Dear Newly Arrived Peace Corps Volunteers,
If you came to China with designs on kicking booze and smokes once and for all, perhaps Saudi Arabia would have been a better decision. The Chinese, as you have probably already discovered, are not Latter Day Saints. They love debauchery in all its forms. They enjoy revelry, merriment, bacchanalia, shindigs, and, in the parlance of our times, "getting crunk." The unholy sacraments of the Chinese Dionysian rites - formaldehyde beer and overpriced cigarettes - are almost impossible to avoid, or resist. The American mantra of Just Say No is flipped on its head in China. Here, Just Say Yes is the name of the game; it is rude to do otherwise.
Of course, you can abstain should you so desire, but you must be persistent, and your excuses had better be convincing.
Exhibit A: Wǒ bù hē. Wǒ shì shān dá jī yuán. I don't drink. I am a Scientologist.
Exhibit B: Chōuyān jī wǒ de chángdào yì jī zōnghézhèng. Smoking aggravates my Irritable Bowel Syndrome in explosive fashion.
The word for "alcoholic" in Chinese is jiu gui, or "booze devil." The word for "chain smoker" in Chinese is yan gui, or "cigarette devil." If you are to maintain some semblance of face in this country, you don't want to become either of those devils. But two years is a long time to behave oneself. And nobody around you will be behaving themselves. Furthermore, the Chinese are persuasive. They have strength in numbers and, in all likelihood, they will wear you down. Formal banquets tend to be even rowdier than high school keggers. If you are a man and you happen to be out with your coworkers, you will be offered fresh cigarettes before you've even finished the one you're working on. In short, if you were on the rickshaw of sobriety when you arrived, the Chinese will kick you off of it. If you were already off the rickshaw from the get-go, you will probably remain there. No doubt your willpower is stronger than mine, but I have found abstinence to be a losing battle in China. The key, then, is to indulge your vices responsibly, cost effectively, and enjoyably. So, what follows is my feeble attempt to assess the nature of debauchery in China, and to catalog the key players involved. This guide to debauchery will be part Gulliver's Travels, part Consumer Reports. It is not my aim to ruin the surprise for any of you - certainly, trial and error (and mostly error) is the best way to find things out for yourself - but simply to provide some helpful suggestions and shopping advice for all you young libertines out there who have so selflessly committed yourselves to two years of service and self-destruction. Happy debauching!
Warm regards,
Pan Da
Volume 1: On Smoking
When I first arrived in China, I was convinced for some reason that the Peace Corps was a celibate order of monks. Surely, nobody within the sacred fold smoked or drank, and I certainly didn't want to be regarded as the Kingsley Amis of the flock. So, I held off smoking for the first two days of my service, until the inside of my head started to feel like a rapidly inflating hot air balloon. I paced the room. I played Spider Solitaire. Eventually, I succumbed to Sudoku. Fucking Sudoku? No. I couldn't stand it any longer. Shortly after midnight, I tiptoed out of my hotel room and took the elevator downstairs. There were other volunteers lounging around the lobby. I waved at them, wearing an inconspicuous smirk. Oh, just going out for a little stroll is all, some fresh air, y'know - but I had blown my cover. Moments after I'd checked the walls for CCTV cameras and stashed myself in the darkest corner I could find, my soon-to-be friend Tim came around the bend. I stuffed my Marlboros back in my pocket.
"Whatcha up to, Keith?"
"Oh, uh, well," I said. "Just. Chillaxing. Man. In the corner. Y'know. In the dark."
"... um, cool. I thought you were maybe sneaking out for a cigarette or something."
"That ... is also possible. Do you ... errr?"
"I'm trying not to. But fuck it. It's China."
And so I dug deep into my dwindling supply of American cigarettes, offered Tim one, and lit a number for myself. Ah, sweet contentment.
Over the days and weeks that followed, the smokers' circle expanded. At first, it was just Tim and I. Then Gary came along. Vijay crumbled pretty quick. Then Christina and Genevieve. Jim and John. Tristan and Dave. They kept crawling out of the woodwork, shamefaced at first, then suddenly boisterous and bitchy like the rest of us. I'm not proud of our missionary work, and I don't mean to imply that the Peace Corps is the opposite of a monastic order, or that my fellow volunteers are as weak-willed as I am - but in a country where cigarettes are the official currency of kindness, it's almost impossible to stay on the non-smoking rickshaw.
After a couple weeks, after we had smoked down and snubbed out every last homegrown Marlboro, Camel, and American Spirit our backpacks had to offer, we in the smokers' circle turned with much wailing and gnashing of teeth to Chinese cigarettes. I'll be the first to admit that there is no such thing as a "good" cigarette, not even in America. Although I do savor the smell of secondhand smoke, I can't say that I've ever enjoyed my time in Flavor Country. As far as cigarettes go, there are only varying degrees of awful. American Spirits are considerably less awful than Marlboros. Marlboros, in my opinion, are considerably less awful than Camels. And Camels are unquestionably less awful than anything available for less than $7.00 a pack. But even bargain bin cigarettes - you know, the ones with the American flags on the front - are nowhere near as awful as the best Chinese cigarette on the market. Chinese cigarettes are f-bomb awful. That's all there is to it.
Deep down in our lungs, we in the smokers' circle knew that all Chinese cigarettes were f-bomb awful from the very beginning, but that didn't stop us from searching for that elusive mildly awful cigarette. Between Peace Corps health seminars, the smokers' circle would gather at the foot of the hotel stairs and, reaching into our pockets, we would produce a rainbow of cigarette packs. Blue packs, red ones, green packs, purple ones. The names eluded us at the time - Shuangxi? Hongtashan? Hongmei? - but the prices and the relative degrees of awfulness did not.
"These Shwoongshys ain't half bad. Ain't half good, either."
"Hayngtahshewns are only seven kuai. But it's like I'm inhaling a barbecue pit."
