53. Beauties and the Geeks

 Work hours haven’t been fruitful for me since returning from Nepal. The problem is that my employers have designated summer intensive courses elsewhere due to my planned trips to Oz and previously mentioned Nepal.

I had a brief stint as a tennis instructor to fill some time, but was later informed late on Monday night that I was surplus to requirement as they didn’t have enough students signed on <sad at a missed opportunity face>.

Last night, I checked my computer for things to do. Shanghai is blessed with many good Western What’s Going On internet sites. I had a quick look at the most popular of these: smartshanghai.com, and found a festival called Cosplay happening over this week-end.

COSPLAY

Cosplay, to my knowledge, is where computer game loving folk dress up as their favourite anime character and prance around for the public. So it surprised me when we turned up at this massive EXPO center that was like a dozen or so aircraft carrier buildings linked together. How many prancers are there I thought!

The first few were empty and we walked through with the public wondering where this festival was at.

Finally a ticket barrier and we paid 50 RMB to get in. Housemate Sean nudged me telling me to look at these two ladies at 2 O’Clock. Fair enough, girls like that were hard to find in the daylight. They were perennial ladies of the night.

We weren’t really ready for what Aircraft hanger 9B had in store for us.

We were hit by a flurry of activity. The music was loud. There were lots of people but in a very unbalanced ratio.

See the people who had bought tickets to this event were men. Men ranging from the teenage geeks wearing shirts celebrating World of Warcraft to middle aged men whose front set of yellow, gaunt teeth seemed to be permanently sticking out. All with a camera at the ready.

What they’d come to see was plain to see.

There were cosplay characters who were walking around with massive swords, crazy hairstyles and cool dress wear. But they weren't the source of most of the attention even though they were quite cool.

 As we delved deeper into the hangars, we found it was basically a big computer game roadshow. Promoting each computer company were a number of scantily dressed Chinese woman. These women and there were hundreds of them, were the most beautiful in their sheer quantity and quality that I've seen in China.

I don’t know how much these girls were paid. But they no way had any care towards the computer company. They were told to pose, and pose they did. It was incredible, quite astounding. I’ve never seen women so open to having their photo taken on a constant basis by so many nerds.

What was just unbelievable was the hurry and care to which the creepy men would run around with their camera and take hundreds and hundreds of pictures of these women. It wasn't just from far away in slight embarrassment, these men were zooming in on these girls and they didn't care one iota. With no porn in China, I imagined that it was a years worth to these guys Banks.

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To be honest I soon got involved, Zoolander style.

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In one of the hangars the stages were a lot more interactive.

If you wanted to be selected to come up on stage you had to scream loud enough to be recognized by the stage host. I had the advantage here, as basically the guys around me could produce no more than a whimper and I was selected frequently.

I really wrapped up to the delight of Alex my Chinese work colleague who got it all on camera. EA Sports had a American Football throw comp with some Chinese Quarterback, you basically had to throw some balls with him. Simples. There was another stage where there was a SCREAMOTETER, again wrapped up on the prizes.

On stage.

With the stage hosts and my prize an anime cap!

When selecting the winner from the group of selectees the host would call for the ‘Weiguoren’ (Foreigner). I stood out like a sore thumb.

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This city is unique. One day they will have an event where the biggest geeks mix with the most beautiful girls, then the next day/tomorrow, the city plays host to the biggest name in Hip Hop, DR DRE. Surely there is no other city where these two events can happen.

Man even with all the free time in the world at the moment, its impossible to be bored.

52. Face

The notion of Face in China was drilled into us from the very start. Chinese people especially men, will never back down from a situation as their own dignity, pride and reputation amongst their peers will take a hit if they do. So if it ever comes to it back down before something kicks off.

However I had not really seen this concept in the flesh, which is surprising given that it was supposed to have originated in China. The country has a large amount of words to describe different forms of Face (Wikipedia) showing its prevalence in society.

This wasn’t till last night when it all kicked off.

Since March, every Monday night has involved a group of us partaking in a 7-a-side football league. The social but also physically exerting event has been great for general banter outside of work.

However it hasn’t been so successful on the football side of things.

