Huaiyin Blues in March

Huaiyin is, at the moment, experiencing the coldest March many can remember – brown slushy frost strewn over the roads, white frosting of snow over the dead lawn, which crackles as I walk across it, and out through the spiked gates of the Institute, swapping ‘Hallos’ with the pretty girl who stands there all day in the oversized policeman’s uniform.

I’ve wrapped myself in a cheap Chinese coat with a fake fur collar, but the cold is of the acidic kind, that eats in through the fabric and darts deep into the marrow of my bones.

Added to this, there’s not a skerrik of moisture in the air, which is a bit of a shock after the lush climate of Thailand. The air here seems to suck the moisture out of everything. Even clothes which I hang in the spare room of my apartment; though there is no heat to speak of, they dry simply because moisture disappears from them.

So my dehydrated face currently looks somewhat like the face of an Egyptian mummy – shriveled, wizened and ancient. For someone as vain as me, it’s a serious test to look in the mirror each morning and see once again how I’ve aged by centuries overnight. What makes it worse is that I had my hair shaved to a couple of millimeters in Thailand, so my newly emaciated face is starkly unadorned.

The Chinese don’t appear to be affected by this moistureless atmosphere – their full round faces are flushed with the cold, though in some cases, particularly with the women who pedal the trishaws, their cheeks are blotched with crimson or scabbed from frostbite, but nonetheless, compared to my corpselike countenance, they all look gorgeously alive.

So I’ve obscured as much of my face as possible with a black woollen hat, so as not to frighten the locals, and with the fur collar of my cheao Chinese coat buttoned up over my chin, I’m standing on the corner waiting for a taxi, because I’m on my way into town to buy some blank CD’s and some food.

Being International

Now, obviously you would go to a computer shop to buy blank CD’s - but I’m wondering as I stand here – how will I find the shop?
From the outside there appear to be no shops I’d recognize in this city other than Chinese food shops. Most of the buildings look the same – either unpainted concrete, Communist immense with Corinthian columns, or pale crème Noddy buildings with square windows and peaked Chinese eves. And all the signs are mostly standardized too – the more modern shops have billboards with brightly colored images of beautiful Chinese men and women laughing – but no pictorial representation of what the shop actually sells. The others simply have painted signs or banners painted red, yellow and gold with images of dragons and black calligraphy. It’s as if they’re all painted by the same bloke, who learnt his trade a long time ago, while writing placards for Chairman Mao on The Long March.

So finding a place to buy blank CD’s is not so simple.

Added to which, I know from experience that every computer shop in Huaiyin will either be on the same street or in the same building. I know this, because it’s a wierd truth in most of the Asian cities I’ve been in. All shops of a kind are usually grouped together.
Now, you’d think – being a westerner and all - that it would be much more sensible to do it our way. For a shop to seek out a position where there is no competition, and set up there to take advantage of being the only outlet for a particular good.

But no, this is not the Asian way.

For instance, in Bangkok, if you want a spanner, there will be a particular street in Bangkok where every one of about a hundred shops will sell the same brands of spanners. Or, if it’s a more popular item, like a computer, there will be a whole building complex, like the Pantip Plaza Centre in Bangkok, where almost all of the computer sellers in Bangkok are gathered in one vast multi storied market.

And there you’ll find all the shopkeepers asleep in deck chairs at the backs of their stalls or shops, or wilting over their merchandise which is identical to the merchandise in every other shop on the block, simply because the number of customers available to them is divided by thousands of other competitors who are also falling asleep over their merchandise.

I found myself wondering, ‘Why would anyone choose this shop over that shop if they’re all the same?’

I put this question to a Thai friend, Chet, one day a short while ago, while wandering through Pantip Plaza, but he just said, “Is more convenient for shopping.”

I nodded, assimilating this seemingly obvious truth, then politely argued, “But how do these people make a living. There’s not enough customers to give them all a living.

Chet shrugged. “If they cannot sell, then they close their shop.”

