Bayuquan, 2005

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 10:12:36 +0200

interviews

I have salvaged some interviews and articles from the old website concerning some of the rather nice people I met in Bayuqyan and what we got up to.

02 Dave Goodman-Smith was quite posh, very friendly to all and had recently been the victim of a haircut that left him looking like a World War II fighter pilot. He talks about his reasons for coming to the a "podunk" town.

03 Dave Gerow was my genial Canadian flatmate, ridiculosity detector and fellow short-story writer. He once knocked on our frontdoor in the night, in his boxer shorts, and unsure how he'd got there. He regails Kathy with tales of his hellish experience living with me.

04 Judy Gua kindly took me to the hospital a couple of times to have microwave treatment on my knee. I first met her in a furniture shop and did my best to ignore her. Later on, she and Dave Goodman-Smith opened a bar together.

05 The lovely Kathy Mutchler was the acme of ditzy innocence, but she took a transvestite orgy at her house in her stride. I lied about the orgy bit but I believe she would have been ok with it. Here she talks about the joys of teaching those cute little monsters, Chinese children.

articles

06 You can judge the size of Chinese cities by how many American fast food restaurants they have and Bayuquan had none. Here I look at what lay further afield.

07 This mini-magazine wouldn't really be complete without a look at at the people of Bayuquan.

Thinkself-deprecating, gentle giant rather than cold-shouldering toff and you've got this affable Marlboroughian down pat. He likes to claim humble beginnings but his mater has digs in the King's road and his step-grandmother had a shrub named after her. Add to that a top-drawer public school education and a unique way of pronouncing Dalian and you begin to realise that if not exactly born with a silver spoon in his mouth he's probably never sung carols with children from the local council estate either. Hong Kong doesn't have any.

'It's like some frontier town type- thing....bleak.' Dave remarks as we approach the Bank of China cash machine. It's getting dark and the autumn air stirs a little. The weather is not unlike it would be in southern England at this time, except the wind is noticeably sharper. I couldn't imagine why a TEFL graduate with a choice in the matter would choose Bayuquan so here I am, having the blanks filled in for me. Time is precious, soI snatch the interview in Dave's flat and in a massage parlour. The photos are taken inbetween, in a hair salon.

Why Bayuquan?

I didn't want a big city because of the trouble I'd get into and the money I'd spend. I'd end up in the expat community just because I like chatting to people and end up liking them inevitably...I'd end up speaking no Chinese. I figured if I came to a tiny little Chinese town with only seven foreigners I could get much more involved in the Chinese way of life and the language and concentrate on being a good teacher...well pretending to be. Rather than being out 'til the early hours. Obviously that's all completely backfired. That's a bit of a lie actually. I have saved some money.

What have you possibly got to complain about?

Loads of rubbish. I haven't got a towel. I can't communicate with anyone...that's my own fault so I can't get too upset about it. Teaching can be a nightmare when you have bratty kids but you forget about it ten minutes after the lesson so that's alright. I haven't seen my girlfriend in a year. That's a bit shitty.

Sitting here in a dingy flat in a Chinese boom-town. Does it seem like the fulfilment of some teenage dream?

Rather embarassingly, yes. Since about 17 or 18 I've wanted to get out here. I put it off for so many years. Now that I'm here in some crap little podunk town, I'm pretty pumped about the whole thing even though any sane person that comes here will tell you that there's absolutely nothing to be excited about...

You recently got yourself a second job as a barman...

I think barman is stretching my terms of employment.

How would you describe it?

Social whoring. I'm there to chat to people that want to speak English. Now I keep the engineers company when everyone else has got drunk.

" We're all dorks, the sooner you come to terms with it, the better I think."

Do you fancy any of your students?

No, of course not. I'm a professional (Smirk)..... Not ones that are available. How about that?

Do you think everybody is interesting?

It takes a hell of alot for someone not to be but I'm sure there's a few knocking about. I like dorks because they have something interesting about them. We're all dorks, the sooner you come to terms with it, the better I think.

You went for a night out in Dalian recently. What did you get upto?

I was very drunk actually. I tried to direct the taxi back to Bayuquan. I don't remember it actually. It never took off really. No I guess it did. It took us about three hours to find something. What do you reckon the biggest towel I can buy is?

October 2005

Dave has been my flatmate for the last few months and naturally we've got to know eachother quite well. This has led to me realising that I don't explain myself clearly and constantly repeat myself when talking about something, long after Dave has got the point. And that Dave probably watches too much tv. Which is bad for me, because if there's a tv on I can't help but stare at it. Unless it's CCTV9. Yes sir, I can turn that off. Sometimes. Dave, if you are reading this, or admiring the photos, thank you for putting up with me. I'm sure having me as a flatmate was a mixed blessing but I hope it wasn't as hard as those mattresses we were provided with.

