Lao Shi

China is about seven weeks behind me and I’m back in Brooklyn, sifting through notes from students, looking at photographs, trying to organize all the bits and pieces and memories I’ve brought with me and finally be home. I have neglected this task for some time, in part because emotions still linger, in part because I don’t want to revisit the old; I’m ready to turn to the new.

I would like to write a summarizing cap on this seven month odyssey, a “what I’ve learned” post, but such a post would be too neat and clean, too schmaltzy. In some ways, my connection to China and the school where I worked still exists: it is impossible to escape analysis of China’s government, culture and economy on the news, and I still keep up with students and friends and hear about school and their life in Shanghai in general. As I used to turn over time in my head wondering what people in the States were doing while I was in China, I now wonder what my friends in China are up to while I’m here in New York.

I am happy being back home, living with someone that I love, cooking together, sharing leisure time, planning for the future together. Even more than living with someone I realize how I missed living in a thriving community. China is overcrowded, but I felt so isolated. Here, teens hang on the stoop of the brownstone across the street, their siblings play on the sidewalk, the window is open and the air is relatively clean and pollution-free, Biggie Smalls blares on a car radio: I feel connected to a neighborhood not bounded by gates. There is history here, spirit, trees, life. The buildings have a beauty and personality.

Surrounded by the bland, cheaply built, fenced-in communities of Pudong, a suburban nightmare of same-same mega-blocks and mall complexes and industrial sites, I missed the physical and cultural quirks of New York. Culturally, China seems to be in the uncomfortable process of overcoming the shock of opening up to the West and assimilating a simulacrum of Western styles and ideas into Chinese life. Things were familiar, but different, and codes were difficult to understand, in part because they are in flux. Though at times disconcerting, this was at least interesting, as opposed to the smothering, stifling atmosphere around the Living Quarter in Pudong. I regret not venturing out more on weeknights and experiencing life in downtown Shanghai, as I did on the weekends, but that’s hindsight for you.

When I tell people about where I lived and worked they wonder how I lasted as long as I did, and how I even ended up there in the first place. While it has cooled in intensity and passion, I still feel angry that no one I spoke with throughout the entire recruitment process told me directly about the school culture: that the school in no way operates like an international school and instead runs like a Chinese business where individuals are not valued, creativity not encouraged, initiative stamped out, communication veiled and indirect, employees manipulated and lied to by their principal, morale low and jaded cynicism high. The school does not serve its students in the best way possible, not because it can’t, but because the school leadership prevents it from doing so. Then there is the CEO’s mission to spread fundamentalist Protestant Christianity in China, which the school works to further. Though the CEO bribed the Shanghai government to have a church built for his Taiwanese and international workers (though I believe they either allow Chinese workers in or must organize other forums of worship for them, as there is a large number of cross sporting, Bible carrying, Jesus tee-shirt wearing Dorm Girls in the LQ), the school is officially not allowed to operate as a Christian school, though in many ways it does. Not only would it have been nice to know this information in advance, but some of the people I spoke with told me the exact opposite about the school, which led me to turn down a more competitive offer from an international school in Beijing in favor of what sounded like a more exciting, rewarding place to work in Shanghai! So I feel my anger is healthy and justified. No one likes to be lied to.

And, though I originally felt guilty and was hard on myself because I gave up and walked away rather than working my contract through to the end of the school year, I ultimately agree with one of my students, Elizabeth, who wrote me a goodbye note saying I deserve to live and work in a place that makes me happy. Sometimes when a situation is totally screwed up, or a relationship completely unhealthy, the only thing you can do, for your own wellbeing, is walk away.

Because this blog was based around an experience – my life as a teacher in China – and because that experience has now come to an end, this will be my last post on this blog. I am also turning off the capability to leave comments, not because I don’t want to hear what readers have to say, but because I am bombarded with spam on this site because of the comment functionality. If you want to contact me or have something to say please email me briangresko@gmail.com. Thanks.

My last day in China a colleague said to me: “I haven’t gotten a chance to read your blog yet, but I’ve heard you have a problem with Christians.”

Is that what comes across here, that I have a problem with Christians?

