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Meeting people is insanely easy here.

If you’re a foreigner, people are drawn to you. They’re curious. Especially girls. I have gotten more stares and more questions from women than I have from anyone else.

Frequent waves, frequent hellos, and all around good hospitality, it’s a far cry from the reception many receive in the States. Rather than go through illustration after illustration, I’ll stop at the first one:

The well-known bars here in Wuhan play host to a lot of foreigners. Places like Blue Sky Café and The Vox have a large number of laowai, along with the native Chinese and are purported to play host to a number of Christians looking to set their ideas afloat in a sea where they usually sink.

KTV Bars differ. KTV Bars are Karoake Bars. Indeed, KTV = Karaoke Television. “Box Party”, a bar owned by a Chinese guy named nicknamed Bear, is one such place. One of the British teachers, Gerald, is friends with him, and as such, we get discounts on drinks and access to his many friends.

To meet local Chinese people, go to a KTV Bar and avoid the laowai hangouts. Avoid the laowai hangouts anyways. They’re far too western. You’re here to experience China, aren’t you?

I spent last Friday night at Box Party. Me, Rob, Gerald, and a Canadian named Paul. When we get there, Paul overhears that it’s 28 RMB all you can drink.

“Don’t tell me that,” he says, and proceeds to prove why. Bottle after bottle falls empty while I slowly sip on my first one and observe.

I observe some Chinese girls playing pool and some Asian guys sitting on the couches while a couple makes out near a drum stand missing its drummer and the local DJ plays a bewildering variety of music. I swear, we must’ve heard everything from boy bands to hardcore rap to a rousing techno piece whose chorus went “If you’re feeling [], put my dick in your head”.

A pretty deep commitment, if I do say so myself.

One of the Asian guys comes over and stares. Fine. As an awkward white guy in a land of Asians, I’m used to it. The long stares, the short stares, the smiles and random ‘hellos’, I have no issue with it.

So I sip on my drink until he greets me, a soft ‘hello’. I greet him back and he sways a bit. A little too much to drink? In English broken by bad teaching and filtered through an alcohol soaked net, he informs me that he’s Mongolian. I make a few comments, he nods and smiles, and I wander over to play darts.

He follows. We play darts for awhile and I return to the bar, where Rob and Gerald are talking to a artsy Chinese girl. Art student black overalls, white shirt, a beret, and huge earrings, I smile at her and turn and lift my bottle.

Through it, I see my Mongolian friend. He sways again and leans in to share a little secret.

“I have too much drunk.”

I nod and smile. Then he shares another secret.

“I hate Chinese.”

He gives the finger to a small statue.

“Fuck them.”

Flipping off a statue. Indeed, he has too much drunk.

Mongolian China-Hater wanders off and Gerald introduces me to the artsy girl. A little conversation and a lot of smiling ensues where she confirms my initial suspicions: she is an art teacher.

We talk some more, she asks for my number. I have no phone, so I offer my email instead, and I say something that she doesn’t quite understand. Is it time to break out that beginner’s Chinese?

No. She pulls out her phone and searches the word, gets the Chinese translation. A nod and another smile follow, the cute, interested smile. Pretty eyes, a cute sense of fashion, she spends the rest of the night beside me talking. The communication is sparse, but she asks me what my schedule is and we set up a lunch meeting for the beginning of the week.

I knew some Chinese girls liked to talk to Western guys, but I expected nothing like this. She was completely into me, and we barely talked. We barely could talk.

Tomorrow I’m meeting her at noon for lunch. I’ll let you know how it goes.

>Monday I began teaching in Concentration Camp.

Not my first naming choice. Not my last either, “English Concentration Camp” is the name for the four-week intensive course for postgraduates, or as most prefer to call it, “Concentration Camp”.

Kind of makes you wonder how intense it is.

Concentration Camp. At dinner last week, our program head, Tyler, described the intensive program to me and seven Chinese English teachers. His opening line? “The way I run concentration camp is…”

I looked around the room. No one batted an eye. He just said he runs concentration camp. Okay. What’s for dinner?