"Ugh, Hayngmee. Four kuai, and I feel like I'm smoking the New York Times."
A few of us adopted brands. But most of us, myself included, are still free agents, are still searching, hoping, still jumping from one f-bomb awful self-destructive experience to the next. In so doing, I have become something of a taxonomist of modern Chinese smokeables. I wouldn't consider myself a connoisseur, because that would imply some level of enjoyment that I am not familiar with. But after one full year off the rickshaw, I can categorize Chinese cigarettes by price, origin, nicotine content, and that most important of variables: degree of awfulness. And so, my dear volunteer, now I present that information to you. The reviews that follow will not include anything out of my price range, which is exactly $2.50 US.
Upper-Middle Class Cigarettes
Name: Marlboro
Origin: Fujian, China
Color: Red or white, depending on what kind of cancer you want
Price: 15 kuai ($2.50 US)
Degree of Awfulness: Pretty Damn Awful ☠☠☠☠
Review: It is with much relish and a slight twinge of heartbreak that I launch into this review of Chinese-made Marlboros. Don't let the classic deck-of-cards packaging fool you: these are not American Marlboros. Some foreigners persist in smoking them because the brand name does seem to have some sort of soothing placebo effect on the laowai mind. But I will go out on a limb and say that Chinese Marlboros are perhaps even more awful than most bargain bin Chinese brands. If you are familiar with the smell of valerian root, that is the exact stench you can expect the moment you put flame to paper. The smell of dirty socks. Of expired milk. A high-pitched smell, if that is possible. I don't mean to imply that Marlboro puts valerian root in their Chinese cigarettes, although that wouldn't surprise me in the least. Valerian root or no, smoking these monsters will not help you sleep at night. They will only amplify your Nescafe jitters, and what is worse, by keeping them around, you will sorely disappoint your expat friends every time you take out a pack and have to explain that oh, no, these aren't American Marlboros. They're, uh, Chinese. Like, sorry, bro.
Name: Hongtashan - Salaryman Edition
Origin: Yuxi, China
Color: Silver or gold. I can't tell. I'm colorblind, yo.
Price: 12 kuai ($2.00 US)
Degree of Awfulness: Pretty Damn Awful ☠☠☠☠
Review: A bit of trivia, first off. "Hongtashan" means Red Pagoda Hill. I have no idea where that particular hill is, but I can only assume it is somewhere in Yuxi, and that the red pagoda is obscured in a carcinogenic haze carried downwind from the nearby Hongtashan Cigarette Factory. Another bit of trivia: Hongtashan, Ltd. has a Twitter account. I can only imagine what a Chinese cigarette manufacturer must tweet about. "Keep smoking. KEEP SMOKING. LOL!!!! @hongtashan" Anyhow. There are at least three varieties of Hongtashan that I am aware of. What I call the CEO Edition is out of my price range, so I will not review it here. The Peasant Edition is well within my means, and is somewhat less awful than the Pretty Damn Awful Salaryman Edition, which I will sink my teeth into presently. Until I smoked one of these puppies, I didn't believe it was possible for China to engineer a cigarette that was "not strong enough." But smoking a Hongtashan Salaryman Edition is like sucking air through a straw. There does not appear to be any actual tobacco in the cigarette, though I have not yet been willing to dissect one in the name of science. I imagine if I were to do so, I would find a few dirty blonde strands of plant material blended in with pure nothingness. I do not recommend smoking these overpriced tubules of condensed oxygen. It is a waste of your volunteer stipend. Smoking a pack of Hongtashan Salaryman Editions is like not smoking anything at all. It's like breathing clean air, for chrissake, and who in their right mind wants to do that?
Name: Pride (a/k/a Panda) - Purple Panda
Origin: Unknown - somewhere with pandas, perhaps
Color: Purple, with some panda coloration
Price: 12 kuai ($2.00 US)
Degree of Awfulness: Not Too Awful ☠☠
Review: The Pride Cigarette Corporation, for reasons known only to Chinese cab drivers, has about ten different flavors of cigarette on the market. Or perhaps "flavors" isn't the right word. Let's say they have about ten different colors of cigarette on the market. There are yellow packs and blue packs, red ones and green ones, and most recently, purple ones. There is not much difference in awfulness between the many colors of the Panda rainbow, and to review them all would be pointless and exhausting work, so I will stick to the two least awful colors available: blue and purple. Pride Cigarettes are known to laowaidom as "Pandas," because of the cuddly little panda insignia on the front of the packs. Pandas are easily the cutest cigarettes in China. The Purple Panda logo is especially charming, because the little fellow looks like he's just spent two weeks on the high end of a bamboo bong. Panda rings aside, his eyes are unmistakeably bloodshot, his cheeks are flushed, and his lips are puckered, clearly showing signs of drymouth. I'm not sure if this partytime panda goes for tobacco, but I suspect he wouldn't be too disappointed with his namesake. As far as Chinese cigarettes go, I am willing to place Purple Pandas in the upper echelon of endurability. Slightly tangy, slightly bitter. Not too skunky. Pride Cigarettes, Ltd. have really come close to hitting the bullseye with this one; or have at least come close to hitting the target; or at the very least, they have come close to grazing the tree from which the target is hanging. In a vast sea of mass produced awfulness, by being Not Too Awful, the Purple Pandas have managed a feat unsurpassed by anyone except their less stoned brothers in arms: the Blue Pandas.
