Even though they threatened punishment for accidentally breaking the law, the police still let me go on with my life without throwing
me in jail right away. I think they were still trying to decide what they wanted to do to me without making any hasty decisions. One thing
they did do right away was black-list me all across the country to keep me from getting another teaching job. Ashish said, “Why did they do
that? That is like something to do to a criminal.” I should have known it was too easy. Just go to another country and suddenly I’m a
teacher? It all made sense now, why I always had a strange feeling in the office like there was some dangerous secret that I should know
about, and why my old boss David started sweating when I said I was going to the PSB station to get another travel visa. I was smart enough
to avoid trouble the first time with Daler at the summer camps the previous summer, but I got caught this time because I was in too deep
without even knowing exactly what was going on. Since the police were holding my passport, I couldn’t leave the country, and I couldn’t
seek out a new job. I was stuck in limbo until something happened to change the situation outside of what I was capable of.
The human resources representative at Bluniverse, the school I was supposed to be teaching for, had the responsibility of negotiating with
the police to somehow work out a deal for me, but something about the situation wasn’t adding up right. The human resources
representative told me that everything was alright, and it was ok for me to pick up my passport from the police station, but when I would go
to the police station with Nina, the police had something different to say about it. I went back and forth between them several times in just
a week or two. I talked with some of my friends about my situation, and they said the school would have a huge fine of about 50,000 yuan
if they tried to hire someone without teaching certification, so they thought Bluniverse was trying to avoid responsibility and deny any
involvement with me. I met my friend James from Africa at The Revolutionary Bar one night, and he told me he had the same problem
once. He said, “I went to the police station and begged them to give me my passport back and they gave it to me. You should do what you
have to do to get yours back.” But I told him, “No. I’m not going to beg them for my passport. It might be more comfortable than going to
prison or something, but I can’t do that.”
       My friend Eric from Hollywood wasn’t having such a great time either. He recently lost his bar, The Long Bar, because his business
partners cheated him and somehow kicked him out of the business. They must have wanted him to jumpstart the business by reopening the
place and acquainting a lot of foreigners and other people with the place, and then trash him when they were finished using him. When I
first met him, he told me, “Best place to be in the world right now is China.” But I’m guessing he wasn’t exactly feeling so excited about it
right now. Neither was I. I came to the country as a volunteer to try to help a country that seemed like it might have needed help, and now
I had some kind of punishment to look forward to just because of that.
       Anyways, I still continued with my life, trying to pretend that I wasn’t in any kind of danger. My old student Qi Sheng and his friend
Squall and I went out to the bar one night to meet our friend Nancy. It was at a place called the Night Cat Club. The place was very dark
like most of the other bars I had been to. There was a ring of booths around a dance floor in the middle where no one seemed to be
dancing even though the music was playing, and there were also some other tables where groups of people could sit down. There were
two other people besides my friends that I didn’t know. One of them was a university student named Jing Jing, and the other guy didn’t
speak any English, though he seemed friendly enough. It was my second time to drink with Qi Sheng. Even though he was only 17, there
was no law prohibiting him and his friend from being there. After drinking and talking with my friends for a while, Nancy seemed to be
getting a little drunk. While we were both standing up, she leaned over against me and started embracing me, and then mentioned
something about going somewhere else with me. I was very surprised because I thought she was just my friend. She never even gave a sign
before that she liked me. Then the other guy named Jing Jing said something to her in Mandarin, and then before long, Nancy went
quickly out of the door of the bar. We all followed her outside. When we got into the parking lot, Jing Jing put his hands on my shoulders
and looked straight at me and said, “What the Hell happened in there?” I just looked back at him and said, “What are you talking about???”
Then Jing Jing ran after Nancy as she was by now on the other side of the parking lot about to go onto the street yelling some angry words
at her, and then I began to understand what was happening. I guess Jing Jing had some feelings for her, and he got angry when he saw
Nancy and I together, but it was no fault of mine. It was a big commotion, and there was a lot of running around. Nancy jumped into a taxi
and went somewhere, and I followed Qi Sheng and Squall to a hospital nearby on foot trying to do I don’t know what. Neither of them were
being very straight with me about what was happening. Then they both got into a taxi and said they’d be back, but I waited for a while and
started thinking they weren’t going to come back. The other guy who couldn’t speak English was still around, so he and I just took a taxi and
went to the Revolutionary Bar and had a few more beers and then we both went home. My head was still spinning, and it wasn’t from the
beers.