I don’t have a problem with Christians per se, and I stick by this. I was raised Roman Catholic (RCs are the OCs: the Original Christians), am fairly well-versed with the seminal Biblical stories, and am familiar with Christ’s parables and the underlying tenants of Christianity. However, even as a student in a Catholic Middle School, I found two principles in particular problematic, and still do today: the belief that any one faith, Christian or otherwise, claims legitimacy over another, and the belief that people must proselytize in order to achieve salvation or make it to paradise. Since then, I have also developed deeper social and political reasons to oppose the general Christian message, which I’ve touched on in the past and won’t go into in this post.

For whatever reason – family background, my avid and wide reading, or just plain old genetics – I never felt with any surety there was an omniscient God who was looking out for me as well as all other faithful Roman Catholics. It didn’t seem right that God would look out for me simply because I had the good fortune of being raised Catholic, as opposed to being raised Jewish, or Muslim, or some other religion. Some members of my family are devoutly religious – I have an aunt who is a Catholic nun – but I never really bought the idea that you had to believe in Jesus in order to find salvation.

At my Catholic school I stood out by not following the Catholic herd, being one of only a handful of boys who didn’t become an Altar Boy. Though I had devoutly religious friends who prayed and went to mass regularly, I tried to skip church whenever I was able, and if I couldn’t, then sneaking out early was a must. Even lying to a priest didn’t faze me; during confession, I followed the three sin rule, in which I confessed only three sins: lying to my parents, taking the Lord’s name in vain, and a wildcard sin that I would decide on beforehand, usually something venial like skipping church or being greedy. Didn’t matter what I actually did, those were always the sins I used. Afterwards, I would lackadaisically rush through my penance, speed-praying, half the time daydreaming. The rituals of the Church were, like those of school, just another set of hoops to jump through in order to get back to doing my own thing: reading, writing, drawing, daydreaming.

My feelings about religion only became more critical from there on out, and my decisions about how to live took me further and further from the Bible Belt mentality and expectations that prevailed at the school in Shanghai, where I heard colleagues talk about “personal” relationships with Jesus, or God as a “loving, forgiving father,” or the “miracles” they experienced in which they felt God’s presence in their life. This is such an utterly foreign feeling about religion than that which I hold, I sometimes felt like a sane person locked in the loony bin. (I truthfully felt more at home walking around downtown Shanghai then I did the school’s Living Quarter!)

Looking back on my writing, I recognize that I weave a Christian conspiracy theory, as if every educator at the school actively tried to spread Protestant Christian beliefs to the students. This is not true. I think most teachers just implicitly spread the Christian faith, and only a few of the more extreme individuals aggressively, explicitly tried to win over converts.

By implicitly spreading the faith, I mean that teachers allowed prayer groups to exist in the school, or the Bible study groups to advertise in their homerooms, the students seemed unfamiliar with directly discussing religion from a sociological perspective as a human construct, giving me the impression that teachers did not expose them to this type of analysis. Other teachers were public about their Protestant beliefs either by talking about them, decorating their desks with religious material, publicly wearing crosses, and/or belonging to the church at which many students practiced, thereby further legitimizing the church in their students’ eyes. (I know of only one educator who sought out a different faith community rather than join the company sponsored Thanksgiving Church.) These teachers sent their students the message that they endorsed and belonged to the Christian community at the school; whether deliberate or not, they were a factor in the spread of the religion within the school.

I also found that, whether Christian or non-Christian, the majority of teachers allowed the Christian mono-culture to exist at the school without any question, opposition, or critique, thereby enabling the more explicit proselytizers to work unfettered. Most teachers were, at best, silent collaborators to the mission established by the Godfather at the beginning of the year: to spread the gospel. Because the students learned no other means of thinking about or discussing religion than as a personal, Christian belief, the students’ awareness that there are other ways of believing, and, I think, their level of acceptance or tolerance towards those who hold non-Christian beliefs, were hindered. While in the short-term these attitudes may be good when preaching and spreading the gospel, in the long-term this will have detrimental effects on students’ ability to socialize, think critically, perform in school, and live as global citizens.

I don’t have a problem with Christianity in theory, or as a set of moral guidelines for living. Christianity, like all of the world’s religions, stresses thoughtful, compassionate living, and has produced some of the most beautiful works of art, and some of the most powerful and compelling stories, known to humanity. My problem is when any ideology – political, social, or, as it was at the school, religious – dominates to the exclusion of others and exists without critique. This creates a bubble cut off from the rest of the world, a perfect medium for delusion, corruption, hypocrisy, and fanaticism to breed. In a school the situation is even more disturbing, as it doesn’t best serve what should be the goal of every educator: raising the skills and abilities of students to exist in the real world. And that I have a big problem with.