Middle Class Cigarettes
Name: Pride (a/k/a Panda) - Blue Panda
Origin: The Land of Milk and Honey and Tar, China
Color: Navy blue with trippy panda-related holograms
Price: 10 kuai ($1.50 US)
Degree of Awfulness: Merely Awful ☠
Review: It's all downhill from here. The high water mark for Chinese cigarettes is the Blue Panda. I can't say what makes me such a loyal customer. If I could, I probably wouldn't be a smoker. But that shimmering 3-D panda hologram draws me back time and time again. The problem is, Blue Pandas only seem to be available in Chengdu. Ah, yes. Chengdu. Therein, perhaps, lies the source of my attraction: Blue Pandas are the brand of choice in Chengdu, and that, after all, was the place of my Chinese rebirth, the city where I shed the shackles of my white man's name and was rechristened Pan Da. Pan Da smokes Pandas. Perhaps the name thing has something to do with it, too. Anyhow. I spent my first two months in Chengdu, and it is likely that my very first pack of Chinese cigarettes were Blue Pandas. I associate their inky deathsmoke with my first laowai friends, with the noobish novelty I found in Mother China, and with that first weekend debauch when, finally, everyone could let their guard down and stop acting s'damned serious all the time. Nostalgia aside, I mean it when I say that these cigarettes are Merely Awful, and not Rather Awful, or Pretty Damned Awful, or F-Bomb Awful. Sure, the filter is blue and plasticky, and all that painted plastic is probably wreaking unseen havoc on the poor little alveoli of my battered lungs. The smoke is by no means smooth, and tastes, in its way, like a condensed shot of Chengdu smog. But hey, nobody's perfect. Most things in life are mediocre. And in the realm of Chinese cigarettes, even mediocrity is unattainable. So it is with a deep sense of relativity that I award Blue Pandas the coveted Smoke Ring D'or. That said, I do not recommend them to anyone.
Name: Yunyan
Origin: Yunnan Province, China
Color: Crimson
Price: 10 kuai ($1.50 US)
Degree of Awfulness: Rather Awful ☠☠☠
Review: As enamored as I am of Yunnan Province, its mountains, its rivers, its eternal sunshine, its dwarf communes, its 300 foot tall Optimus Primes, its warmhearted people, its microbreweries, its matriarchal communes where the men drink wine and hibernate in hammocks all year long - as enamored as I am of the place, Yunnan's flagship cigarette company, Yunyan, is an extreme disappointment. It's not that Yunyans are all that awful. As you can see, I have rated them Rather Awful, as opposed to Pretty Damn Awful or F-Bomb Awful. But like the aforementioned Hongtashan Salaryman Editions, Yunyan cigarettes don't really do anything for me. They seem to consist of oxygen and dirt, with a dash of MSG and a sprinkling of horseradish. I don't know much about tobacco farming, but it puzzles me that Yunnan, a tropical fairyland that is unusually well suited for growing tobacco (among other things), should produce cigarettes that are anything less than Merely Awful. I don't have much to say about Yunyans, and have nothing to express but my disappointment. Yunyans are the Phil Collins of Chinese cigarettes. That, and the name is really hard to pronounce.
Name: Shuangxi - Classic Style
Origin: Shanghai, China
Color: Red China red
Price: 10 kuai ($1.50 US)
Degree of Awfulness: Not Too Awful ☠☠
Review: The coveted Silver Smoke Ring goes hands-down to Shuangxi Cigarettes, Ltd. The packaging makes them a bit hard to find - everything in China is red - but, while not quite rewarding, Shuangxis never prove lethal. At least not instantly so. The word "shuangxi" means "Double Happiness," which, I suppose, translates to "very, very happy." According to Wikipedia, "[t]he brand carries only a tiny health warning on the side of a 20-cigarette pack," and I can vouch for that. The tiny health warning goes something like this: SMOKING IS HARMFUL TO YOUR HEALTH; QUIT SMOKING EARLY IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH. I like that. It's much more pleasing to the smoker's ear than "SMOKING WAS A DUMBASS MOVE IN THE FIRST PLACE. DUMBASS." Because Blue Pandas are not readily available in Nanchong, and because Purple Pandas are too expensive, Shuangxis are generally my brand of choice. Their ten kuai price is convenient for breaking hundred-kuai bills. The cigarettes themselves are not really worth writing home about, but who the hell writes home about cigarettes anyway? The filters have a bad habit of dyeing my fingernails red, so I imagine my students suspect me of moonlighting as a stripper. As far as flavor goes, Shuangxis taste slightly minty. Or maybe that's just me. Otherwise, they are cigarettes - and Not Too Awful ones, at that.
Lower-Middle Class Cigarettes
Name: Hongtashan - Peasant Edition
Origin: Yuxi, China
Color: White, with red pagodas all over the fucking place
Price: 7.5 kuai ($1.10 US)
Degree of Awfulness: Not Too Awful ☠☠
Review: Ever the internet-savvy missionaries of death, in addition to a Twitter account, the Hongtashan Cigarette Company has a Wikipedia page. Let's peruse it, shall we? "The cigarettes are made with a flue-cured tobacco type and therefore sugar and nicotine levels are relatively high." I don't know what "flue-cured" means, and I'd prefer not to find out. Wait, there's sugar involved? Great, so my teeth will rot out along with everything else. I suppose it's probably best to just not read about cigarettes, ever. Least of all Chinese ones. Nevertheless, whatever I'm inhaling, it's not F-Bomb Awful. I will be charitable and give the Hongtashan Peasant Editions a mark of Not Too Awful, even though they are, at times, Rather Awful. Inconsistency is their achilles' heel. Overall, the Peasant Edition is pretty hit or miss. The packaging is seldom the same. Sometimes, they come in plastic bundles. Other times, in proper cardboard packs. Sometimes, they taste like rolled-up newspaper. Other times, like licorice. The only consistent thing about Hongtashans, so far as I can tell, is that they unravel like a motherfucker. For that reason, they are rather embarrassing to smoke in public. They disintegrate, fall to pieces. You're sitting there at the bar with ash all over the crotch of your jeans and meanwhile, a trail of flames is swallowing up your cigarette like a fuse. But if I can say anything complimentary about the Hongtashan Peasant Editions, it's this: they don't pussyfoot around. They bring it hard. The Hongtashan Peasant Edition cigarettes were clearly designed with lovable old Chinese men in mind, and for that I cannot fault them, even if they were the primary culprit in the Great Fire of Keith's Totally Bitchin' O'Leaver's Pub T-Shirt in the winter of twenty ought nine.
