China Dispatch/Andrew Gramling
So long, China
So long, China
Several days after The Nurse said she would ask her friend in the government if they could help me get a visa to return home
without paying a fine, she reported back that it could not be done. “My friend said he hates that when a foreigner stays in China
without a visa! He said he cannot help you!”
What these people who worked for the government didn’t seem to realize was that I wasn’t staying by choice. When someone steals
your only way out of the country, it’s not so easy to come up with a backup plan, especially when you are poor. “I will take you to the
police station and we can talk to the police together!” The nurse said. The Nurse was always very helpful to Troy and me, but any
other foreigner she was willing to rip off in any way that she could without them knowing about it.
The Nurse took me by scooter to the police station that I had gone to a week earlier with Jasmine. I heard stories about The Nurse
cursing other women out and threatening to beat them down on Nanning’s congested bike lanes when they disrespected her
personal space or cut her off, which most people think nothing about, but nothing like that happened today. That kind of aggressive
behavior The Nurse was always displaying was pretty much unheard of for a woman in China, and there was no other one like her.
She was a mad dog!
On the second floor of the police station was an office where there were a couple of police officers sitting at their desks wearing
their standard uniforms with light-blue work shirts and black slacks. One of them was the policeman who I had talked to last time
that gave me the choice of paying money or going to jail. The Nurse had a few words with him in Mandarin too quickly for me to
follow all of what they were saying, and then let me speak with him.
“You stayed past your visa expiration, so you must pay money,” he said. “Don’t you understand that my passport and plane ticket
were stolen? I couldn’t leave!”
After arguing with him for several minutes, another policeman who was more casually dressed came into the office and stood
resting his back against the wall next to the policeman I was talking to. He didn’t appear to be able to speak much English, but he
stood there listening to us.
“You are staying in China illegally! You should have left before your visa expired!” the policeman said. “I had no money to get home,
and it was too expensive for me to go to Hong Kong with what I have! What am I supposed to do? Swim?!?” I said as I started
making the action of swimming. “That’s……your business,” the policeman said as he looked behind at his comrade as they both
laughed.
Finally, another policeman came into the office. How many of these guys did it take to deal with one person? He looked like he might
have been the head policeman of this department. He was bigger and more confident than the other police officers. His English was
very good, with less of an accent than the policeman I was already speaking to.
“Andrew is good man! He never lie to anybody! He never cheat anybody! Why you cannot help he to go home?” The Nurse said. The
head policeman looked at me with penetrating vision to try to catch me slipping. “You broke the law!” he said. “Do you think I had
much of a choice?” I said. “You did not respect Chinese law, so now you must pay! Why did you wait until your time was over
before coming to the police station?” he asked. “The police in Hefei said they would not help me again. I didn’t know what I should
do at first.” “That’s not the reason!” the policeman said as he got an agitated look on his face.” “Listen, I’m not trying to cheat
anyone! I’m just trying to figure out how to deal with this situation in the best way!” I said. “I believe you….,” the policeman finally
said.
Even with The Nurse’s persuasive powers, we could not convince the police to give me a visa even though I was willing to pay for
it. In the end, I decided not to pay the fine for staying too long and tried to contact the U.S. embassy to see what they could do for me,
but it turned out to be a joke. They didn’t appear to have any policy for dealing with a situation like mine. A lot of foreigners mess
around and stay in China illegally as well as commit all kinds of other violations, so they don’t make the rest of us look good even
when we have a genuine problem that wasn’t necessarily our fault. Money is the only thing in China that will give you permission,
as one of my friends said. I had no choice but to pay the police the money if I wanted to pass through customs on my way out.
Troy and the Nurse helped me to buy a plane ticket, so now I at least had a way to go back to the United States. After I told my good
friend Fanny that I would be going home soon, she invited me to come to her home and have lunch with her and her family one last
time.
They were always kind to me and had me over for a meal nearly a dozen times, sometimes during Chinese national holidays such
as Spring Festival and Tomb Sweeping Day. Fanny’s daughter was about a year old now, and this was the first time I ever saw her
even though Fanny was perhaps my best friend when I still lived in Nanning. She gave birth to her not long after I went back to
Hefei, so I never had much of a chance to see her. Her father was usually in other cities on business, but this time he was home.
From what Fanny told me, he was very good at cooking. I didn’t know much about the difference between a Chinese dish that was
cooked well or not, so I had to take her word for it, though I don’t remember disliking anything he had prepared before.
Fanny, her parents, daughter, and I had lunch in their home on the third floor of their family’s home where several other members of
their extended family lived as well. I had to meet The Nurse to go to the police station to pay the fine immediately after leaving Fanny’
s home, so we quickly walked to the end of the street, up some stairs on the side of a hill, and across the four-lane divided road to a
location to take photos for memories. We took turns taking pictures together with the Yong Jiang River behind us as a background.
