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Apr. 18, 2007 This took place in midsummer of 1997, when I had been in China only two or three weeks. I was staying at a hotel on Beijing's near south side, within a quarter mile of Tian Tan, a walled palace dating from the days of the Ming Dynasty. Near my hotel was a canal parallel to a street called Yongdingmen Dongjie, and on the banks of the canal, market was held every morning. This was a cornucopia of produce of all imaginable kinds: peaches, watermelons, yams, longans, cucumbers, spinach and so on. I walked there daily for some weeks. One morning, I sat down in a gazebo near the marketplace, where several Chinese were sitting. At this time, my ability to speak Chinese was limited, though I hate to think of how much time I'd already spent studying it. Almost immediately as I sat, a Chinese man of about 30, who could speak very little English, introduced himself to me as Ma Hongguo, and wanted to know if I would help him with his English. I welcomed this, as it would give me an opportunity to practice Chinese. Ma's wife, whose name I have forgotten, though she had a degree in Chinese literature, was cutting hair on the sidewalk for 25¢ a head. Ma was in the Chinese merchant marine, but he was on a one-year leave. I met Ma and his wife several times on Yongdingmen Dajie, and we practiced Chinese and English. Eventually, he invited me to his house on Beijing's far south side, near a road called Wanyuan Lu. This was in a ramshackle, semi-rural district. His house, reached by crossing a corn-field, consisted of two rooms, in different buildings, with a privy outside his private eight-foot brick wall, across a dirt street. Ma suggested that I could make a lot of money by going to his village, Xiajin, located about 200 miles south, in Shangdong province, there to teach English to the local people. He said that his father-in-law had connections in the Communist Party and would be able to get me a two-year visa to replace the six-month visa I already had. He also said that he could give me a free room in his house in Xiajin. This sounded like a bonanza, so I snapped it up. So one morning I met Ma at Mushi Yuar, a famous intersection in Beijing, and from there we walked to Beijing South train station, which was a surprisingly small and bare little terminal. There we boarded a rickety bus that would convey us the 200 miles in 7 or 8 hours. We passed through numerous villages, mostly pink brick houses surrounded by high walls, often with Chinese characters painted on them. The countryside consisted mostly of granges, which were farmed mechanically with old tractors. And there were herds of cattle here and there. In the late afternoon, we arrived in Xiajin, a dusty, dismal little place with dirt streets. Ma and I walked about a mile to a shop owned by his brothers, who greeted us cheerfully. Then I took a beautiful room in the local hotel for $11 a night, on the understanding that I would stay there a week or so, while Ma got everything ready for the English classes we were supposed to hold. Then I'd move into the free room. Near my house was a stagnant-looking lagoon covered with green algae, which struck me as not being very salubrious. In the streets, along with cars, vans, pick-ups, bicycles and pedestrians, there were donkey carts. Children played completely naked in the gutters. Across the street from the hotel, there was a big open-air marketplace, some of the spreads being furnished with ramadas of corrugated metal. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything substantial to eat. It was all vegetables, without meat, bread, rice or beans. But I managed somehow. It was a mile walk downtown, which was the closest place to get Beijing Wanbao, the newspaper I liked to read. The town was overrun with shops that sold textiles: cheap fabrics like calico, gingham and oilcloth. But there were hardly any restaurants or grocery stores. There was a sizable department store, but it lacked electrical lighting, and the shelves were very poorly stocked. The local bookstore had about 100 books, though a larger bookstore was being constructed at the time. The first notion I had that this was going to be a fiasco came when Ma told me that the local school would not let him use the classroom he supposed they would be willing to furnish. He said he'd find another place, and he did so a couple of days later. The second disappointment was that Ma would not be able to provide the free room he had promised. I would have to stay in a hotel, but he knew one that charged only $5 a day, though it had only a privy. Still over 2 years that room would have cost $3650. I got angry, so Ma importuned his parents to let me stay at their house. This was the house he had called his own house. But I didn't want to intrude on the elderly couple, so I said I'd settle for $5 hotel. I visited their house for dinner though. This was a substantial brick house surrounded by the inevitable eight-foot brick wall, with an enclosure that had two privies. The living-room had a cobblestone floor and a lavatory. It was furnished with rattan furniture, a 12-inch television set and a bookshelf. The third blow came when Ma informed me that I would have to bribe someone $63 (500 yuan) to get the visa. His influential father-in-law turned out to be a 4'-9"-tall Chinaman, who was 55 but looked 80. He knew somebody in Dezhou, a major city north of Xiajin, who would write a letter of introduction for me to present to the Communist Party. To me, this was a failing endeavor. You don't bribe someone to pen a letter of recommendation for a visa that it is within somebody else's discretion to deny. You bribe the man who will grant the visa. Nonetheless, I played along with it, and when we got to Dezhou, renting ancient black bikes, we went to the apartment of the man who'd write the letter. I paid Ma the money, and then waited in a park in Dezhou, while Ma and his father-in-law paid the man off. Then we cycled over to Communist headquarters, where, though the officials were impressed with the letter surprisingly enough, they ultimately refused to grant me a visa without a promise of real employment in China. I could have done this much myself. We bused backed to Xiajin, and the next morning I was on a cross-country bus to Beijing. I had a new hotel room in Haidian, a district on Beijing's northwest side. So that was the end of that fiasco, which however was very informative from the standpoint of seeing how ordinary Chinese live. Many of the people in Xiajin had never seen a non-Chinese person before, so I was something of a novelty around there. The first night there, a steady stream of curious visitors called at my hotel to say hello. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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