Lower Class Cigarettes
Name: Hongmei
Origin: Yuxi, China
Color: Day Glo yellow and other such retro hues
Price: 4 kuai (80 cents US)
Degree of Awfulness: Rather Awful ☠☠☠
Review: Hongmei is a brand that is nothing if not modest. It offers itself to you for four kuai. Its official website acknowledges, with charming honesty, that it is a "B grade cigarette." If hipsters existed in China, they would smoke Hongmeis. Because sometimes you want to listen to B sides. Sometimes you want to watch B movies. And sometimes you want to do B grade damage to your lungs. So if you're hard up for dough, Hongmei is your man. The name means "red plum," and according to Cigarettespedia (a website I just now discovered and subsequently bookmarked), the red plum is "a symbol of good character." And I suppose that is exactly what Hongmei, and most of its smokers, possess: good character. Hongmei is the poison of choice among China's elderly, both for its affordability and for its relatively low awfulness. My host dad was a Hongmei devotee. You pianyi, you hao, he would say to me as he handed me a Hongmei: if it's cheap, it's good. And although even then I had more refined tastes, I wasn't one to turn down a cigarette, and for the sake of host family harmony, I was briefly a Hongmei devotee myself. But then came my host teenager rebellious phase, and I began to host doubt my host dad's wisdom. Jeez, I would think to myself, these Hongmeis really taste like shit. Here, host dad. Smoke these. These are better. He would turn the Blue Panda over in his fingers like it was an artifact from the distant future. We would squint at each other. And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon, little boy blue and the man on the moon, and all the rest. So it goes. But I'm not being a cigarelitist (my coinage) when I say that Hongmeis are beneath me. Smoking them is simply a level of trauma I do not wish to subject myself to. Not yet, anyway. Not until I am 65 and Chinese. The only living Italian in Nanchong is a Hongmei fan as well. "The cheaper the better," he told me, and loaded me up with Hongmeis. They really aren't all that bad for four kuai. Eighty cents a pack. And Cigarettespedia tells me that Hongmei cigarettes won something called the "Excellent Prize at the Show of China's 10-Year Packing Achievement." Yeah, I've got your Packing Achievement right here, buddy. Anyway, I don't really have much to say about Hongmeis either way. They're cheap and awful. You get what you pay for and you pay for what you get. So, I suppose I'll let my old friend Cigarettespedia close this one out: "The filaments of the cigarette are golden and bright; the fragrance is sweet and pure; the taste is agreeable and comfortable; and the ashes are gray."
Name: Honghe
Origin: Yunnan, China
Color: Cornhusker crimson and Cornhusker creme
Price: 5 kuai (90 cents US)
Degree of Awfulness: F-Bomb Awful ☠☠☠☠☠
Review: And at long last, we have arrived at the worst of the worst. The coveted Loogey D'or goes to Honghe Tobacco Group Co., Ltd. I was surprised, upon glancing at one of the many cigarette packs that litter my living room floor, to learn that Honghe cigarettes are made in Yunnan Province. Another blow for that beloved southwestern Shangi-La of mine. What can I say about these death twigs? That they rank only slightly higher than paint thinner on my List of Things I Like to Inhale? That they are Colon Blow for the lungs? That the stench they give off is enough to kill every last locust within a ten mile radius? Yes, I suppose I can say all of these things. Nobody I know, not even my host dad, stoops so low as Honghe. I have smoked them on exactly three occasions, when my pockets were full of more lint than cash, and each time I spent the next week ruing my decision. I have considered filing suit against the Honghe Tobacco Group, but I don't know how to write "it was like scraping my lungs out with a periodontal probe" in Chinese. The name "Honghe" means "red lake," and after you've smoked one, it's easy to see why. As an anti-smoking campaign, I propose that every high school freshman in America be forced to smoke exactly one Honghe cigarette. Although the cumulative lung damage from a single Honghe is probably equal to smoking two packs of Marlboro Reds every day for the better part of a century, the experience would strongly deter America's children from actually smoking two packs of Marlboro Reds every day for the better part of a century. The experience would, in the blink of an eye, in the coughing up of a lung, instantly counteract all the coolness that Misters B. Dylan and T. Waits have lent to the profession of chainsmoking. God damn them both, and God bless America.
As an incidental footnote to all this, I would like to include the following cigarette-inspired anecdote: while writing, I inevitably had to take a break so I could scurry out and purchase a ten kuai pack of Shuangxi Classic Style cigarettes. (See above.) In the stairwell, I ran into the old man who is currently shacked up with my neighbors. Like most old Chinese men, I am able to communicate with him freely and fluently in a way that I am not able to with anyone under the age of 35. And like most old Chinese men, he chain smokes. He handed me a cigarette and lit it for me.
"What are we smoking?" I asked.
"Hongmei," he said. (See above.)
"Hongmei hao bu hao chou?" I asked. Are Hongmeis good to smoke?
"Bu hao chou. Bu hao chou," he said, shaking his head. Not good to smoke.
"But they're cheap."
"They are that," he said, and coughed.
We looked out over the balcony. It was dark outside. A handful of stars were dimly visible. The apartments across the way were all lit up, and we could see a shirtless man with D-cup bitchtits sitting on his couch, locked in heated conversation with the television.
"What have you been up to these days?" I asked.
"Well," said the old man, "tomorrow I'm going back to Guiyang."
My face dropped.
"Oh. That's too bad."
"Not really," he said. "Guiyang's nice. It's cooler there. The people are friendlier. You'd like it. There are lots of foreigners in Guiyang. Laowais like y'rself. Koreans. Japs. You name it."
The old man was nearing the end of his Hongmei, and used it to light another. He handed me a second cigarette and gestured for me to do the same.
