Wooosshh! I upended the large bin and hundreds of colourful Lego-like blocks and bally-shaped thingies scattered across the floor in front of the delighted Chinese four-year-olds that I am currently teaching. The floor was now a rainbow that had come crashing and splintering down from the heavens. “Pick up the green,” I roared, “the green, the green!” holding up one of the green thingummies for reinforcement. The grinning rug-rats scrabbled around on the floor in hysterics, grabbing at the green toys and sometimes fighting for possession of them, squealing with rage. Yet all they were being asked to do was drop the green toys back into the bin. They perhaps, at their age, were unable to realise the toys did not actually belong to them.
Well then, what does belong to us, if anything?
The human desire for possessiveness sets in very early, it seems. Staring at my clutching, greedy four-year-olds, I wondered how different children at this age might be in other cultures and class statuses. Are they all, generally speaking, so possessive at this age? Where they still often like to put objects into their mouths? Once all the “greens” were binned, many of the kids snatched up as many of the remaining blocks and balls as they could find, regardless of colour, waiting for the next command to come from me. Some of them still squabbled for possession, control. Their mirroring of the very human need to be in control, to only feel happy when we have “enough” possessions I found quite sobering. Their petulance and sudden mood changes, depending on what they had in their tiny hands, reminded me too much of me … what some readers may think is too much of a favourite topic in my blogs of late.
Right now I am restlessly drumming my fingers over a fairly good job teaching in a college back in my beloved Suzhou, as I am really not happy with neighbouring, drab Kunshan. Currently we live almost in a slum, I am embarrassed to say. We discovered we don’t have hot water in our grimy kitchen and never will. The sink is made of tiles, cracked and dirty. Our new company promises free accommodation, yes, but they certainly make sure they don’t spend much on us in this regard. Some of the nearby shops are filthy …
I catch myself in mid-moan, stare down at the Lego toys I am clutching in my hands, or rather, the ones I do not have in my hands. We may have taken a big step down (in my perception) in our current standard of living and our overall package, as we had to move fast to at least find jobs for now. But hey, we still have running water, a tiny but usable flush toilet, a washing machine. I forgot to mention that there are at least shops nearby, which is convenient, including a wonderful fruit shop from which I often buy fresh honeydew melon for breakfast on workdays. Forgot to mention the little Chinese restaurant nearby where the manageress and her husband, parents of two, were delighted to see a foreigner eating in their restaurant (a delicious mixture of scrambled eggs, tomato and lightly fried eggplant being a favourite). Her name is Libby and she has been most helpful. In China there are what we call “wet markets”, shichang, rows of stalls in a huge shed or building run by farming-type folk (I am told they are farmers but how can that be when they spend long days every day selling veggies and are therefore unable to attend to their crops) where the produce is often guaranteed to be fresh and at a third of the price in supermarkets. She escorted me all the way to one of these places. It was wonderful to stand there in the stores and as I spoke Chinese to the hawker, Libby translated what I said … into Chinese. Libby displayed that wonderful idiosyncrasy of some Chinese: they know I can speak the language to a reasonable extent, but still see the need to helpfully translate my Mandarin … erm … into Mandarin …
Now I stare down at my hands again. They are empty, completely empty, slightly curved into little smiles. For a moment I have felt happy, almost deeply happy, a person who has stood under a waterfall with arms outstretched, drinking in that impossibly ancient fluid and its gasping cold.
On Seth Godin
But okay, I am still hoping we can get back to Suzhou. Which means maybe doing a runner from our current, rather iffy company. I have been warned by colleagues here that this company is not forgiving, and will attempt to blacklist us, make our lives unpleasant. I don’t see how they can cancel our visas, as our previous company in Suzhou issued us with visas that expire only in the middle of next year. But as the truisms go: nothing risked, nothing gained. If you don’t try you cannot fail, but nor can you succeed.
In closing, I often follow Seth Godin’s pithy blogs, and this one stood out today:
A tattoo is basically forever.
You should think pretty hard before you get one, because it’s largely an irreversible decision.
“Just about every choice you make with your project and your career, though, doesn’t last forever. And the benefit of taking a risk is significantly higher than it is with a tattoo. A landing page, a pricing move, a bit of copy — they don’t last much more than a day, never mind a lifetime. Higher benefits, lower risk, what are you waiting for?
So go ahead and act as if your decisions are temporary. Because they are. Be bold, make mistakes, learn a lesson and fix what doesn’t work. No sweat, no need to hyperventilate.
