Potty Tales

HONG KONG

So I have this problem. I don’t like taking dumps where people can hear, see, or smell my doodoo. That just bothers me. I know that they know that I go doodoo, but I don’t want them to have to experience it first hand. Other people are totally cool with it, and like talk to you while they dump and you hear it plop. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that—I admire those people and think they’re hella brave—but I just can’t do it. So I usually hold it. Until I’m dying. Then I find somewhere else to go. If worst comes to worst I ask them to wait outside or go do something else for a while. I kind of have the same problem with peeing, but I don’t really care as much (although I avoid having other people hear/see me pee when possible).

I was staying in Hong Kong for the night with Nhu, Joyce, and Vedita getting our Z visas so that we could work in China. We were all cramped into this piece of shit hostel and I was staying there illegally (like I didn’t pay for an extra bed, I just crammed in with Nhu and slept in the crack next to the wall).

So I had to take a dump. We had a private bathroom, but it was like right there with a little mini-fake-door that you could hear through and definitely smell through. So then I felt bad. So then I went looking for a public bathroom but I couldn’t find one. I did, however, pass a wide open door to a room that looked empty. I figured no one was staying there for the night and so I could use the bathroom and it would be fine. So then I went in, closed the door, locked it, and did my business. Halfway through I heard people outside the door and got nervous, HELLA nervous because if someone came in and yelled at me I was in a very compromising position. What was I gonna do in the middle of taking a dump? Luckily, no one knocked on the door. So then I wiped, etc and tiptoed out, only to see an Indian guy sitting at an official-looking desk right outside the room (the desk I had somehow neglected to see in my earlier excitement in finding a free, private toilet). “Hi,” I said. “Hi,” he said back, with a highly confused look on his face. And then he started to say something else but I bolted. I didn’t just walk fast, I booked it. R-A-N RAN.

Later that night I walked by his room again with Nhu (he was sleeping on the floor halfway in his room and halfway in the hall --- sketchy place I’m telling you) and I told her the story and, in the most Nhu-like manner, she was like, “DUDE, that guy is the manager! You just took a dump in the MANAGER’S room!!!” Yeah, just another day in the neighborhood.

SHENZHEN TO ZHUZHOU (HUNAN)

We were on the worst train in the history of the universe. No air, no sheets, only grass mats for beds, everything was hella dirty. Oh well though, no worries, right? Just wait it out, it was only a ten hour train. Until I had to go to the bathroom. Don't worry, only pee this time.

So then usually train bathrooms aren't really that bad, you just have to worry about the train stopping suddenly or moving a weird direction cuz you don't want to fall in there. GROSS.

This one, though, had a unique problem. There was a pipe that had burst and fresh water (as fresh as it could get in a bathroom on a train in China, I guess) was pouring onto the floor of the bathroom. I was like, gross, and so I went to the other one. Someone had barfed in there. GROSS. Chose the lesser of two evils and decided to brave the flooded one. It wasn't bad because I had shoes, so, no worries, right?

Wrong. I took one pant leg off, squatted down, everything was cool. Until I felt something distinctly cold and wet slap my backside. EWWWWWWWWW!

There was a mop hanging on the back wall of the bathroom (which is like a 3 ft by 3 ft box), and presumably people had used it to mop up the floodwater in the bathroom. Every time the train shifted directions, the mop would bounce off the wall and slap me in the butt. HAHA. I couldn't move because I was peeing, and so I just took it. In the butt. From a mop. (Relatives: I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist the joke). Anyway, it was soooo gross. Every time the train moved, just *SLAP* *SLAP* or a light *slap*. Haha... ahhh China. :)

"We know that no one here is really free"

I just had what was probably the most interesting spontaneous cultural exchange of my life. This is straight from my journal. I haven't had time to edit it, and my internet time is just about to run out, but it was amazing. Definitely the most meaningful conversation I've had in China, and it took place on a hard sleeper from Beijing to Shenzhen (I was so devastated that my phone didn't work, but I am actually really happy that it didn't, because this is what I got to experience):

