Shaking the Governor’s Hand
As I sit down to write this, fireworks are blasting off in the rainy night sky outside of my window. It is the eve of the eve of the National Holiday, which celebrates the official founding of the People’s Republic of China. It is the 57th anniversary of this auspicious occasion. This evening, Matthew (a teacher from last term who is from Nova Scotia) and I attended a banquet to honor foreign experts living in Wuhan and working to make it a more internationally oriented community. My school, the Wuchang Experimental Primary School was given two invitations for foreign teachers and Mr. Ye flagged down Matthew and I at the end of school on Tuesday to ask us if we’d attend.
At 5pm, it was just beginning to drizzle, having threatened to all day after a long pour last night, and Matt and I made our way to the main gate to wait for the car that would drive us to the “Multi-use hall” of the Hubei Province Government Building. Children were leaving hand-in-hand with exhausted mothers and fathers. Already, I’ve had two students leave for their homes outside of Wuhan to get a head start on the mass travel exodus that the weeklong holiday stirs up. The driver flagged us down and we got into the tinted-window black Passat and sped off. Apparently, the school employs two drivers. Don is one and the silent driver from tonight is the other. On the way to the banquet, Matt and I joked about how Don must be waiting for the day when he is promoted to driving the Passat and gets to wave goodbye to the van full of foreigners and the loud dance music he seems to be playing for our benefit.
We managed to make it to the Multi-use hall with thirty minutes to spare despite the slick streets and rush hour. Mr. Ye had passed along the message to Julia, my co-teacher that he’d be joining us tonight but would meet us at the hall. Matt and I exited the Passat at the covered front entry and, clutching our fancy invitations, made our way past the two military-clad sentinels standing on pedestals and frowning out into the hazy Wuhan evening. I had the urge to photograph one or both of the living statues but thought better of it, especially since we had been warned against any rash movements or suspicious talking (terrorist stuff, I suppose).
Inside, we were asked to sign an elaborate guestbook with a giant magic marker and my signature came out terrible. This is something I’ve always meant to practice: signing my name with various writing implements to perfect my signature no matter the quality of the tool. Based on my signature tonight, I really need to take a look at this goal again. I don’t even like my signature with a favorite writing implement, let alone a magic marker. Alas, I digress.
After signing the guestbook we walked through the open doors and found several small tables that were crammed into an anteroom and were half-filled with waiting guests. It was one of the more awkward seating arrangements for strangers I’ve ever seen. The waiting area was filled with as many “waiguoren” (foreigners) as Chinese. Matt and I weren’t in the mood to schmooze and started asking ourselves why exactly Mr. Ye had chosen us. We found two seats facing a group of Chinese women and sat down. Then, Matt left me to find the restroom and I found myself staring straight at the three women across from me, lost in my own reverie, until I realized they were talking about me – most likely commenting on how rude it was of me to stare and not acknowledge them. Before looking away, I noticed they were wearing corsages and thought momentarily they might be government officials of some kind.
I moved around uncomfortably, adjusting my dress, my cup of extremely hot tea that a woman had brought me and staring over the heads of the Chinese triumvirate across from me and into the window. In the window’s reflection, I could watch the people coming and going. Has anyone ever noticed that French people look French? I don’t know how to explain it, but I can almost always call a French person out before they speak. There are a lot of French engineers working in Wuhan. In fact, there is a French consulate in the city. I believe the only other Chinese cities with foreign consulates are Beijing and Shanghai.
