I’ve been reading other ex-pat blogs of late, and clearly I
need to pick up my game a little. I tend
to wait for inspiration to strike – then write accordingly – but when the
extraordinary becomes banal, the volume of outrage-related writing tends to
taper off. I could say I was too busy to
write, and anybody else teaching in town who covets my position might expect
that, but it’s not really the case. Call
it a lack of inspiration, perspiration, or personal variation: the end result
is still the same.
It’s not like I don’t see things on a near-everyday basis
that make me shake my head, either…. Two days ago I saw an approximately 60
year-old man blowing a snot rocket in public.
This isn’t pleasant, but it’s not the most outrageous thing I’ve seen on
its own merits. Usually it wouldn’t even
earn a second thought: this is, after all, the land where toddlers run around
in ass-less chaps so they can pee wherever they see fit.
No, the reason it stuck in my visual craw is that he was
riding an escalator at the time. Why is
that weird? I don’t know - it just
is. I didn’t know there was some kind of
unwritten social compact we have in the rest of the world about blowing your
nose all over escalators, but apparently we do: this is what living in ‘The
China’ helps you discover.
Some people would say that the lesson is to appreciate the
things you had, so as to greater love them upon your (inevitable, I’d say)
return. They’re not wrong, but they’re
missing the point a bit.
I’ve often said that studying Latin helped me learn a little
about Latin, and a lot about the English language. This experience is rapidly becoming roughly
analogous to what you come to learn when you live in comparatively exotic
lands: how exactly your own society works, and why.
Does the old man emptying his sinuses all over the treads of
the escalator change your day in any way?
I’d argue not, because I hardly ever go home and clean the bottom of my
shoes with my tongue; rather, it’s just another one in a series of ‘wait, what?’
moments that define existence in a wildly crowded developing nation. China likes to talk a good game about being a
modern nation, but is still largely populated by an ‘old-world’ approach to
life. Traditionalism is a nice pastime,
I suppose, but there are places traditional activities might be curtailed…
Escalators, for instance.