"I don't usually do this," I said, laughing a bit, "but I like talking to you, so I suppose ... "
I snubbed out the first and lit the second.
"What will you do in Guiyang? Work?"
"Me? No. Too old for work. My working days are over," he said. "Just going there to relax."
"That's good. Is Guiyang your hometown?"
"Yes, it's my hometown. Nobody left, though. Everyone I know lives in there," he said, nodding towards the apartment next to mine.
"What kind of work did you do before you retired?"
"I was a farmer."
"It must have been a very hard life," I said.
"Yes. A very hard life."
"But life in China has improved very quickly."
"In some ways," he said. "In some ways. Right now you can see stars in Nanchong, but not for long. So many cars these days. Every year, more and more cars. In Chongqing, you can't see stars. In Chengdu, you can't see stars. When I was young in Guiyang, when I worked out in the fields, you could see stars. But not anymore. So many cars."
He snubbed out his cigarette in a nearby potted plant.
"So many cars," he said.
I took a drag. I exhaled. The smoke drifted from my lips, leaving a string of illegible handwriting hanging in midair with a question mark at the end.
"Well, goodnight," he said.
I shook his hand, though he was unfamiliar with the gesture.
"Safe travels to Guiyang."
"Thank you. Goodnight."
He hobbled up the stairs, unlocked the door and shut it behind him. I snubbed my cigarette on the window ledge. What a stupid habit. But would I trade it for all the conversations I've had with old Chinese men? Well, I don't know if I'd trade those for anything.
Showing posts with label cigarettes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cigarettes. Show all posts
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Three Shops/Twin Peaks
Every now and again, god or Yahweh or whoever decides to give up the reigns, and invites David Lynch to guest direct a scene or two of my life.
There are three shops in my neighborhood, all on the same street. The street is lined with garages on both sides, and the garages that aren't already occupied by Volkswagen Santanas have been rented out to shopkeepers. There are three shops. They sell the exact same stuff - smokes and booze, Sprite and Coca-Cola, yogurt and ramen noodles - and they sell that stuff for the exact same government-mandated prices. One bottle of Yanjing: three kuai. One tube of yogurt: two kuai, five mao. One pack of Hongtashans: seven kuai, five mao. These prices are Chinese universals. I know them by heart. The prices don't change from place to place, do not rise or fall with plenitude or scarcity. A bottle of Yanjing is three kuai, is three kuai, is three kuai. Here, everyone knows the going rate for everything. In China, it is not prices, but guanxi that matters. If you have guanxi, the prices drop. If you don't, they don't. As a foreigner, the guanxi system doesn't really apply to me, which suits me just fine, as I enjoy my three shops, and their shopkeepers, equally.
The First Shop is owned by a young couple. The wife is a beautiful and astonishingly curvy woman with wide brown eyes that must be the envy of Nanchong. Her daughter is the single cutest child in all of China - and Chinese children are, well, cute. Every so often, one of the owner's cousins drops in to run the shop. She, too, is astonishingly curvy, with wide brown eyes. "Good genes" are the words that come to mind when I swing by the First Shop to purchase my nightly bottle of yogurt. The husband doesn't seem to like me none too much, but whenever I buy three bottles of Yanjing on a Saturday night, he launches into a seemingly improvised tune that goes San piiing/Yanjiiing.
The Third Shop is owned by another young couple. The wife is cute, but a bit rough around the edges. Tough. No-nonsense. "Sturdy" is the word that comes to mind when I swing by for my morning pack of Shuangxis. She keeps the money in a black fanny pack strapped to her left hip. Her husband likes me quite a bit. Once, he let me use his phone to track down a lost care package. So I owe him some guanxi and try to patronize the Third Shop whenever I can. But the First Shop, with its wide-eyed females, beckons.
The Second Shop is owned by an impossibly old man and his impossibly old wife. The man owns an impossibly old bicycle with an impossibly old trailer hitched to the back. On the rare occasion that I wake up before noon, I often run into the old man pedaling his bike uphill with a trailer full of recyclables. I smile and wave. He smiles and waves. I tingle all over. Sometimes, I find him rummaging through the garbage for spare bottles and cans. He smiles and waves. I smile and wave. And I tingle all over. These kinds of interactions, free of nuance, free of judgment, are hard to come by in Nanchong, and I am eternally grateful for them. So I try to patronize the Second Shop whenever I can. But I owe the Third Shop a couple of favors, and the First Shop, with its wide-eyed females, beckons. In the end, the three shops wind up getting an even 33.3 percent cut of my Peace Corps stipend.
Tonight I walked past the First Shop because the owners were hosting some sort of family reunion, and I was intimidated by all the buxom, wide-eyed females in attendance. I had already bought several bottles of faux-Gatorade from the Third Shop after my morning run, so I decided to stop by the Second Shop. The impossibly old man was waiting for me there, shirtless, smoking, and loading recyclables into his impossibly old trailer.
"Do you have Shancheng?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Three bottles, please."
"Yes," he said.
While he fetched the beers from the meat freezer, I looked around the shop. Cardboard boxes piled high with stunted potatoes. Stacks of yellowed newspaper. Garbage bags full of plastic bottles. And there on the counter, a copy of Great Expectations, in English, splayed open to page 468.
"Is this yours?" I asked in Chinese.
"Yes," he said.
"Are you reading it?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Do you speak English?"
"Yes."
"Can you understand the book?"
"Yes."
I blinked furiously and scratched my head.
"This is one of my favorite books," I said. "Most of my English students couldn't even read it."
"Yes," said the impossibly old man.
"I didn't know you could speak English."
"Yes," he said.
"Can you speak English?"
"Yes."
The impossibly old man loaded the beers into my backpack. I stood there watching him. Could this impossibly old man really be reading Charles Dickens in the original English, or was he just saying yes to everything for the sake of getting me out of his garage as soon as possible? I began to suspect, and not for the first time, that David Lynch was pulling the strings. And that was when I came across the cigarettes on the counter: a pack of Newport Menthol 100s.
