Taiwan kicked me out, so I have to go to China. Real China. Hong Kong to be exact. As I type these words, I am one of many Anglo looking schmoes going to China for the same reason and watching the same incredibly irritating 4 year old jump up and down, peer aimlessly at foreigners, spill his grape juice, and anger his nearby mother who stares vacantly at the Chinese television announcement about the H1N1 influenza virus, worried, or perhaps hoping, that she is infected, her most noticeable symptom being obviously a pounding headache. The kid has learned the world "uh-oh" alongside other childhood vernacular perhaps learned in expensive private schools called "Cornell American school" or "Uncle Sam American Language Institute" or something even more ridiculous. "Uh-oh" seems useful to him I suppose. If I sound bitter to you, it is because I have spent the mornings for the past week arriving an hour early to work so that I may perform my one week a month duty of playing the part of Barny the purple dinosaur in front of 200 Kindergarten kids shouting in Chinese, as If I needed an exercise in patience. I don't have a Barny costume, so I have to make do with just a stupid voice so that I may entertain and subdue this small army of spoiled children. They have given me a repertoire of songs to teach them which includes the redneck classic "Cotton Fields" and the morbid "Jack and Jill"-- one of the many beloved childhood snuff songs of the glorious USA. I wonder whether these Taiwanese parents want their kids to be using expressions like "them old cotton fields back home" and "little bitty baby" alongside the already familiar "uh oh." I glance at the suffering mom to find that she's not there, my assumption being that she has boldly leaving her child unattended to see what nearby object he can break while she pauses to sob privately in the in flight restroom before returning to her seat with an artificial smile . He climbs yells and points and jumps around and then comes and sits on my lap. I melt. It's so easy to love kids, when you're not hating them.
I get off the plane and file through a line of truly asian magnitude through customs and into another line to exchange money and discover that Taiwanese currency, the currency in which I'm paid, is worth nothing here. I buy a 25 dollar ticket on the airport train into the city and take a seat alongside well dressed businessmen who are not chagrined or surprised at the sound of my computer keys clacking in the darkness of the train which speeds at 80 mph through dizzying lights of skyscrapers mirrored against the ocean, the views broken by the glaring lights of the occasional tunnel. The suits beside me do not ask in surprise, as the Taiwanese would "you half a lopp-topp?" but rather they recline into their spacious chairs content with a break from what must be a relentless schedule of conference calls in both Chinese and English. They probably do not notice the modern flatscreen tvs in the train that alight on the walls and offer bilingual advertisements for diamonds, picturing expensive people having "furnished souls" and dashing around brightly lit cities around the world, sporting bling all the way.
In order to save money (I have none) I have opted for some advance planning, which is very out of character for me. I went on the couchsurfing website and found a free couch to "surf" for the weekend. To those unacquainted with this marvelous resource, it is a way for desperadoes and ne'erdowells and workaday joes alike to experience the joys of travel, hopefully through someone that knows their way around town. The ne'erdowells are the ones crashing on the floor while travelling and the workin joes are the ones paying the rent and wishing they were travelling instead, living vicariously through their acceptance of a random traveller into their home. I take a taxi to the home of my gracious internet host, a Canadian educated asian guy who works in banking and lives on the really pricey part of Hong Kong island, a short distance separating him from the downtown area. He shows me onto the 40th floor of his building and to the flat where he lives. His place overlooks Hong Kong Harbor and is easily one of the nicest views I've seen of any city anywhere. In his living room is a 6 foot tall black and white print of New York City. I ask him about it and we talk about our respective visits to NYC, mine involving the time I led a high school field trip there and participated in a cruel prank to trick the religious kid into going to see "Brokeback Mountain." I told him I thought the city was expensive and "I miss New York prices" was his response. He said this before sharing that the rent for his apartment is 25,000 Hong Kong Dollars per month. Divide that by 7, and you'd have the price in USD, which is more than the monthly salary for my job entertaining 5 year olds.