I nodded again. “But don’t they see? The shopkeepers … don’t they see that if they all group together, they’ll get less sales?”
He looked at me quizzically.
“Why don’t they set up shop somewhere where there are no other computer sellers?” I explained.
He smiled condescendingly, then shook his head.
“Because all people who want computer come here, to Pantip. Everybody come here to buy. Everybody know what is here, so they go nowhere else.”
“But…maybe they would buy somewhere else if there was a somewhere else …”

I stopped. He was right. But then again, he was wrong. But neither. It’s just different. But …

I was about to resume my argument, then stopped myself once more, because I saw the dark hole of ‘why’ inviting me to jump into the unknown and, like Alice falling down the tunnel, disappear into a place where my reasoning and cultural conditioning was useless. I know now, that when in Asia, not to go there – not to fall into that dangerous questioning, because in that place Western minds wander in circles, searching for beginnings and ends of mobius-like circles of reasoning, in which their western logic is useless.

Luckily Chet put me out of my misery.
“We are not like you,” he said sanctimoniously, “Here, people like to be friends with the person they buy from, so they get a good price. Thai people only buy from people they know, so there is no need for competition.”

He pointed to a sleeping shopkeeper and said, “That man can sleep, because he know his friends will only buy from him. So he can relax until one of his friend come in. No need for competition.”

“Ooooh.” I said, while thinking, ‘how civilized … how beautiful.’

But even as I thought that thought, I became aware of the maelstrom of young spruikers all desperately hawking everything from pornography DVD’s to pirated software – the competition between them was intense – you couldn’t move without one of them pulling at your sleeve, or muttering, “You like sex DVD? Pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl!”

I caught up with Chet who was now checking out iPods sat a stall.

“But what about all these people?” I said, gesturing at the crush of frantic spruikers, “They aren’t selling to friends …”

He looked around with an expression of surprise, as if seeing them for the first time. Then his expression changed to gentle contempt.
“Oh them,” he said. “They are not for Thai people. They only sell to farang(foreigners) …”

So I’m sure that somewhere in Huaiyin there will be a massive building full of computer shops where all the stalls sell exactly the same stuff as all the other stalls, but right now, I don't know where it is.

The only place I know for sure that I’ll be able to get a blank CD is ‘Times-Extra’, the biggest department store in Huaiyin. It’s where I often buy my food, and where I bought my cheap Chinese coat. A recent western innovation in China, this immense building has everything from bad suits to toothpicks, custard tarts and roast duck, to mobile phones, plasma TV’s, washing machines and Chinese wine – it’s got everything.

God knows why it’s called ‘Times-Extra’ though.

As I hop from foot to foot on the side of the road trying to keep warm, I wonder what the words ‘Times’ and ‘Extra’ in combination are supposed to mean? But then, it’s most likely the title means nothing. Perhaps its just the look they wanted, of English lettering - to look ‘international’.

It’s the same with ‘The Chicken Run Coffee Bar’, just around the corner from the Huaiyin Institute where I’m living. Aside from Times Extra, The Chicken Run’ is the only other building in Huaiyin that I’ve seen so far which has a sign in English. Encouraged by this, I dropped in one day as I was passing. I was drawn to the familiar - the words, ‘chicken’ and ‘coffee bar’ and the images they created in my head, so I expected to find a warm, coffee scented home away from home, where I could meet other foreigners while sipping a café latte and …you know.

As I pushed through the door, I thought they’d be happy to see me. But they weren’t. There were no special smiles for the foreigner – just the usual expressions of naked shock. And there were no sandwiches, no coffee or newspapers either. Just standard Chinese spartan – lino and benches, menus in Chinese and a waitress and owner who stared me down when I asked if they spoke English.

So I left, wondering why they had a sign in English if they didn’t care to cater for English speakers, and why they said it was a coffee bar when there was no coffee?

Again the siren call of ‘why’ beckoned me to founder on the rocks.

Perhaps the answer is: They don’t even know what their sign says, because it’s in English. They just like the look of it.
The presence of English words and lettering seems to be scattered randomly all over the place in Asia, and no-one seems to give a damn what it all means.

