My Walk Home Today

My Walk Home Today

I told myself when I started these blogs that I wouldn’t ever sit there and tell a day by day account of my life because that would be boring to me and anyone that is reading about my life in China. But today’s walk home was pure China at least how I see it. Basically a lot of things that make you shake your head and say what is going on here?
The area around campus is not the most wealthy (but also not the poorest of the poor) this makes for interesting sights on a daily basis but today was special. I leave out of the east gate on campus and turn south to head to the train station. About 200 yards south of the gate I see a man in his early 30’s standing on the sidewalk staring at a patch of dirt between the sidewalk and a fence. As I walk closer I could tell he was staring intently at something but for the life of me I couldn’t tell what in the world it could be. As I came closer nothing was apparent until I came up upon the man and I saw the treasure that had captivated his imagination it was a pile of dog poop.

I crossed the street shortly after passing poop man to experience the 2nd great smell of China. Having previously worked in the underground utilities business I have been exposed to sewage on a regular basis I thought I had left those days behind me until I came to China. Depending on the neighborhood you are in the smell is present. You never know when it’s going to hit you but it’s always around especially in the area around our school (not as bad where we live). As soon as I hit the sidewalk I hit the smell and it stays with me for a block. I turn the corner where I see an elderly woman sitting by a biuck (a bike with a truck bed). I can tell she has something that she’s trying to sell in the back of the biuck but I can’t tell what it is as I get closer I see lot of small bowls surrounding a large glass bowl. In the glass bowl I see a blob of bright orange and black in the smaller bowls I see specs of orange and black this is when it hits me that she is selling goldfish on the street corner.

Not long after the goldfish lady I came up to another biuck this one had a couch on the back of it as I came around to the back of the couch I see two men standing over a washing machine talking, it soon became apparent that that the man with the biuck was trying to sell his washing machine on the side of the road.
I’ve mentioned before about cars parked on the sidewalk this is nothing new. I’ve also had to move on the sidewalk to let a car drive past me on the sidewalk. Today I had a first, I crossed the road not far from my apartment and there was a car driving down the sidewalk I didn’t think much of it until I started to see him back up and pull forward, then back up and pull forward again, then back up and pull forward again, if he had been taking his driver’s test he would have failed because it took him more than 3 points to do a 3 point turn but he did successfully turn his car around on the sidewalk.

There’s an alley that is a short cut to get to our apartment that we take every day. In this alley is a random guard shack with a gate that extends maybe 1/4 of the way across the alley and isn’t big enough to block anything that wants to get by it. We often joke about the man in the guard shack and how easy of a job it is to protect a dead end alley (there is a footpath that we take). The best I can figure is that the guard shack is the “home base” for the men that run up and down the street by our apartment blocking off parking spots and making people pay to park (not a very efficient operation but it seems to make them some money). Usually the man in the guard shack is reading, or taking a nap I walk by smile at him and keep walking. Today was different and by far the low point of my time so far in China. I’ve read and been told about the police in China and the corruption within the neighborhoods but today I saw two police officers who appeared to be beating man in the both. It’s common in China for illegitimate businesses to be set up and the police allow them to operate as long as they pay kickbacks to the police. My assumption is there was some disagreement or issue with paying and the police were teaching him a lesson. It’s a hard situation to be put in but I turned my head and walked home. Today was an interesting day.