Because I have a compulsion for completeness I need to disclose an act of self-censorship on this journal:

Several weeks ago I removed a post from January 3rd in which I mocked a colleague’s blog, a first grade teacher who wrote in December that she was happy her students knew that the true meaning of Christmas was to celebrate Christ’s birthday. She expressed exuberance that her students learned this message at a young age, which really bugged me, because I was very upset with what I saw as the aggressive proselytizing tactics of the early elementary and kindergarten teachers. I quoted and mocked her words, accusing her of “brainwashing” her students, though I never mentioned it to her or her husband, a colleague of mine in the English Department; the model of a nice guy. This was pretty assholey (assholy?) of me, I know, and I apologized and removed the post once he saw it and wrote me an email expressing his dismay over my stereotyping his wife as a crazy Christian. (Yes, it did take him calling me on it; I didn’t just remove the post because of my own misgivings about the wordage, which I know shows a lack of moral maturity.)

But look, though my response was inappropriate and rude, my basic feelings still remain: this teacher may not have been directly brainwashing her students, but she was certainly bringing Christianity into the classroom in a way which sounded, from her writing, one-sided and in a religious, rather than academic, manner. I find this inappropriate. Do the students get exposure to other faiths? Are they taught about the pagan roots behind many of the Christmas traditions? Why teach about Christ in a first grade classroom to begin with? This seems like a topic that should be left for the home.

My legitimate concerns aside; she has my apologies for the way in which I reacted to her writing, which showed far more of the jerk in me than the educator or intellectual. However, I hope that, as her husband’s reaction provided me an opportunity to reflect on my choice of words and the allegations they implied, that she reflects on her own language and the values she communicated, both as a writer and as an educator. Even as a first grade teacher she has the opportunity to instill critical thinking habits in her students and open their minds to differing points of view. I hope she does so, and doesn’t just teach them about “the reason for the season.”

Shanghai’s Old City district represents the second part of what John Edwards would call the “two Chinas” – a poor, un-modernized and un-Westernized neighborhood just off the heart of the glittering skyscrapers and shopping areas of downtown Puxi, and bordering the tourist attraction of Yu Yuan Garden.

Here, life takes to the streets, as most of the apartments are cement-floored, one or two room affairs, with bed, kitchen and television all occupying the same cramped space. This is not dissimilar to the places where the ayis and laborers live in Pudong, many of them migrant workers from the Outer Provinces whose home lie a ten or twelve or fourteen hour bus ride away.

I enjoy walking in Old City because I can never expect what I’ll see. On my past visit to Old City I enjoyed a Uighur sesame pastry from a street-side baker, noticed live pheasants in cages amidst the usual eels and chickens and prawns at the wet market, explored a local outdoor market that was quite hopping, especially with fur traders slinging what appeared to be fresh pelts, and appreciated, as usual, finding myself thoroughly lost. I always feel Western guilt visiting Old City, as what is unusual and strange to me is simply life for the people living here, and I do my best to snap pictures unobtrusively and I certainly don’t stop and stare.

I wonder if these streets will be here in ten years time, or even five, or even two, as many of the buildings are falling apart, and I can imagine that the city would want to reclaim this prime real-estate for more glamorous skyscrapers, pushing the migrants to other, more distant districts of the city, where life will most likely continue largely unchanged for them.

You can see some pictures of this district and the nearby Yu Yuan Garden – one of the most beautiful Chinese gardens I’ve seen – by clicking here and looking at the top of the both the left and right stacks.

This past week my resignation officially became public news at the school.

In typical school fashion, my students heard the news through rumor and gossip before I officially announced it to them. I sent an email to members of the administration venting my frustration at this, as I found it distressing for students to learn about me leaving second hand. The next day, the same day the students found out their Science teacher also resigned, a letter was sent home reassuring students and families that my replacement would be qualified and my leaving was just a natural part of the school’s growth. With a second teacher announcing their resignation, the letter seemed to only add to the students’ sense of confusion and lack of confidence in the school, and rumors began to fly around the student body as to the reasons for our departure.

