Don’t take it so literally
This blog is titled “Trashing China” but I’m really not about to trash China. Just my experience while in China, which hadn’t much to do with China itself. In fact, the China part was quite lovely.
(I love China. And I still have 9 years left on my $200 tourist visa.)
Let me set things up, as well as dish you a little bit of the dirty drama, which let’s be honest, is what you’re here for. And I will tell all. I’m not even going to come out of this looking good.
How long I was in China: 1 month, November 2015.
How I was able to do that while still adulting: I’m not adulting right now. I’m getting my master’s and doing part-time freelance. Lately it’s started to feel full-time, but back then it was part-time. I’m living with my grandmother and don’t have to pay much in rent, so this is why I could afford China. Also, I was promised very earnestly by my cousin that China was inexpensive. That the food was amazing and you could just walk out on the street and spend $2 on enough food that you would have leftovers. Damn, I thought I’d be saving money while in China…
The freelance and schoolwork, that could travel with me. My cousin, let’s call him Jesse because he shares some of those oblivious, eager, “always down to party” attributes…
He said he was in the market for a computer, which was good, because I needed a good computer while in China in order to use my 3D rendering software for freelance. This, I thought, would be the biggest problem while in China, the coordination of my using his computer… it actually ended up not being a problem at all.
Why I even went to China: I have a philosophy that when you can go to a country for 1+ weeks on the cheap, you should do whatever you can to make that happen. Thus far that philosophy has gotten me to Australia for 5 weeks, Singapore for 3 weeks, and Ireland for 1 week. I’m reconsidering that philosophy now.
Why I could go to China on the cheap: My cousin and his wife — who is lovely and I’ll give her a lovely nickname in a future episode — were teaching English in China and house-sitting in a missionary’s large (for China) apartment. Missionary was on furlough. Ended up never coming back to that apartment, ended up selling it, which I think ended up being serendipitous for them considering some of the incidents of bodily fluids and excrement that I observed.
You guys, it was like I was trapped in a house controlled by teenagers. Jesse and his wife were 24 and 23, respectively. College graduates of 6 months. I was 28 and had been in the work force, out of college, for 8 years.
Ugh. I promised you drama and all I’ve done is tease the drama. I did mention bodily fluids and excrement, right? Well, let me tell you the bodily fluids story…
The bodily fluids story
This story is but a part of a much larger and shocking story, but we’ll get to that later. For now, know that one morning I awoke to a dog barking. And barking. And barking. I thought, “A neighbor bought a dog. Why aren’t they shutting the dog up?”
(Sudden switch to present tense.) I leave my room to discover the dog is in our apartment, in the computer room. The door is shut. Amber, who was unexpectedly living with us for 1 week now, said that a new resident had come to stay after I had gone to sleep last night. I can’t remember her name. Emily feels good. Emily had found out her boyfriend was cheating on her and had brought herself and the dog to stay in our apartment while this all got figured out.
Emily was also an English teacher. Amber was a soon-to-be English teacher.
Emily came outside to talk to us and generally look devastated. Small talk; she avoided the matter at hand; fine. Jesse was locked in the master bedroom sick, and his wife was in there with him.
Meanwhile the dog was going insane.
Why?
Because my cousin and his wife owned a pet rabbit. They had moved the rabbit into the master bedroom, no doubt thinking this would solve everything.
Eventually I expressed enough displeasure at the dog’s display — the furniture, owned by the missionaries, was fucking leather — that Emily held the dog in place on the large shaggy rug in the middle of the floor.
After a few moments of stillness, the dog stood up, lifted a leg and peed on the shaggy rug.
Emily said, “Ohhhhhhh….”
I don’t think she had the energy for the urgency required in this situation. She began to pick up the dog, but it was too heavy for her. Also she’d grabbed it by the front legs. The dog, being held in a standing position now, continued to projectile pee all over the rug. It emptied its bladder.
Emily said, “Do you think they have paper towels?”
Paper towels were gotten. Emily began to dab at the shaggy rug. Just, dab… and dab… with a paper towel… on this huge rug… only very lightly with her hands.
After three moistened paper towels, she decided the rug purged of the dog’s full bladder and removed herself to the couch to mope further.
After that I decided I couldn’t live there anymore.
