I caught a sleep train late at night going back to Hefei from Shanghai. Those trains were nice, because it was actually possible to get a
full night’s rest since they had bunk beds instead of just reclining chairs. The restrooms on the train were a little less than fully modernized,
and had silvery metal floors with a hole in the middle where you could see the train tracks passing by quickly underneath the train. Better
not drop anything important. I also wondered about how inconvenient it must be for railroad maintenance workers. There was also a dining
car, but my friends told me to avoid eating that food if possible because it was low-quality. Sometimes people would push carts through
with sealed paper containers of instant noodles and other small snacks for the passengers like sunflower seeds and dried apricots, plums,
and more. During the regular school season, I made a habit of eating the instant noodles almost every day to save time during the
afternoon ciesta, but my friends at English corner always told me it’s not good for my health. People were very serious about what foods to
eat and what time they should eat, saying that not eating on time was also not good for one’s health. Asking people if they ate their meal
in China is like talking about the weather in the United States. The train ride lasted until early the next morning, about five o’clock, before
the sun rose. I almost missed my stop because I could not hear the arrival announcement voice so well, but my instincts told me to jump
off the train, or else spend at least a full day trying to get back to Hefei. I would have had to go all the way back to Anqing because that
was the final destination for the train. I wanted to visit the old place again, but not under those circumstances.
At the train station, there were many three-wheeler taxis in the parking lot with a few regular taxis waiting for travelers disembarking from
their long journeys. I found a driver easily that took me through the dark and deserted streets of Hefei, that in only a couple hours would be
flooded with people walking to restaurants and workplaces, and fast-moving taxis that wouldn’t slow down for even an old lady but would
rather swerve around her at the last second. The engine on his three-wheeler was making rapid putting sounds as he drove down the empty
bike lanes, and I sat in the back carriage which could seat up to four people observing the temporary peace and calm of the city as slowly
the sky became brighter. The driver took me to San Xiao Kou where I would meet Summer because I had to get my apartment key back
from her since she used it to get my passport for me.
After eating breakfast with Summer, I hopped into a car taxi and finished the journey back to my apartment. I wasn’t sure what kind of
people these new roommates were going to be, but I would find out soon. When I walked into my apartment, I noticed that all of the
furniture was rearranged in the living room, and there were a couple new heating fans on the ground that were powered by heating coils
since there was no other way to bring heat into the living room. It made me feel a little strange that they would take it upon themselves to
do that when I had been living there for months, and they had only just arrived, but I didn’t have a problem with the new heaters. They
were both sleeping, so I put my luggage in my room and then came back out into the living room and sat down at the dining table in
anticipation of our first meeting. Then Chad’s old bedroom door squeaked opened, and one of my new roommates came out. It must have
been the girl that told Summer not to take anything from my room when she retrieved my passport for me was my first thought. She had
short blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, wore all black clothing, and she had a strange presence. Her presence was like a spider-woman,
subtle, but she was powerful and capable of striking, and she appeared to have some mischief in her eyes with a smile that agreed with
that idea. We introduced ourselves to each other. She told me her name was Spela (Shpeela). Then she lit up a cigarette and sat down
across from me and continued speaking.  She was the one who was going to take Chad’s place at the kindergarten. David had to find a
replacement to avoid any legal backlashes from the kindergarten. We both talked for some time about why we were there and where we
came from until my second roommate woke up and came out of the room. He was tall and thin, and he had brown hair of medium-length.
He sat down at the table with us and lit up a cigarette as well. He said his name was Dushan(Dooshan), and he seemed to have somewhat
of a stoic nature about him. He was very slow-moving and stiff, but very thoughtful and conservative with his energy, and had kind of a hard
attitude. Both Dushan and Spela had been to China before for different reasons, and they were old classmates of Nina and Damian. Spela
lived in another city for a while called Kunming where she studied Thai Chi and lived in a monastery.  Dushan said he did a lot of
traveling through China several years ago, and had some interesting stories. Apparently, not all places in China were safe. He told me that
he was in another province far from Anhui where people are allowed to carry swords and other such weapons. He once went into a bar
there, but then left as quickly as possible when he realized everyone in the bar was staring at him, and that he was the only one who was
unarmed. That was probably a smart move if he wasn’t ready to die yet. And he also went on a bus trip through the mountains, and the bus
driver was driving up the twisting roads so quickly that the back of the bus would often swing over the side of the edge over a drop-off of at
least a hundred meters. Dushan was going to attend school at An Da to study Mandarin. He already had some previous study in the
language, and both he and Spela could speak rather fluently.