Like, there’s these cheap little plastic covered journals which they sell in ‘Times-Extra’ for young people to write their secret thoughts in, and some of them have little poems in English, printed on the front in brightly colored happy-font, surrounded by cartoons of wide-eyed babies and pink puppy dogs.

So, the other day as I was wandering the aisles, a Westerner lost in a jittering puzzle of Chinese calligraphy, and my eyes picked out one of these journals. As I stood in the aisle gazing at the poem on the front, the small flashes of familiar English started a pinging in my heart for home. So, thinking, “Oh, a poem in English” I picked it up and read:

“Window people
Hand for heart
Some sky are come
It water dream
Out for open the tree
Love tell future!”

Now, being a Westerner, used to the abstractions of Western art, when at first I do not comprehend, I read it again, and then again until I have some idea of what it’s about. I need to know that what I’m reading means something, because that’s what a western mind requires - it restlessly seeks meaning wherever it goes. And naturally with this poem I assumed meaning was present because the language and form were there.

So it was with a mixture of amusement and disappointment that I eventually realized it wasn’t a poem, so much as English words in the form of a poem – simply there because of the look. It was most likely written by the printer’s assistant, using random words out of an English dictionary.

And this is something I’ve noticed all throughout Asia.
For some reason there is a fetish with the ‘look’ of English lettering, as if some authority or charisma emanates from it which their own language doesn’t have. So wherever I go I keep getting caught, mesmerized in front of signs, or following someone down the street, trying to understand the esoteric message on the back of their T shirt.

For instance, in Bangkok I saw a shop with a sign in English announcing: ‘Forget Magic’ over a shop selling clothes, and another – a hair dressing salon which called itself ‘Cheap Green Hair’ and a Thai guy wandering about with a T shirt proclaiming in neon pink over green:

… as well more use of materials existing facilities as … the number advanced composites manufacturing ... more frequently encounter in the course ….

I stopped him because I wanted to write it down in my journal so I could tell this story later, and he was totally mystified as t why I would want to write down what was on his T shirt. So I asked him if he knew what the words on his T shirt meant. He seemed amused at first, but then became worried, because he didn’t know what it meant and was beginning to think he was perhaps carrying some salacious message around on his back. I reassured him it meant absolutely nothing, and he seemed happy with that.

Over and over again I’ve found obscure English messages scattered throughout Asia, and they all mean nothing. They’re just random English words bunged onto a T shirt, or on a sign, or onto the cover of a diary and that’s it – it’s the look of ‘International’ that they want – not the meaning.

I suppose they can get enough of that in their own language.

Huaiyin Traffic

A cab pulls up, I climb in the front, next to where the driver sits in his own little wire cage – pull the door closed and show him the well worn piece of paper with the name of “Times-Extra” written in Chinese characters, which I carry because I have no idea how to say ‘Times-Extra’ in Chinese.

The driver grunts recognition, I shout, ‘Hao la?’(okay?), he nods, and I settle back in the seat and sigh as my heart-rate rises once again in anticipation of another exhilarating dose of Chinese traffic.

In fact, when I was teaching in one particular Middle School of Da Qing, notorious for its hellish conditions, the daily drive through Chinese traffic was essential for raising the energy levels sufficient for the job. You see, at this particular school the children had been toughened by daily beatings and were uncontrollably hyperactive, so one needed to be charged with a massive dose of adrenaline just to walk in through the door, let along the daily two hours of dodging kids literally bouncing off the walls, dragging recalcitrants out of the room by their hair and kicking in the sides of desks while screaming louder than them. And I remember the morning drive through Da Qing traffic always managed to set me up quite nicely for it. But that’s another story.
So, once again as we pull into the close woven stream of cars, trucks, bicycles and scooters, though I have experienced it many times, I can’t help my wonderment – the magic, the poetry, the chaotic theatre of it all.

We gain speed, swerving around people and bicycles dawdling obliviously all over the road; children wandering between lanes chatting into mobile phones and chewing on the skewers of sweet toffee’d sausages they like to eat.