In one of the pictures, I held Fanny’s daughter with just the two of us. Shu shu (uncle) is what children in China call any male friend
of the family. That is what they told her I was, but she was still too young to understand it, and didn’t know who I was at all.
Someday she would see the picture and perhaps ask who that strange foreigner was holding her.
When it was time to go, I said to Fanny’s parents, “Wo bu yao wang ji ni men (I won’t forget you).” Fanny’s father said to me,
“Women shi pengyou (we are friends)!” and then they crossed the street and disappeared down the hillside. It’s hard to find good
honest people like that, but if one looks hard enough, they can be found.
With all of my expenses paid, there would be nothing left to stop me from leaving this time, unless I was foolish enough to get my
temporary passport and ticket stolen again. I didn’t want to leave, but it was probably the best thing to do for many reasons.
Since the Beijing Olympics in 2008, China started getting more serious about requiring their foreign teachers to have a bachelor’s
degree in order to teach English, and I didn’t want to intentionally try to work the system so I could stay. Also, all of the lying and
cheating that people do was beginning to make me crazy. It took a while, but it slowly ate at my nerves until I was ready to get
violent, just like my old boxing trainer who had already gone back to New Zealand, so it was probably good that I left before I took it
out on someone. The communist influence left me feeling rather apathetic and caring much less about the lives of other people, as
what happens to a lot of Chinese people. If someone were to kill a dog in front of me, I’m not sure I would even care that much
about it anymore. Still I had to be polite to other people and “show face” even though I cared a lot less about nearly everything
except taking care of practical matters, but there were still people who could reach me. The day before I left, Troy went to another
city in China. I owed him a lot for helping me to return home.
On the last day, Fanny offered to drive me to the Nanning airport where I would catch a plane to Hong Kong and then to San
Francisco. We took a route through some quiet suburbs where life was much more easygoing than in the big and crowded city.
Fanny dropped me off at the proper terminal, and I thanked her for everything she did for me. Soon after entering the airport I
boarded my plane for Hong Kong.
There are many layers of Chinese history and thus there are many layers of development that make Chinese people who they are.
With each dynasty came a new set of cultural influences and innovations. Some things were lost during the new leadership, but
others remained. The knowledge that survived passed down from generation to generation so that skills were developed and
refined over a great length of time by many just as a single person can master a skill in their own lifetime by repetition and applying
new techniques. They had taken a different approach to life than many younger civilizations in that they based many of their
foundational beliefs on ancient metaphysical concepts such as traditional Chinese medicine and Feng Shui. They had many
philosophers and great minds that guided the people to live by embracing wisdom and stressing the importance of a balanced
lifestyle. Their culture was rich beyond any material wealth could be valued at.
Sadly, after the communist takeover, many of the old ways were destroyed, and the people were conditioned to follow the
government’s dark new ambitions. Some of the old archetypes still existed within the people, though they now existed in a more
suppressed form. The wisdom of China was transformed into a dark form of knowledge that left the people unable to trust each other
and constantly play each other’s minds in order to gain a material advantage once it became possible for them to earn an individual
wage. People had become so narrow-minded that often all they could think about in life was directly related to money! There are still
good people out there floating around within the masses of people that have been “raped by the government” as one of my Chinese
friends said. I was fortunate enough to meet a relative few significant people who qualified as honest and trustworthy. Perhaps they
needed someone to trust as much as I did.
When I first came to China, it was at a point when a lot of the cities with a population of less than eight million were just starting to
become heavily influenced by Western culture and where the appearance of foreigners was starting to grow. The people were so
closed off and emotionally distant, yet others were friendly in a way I have never seen before. All of that history, no matter how
much of it was lost, was still so much in the atmosphere that it made me feel lost in time. The people themselves had little with
which to compare me to despite the timeless wisdom they had acquired throughout the ages, but China was in the process of
transforming from old to young again with modernization and Westernization. I was nothing and I knew nothing next to what had
happened in this country, yet somehow I had to survive. Thanks to the friends I made along the way, Chinese and foreigner, I was
able to do that until I could learn what was happening around me. Training to defend myself against attackers and learning the
language aided greatly with that. I learned a lot of things that I never would have even guessed existed in this world if I hadn’t gone
to China. I learned so much until the point where I started to become a Chinese, but I still had to hold onto what I believed was right.
But still, what I know is nothing compared to all that has gone before. I took four years to cross a great river whose source and
mouth I couldn’t even imagine. It was regrettable to leave all of my true friends I had made behind, people whom I shared a true
purpose with. It would be a long time until I would be able to return — years, but they were waiting for me to come back.