The news of two teachers simultaneously resigning seems to have touched a nerve throughout the community, and reactions have been diverse as the contents of my resignation letter quickly spread around. I have decided to post the letter here for transparency’s sake.

Some teachers approached or emailed me to say that they feel the same way about the school. Whether Christian or not, many teachers seem unhappy and unsatisfied with the school administration. I have come to realize in the past week that the community here is more varied then I acknowledged, and certainly more nuanced and diverse than my posts depict, as I have written only on the more extreme missionary actions of the Christian community. Some teachers are church goers, but they too are not satisfied living and working here. Unfortunately the school has such a repressive and cliquey culture that talking openly in a proactive way about change is not encouraged, and too many teachers and staff feel that their concerns and suggestions for improvement, when they do reach the administration, fall on deaf ears.

Other teachers distanced themselves from me or criticized my views or the wording of my letter, which I toned down from my first draft in a manner that weakened the overall impact. I received one email informing me that the school is “not a Christian school” and that I had it all wrong (of course, the writer didn’t say anything about my jabs at the professional culture of the school, and I can only speculate how this person found out what I wrote). This is certainly true on paper – the school is not officially a Christian school, nor can it be, as Chinese law allows only international schools to have religious affiliations (ours is technically a Chinese private school), though the administration certainly seems to tolerate (if not outright encourage) a very visible Christian presence in the school. As a result of my resignation, the students have become aware of the schism between Christian and non-Christian teachers, while I have become aware that there are even schisms within the community of Christian teachers as to the extent in which they approve of Christianity’s intrusion into school life.

I did not send my resignation letter to the principal, because after our previous two meetings (see this, for example) I knew my criticisms and concerns about the school would not be well-received and would stop with him. Instead I sent the letter to his boss, the school chancellor, and met with her outside of school hours and off-campus to discuss my unhappiness living and working here. She provided me an open forum for presenting both criticisms and suggestions for improving the school, and was a more receptive audience than the principal has ever been, though who knows whether any real change will come of our meeting – and I certainly won’t be here to find out.

One especially moving part in the turbulence of the past week was the reaction of my students, most of who were both terribly sad to see me go, and also extremely angry at the administration. Their anger results only in part from two of their teachers resigning, but also because we are two of many teachers who have left the school, whether mid-year or after only staying for one year. They also saw a connection between their English and Science teachers: we cared for them, tried to treat them as individuals, and attempted to engage them in lessons, activities and discussions rather than bore them to death with textbook exercises and worksheets. A very brave student, inspired by the documentary Citizen King, about Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, wrote a beautiful letter to the principal expressing her gratitude for both our teaching methods and general classroom demeanor, and expressing her dismay over how the school does not encourage teachers like us to stay or find ways of making us happy here. I’ve never read such a moving testament to my work as a teacher, and it was powerful to read it in front of the students – we had a big group bond of anger and sadness given voice by this amazingly perceptive and mature young woman.

I’ve heard that the girl met with the principal, and that, not surprisingly, he didn’t even finish reading the letter. He continues to put up a smokescreen that he cares for people and values their input, while his actions show otherwise. The quintessential middle-manager, he is removed from the goings on in the classroom and the lives of his students, and beholden to the company mukety-mucks, with no true authority of his own. He doesn’t realize that no one is fooled by his empty rhetoric. Until the principal and those working closely above and with him come to value people as individuals – whether caring and creative teachers, well-intentioned and hardworking staff members, or motivated and concerned students – this school will continue to be a morass of frustration and repression and anger and gossip and teeth gnashing.

I hope that other families will be inspired by this young woman’s courage to speak her mind honestly and clearly, and that parents will join the struggle to insist that the school provide their students with a higher-quality education than that which is currently being given. An open conversation between parents, students and teachers would reveal many of the same issues and criticisms of the school – but until someone at the top actually admits that there is a problem and commits themselves to seriously solving it, no change will ever come.

Unfortunately my frustrations with living and working here have simply hit a wall, and I can’t silently condone the school’s dysfunction and inherent religious mission by working here any longer. It is best for me to head home, and while I am excited to see my family and friends again, my parting is with a troubled mind and a heavy heart.

I wrote a short piece for the online magazine Gen Art Pulse about quality places to go and hang-out in Shanghai that are not overly touristy. If anyone reading this blog plans on visiting Shanghai, which you should, because, despite my frequent venting about the frustrations of living in China, Shanghai is an amazing city, then you should check this article out.