A mother riding an electric bike with her young daughter perched precariously on the back coasts out from a lane-way, not pausing as she barges into the weaving traffic - again with that amazing blank face that all the Chinese on the roads have, which manages to combine a svelte ‘fuck you’ with ‘I don’t care if I live or die’ and ‘you don’t actually exist’ all together without actually saying it.
The daughter, balanced precariously but elegantly on the back of the bike is as unconcerned as her mother, trailing her hands in the wind as she gazes distractedly off to the side, as all around taxis, trucks, and busses honk and threaten each other in a constantly evolving tussle of dominance without anger.

An electric scooter meanders in front of the taxi, causing my driver to brake suddenly. In Melbourne, this would instantly cause an explosion of rage – fists out the open window, snarling replies, threats and counter threats - but here there is no anger, no threats. The taxi driver settles in behind the scooter, and the rider of the scooter does not look back – he doesn’t look anywhere but adamantly ahead. He can’t. Bundled against the wind, he resembles a bag of washing on a runaway scooter, and his face is so tightly closed within the hood of his thick nylon puffy-coat, he cannot see either side – which is perfect for Chinese traffic, considering no-one looks anywhere but straight ahead anyway.

The taxi pulls out past him, narrowly missing an oncoming bus, and when I look back through the passenger side window the rider’s eyes flick to me as we pass, but there is no reaction. He’s riding his bike to get to where he’s going – simple as that. The world must make way.

Suddenly we all stop at an intersection. I’m shocked. Traffic doesn’t stop in China, not like this anyway – not without edging forward, politely hassling the car next to you, or jockeying for a new position in front. Even red lights are driven through in this country, if the slightest space appears in the cross traffic.
As I will never cease reiterating, nothing stops Chinese traffic. But here it is – everything has stopped.

I crane my neck to see past the jam of cars in front. Perhaps it’s an accident.

Nothing.

Then I see her. A woman appears, marching up the middle of the intersecting road with her head held high, kicking her shoes up as she carries a huge scarlet Chinese flag which flutters lazily in the air behind her.

At first I think it’s just her, but then the taxi edges into a space in front and I see, following the woman down the middle of the road, a long procession of about five hundred tiny Chinese children marching in pairs behind her. Their hands and feet swing high as they mimic the woman leading them. They’re so small against the wall of idling trucks, busses and cars that face them - they’re minute; almost babies, rugged up in brightly colored puffy coats like a line of little troll dolls, pink faces solemn and eyes wide with excitement as they look about them with wonder at how the whole huge world has stopped for them.

I glance across at the face of the driver - his previously dour face is now alive with a smile he is not aware of, as are all the people stopped on bikes and in cars around us. All of us have forgotten ourselves – the innocence of these beautiful children has stripped us naked in an instant. The driver looks across at me, and his eyes are sparkling with a gorgeous emotion as he says something to me in Chinese, and though I don’t know what he’s saying, we both laugh with the lunatic joy of it all and my heart feels like it’s been suddenly filled with champagne.

And I imagine that in this moment, this street in Huaiyin has become a tiny luminescent spot of white love-light on the face of an otherwise darkening planet, visible billions of miles away as a momentary spark of hope in the universe.

The Glass Door Debacle

Ooop, here we are.

A quick “Sheh sheh” (thank you) and 6 yuan to the driver, and I’m out and into a river of dawdling people, bicycles and cars. Ahead of me is the massive monolith of ‘Times-Extra’; grey stone and concrete, trailing scarlet and gold banners and flags and a three floor high billboard featuring a pretty Asian girl laughing into a mobile phone.

I navigate my way through the thick forest of thousands of bicycles parked out front, up the stairs and through the plastic strip curtain into the babbling noise of a cavernous hall of people gathered around glass counters selling mobile phones, jewelry and many hundreds of brands of Chinese cigarettes and Bai Jiu. (a Chinese alcoholic drink – looks like vodka, tastes like distilled compost – definitely an acquired taste)

Up the elevator to the third floor where the electric’s are – a new consumers dream - immense televisions, stereo systems with flashing lights of every colour, rice cookers, washing machines, MP3 players the size of cigarette lighters, Russian cameras with names that begin with ‘Z’….

But no computers.

