Yongzhou
The House that Jack Built
We met Jack in Yongzhou.
We had just arrived and were beginning our daily game of looking for a cheap hotel. When he called out, 'Hi, how you going?'--he was sitting on a motorbike parked in front of a shopping centre--his face was so honest, his English so clear, his demeanour at seeing a black and white guy riding past so refreshingly calm, it was all we could do to stop.
We spoke for a while. After about fifteen minutes his wife emerged from the store with bags under her arms. By this stage we had attracted the usual snap-happy crowd, stopping enough traffic to incite the beginnings of a fight between taxi drivers. We were happy to be introduced—Vivian, she said, also insisting we use her English name--and accept his offer to show us to a hotel.
We followed them to a hotel we wouldn't have found, where Jack went so far as to inspect the room and checkin for us. He invited us to dinner that night. We said yes.
He returned on his bicycle after we'd dumped our gear and showered. We cycled over with him, crossing the Xiang River on unfamiliarly agile bikes.
Jack lived in one of the apartment complexes we had seen so much of in China. From the outside they could most generously be described as utilitarian: identical squat shells of concrete built rapidly to ends that require no architectural flourishes.
His apartment was up three unlit flights of stairs. It was surprisingly pleasant inside. No shabbiness or grime here. New paint. New appliances. Furnished in monochrome geometries. The sort of understated young professional IKEA aesthetic that might be less of a choice in China than elsewhere.
Jack lived with Vivian. As well as his mother, he had his middle-aged cousin and her taciturn teenage son visiting. Over a platter of home-cooked dishes, we spoke, communicating through Jack and Vivian, also a teacher. We outlined our trip and they talked about life in Yonzhou.
We had a dessert of tea and English-language news--the first time in a while. We made plans to visit Jack's school the next day and returned to the hotel.
The next morning Jack met us in our lobby and took us to one of the rickety local buses. For 90 minutes we sat, crammed in the back, as the bus travelled away from the city, away from the highway, and further down a narrow road flicked with rain and skirted by dense groves and magnesium pits, towards the small village school where he taught--and slept--during the week.
We talked further of our lives than we had the night before.
Jack told me of his history. He had studied English at university. He had sold World of Warcraft gold for six months after that. He had been teaching English for a few years, to students often left in the care of grandparents by parents leaving for the higher wages of Guandong. His ambition was to become a translator.
I told him of my life, my job and education. I expanded on our route. Jack could see the appeal and said he would like to do something similar one day. He added that his mother couldn't understand. After we left she questioned our plan. No job? No house? She thought that we were poor, and by extension, unfortunate.
Poor? Unfortunate?
I certainly didn't feel unlucky. As Dheiu and I were separately unleashed upon a classroom of 14-year-olds, ostensibly to drum up enthusiasm for learning English but in practice more for cheap gags and photo opportunities, or afterwards, being shouted lunch by Jack and his colleagues (including a thin, sharp-featured young man who looked exactly like I thought a Chinese politics teacher should), I felt the opposite.
Here were were, glimpsing life in a rural Chinese village, in front of students—and adults—who’d probably never seen another foreigner.
It's always a privilege to be taken into someone's home and I felt similarly lucky to be at this school, within the folds of its routines and unstaged life.
From the vantage point of Jack's mother, I mightn't own anything of value. To me, I had enough. Unemployment is as relaxing as anyone might imagine, the cycling comes with its own joys--endorphins, scenery and a sense of achievement—but more than artefacts and glories--high-water marks of shifting dynasties—it was these little pieces of life that I had hoped for. To go out into a big world and poke about; to see the different ways of living, the range of answers to life's common questions. For this, I didn’t need more than a bike, camping gear, some money and some time.
No, we weren't poor and we weren't unfortunate. Not then, not later. Not even when we stepped into the muddy noise of our first train station ticket hall outside Yonzhou--the only places we would ever feel China’s superlative population—to begin the pattern of stop-buy tickets-send bikes-wait days-catch train-repeat that would take us the long distance to Beijing, then Mongolia.
We met Jack in Yongzhou.
