Red Light, Go!

            So, about those traffic regulations.  I have not spent any time researching what the statutes say about driving here in Guangdong because, frankly, the written laws are irrelevant.  There are really only two rules of the road, and they’re very simple:  1) The larger vehicle has right of way; and 2) Red light, go!  Of course, drivers go on green lights as well, which keeps things inexpressibly lively out on the highways.  There’s no need for free-coffee rest stops here, because the sheer exhilaration of moving at speed on the roads is enough to keep you awake and alert.

 

Every week three or four of us teachers pile into a motorcycle-trailer contraption and drive a few miles down the road to a vegetable market.  It always staggers me to consider how many laws we would be breaking back home in doing this:  no helmets; no seatbelts; no seats, even, except for the plastic lawn chairs we load in at the start of each trip; ignoring lights; driving the wrong way down streets and highways; all in a vehicle that is clearly unroadworthy.  Along the way we navigate an intersection that you might find in any American city—if that city had not done any road repair for 10 years or so, and you happened to arrive there in the middle of a civil disturbance.  But here the bedlam is just business as usual, and dammit, we need our vegetables.

The market itself is fascinating.  I have learned the Chinese numbers, but only to 10, so the vendors obligingly hold up fingers to tell how much I owe them, or sometimes just show me the figures on their electronic adding machines.  It works out better than I would have guessed a month ago.  There is also a meat section in the market, but I confess I have been too much of a gastronomic coward to buy anything there yet.  It would be easy to become a vegetarian because there is absolutely no escaping the fact that you are eating parts of dead animals when you buy meat here.  You can even get to know your dinner, if you wish, because the animals are often alive when you pick them out.  I’ve already described the chickens.  The last time I was at the market I also saw eels and fish flopping in small tubs of water, saw a turtle thrashing its limbs feebly against a plastic mesh bag.  I also was told one vendor had a sackful of tasty snakes, but declined the invitation to inspect them.  As I say, I’m eating mostly eggs, fruits and vegetables these days, though I have also started taking some meals in the student cantine, where I can get a hearty plate of rice, chicken or fish, and vegetables for seven to ten yuan (AUD$1.25 - $1.60), and it saves me washing up.

I should say a few words about the people.  I have begun teaching now, and have a class of 30 freshmen, none of whom have had a foreign teacher before.  I got the impression at first that for some of them it was as if they had a unicorn at the whiteboard lecturing on the Present Perfect Continuous.  They were initially quite shy and reticent, but are coming out of their shells nicely now.

 

Our college shares a large campus with perhaps half a dozen schools.  The students at these other institutions have entered the “marching and shouting” phase of the year, as my teaching colleagues call it.  These students must undergo a month of quasi-military training, so they get togged up in battle-dress uniforms, stand or sit in the blazing sun for long periods and listen to what sound to me like angry harangues in Chinese.  Later, I’m told they will take to marching or running around campus in formation, shouting out slogans as they go, often at unsociable hours of the morning. For some reason, our students are exempted from this training.

Despite these militaristic drills, I have met with nothing but friendliness and kindness at every turn, and the people around campus are generally very light-hearted and affectionate.  It is absolutely normal to see two female students arm in arm or holding hands as they walk along, or two guys with their arms around each other’s shoulders—not “partners,” as we would say in the west, but just teens and early-20s who haven’t yet learned to feel awkward about physical contact with a close friend.  I have to say I envy them that.  Moving through a crowd, I do see a lot more smiling, animated faces coming at me than I am used to at home.  They enjoy their mobile phones, of course, but I have seen almost no one isolating himself between a pair of mp3 earbuds.  It’s quite remarkable.

And they are an active lot.  China used to be known for its prowess at table tennis, of course, but today the sports of choice here are basketball for the young and fit, and badminton for the older set.  Every evening after dinner young and old swarm down out of their living quarters for some exercise—vigorous or gentle—and a bit of socializing.  Other sports are practiced just as enthusiastically, but generally less competently, than these top two.  This evening as I was returning from the student cantine, for instance, I stopped to watch some comically inept students batting around a volleyball, and they soon invited me to join in.  It was great fun, and I actually didn’t make too big an ass of myself.  I may go back for more tomorrow if my legs don’t seize up in the meantime.

 

It seems that any form of movement, no matter how bizarre, is countenanced.  I have seen people gravely walking backward (or sideways) through parks, clapping at every other step; I have seen people dancing, in couples and singly, and striking preposterously affected ballroom poses while a boom-box played a cloying ballad nearby; I have seen rotund middle-agers dripping sweat and very adroitly kicking a shuttlecock around a circle, as younger people do a hacky sack back home, and of course tai-chi in the park is not just a stereotype—they really do it.

If I can manage to sort out some visa issues, I hope to visit Vietnam in a couple weeks, so my next installment may be about that country.  But don’t let me forget, on my return, to touch on “non-persons” and “the Hard Word.”   There’s just no end of interesting things to remark on here.
--originally posted 9/2010