A little over halfway through orientation week, I am summoned from the nothingness of Groupless existence: all the foreign teachers are routed to the main hall for a series of informational sessions.
The first piece of information nestled in the informational sessions is that we don’t actually have Chinese visas. We might think that we have Chinese visas, because we made it past Chinese customs; but that is only because we are chauvinist imperialist puppets who are imprisoned by capitalist thinking. No, we have only Z-Visas, which are just entry passes. We’re like special line-hoppers at an amusement park, if the amusement was smog and very slow announcements. We’re still waiting on residence visas, which are like obviously different and necessary.
Actually, even that’s not true (the thing about the entry visa; not the thing about the smog): some of us don’t have the Z-Visa, but only the Tourist Visa. Tourist Visas are kind of a bitch: They let you in for a month or so, at the end of which you have to leave and return on another Tourist Visa. You wouldn’t have to leave and return if you were actually a tourist; you would just leave, like a tourist, back to your home. But it seems that, while all of these visas are difficult for companies to acquire, the Tourist Visa is far and away the easiest; especially for a company with limited clout in local government.
So if you’ve been hired by a company that didn’t acquire a Z-Visa for you, or has no intention of securing a full Chinese employment visa, the typical workaround is a string of Tourist Visas interrupted by a mandatory vacation each month. It is apparently pretty common in the region: “I had to duck out to Hong Kong every month last year,” Canadian Club tells me on the day we get our phones. “Hong Kong is all right, but it was kind of a drag being forced out every few weeks.”
Even if you aren’t stuck with a tourist visa, you’re still on a timer: You have just those 90 days from entry to get your full, big-boy Chinese visa. Getting a visa for the year before getting to China is apparently impossible: you must get a special visa to start work, then an even more special visa to continue to work; and at the end of the work period, you get kicked out of China once more – even if you’re going to come back in a few months.
China wants you to visit and work in China, and to spend all of your money in China. It just doesn’t want you, personally, in China. (I think this speaks poorly of China; but a few years later, I realize that this is exactly how Tom Cotton views Pakistani scientists working in U.S. labs.)
But I don’t have to worry about whether or not I’m fundamentally wanted: I just need to get permission to stay till the summer. And I don’t even have to worry too much about that: International K-12, as my sponsor, is responsible for securing the visa. No forms or consulate visits for me.
Here’s what I do have to worry about: to actually get my Chinese visa, I must surrender my passport to the staff of International K-12.
I’m trying to be a good World Citizen and Freethinker and, like, just open my mind to other cultures; you know? I’m trying to be a good visitor, and to step lightly around the Chinese People’s Ethic and Custom, like my contract demands. But this United States Passport, such a trivial document before I arrived in Shanghai, is now my life and identity sewn inside a blue cover. I am starting to realize what it means to be an American – a white, dude American, too; with full voting privileges in the eyes of Republican legislatures! After a week in China, I feel like handing over my passport is like letting a surgeon put you under after she tells you – unprompted – that she will most definitely not harvest your liver for cash. (Even that doesn’t quite sell the anxiety, because unlike my liver, my citizenship can’t suffer overuse.)
“You must get everything you want done with passport finished before, because you will not have your passport for a week or some time,” explains Red Tea. She explains it this way at the deadline to submit our passports.
There’s not much for it: everyone hands out their passport like candy at Halloween. So I grimace and flip over my legal self. If all my friends jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, I’d probably say, “Hey, they must know something I don’t!” on my way toward the water.
After we donate our legal standing to an unclear cause, we are shuttled into a lecture about health in China.
As a mild hypochondriac, I am quite interested in this: I have a pronounced fear of dying painfully, and have, in my few days in country, questioned the wisdom of moving to a place where the odds of dying painfully are considerably higher. As the Welcome Guide says, “There WILL be a day where you have violent diarrhea or vomiting, maybe both at the same time.” (The Welcome Guide is like The Book of Common Prayer, but more comforting and nuanced.) So I arrive on time and more or less eager for the med lecture.
The head of the clinic gives the speech. Speech, here, is a kind word: she buries her head in her monitor as she drones evenly through a reading of PowerPoint slides. She reads every word. She does not stop except to raise her head to add clarifying information – “clarifying” here strictly describing her intent. She is a thin, sickly woman – she appears to possibly be molting – and does not by her physique inspire confidence in her speech. Then again, neither does her speech inspire confidence in her speech.