On the plane heading to San Francisco from Hong Kong, the further away I got from China, the more my life there seemed like a
dream. When I woke up from that dream, I was in San Francisco, ready to start a new life. I feel I have already had a lifetime full of
experiences, yet I know the most difficult times lie ahead, as they always do… The End
without paying a fine, she reported back that it could not be done. “My friend said he hates that when a foreigner stays in China
without a visa! He said he cannot help you!”
What these people who worked for the government didn’t seem to realize was that I wasn’t staying by choice. When someone steals
your only way out of the country, it’s not so easy to come up with a backup plan, especially when you are poor. “I will take you to the
police station and we can talk to the police together!” The nurse said. The Nurse was always very helpful to Troy and me, but any
other foreigner she was willing to rip off in any way that she could without them knowing about it.
The Nurse took me by scooter to the police station that I had gone to a week earlier with Jasmine. I heard stories about The Nurse
cursing other women out and threatening to beat them down on Nanning’s congested bike lanes when they disrespected her
personal space or cut her off, which most people think nothing about, but nothing like that happened today. That kind of aggressive
behavior The Nurse was always displaying was pretty much unheard of for a woman in China, and there was no other one like her.
She was a mad dog!
On the second floor of the police station was an office where there were a couple of police officers sitting at their desks wearing
their standard uniforms with light-blue work shirts and black slacks. One of them was the policeman who I had talked to last time
that gave me the choice of paying money or going to jail. The Nurse had a few words with him in Mandarin too quickly for me to
follow all of what they were saying, and then let me speak with him.
“You stayed past your visa expiration, so you must pay money,” he said. “Don’t you understand that my passport and plane ticket
were stolen? I couldn’t leave!”
After arguing with him for several minutes, another policeman who was more casually dressed came into the office and stood
resting his back against the wall next to the policeman I was talking to. He didn’t appear to be able to speak much English, but he
stood there listening to us.
“You are staying in China illegally! You should have left before your visa expired!” the policeman said. “I had no money to get home,
and it was too expensive for me to go to Hong Kong with what I have! What am I supposed to do? Swim?!?” I said as I started
making the action of swimming. “That’s……your business,” the policeman said as he looked behind at his comrade as they both
laughed.
Finally, another policeman came into the office. How many of these guys did it take to deal with one person? He looked like he might
have been the head policeman of this department. He was bigger and more confident than the other police officers. His English was
very good, with less of an accent than the policeman I was already speaking to.
“Andrew is good man! He never lie to anybody! He never cheat anybody! Why you cannot help he to go home?” The Nurse said. The
head policeman looked at me with penetrating vision to try to catch me slipping. “You broke the law!” he said. “Do you think I had
much of a choice?” I said. “You did not respect Chinese law, so now you must pay! Why did you wait until your time was over
before coming to the police station?” he asked. “The police in Hefei said they would not help me again. I didn’t know what I should
do at first.” “That’s not the reason!” the policeman said as he got an agitated look on his face.” “Listen, I’m not trying to cheat
anyone! I’m just trying to figure out how to deal with this situation in the best way!” I said. “I believe you….,” the policeman finally
said.
Even with The Nurse’s persuasive powers, we could not convince the police to give me a visa even though I was willing to pay for
it. In the end, I decided not to pay the fine for staying too long and tried to contact the U.S. embassy to see what they could do for me,
but it turned out to be a joke. They didn’t appear to have any policy for dealing with a situation like mine. A lot of foreigners mess
around and stay in China illegally as well as commit all kinds of other violations, so they don’t make the rest of us look good even
when we have a genuine problem that wasn’t necessarily our fault. Money is the only thing in China that will give you permission,
as one of my friends said. I had no choice but to pay the police the money if I wanted to pass through customs on my way out.
Troy and the Nurse helped me to buy a plane ticket, so now I at least had a way to go back to the United States. After I told my good
friend Fanny that I would be going home soon, she invited me to come to her home and have lunch with her and her family one last
time.
They were always kind to me and had me over for a meal nearly a dozen times, sometimes during Chinese national holidays such
as Spring Festival and Tomb Sweeping Day. Fanny’s daughter was about a year old now, and this was the first time I ever saw her
even though Fanny was perhaps my best friend when I still lived in Nanning. She gave birth to her not long after I went back to
Hefei, so I never had much of a chance to see her. Her father was usually in other cities on business, but this time he was home.
From what Fanny told me, he was very good at cooking. I didn’t know much about the difference between a Chinese dish that was
cooked well or not, so I had to take her word for it, though I don’t remember disliking anything he had prepared before.
Fanny, her parents, daughter, and I had lunch in their home on the third floor of their family’s home where several other members of
their extended family lived as well. I had to meet The Nurse to go to the police station to pay the fine immediately after leaving Fanny’
s home, so we quickly walked to the end of the street, up some stairs on the side of a hill, and across the four-lane divided road to a
location to take photos for memories. We took turns taking pictures together with the Yong Jiang River behind us as a background.
