I once read that Stephen King could publish his shopping list and people would buy it. While Mr. King and I have the same first name (spelled differently), our publishing credits are a tad different. What the hell, this is my blog, I can publish what I want. Thank you, Stephen King, for the inspiration.

What I bought at the supermarket earlier this week:

• 1 head of broccoli
• 1 green pepper
• 1 yellow pepper
• 1 red pepper
• 1 block of tofu
• 1 six-pack of strawberry yogurt
• 1 bottle of orange juice
• 1 can of protein powder
• 15 eggs (not by the dozen in China)
• 1 bag of assorted pasta
• 1 bottle of brandy

irony (def)

1. The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
2. An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.
3. A literary style employing such contrasts for humorous or rhetorical effect. See synonyms at wit1.
4. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs: “Hyde noted the irony of Ireland’s copying the nation she most hated” (Richard Kain).
5. An occurrence, result, or circumstance notable for such incongruity.

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Credits
Photo: Sun-Sentinel, Answers.com

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games are over. Viewers have witnessed new world records, triumphs, defeats, and the Olympic ideals of athletic excellence and world cooperation. Yes, there was a doping scandal involving equestrian horses, but horses are too simple to be held responsible for their actions. Plus: Who watches equestrian events anyways?

China, the host of the games, raked in the medals. Chinese athletes competing in weightlifting, diving, judo, gymnastics, and shooting have had the pinnacle of athletics, the Olympic gold medal, placed around their necks, while watching their flag being raised and their national anthem played before a stadium of fevered spectators.

Most of these sports are ones a typical Chinese person would never have a chance try. Ping pong, badminton, basketball and football (soccer) dominate the national sporting psyche. Diving? Few citizens of The Middle Kingdom know how to swim. Gymnastics? If that translates to avoiding obstacles while running to catch a bus perhaps the average Chinese Joe has experience (and could be the next medalist).

There is an event, one that takes place each day all across China: A super competitive melee that sees thousand of combatants, athletic and otherwise, engaged in a fiery battle.

It a combination of sprinting and gladiatorial combat. Only the strongest and smartest win, and they will never receive a medal, ovations, or a playing of the national anthem. The lucky few, the winners, only receive a seat. Yes: The Subway Sprint.

Boarding a Chinese subway train (The Metro is it is known in China) is an extreme sports, as dangerous as UFC fighting done while bungee jumping. I’m a fan of weird unusual sports. There are no rules, scribed or unwritten. It’s a dog-eat-dog sport, all for a cherished seat on a train, a chance to rest the weary bones.

It goes like this. The monitors on the subway platform show all and sundry the next train is due in two minutes. The athletes start jockeying for position, loose huddles form around the glass doors that will open in less than 120 seconds. The proper procedure is to queue to the right and left of the doors, allowing the subway passengers to exit out the middle. This rarely happens. If elbows were daggers the pushing and shoving would rend deep wounds.

They wait, preparing. They size each other up. Does he have what it takes? Can she take the gold? No, I’m better trained. There’s a slight push, perhaps a microscopic shove, as more competitors crowd the doors. They glance at the other queues. Is there a better one with less people?

The monitor clicks: One minute.

Then: A rush down the escalator, down the stairs. The queues expand, becoming a living, breathing force of their own. Energy, karma, ectoplasm, and a thousand auras swarm like rabid killer bees.

The light of the train illuminates the dark tunnel. A pleasant, recorded voice says in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English that the train is arriving, mind your manners. The crowd tenses like coiled snakes. Adrenaline floods the systems of a thousand competitors, aged 8 to 80.

Michael Phelps at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Hey Michael: I challenge you to the Shenzhen Subway Sprint. There will be no gold for you!

The train slows, the doors aligning with the station’s glass portals. You can almost hear the gnashing of teeth and creak of tensed tendons, ready to launch the athletes, full force, into the combative sprint.

With a double electronic chime the inner doors open. The crowd surges, a silent tsunami hitting an unsuspecting beach. The outer door, the platform door, the magic portal to a stainless steel bench and 20 minutes of relaxation, opens.