In fact we hadn’t won a match in a while. Our opposition last night a Chinese team, ‘the Flying Seven’ in our league looked on paper and current form to continue that streak.

I’d say we are the Millwall or Leeds of the league our English style is treated with scorn and Sean made an effort with the ref before the game that anything said to him during the game is only out of passion.

We are a decent outfit, its just the last 15 minutes where we concede late goals and lose the tight games. With a look at the two benches, it looked like that trend might continue.

Whilst the Chinese team had a William sister-esqe Entourage with WAGS, an actual coach and enough substitutes to run us ragged, our bench was empty as we waited for Raf our 6ft4 Trinidadian superstar to turn up.

The game kicked off. We had a 3-2-1 formation with myself playing the lone man up front. I think they had a similar formation. Their three men at the back weren’t the typical Chinese, these guys were built, were fast and good on the ball.

They had a set game plan of regimented passing and keeping set positions around the field. 10 minutes in the ball popped to their no 9 from an attempted clearance, he struck it clean and into the bottom left, 1-0.

We responded well. Upping the tempo. Unsettling their defenders who were giving some added attention. As well as physicality in the tackle, the right back was wrapping his arms around me like I was going away for a year. I pushed said guy off as he embraced me on the half way.  He blurted out the obscenities he wouldn’t have been taught in a Shane English class. Forgetting the previously stated lesson from earlier I stood my ground, this caused uproar, players were flying in, the referee arrived to break it up.

He clearly acknowledged his country man was the aggressor but told me simply to ‘Remember Chinese custom’.

Tempers had flared. Tackles were becoming later and shouts were becoming fiercer. We won a free-kick, Darren capitalised and knocked it round the wall and past the keeper.

We continued this momentum and having missed two opportunities to put us ahead, I rose to meet a Sean cross, the ball flying into the top right. We’d gone 1 up and it stayed that way to the half time.

Second half, their coach made some changes bringing on one clear psycho who would react to anything.

Needless to say he didn’t react well to us going 3-1 up via a Sean cleanly hit strike from an indirect freekick.

Incidents on the field were greeted with this no 2 who would run in thinking we’d insulted everyone of his family. Darren received an elbow to the head, but worst came when this hot head cleared his gob of spit on me. I’d amazingly learnt a lesson and didn’t react, still no card given as the ref spoke to the spitter.

After minutes of following passes back and forth and starved of possession we conceded a late goal. But with minutes left it was too late for the Chinese outfit.

This didn’t settle with their bench, when on the final whistle, their bench ran on and threw a chair at Darren who had cheered the result. In the fracas they bellowed out ‘THIS IS CHINA’ as well as the worst type of Chinese profanities that our resident bilingual translated for us.

The escalation that had happened throughout the match culminating in the pitch being stormed was Chinese Face being questioned.

The league is very international, with team players from literally all over the world. Yes this is China, but this is also football. 

51. Guanxi Golf

Sitting down on the train today I noticed sweat marks on the knee-caps of my trousers.

It’s that time of the year where the coldest setting on the shower is deemed too warm, the extra cool subway train are now a safe-haven and having black bed sheets is a perfect solace.

So I am now back from a quite extraordinary 3 week trip to Nepal, where my brother, father and I trekked through a desert-like region called Upper Mustang in the Himalayas.

My schedule is certainly not as hectic at the moment, allowing me to apply for a position as a part time tennis coach. But also to take up a parents offer to play in a golf tournament!

Guanxi

It is said that Chinese business runs on this thing called Guanxi. I see it as under hand dealings which benefit people in your personal network. Lavish gifts are given to seniors to earn their notice, while companies bosses will take their staff to special KTV to keep them humming.

Broken down the characters of ‘guanxi’ mean relationships and connections. But it’s cultural significance has a huge implication in one of China’s premier business cities, Shanghai. It seems like a nice thank-you letter just won’t do if you want to keep that contact.

Roy, one of my privates Dad, recently invited me to one of his Member Invitational Golf Tournament. It was one of the best days I’ve had here.