She begins by telling us where the Clinic is located. “It is on the second floor of the Long Dong Building [sic., I swear],” she says. A hand rises. Clinic Head, nose-deep in her monitor, does not see it. Red Tea bumps Clinic Head’s shoulder. Clinic Head looks up, startled; like a spooked deer. “Yes…?” She eventually asks.
“Where is the Long Dong Building?” Asks a teacher, earnestly. [I cannot be clearer: sic.]
Clinic Head turns to Red Tea, expectant. She has no mechanism to explain where the building is without the listener knowing where the building is. If I ever find the Hulking Cock Palace, I am concerned what kind of medical care I will find there. Luckily, my imagination does not have to be the guide:
“So,” Clinic Head says after ignoring the last question, “Foot and Mouth Disease. It is very bad. You will find these on your feet and in your mouth, if you look on your tongue.”
“These” appear to be sores or rashes on the disease’s titular arena of interest. Excess information is not provided: It is really bad.
“If you have a cold,” she continues, displaying the organizational aplomb I’ve already learned to expect from Chinese bureaucrats, “You can push on the back pressure point. Behind your head.” She demonstrates, pushing two fingers in a V against her upper neck. “This will clear up your head,” she explains. “You can also use roots in your tea. If you put a root in your tea, it will clear up the cold.” There are pictures, but the root is not identified.
I get a small knot in my gut; little brother to the bundle of rope down there when I saw the brown ocean on the flight in: I was told I was moving to China’s most Western, most cosmopolitan city. I have been told, by my very school’s employee propaganda, that this school prides itself on being even more Western than that. I’ve also been told, in the safety of American academia, that all cultures are equal; except for America’s culture, which is worse because it doesn’t accept all other cultures’ equality at all times.
Now I am here, in the year 2015, and a licensed medical operative is explaining to me how to cure HIV by pressing the right pressure point. Chinese Traditional Medicine is the term. “Traditional” is an adjective you might want attached to the menu of your favorite restaurant, or to certain holidays. It is not an adjective you want hanging out with your waste management systems, your distribution of voting rights, or your medicine. Traditional-type medicine has a lot more leeches than medicine-type medicine. Untraditional medicine, I recall, is usually called “medicine.” I decide I’m just going to have to die painfully. I hope TBD root tea tastes nice.
We might be headed for an inexplicable disease in China, but at least we have insurance. Everyone says so. Of course, everyone involved with this project told me I was moving to the City of the Future; the jewel of the almost-most powerful country on Earth. So I’m not actually, sure, walking out the Health Talk, that I have insurance.
But lo: in a late afternoon session, we are introduced to our insurance representatives. They look they won a TV competition to be here: the two young Chinese men have slick, greased hair and tight white dress shirts. They are tall; unusually tall for the Chinese guys I’ve seen here; and they look like they lift, which also stands out. The woman in the center is young, draped in makeup, and brandishing obvious breasts. I’ve only been here a week, but I can already say with some confidence that curves are not very common to the Chinese physique. “Hey Car Bomb,” one of the guys the row back says (to Car Bomb): “Can you get me her number?” He nods at the stage. I can only assume these insurance reps were hired because they are very smart and deeply moved by cost/benefit analyses.
“These are your insurance,” announces Sideboob, and we’re off. (Chinese public address seems to have two forms: no preamble, and only preamble.)
Our insurance is as follows: If we have to go to the hospital, we will pay all medical costs out of pocket, then file a form with the school. The school, through this company, will reimburse us for 65% of our bill. Any questions?
A sea of hands. I hope that they don’t pick The Riddler. They pick The Riddler.
The Riddler has already become notorious, this week, for his insistent and droning questions. In a team of odd people, he stands out: he has a strong Midwestern accent, but insists – unprompted – that he gets his pronunciation of the vowel “o” from his mother’s background, which is Venezuelan by way of Florida. “It’s a Florida O,” he tells me. I am from Florida; this is not a thing. The Riddler also looks suspiciously pale for someone claiming Latin flavor. He is lying, but I have no idea why.
The Riddler asks his questions in the form of a novel; this one is no different. Sideboob stares ahead very seriously while the bros flanking her exchange quick, uncertain glances. When The Riddler has finished his oral history of the War of the Roses, Sideboob squints very hard and says, “I’m sorry?” Someone else has to turn the dust jacket of Riddler’s novel into an actual question; which is, “What does our insurance cover if we travel?” (N.b. This is not the question that The Riddler asked, although it might have been related.)