"My God," I said, "these are American cigarettes!"
"Yes," he said.
"You can't get these in China," I said. "American pimps smoke these. Where did you buy them?"
He said nothing, but gave me one.
"Thanks," I said, "but where did you get the Newports?"
He laughed and lit one for himself. Then he shut the garage door, hopped on his bike, and with a wave, pedaled off into the night.
I walked home. The setting sun spewed a radioactive smear across the horizon. I lit my Newport and, for the first time in over a year, achieved a legitimate nicotine buzz. I had been planning on writing about something else tonight - hence the beers - but I have long since come to accept the fact that I am not the author of this story.
There are three shops in my neighborhood, all on the same street. The street is lined with garages on both sides, and the garages that aren't already occupied by Volkswagen Santanas have been rented out to shopkeepers. There are three shops. They sell the exact same stuff - smokes and booze, Sprite and Coca-Cola, yogurt and ramen noodles - and they sell that stuff for the exact same government-mandated prices. One bottle of Yanjing: three kuai. One tube of yogurt: two kuai, five mao. One pack of Hongtashans: seven kuai, five mao. These prices are Chinese universals. I know them by heart. The prices don't change from place to place, do not rise or fall with plenitude or scarcity. A bottle of Yanjing is three kuai, is three kuai, is three kuai. Here, everyone knows the going rate for everything. In China, it is not prices, but guanxi that matters. If you have guanxi, the prices drop. If you don't, they don't. As a foreigner, the guanxi system doesn't really apply to me, which suits me just fine, as I enjoy my three shops, and their shopkeepers, equally.
The First Shop is owned by a young couple. The wife is a beautiful and astonishingly curvy woman with wide brown eyes that must be the envy of Nanchong. Her daughter is the single cutest child in all of China - and Chinese children are, well, cute. Every so often, one of the owner's cousins drops in to run the shop. She, too, is astonishingly curvy, with wide brown eyes. "Good genes" are the words that come to mind when I swing by the First Shop to purchase my nightly bottle of yogurt. The husband doesn't seem to like me none too much, but whenever I buy three bottles of Yanjing on a Saturday night, he launches into a seemingly improvised tune that goes San piiing/Yanjiiing.
The Third Shop is owned by another young couple. The wife is cute, but a bit rough around the edges. Tough. No-nonsense. "Sturdy" is the word that comes to mind when I swing by for my morning pack of Shuangxis. She keeps the money in a black fanny pack strapped to her left hip. Her husband likes me quite a bit. Once, he let me use his phone to track down a lost care package. So I owe him some guanxi and try to patronize the Third Shop whenever I can. But the First Shop, with its wide-eyed females, beckons.
The Second Shop is owned by an impossibly old man and his impossibly old wife. The man owns an impossibly old bicycle with an impossibly old trailer hitched to the back. On the rare occasion that I wake up before noon, I often run into the old man pedaling his bike uphill with a trailer full of recyclables. I smile and wave. He smiles and waves. I tingle all over. Sometimes, I find him rummaging through the garbage for spare bottles and cans. He smiles and waves. I smile and wave. And I tingle all over. These kinds of interactions, free of nuance, free of judgment, are hard to come by in Nanchong, and I am eternally grateful for them. So I try to patronize the Second Shop whenever I can. But I owe the Third Shop a couple of favors, and the First Shop, with its wide-eyed females, beckons. In the end, the three shops wind up getting an even 33.3 percent cut of my Peace Corps stipend.
Tonight I walked past the First Shop because the owners were hosting some sort of family reunion, and I was intimidated by all the buxom, wide-eyed females in attendance. I had already bought several bottles of faux-Gatorade from the Third Shop after my morning run, so I decided to stop by the Second Shop. The impossibly old man was waiting for me there, shirtless, smoking, and loading recyclables into his impossibly old trailer.
"Do you have Shancheng?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Three bottles, please."
"Yes," he said.
While he fetched the beers from the meat freezer, I looked around the shop. Cardboard boxes piled high with stunted potatoes. Stacks of yellowed newspaper. Garbage bags full of plastic bottles. And there on the counter, a copy of Great Expectations, in English, splayed open to page 468.
"Is this yours?" I asked in Chinese.
"Yes," he said.
"Are you reading it?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Do you speak English?"
"Yes."
"Can you understand the book?"
"Yes."
I blinked furiously and scratched my head.
"This is one of my favorite books," I said. "Most of my English students couldn't even read it."
"Yes," said the impossibly old man.
"I didn't know you could speak English."
"Yes," he said.
"Can you speak English?"
"Yes."
The impossibly old man loaded the beers into my backpack. I stood there watching him. Could this impossibly old man really be reading Charles Dickens in the original English, or was he just saying yes to everything for the sake of getting me out of his garage as soon as possible? I began to suspect, and not for the first time, that David Lynch was pulling the strings. And that was when I came across the cigarettes on the counter: a pack of Newport Menthol 100s.
"My God," I said, "these are American cigarettes!"
"Yes," he said.
"You can't get these in China," I said. "American pimps smoke these. Where did you buy them?"
He said nothing, but gave me one.
"Thanks," I said, "but where did you get the Newports?"
He laughed and lit one for himself. Then he shut the garage door, hopped on his bike, and with a wave, pedaled off into the night.
I walked home. The setting sun spewed a radioactive smear across the horizon. I lit my Newport and, for the first time in over a year, achieved a legitimate nicotine buzz. I had been planning on writing about something else tonight - hence the beers - but I have long since come to accept the fact that I am not the author of this story.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Pannonica
I have often looked upon life and thought: if one's lifetime is all one knows of eternity, then life is an eternity. There remains time for endless revisions and reincarnations. I think of Dylan and Bowie. I think of Orlando, though I read that in another lifetime and cannot remember the book, just that one can play infinite roles and both genders and a multitude of selves foreign to oneself if one allows oneself.
