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 洋海龟闯荡神州系列：年轻人志在东方 |
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wanderer
[博客]
[个人文集]
头衔: 海归准将
声望: 学员
加入时间: 2004/02/20
文章: 1232
海归分: 168152
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作者：wanderer 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
“Go east, young man... far east" 是 Dan Washburn 到了中国后第一篇感想的题目。 他原来是一位体育记者，2002年七月辞去工作来到上海大学宝山分校教英语。他这样介绍自己："Dan Washburn is an award-winning American journalist who quit his job being an award-winning American journalist to teach English courses at Shanghai University in China. To do so, he took a huge cut in pay — which is almost impossible for a young American journalist to do." 他的正式头衔是“外国专家”，他的工资据说只有四位数、、、
9.10.2002
go east, young man ... far east
I’m having trouble sleeping at night. I go to bed early and wake up earlier. This is not normal for me.
But nothing is normal for me these days. I live in Shanghai, China.
Here, I’m still living like it’s yesterday. Today still feels too much like tomorrow. Here, Monday Night Football kicks off at 9 o’clock Tuesday morning.
I lost 12 hours of my life during 18 hours spent hopping from New York to Tokyo and finally Shanghai. Ten days into my Asian adventure, I’d say 12 hours is a pretty fair price. I’d likely give up more.
Shanghai is seductive. She is beautiful, fashionable — and a little bit dirty. I know I haven’t known her long, but I definitely think this relationship has potential.
I couldn’t eat much the morning of Friday, August 30. Maybe it was because I was about to embark on the biggest move of my life. Or maybe it was because of what I did to my body the night before.
Big things always seem to happen to my friend Veronica and those who follow her around. A New Yorker, she has a knack for getting past the velvet rope to that fantastic and plastic world where the pretty people play. Every episode of “Sex and the City” reminds me, in one way or another, of her.
So, at dinner we saw Ethan Hawke and that young guy who got to screw Jennifer Aniston in “The Good Girl.” Oddly, the celebrities were less A-list at the after- and after-after-parties for the MTV Video Music Awards we attended early Friday morning. We recognized only Moby and David Lee Roth.
The flight that followed the fun was rather tame by comparison. At JFK, I downed a Bloody Mary and a Krispy Kreme donut and made some final calls on my American mobile phone.
When my row began boarding, I said to the person on the other end of the line: “OK. I have to move to China now.”
It was a Northwest flight, so my stay in The States lasted until we landed in Tokyo. The flight attendants spoke English. The movies — “Ice Age,” “The Rookie,” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” — were in English, too.
But I had a hint at what awaited me on the other side of the globe. I was one of few Caucasians seated on the full flight. The girl sitting next to me was reading a book full of characters that reminded me of the gibberish that appeared on my computer screen when I would try to open PC documents on my old Mac.
Soon, I would be surrounded by such gibberish.
For someone who has tried to make a living communicating, not being able to do so can be quite frustrating. That is the biggest culture shock so far — even more than the indoor spitting, the walking around in pajamas, the perpetual push of people everywhere I go.
On my first day in China, severely jet-lagged, I sleepwalked through my new surroundings.
There’s an open market a short walk from my place. What I saw there woke me up. The market was full of color and commotion, smiles and stares. The place was alive. The place was packed.
Danny, you’re not in Georgia anymore.
There were fruits and vegetables — some I recognized, some I didn’t — fish, amphibians, poultry and mammals — some living, some not.
I was the only white man wandering the aisles. Those who knew words of English shouted them at me … over and over again.
“Hello. How are you? Hello. How are you?”
I was afraid to say anything in return. Rather, I didn’t know how to say anything in return. I didn’t order anything — I felt that I couldn’t — and I left.
In Shanghai, when a foreigner first heads out on the town alone, people don’t say, “Goodbye.” They say, “Good luck.”
I get satisfaction from the little things now. Like when a taxi driver nods understandingly after I tell him where I want to go. Like when I order 18 pork and carrot dumplings in Chinese and actually get 18 pork and carrot dumplings.
Shanghai is the most populous city in the world’s most populous country. Reportedly, less than 1 percent of Shanghai’s 16 million or so inhabitants can speak English. Conversely, an even smaller percentage of Dan Washburn can speak Chinese.
Part of my business here, I suppose, is to see that both of those percentages increase over the next several months.
I quit my job as a journalist in July. Now, I am teaching Conversational English and — somehow — graduate level American Literature to the students of Shanghai University.
Yes, I am the teacher (“Foreign Expert” is actually my official title … at least they got it half right), but often I feel as though I am the student.
Each day here in this bizarro world, I learn something new. Each day is filled with weirdness and wonder. Everything is different here. Then again, everything is very much the same.
I live in the Le Hu Guest House, basically a mini hotel on Shanghai University’s Yan Chang Campus, which is about a 30-minute shuttle-bus ride from the Baoshan Campus, where I teach all seven of my classes.
My accommodations are comfortable: one air-conditioned room, a small fridge, a TV, my own bathroom, dial-up internet access, two single beds, no roommate. I have free access to kitchen and laundry facilities, which are both located about five steps from my door.