Kathy: What's it like living with James?

Dave: Well, to describe day to day life with James, it would certainly sound like he is a bad roommate and this is not a joke.

Kathy: You don't have to talk so slowly.

Dave: That's the pain killers speaking. James keeps tighty whities strewn around the apartment. He uses the washing machine as the hamper, so if I want to use the washing machine I have to remove all his dirty laundry. When I am watching a film and I do perhaps watch too many films, he provides a running commentary sometimes relating to the film, sometimes to this world and sometimes not.

Kathy: So I heard James likes to record dreams?

Dave: Yes, James has me record dreams into his minidisc recorder, it's interesting for me too.

Kathy: Yeah, how so?

Dave: It's interesting to talk about my dreams. It's interesting to talk into a minidisc. That's even better. Oh, in the morning when James wakes up he makes loud moaning and groaning noises that often jostle me out of slumber.

James: That's not true.

Dave: No, it is. It's like this, [makes a loud noise]

Kathy: So does James have any hidden secrets etc?

Dave: I don't think James has any secrets. If you ask James about anything he will tell you at length. Often if you don't ask James about something he will talk in even greater length.

Kathy: Sounds like a good conversationalist.

Dave: That sounds like a good conversationalist?

Kathy: Well, a one sided conversation.

Dave: Yeah, it's really up to me to reply. James is...I've been ill very little, but one night I was violently ill and I must say, James, his maternal side comes out when someone is ill. He is quite caring when someone is ill.

Kathy: So was he patting your back and stuff?

Dave: Oh no, he didn't touch me! But he did offer me things and I accepted them. Like water and sympathetic glances, and went to the store to buy me some things, but I think he might have been going to the store anyway; but I believe even if he hadn't been going he would have gone anyway.

Kathy: Anything more you want to add about-

David: Debodalair

Kathy: Yes.

Dave: No, I have nothing further to add because my pizza should be done and I need to go claim it. Oh yes, and often when he shaves he doesn't rinse the little hairs out of the sink.

James: I do!

Dave: I said sometimes you do.

James: No you said often.

Dave: I shave once a week.

James: My hair grows quite quick.

Dave: You can't say that.

James: Yes you can because the Americans say it and this is an American English training center.

This interview was typed by Kathy Mutchler. It's 95 % accurate. (Kathy: James, you're a tool! Was your interview with Dave completely accurate? James: It probably was actually. I'm a fast typer.)

James: What are you doing now Judy?

Judy: I'm talking with you, with James.

James: Ok. And what are you going to do after that?

Judy: I will go to David birthday party in Dadao.

James: Are you feeling self-conscious?

Judy: Er self-conscious....er self-concert means, you know, clean concert.

James: Are you worrying what I think about you?

Judy: Not exactly. Maybe I'm worried my colleague you know think about me. We didn't see eachother very often so and you will come back soon so. Can that be a good reason?

James: Sounds fine to me.

Judy: How about you? Are you feeling self-conserce?

James: Self-conscious? I'm too busy typing. I hear you're going to Australia soon.

Judy: Yeah, I think so.

James: What are yougoing to dothere?

Judy: See my brother, visit and see what's going on there, maybe.

James: You look very swish in your leather boots and jacket.

Judy: What's swish mean?

James: It means stylish.

Judy: I think maybe that's a good word, right? So I should say thank-you, right?

James: Judy, you're cheating, you're reading what I'm typing.

Judy: So you mean I shouldn't read when you are typing, is that your meaning?

James: Well, I'm worried you'll make less mistakes and am beginning to like you for your mistakes.

Judy: Thank you, it's my pleasure. I should say I'm flattered, is that a good sentence? I mean, right one? I'm flattered is right one, in this situation?

At this point, David Gerow came along and looked at the computer screen.

David: Maybe he's a wanker. You know wanker? It's British slang, it means a bad person. You know jackass? James is a..(says something in Chinese).

Judy: No he's not.

David: Sometimes.

They're cool because they're really impressionable and they really like you. They're always like touching your hand, they attach themselves to you really quickly. I become like their surrogate mother. As soon as their mothers leave the room, that is. They always have to have an authority figure to which they kind of like, coddle. They hold my hand sort of all through class.

Oh my gosh, the most annoying thing of all is when kids are silent. I'd much rather have a rowdy class. It's impossible to teach them. Our instruction lies in repetition and their repeating after the teacher.

The parents; yes, they have to leave the room- but then they stare like hawks for two hours. They can't even hear what he's saying but just want to see him move. Then in the break they bawl at the kid if he hasn't been talking enough or was slouching.

What they really really love is board games, like snakes and ladders or tic tac toe, a game which they have to compete against eachother in. In Dave's class (Goodman Smith) they're pretty much hyper, in my class I don't want them going crazy. The classes aren't that big. There's like 3 kids. I think it's more difficult to play really active Simon says games where the energy comes from those playing with you.