I began to wonder if these adorable Chinese girls know what a concentration camp is. Listening to them say it unsettles me a bit. Is this some kind of twisted joke on them? Or does he really believe “English Concentration Camp” is the best name? Most people prefer simply “Concentration Camp”. They see “English” as superfluous.

How? How can he not know the negative connotation? How can anyone? It takes what, a minimum education level of high school to get it? Did it go like this: “It’s a camp where they will concentrate on learning English. Eureka!!”

Each day lasts eight-hours with a few ten-minute breaks and one lunch break. I assisted Christie on Monday, and how did I assist? I answered questions. I endured long stares.

And I corrected all their English. They don’t call me a Foreign Expert for nothing.

The girls are good teachers and hard-workers. They put a lot of effort into crafting well-done PowerPoint slides full of movie clips, pictures, and stunning examples of useful English. Plus, they’re extremely friendly and helpful. I cannot compliment them enough.

They go by English names, as do all the students. I don’t know why. I guess we all suck at pronouncing Chinese. Or maybe it’s part of the westernization of the Middle Kingdom. Regardless, the students choose their names from two lists, one marked Common Boy’s Names, the other marked Common Girl’s names.

Among these names? Trapper. Chili. For the students who want to stand out. Dare to be different.

Christie took roll and announced some class rules. Aside from the standard “pay attention”, she added an addendum to “be on time”: any late student will have to explain their tardiness to the whole class. Whether it’s enforced or not, I don’t know. No one is late.

Which brings me to my next point: the students are very well-behaved. Yes, they sometimes talk a lot. Yes, some of them text, some an obscene amount, but there is no backtalk. No major disruptions. No one really misbehaves.

What I have done so far involved standing there, explaining certain concepts, and explaining my origins to a less than captive audience. It might be that they did not understand my English, but Neyland Stadium’s 106,000 seating capacity did not thrill them. I’m willing to bet it’s Neyland’s fault, not mine.

Today differed a little bit. Rebecca, a teacher and an interpreter, came down with that condition that hits a lot of women: pregnancy. Knocked-up and out of commission for an indefinite period of time, we reshuffled the schedule to put me and another American in control of a class this morning.

The topic was directions. I prepared a small PowerPoint, and as I did, I began to appreciate all the work the local teachers put in. Note that they do not get paid as much as I do, and yet here they are, doing more work, paying rent and other living expenses I don’t have to bother with.

Monday, Christie used a good game to help teach them the days of the week. I can best describe it like this: seven students stand in front of the room, each representing a day of the week. One student says the name of his day and the word “down” at each. He repeats, and at each repetition, he kneels down and springs up. At end, he says another day, and if that student does not move on time or says the wrong day, he’s out.

Don’t let me description mislead you. It was lots of fun.

The long hours and the style of teaching demands a lot of energy. I have been getting little sleep and consuming large amounts of instant coffee and cola to help compensate. This is in addition to working on these columns and other projects.

Come to think of it, I wouldn’t even blame the style of teaching. Teaching well requires a lot, more than most people give them credit for. I am completely exhausted, so I will put it plainly and simply: I respect anyone who cares to do it well, for I now have a small taste of what they go through.

Next week: more on teaching, maybe some on social life among the expats

>I got to the airport, little sleep in my 23 hour journey. I stalked about to my luggage, a hungover coma patient birthed from a drowsy womb, and through dreary lenses I see my name on a small slip of paper, the other American and two Chinese girls to pick me up.

They led us to a van whose driver helped us with ours bags. We all jumped in.

Humid heat everywhere. Either there was no AC or it simply doesn’t exist. No cold air in the car, just the wind when we moved, and as the van pulled from the parking lot and approached the exit, I noticed three cars moving toward it as well, and pedestrians jerking about in aimless motions, and it was here that I first met Chinese Driving.

He did not stop. He did not slow. He slammed on his horn and blew past them.

I wish I could document the number of people we almost hit. Pedestrian right-of-way does not exist. Here the very real threat of being run over cures all jaywalking attempts.