In other news on eating and playing in Shanghai I’ve recently visited a few amazing eateries and bars, but forgotten to bring a camera, so have not posted any reviews. Shanghai being such an international city, I had amazing Thai and Indian food and pretty good Tapas, though last weekend on a meandering jaunt through the city I did stop for some local treats, including this fantastic steamed bun. Nothing fancy – just a small ball of lightly spiced pork cooked in a sweet bun, the juices soaked into the bread – a deliciously warming snack on a cold, grey day’s walk.

Oftentimes cabs around the LQ refuse to pick up Westerners.

Specifically around rush hour, when the cabs race from the Zhang Jiang Subway Station to the Living Quarters and back again, they only like to take Chinese passengers. I’ve never been denied a ride across the river in downtown Puxi, where Western tourists and ex-pats are common, only out here in the middle of nowhere Pudong, where it is not unusual to stand by the LQ gate or the nearby corner for upwards of twenty or more minutes while empty cabs pass by.

Sometimes the cabs stop and get close before they realize I’m a Westerner, at which point they keep moving. One time a cabbie slowed down but wouldn’t stop, and I, desperate for a ride, ran along with him, opening the door as he was moving. He put on the break and turned around to yell “no, no, no!” at me. Another cab pulled up behind the first and I moved towards him, but he also refused me a ride. When a couple of Chinese girls hesitantly came up behind me, they jumped in without a word of complaint from the driver and sped off leaving me waiting at the gate. A typical story of discrimination.

But on Friday I finally snapped.

The day was cold and wet with a consistently dim early-morning light, like the sun had been pinned down behind the clouds somewhere around seven AM, and I felt sleepy and stiff, unable to fully wake up. I was heading to Dragonfly for a massage to work the kinks out, feeling sick of the weather and sick of this place and especially lonely. I didn’t wait long – a cab pulled up about a minute after I arrived at the gate and I jumped in as a woman passenger stepped out.

I said, “Jinqiao Jalla Fu,” which means Jinqiao Carrefour, which is in a complex of stores and restaurants along with the massage parlor.

The cab began to move slowly, the cabbie murmuring to himself, “Jinqiao Jalla Fu, Jinqiao Jalla Fu.”

“Dway,” I said, which means yes or that’s right.

He said something to me more elaborate in Chinese about Jinqiao Jalla Fu.

“Dway. Jinqiao Jalla Fu. Dway.”

He kept talking. In Mandarin, I said I don’t understand, and I couldn’t. All I could pick up was that he kept saying something about Jinqiao Jalla Fu, so I replied back to him again, “Jinqiao Jalla Fu.” At this point we were a bit down the block, almost to the corner, and he stopped the cab. I had about twenty minutes to get to Dragonfly, which would be perfect if we left right away, but I could feel my prospects for safe passage in this cab slipping away.

The cabbie then turned around in his seat and began to yell at me in Chinese. All I could pick up was, “BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH JINQIAO JALLA FU!!!!”

I said in English, “Damn it you don’t have to yell at me. Please just take me to Jinqiao Jalla Fu,” but he kept yelling, and then started banging on the cab cage.

NB: The cabbies are all protected in plexi-glass little cages that surround their seat. Another interesting cab fact about Chinese drivers is that many of them grow a finger nail or two really, really long. This is a sign of wealth and leisure, but it also makes them look strangely vampiric, and we sometimes joke that they are creatures of the night, part of an army of undead warriors ready to slit your throat with their fingernails and drink your blood.

Anyway, he kept yelling and I became pissed off, so I joined in and yelled back, “Jinqiao Jalla Fu! Jinqiao Jalla Fu! JINQIAO JALLA FU YOU BLEEP BLEEP!”

This wasn’t good. We were yelling at each other but neither of us could understand anything except Jinqiao Jalla Fu, and, it seemed from his reaction, the word bleep, which upon my saying it started the guy screaming so vehemently that spit sprayed from his mouth, he was that pissed.

I must say that I, too, was completely enraged. A rainy night at the Carrefour would be an easy place for this guy to pick someone up, it wasn’t like we were going out to some deserted out-of-the-way location, and besides, I’ve never, ever seen a Chinese person get turned down for a cab ride by the LQ or anywhere. He was only being a bitch because I couldn’t speak his language and he felt he could ignore me and kick me out. Dan and Aliza and I had talked about what to do in this circumstance before, which is to begin to write the cabbie’s ID number down in the hopes that he’ll get scared you’ll complain and start driving, but I was so mad I forgot this logical plan.

