When I first moved to China, I was in a bad way, I do have this charm which really suits teaching, like people believe what I say, and I think because I have quite weird mannerisms and so on, it’s even more funny for Asians lol.
But anyway, I was offered a job in Wenzhou, if you look it up it’s an insane place. They control shoes. Most shoes in the world come from Wenzhou. Like Italian shoes are made in Wenzhou, and then flown to an Italian factory for a bit of stitching (by factory workers, not some ancient blind genius) and then shipped back to China to sell to the world as Italian shoes.
Anyway, none of that mattered to me, I was depressed as always, low confidence and was not popular.
ACtually. An interesting thing happened while I was there, my job was teaching professionals and students. Because it was 2009 and there was this huge Chinese middle class that had grown up in a very closed China, people just turned up to meet a foreigner.
So one time I had this one to one class with this lady, she was about 60, she said that she had written a popular children’s book. And she told me this long story about the cultural revolution. She was 12 and they were not allowed to read foreign or ancient books, but her teacher kept the library open in secret for students who she could trust, and she got to read books and realised how important imaginary worlds are.
This really did happen, like I do wonder sometimes if I make stuff up. I don’t know the book, I only met her once, it was very weird, I guess we do all exist for each other’s benefit, but that did feel like something that was meant to happen to me. Like it can’t have been as meaningful for her? She probably has told that story a million times in Chinese, and she also spoke excellent English.
Tell you what like, it is embarassing that I speak Chinese badly and don’t know any of the classics, but I did live in China for a long time and I’m one of those pikey Chinese who of course you don’t meet, why would you?
Leave a Reply