I wish I could document the number of near accidents, but I can tell you about that stretch where the road lacked lanes and cars bobbed in between each other but never touched, like some choreographed vehicular dance.

I wish I could document the number of horn honks I heard. It’s a language consisting of a single-phrase, the translation depending on the context. Usually it means ‘get the hell out of my way’. Perhaps ‘move please’ if they wish to be polite, but nothing about that high-pitched thunderclap seems polite to me.

Foreign students arriving at UT hail a cab and pay the fare to campus, a ‘How’s My Driving?’ sticker providing safe passage to a dorm that they share with two or three other students. We got our hellish ride to the apartment for free, a rent-free place full of luxuries.

Such as a toilet seat.

Chinese toilets demand the squat method. While not quite the hole in the ground that you might expect, it is far from comfortable to use, and as for toilet paper on the premise, forget about it. Bring your own or improvise.

My apartment contains a Western toilet, that is, the toilet we find in North America complete with a seat. A luxury, a reward for the foreign teacher coming here to share his innate expertise.

That’s not all my apartment has. I get this rent-free, freshly renovated place full of new items. New bed, new television, new phone, new furniture, new toilet, new refrigerator, two new air conditioners, and a new computer, complete with Office 2003. Seems they hate Office 2007 too, and for good reason: it sucks. Sometimes you don’t need a real argument. A simple “it sucks” will suffice.

I live on what my foreign affairs officer called the “old” campus. Looking at the other doors, I see what she means, but nothing in my apartment meets the criteria for old. The local supermarket, appropriately named ‘Supermarket’, sells electric water machines, of the type you find at summer camp. A typical machine runs a lot of RMB. Me? I arrived to find one in the corner of the foyer, filled to the brim, near the brand-new LG Washing Machine.

After taking in my apartment, my foreign affairs officer and two other Chinese paid for a cab to take us down the street to a nice restaurant where we held out welcome dinner. They paid for our dinner as well.

I cannot guarantee similar treatment if you decide to do this, but you must understand that as a foreign teacher, your skills are valuable. Specifically, you are a Foreign Expert here in China. You are giving your expertise to the local students. Welcome aboard.

How much expertise? Today they gave the other American books and a vague schedule. He’s teaching tomorrow. Welcome aboard and godspeed.

A warm welcome softens the culture shock. Thus far, they have done just that, but it is not completey gone. Not now. Not in the future either. I have comforts both expected and unexpected. My salary is more than that of the local teachers’, and some of these things I am used to, some I am not, some I take for granted, and some I do not.

While here, it is important not to let the comforts of home make you behave as if you were at home. See anything different? See an opportunity? Then take it. Be thankful and happy, but make the most of your time abroad.

After all, it’s all you really have to work with.

Next week: teaching English and touring Wuhan.

>Thanks to a change in airlines from American to Air China, I had to bypass the security checkpoint and get my tickets from the Air China booth. No one told me this. The airline official looked at my electronic tickets and shrugged and said “I don’t know”. No condolences. Not even a fucking well-wish or an educated guess (though here we might delete ‘educated’). Hell, I would have been okay with a simple “good luck”.

Twas 8:15 pm PST, and no one stood behind the Air China booth. So I waited an hour, a white guy among Chinese, a minority among a majority, a prelude for the census to come. Finally they showed up to work and after another hour, I grabbed my tickets and headed back through security.

Since I had not acquired any automatic weapons or bombs during transit, I breezed through security. As I staggered towards Gate 27, my stomach overtook me and led me to the first restaurant in sight: a Burger King.

I know airport shops suffer from severe inflation. I also know the cost of living in Los Angeles is higher than say, Springfield TN, but no amount of knowledge prepared me for seeing a value meal at $10.

10 bucks for a burger, fries, and a coke. Why not include a side of crack?

Behind the counter stands a guy who looks like Carlos Mencia’s rejected twin brother. The one who lost the parental coin toss. I step up to the counter and he looks to his side and utters rather loudly, “Man my culo’s really itching.”

He starts scratching his ass.