Then it’s over. The competitors, the strong and experienced, the sly and wily, are in the car and on a bench. You can almost see a colorful animated trail in their wake. The benches are full in three-quarters of a second. It’s over in a flash. A photo finish would never be fast enough to record the victors. The losers, knowing they never really had a chance, search for a rail to hold as the doors close and the train pulls away.

The Summer Olympics are held every four years. Subway Sprinting takes place a thousand times a day.

After three-and-a-half years I’ve seen a gold medal or two. At the right stop, on the right day, I can set world records. I leave the veterans in my wake, I’m a foreign interloper who know the game well. I’m sly, I’m a brute. I want a seat. This makes me dangerous, motivated.

Yes, the Olympic Games show the world athletic excellence. This excellence can be narrowly applied, like a high school education. Olympic Gold Medalists? I scoff. Bring me the hammer and javelin throwers, the skeet shooters, the weightlifters: I’ll show them competition. Put Michael Phelps in my arena, in my sport. He wouldn’t be in the top 100.

Images: Public Domain from Wikimedia, LA Times

The constant rain, that had me wondering how to build an ark, has passed. The sky over Shenzhen is now a bright seasonal blue and full of fluffy clouds. There is that evil ball of flame some call the sun, it’s only purpose to burn me to a crisp, to contend with. Better that than rain.

My 美国人朋友 (American friends) will be celebrating the 4th of July this weekend. My Canadian brethren celebrated Canada Day on July 1st. I have nothing to celebrate. There are no July holidays in China. National Day is October 1st.

I could celebrate the end of school. The students and teachers have scattered, blown to the four corners of the earth by a powerful wind called Summer Holidays. I could celebrate the start of a summer off. I could, if that were true.

Let’s look at The Stevo’s next few days:

Friday:
Human Resources Meeting
Summer Camp Planning Meeting

Saturday:
Business Teacher Interviews
English Teacher Interviews
Marking Business Teacher applications tests

(The interviews will involve me trying to decipher Chinese resumes, being part of the management panel and asking a question or two. I will listen to rapid-fire questions in Chinese, attempt to understand, get bored, and doodle on the HR forms.)

Sunday:
Course Consultant Interviews

All I really want to do is get a massage. Maybe Sunday evening. After a few drinks.

On the plus side: I’m buying a new camera next week, if my resident permit is complete and the government returns my passport. It’s hard to leave the country without a passport.

Question: What would the border guards do if I brought 20 Grade 1 students to vouch for my identity instead of the traditional passport?

Enjoy your national days of independence. Have a barbecue, watch fireworks and play merry. I’ll be sitting in an overly hot room on an uncomfortable chair.

My mind raced through the multitude of vulgar terms I could use. My extensive knowledge of Chinese profanity was about to put to good use.

The taxi driver had made a wrong turn. I knew I was in trouble when he called dispatch for directions. Why do I always get the hacks with wet ink still on their driver licenses?

Zhu tou. (pig head) was the first one that came to mind. A common used term, it is usually directed against me, by small children, with the adjective stupid added for good measure.

I considered my stock insults: All would involve the driver’s sister, mother, or grandmother, a foreign resident of China, and part of his anatomy.

Tian wo de pi yen (lick my ass eye – you get the picture) was the newest addition to my insultive arsenal. My tentative trial of the phrase on Mrs. Stevo garnered expected and humorous results. She often laments my Chinese vocabulary, saying if I put as much energy into learning useful things I would be fluent. It’s not easy to learn Chinese.

Driving me home should have been an easy task. The wrong turn had ended our progress in a traffic snarl. The ambulance in the next lane, air horn blaring and lights a’flashing, was also stymied by the gridlock.

After my insult, the father of all insults, I would throw some money at the moron behind the wheel and jump out of the conveyance he piloted. I could find another cab, post traffic jam.

I’m not usually angry. It had been a long, evil week. I was tired. Mrs. Stevo was at home, and might have news of the secret.