In one of the pictures, I held Fanny’s daughter with just the two of us. Shu shu (uncle) is what children in China call any male friend
of the family. That is what they told her I was, but she was still too young to understand it, and didn’t know who I was at all.
Someday she would see the picture and perhaps ask who that strange foreigner was holding her.
When it was time to go, I said to Fanny’s parents, “Wo bu yao wang ji ni men (I won’t forget you).” Fanny’s father said to me,
“Women shi pengyou (we are friends)!” and then they crossed the street and disappeared down the hillside. It’s hard to find good
honest people like that, but if one looks hard enough, they can be found.
With all of my expenses paid, there would be nothing left to stop me from leaving this time, unless I was foolish enough to get my
temporary passport and ticket stolen again. I didn’t want to leave, but it was probably the best thing to do for many reasons.
Since the Beijing Olympics in 2008, China started getting more serious about requiring their foreign teachers to have a bachelor’s
degree in order to teach English, and I didn’t want to intentionally try to work the system so I could stay. Also, all of the lying and
cheating that people do was beginning to make me crazy. It took a while, but it slowly ate at my nerves until I was ready to get
violent, just like my old boxing trainer who had already gone back to New Zealand, so it was probably good that I left before I took it
out on someone. The communist influence left me feeling rather apathetic and caring much less about the lives of other people, as
what happens to a lot of Chinese people. If someone were to kill a dog in front of me, I’m not sure I would even care that much
about it anymore. Still I had to be polite to other people and “show face” even though I cared a lot less about nearly everything
except taking care of practical matters, but there were still people who could reach me. The day before I left, Troy went to another
city in China. I owed him a lot for helping me to return home.
On the last day, Fanny offered to drive me to the Nanning airport where I would catch a plane to Hong Kong and then to San
Francisco. We took a route through some quiet suburbs where life was much more easygoing than in the big and crowded city.
Fanny dropped me off at the proper terminal, and I thanked her for everything she did for me. Soon after entering the airport I
boarded my plane for Hong Kong.
There are many layers of Chinese history and thus there are many layers of development that make Chinese people who they are.
With each dynasty came a new set of cultural influences and innovations. Some things were lost during the new leadership, but
others remained. The knowledge that survived passed down from generation to generation so that skills were developed and
refined over a great length of time by many just as a single person can master a skill in their own lifetime by repetition and applying
new techniques. They had taken a different approach to life than many younger civilizations in that they based many of their
foundational beliefs on ancient metaphysical concepts such as traditional Chinese medicine and Feng Shui. They had many
philosophers and great minds that guided the people to live by embracing wisdom and stressing the importance of a balanced
lifestyle. Their culture was rich beyond any material wealth could be valued at.
Sadly, after the communist takeover, many of the old ways were destroyed, and the people were conditioned to follow the
government’s dark new ambitions. Some of the old archetypes still existed within the people, though they now existed in a more
suppressed form. The wisdom of China was transformed into a dark form of knowledge that left the people unable to trust each other
and constantly play each other’s minds in order to gain a material advantage once it became possible for them to earn an individual
wage. People had become so narrow-minded that often all they could think about in life was directly related to money! There are still
good people out there floating around within the masses of people that have been “raped by the government” as one of my Chinese
friends said. I was fortunate enough to meet a relative few significant people who qualified as honest and trustworthy. Perhaps they
needed someone to trust as much as I did.
When I first came to China, it was at a point when a lot of the cities with a population of less than eight million were just starting to
become heavily influenced by Western culture and where the appearance of foreigners was starting to grow. The people were so
closed off and emotionally distant, yet others were friendly in a way I have never seen before. All of that history, no matter how
much of it was lost, was still so much in the atmosphere that it made me feel lost in time. The people themselves had little with
which to compare me to despite the timeless wisdom they had acquired throughout the ages, but China was in the process of
transforming from old to young again with modernization and Westernization. I was nothing and I knew nothing next to what had
happened in this country, yet somehow I had to survive. Thanks to the friends I made along the way, Chinese and foreigner, I was
able to do that until I could learn what was happening around me. Training to defend myself against attackers and learning the
language aided greatly with that. I learned a lot of things that I never would have even guessed existed in this world if I hadn’t gone
to China. I learned so much until the point where I started to become a Chinese, but I still had to hold onto what I believed was right.
But still, what I know is nothing compared to all that has gone before. I took four years to cross a great river whose source and
mouth I couldn’t even imagine. It was regrettable to leave all of my true friends I had made behind, people whom I shared a true
purpose with. It would be a long time until I would be able to return — years, but they were waiting for me to come back.
On the plane heading to San Francisco from Hong Kong, the further away I got from China, the more my life there seemed like a
dream. When I woke up from that dream, I was in San Francisco, ready to start a new life. I feel I have already had a lifetime full of
experiences, yet I know the most difficult times lie ahead, as they always do… The End