I think of myself ten years ago and myself ten minutes ago and see them as different novels written by different authors.
I think about the next sentence and what it holds in store for me. Perhaps I have drank too much, perhaps I will vomit. Or perhaps the gate to my apartment will be locked and I will have to beg entrance from the nightwatchman. And perhaps he will not have the key.
Then I focus on now, which is five shish-kebab sticks and two cigarette butts smoldering on an aluminum tray, the beer I cannot finish, the owners of the restaurant waiting for me to leave so they can close, the shouting of drunks pushing each other into the back of a taxi - and this moment, too, is an eternity.
There seems to be no solution - rational or otherwise - to the problem of time but to concede that the moment is infinite, a lifetime moreso, and eternity even more infinite than the both of them combined.
And wonderfully, all of it is as fleeting as the cigarette given me by the nightwatchman, now smoldering on the aluminum tray with the five shish-kebabs and the moment that passed away with them.
I think of myself ten years ago and myself ten minutes ago and see them as different novels written by different authors.
I think about the next sentence and what it holds in store for me. Perhaps I have drank too much, perhaps I will vomit. Or perhaps the gate to my apartment will be locked and I will have to beg entrance from the nightwatchman. And perhaps he will not have the key.
Then I focus on now, which is five shish-kebab sticks and two cigarette butts smoldering on an aluminum tray, the beer I cannot finish, the owners of the restaurant waiting for me to leave so they can close, the shouting of drunks pushing each other into the back of a taxi - and this moment, too, is an eternity.
There seems to be no solution - rational or otherwise - to the problem of time but to concede that the moment is infinite, a lifetime moreso, and eternity even more infinite than the both of them combined.
And wonderfully, all of it is as fleeting as the cigarette given me by the nightwatchman, now smoldering on the aluminum tray with the five shish-kebabs and the moment that passed away with them.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Lush Life
Because I have not yet mastered the art of smoking and drinking coffee in my sleep, I wake up in a foul mood. The earth's gravity seems to have multiplied in strength and after a wild and fecund night, the crickets in my bedroom have multiplied their numbers. I light a Shuangxi and dump several spoonfuls of Nescafe into a water bottle and all over the kitchen floor. Coffee and cigarettes get me to the shower, which drizzles a leaden stream of lukewarm onto my scalp. My toilet is a few inches from the shower head, so I multitask. I bellow along with the Johnny Hartman/John Coltrane album I bellow along with every morning, but my morning voice doesn't reach high or low enough, so I sing the verses and choruses in different octaves. As I sit and shit and shower and bellow, the lesson plan for the week's classes is mitosisizin' in my brain.
I teach seven classes with 50+ students apiece and I am a volunteer, so photocopies are not financially prudent. That means I need to come up with a lot of speaking activities and deliver them like Barack Obama on benzedrine. Luckily, I teach the same lesson seven times a week, so a single flash of inspiration is enough to get by. I plan for my lessons the way a snail might if it had the cognitive capacity to teach Oral English: I start with a pebble and build a spiral of saliva around it as the week goes by until, by Friday, I have a spit-shined, well-rehearsed presentation that makes me feel like a real, actual teacher of sorts.
Today is the second run-through of "Bon Appetit," my guide to American cuisine and dining etiquette, so the lesson is only a sketch and my scripted jokes will be jittery and Bob Newhartesque. As I walk into the classroom, there is a chorus of oooooohs and a brief round of applause. I look around and remember that I am wearing my suit coat. I take a bow. Then I bust out my jug of coffee and set it on the podium and there is another long ooooooh. I explain that the American professor is fueled by caffeine, that without it he is a zombie. And zombielike, I guzzle some coffee and start writing on the board.
Ideally, an Oral English class should be an interactive vaudeville act. The trick is duping your students into believing that they are actually caught in the scenario you have presented them with. If they are supposed to be dining out at Red Lobster, they should be able to hear Savage Garden piped down from the styrofoam ceiling tiles. If they are supposed to be the United Nations, the Chinese contingent should loathe the Japanese contingent with an undying contempt, and vice versa. In short, you must suspend all disbelief, otherwise your students will rote memorize a handful of stock phrases and mumble them to each other like little lobotomized HAL 9000s. Setting the stage for a productive class is a lot like writing the start of a novel: there must be background, complications, and some sort of impetus to push the whole thing forward.
Today's class goes well. I briefly explain the American tipping system and demonstrate an untippable waiter.
"Whaddya want?" I snap, putting on my surliest Waffle House sass. My pen twitches at the ready. The poor girl giggles and hides her face in her hands.
"You ready to order or what?"
"Yes. I will have the chicken."
"Chicken soup? Chicken salad? Chicken nuggets? Chicken sandwich? Fried chicken? Chicken a la king? Kung pao chicken? General Tso's chicken?!"
By now she is so embarrassed that it looks like she is having an out-of-body experience. Thankfully, my phone rings: one of my stalkers calling for the sixth time that morning.
"Hang on. It's my girlfriend."
I dart into the kitchen, fake a kissyface conversation, and swagger back to Table 9.
"So. What'll it be?"
"I'll take the fried chicken."
I storm backstage and bark at the short order cooks. Then, I return bearing a half-rotten apple which, through the power of mass delusion, is starting to look more and more like a drumstick. I stumble over my shoelace and send the apple flying into the crowd.
"Oops. There goes your chicken."
By then, my students are rearing to dine-and-dash, so I turn it over to them for the rest of class. I am pleased with the results and the following dialogue almost makes me weep with satisfaction:
Waitress: Here is your food.
Customer: Excuse me, ma'am, but there is a fly in my soup.
Waitress: Impossible!
Customer: Look. You see it! I would like to speak with the manager.
Manager: [approaches with a clipboard] What seems to be the problem?