At first I’m incredulous – how could this immense theatre of consumer items not sell at least one computer. But then I remember the Asian way. As in Bangkok, all the computers available for sale in this city will probably be in a street full of small shops, or a vast building filled with little computer stalls all cramped together selling exactly the same thing as their neighbors.

Trouble is, right now, I don’t know where that building or street is. So, hoping I might get lucky, I wander around the various floors of ‘Times-Extra’, where the arranging of goods is so haphazard you’ll find the books displayed next to baby-food; men’s clothing next to rows of various cooking oils.

As I wander through, looking down each aisle I pass, I’ve very aware of my foreign presence pulling the curious gazes of everyone I pass along with me - people stopping and turning as I go by, often gaping with surprise. In this provincial city I’m an eye-magnet.

When I first came to China in 2002, in Da Qing, it was also like this. In that city I used to greet everyone with a cheery ‘Ni how’, because though the gawks and gazes were inquisitive, the people smiled so readily I could not fail to be charmed.

But here in Huaiyin it’s different, and I’m not sure why.

I’ll try to explain.

You see, Da Qing, being an oil town, though it was an ugly place, it had a kind of playful vibe about it – a frontier city pazzazz which made the air quiver. I suppose in part it was because there was a lot of money there, so the trickle down effect was very much apparent – brothels, expensive bathhouses, Mercedes, high quality leather and fur coats and BMW’s everywhere. The shopping in Da Qing was huge - a glut of consumer items; particularly clothes, DVD’s, mobile phones, computers and Western hamburgers.

And I suppose the other thing that Da Qing had in its favor was it was a long way away from the bureaucratic centers of Beijing and Shanghai – it was largely owned and run by the Da Qing Oil companies, who were known for their …um …independent spirits. Hence the plethora of bars, expensive cars and flashy hotels.

Added to this was the strong influence of Russian and Mongol blood in the people in Da Qing which gave them not only their extraordinarily exotic looks, but also a sense of humor that was refreshingly mischievous and much to my liking.

But here in Huaiyin, where the previous President of China, Jiang Zemin, was born, there is relatively little of that. It’s a relatively obedient, slow and desultory place; an encrustation of brick and concrete buildings around the sluggish brown artery of the Huaihe river - very rural Chinese – 99% pureblood Han Chinese peasants with none of the sparkle of Russian, Northern Chinese and Mongol blood that gave the Da Qingers their magic.

The people here are relatively dour and kind of defeated looking - their black leather jackets are fake vinyl and their clothes are often shapeless and threadbare. There are none of the rich colors and sassy leather – none of the sharp pointed sado-masochistic boots of Da Qing women; the beautifully cut black suits and chisel toed Italian leather shoes of the men. The Da Qingers were slim and tall, with fine boned faces; and walked with a sprightly demeanour, and when they shouted out to the foreigner, it was with a wide and engaging grin. And if they stared it was usually accompanied by a wide and beautiful smile. But here in Huaiyin the people look thick skinned and resilient and … kind of blunt.

And though I accept it might be my distorted foreign imagination, wherever I look, as they watch me wander by, there seems to be a strange resentment in their eyes - something that is unnerving to me.

Then I realize what it might be.

It occurs to me that the expressions on their faces as they watch me go by resemble those of people gathered around a road accident. Impassive and tucked deep inside themselves, looking through the slits of their eyes, absorbed in a strange and fascinating thing.

I suppose I’m sensitive to that look, because I’ve experienced it often in my life. Perhaps from when I was in a pop band in Australia in the 80’s, when I remember kids staring blankly, kind of drinking in my spirit from a distance – but that wasn’t so bad.

No, the look I’m talking about happened earlier – from when I was a kid. And as I remember, it unnerved me then as well.

I think I was about 12 years old when it happened - and it was a hot summer day. I was walking across a street in the busy shopping district of Lakes Entrance, a holiday town in Gippsland. I was going to return some bottles to a shop, when a speeding car hit me.

My body flew up through the air and fell down, face first to the ground. Disoriented and numb with shock, I had no idea why I was now lying on the road, so I stood up and as I stood there wondering where I was, I saw something that gave me the creeps.

