August 13 – When I learn I
almost roomed with a crazy person
Man. Man oh man oh man. Where to begin?
I had a moment today where I decided to
open up and express just how badly I want to go home sometimes, that
this lack of access to the internet and other English speakers
coupled with the last bits of jet lag is making me want to run away
screaming when I'm not in the classroom (today was my first day off
and time to think). So I walked out of my room and talked to the guy
that lives in the next room, my Mandarin speaking buddy. Here's a
rundown of the things he said:
9/11 was an inside job.
Formaldehyde is in our clothes.
Florescent lights are poisoning our
brains.
December 21, 2012 will be the day of
reckoning.
He's got five charges against him in
Canada that he's run out on.
He's not going to court because courts
are black magic because the judge wears a black robe and summons you.
It's possible to control things with
your mind (he was sitting at the kitchen table trying to will the
upstairs neighbors' floor A/C to destroy itself).
He's never had a girlfriend.
He went to a Chinese massage place his
first or second night here, right near the hotel. He informed me of
the prices. Refers to the end part as the “rub and tug.” Gross.
Gross. Gross. This is a personal preference thing but he never shuts
up about wanting Chinese girls and expresses interest constantly and
at length about getting “the whole thing.”
He's going to ask the school to cut out
the part in the contract about giving a thumbprint to sign in to work
every day.
Cameras are watching us all the time.
The guy came here to get away from the
law and have sex. He doesn't get on with the kids at the school at
all. The only plus is that he speaks Mandarin but I will force myself
to live on my own, pay more rent, be broke, I don't care, if I don't
have to be around this one second more. Some people open up to you
and there's camaraderie. Some people open up and you realize they are
bad news. This is bad news. This is such bad news.
So I called up the Director of Studies.
Couldn't get him. Called the helper welfare officer that's supposed
to attend to our needs like living arrangements and all that. She
blatantly told me that I should just live with him anyway since I'm
not in any physical danger. Really? It's all because they paid a
deposit to the landlord today to guarantee the apartment. I haven't
even signed a contract on it yet. I haven't even signed a contract
with the school yet. My visa hasn't even been converted over. I'm
technically working here illegally, even though that's the nature of
the Chinese bureaucratic dragon. It doesn't care until it cares.
Sometimes it works in your favor and sometimes you have to wait until
it wakes its lazy dragon self up to get anything done. That's why I
wasn't worried about the visa. Now I'm questioning the whole thing.
Then I called one of the teachers that
I'm replacing and hooked a taxi over to her place by showing the
driver the address in pinyin on my cell phone. There I told her, her
boyfriend, and two other teachers that are married, the whole story
over salad and pasta. It came out broken and sketchy but I was
freaked and worried about telling too much and worried I was
overreacting. But basically it came out to, “This guy opened up to
me and he's insane.” I've gone against my gut so many times in the
past, so many times, but not this time. The guy I'm living with is,
excuse my French infix, certi-fucking-fiable. He's a sociopath. If
they sign the contract, they are hiring a nut.
I tried so many times to ask Steve who
he misses back home, who he cares about, who misses him. Nothing. He
hasn't contacted his family in a week and when I offer to let him use
my computer at wifi spots he says, “No, they're used to it.” And
then something about September 3rd. I think it's his court
date. He claims the statute of limitations on his case runs out on
that date but I don't know Canadian law and it seems like this was
his way of saying that he got out just in time. I don't know
everything he did but if they let him leave the country, maybe it
wasn't too bad. Still. Black magic? What the holy hell?
I'm still freaked. Here's why I'm
freaked.
I don't have the initial payment from
the school yet, so I'm low on money. That should be fixed in the next
two days, though.
I'm already in the apartment even
though I haven't signed the contract. Moving out won't be hard but
I'll have to tell him I don't want to be roommates.
I don't speak Mandarin. If I live on my
own, I'm going to have a right crazy time of this place. But maybe
that's for the best. I can't walk around holding someone's hand the
whole time.