In the morning I wake up and catch a cab downtown to a giant skyscraper where it is my task to secure a visa to Taiwan. Unaware of the costs associated and advised against disclosing the true reason for my presence there, I enter the world of a very carefully planned deception, which resembles the life I have dreamed of. Under "occupation" I am careful to omit the fact that I am a teacher, scribbling instead that I am a "writer" and instantly my mind swims in a fantasy world in which, though broke at the moment which my bank records will show, I am being paid to write an article on circumnavigating the island of Taiwan by bicycle. The trip will take me 50 days and my employer will deposit money in my bank account as soon as my visa is granted and the trip is underway. This will explain the many questions they must have on how I plan to support myself on a mere 100 American dollars for the next 2 months. I could tell them the real story which is that I plan on begging my boss at the school for an advance on my salary so that I may deal with my numerous expenses, but I don't expect them to grant me the visa once they realize I have illegally obtained employment in Taiwan, plus I prefer my fantasy life. I am dragged home from my reveries by the sound of a screaming child in the visa office as I wait for my number to be called. Another poor mother cradles her screaming baby while her older progeny pulls the tickets out of the "please take a number" ticket holder thing scattering the string of paper on the floor like discarded animal intestine at a night market. The mother looks exasperated, and try as I might I cannot regain my fantasy world because even now, as I sit in a comfortable chair in a high rise building in an expensive city, I am surrounded by out of control young people, evidence of mankind's stubborn insistence on preserving its endless folly.
They tell me I have to wait for my visa to be processed so I go to another floor of the huge building and order some sushi from a conveyor belt. I sit on a tiny uncomfortable stool and watch various pieces of raw fish scoot past as if they were still propelled by those tiny fins that ornament the platter, and when I see one that looks interesting I grab it and douse it in wasabi. I do this for about an hour while I sit there and read to kill some time, occasionally spooning little powdered teas into my small cup which holds hot water dispensed from a spout at the bar within arms reach of where I am sitting and reading. Since the hot water is within arms reach and since the teas are interesting and new to me, I drink about 5 or 6 cups before I tire of the raw fish conveyor belt restaurant experience and go to pay my bill, which is determined by counting the number of plates at my table and adding up the color of each plate-- each colored plate had a different kind of sushi and each sushi a different price. What I wasn't expecting though, was for someone to be counting the number of spoonfuls of tea I consumed, which shows up on the bill and adds up to a significant amount. "For tea?" I exclaim. The waiter gives me a look that says "what do you expect out of a former British colony in China? Yeah, tea is important here." There are many things I must learn and the price of tea in China is clearly one of those things.
For the sake of the adventure, which is my reason for doing many of the things I have chosen,I board a double decker bus. I have no idea where the bus is headed, but I am hoping I will recognize some landmarks and see some cool things on the way. I am not disappointed as the double decker view allows me to people watch from above, an enlightened stance, or so it seemed. I imagine it as an out of body experience, my being soaring above the tiny people below, hustling through their daily chores, going to work at the high-rise building. My out of body self is only vaguely concerned with the fact that I have no documentation to prove that I belong in Taiwan. My bank account printouts prove I have no money. My out of body self watches the little ants crawling around on the sidewalk stopped at a traffic light under an overpass and I simply don't care. This life is very short, and try as I might to learn what I can from suffering, I cannot suffer deeply. Even with no money in my account I can be fairly certain that I will always eat. I may even have money and time with which to get drunk. So many things to be thankful for, my out of body self notices as I pass the enviable forms of fashion models three stories high stretched out against the high rise office buildings.
I go back into the visa office once more to wait in line and abstractly hope that it will all work out. They call me to the window and I approach, printed website bank statement in hand. The printout is just confusing enough to potentially mystify the government clerk, so I am hoping that will work. I point to the largest number on the paper a number which represents how much I spent last month, hoping he will gloss over the part about the balance being 110$. I circle it and point and say "that's a lot of money!" and he seems to like this. He smiles, perhaps sympathetically, perhaps knowingly. He stamps my thing, and the visa application is done. I won't know until I try to enter Taiwan whether or not it will be accepted, but at least the rest of the weekend is mine, to worry or not.
