Things that go KABOOM in the night...
I am now joined by Russell Taylor, an Australian who teaches for the main school. He teaches 3rd and 4th grade English and met his wife in China a little more than one year ago. Before Russell arrived Tuesday morning, I was here Monday evening by myself. My building is four stories tall with four apartments on the fourth through second floors. All of the foreign teachers will be living in this building. Four teachers will work here at the branch school while the rest of us will commute about 30 minutes by bus to the main campus.
I learned tonight, at dinner with Russell and Robyn, my recruiter, that the main campus is short two teachers this term and that the teachers that are here will be taking over the classes for these missing teachers. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself.
So, like I said, I was alone here Monday night. I’ve been terribly sloth-like since arriving in Wuhan (it has been great…thanks for asking!) and was napping around 8pm when I heard a repetitive KABOOM KABOOM KABOOM KABOOM KABOOM coming from somewhere outside. For the first 37 or so KABOOMs, I let it slide, trying unsuccessfully to incorporate them into my dream. Then, after 53 KABOOMs, I grew sufficiently worried that war had erupted in the courtyard of the primary school and crept out of my apartment to see who was winning.
I walked down the unlit hall, oppressed by the bars on all of my potential exits (though jumping from four flights up didn’t interest me either in terms of escape) and held my breath as I passed all of the opened apartment doors – the rooms inside being woefully dark and hopefully empty. It was eerie as all hell. At the end of the hallway, I came to another barred window and could see from where the KABOOMs were coming: fireworks. Someone must have bought a whole truckload because the KABOOMs came without pause and went for an easy thirty minutes. I think they were shot off for their noise more than for any beauty they produced because all that came out were KABOOMs and smoke.
I left the firework “display” before it was through and hurried back to my apartment where I locked the door and tried to remove all thoughts of the emptiness that could be hiding dangerous and scary Chinese school workers in the vacant apartments. As if Mr. Ye already heard my complaints, Russell moved in the next morning. And, since then, we’ve gone on a few excursions together. Of course, he is a character and a half and he is always entertaining, even when he isn’t trying to be. For example, I could only smirk in the dark tonight when he tried to take his wrath out on a locked gate at the entrance to our building. When we managed to get in after I noticed that I had a key to another gate, he came around to the original gate and gave it a good kick as if saying, “You’re not getting away with locking us out THAT easy! HM!” It was pretty annoying but his action was so like that of a child that his 6’2” frame just didn’t fit with the action of kicking the inanimate gate!
Tonight, Robyn, my recruiter, took pity on Russell and I, knowing that we didn’t have cookers yet, or potable water, and asked us to dinner. She is a gem. I think I’ve found a kindred spirit. (I know! There are so many here in China already!) Robyn took us to a Hunan restaurant where we had spicy, spicy food and afterwards, she showed me the DVD rental place – 1 kuai per DVD (that’s about $0.13) – and the foot massage place and the dry wash place (hair salon) and the fruit stand she trusts the most, and then we took a taxi to her apartment.
Her apartment is beautiful. Robyn is 38. She was in the Army for many years and then, when she got out, she decided to start her own company. The teacher recruiting service that enlisted me to teach in Wuhan belongs to her. She works from home and is doing very well for herself. She was married once before but got divorced after about five years of marriage. She wants a family now and is thinking seriously of settling down. She is independent and takes things seriously and has a strong opinion of what a relationship should be. In her words she is difficult. I suppose I’m difficult as well because everything she spoke of made sense to me and mirrored my own feelings about marriage, partnership, etc. Her younger sister was visiting for the summer holidays because Robyn’s apartment is big and she likes having her family around her. Her sister has an 8-year-old son and Robyn’s brother’s 12-year-old son was visiting for the summer holidays as well. The apartment was warm and inviting and Robyn and her sister were truly lovely to talk with. I had a wonderful time and look forward to getting to know Robyn better.
The conversation tonight covered all of the topics I’ve yearned to discuss in China: divorce, a woman’s desire to marry young, a woman’s general lack of interest in career, the one-child policy and how people think it will/is affecting society, independent women and how they are supposed to represent the other half of their character – the half desirous of family and love and intimacy…it was a fascinating night, made more so by Russell’s mild awkwardness at being stuck with three talkative women without his wife in tow.
Robyn lives very close and Russell and I walked home. On arriving to the outer gate of the school campus, we found it locked – something we’ve discussed these past several days. Apparently, there is an unnamed curfew. So, we had to hope the fence, me in a dress and Russell with his bad knees. Then, we found the gate to our building locked. This sent Russell into a rage and only after looking over my key chain and three other entrances, did we find a gate that my extra key could open. Russell was so hoping mad. I was too, but his madness made me a little more aware at the silliness of our frustration. The one thing that did bother both of us equally was that if there were a fire, we’d all be locked in. Not a pretty picture. The first thing on our agenda tomorrow is to have keys made to all of the gates that could potentially bar us from our beds.
Christina, the young teacher who picked me up from the airport Sunday evening will pick me up at 8am tomorrow and show me the buses to get to the real parts of the city so that I can begin exploring before I start teaching next week. I am so excited about starting teaching! It will be superb!