It didn’t take long for us to get acquainted with each other, and Dushan, Spela, and I would sometimes go to the Revolutionary Bar in the
evening to play pool and try to meet other foreigners there. At night, all kinds of people, thousands and perhaps more, rode in taxis to go to
clubs and expensive restaurants in many different locations around the city. Some clubs were easy to identify because they had neon
lights in moving patterns around the entrance that would catch people’s attention and almost hypnotize them to make them want to go
inside. At least two people dressed formally, male, female, or both, would be standing in front of the entrance to welcome customers as
they entered. Other places like the Revolutionary had neon signs out on the street, but then it was necessary to travel down a small alley to
find the entrance. Inside the Revolutionary, there was a big Chinese man in his mid to late twenties who we would always see playing pool
every time we went. He was rather good at playing. After he made a shot, he would always walk to another side of the pool table with his
head down slightly and back slightly hunched with the poolstick in his hands. His actions were like clockwork, and he always looked exactly
the same every time with no change, like his life was dominated by playing pool, though his personality was easy-going. I started calling
him “The Pool Tweaker” because he was always there and always beating everyone in pool modestly, and the way he would walk around
the table looking for his next shot reminded me of how a fighter stalks his opponent in a martial arts competition. Dushan and I would
always laugh at him, though he was quite capable of beating either of us any day. The Revolutionary Bar often played hip-hop music with
a DJ mixing the tunes from inside of the bar service area, and there was a very small dance floor that hardly ever got used. The most
popular brand of beer to drink was Tiger beer that cost 25 yuan per bottle.  The Revolutionary was one of the main foreigner hangout spots
in the city. Among the foreigners I met there was a big man with a potbelly named Mike from Australia who was teaching at one of the
universities there. He had a suave and gentle way about expressing himself, but inside of him were some explosive elements, as his eyes
revealed. He once told me that when he was a child in Australia, he shared a trailer with five brothers, and they would all brawl with each
other every day. That gave him an early education on how to not take junk from anybody, so by now he must have had a Master’s Degree
in it.
Another foreigner we met there named Og from Ireland sat at the bar drinking Tigers with his other friends from the U.K. Dave from
Scotland, and Andy from England. They all taught at an English training center called English First. Og, the most significant of the three,
had a very tranquil personality, and always looked a bit sleepy-eyed, yet he had strong feelings about many things as I began to discover
after meeting him there several times. Among those feelings was an intense dislike of the British for their past history of war, dominance,
and cruelty toward Ireland that he often voiced to me about. He didn’t hold every Brit accountable, just the government, and others who
still had the blood of colonialism flowing inside of them.  It was similar to the hate that the Chinese still had for the Japanese for when they
invaded the mainland and committed the massacre of Nanjing decades ago. Little children in middle school were shown the horrors of
what happened on video, and developed an intense hatred for the Japanese at an early age. I’ve heard stories about Japanese students in
China getting food thrown at them and getting beaten by crowds of people for something they didn’t do. Everyone said they hated the
Japanese.
Whenever I would meet new foreigners, I would always ask them if they had any interesting stories because the Chinese I had met never
had any interesting stories to share. When I would ask people such questions as, “Can you tell me any funny stories?” or ”What interesting
things have you been through in your life?” they would always respond by saying, “Nothing funny.” or “No interesting things happened. I just
study every day.” As I had done much traveling until this point in time, I had met many people with many interesting stories to tell, but here
in Hefei, there was a lack of any such things for the most part. Everyone’s lives were so simple and mundane. People often felt very
discouraged to act out of the ordinary or act on independent ideas. It’s great for keeping everyone to be socially acceptable to each other,
and responsible for their studies, but not necessarily great for the imagination since no one was willing to venture out into the unknown
corridors of the mind and bring it back out into the world. It left me a little disappointed, but at least most foreigners had something to
share. Og had some interesting stories from Ireland. He said he once went to a pub late at night where there was a big rumble happening
inside, and the bouncers, instead of trying to keep the troublemakers outside, were standing on the outside of the pub pushing the doors
closed trying to keep everyone inside. The bouncers would bounce back every time someone on the inside crashed into the doors, but
then quickly reinforced their positions when they thought of what would happen if they got through. They cared more about their own
safety than what was possibly getting destroyed on the inside and didn’t want the chaos spreading out into the town streets. Two police
officers showed up to try and re-establish the order, just as a barstool came crashing through one of the windows and landed on the
sidewalk next to them. The policemen were feeling confident up until that point, but then decided they weren’t going inside after that
happened.
