Here I intend to describe the journey and the town, next time I will go into the teaching job. I left ATL just as some sort of 100 year flood was hitting, though this wasn’t obvious at the time. Raining, yes, but as a nervous flyer, I wasn’t troubled at all during the flight to JFK. Obviously it rained harder later in the day. Had a six hour layover in JFK to contemplate what I was getting into.

I’d reached out over the ol’ Facebook to some NYC peeps (before dropping Fbook, which doesn’t work in China anyway) and got an invite to brunch from an old girlfriend working at this place, but was too nervous to venture from the airport – many chances for something to go wrong and miss a flight. Besides, even with her explanation of a cheap way to get to the place, I only had so much money. And what is a reasonably priced commute in The Big Apple is the equivalent of several all expenses paid days in China. So I just hung around on the cell, talking to folks for the last time, at least for a while.

On the flight, I was dismayed to hear the woman behind me request I “not put my seat back”, but played it Buddhist and dosed as best I could. It actually lead to a nice conversation with my rowmate, a snaggle toothed Chinese woman from Long Island going back to visit family, who’d lived in Australia and Japan. We even swapped email addresses. I’ve had to leave my little dog with friends in Athens for the time I’ll be gone, and did not appreciate one of the in flight movies being “Hotel for dogs”, which is full of cute dogs you must see even if you choose not put on the headphones. I especially did not appreciate it when they ran this film a second time… But Lilly is in good hands and the situation is what it is. *insert your “eat dogs in China” joke here*, because I won’t. A)because that’s a cliche American bullshit thing to say and B) because it’s true, esp. in the South, and I recently learned that in exact opposition to bovine slaughtering practices, it is believed the meat tastes better when pre-surged with adrenaline, so a dog is not simply killed before cooking- it is slowly beaten to death. Almost makes me want to get my PETA on. But the #1 reason Lilly didn’t come, assuming she could have made the 26 hr travel time with me in some narco-haze, lived (at least) a year with me in such foreign circumstances, the return flight – it would have been a six month quarantine before she could have peed freely on US soil. So go ahead and explain that to my little black, heartbroken bitch, Uncle Sam.

Before I left while crashing with my buddy Dave, when I booked my ticket through flychina.com, I was notified that the last leg of my trip, the flight from Beijing to Jinan had been canceled. I was presented with two options, Air China would: either give a free hotel room in B; or, push the entire thing back a day. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Missing a connection due to airline error and being put up is one thing, but this seemed too good to be true. I was esp. skeptical after my ‘06 debacle return flight from Beijing, which was delayed 27 hours, when Continental airlines bent me over without so much as a kiss, pushed it way on up and in – dry – and just broke it right off inside, but that’s a story for another time. May I say, Air China delivered in spades, not only a free room but free shuttle both too and fro! On the shuttle I met a swell couple in their 40’s from SF over here to study some martial art in the South, he Dutch and she American. It was their first time over and they seemed a little dazed. She retired early, but Jan and I stayed up for several more beers discussing life on Earth:USA, Europe and China. Next morning it was shuttle back to the airport, and a very nice 45 minute flight with Shandong Airline on down to Jinan.

There I was met by the woman I’d been in email contact with Ivy and another hottie named Lisa. We hopped into a car with the school driver and headed into Jinan. En route, they explained that the same owner has two schools in Jinan, one in Liaocheng and another elsewhere. As I was more needed in Liaocheng, I would be going on there with Lisa, who also it became apparent would be my boss, and thus will no longer referring to as a hottie (indeed in a contract I signed, staff and student dating if verboten. The students are a bit young and this won’t be an issue, but it will be difficult to curb flirting with some of the Chinese “cc’s”(assistant teachers all female and in their 20’s). We had a banquet style lunch and I saw only a bit of Jinan, during a post lunch walk to the bus station. Didn’t see any of the beautiful spring areas. Jinan is huge and bustling, the EF school there has harder hours for the same pay. It seems fortune has smiled on me with this unexpected turn of events. Liaocheng is a “small” Chinese city of 6 million. I’m not sure how much larger Jinan is, but it is the capitol of Shandong province.

Lisa and I rode the bus on to Liaocheng, discussing Chinese and American culture and films on the way, about an hours ride on a nice bus. Nicer than a Greyhound, if that means anything to you. Once in Liaocheng, she asked the cab to take us around the city a bit before arriving at the school. It wasn’t so impressive at first, but by the time we got to the lake and further into the old city, and canal district, I knew I had arrived. Cool old guard towers along what was once the city walls. Winding canals with stone paths on either side, occupied only by quiet, old people exercising or vegging out. A simple series of winding canals, nowhere nearly as complex as Venice, but also much prettier and organic with weeping willows and birds, including what I think are Chinese magpies. I’m not really a “bird guy”, but I take note when seeing birds with which I am unfamiliar. At the school I met the head teacher, a Canadian named Darren, and the other assistants. Darren walked me on to my apartment, 5 minutes from the school, when I eventually met my roommate Kissi (key see) who is from Ghana. The place is a 3 bedroom 1 bath, with rent clocking in (though this is paid by the school) at the equivalent of $66 per month! It is a fifth floor walk up, and the building is perhaps squalid by western standards, but it’s China: no crackpipes to step on or bullets flying. I don’t think crime is an issue. There is every sort of store very near by, though I am having trouble finding some things – more on this later.