We had just arrived and were beginning our daily game of looking for a cheap hotel. When he called out, 'Hi, how you going?'--he was sitting on a motorbike parked in front of a shopping centre--his face was so honest, his English so clear, his demeanour at seeing a black and white guy riding past so refreshingly calm, it was all we could do to stop.
We spoke for a while. After about fifteen minutes his wife emerged from the store with bags under her arms. By this stage we had attracted the usual snap-happy crowd, stopping enough traffic to incite the beginnings of a fight between taxi drivers. We were happy to be introduced—Vivian, she said, also insisting we use her English name--and accept his offer to show us to a hotel.
We followed them to a hotel we wouldn't have found, where Jack went so far as to inspect the room and checkin for us. He invited us to dinner that night. We said yes.
He returned on his bicycle after we'd dumped our gear and showered. We cycled over with him, crossing the Xiang River on unfamiliarly agile bikes.
Jack lived in one of the apartment complexes we had seen so much of in China. From the outside they could most generously be described as utilitarian: identical squat shells of concrete built rapidly to ends that require no architectural flourishes.
His apartment was up three unlit flights of stairs. It was surprisingly pleasant inside. No shabbiness or grime here. New paint. New appliances. Furnished in monochrome geometries. The sort of understated young professional IKEA aesthetic that might be less of a choice in China than elsewhere.
Jack lived with Vivian. As well as his mother, he had his middle-aged cousin and her taciturn teenage son visiting. Over a platter of home-cooked dishes, we spoke, communicating through Jack and Vivian, also a teacher. We outlined our trip and they talked about life in Yonzhou.
We had a dessert of tea and English-language news--the first time in a while. We made plans to visit Jack's school the next day and returned to the hotel.
The next morning Jack met us in our lobby and took us to one of the rickety local buses. For 90 minutes we sat, crammed in the back, as the bus travelled away from the city, away from the highway, and further down a narrow road flicked with rain and skirted by dense groves and magnesium pits, towards the small village school where he taught--and slept--during the week.
We talked further of our lives than we had the night before.
Jack told me of his history. He had studied English at university. He had sold World of Warcraft gold for six months after that. He had been teaching English for a few years, to students often left in the care of grandparents by parents leaving for the higher wages of Guandong. His ambition was to become a translator.
I told him of my life, my job and education. I expanded on our route. Jack could see the appeal and said he would like to do something similar one day. He added that his mother couldn't understand. After we left she questioned our plan. No job? No house? She thought that we were poor, and by extension, unfortunate.
Poor? Unfortunate?
I certainly didn't feel unlucky. As Dheiu and I were separately unleashed upon a classroom of 14-year-olds, ostensibly to drum up enthusiasm for learning English but in practice more for cheap gags and photo opportunities, or afterwards, being shouted lunch by Jack and his colleagues (including a thin, sharp-featured young man who looked exactly like I thought a Chinese politics teacher should), I felt the opposite.
Here were were, glimpsing life in a rural Chinese village, in front of students—and adults—who’d probably never seen another foreigner.
It's always a privilege to be taken into someone's home and I felt similarly lucky to be at this school, within the folds of its routines and unstaged life.
From the vantage point of Jack's mother, I mightn't own anything of value. To me, I had enough. Unemployment is as relaxing as anyone might imagine, the cycling comes with its own joys--endorphins, scenery and a sense of achievement—but more than artefacts and glories--high-water marks of shifting dynasties—it was these little pieces of life that I had hoped for. To go out into a big world and poke about; to see the different ways of living, the range of answers to life's common questions. For this, I didn’t need more than a bike, camping gear, some money and some time.
No, we weren't poor and we weren't unfortunate. Not then, not later. Not even when we stepped into the muddy noise of our first train station ticket hall outside Yonzhou--the only places we would ever feel China’s superlative population—to begin the pattern of stop-buy tickets-send bikes-wait days-catch train-repeat that would take us the long distance to Beijing, then Mongolia.
How wonderful for those students at Jack's school to have the opportunity to chat to you guys. I am sure that they were inspired, and entertained, by you both.
ReplyDeleteIt's true Daniel, these 'little pieces' of life that you guys are experiencing are worth more than all the material stuff put together.