I go back to the apartment of my couchsurfer host, and I watch the DVD of "no country for old men." I feel like rehearsing Texas diction and syntax will help for next time I have to sing "them old cotton fields." I wait for couchsurfer guy to get home and help me figure out what to do with my time here. He eventually arrives and we go to the bar. It is in that hip area of town marked by the long line of well dressed metrosexuals waiting to get in to see the women inside each bar, who probably are in there somewhere judging by the number of men clamoring for a spot in line, waiting to bribe the doorman. Some of his friends show up and I'm introduced around and I spend half the night yelling over the music trying to make conversation with these people who I have just met. We say things like "WHAT DO YOU DO?" at the top of our voices. They reply "I'M AN INVESTMENT BANKER!" and this eliminates the need for a response from me. What do you say to that? So tell me, do you like money? Everyone wants to buy me a drink anyway, and I drink them which leads to an awkward situation later on the couch. It is clear that I have had too much to drink, because when I lie down, the room no longer seems stationary and secure. Although I am lying in one spot, the objects in the room seem to be vibrating with some mysterious energy. It's clear that I am going to vomit sooner or later. I may go to sleep and then wake up and vomit. I may vomit and then sleep; I may choke on my vomit in my sleep. The bathroom is occupied. I go up to the roof where I ponder leaning my head over the side and looking down the sheer drop of 40 stories, which I'm sure will cause me to puke. Puke at that velocity from the top of a 40 story building could do some real damage though, and I think I had better think of something else. Cleaning up roadside trash in Denver one time I came across a one liter bottle with the cap screwed on, filled with something that was not cola. Curiosity in combination with an already too heavy sack or recycling I was carrying made me unscrew the bottle. I poured it out onto the ground. Vomit. Someone had found a way to puke inside a narrow mouth one liter bottle like the kind you would drink mountain dew out of. Now that's ingenuity. I was that resourceful! In the manner consistent with the never ceasing construction in Hong Kong, there was a pile of sand over in the corner on the rooftop. Someone was using it for spackle or for making pottery or for for their children to play in. There was a shovel protruding from the sand pile. I shoveled myself a nice neat little hole and proceeded to muster an exorcist worthy stream or projectile vomit from the deepest recesses of my abdomen. By the time I was done, there was a little pool of puke floating in the hole of sand I had dug. I shoveled some sand over it and went back downstairs, the only evidence of this deed being the sand on my shoes, and of course the hangover the next day, but I can't say that waking up disoriented on a strange couch is a new experience entirely.
My good friend Matt from Taipei was also exercising his need to leave town for visa purposes, and he and I had agreed to meet that afternoon and go do some touristy stuff like ride around in a double decker bus. I had a key to his hotel room and I went downtown at the appointed rendezvous time of 12pm, fearing that he would be mad if I was later than what had been discussed as our cell phones didn't work in Hong Kong. I entered the room to find what would definitely pass for a housekeeper's worst nightmare. Clothes strewn all over the floor, sheets ruffled, and a half naked man lying face down on the bed. He didn't even wake up when I left the note to say that I was going to get something to eat. He had apparently found the best thing about Hong Kong, which is a thriving bar scene. The next few days were like this.
I woke up from the days long haze of intoxication to find myself on a motherfuckin' boat! I had been invited by one of the couchsurfer host guys, and this is how Matt and I learned to wakeboard. "Where did you learn to wakeboard?" I envisioned people saying years from now when I got really awesome at wakeboarding. "Oh" I'd say non-chalantly " I got into it when I was in Hong Kong. So what if I suck at it? What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?" With this I would have proven myself worldly and having sanded down all of those rough provincial edges in my personality, I would finally be able to tell you, among other things, what it's like to wakeboard past an old Chinese junk off the coast of Hong Kong.
This is what I was thinking as I climbed the platform into the dunk tank at the Salinas High School Class of 2009 Graduation Bar-B-Que.