As if time itself had been terminated, the entire street; all the cars, and all the people had stopped. Everything had stopped - and they were all looking at me, agape, with impassive, almost expressionless faces.

Standing there in the middle of the road with my time and space suddenly stilled, I had no idea why they were looking at me, so being a polite boy, I lifted my hand and waved to them. But no-one moved or waved back. They just stared. Then I saw the blood all over my hands and soaking through my shirt sleeve, and I realized then what had just occurred.

So maybe it’s me, not these people, that is the problem. Maybe that’s why these people’s gaze unnerves me so much - I feel like a car accident.

I factor it in and keep walking with my eyes focussed beyond them, and my ears closed to their snickering. And as I walk, I reassure myself by remembering the maxim: ‘What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger’.

After a half hour of searching, I finally find some blank CD’s in a cabinet at the back of the women’s clothing section.
Other than the small pile of about four CD’s on the top shelf, the glass fronted cabinet is otherwise empty, and when I try to open the thick glass door, I find it’s locked. It’s a very large, strong looking cabinet with steel reinforcing and a bright chrome lock at the bottom of the glass door – it looks new, and the glass is spotlessly polished.

I stand in front of this cabinet looking around until a pretty young girl with small red circles of frostbite in the center of each cheek comes and says “Hello … can I help you,” in beautiful English.
“Aaah, you speak English?” I exclaim hopefully.
Her cheeks become all the more red as she explains in a mixture of masticated English and Chinese that “Hello can I help you,” is all she knows, and we both laugh.

“Mai gwan shi,” I say. (no problem)

I turn and point to the discs in the cabinet, mimicking that I need to buy one. She nods and goes back to a desk to get a large bunch of keys. She comes back, inserts one of the keys, turns it … but the key will not open the door. She pulls it out and tries another, but that one doesn’t work either. She puts the first key back in and tries coaxing it, then she tries wrestling with it, then coaxing again. Then she tries wiggling it as she turns.

But the door will not open.

She looks up and says something apologetic in Chinese.

I say again: “Mai gwan shi.” No problem.
But actually, I’m getting a bit testy because a crowd of gawkers has now collected, and one particular elderly woman in a high collared communist suit and short grey hair is standing next to me now, with her equally ancient friend. They’re both looking up into my face and exchanging observations about me in Chinese. I move in closer to the girl, who is now shaking the door of the cabinet while turning the key.

I ask her if I can try, so she gives me the key and I kneel down to have a go, but no dice. I stand up and the ancient crone in the communist Nehru suit goes back to her shortsighted scrutiny of the pores on my face – and the rest of the burgeoning crowd presses in - and they’re all looking at me, so I’m getting a touch of claustrophobia.

I’m just about to tell the girl not to worry about the CD when she calls for the supervisor, a young Chinese man in an immaculate pin-stripe suit and sparkling glasses.

So now, considering he’s in the picture, I figure I should stay.
He gives me an efficient nod, takes the keys, and he too begins pushing, pulling, coaxing and even stroking the key, trying to unlock the glass door so I can buy my blank CD.

The old biddy and her friend are still peering up at me, and I’m sort of getting used to it, but now an old guy in a Mao cap and army overcoat is on my other side – and he’s bent over and staring closely at my mud covered Blunstone boots.

Five minutes later, the supervisor is on his knees, still twisting, turning and coaxing the lock, and the group of people who have gathered to watch have begun blocking the aisle.

But now the key is fucked. It’s stuck in the door and the guy in the suit is red-faced and flustered, his spectacles askew. His previously efficient pride is forgotten as he pulls at the key with a delicate but pressing impatience. Like the girl before him, he tugs it, wiggles it, strokes it, pushes then pulls it - but it won’t come out, and the door won’t open.

Finally he looks up at me with an apologetic smile.
“Hwai le (Broken)” I say helpfully, holding my hands up in the air in a universal gesture of helplessness. He nods, then stands up and wanders off.

Figuring it’s all over, I’m just in the process of thanking the girl and bowing to the crowd of spectators when the man in the suit comes back – and this time he’s got a screw driver.