So now a word about the noise. There is noise in China. I am already becoming desensitized to it, but the continuing car horns, fireworks, people screaming into cell phones… The traffic style is beyond belief: you simply go where ever you want to (yes there are “lanes”, but these are an outline at best – think nothing of crossing the double yellow to pass, maybe the light is red but if your ready to turn, just go ahead and do it, slowly and honking the entire time.) Roads are shared by cars, bikes, pedestrians, electric bicycles (Hello President Obama, have you heard about these things and why don’t WE have them?), scooters, motorcycles, tractors, tuk tuk style motorized vehicles, three wheeled cars, trucks of various sizes and cars. You go where ever you want, without even looking, and vehicles will simply honk when they predict they may be on a colliding trajectory. In America a horn often translates as “Fuck you!” Here, it is simply “I’m here, be aware of me”. And most everyone is just rolling around announcing “I’m here, I’m here”. And they are all going slower. There are a car traffic lanes, and wholly separate bike lanes on the bigger roads and there is more or less order to this system, by which I man the cars don’t usually go over the curbing into the bike lanes. Bikes go anywhere, except into the stores and canal (hopefully). I see near collisions constantly, but have yet to see an actual collision. I am also convinced American’s, when compared to Europe and Asia, can’t drive.

And the fireworks, by which I do not mean beautiful, 4th-of-July lightshow, just M 80+ noise fests and ladyfingers thrown out the back of passing vehicles. Starting before dawn, lasting for several hours most mornings. It really is as if the city is being shelled. *Boom* – car alarms go off, by why should car alarms ruin your fun? It’s not YOUR car alarm. Believe it or not, I have alread learned to sleep through this.

And there is always the canal to drop down to when the stress is getting to me. It’s serene, below street level, and much more quiet. There is the rare power boat that goes down the canal and makes a huge wake, but it’s mostly chill, just wander and relax. Watch sword exercises or Tai Chi, or the group exercises. One of the main attractions in town, the beautiful ShanShan guild house is like 7 minutes from my place and I discovered it quite by accident. There is a Grand Canal that runs from Beijing down to the south, and the Liaocheng system feeds into this. I don’t yet know how practical travel by this route is, but based on the infrequency of boats, I’m guessing not very.

Costs $1 = 6.8 Yuan (or RMB): you can have street food, like the egg-crepe thing for 1.5 Yuan. Restaurant meals run from 11-20 for a course or two. Coke cost more than beer. 9 large beers are 20 = around 30cents each for the big Heinekin size in the states (one problem I discovered is different styles of beer have different alcohol quantities. After 4, why am I not feeling this? but I figured out where to look on the label and got another kind – same price). 1 hour full body massage with extra time on feet and reflexology observation (requested or not…) = 50 RMB. In short, things are cheap. But not computers, which is strange, as they are all made here. But they cost about 1.5 times as much as in the states, at least in Liaocheng. Got a camera and mic for the laptop for $4. Haggling is always an option in smaller stores and market stalls.

Next time: more on the job itself. For now is the start of a week of holidays: the 60th anniversary of the PRC, and a lunar holiday (I think to mark mid-Autumn. But then all missed classes must be made up in a double loaded schedule week. How is this a holiday, China? But I’ll take it. I won’t have a sense of my true work week until things normalize after mid-Oct, but it’s a reasonable load and I’ll be making plenty. I did have to drop about $115 for an entire year of internet (6 months was more than 2/3 the yearly cost, so I just bit the bullet…at $30 per month net in the states, it’s still less than 1/3) but I’ll have to watch my spending, somewhat, until first pay. The problem is running about all day, everything is such a bargain (also equipping the place) but then realizing the tally by the end of the day. Many pebbles can still make fora heavy load…

So I’m off to China in the morning. When I was over there in ‘06, I could not access this blog. But my “producer” is gonna make updates for me from time to time via HTML emails. The first will probably be in a while, as I want to get well set up in my teacher’s routine and save major exploration of Jinan, Shandong and elsewhere in China after the homesickness kicks in. Stay tuned!

Missed out on an obit. last Friday, and this one is a little different as I actually once “met” and interacted with him. He read on the UGA campus in what I’ll guess was ‘95, but I can’t reference a month right now. Some friends and I owned a bookstore in Athens at the time and when I walked up to him after the reading, maybe I was being a bit “glory”, but I couldn’t help but throw out the idea that, had he time, it might be cool if he came by. My intention was truly just for him to see and enjoy the place, as it was a bookstore like no other, I wasn’t trying to cash in on some “celebrity appearance”.

But how exactly to spontaneously pitch this?
I guess he wasn’t too impressed, for his response came, and I’ll never forget,
“You have a bookstoaahh?” like a junkie Elmer Fudd doing an impersonation of a New Yorker.

And then quickly some student union handler whisked him away with a promised carrot juice. Surely he was tired after the reading, surely wackballs approached him constantly, and as the sage N. Peart reminds us “one must put up barriers to keep oneself in tact.” I’m not bitter or anything, that’s just my little Jim Carroll story. He came of age in a great city at a unique time in it’s history and wrote some great stuff. I first saw this photo on the inner sleeve of J. Giorno’s compilation “Your a hook”.

J Carroll and P Smith in 1969. photo by Wren D’Antonio

So if all goes according to plan, I’m off soon for Jinan (G nan), China. Many people have been asking me about this, assuming since they’ve never heard of the city it might be some rural place. So I found this video tour. It has mellow Chinese muzak, I’m sure gives an overly serene impression of the City of Springs, slightly funky English that I as teacher will be out to mend, but the maker does thank you for watching at the end. Nothing wrong with being polite.

The Animated Heavy Metal Parking Lot from Leslie Supnet on Vimeo.

Different than her clip they ran on Twitch a few weeks ago, this is an animated version of scenes from Heavy Metal Parking Lot.