I'll have to pay more for my own
apartment, which means more rent and more for the internet. I almost
don't even care. Lonely and hanging out with good friends every so
often would be better than shacked up with someone that makes your
skin crawl.
I told a bunch of the teachers that
he's insane. I needed to vent and they were the only people
available. He told me all this stuff in confidence and even said,
“I'd never say this to anyone at work,” but I've known the guy a
grand total of six days. We're not best buds. We are coworkers. But
now everyone gets to play the whole game of, “Is Ryan overreacting
or is Steve a nut?”
To be fair, this was a prime day for me
to freak out. Even without all this, I would have had an episode
today. But maybe that episode helped put everything into perspective
and open up some issues that I really wouldn't want to have dealt
with down the road. I feel bad. I feel really bad about this whole
thing.
So tomorrow Sabrina is coming over,
pissed I'm sure but what can you do? It's her job to make sure we get
good living arrangements. But she's also under pressure to make sure
the school retains as much money as possible by having apartments
handed over people moved out of hotels and into living situations as
soon as possible. And that's what happened here. I let her usher us
out of the Hanting Express so quickly that I didn't think too much
about what was going on. Everything seemed perfect. And that's what I
feel bad about. I'm messing up a good thing for them but it's so not
good for me.
Then we're going to find some different
apartments. I can't emphasize just how bad this is going to be. I
have to tell Steve I don't want to live with him, which I'll soften
by just saying I prefer living on my own. He wanted his own place
too, so that kind of works out, even though I'm sure he was keen on
not paying as much rent. Then I get to tell the directors what's
going on and what Steve told me. I feel bad about that, really bad,
but I'm not going to be the confidante for crazy.
I was really freaked out. At first it
was like, “Ok, you're a conspiracy theorist. Those exist.” Then
it was, “I shouldn't tell you this but I have some charges against
me.” Follow that up with the whole court/black magic thing and I
was sitting on the couch almost having a heart attack. I didn't know
what to do. I thought that maybe I could ask him to stop but how do
you follow that up? “Please stop. You're making me very
uncomfortable. I'm sorry, we can't be roommates,” right when he was
pouring his heart out to me? And when your version of “opening up”
includes telling the real reason why you came here as hookers and
legal problems, Jesus man.
That's something I looked into before
coming over. Many westerners hook it to China to live easy and have
sex and take advantage of the locals. They're running and they see
this as a place of refuge where they can live like jerks. And I don't
want to live with that. I don't want to work with that. And the kids
should not have someone like that as a teacher.
Going to sleep now. Will update more
later. Sorry for the bummer, guys.
August 14th
I woke up at 5:30 AM, still thoroughly
frazzled. I packed everything in my room, paced around biting my
nails, and then headed to a place on the corner called Goodway Coffee
where I knew they had wifi. My plan there was to order the cheapest
thing possible (“Potato and onion” which turned out to be an
omelet) and hop online. My laptop wouldn't access but my iPhone did.
So I used my phone to reactivate my phone and laptop plans in order
to call or text home. Heard familiar voices and even if I am going to
owe Verizon a bazillion dollars for international texts, it was worth
it to send out my S.O.S., as in:
They haven't paid me the advance yet.
They roomed me with a guy that's running from the law. They still
haven't given a set date to legalize my stay here. I need to come
home.
That was the gist of it. After eating
my omelet and letting my family know the situation, I walked off in
the opposite direction of the apartment, crossed over a river, and
ended up in a gorgeous part of town with trees lining the streets. I
sat in the shade while the locals all walked by me staring, and I
just breathed in the open air. There was nothing else to do. No one
had called me on my Chinese cell. Not a director or the welfare
officer or any of the managers. I didn't want to go back to the
apartment yet. There was nothing to do.
So I sat there with my backpack and two
cell phones, this massive bruise on my arm from the botched blood
draw last week where they missed the vein, and my little taxi book
that I can use to point out locations to literate drivers. I was
almost out of money, exactly halfway around the world from everyone I
care about, completely prideless, wondering who cares about me, who I
could lean on, who I've wronged, who I want to see again. It was
weird because in that little span of time, everything was pretty
peaceful.