       I don’t know for sure if it was my imagination or what, but there was something strange happening in our apartment in these days.
While I was sleeping one night, I was about half asleep, and I felt something, as though two hands were touching me as I slept on my side
trying to rock me back and forth. I woke up completely and turned around, but I didn’t see anyone, just Umesh and Rashes sleeping in the
other bed on the other side of the room. No one can move that fast without making noise, so I know it wasn’t either of them. I thought it
must have been a dream and went back to sleep. A few days later, the same exact thing happened again, and I turned to look quickly, and
for less than a second, I thought I saw a woman wearing some long old clothes standing in front of me, but it disappeared from my vision
quickly. This is when I started to think that maybe I wasn’t dreaming anymore, so I told Umesh about it. He understood what I was saying to
him, but he said nothing like that happened to him while he was in the apartment. But one day, a week later or so, he told me something
strange happened to him. He said he was sleeping one night and had a dream. In the dream, he was in a hallway drinking some water, and
an old woman walked past him. After she passed him, she turned back and walked up to him and got in his face quickly and looked very
hideous. After that, he woke up, and said that he felt like someone was trying to pull him off the bed, but no one was there. He had to hold
onto the headboard to keep from being pulled off the bed. Neither Rashes nor I heard anything while this was happening. We decided that
it might be some kind of ghost. We didn’t have any solid proof, but if there is such thing as ghosts, they wouldn’t leave any solid proof to
find anyways because they are not solid. Umesh told his girlfriend Linda about it, and the next time she came to the apartment, she
brought with her some kind of charm that is supposed to keep ghosts away. After she put the ghost repellent charm in the closet in our
room, neither of us were ever bothered in our sleep again.
       Our friend Vincent told us about some ghost stories in China after what we told him. He said sometimes a ghost will follow someone
down the street at night and chase after them. Also, in one of the buildings inside of the nearby Anhui University, some girl was killed, and
some people said they saw something there, so naturally, Minku, Vincent, Rashes and I went there one night to investigate, but we didn’t
see anything.
       There were some new foreigners in town. A couple of them were from India, Rakesh and Albert. They were studying in Armenia for a
while, but then came to China to change schools for some unknown reason. I noticed immediately that there was something dark about
Rakesh, but I had no knowledge of what could be giving me that impression of him. Albert seemed like a silly and harmless guy though,
kind of like an evil sidekick who always says, “Yes, boss.” Since Minku was going through a hard time with Darcy, he confided in Rakesh for
advice, but I was still suspicious of him. He seemed like no true humanitarian to me, but since I had no evidence of any malicious intent, I
kept silent about it.
       All of my roommates were having trouble at the School of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Not only were they promised furniture and
equipment in their apartment that was not delivered, but they were also receiving harassment from their teachers. They were together in
class with Herman from Canada dissecting dead bodies and things like that. They would always tell me that the teacher would scold them
and say things like, “I am Chinese! You must respect me!” But Umesh said, “We are lions. We are not giving in to his demands.” I could
understand their frustration because nearly everyone I had met in the teaching business there had some kind of problem about being what
I thought was too strict. Every day was a struggle for them, and they often came back in the afternoon and evening with great weight on
their shoulders. They had their own religious beliefs, and would wear some kind of string around one shoulder at the apartment and would
pray at different times of the day. Umesh had a picture of some Hindu God I wasn’t familiar with and would pray to him or her often. One
day he finished praying and said, “I don’t care.” “You don’t care about what?” I asked. “I don’t care about Chinese culture.” He said. I could
understand his frustration because I had also met a lot of people who only knew life in China and thought there was no other way to do
things than their way. Though I thought many people I had met in the country were very clever, I still have a choice of how I want to do
things for myself, and since we were not the hostile type of person, we would tolerate people’s sometimes oppressive behavior. Not by any
means was it all people who behaved that way, but sometimes the negative impacts seem magnified in one’s mind.
       On our street, there were several barbecue restaurants that stayed open until late at night. Sometimes we would go there and meet
some of our old foreigner friends there purposefully or accidentally. One night, Minku, Umesh, and I walked past the barbecue restaurant in
front of the north gate of Anhui University, and some of my friends whom I had not seen for a while were there on the sidewalk eating.