Now, if I could speak Chinese I’d be telling them ‘thank you, but don’t bother’, But as I have no Chinese other than my spatter of strangled idiot-talk, I cannot explain to this man and the attending crowd that, having caused this unfortunate occurrence, I’m really very happy to walk away without my blank CD’s.

So the Chinese people all watch me as I watch the man delicately pull up the legs of his immaculate suit and kneel once again with a painful sigh to begin unscrewing the screws which hold the metal clasp of the lock in place.

The screw comes out and rolls under the cabinet, and the tension rises a little more, and I’m praying through a fixed grin for the lock to give, but it doesn’t. The pin is too long, and there’s another screw on the other side which can’t be got to because it’s obscured by the door.

The old woman has started picking at the sleeve of my coat now, while having some kind of loud argument with her friend. I look down at her with an irritated glare, but she is not intimidated - she frowns up into my face and tells me something in stern Chinese, shaking her head as she says it.

“Yes, I know, I know,” I say, nodding apologetically, “It’s a very cheap coat.”
They both shriek with laughter.

Now the man in the suit has commandeered a couple of onlookers to grab a hold of the cabinet while he vigorously shakes the door while trying to lift it out of the clasp at the same time.

The rattling is very loud, which attracts an even larger crowd of people, and now I’m mindlessly muttering the only Chinese I can think of: “mai gwan shi, mai gwan shi,” as if it’s a magic incantation that will miraculously spring the door open. The fact that ‘mai gwan shi’ actually means a cheery “No problem,” is something I’ve forgotten about. It’s all I’ve got at the moment.

Then, just when I think things can’t get worse they do.
With a small ‘snap!’, the glass door cracks – a long one, from beside the lock, right up to the center of the door. The crowd gasps, and some at the front point at the crack, going, “Eeeeeeaaah!”
With my eyes fixed on the damaged door, I’m still muttering, “mai gwan shi, mai gwan shi,” to myself like a lunatic.
The man in the suit turns to me - his face is bright red and troubled, and his glasses are still askew. I feel like reaching out and correcting them for him but I don’t. If I had enough Chinese I’d tell him, but then again, he probably wouldn’t appreciate it right now.

He gestures back at the door and speaks to me in rapid Chinese. I’m shrugging, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”, in English. I feel so bad I’m seriously thinking of throwing money at him and running away.
He shakes his head, then shoulders off through the crowd with me and the girl following, to a desk where he picks up a phone. Right then the girl gently lays her hand on my arm and says, “It okay, you not sorry.”
I’m offended. “Oh no,” I say, “I am sorry. I’m very sorry.”
She shakes her head, saying, “No, no, you not.”
Then I realize what she’s actually trying to say. She’s trying to tell me not to be sorry.
“Oooh, sheh sheh.” I say inadequately. (thank you)

The man has finished his phone call, and the vibe is now that something else is about to happen – I just don’t know what it is. So we’re all standing about smiling at one another, because there’s not much to say.

At that point, considering nothing is happening, and the foreigner is not moving, the crowd begins to thin. So thinking I might be able to escape as well, I turn and begin wandering away but the sales girl grabs my arm and holds me back.
“You stay,” she says.
I look at my watch, and say brightly, “No thanks, sorry, must go.”
Right then I see two workers in blue overalls arrive with a tool case, and for a second I once more feel obligated to stiff this thing out. But honestly, I don’t think I can. I’ve been trying to buy this blank CD for almost an hour now, and I don’t think I can handle any more excitement today.
So muttering, “Mai gwan shi, mai gwan shi…” to whoever is listening, I sidle away to lose myself in the river of people in the main aisle.

The Turtle

To recover from this debacle I decide to go upstairs to the supermarket to buy some food. So I catch the elevator upstairs, pick up a plastic shopping and wander through the vegetable section, where I finger some broccoli, then decide to buy some dumplings instead – so I wander off to where all the big steamers are on the other side of the room. To get there I have to go through the fresh fish section, where aquariums are piled on top of one another, teeming with different species of fish.