The panel onstage confers. They don’t seem to be supremely confident in the face of spoken English. (It cannot be overstressed that they were hired for reasons of the brain.) “Sorry?” They try again.
“What happens if we’re hurt on vacation?” Someone tries again.
More glances between panelists, and some muttered Chinese.
“Is that covered?” Someone else tries.
Sideboob leans into the microphone: “You must bring the form, signed.”
Murmurs in the ranks. Another teacher takes a swing: “What if we’re not in China?”
Sideboob leans back into the mic: “No.”
Uproar and indignation. It emerges, after torturous rounds of questioning, that we have insurance, probably; but we must first pay for care out of pocket, then get partially reimbursed; and even this offer is void if we (1) go to the doctor without paperwork, or (2) go anywhere that isn’t China.
These informational sessions have provided some very useful direction: Have a few grand USD liquid at all times and preferably in cash, and try not to break any limbs in Thailand.
Near the close of the week, in one of the very last sessions, Red Tea takes the mic. She dismisses all the teachers except the Americans. I have felt bad about being an American before, but never this bad (again; this is 2015, and Donald Trump is just one of many asshat GOP candidates).
The reason the Americans must hang back is that the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai has sent a representative to speak to us. I am guessing the U.S. Consulate is not doing this because the Americans here have been super well-behaved.
Our liaison is named Madison – or like Megan or Marissa; my confusion here tells you what you need to know about M’s animal charisma. She has very good posture, large glasses from the late 50s, hair in a bun, and a large but neat wedding ring. M is one of those people who can tell you everything about themselves and never add much to your first impression: She is bright but not Ivy League bright, and she knows the difference because she applied; she remembers every time she swam in the 100-yard breastroke in high school; she has specific opinions about the state of Wisconsin; applied to serve somewhere other than China; and has not been either married or employed by the State Department for very long.
M has a way of lightly touching the mic while also clutching it for dear fucking life.
“Hello,” she starts. (It’s a good start.) “Um… today I will be talking to you on behalf of the U.S. Consulate here.” (This sentence is pronounced as one word.) “We have a Consulate,” she says; then breathes visibly, then starts on the next paragraph-word: “Not an embassy of lot of people think it’s an embassy; so if you ever have a problem, we are here but ummm there are differences between what people expect and what we can do as a consulate.”
M looks exactly like she just made it through the introduction to her book report. She settles a little, which is not the same thing as relaxing.
“China is a sovereign country,” she explains. I’m not sure why she has to explain this, but I can’t imagine the reasons speak well of us the Americans. “China has its own laws, and our state department can’t just override those laws. Many Americans think that ummm if you get into trouble that we at State will bail you out but all we can do is sometimes negotiate depending on the circumstances.”
To my delight, anecdotes are provided:
“So for example there are many times people who will tell you on the street to get a massage or to go somewhere to meet a girl ummm and these…” (an actual pause here) “… are not gestures made in good faith; so, unfortunately, when you see something like this probably the best thing to do is walk away.”
M looks like she had never even heard of prostitution before moving to Shanghai. She is shaken.
“And so unfortunately” — a lot of shit in this story is unfortunate — “we find American citizens who are businessmen who ummm went to get a massage and meet girls and there were six or ten men waiting for them who beat them and took their wallets.”
M’s dramatic pacing is very terribly calibrated: the entire plot and most of the characters just fucking show up in the third act.
“So you see,” she offers, “that we cannot do anything about this except ummm report it to the police; and people come to us wanting their money back but we do not control China’s police force and we must respect their laws so ummm the best way to handle this sort of situation is to not be involved in the first place.”
The moral of the tale — essentially, “Be wary of the unregulated sex trade;” and further, “Don’t be like a screamingly obvious mark” — seems good to me. But lo: there is another tale from M:
“Another thing people want to know about is cars, and our advice is to not drive in China.”
M’s eyes are wide. M has seen some shit.
“There are many laws that are different in China and ummm in China the rules of the road are different than the laws and if you are not prepared you will be a danger to yourself and others; so we recommend that you do not try to drive in China.
“So,” she concludes, “we’re here to help, and if you have any questions you can always just ask us.”
I think all my questions have been answered: I’m going to lose my passport in the administrative colon of the People’s Republic, then die of an uninsured common cold; but before that happens, I should avoid massages and the police and highways.
Who’s ready to fucking teach?