Customer: There is a fly in my soup.
Manager: Don't worry about it. Your dinner is on the house.
Customer: Thanks. And could you do something about my waitress?
Manager: What would you like me to do?
Customer: Fire her immediately.
Manager: Okay, I will fire her at once.
Of course, part of the reason these roleplays are so amusing is that they are painfully awkward and quite a ways off the mark. But accuracy matters little to me. Every morning as I walk to the bus that takes me to the campus across town, I hear English majors in the bushes, reciting speeches by Henry Kissinger. From a young age, Chinese students are given the task of memorizing the entirety of the English language, with the end result that, after twelve years of English, they can barely muster a "Hello" without second-guessing themselves. My classes are about giving Chinese students the cajones to use the language, and in order to grow a pair, they need a heavily padded environment, an English laboratory in which they are free to mix and mismatch nouns and verbs and adjectives until they find the combinations that make sense.
In China, the expectations for us foreign teachers are high. We are widely believed to possess the ability to heal rhotacism with the laying on of hands. Hell, I used to think I had that power, but over the years I have set more modest goals for myself. And I would love to talk about them, but night has fallen on China. The young emperors at the internet cafe are yawning and removing their headsets. The rats have come out to slurp pools of Red Bull from the floor. And my cold, hard bed with its dreams of coffee and cigarettes is calling to segue me into tomorrow and whatever red tape that entails.
I teach seven classes with 50+ students apiece and I am a volunteer, so photocopies are not financially prudent. That means I need to come up with a lot of speaking activities and deliver them like Barack Obama on benzedrine. Luckily, I teach the same lesson seven times a week, so a single flash of inspiration is enough to get by. I plan for my lessons the way a snail might if it had the cognitive capacity to teach Oral English: I start with a pebble and build a spiral of saliva around it as the week goes by until, by Friday, I have a spit-shined, well-rehearsed presentation that makes me feel like a real, actual teacher of sorts.
Today is the second run-through of "Bon Appetit," my guide to American cuisine and dining etiquette, so the lesson is only a sketch and my scripted jokes will be jittery and Bob Newhartesque. As I walk into the classroom, there is a chorus of oooooohs and a brief round of applause. I look around and remember that I am wearing my suit coat. I take a bow. Then I bust out my jug of coffee and set it on the podium and there is another long ooooooh. I explain that the American professor is fueled by caffeine, that without it he is a zombie. And zombielike, I guzzle some coffee and start writing on the board.
Ideally, an Oral English class should be an interactive vaudeville act. The trick is duping your students into believing that they are actually caught in the scenario you have presented them with. If they are supposed to be dining out at Red Lobster, they should be able to hear Savage Garden piped down from the styrofoam ceiling tiles. If they are supposed to be the United Nations, the Chinese contingent should loathe the Japanese contingent with an undying contempt, and vice versa. In short, you must suspend all disbelief, otherwise your students will rote memorize a handful of stock phrases and mumble them to each other like little lobotomized HAL 9000s. Setting the stage for a productive class is a lot like writing the start of a novel: there must be background, complications, and some sort of impetus to push the whole thing forward.
Today's class goes well. I briefly explain the American tipping system and demonstrate an untippable waiter.
"Whaddya want?" I snap, putting on my surliest Waffle House sass. My pen twitches at the ready. The poor girl giggles and hides her face in her hands.
"You ready to order or what?"
"Yes. I will have the chicken."
"Chicken soup? Chicken salad? Chicken nuggets? Chicken sandwich? Fried chicken? Chicken a la king? Kung pao chicken? General Tso's chicken?!"
By now she is so embarrassed that it looks like she is having an out-of-body experience. Thankfully, my phone rings: one of my stalkers calling for the sixth time that morning.
"Hang on. It's my girlfriend."
I dart into the kitchen, fake a kissyface conversation, and swagger back to Table 9.
"So. What'll it be?"
"I'll take the fried chicken."
I storm backstage and bark at the short order cooks. Then, I return bearing a half-rotten apple which, through the power of mass delusion, is starting to look more and more like a drumstick. I stumble over my shoelace and send the apple flying into the crowd.
"Oops. There goes your chicken."
By then, my students are rearing to dine-and-dash, so I turn it over to them for the rest of class. I am pleased with the results and the following dialogue almost makes me weep with satisfaction:
Waitress: Here is your food.
Customer: Excuse me, ma'am, but there is a fly in my soup.
Waitress: Impossible!
Customer: Look. You see it! I would like to speak with the manager.
Manager: [approaches with a clipboard] What seems to be the problem?
Customer: There is a fly in my soup.
Manager: Don't worry about it. Your dinner is on the house.
Customer: Thanks. And could you do something about my waitress?
Manager: What would you like me to do?
Customer: Fire her immediately.
Manager: Okay, I will fire her at once.
Of course, part of the reason these roleplays are so amusing is that they are painfully awkward and quite a ways off the mark. But accuracy matters little to me. Every morning as I walk to the bus that takes me to the campus across town, I hear English majors in the bushes, reciting speeches by Henry Kissinger. From a young age, Chinese students are given the task of memorizing the entirety of the English language, with the end result that, after twelve years of English, they can barely muster a "Hello" without second-guessing themselves. My classes are about giving Chinese students the cajones to use the language, and in order to grow a pair, they need a heavily padded environment, an English laboratory in which they are free to mix and mismatch nouns and verbs and adjectives until they find the combinations that make sense.
In China, the expectations for us foreign teachers are high. We are widely believed to possess the ability to heal rhotacism with the laying on of hands. Hell, I used to think I had that power, but over the years I have set more modest goals for myself. And I would love to talk about them, but night has fallen on China. The young emperors at the internet cafe are yawning and removing their headsets. The rats have come out to slurp pools of Red Bull from the floor. And my cold, hard bed with its dreams of coffee and cigarettes is calling to segue me into tomorrow and whatever red tape that entails.
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