She is from the northeast of china and she is of Manchu descent. She went to university in Shanghai and her name is Huashan*. She has high cheekbones and a quick, big-gummed smile that transforms her face in a second, she laughs a lot. Her Manchu family name is Hualali, but they made her family change it a long time ago. Because the Qing dynasty was a Manchu dynasty when it fell in 1911 or 1913, the Manchus were made to suffer terribly in the modern period. Their culture has been all but wiped out. They're language is quickly disappearing, people have been killed for speaking the Manchu language. During her university days, Huashan herself was summoned to the police station and questioned harshely after she went to celebrate a Manchu holiday. She is so brave. She was raised in a small town and never had any wish to go abroad, but when she went to university she did want to go but there was no money. and she would like to work in Beijing but its hard so she works in Shenzhen. She would have liked to study Manchu culture in university but there are no opportunities for that, and she had to study English lit and American lit and she hated it, she said there was not even one author that she liked. Not even one.

She mentioned something, when we were talking about censorship. She said that on June 1^st, in the town of Xianmen?? There was an uprising, a protest, the government had wanted to push through some chemical programs that would make all the babies of the town die, that would make all the women not able to become pregnant, that would make bad things happen, and the people of the town protested. This was a big deal in and of itself as protesting is illegal in china. and it was all over the news for a day and then all the sites were blocked, it was all gone, and no one knows what happened to these people, to this town. No one knows. She knows that the government went ahead with their chemical plant and assumes the leaders of the protest were punished. She doesn’t know what is happening now.

So first I was talking with the Hunan guy (I met him the night before, really nice) and she was interpreting. He asked about the iraq war but I didn’t understand about what exactly and so I couldn’t answer and them two got into a conversation. But then later I asked her what he had asked and then she agreed to translate between the two of us. He had said that he thought the iraq war was bad and now Iraq was a mess and …? and I explained that most Americans disagreed with the war and that we had gone in because of the WMD that were not there anymore. And he said that we were just looking for an excuse to go in and destroy Saddam Hussein and I said that yes, many people think that this president bush was just trying to end what his father started, and that it is interesting that we didn’t try to take down any other regimes (Iran, etc.). he said that we are very arrogant (implied) because we are people’s friends when they help us but as soon as they don’t we are their enemies and we attack them. I said that we are very sorry that we are there and for what is happening but its hard for us to get out because we don’t want to fail. We don’t want to leave iraq a mess. We don’t want to fail. And he said this is all so reminiscent of the Vietnam War. And I agreed.

Then we talked about what Americans think of china (more specifically, he asked if we fear their militarization). and I said that we fear them, but that we don’t really know much about their militarization, that we mostly just fear their economic rise will threaten our own status, and that we fear the fact that their government has so much power. And that the government could control what the people knew, etc.

And then we talked about China. And capitalism and socialism. And he asked what I think is better, capitalism or socialism. And I chose my words carefully and said: capitalism is the most efficient way of producing wealth, but socialism brings that wealth to more people, and so I think a combination of the two is best. And she agreed. Later she said that the educated people in China know that the system they are living under is not socialism. He said that he thought there could never be democracy in China and that the best way of government for China is one strong person, like Mao. And I agreed that there should not be democracy in china right now but that in the future when more people are educated that it could be possible. I disagreed that the best way of government was one strong leader because there was such a high possibility of that leader being bad, or turning bad over the course of his/her rule, because power can do that to you. I mentioned states in Africa and I mentioned checks on power and accountability and that these things were necessary. And then they talked for a long time, discussing something, I didn’t understand. Later I found out they were arguing about the Cultural Revolution, and he was defending it to the death. And she was coming from the majority POV, that it was a mistake, that Mao and the Party had made a mistake… but the guy kept going on about how it was mao who started it yes because there were some people in the party he wanted to get rid of but that it got carried away and then other people in the party kept it going and it got out of his hands and then it got out of control and it wasn’t his fault. But if he was in power then it was his fault. And he compared it to Iraq and how it got out of control. And I was like yes, you can compare it to Iraq. But most people think that Iraq was a mistake and they hold President Bush responsible—it will be the only thing he is remembered for—and that you cant really compare it to the Cultural Revolution because the levels of people who were killed is so different. Millions for the Cultural Revolution!! And she agreed with me but he was still like I had family die in the Cultural Revolution and still I believe that Mao is not to blame, that it was on the whole not a horrible time, that some people died but not too many.