During working hours, on the opposite side of the street next to the front gate, there is a stand that serves a kind of food called “smelly tofu”.
I didn’t realize it was food that smelled that way at first, and I was wondering who left the bathroom door open. But some people tell me
that regardless of the smell, it still tastes good. Big Bernd from Germany, Alex from Ukraine, Eliezer and his friend Alex from Bulgaria, and
Elvis and Rodney from Cameroon were there at the small barbecue restaurant. This is basically what was left of the great big group we
once had. There was also another tall and skinny Russian guy with blonde hair running around on the street trying to get the Chinese
motorcycle taxi-drivers to let him drive their motorcycles. He had a strange look in his eyes, as though so many experiences with drugs had
left him permanently stranded in another place mentally. Every time a driver came by, he would run into the street and try to stop them,
and we all laughed at his efforts. I could hear Bernd talking to Alex across the table from him. “After the New Year, it never was Hefei
again. Now all we have is this cup of s@$* we’re left with.” Though this year was much more exciting to me than the previous year because
of all my foreigner friends I had known, a part of me had to agree with him. There definitely was something lost since 2006 began, but
there was no way to pinpoint exactly what that was since we were all living in a big city that was still largely unknown to us in many ways.
Elvis and Rodney were glad to see me after not seeing them for a long time. “Brother, how you been?” Elvis said as we shook hands like
American street friends. Actually, Elvis was quite familiar with American culture it seemed from the kind of music he listened to and what
he knew about American values. One time we laughed about a song by 50 Cent. Elvis said, “In the song, 50 Cent says something like, ‘We
both got shot, but the other guys not breathin’. I’m here for a real reason.’ Aren’t we all here for a reason?” and we both laughed about that.
Rodney came up to me and said, “I heard about your visa problem. But you can tell them something to get it back. You got the Black in
you, so I know you can make up some stories. Then you can go to Hong Kong or Guangzhou and get another visa and stay here and
teach.” “Rodney.” I said. “If the truth can’t take me there, then I don’t want to go there.” “Alright.” He said. Alex was still the same guy, sort of
bungling his way through life in China. The last time I saw him was about a month earlier when a group of us went to a bar known as The
Babi Club between The Spanish Habana and 39 degrees. Alex, Unicorn, a couple of the others and I went there at Alex’s request, but no
one was there. Unicorn, his good friend, was very annoyed by his decision. “Alex. You are so f&@#* stupid! Why did you bring us to this
place???” He said while we were riding in the taxi to find another place. “I saw……..one girl in there.” Alex said as he tried to defend
himself. “So what???? You are so f*#$@@$ stupid!!!! I can’t believe how stupid you are!” Unicorn replied. After we finished eating lamb
kebobs and other vegetables, Umesh, Minku, and I said goodbye to our friends. As Bernd shook my hand, he said, “Yes. And it was very
good to see you again.”, since he and I had a history of strange encounters with each other in this city.
       Rae came back from Xi An to Hefei for the summer holiday. She helped me go to the police station one day when I needed to talk to
the police about my passport, but she upset me. In the parking lot as we walked past the old club Best Beautiful on the Walking Street on
our way to the PSB office just on the other side of the parking area, an old man said something to her and she translated it for me. The old
man asked her where I was from, and the old man replied after getting her answer, “Americans like to discriminate against Chinese people.”
I told her to ask him, “Do you think all Americans do that?” But she wouldn’t translate it for me. “Why not? You told me what he said, but
you won’t tell him what I said?” “He’s Chinese. I can’t say that to him.” She said. That seemed kind of like a sell-out thing to do to a friend.
One evening, I went with her to buy some food for her brother because he was at school and was not permitted to leave. Sometimes even
middle school students and high school students have to live at the school. We went shopping at a grocery store and bought some chicken
for him at KFC before we visited him at his school. Afterwards, we went to visit Candy and Angel after I had not seen them for about nine
months. I told Rae to apologize to Candy for me since I stopped coming, even thought it was actually them who stopped having class, and
she said, “Meiguanxi”, which means “never mind” or “forget about it.” Their twin cousins that I used to teach had since gone back to Korea.
Living in Hefei was never easy since I couldn’t understand the language and sometimes couldn’t understand other people’s minds. It
seemed like me and a lot of other people I knew were going through rough times contrary to how the rest of the year had been, and the
problems weren’t finished yet.
China Dispatch/Andrew Gramling
Ghosts and old friends