Squatter's Rights

I have only been in China for 10 days. And people, it has grown on me. I've already adjusted to the 13 hour time change, a feat I never thought I'd overcome, and I am fitting right in. Well, as much as a 6'5" White American who speaks no Chinese possibly can. I don't even know where to begin. So I will start with my apartment. I was given a key shaped like a Phillips-head screwdriver and led down the hall to my unheated room. The living space is pretty large, but smaller than all the rooms in my house. Then there is a sink area with a window and a shower/"squatter" combo that I will discuss later. The decor of the room is what I would call "Communist chic." Whitewashed walls, an exposed flourescent lightbulb, and a tabletop fan mounted to the ceiling. It came pre-furnished with an armoire and broken television, and of course a bed. I took a table and some chairs from an empty apartment and ta da! Home. The heater is controlled by some outside force or entity (I think the Government) and will cease to function whenever it pleases. Once it decides to stop providing me with heat, it cannot be turned on again unless I go outside and reset the electricity for my entire apartment. This happens multiple times per day. And I'm the lucky one. Other teachers report non-functioning heaters, no electrcity, and missing lightbulbs. In addition, my apartment came equipped with a microfridge, microwave, and nugget sized washer. I am therefore King of the People's Republic of China. My most reliable heat source is a space heater I bought from Tesco yesterday. It cost me 28 Yuan (about $4.50) and does a very good job heating the 3 feet around my head. I keep it right next to my face at night while I sleep. I think that's why I woke up to the smell of burnt hair this morning. My surroundings are squalid, but I couldn't be happier. I roll with a pretty peppy bunch here at ILP. I get along with almost everyone here; it's in my nature to be social. My happiness comes not from the people I am with, but mostly from all the foreign experiences I am having. Even though some things about China are strange, and even depressing, I'm enjoying everything. Every day, I eat 2 meals out of a tin bowl with tin chopsticks. I don't know what the food is. I don't ask. I just eat. It doesn't taste good, and it looks even worse, but I still get seconds. I would never do that in America. I bought some food at Tesco. Western-ish stuff. For example, I got a bag of what I though was beef jerky. It had a picture of meat and a campfire. Pretty self explanatory. This was a terrible falsehood. When I opened the pack, I was assaulted by a smelly brown substance that had never been anything even resembling meat. It was sitting in a broth. Further investigation informed me that the substance was "100% (Chinese characters). Obviously, I have no idea what that means. It could be 100% Angus Beef or 100% cat poop and I would be none the wiser. Part of the appeal of beef jerky is its versatility. Meaning that I can eat with my hand, directly from the bag, in my bed. My bed, which appears deceptively comfortable, literally has no mattress. It is actually a raised platform made of wooden boards. Yet every night, I pull a blanket up to my chin, and let the Tesco heater do the rest. My toilet is a hole in the ground. In the same area where I shower. My shower is filthy, yet I bathe in it every day. I brought Irish Spring, a strong-scented soap, fully prepared for the stankiness I would encounter in China. Little did I know, the water stinks too. I could shower in Chanel No. 5 and when I rinse, I will smell like the Yellow River, just like everyone else. I brush my teeth with bottled water. There are no garbage cans in the entire People's Republic. Also, there is not a great deal of soap. The filthiness of it all would make my mother perpetually vomit. The people? They're actually great. I am a celebrity here, finally. My height and Whiteness make me quite the public figure. I want to subtly convince the Chinese that I am in the NBA. In the event I am challenged to show my basketball skillz, I will politely decline, pointing out that my ankles aren't insured in the Pacific Rim. People stared at me while I shopped yesterday. An older man even followed me around for a few minutes. People peered into my cart, wondering what foreigners required for sustenance. The coolest part is that they will often buy the exact same thing as me. This level of emulation is undeserved, unprecedented, and perfectly awesome. Everyone is friendly. As I was browsing the milk tea section, a woman advertising Lipton came up to me and gave me her schpiel. In Chinese. "Rfbgoodafbjn-ednboldknsl sldvnkljnfb. Anhgvosfnbofhb owsofbosfn bjsfbondojbnso spdknspng. UJiosfnbgnlskns sdoijngonsobg." This continued for about 2 or 3 minutes. Apparently at no point did she see or understand that my pallid face and English stammerings that I don't speak annny Chinese. I eventually picked up her box, said "xia xia" (or however you spell "thank you" in Chinese) and sped away ashamed. 1.25 liters of vodka, at 5.80 Yuan (about 75 cents) was cheaper than juice (9.90 Yuan or about $1.50). Milk is about $10 (65 Yuan) and comes in small boxes. There is basically no cheese. And driving? Fugged about it. It's a disaster. One girl in our group got hit by a couple of dudes on a motorcycle on our first day. (She's fine, of course) Drivers honk to remind people they are on the road, that's it. And there are a surprising amount of expensive, foreign cars here. It's odd to me to see a Mercedes at a stoplight while on the other side of the street, a toothless man is urinating on the sidewalk. But I guess that how it goes here. And I am both impressed and horrified by the lack of "pansification" here in China. For example, there are no wet floor signs, no smoke detectors, no health codes, minimal indoor heating (you can even see your breath in Tesco) and no FDA. It's nice that the government here actually believes people have common sense, but I am used to being warned- the coffee with steam billowing from it may be hot. A recently mopped floor is wet, and so on. I've actually adapted to some of the nuances of Asian culture I once considered ridiculous. The best example is the slipper. In Tennessee I go barefoot (shocker) and only put shoes on outside. In China? I have a ridiculous circus of shoes. Immediately after stepping into my apartment, off go the shoes, and straight into slippers. A trip to the bathroom requries a seperate pair (I'm not about to track squatter water all over my house) and the only time I am barefoot is in bed. I used to laugh internally at the slipper, thinking it was a ridiculous, complicated and outmoded tradition. Now I understand that people just don't want poopy water on the floor of their home. This seems reasonable. Shanghai is a grand ol place too. Twice the size of New York, and still no one will take my American Express. Really, China? Really? Pull it together soon, please. I want to like you, I really do.