Noah's Travel Journal - China, Fourth Entry

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Reality Check Cashed

What's worse than catching a curveball to the groin? Having the great cosmic umpire call "Steeeeee-rike two!" as an antagonizing fan throws his full cup of beer down onto your frame-turned-fetal ball. My ducks were lined up all right; waddling behind the other bird flu infected fowl on the way to the incinerator. However, the malady that plagued my promising young hatchlings was much more serious and contagious than that new pandemic on the block.

It was the coldest day all year...all seven days of 2006. Immediately after I left to train, three wraiths in charge of managing the Canadian International School where Bhavana worked, slithered into our apartment on her sick day under the guise of friendship. Once through our perimeter defenses they wasted no time in molting, and brandishing their fangs and forked tongues. Between impish snickers and crackles from fiery, dilated pupils, the ringleader banshee conveyed their intentions of watching Bhavana pack all her belongings immediately under their un-aiding supervision.

After they let the news of an unwarranted contract termination sink in for the time it took to draw another raspy breath, they informed her that they would also not be paying her for her last two weeks of work. This was a heavy load to drop on someone with a head full of flu medicine, but when the only one of them remotely resembling a man, called three leatherjacket-clad thugs to leer in from behind the gate, one might argue for the worst possible sick day ever. Three is excessive, six is the mob.

Fortunately our good friend had just returned from Hong Kong and could be reached to speak some sense into their heads in the languages that they understood best: Chinese and legal repercussions. After they left, first giving a 36-hour move-order, I sauntered in with news of my new arm-bounce-behind-the-back-catch trick. Needless to say, my news had to wait.

The injustice that had been force-fed was so replete with poison, that even this peace loving, now-focused being that I strive to be, became polluted. Not only was the English "training center" not paying taxes and illegally hiring without supplying work visas, but now they robbed money from, threatened with thugs and evicted a loved one in the dead of Winter. For the most accurate depiction of the transformation I underwent before visiting the main office, I would refer readers to Jim Carey's first schizophrenic episode in the movie "Me, Myself and Irene." Note: viewer discretion is advised.

The training center was going through what I later learned was standard operating procedure of firing all but a minimal, over-worked staff before holiday bonuses have to be paid for Chinese New Year. This sticky-fingered, self-centered, obese-baby-in-a-candy-store mentality, was unpleasantly pervasive in Shenzhen. This particular baby however had only known me to be a Jolly Rancher, but with all the frenzied plundering in a candy store, sometimes Atomic Warheads get dropped in the wrong bin.

After a week of protesting and living in fear and paranoia, we cut our losses and relocated to the same friend's house that had previously come to our aid. It was too late though; I had stooped to their level. The negative energy that was exchanged brought short-term tunnel vision and long-term illness. Disabilitating symptoms took turns ravaging me for a month, despite medication and rest. Never have I remained ill for so long in my life, or been so responsible for it.

I do not wish to demonize (besides the three obvious underworld dwellers) or to paint a false image of foreign English schools, China, or its' citizens. The city of Shenzhen and what it stands for, blinds people with greed and consumption. This is in no way a regional phenomenon, but a more obvious example of unchecked Westernization and capitalism could not possibly exist. If a money-worshiping pyramid scheme were given an opportunity to generate a physical form, it couldn't even dream of attaining the cultureless drive of Shenzhen.

Strangely enough, everyone knows and accepts this. The city has almost no first generation inhabitants left, but instead entices immigrants with the possibilities available when morals are laid to waste. Businesses are not built to last, but operate on slash-and-burn outfit principles. The hunger for easy money was a symptom shared by the landlords we encountered while trying to secure another apartment as well. Cancellations of contracts and extra fees were mysteriously incurred when our skin colors were discovered. It is the free-enterprise, capitalist-Darwinism ideology of swindling people when they are unfamiliar with the language, culture and laws. I guess they're only returning the favor we granted to so many immigrants to our land of opportunity for centuries. It is a disease so ingrained in many victims that they aren't aware they're even infected.

I didn't ever want to have to write something this dark and disheartening, but I now have noticeably more gray hair, so I felt it my duty to the tourism Bureau of Shenzhen. Don't worry, following a hard monsoon an arks always floats. Helping to mend the ark's hull, our dear friend/saint Lokesh had offered his spare bedroom and maid service. I must admit having a maid was very awkward at first, but at Lokesh's command I began to consciously leave my dishes unwashed. Soon I was throwing food on every spare inch of wall and ceiling...just because.