More importantly, however, I have daily maid service. And anyone who has ever visited my living quarters over the past two decades knows that daily maid service is something that I desperately need.
I suppose all of these amenities make up for my four-figure salary … sort of.
Several other foreign teachers live at Le Hu with me. Mostly Americans, Aussies and Brits. Mostly people in their 20s. There’s strength in numbers, we soon realized, even when ignorance is the common denominator.
The first thing foreigners learn at Yan Chang is how to order food from the street vendors who set up shop outside campus. It’s good stuff — and cheap. Very cheap. It’s possible to eat here on less than $1 a day. No lie.
Pirated DVDs are also cheap and easily accessible. The quality is usually surprisingly good. If it’s not, just throw the disc away. It likely only cost you a dollar.
(I really need to stop converting everything to dollars … because I am not earning dollars. I am earning yuan — or, as my friends back in the U.S. have taken to calling the Chinese currency, “Yao Mings.”)
DVDs I have purchased so far: “Traffic,” “Thirteen Days,” “Reservoir Dogs,” “Run Lola Run,” The Royal Tenenbaums,” “Blue Velvet,” “Black Hawk Down,” “Ocean’s Eleven,” “Amelie,” “Full Frontal,” “The Graduate,” “Jackie Brown,” “The Godfather Trilogy,” and the entire first season of “Sex and the City” — which, according to the cover, stars “Shla Jashika Pak” and “Jim Catelaer.”
Yan Chang Campus is about a 20-minute drive from the heart of downtown Shanghai, the part of the city frequented by tourists. So when a throng of Western "foreign experts" leaves the friendly confines of its guest house, heads turn in the neighborhood.
Really, heads turn even when just one Westerner walks down the street here. With our fair hair and big, blue eyes, we are like freaks in a carnival sideshow.
One man — who, I was told later, had likely just migrated from the countryside to Shanghai and had never before seen a foreigner — nearly tripped over his feet when he saw us. He was walking in front of our group and repeatedly turned his head for a peek.
The man smiled widely. He was obviously involved in an intense internal tug-of-war. He knew he shouldn’t stare. He knew he should just keep walking. But certain questions kept pulling him in the other direction.
What are these odd creatures walking behind me? What if these are the only ones? What if this is my only chance to see them?
His curiosity won the war. He couldn’t help himself. He turned around again. I waved. And he laughed. Satisfied, he walked away.
You are never alone in Shanghai. Sixteen million inhabitants don’t just disappear. I usually feel like I’m in the way of someone, or something.
Streets are filled with people, people peddling their goods, people pedaling their bicycles. Oh, the bicycles! I’ve never seen so many.
Some bicyclists tow freight 10 times their weight. Others carry passengers who sit on platforms above the rear wheel.
Whatever their cargo, the people on the bikes adroitly maneuver around the masses and between the cars, ringing their bells with every push of the pedal.
It all looked rather dangerous to me. And it is. One Shanghai native told me that people die on their bikes every day in the city. It’s such a common occurrence that it doesn’t even make the news anymore.
Cars fly fast and furious through the streets of Shanghai. The horn is used instead of the brake. Yellow lines painted on the streets are just decorations.
Taxi rides are always white-knuckled adventures. Crossing the street is like playing a personal game of Frogger.
Make it safely to the other side of the street, and you’ll likely like what you see. Shanghai is constantly under construction. It is an odd and intriguing mix of old and new, beauty and bawdiness, communism and capitalism.
On the surface, it appears that the capitalists are winning. Shanghai is more commercialized than any city I have ever visited.
Downtown, every corner is decorated like Times Square. Advertising is big, bright and in your face. Sometimes it feels as though Pepsi has purchased the rights to entire blocks. It’s like walking inside a giant video game.
Shanghai has McDonald’s, KFC, Subway and Starbucks. And they are wildly popular. Here, McDonald’s competes in the coffee biz with shops it calls McCafe.
If you have the money, it is easy to live like a Westerner in Shanghai, although I can’t understand why anyone would want to do so. You can eat Western food, drink Western beer and surround yourself with Western expatriates.
I’ve been to huge department stores that carry everything a Westerner could want … for a price.
Likewise, there are several high-end clubs that cater to Western businessmen and their Western wallets. I went to one last week — and I couldn’t help notice that nearly everyone in the place was white. I ordered all of my beers in English — and I couldn’t stop thinking that with each 60-yuan beer, I was drinking a month’s worth of lunches back at Yan Chang.
The regular expats didn’t seem to notice. They were young, attractive and spoke often of business deals. I felt like the detached narrator of a Hemingway novel.
For several reasons, however — some of them obviously fiscal — I don’t see myself frequenting such places. Sometimes it’s refreshing to be surrounded by people who look nothing like you.
I find it easy to sit back and observe while riding the Shanghai subway. I have no distractions. I can’t understand a word that’s being said. I can’t read any of the advertisements pasted to the walls. All I’m left with are my thoughts.
It’s quite peaceful, actually.
That is, until I have to figure out when it’s time to get off the train.
作者：wanderer 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 洋海龟闯荡神州系列：年轻人志在东方 -- wanderer - (11428 Byte) 2004-3-14 周日, 08:22 (2151 reads)
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