Your sister….

Your mother and sister…

I grabbed for my stack ‘o’ cash. The driver shifted and reached into his pocket. He was quicker on the draw.

He looked over his shoulder, an open pack of cigarettes in his left hand. It was an apology, a sign of friendship, and camaraderie. He looked tired, but his face held a smile.

I smiled back, took the proffered cancer stick and said, “Xie xie.”

He was in the same boat as me. He didn’t know the city, I could tell by his accent he was from the north. It was raining, the streets were mayhem, and there was a foreigner in his cab that smelled of floral-scented massage oil. His night was as bad as mine. No, worse.

It’s not all about me. That’s easy for all of us to forget. Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, etc.

I forgot about the insults, ate the smoke, and enjoyed the rest of the stop-and-start journey.

I hated winters when I lived in Canada. I feared the winter. Now, I have a fear of umbrellas.

The people that wax romantic about winter wonderlands are deluded. During my exile in Northern Ontario my cabin was wood-heated. When I awoke in that drafty little building, and the outside temperature hovered around -30° C, I could see my breath. Yes, I hate winters.

My Chinese existence has taught me to love winter. Yes, it’s cloudy and dreary for weeks on end, but the searing 40° C temperatures are replaced with a Canadian-like autumn. And, except for rainy days, there is a distinct lack of umbrellas.

The ubiquitous umbrella, invented in China in the days of yore and a still-used daily accessory, held aloft by women shielding themselves from the sun. Dark skin is considered low-class in China, one look at the cosmetic counters and the plethora of skin whitening creams attests to that. As do the endless infomercials with dramatic before-and-after images of newly nearly Caucasian-Asian women.

Women, and there obsession with light skin, doesn’t cause me concern. If I had some spare bucks I would open an umbrella factory to feed the frenzy and line my pockets. My difficulty with umbrellas is the possibility of umbrella-induced blindness. Yes, you read that correctly. I have a fear of umbrellas.

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tout (tout)

v., tout·ed, tout·ing, touts.

v.intr.

1. To solicit customers, votes, or patronage, especially in a brazen way.
2. To obtain and deal in information on racehorses.

v.tr.

1. To solicit or importune: street vendors who were touting pedestrians.
2. Chiefly British. To obtain or sell information on (a racehorse or stable) for the guidance of bettors.
3. To promote or praise energetically; publicize: “For every study touting the benefits of hormone therapy, another warns of the risks” (Yanick Rice Lamb).

n.

1. Chiefly British. One who obtains information on racehorses and their prospects and sells it to bettors.
2. One who solicits customers brazenly or persistently: “The administration of the nation’s literary affairs falls naturally into the hands of touts and thieves” (Lewis H. Lapham).
3. Chiefly Scots and Irish Slang. One who informs against others; an informer.

[Middle English tuten, to peer.] from answers.com

Tout: Hello, what country are you from?

Stevo: Iceland.

Tout: Really? Beautiful country. Guilin is also beautiful, the most beautiful city in China. Do you know why? All the trees. It is very green here. Everything that grows in Guilin is very healthy. Do you know why? There are no factories in Guilin.

Stevo: What about the rubber factory?

Tout: That’s right, no factories. There is a very special tea in Guilin. It will make you very thin, and very healthy, and very beautiful. Do you want to drink some tea? There is a tea house 10 meters from here.

Stevo: No thanks.

Tout: Do you like to drink Chinese tea.

Stevo: No. I like coffee.

Tout: Ohhh. Most Chinese drink tea. Do you like Chinese paintings?

Stevo: No.

Tout: There is a big art gallery 10 meters from here. I have a painting in it. Do you want to see my painting? Maybe you could buy it?

Stevo: Maybe tomorrow, I have to see the dentist.

Tout: It’s right here, only 10 meters away…

Stevo: My bicuspid is broken; I have to see the dentist.

Tout: Wait, wait, 10 meters ….

Stevo: (thinks of the Iceland comment and snickers as he walks back to his hostel).