Without going into too much detail, everything was too good to be true. From a bus filled with promo women, a driving range that looked out onto a vast lake, to clear blue skies and hot weather, to finding out Phil Mickelson was the course designer, to having your own caddie and driving your own buggy, Spaghetti Carbonara that was done well, showers were all types of shampoo, free towels and a ‘banquet’ to conclude the day.

Looking round at the banquet it was clear to see from players wives, the response of members who won awards and just the general attire that there were some seriously wealthy people in that hall.

Roy wasn’t at the golf tournament but I’ll be sending a thank-you letter in the post. The British way I feel.

However Wednesday night saw me act as the giver as Sean and I went out with our Welfare officer, Alex, who has been an absolute gent since our arrival. We paid for his whole night as a gesture of thanks.

50. Questions

The last 2-3 weeks of this school semester have been slightly monotonous but mostly enjoyable.

I teach over 600 students spread over 22 weekly classes in 4 different classes, and for these last few weeks I’ve lazily or bravely decided to give a one on one oral test with each and every one of them.

I put the formatted the test into four parts:

1.     Opinion on English. How have you studied it? What do you think of studying the language? How will you use it in the future?

2.     Drinking game Question. Usually consisting of a Would you rather, or What have you never done, or The Teacher’s Perfect But….This provided some insightful points.

3.     Course related question. In this section I asked the student a question about something covered in the last 12 weeks. They were fairly on the ball.

4.     Question to me. Took a while for the student to comprehend what they had to do here as they are used to answering questions. It offered an entertaining end to the conversation and kept me on my toes. Below are some of the questions asked.

YAH the good school

What do you think of the Chinese education system? Can I have your e-mail? What advice would you give to studying in China? How much do you know about the history of Shanghai?

Stop and think Questions questions

Why is Tom not here? Is this your first job? If you were a Zombie, what would you do? Do you like teaching our class/in our school? What do you think of me?

Factual Questions

How tall are you? What’s your Chinese name? Do you like rainy/sunny days? What size are your shoes? Will you teach us next year? What animal/film/country do you like best?

Out of the blue Questions

Are there a lot of farms in England? What kind of girl do you like?

Popular Questions

Where are you from? Why did you decide to be a teacher/come to China/Shanghai? How old are you?

And most common: Do you have a girlfriend <snigger>?

Chinese choosing English names

I asked for their English name as well before the interview started. There were some classics which were usually found on my more enigmatic students, names included Sharrot, Panda, Memory, Cinderella, Lucky, Ronaldo, Dinosaur, Dad, Boss, Kingslayer and Darth Vader.

Classic Quotes or Memorable Moments

‘You are you, I am I’, ‘I want to control robots’

A girl called Pigeon telling me she really liked Pigeons. Well durr.

The biggest boy in this one class called Dick. Tom was giving him the interview. The interviewee Dick was cracking me up with anything he said. Whenever he was stuck he’d just say ‘Eat’ with a big grin and when asked for his name he pronounced it ‘Deeeek’.

A girl called Jessica admitting to wanting to be a Zombie so she could bite people.

But the Bacon goes to this Korean girl who put me in stitches with a tirade on Chinese life. She gave quite a plain interview and had been quite quiet all year so I took it upon my English self to answer her ‘Why did you come to China?’ question with a slice of sarcasm.

Upon hearing that I came to China because of the school food, the tightly packed buses and the pollution, she was clearly astonished and erupted in an incredible rant.

She described the school food as ‘plastic’ and she once found insects in it. The school soup she said was yesterday’s vegetables, with boiling water and then oil on top. She described the Chinese people as ‘nothing’ compared to the beautiful Koreans. Furthermore she talked about it being so unfair that she couldn’t express her femininity in this ‘ugly’ school uniform. She felt embarrassed to wear it. The uniform she said could not even adapt to the seasons as students were made to swelter in the summer but then freeze to death in the winter. She talked of the ‘injustice’ that teachers could enjoy air-conditioned rooms but the same wasn’t so with the students.

It was breathless stuff. A good teacher I find is one that knows and respects their students especially when they are old enough to have an opinion. Having sat in an English lesson of one of the local teacher today, I find this is not the case with Chinese local teachers to their students.