Instead I got out of the cab, bellowed, “bleep you, you bleepity bleep!” behind me, and then I turned around and, thinking of all those cabs who have denied me passage in the past, spat onto the backseat. I stormed off into the drizzle leaving the door open behind me.

I walked a half-block to the bus stop, fuming. I felt a mixture of shame and glee, along with that particular pleasure that comes with giving into and releasing anger, and I thought about how insanely frustrating and ridiculous this whole thing was, and I laughed.

Truly a “give in to the Dark Side” moment.

Editor’s Note: I toned down the language of my original post, partly because I think it’s funnier with the bleeps, and partly because I know young people are accessing this site, and wouldn’t want to set a bad example.

An article in today’s NY Times on Guangzhou (capital of Guangdong Province in Southern China) reported on how the increase in the city’s wealth has brought with it a rise in crime, in particular from gangs on motorbikes. To fight the crime wave the city government has instituted a ban on motorbikes and motorcycles that begins on Monday, and also adopted a get tough on crime policy that encourages cops to shoot first and ask questions later, which has sparked debate even in the Chinese press about police brutality.

In general Chinese cities are safer than American, and Shanghai is considered very safe even by Chinese standards, but surely as China’s income gap widens its crime rates will go up. Draconian laws and a liberal use of the death penalty can only go so far.

Crime rates aside, the article’s last few paragraphs especially interested me:

Ye Cunhuan migrated to Guangzhou from Hubei Province in 2003 and opened four stores that sell motorized bicycles. These bikes, equipped with small motors, are popular for deliveries and also for people who cannot afford a motorcycle. Now, Ms. Ye has had to close two stores and is facing ruin.
“This has been fatal to my business,” she said.
She has responded by filing a lawsuit that claims the ban violates a national law that establishes the legality of motorcycles and motorized bicycles. The case was heard last Monday, and she expects a verdict by March. Ms. Ye scoffed at the idea that criminals used motorized bicycles, given their low rate of speed, and characterized the ban as an act of discrimination against migrants and others with less money.
“They don’t want to see any of the poor or any ugliness on the streets,” Ms. Ye said. “They want Guangzhou to be a city that attracts wealth and beauty and is full of luxury cars.”

Ms. Ye’s use of the legal system to fight a government injunction she perceives as unfair may be common in the States, but is still relatively rare in China. She sounds, from the brief description, like a middle-class small-business owner looking out for her own best interests in the face of a government that has the authority to impose city-wide policies with impunity. Her use of language connects her concerns as a business owner to a larger class issue – that of the economic elite and political elite working hand-in-hand to oppress the working poor that are the fuel of China’s industrial powerhouse.

The fact that her case has been heard in court at all seems to signify the slow loosening of the CCP’s legal hegemony in China. As the middle class rises, the party elite will be forced to listen to their concerns, especially as more people will be able to afford lawyers, and cases will, perhaps, chip away at the monolith of CCP control. But what of Ms. Ye’s class conscious rabble rousing? My cynical side thinks that she is less concerned with their plight and more concerned with her business opportunities, but who knows?

Will Ms. Ye win her case? Probably not. But it sounds like Guangzhou, like Shenzhen, which the Times recently ran a series on, is one of the sore spots of China’s economic growing pains, where issues of crime, class, environment, law and power are becoming complicated and blurry.

As I write, my bathroom is in a state of utter disruption.

On Monday I received a call from Living Quarters HQ telling me workmen would need access to my apartment today (Wednesday) in order to make some repairs in the bathroom. Apparently my pipes are leaking through the ceiling of the apartment below. Didn’t seem like a huge hassle – the guys would be here between 1 and 3 she said – so I told her no problem.

But it has been.