It was finally my birth year as pandemonium erupted during the Chinese New Year of the dog. Dog item sales skyrocketed as local canine populations strangely plummeted. I just told myself it was a national restaurant adoption program.

During Chinese "Spring Festival," life as China knows it grinds to a halt as all the cogs in the juggernaut return to their hometowns. This month-long, multi-million person exodus immediately precedes round-the-clock explosive duties, with every neighborhood of every city doing their part to boost hearing aid sales. At any given time of night World War III is being waged with mortar fireworks amplified by the deafening acoustics of high rises. Despite our shell-laden battle zone, I have a feeling we were culturally short-changed on the festivities since people return to their roots to celebrate, and Shenzhen is a recent transplant.

Trying to recapture a vision I had delayed on the day that the eviction process began, we started visiting a local orphanage. There is an odd but understandable byproduct of the relatively young population demographic that makes up the majority of Shenzhen: children everywhere. I'm talking about a conglomeration of bobble heads that I think would be impossible to duplicate in any other circumstance. Unfortunately, there is also the cultural stigma of the handicapped being shunned, and that's where the orphanage comes in.

Physical and mental disabilities are looked down upon to the point that many children with merely a harelip are simply left at the hospital after birth. The Shenzhen Social Welfare Center has more than 400 orphans, with a seemingly large number suffering from some type of handicap. While most of a visiting group of volunteers played with the babies, I looked for a slightly older group. With juggling toys in tow, the clowning began.

Using the sets of poi I had constructed, a no-rules interactive performance began that lasted until hypoglycemia threatened. Swinging the poi worked for the ones that could use their arms. A small girl with one arm had an entirely different style of wrapping and unwrapping her body. I taught a friend in a wheelchair how to bounce tricks off of either side of his vehicle. The little boy with a walker would gleefully untied the poi as fast as I could bind them to his crutches. The maladaptive ADHD boy was pacified by easily lifting a poi that was seemingly too heavy for my straining muscles to levitate. My autistic friend John maintained euphoria by merely holding the bright ball while wobbling around the room. It was an experiment in movement and miming that was the only way I could keep from breaking down in their presence.

This older group of handicapped "un-adoptables," the oldest possibly being 10, was not the most difficult sight to bear. Rooms with economized crib space house up to 30 babies that are not picked up, even to be fed. This is probably due to an issue of understaffing at the orphanage, but seeing a baby closed in a cubby for screaming makes a body wonder. Bed sores, undeveloped muscles, infants who know no physical touch and who see little other than their own little plot of ceiling. Reality check cashed; my problems suddenly seemed slightly trivial.

In search of more playmates and juggling protégés, I beefed up my Chinese performance vocabulary and headed for the Children's Hospital that I'd been previously ousted from. I went straight to the administrative office with my unorthodox proposal. They apparently weren't familiar with someone whose pitch angle was to "make children happy." After delegating an administrator to accompany me and make sure the heaping helpings of happiness were doled out in the promised portions, they led me to one of the buzzing waiting rooms.

The awestruck patients ranged from toddlers with IV feeder bags as large as their heads and torsos combined, to a recent circumcision victim with crotch-less, breathable trousers. This diseased diversity's delirium brought an unquenchable thirst for increasingly greater feats of inhuman skill, manifesting itself as a post-performance chant.

"Jai-O! Jai-O! Jai-O!" (Go! Go! Go!), followed the applause and my bow signaling the termination of my acts. The ravenous offspring sized up the props at my feet where the sweat was pooling as their parents unleashed them on their new-found source of free childcare. To appease all parties, my brain worked double-time as children threw different combinations of juggling toys into my hands at awkward intervals from close range. My Chinese wasn't quite at a level that could guide their pitches from the "Line Drive" end of the spectrum, towards the easy-on-the-face "Lobbing" end.

Clear of landlord and workplace corruption for the time being, we successfully relocated while exploring the self-employed tutoring positions instead of the foreigner-sweatshops posing as training centers. After sequestering a business visa of questionable legality, I was finally able to make regular crossings into Hong Kong. The visa issue would have weighed heavier on my conscience if it had been even a modest bargain or for a purpose other than to visit the Hong Kong Juvenile Diabetes Association. I was happy to pay through the nose for the privilege of living Shenzhen. The least I could do was to continue to try and match the selfless acts of social benevolence that the city had repeatedly extended to me.