Shanghai

It was not death
For I stood up
And all the dead lie down

-E. Dickinson

Crossing the street is an exercise is navigation. This is not the navigation required by the pilot of a boat or the pedestrian in the market. No, this is an entirely different field. From the approach you relax yourself knowing that if you're going to be hit you'd rather be hit so that the impact will cause as little damage to yourself as possible. Have you ever come across those mini-articles in the Toronto Star where a baby opens a car window and bounces across the highway unhurt? It is by these that I am inspired. And you can't help but think that this is how you must be inspired. Here's why.

Every morning I cross Zhangyang Rd, an eight lane affair. Now, it's quite normal to, while accepting the green signal, walk across with a modicum of caution. You must, I dare say, do that everywhere. Here you must do it with a dose of optimism. Optimism that this time you'll make it to the other side of the road, unskimmed, whole, alive. Come, walk with me. It's Monday morning and we've just left the apartment, down the four flights of stairs, past the old bicycles in the stairway and out the metal gate. The date palms wave just a little in the breeze. At the corner I turn to you.

"Be careful when you're crossing the street".
I say it because first, I'm looking out for myself.

Our signal turns green and you step off the kerb. A scooter whizzes past, turning right. It becomes a school of fish to navigate, then it's the buses roaring wide around them, puffing grey-black. Now you've got to consider the scooters and bicycles turning left, into the same lanes as the cars turning right. In this game you're no one and the buses don't stop. Well, no one does, but they come roaring across the huge intersections at perilous angles. If they weren't about to hit you you might be concerned that they'd topple over, first. We stop, dodge right, dash ahead to the median and we're clear until we realize the walking signal is about to change so we make our sprint to the other side where I pull on your arm one lane before the sidewalk and as the light turns red a stream of cars brushes our shirts. We cross in peace and just as we step on to the other kerb a bicycle clips the back of your shoe.

I've gotten so used to the morning course that I've become bus blind. Last night death marked himself and I realized that had he pushed me an inch I would be with him - swept, crushed, pushed, pinned, broken, headless, dead.

I thought back to my first days in Shanghai. In the early morning sun the police had stopped before a beige Toyota and behind a cyclist laying on the pavement, chalk outlined. I stared.

I watched tv that night wondering whether the news would report the dead cyclist. She didn't appear, but this is, after all, a city of thirteen million people. Why should she appear? The news went on and on, an economic report, military exercise, classical music, and scenes from the Zhejiang province.

Actually, there were no reported deaths in the PRC. Not one. No murders, infanticides, rampages, suicides. Neither were there car crashes, train derailments, or planes sliding off runways. And were it not for the typhoon that made landfall south of here in Zhejiang province on Monday you'd have to believe that we weren't in for that storm either, the worst, they say, in fifty years.

So too, that brush last night would have gone unmarked save for a clip in a foreign paper of a citizen stepping rashly before a bus. You can be certain it wouldn't make the news here.

sale

Qiamen Gate, Beijing

What's the policy on opening umbrellas indoors, or on the subway? I haven't figured it out, and to be honest, here, no one seems to care. There's the poof-poof of fabric catching the air and a crowd watching the umbrella telescope itself into a microscopic object.

I cringe every time it happens, not because I'm superstitious but because the umbrella flares out centimetres from your nose. You might expect it to close quickly but the ever intrepid salesman must twirl it before your eyes. Now look at the inside, don't you see the quality? Oh it's quality alright. Made in Korea. Look right here sir. Now touch that fabric. Not China made. No siree, and he scoffs a little. China? He closes the umbrella in a flash. Whadda ya say? Two thousand won. No? And he turns with a flourish. Now test here and see... His voice fades a little as he turns leaving the umbrella in my hand, perhaps hoping I'll change my mind after I feel it and open it myself.

keep your head up

In light of things, particularly - Dan - your leaving on this trip. Let Ted Hawkins keep you company this time.

