The CPS

I’m not one of those people who lists “travel” as a hobby – that seems like something people do when they don’t actually go anywhere, or when they do, but only when they have paid dearly for a carefully prepackaged experience led by someone named Chris or Monique. When I travel, it seems to involve either staying somewhere uncomfortable for years in a shitty job, or getting hauled somewhere dusty in the back of a pickup truck for 16 hours in order to be yelled at by someone in an official-looking uniform who hates me for: 1) not speaking his language, and 2) being a woman. Neither of those situations seem like hobbies so much as habitual vices. Nonetheless, I do tend to think of myself as a pretty decent traveler, I guess. I’m no Isabelle Eberhardt, but I enjoy having a home to leave, I like seeing how other people cook their food; I like the road less traveled. As my dad says, “Always look for the real.”

My parents are about as adventurous as they come. My father rode a motorcycle through South America in the 1950s and jumped out of airplanes all over Southeast Asia; my mother met him in Alaska, where they did things like ran a crab boat in the Bering Sea and shot moose; she’s gone through Mexico learning how to cook grasshopper tacos; they sat together on a glacier in New Zealand and chipped ice off of it for their gin and tonics. They had dragged me to every state in the union (except Michigan) by the time I was seven, and by 15, I’d been to five or six countries. Now I’ve been to 30, and I even made it to Michigan a couple of years ago.

In graduate school, one of my required classes was called “Understanding the International Experience,” which was essentially cultural-sensitivity and culture shock survival training, taught by an incredibly sincere and energetic woman who deserved far more attention than I gave it. Besides these things, I pick up languages easily, I like talking to strangers, and I get off on leaving my comfort zone. Yet with all of this CV of ability to live abroad, I have to admit: coming back to China from Thailand really sucked. I did it poorly.

First of all, it was cold. I mean, really, really cold. I know that 38 degrees Fahrenheit is nothing compared with the icy blasts that serve up negative double digits all winter long throughout the Midwest, but here’s the difference: in Chicago, you can’t see your breath in the living room with both heaters going. Your ass doesn’t freeze to the toilet seat. You can dry your clothes, rather than wait for them to either ice over and crack, or mold, or both. There are places to go to get warm. Also, our 5 weeks away had magically erased my brain of all my hard-won Mandarin, and I felt like I was back in September, trying to get something – anything! – to eat that wasn’t pig. I wrote a grumpy email to a friend that I think went something like this:

“China sux. Everyone is short. The traffic is trying to kill me. My students are brainwashed clones stuffed into 12-year-old suits, and my internet is monitored. The food is all made out of dried pig faces that they sell next to the checkout counters, and there’s frost on my bed. Everyone here hates me, and talks about me behind my back, and people either grunt or yell and laugh at me and I don’t understand anything. They’re all staring. Get me the #%@$! out of here. Meet me in Thailand…”

And so forth. Not my best moment, I’ll admit, but I imagine it happens to the best of us. There were probably moments when even the Macedonian-born Mother Theresa got sick of it all and wanted to stick a big knife in the shaking hands of any hunger victim in Calcutta and thrust their bony body toward the nearest cow and shriek, “Just eat it, EAT THE GODDAMNED THING!!”

Or maybe not.

In any case, these days happen, and we know that they happen, and for that eventuality, several months back, Paul and I created what we privately refer to as The CPS. It stands for The China Pain Scale. The China Pain Scale is a relative index of culture shock misery used to relate to sane beings outside one’s self, and to express in quantitative terms exactly how much your internal world sucks or is adequate at any given moment. The CPS is a basic scale, a spectrum of one to ten, in which one stands for relatively little or no pain; in fact, it means that the day in question is really pretty rosy. For example: you successfully mail a letter without its contents being seized by the Post Office Party Representative, you finish grading 37 feedback journals, you eat something really tasty, and the lady at the shop where you bought the yogurt actually smiles at you when you thank her. That day might feel like a one or a two. Then there was the time back in October when an early Autumn chill had settled into the apartment, and Paul tried to plug in our heater, only to have the entire cord burst in half in an electrical explosion and leave his hand a useless, blackened, leathery mess of blisters. I came home to find him in shock, and of course we had no friends or nearby medical assistance, and couldn’t speak Chinese well enough to call an ambulance, should his heart have been affected by the jolt. That day was more like a nine. We’ve both had nines, but thankfully, they are few and far between.

Common afternoon conversation goes like this:
“So, how was class?”
“(Sigh) Not bad. Tired.”
“How’s the CPS?”
“I’m cool. Four. Maybe five. You?”
“Awesome. Three at the most.”
“Excellent. What should we do for dinner?”
…etc.

I am happy to announce that today is around a three. First of all, it was spectacularly warm out. I try to remind myself that it was actually oven-hot here in August when we arrived, and so barring the semi-likely event of massive climate disaster, we can assume Spring is really on its way. Second, I got to eat smoked salmon and capers. I ordered “bagel and lox” at a Western restaurant, and what I got was actually a sesame seed bun (with no cream cheese) and some smoked salmon shavings and bits of caper and red onion, but it was light and tasty and sort of cute. My bike chain fell off and got wedged in my gears four times, but each time a stranger helped me out and shrugged off my thanks with a smile. One guy even gave me a martial arts salute, which I happily returned. I had a great workout, we bought some black beans and instant oatmeal, and the sun shone all afternoon. The man who brought our tank of water this evening joked with me in the kitchen and practically cracked his face in half with a grin. We’re on our way to get some hotpot and then hang out with friends we haven’t seen since the beginning of January. My CPS is low, and looking to stay low for the remainder of the weekend. Updates to follow soon.

~ by knifemaker on March 6, 2008.