And I don’t mean a light scratch. This isn’t one cheek or the other or both. No, his fingers plunge in deep and plumbs around lower depths, a harsh wince on his face all the while.

He looks to me, a yearning for swift healing. I refrain from helping. Others may have offered a helping hand.

I am not that altruistic. Sorry.

>I took an inventory of what I packed. Remembering the hell that was my arrival in Paris over a year ago, I aimed for light.

Clothes: 7 pairs of jeans, 14 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of shoes, 9 pairs of boxers, 11 shirts total, and 1 pair of glasses, no spare, no contacts.

Toiletries: comb, brush, toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, body wash, deodorant and shampoo/conditioner.

Movies: King of the Hill Seasons 2, 3, and 4 DVD The Simpsons Season 5 DVD, The X-Files Season 1 DVD, Aliens, Pulp Fiction, Dumb & Dumber and Rammstein: Live in Nimes.

Books: Already read—The Alchemist, Blood Meridian, Fight Club, When Will Jesus Bring the, Pork Chops, Brain Droppings, Misery, Ender’s Game, Moderato Cantabile, Man’s Search for Meaning. Unread– The War of Art, Parliament of Whores, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Genghis Khan: The Making of the Modern World, The 33 Strategies of War, The 48 Laws of Power, Me Talk Pretty One Day

Video Games: none. I planned on bringing Knights of the Old Republic, but it’s too engrossing.

Electronics: Laptop, 160 Gig IPod, Casio Exilim Camera

Electronic Accessories: Laptop power cord, headphones, IPod charger cord, Camera Battery charger, 2 Gig thumb drive, and Learn Chinese CD-ROM.

Miscellaneous: a pink highlighter, and a pen from Quality Metal Stamping, Henderson, TN.

Believe me, I went light on the books. If I had the room, I’d take a lot more than that.

Do you pack just enough to get by or what makes you feel at home? I’d say both. Home is a strange concept to me anyway. If we accept that the concept of Home is synonymous with Sanctuary (or close enough), then I have not had a Home in quite some time. I have had Places where I stay. Stay a little while, move on to the next place, rinse, repeat, but never dry.

After eleven moves as a kid and a semester abroad, I am a bit accustomed to leaving everything behind for awhile. It’s not easy, though. I don’t think it is easy for anyone. For a few rare cases, it is, but wherever you stay for awhile, you will find reasons to stay longer, and to leave these reasons is to risk losing them forever.

Everything changes. Everything ends. By changing, you postpone the end. By not changing, you beckon it to come. We change, but we change apart and meet again as strangers, our bond a flimsy one forged by memories and the hope that the present can match the past in our heads. The idealized past that is.

That’s what homesickness is: a longing for an idealized version of the past. You recognize the good parts, but instead of stopping there, you allow the good aspects to swarm over and consume reality, and as a result, you find yourself longing for times that were nowhere near as great.

You see it regularly. Not just in travel. Abused wives return to their husbands. A man goes back to a job he hates. You reaccept friends because of what they were rather than what they are. In travel, someone studies abroad and returns home early. Someone else doesn’t even get on the plane while another person feels the urge to go but silences it hastily.

It’s the idealized past. It’s their “reasons” for staying, that they transform into myths that propagate as truths. I am guilty of it too. And not just in travel, but in general. People allow things to tie them down, all centered around one feeling: fear. They fear suffering. In The Alchemist, an amazing book that I highly recommend to everyone, this quote sums it up perfectly:

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”

It’s hard to say. Hard to do. But worth it every time.

I sit and type this in Hodges Library. I left home for Knoxville on Thursday. It was early in the morning—a five hour drive between here and there now there and here—when we loaded up and I said my goodbyes.

My sister hugged me and told me she loved me. She appeared ready to cry, but she held back. I almost did, but I have the well-honed strategy of making nervous comments to conceal my feelings. I made one that I cannot recall, and hugged the rest of my family. As I stepped out the door, I looked back to her, and I smiled and waved.

I miss them already. It will grow worse, but it will not consume me. Others? It depends.