Put a candle in the window
Cause I feel I gotta move
Though I'm going going
I'll be coming home soon
As long as I can see the light

Pack my bags and let's get moving
Cause I'm bound to drift a while
Though I'm gone, I'm gone
You don't have to worry about me
No, as long as I can see the light

Guess I've got that old travelling bone
But I'm feelin' I'm leaving alone
But I won't won't be losing my way
As long as I can see the light
Won't you play that thing for me right now?

Cause I'm going going

-Ted Hawkins

scheduling

I met her in the bookstore near the subway station. I was sitting there by the window, on the second floor, overlooking the bustle of people below, on a Sunday morning. Somehow three days later we ended up at an stylish cafe, late. Lights glittered on the lake and the shadows of people, full bodied passed us at a distance.

I admit I was hesitant with her waiting there for me, her car black, swank, plush just outside the gate but I'd promised to help her along with some material. I didn't expect it to be this. She flipped on the interior light and opened up her book, one page filled scribbled in and the other plain. What exactly was I supposed to be doing?

Do you mind if we park?

The line reminded me of Back to the Future. I stuttered the same way.

Um. Sure. Actually do you mind if we go to some place with a bit more light?
Ok.

She revved the car and drove down the long drive to the lake. We pulled into the parking lot and she tossed the keys to the valet. We flipped open the menu. Ten dollar coffee. She crossed and uncrossed her legs. God what was I doing?

I uncapped the pen and drew idly on her notebook. I walked her through her lesson plan, she was being interviewed for a job and wanted syllabus help. On Sunday we talked about her plans over noodles. Tonight it was in an out of the way cafe. Things were moving fast. I'm sure her husband would be less than thrilled. I had met him on Monday, by mistake. He came in the door and Jo scrambled to introduce me. He grunted.

Why I met her on Wednesday was beyond me. She was attractive enough, though I didn't notice until the light glinted off her pearl pendant and I saw the neckline of her dress riffle slightly in the August night breeze.

She drove back, past the guardhouse, asking one last question before letting me go.

What is the right word for...

I didn't hear the rest. I opened the door and looked up at the blue grey night clouds.

She called again, two weeks later.

My first thought when I saw her name on the phone was that I was moving towards either a venial or mortal sin. Or was it cardinal. I had no idea. I picked up the phone.

China

I had the pleasure of travelling in the PRC for a short time and have come back to sterile Korea now knowing there's something to be said for,

1. cute girls who praise Chairman Mao
2. bargaining for a plastic razor that will probably destroy my face
3. the street markets in old Shanghai
4. the intricate carvings of Ba Hei at the Leifeng Pagoda
5. the variety of two and three wheeled contraptions that fall under the rubric of bicycle and scooter
6. a free room at the Grand Hyatt in Beijing
7. sesame seed buns for 5 jiao
8. jaywalking en masse
9. the overnight sleeper from Shanghai to Beijing
10. the national silk museum of China

taking stock

The rumblings began on a Friday.

The coordinator called me into the office after work. I prepared myself. It wasn't often she sought out teachers. She was precise and quick. Apparently an English teacher for a special camp in Cheongju had dropped out and would I, since I had the requisite experience, education, and desire - I had complained the day previous about the lack of challenge I was experiencing in the classroom - be willing to prepare seventeen students for a one year stay in the States by giving them lessons on cultural appropriateness and study habits?
Sure, I said, when does camp start?

Monday morning I was on a bus to Cheongju with a contract in my hand stating I was to be paid half a month's salary, in cash, for the week's worth of work I was doing. I felt good knowing that this was on top of my normal salary. I didn't know that something was wrong, terribly wrong. I had forgotten that some people throw money at a problem to make it go away. I was about to find out that money simply wasn't enough to smooth things over at this camp.

My coordinator mentioned that the camp director was disorganized. She was wrong. The level of complete incompetence he displayed was astounding. It began rather innocently, I suppose. On Friday, he sent up a copy of the textbook the students were to be using. He had haphazardly photocopied three hundred pages from a textbook, covering American history from 1750-1880. I thumbed through it in the office on Friday night. A useful document for students who were supposed to be learning how to integrate into American culture and daily life across the Pacific.