About an hour later when I did make it
back to the apartment, Steve was there. I was about to broach the
subject of moving out but he beat me to the punch. His reasoning was
that the upstairs neighbors are too noisy and he needs complete
silence. I am not kidding. This is a guy that has lived in China
before. You do not find complete silence in Chinese cities. As I type
this, there are about a hundred women down in the plaza below me
doing a flash mob. I just videoed it. And it's been going on for
about two hours now. It's not too loud. I have putty earplugs anyway
but you just don't find silence here and I kind of like that. There's
always something to see or hear, always something going on that you
just wouldn't expect. I really like this place, which is why I'm
worried. I don't want to leave.
Sabrina showed me a ninth floor suite
in a brand new plaza just across from the school's main office. I
swear to you, if I close the curtains, I could be in Vegas. It's at
the very end of the hall, windows on three sides, more lights than I
can count, a bathtub (not something you normally find in China), a
security guard downstairs, and a view of the city that is, well, I
think this a gesture to right a wrong. It's their way of saying,
“Sorry for rooming you with a criminal.” They offered to do the
rent in installments, up the cash advance that I still haven't
received but that they now guarantee will come tomorrow. I already
have cable and there are about two months of internet I can access
for free once I hook up a router. But I still haven't unpacked. I'm
waiting to meet with the directors tomorrow to see if they will
actually make good on the money and really I want to know what's
going to happen with Crazy Steve. Did they finally background check
him? What did they find? He's not my problem anymore but I don't
think the guy should be working with kids.
Here I am, drinking plum juice.
Let's take stock.
I freaked out a bunch of teachers by
telling them my roommate is crazy. He is. Here's a horrible sentence:
It's weird when someone you don't know tells you that someone else
you don't know is a nut even though those two people you don't know
don't even know each other. What do you believe? How seriously do you
take them?
I freaked out my family and friends.
The teachers I don't know went out of
their way to feed and support me.
My family and friends went out of their
way to figure out how to get me home.
I turned 29 two weeks ago, all worried
about getting older, but I've never felt more helpless or like a
child. The end of one of my favorite books, Scholars and Gypsies, has
this line: “We are young. We can survive on nothing.” This is not
turning out at all like I expected, not life, not this job, not this
country, not my friendships, not my own heart. The jet lag coupled
with my own deep instincts coupled with my tendency to worry just
makes my current decision-making into a boat spinning along in a
typhoon.
Right now I'm just going to breathe
again. The sun just went down. I'm full of weird gummy plummy gunk
and I'm worn out from lugging my stuff across town again.
Pleasant dreams.
August 15th
Getting the money tomorrow. Everyone is
suddenly being really nice, attending to my every need. I think
they're really scared of me leaving or whistleblowing. Not sure. Need
some feedback. My head is still going in circles and some perspective
from other people would be nice.
For clarification, the guy that I was
rooming with is from Canada. Apparently he fancies himself a
conspiracy theorist and resisted arrest during a routine traffic
stop. The director said in the most vague way possible, “Sometimes
people say too much and shoot themselves in the foot and end up
without a social circle,” referring to Steve. He's not exactly a
hardened criminal but trust me when I say this is one of the most
unnerving people I've ever met.
On the plus side, I've made several new
friends: Kirk and Stefanie (I'm taking over their classes), Jason and
Cocoa, both couples, both very supportive and understanding of my
situation. They fed me the other night when I left the apartment.
Kirk and Stef are from England, Jason and Cocoa from the US.
Supposed to fly to Hong Kong to get my
visa legally converted in two weeks. That's pretty common apparently
but I'm going to do some more research on it to see if it's
legal/possible. Still frazzled and still have my bags packed.
These people are going to have to make
good on everything tomorrow or I'm out.
UPDATE: August 20, 2012.
I did get out. And now I have to
explain everything that happened after. Guess I have plenty of time
now.
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