I notice to my left a small table holding a shallow glass bowl full of turtles piled on top of one another, peering out through the glass with their doomed little eyes. It’s heart rending, so I try not to look, but as I pass I see one brave little chap hanging over the edge of the bowl – he’s waving his flippers and craning his neck, and my foreign heart catches for a beat, because he seems to be looking right at me.

As I pass, I mutter, “Sorry, can’t help you,” and walk on.
And when I look back I notice he’s stopped waving his flippers and gone still, as if to say in hurt wonder, “You heartless bastard.”.
I feel terrible, but what am I supposed to do. I’m in China for gods sake. They eat turtles here – that’s the truth of it.

So I go and buy a bag of Chinese dumplings, then decide I need some broccoli after all, so I head back to the vegetable section. As I pass the bowl of turtles again I notice the little chap I saw before, who had been hanging over the edge of the bowl, is now gone. And there is a thin man standing next to the table, and he’s spriuking with a very loud voice. Turtles are on special today it seems, so I assume the little chap has been sold.

I make my way back to the broccoli and I’m just making my selection when I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye – something under the watermelon stall - a flash of something small and black. I squint to see, and there he is, madly flippering his way across the slippery linoleum. He must have jumped from the bowl soon after I’d passed, and covered all of three metres without being noticed.
Plucky little thing.

Standing there clutching a head of broccoli, I quietly cheer him on as he appears from under the onion counter with his head bobbing, and his flippers skidding on the floor. Miraculously he makes it all the way across the aisle and disappears under the counter where I’m standing.

I think to myself, how amazing it is, this little creature, making a dash toward an impossible freedom. But where would he go? We’re on the third floor and the stairs are a long, long way away, through throngs of jostling Chinese, none of whom would be particularly inspired by his courage. But nonetheless, a part of me is still jumping up and down inside myself, screaming, “Go you little fucker, go!”

Right them, as I’m placing a head broccoli in my shopping basket, I feel a gentle tapping at the toe of my boot. I look down and there he is, flippers still going like fuck, trying to navigate his way around my boot.

I move my foot back and he continues on past without a look back, and I think, ‘That’s the way buddy, don’t look back.’ But once again my heart fills up with pathos of this small creature’s desperate courage.

And that’s when I make a big mistake.

I don’t know what I was thinking, but for some reason I decided I could help – so I bent down and picked him up.
The inspiration had been to save him in some way, but I wasn’t thinking straight. As I stood up with him suspended in my hand, flippers still scrambling desperately through the air, I wondered what the hell was I going to do now?

Put him in my pocket? Or inside my coat?

But then, how would I explain his presence on my person if I was caught at the checkout? A foreigner trying to smuggle a frantic turtle out of ‘Times-Extra’ might be a difficult thing for Chinese security to comprehend, even without the language barrier.
And all the while as I dithered, he still struggled in my hand. I imagine he must have been screaming, “Well don’t just stand here, do something for Christ’s sake!”

But I made another mistake.

Deciding maybe I would put him in my pocket, I turned to see if anyone was watching, and as I turned, the spruiker at the turtle stand also turned. Our eyes met, then his eyes dropped, and a big smile came over his face when he saw the turtle in my hand.
There was nothing I could do. I stood there like a fool as the spruiker came across and, thanking me in Chinese, took the turtle from my hand

And as he laughingly bore the turtle away I could almost hear the desperate scream fading into the distance.
“…but I trusted you!’
The guilt. The betrayal. I felt terrible for the rest of the day.

A few days later I was telling my girlfriend the story on the phone, and how bad I felt, and she said, “Well, why didn’t you just buy him?”
I stopped. Of course, why didn’t I buy him?
“You know, it never occurred to me.” I said.
“You could have had a pet turtle.”
“Yes I could have, couldn’t I?”
“And it would be your little friend …”
“Yes, a little friend.”
We both thought about that for a few seconds.
“What do turtles eat?”
“Don’t they eat mud?”
“No… I think they eat plants.”
I wondered why I hadn’t thought of such an obvious solution. I thought about how I could have kept him in a bowl in my apartment – about how I could have had a little friend. It could have ended happily.
“Do turtles feel pain?” I said.