Some of the kids in my Lions and Tigers class have more going on upstairs than my A+ class, which consists of twelve and thirteen year olds- who are older. I once had this girl who went into a trance in class because she couldn't get the right answer. She wasn't crying she was justly seriously having a fit. I said, ok, let's take a break. I don't know. It was kind of like....odd. And oh my gosh, the biggest pet peeve I have about those classrooms is that the chairs are horrible. Every single class three or four children fall off their chairs. They don't really hurt themselves.

We seldom get two consecutive days off in a row so three of us have hit upon a formula that makes the most of our time. If we are heading for Shenyang (the provincial capital) we take a taxi to the station after class finishes at eight and catch the 8.42 PM train- which arrives at 11.50 pm. 'We' meaning Dave Gerow (23), Dave Goodman-Smith (24) and myself (recently 29).
This means that we have a whole day and another night in hand, although admittedly by the second night I feel quite jaded. We return to Bayuquan in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Whenever we are on a train we always avail ourselves of the opportunity of socialising and messing around with those nearby. (My flatmate is a sociable and outgoing fellow and has been invited to Anshan by two different girls.) When we reach Shenyang we go out for the evening and wind up at a bathhouse at 5.00 or 6.00 AM.

All that effort to get to Shenyang, our escapades consist of us paying bemused taxi drivers in search of the ever elusive club or bar that is worth staying in for more than one drink. But even in defeat there is a strange kind of victory. In one empty bar we ended up effectively having a private party with the supposed barmaids. You would really have to be there to see it. It was a Chinese oddity. A sort of karoke room with a bar and no customers and no prospect of them, except that we turned up and bought some expensive drinks there.

Still, you can always check into a bathhouse and have a hot bath with your mates. Bathhouses are the nation's secret hotels and Dave Gerow thoughtfully provided these thoughts on them.

"A bathhouse is a usually luxurious um....place. Specifically aimed at men but often open to women also...invariably including showers, and the option of massage, often including hot tubs, little beds you can sleep on over-night, sauna, prostitution and pyjamas. You are normally required to wear special pyjamas or nothing at all during your time in the bathhouse. During a visit to a bathhouse you are served hand and foot; depending on the quality people help you dress, undress, dry-off, get wet. The way you pay for things is interesting. You don't pay for anything while you're in the bathhouse, instead you wear a bracelet with a number on it which is recorded everytime you make a purchase and then as you exit you pay for everything you've done in the bathhouse or you don't get your shoes back."

In a bathhouse in Shenyang after a pillow fight.

Dave GS joined us in August. Just before that, Dave Gerow and I visited Dalian together. It took me two months to realise that it would be worth making the trip to 'the Paris of the East'. When we finally did we were agreeably surprised by the marked contrast to Bayuquan. Dalian is a much larger and more cosmopolitan city with a Europeanesque mix of high-tech high-rise new and low-tech low-rise old buildings. It has been in the hands of the Russians and the Japanese and still has an old tram system. (UPDATE; I've been back there in 2007 and some of that charm had apparently been demolished).

The city really initially looked the part, but it turned out that our efforts to find a decent bar or club were comical. We went more recently with Dave GS, armed with advice on where to go, and most of the places were empty, the exeption being JD's and Disco No 1. The music at the latter had us in hysterics.
Yinkou is one of the less charming cities we have visited on our travels but it's the nearest and we keep returning for more punishment. If you're somehow thinking of visiting it as a tourist destination you either have very eclectic tastes or you've mistaken it for somewhere else.

A bathhouse in Yinkou.

Besides visiting cities we've often been on short-range trips in and around Bayuquan.

Dave GS had a terrible migraine, but didn't want to miss this. From left to right, Minna, me, Dave Gerow, Judy and Dave Goodman-Smith.

These include going to the beach, climbing a hill, visiting a dredger, a motorcycle tour and a trip to a glove factory- or sweatshop- as they are known in the West. And the best night out was always homegrown. The New Hong Yun.

This hotel- complete with luxury bathhouse, swimming pool, restaurant, bar, nightclub, KTV, cinema, table tennis tables, internet etc. was built for tourists that had not yet arrived in droves. Back in London a swim means sharing a changing room with rowdy school children as you fumble for your tweny pence piece and try to keep a semi while you carry your pile of clothes to a damp bench or cubicle. You've got to hand it to the Chinese. Something to do with the exchange rate, or the over abundant workforce- I don't know, but I found myself partaking in luxury I'd never known. I still feel guilt about those girls, many of whom were paid to look pretty and stand around with occasional forays into tidying slippers or selling swimming trunks.

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Bayuquan, 2005