Matt returned and we chatted for a minute or two about the other waiguoren and how it was odd that foreigners were supposed to want to talk to other foreigners. The mere fact that we are all in China and that we all teach English somehow links us in some mysterious way that the Chinese assume means we would want to talk with each other. The strange part though, is that Westerners are very aloof and rarely reach out to other Westerners. For me, personally, I just don’t like the assumption that we’ll have tons to talk about because we both come from Western countries and because we both speak English. Matt explains it as a territorial thing. Every Westerner secretly thinks they’re special for having moved to Wuhan to teach English and seeing other foreigners doing the same thing tends to belittle this bit of fantasy. I suppose I somewhat agree with his theory. More so, though, I’ve found that the Westerners I’ve come in contact with – for the most part – are kind of strange. In the same breath, though, I’ve found really, really beautiful and wonderful people in China too. (Monica, Christina, Lisa, Bart, Artur, Matt, Annaick…the list continues…)
Then, Matt and I became distracted by the women workers and their “uniforms”. All of the server girls were absolutely gorgeous young Chinese women and they wore traditional red silk qipaos. The only difference in the tasteful dresses was a slit on each side of the dress that went well above the mid-thigh region. Some of the women even wore thigh-highs that didn’t go up as far as the slits did. It was unbelievably distracting. I’ve yet to see that much flesh in China and Matt was beside himself with excitement. He kept wondering aloud what the chances of one of the girls accepting a date with him might be. I also wondered aloud whether the girl would have to wear her uniform on the date and he looked at me as if I would never begin to understand the workings of the male mind. By the way, Matt is a very healthy 21 yr old.
A man walked into the anteroom and, in Chinese, told us we could move into the banquet hall. We made our way into a plush room filled with round tables. I felt like I was attending a Chinese wedding banquet. Not that I have any idea what those are like. Our table was number 19. We made it to the table first and chose the best seats. The dinner and the speech that preceded it were pretty standard government fare. The other teachers at our table were from England, Australia and America. I didn’t speak to the Americans and the British man was so pompous that I said two words to him and focused on my plate and my glass of good red wine. The two Australians sitting to Matt’s left were the most friendly. Roz, who has lived in Wuhan for two years now, interrupted Matt mid-sentence to lean over him and tell me that I reminded her of the young Judy Garland. I have to tell you, that’s a BRAND new one for me. Also, I’ve heard Lillis is a common last name in Australia and asked Roz if this was true. She’d never heard the name Lillis before, as either a last or first name.
The most exciting event of the night, and one that still makes my blood boil, was a comment a fellow foreigner spat out at me during a confusing passage at the back of the room. I was introducing Mr. Ye to Robyn, my recruiter, as they’ve never met. (This, in fact, surprised the heck out of me. Robyn has been placing teachers for Mr. Ye for at least two years now. How she’s never met him, I have no idea.) Robyn and I were walking back to my table when we got stuck in a traffic jam behind a table in the back of the room. Servers behind me and in front of me were bumping into each other and some were going while others were trying to wait for them to pass, but no matter, I needed to MOVE to let the servers get by. I happened to block the way for a foreigner coming from the opposite direction and as I passed him, nodding apologetically, he looked me in the eye and in a sarcastic, vituperative grunt, mumbled, “Yeah, sure, why not go ahead” and then pushed past me right as I got out of his way. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, writing it now, it sounds like nothing, but at the time, it was like, “What’s YOUR problem, man?” Enh, I’m over it I guess. He was French, by the way. He works with Roz and the other Australian that was at our table, Ben. My irritated Frenchmen came to the table to drink a glass of baijiu with his co-workers and I thought about confronting him and saying, “Look I was trying to get OUT of people’s way, not waltz through like I own the place” but I let it go. I figured it would be terrible form to start a tiff at a Chinese function specifically held to honor international goodwill.
I should say the most negative event of the night when mentioning the above. The most POSITIVE event of the night was shaking the governor’s hand. Yep, I shook his hand!!! He was shorter than me and very well dressed. I wanted to have a photo taken with him but Mr. Ye told me politely, “He’s a very busy man”.
So, that was that. I’ve decided my job is quite safe as Mr. Ye informed Robyn, in front of me tonight, that I’m a very honest woman. His words, I swear! I’ve got a few photos from tonight and will post them later on. We teach tomorrow, Saturday, and Robyn and I will go for massages tomorrow night. Then, she will help Matt and Eileen and I hire a Chinese tutor to come and chat with us once a week for an hour – to start with. Also, Robyn is willing to host Chinese cooking lessons at her apartment on the weekends. And, she and I are planning a camping trip for the weekend after the National holiday. Fun fun fun! Ciao for now…(I mean, Zai jian!)