I received the schedule, a rather scant sheet with hourly slots, from 9 am to 8pm, each hour designated by a simple word - introduction, conversation, writing, reading, history. I asked for a detailed outline of what they expected and was told that these simple words were my outline. I would have the freedom to do what I wished. The faint may have crumbled under such an auspicious sign. Indeed, this camp director was setting a teacher up for failure. How could one put together a cultural program with simply nothing but his wits to guide him? I suppose that's why the original teacher pulled out of the contract leaving this camp director in a lurch, and why I was being paid a ridiculous sum to come to Cheongju. The success of the program would rest on me, the only foreigner in what was supposed to be an immersion program with teachers from the States. And I'm not even an American.

I began to teach and soon found out that I was teaching the lion's share of classes, six hours a day, while two other teachers and teacher's assistants split the remaining two, math and science. It didn't bother me much until Tuesday when I heard the students complain about the program. Someone said they weren't happy and had left. On Wednesday things got worse and though I pressed ahead with my lessons on freewriting, scanning, paraphrasing, and speed conversation drills I felt that I was doing something wrong.

I found that the director had begun a campaign against me, slandering me to my coordinator for things I did not say. This bears no importance for the story save this, my classes on Wednesday were cancelled and I was not told until I went to class. A straggle haired teacher's assistant clutching her walkie-talkie intercepted me.

Your class has been cancelled.
Why?
We're moving your class to later tonight, to eight.
No you're not. I don't work after seven. It's in the contract.
You can't go in there.
Fine.

I came prepared for the next class.

Your class has been cancelled.
Tell me what's going on.
The boss has come from Seoul.
Oh God, I thought. Someone's told him that I think the book is useless and that we won't be using it. Or worse, I haven't presented any plans of what I've been doing or what I plan to do.

But it was worse than that.

I found out that the meeting had nothing to do with me. I began to feel good because despite the camp director's efforts to put me down and generally ignore my requests for simple things like getting photocopying done on time he was being trodden on. I found out that the science teacher he hired made several students uncomfortable. Perhaps it's not surprising that they were all girls. Eleven students left that night. The science teacher's classes were cut and he was forced to observe my classes.

I felt strange with Joe - he could have chosen a better name for himself - in my class, his ratty moustache sitting dirty on his upper lip. He tried to help the remaining six students but they too shied away from him.

The week crawled to an end and I found out that though my contract was up that the camp was scheduled to continue for another week. The camp director who spent most of his time watching baseball on his laptop and having the scores related to him by walkie-talkie by his second in command, had hired another teacher. The students met her Friday afternoon moments before I left.

I would have stayed if I had not been going to China the next day.

On the plane I got to thinking about Korea and the English business. I had heard that bungling the English business was just as big as the English business itself and now I had proof.

dobongsan, or on the subway.

Ajossi, your breath smells
Just like the other ajossi
Soju and stale cigarettes
On a Sunday evening
After a game in the park
And you bump into me
Not caring, eyes on the seat
You'll steal from the child
As soon as it gets off the subway.

You eye me with contempt
At least your left eye does
And you bump into me a little
Harder before the train hits its
Next turn which would pull you
Away from me.

I heard a child call my name the
Other day, playing in the dirt
In front of its house
"Ajossi!" it called and I looked
Around for you, the older man
With a smile that emerges from
Between crinkled lips.

But no one was there
On that darkened street
Where the lamps had burned out
And the shopkeepers had turned in -
No one except the moon and me -
And so when I turned into the moonlight
I saw nothing but the moon above
And shadow below.

The moon rides above us now
Not knowing the hiss of this train
As it pulls in to Cheongnyangni
And you take the child's seat
Pushing her out of the way
Before she gets off the train
Falling on a woman's shoulder
You drift into night -
Ajossi.