Then we stopped talking to the guy and we just started talking to each other. Feel kind of bad that we just started leaving him out, after he was so nice to be and hooked me up with the girl.

Huashan said that the Chinese educated people know, they realize the hypocrisies and that they know. They don’t agree with the system and they don’t allow the government to tell them what to think. That they know that the government censors their internet and that they are not free. She said this: “we know that no one here is really free.” But at the same time she said that nothing would happen, no rebellion would happen, unless something horrible happened, unless people were so repressed that they had nothing else to do, nowhere else to turn. The Chinese government is really good at making people feel content, and also powerless, at the same time. So that way, they discourage rebellion. She said that now there is a class of people in china that is rich and they are the ones that have the ability to change the system, and that they are accruing power and the government has to listen to them soon but that they cant do anything until something big happens. And that she has given up on the poor people, they cant do anything, they have to rely on the middle class and on the upper class to lead them. She says she believes in them. But I asked what their hope was, what they thought the government should be, what she was really supported, and she said she doesn’t know, exactly, and that something would develop maybe as the time went on and as it became necessary. I thought this was really dangerous, that the Chinese people might move from this current system to something that was maybe worse.

She said that the Chinese educated people are just content. They realize the disparity but they feel like they cant do anything about it. There are just so many people. They are each just one, the educated people are such a small portion of the population. But they are the only ones who realize that they are not free. And many of the young people want to get out. The ones who have gone abroad realize. They realize the world is different from what the party tells them. They know. But they are still powerless to spread the word. It’s all so much bigger here.

When we talked about the right system of government for china, she kept mentioning the concept of a “healthy government” no matter what it was, capitalist or socialist. And that china now kind of has a healthy government, kind of doesn’t. but as long as its not BAD BAD then no one will do anything about it. I said maybe when the economic bubble bursts… and she said that actually china has a different way of calculating statistics than the rest of the world and the 10% growth rate per year is grossly overstated. That yes they have had massive growth but that it definitely hasn’t been 10% per year. And that educated people know this.

Corruption: we just talked about how all the Chinese think that the entire Chinese government, every single Chinese official, is corrupt. That they are just taking the money that everyone is working so hard to make and when they have enough of it they run away abroad with their wives and children. And we were trying to think of ways around it, I talked about Africa and examples of countries there and explained Larry Diamond’s concept of accountability to her, but even she said that there is supposed to be some oversight committee, but when they are paid by the Party how can they be any different from the Party? Yeah man. I see that.

I told her that Americans’ view of Chinese people is very positive. That we think they’re hard working and smart and quiet. We’re afraid they’re taking our spots in universities and in jobs and stuff but that they are the model minority. She said that she heard that we don’t like them. But I honestly don’t think that’s the case. She said that the Chinese people are taught from a very young age to hate the American government, and while they know that the American people are different from the American government, part of them unconsciously hates the American people.
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Okay, that was the journal entry. I'll post my reflections and stuff later...

Welcome to my blog!

I'm not really sure how this blog is gonna go, but I just wanted to welcome you, and say thanks for visiting the site. A quick explanation of the address: eyeofthelaohu. In Chinese "laohu" is how you say "tiger," so when "eyeofthetiger.blogspot.com" was taken, I figured this was the next best thing. I've been in Asia for almost a month so far, and have so many awesome adventures to tell you about. Most of my pictures are up on facebook and/or costco.com under my mom's account, but I'll put select ones up on this. Mmkay, that's it for the intro, but I'll post an entry as soon as I come back to this SWEET wireless internet cafe. I miss you all!