Andy from England was there one night with his Chinese girlfriend named Lucky. She was short and a little plump, had medium-length
and wavy hair, and she wore a jean jacket with some jewelry and make-up that made her look trendy and fashionable in an independent
way. She reminded me of a rebellious 80’s teenager the way she looked. Her voice was slightly raspy as she was talking quickly and
energetically to everyone in the group, and she paused for a second to react to my presence there, but then continued on her business
without saying anything to me. It was almost as though she recognized me without ever seeing me before. There was also another
foreigner there from South Africa named Voeder. I didn’t know much about South Africa, so I tried to relate to him the only way I knew
how, by talking about animals, but he seemed almost to get offended by it. He said, “Yes. Everyone I meet always asks me about animals.
Sometimes I make up stories about how my friends and I run around in the desert and kill elephants and roast them over a fire and eat
them, and they actually believe me!” His speech was very quick, and he spoke in a way that seemed to indicate that he was very sure
about himself in almost a pompous way. But whether or not everyone liked each other was irrelevant. The foreigner community was slowly
building itself up.
Valentine’s Day showed itself in mid-February, and I was surprised that many people in China celebrated it just like in America. There is
actually a Chinese version of Valentine’s Day, which happened back when I first came to Hefei in August the previous year. On that day,
Summer bought me a piece of candy from the store after we returned to the center of the city after teaching Candy and Angel one
evening, and I gave her a small kiss on the cheek before I got on the bus at the crowded San Xiao Kou bus station, and some little boy was
watching us and said, “Ooooooh!” because no one ever does that in public there. Summer then got an intoxicated look on her face and
stuck her tongue out in a silly way as I got onto a bus heading out to the old small hotel I lived in when I was still looking for a fulltime job.
But now, I had no one to celebrate Valentine’s Day with, or so I thought. That afternoon, I came back to my apartment to find that
someone stuck a note in the door of the apartment. I opened it and was surprised to see that it was a note from Ursula wishing me a Happy
Valentine’s Day. I met her for the first time when I had dinner at Leo’s apartment several months earlier, and had seen her several times
when she was walking home down the main road of Hu Po from school and had quick chats with her while I was at Mei Qing Ke and Gong
Zha Feng’s restaurant outside on the sidewalk. I didn’t know if she had any feelings for me, or if she just did it as a friend, but I called her
and thanked her for it. Later that evening, I went to the Revolutionary Bar where many singles were trying to find someone else to keep
themselves from feeling lonely. Dushan and I were near our favorite place to be near the pool table having some Tigers, when a foreigner
I hadn’t met before was making a scene on the small dance floor. He was dancing with a much younger Chinese girl in a carefree way,
and when she sat down on the couch, he quickly grabbed another off the couch without hesitating. He went through three or four girls in
about five minutes, and then decided he had enough fun for the moment. It’s always interesting to try and guess where other foreigners are
from, and I guessed he was Russian, but I was wrong. He told me he was from the U.S., specifically Hollywood, California. His name was
Eric, and he had long blondish-brown hair tinted by gray that looked a little scraggly. He had a bit to drink already, and while I was talking
to him, I caught the impression that his boldness slightly outweighed his prudence. He was very outgoing, and talked anything about his
opinion without fear. After spending some time at the Revolutionary, I decided I didn’t want to be alone on Valentine’s Day, and called
Summer to meet me, though I didn’t tell her why.
Summer came to meet me in Hu Po next to the police station. She must have had some idea why I wanted to meet her because she
walked rather far behind me and her eyes were slightly larger than usual, indicating nervousness. We walked to a pavilion that stood in
front of a small pond where there were trees and a small pathway that circled around the place. The stone benches were very dirty, and
there was only one place for someone to sit down without getting dirty. I sat down and asked her if she wanted to sit on my lap, but she
refused. We shared some time there together talking and other things, and all of the old feelings came back, but she was hesitant at first.
She said, “I don’t want to try again.” But then moments later, she said, “I wouldn’t want to have a boyfriend if I didn’t want to marry him.
That’s why I wasn’t sure what to do about you at first. But I already started to have feelings for you, and now….” I was a little surprised to
hear her talk about that. The very first time I met her in Daler’s van, I thought about marrying her for some reason, and now, almost eight
months later, she became the first person ever to talk to me about getting married. My old friend Jackie that we both knew once said, “If
she is the right person for you, then nothing can come between you.” If he was right about that, then perhaps even our own personal
feelings could not come between us, but the future between us had always been hard to predict.
China Dispatch/Andrew Gramling

Foreigners teaching English: More are now in
China