Right now they are cutting pipes with an electric saw of some sort. I can’t see what they are doing – I can only hear it, as they have secluded themselves in the bathroom while I am out in my living room doing school work and praying to the Internet gods that the fucking overseas connection will regain full strength again. I was a little surprised when the men detached and completely removed my toilet, but I wasn’t truly alarmed until they pulled the sink out too. Then the toxic smells began – some sort of patching compound maybe? Or it could just be the stink of the walls from the gutting of the floor surrounding the shower drain. I was happily surprised to see that our walls indeed are insulated to some degree, with dirt. They piled the insulation around the room and tracked it around my apartment a bit, which I encouraged, hoping that it would raise the temperature. I have been sitting bundled up, balcony and front door both cracked in order to ventilate, hoping to ease the now familiar throat burning that I only can seem to get with a good dose of noxious air.

I’m in the dark as to the extent of their work, and unable to communicate with them verbally. Will I be able to use my shower and toilet anytime soon, as in, ideally, as soon as possible, or perhaps this evening? Will they clean up the huge mess that they made? When will they finish? What the hell are they hammering at in there?

Life’s little hassles become magnified when you lack the ability to communicate, and you have to pee quite badly from that afternoon cup of coffee, and you are stuck, alone in the apartment with no one to vent to, except you, dear Internet.

Deep breaths.

Several hours later: The aftermath finds my bathroom kind of trashed, with everything coated in grey grit and smelling like awful chemical things, but the water does work and all necessities seem to be functioning fine. Amazing that these two guys broke it down, secured the leaky parts, put it all together and patched it back up in a couple of hours. I’m sure that I shouldn’t actually be using things though. The grout around the toilet is so wet you can kind of move the thing around a bit, but they didn’t give me any indication that I shouldn’t be using it and I don’t really have any choice.

Another interesting day in the life of the expatriate, that, like most interesting days here, has its anxious-making parts but ends well enough, if a little dirty.

Sigh.

Thanksgiving Church sits on “the river,” which is actually a canal, along which runs a paved path that is my favorite place to visit in the walkable vicinity. A four lane road runs alongside the canal, so it’s not particularly quiet, and construction sites border it on all sides, so it’s not very beautiful, unless you allow yourself to get into the futuristic, sci-fi look of the monolithic factories being built. But, being a body of water, the canal has soul that the rest of the area lacks. (And no, it’s not because of the church.)

The canal also provides, in the midst of a sprawling wasteland of gated compounds and fenced off industrial units, an unusual green(ish) public space that people from many different walks of life use: businessmen, farmers, laborers, foreigners, natives. Before the air became hazardous to my health I enjoyed running along the canal, in part because it gave me something to look at while I ran, like the construction workers waving and catcalling “hello,” men trawling the bottom for mussels or fishing (though I don’t trust the water – there is typically a dead fish or two lapping the banks), people playing tennis decked out in pristine tennis whites, stray cats, young lovers and, twice, guys bathing in the canal’s water, their clothes dropped in a pile on the shore.

Recently the canal has been smartened up with art. I wish I had more of a story for you about it, but I don’t. One day workers appeared and built it; and all the while I wondered why, and who designed it, and who paid for it, and what the workers thought of it. I am presenting it without narrative – this is the contemporary public art of the Pudong New Area, in particular that around Ziang Jiang Hi-Technology Park.

The first piece is a box, covered in an illustration of sunflowers, made out of glass that is cut into jig-saw pieces, some of which angle up and out, allowing visitors access to the inside of the box. Notice the compound of business hotel, restaurant and offices across the street in the background.

I considered going inside it, but instead just poked my camera in, as it didn’t look like there was much to do in there.

Not too far from the box are two trashcans, one green and one blue, that snore as you approach them, but I didn’t photograph them because they look just like regular trashcans.

In the water across from the box is this big, flat, powder blue structure with a huge water drop shape. The length of it makes me wonder if it has a functional purpose.

Further on is my favorite piece, the Space Egg. It doesn’t vibrate or light up or do anything but reflect the sun and pick up grit. The egg looks especially cool and modernistic in the dim blue haze of twilight, like some hi-technology reservoir tip protruding from within China’s depths.

Leaving the park, on the street corner, I found these two fuchsia guys. They appear on various corners throughout Pudong, along with statues of animals like white rabbits. I think they are hailing cabs, though they could also be hearing and responding to something, or perhaps doing a synchronized disco-dance routine.

My reading on this piece is that, because of their color, and because there are two of them, and maybe because of their proximity to each other and the slight swagger I see in their hips, they represent a subversive gay pride message in public Pudong – businessmen lovers on their way home from work. And maybe the white rabbit statues refer to drugs? Anything’s possible…