I am not sure if I entirely agree that the results of decisions only have “temporary” reverberations throughout one’s life, but I found what Seth had to say encouraging, even comforting.
Oh the joy of being told by a daycare teacher: ‘Your child doesn’t like to share his toys,’ as though this is the final proof of psychopathic tendencies. And if yours is an only child, it is more likely to happen. My mantra aimed to teach my son to look after his things properly; I never considered telling him to share. Who with? The dog?
He learnt very quickly which toys would be ruined by the neighbour’s child and hid them before the lad came around to play. And I didn’t share. When I found his uniform pockets full of my china thimble collection as we left for school, I was unimpressed; they were mine, not his. He didn’t have the right to share them out between all the cute blondes in the class. When the moving parts of the sewing machine disappeared, I was vicious and threatened not to drop him at cub camp until he told me where he’d hidden them. And when his R 1500 hockey stick disappeared from the face of the earth before I’d even paid the Visa card, I knew that someone had taught another child to share too well!
But look how kindly others are sharing with you over this time; and isn’t it better to share a kindness than material things. As long as you both eat, sleep and can wash off the grime of the day, does the rest really matter? You will have learnt so much about yourselves when it’s over.
When once I told my priest that I was ashamed because I’d dropped an entire casserole all over the floor just as guests were arriving, he asked: ‘Perhaps God meant you to drop it and smash the Pyrex bowl’ That didn’t go down well at a stage when I didn’t earn enough to substitute.
It took me a while to realise that I was being told that God is in control, not me. I’m not suggesting that you must develop religious faith if you have none, just pointing out that we are not always in control and there are times when we can do damn-all about it. Count your blessings, enjoy nature and revel in the kindness others show you. I have watched countless friends forced up against walls not of their own making in my lifetime. Generally, they end up in a better place than they’ve ever been in before.
So sometimes, it doesn’t depend on the decisions we make, but on those that are thrust upon us.
Keep on writing, even when it is difficult. You guys have guts, more than most.
Now, something about one of my experiences of which there are many.
One company I worked for, went through a very difficult time. The concept that they had was a very good one. Putting up touch screen information kiosks throughout the country. It was brilliant and I believed in it. I really thought they were on a good wicket. The problem was that investor’s money disappeared and they never got a ROI. It seemed that they used investors money and the revenue it generated, to pay off old debts.
But, still I believed.
Things got so bad, that they could not pay me a salary and I got evicted from my flat.My girlfriend and I moved into one part of the office that was not used with all my furniture,or what was left of it. I have a very nice solid wood lounge suite I inherited from my grandparents which I will never get rid of. And of course our bed and kitchen stuff. We could afford to buy a single spiral electric hot plate which we used to cook on. So, we shared the office.
Things got worse and we were evicted from the office. One of the directors knew someone that owned a “guest house”. You know, one of these that you’d pay an hourly rate and catered for prostitutes. He agreed to put us up in one of the rooms. It had a cupboard, in which we put our clothes and groceries, a double bed, a bath, basin and toilet. There was a wooden board between our room and the next. We heard…
what was going on in graphic detail, 24 hours a day. Some nights, we did not sleep much.
We used the bathroom as our kitchen and cooked on our one plate stove in a corner of the bedroom next to the bed. We lived on cash that we got from the company, to buy food and the odd beer for me.
The office moved to one of the director’s houses where I had to set up the IT infrastructure and where we built the touch screen systems. They still milked investors and opened every meeting with a prayer. You see, the concept was so good that anyone that had money or not, and was presented with the business plan, saw their ROI and just fell for it. Some working people got promised shares in the company and religiously paid an installment into the company’s bank account each month.
I still traveled the country from Langebaan to Messina, Ellisras to Phalaborwa. installing, repairing and updating systems. I travelled 5000 km in one week, sometimes getting to the place where I was supposed to overnight at 5 in the morning just to get up at about 9 and hitting the road again. There was always an urgency for me to get things done as quick as possible and get back to the office. At times the office would come to a standstill for days if something IT goes wrong and I am not there.
We lived there for a few months until the company could not pay our “accommodation” and was also evicted.
It was at a time that there was a boom in IT colleges and the market was saturated with IT people…
Anyway, the rest is another story for another day. I just wanted to let you know, that I feel for you.
Please excuse my grammer, spelling etc.
Hi Andre – thanks for commenting , it has not appeared yet as the moderator has not got to it but I can see your comments on my side – what a story! what a time you and your girlfriend went through! I couldnt believe it, in fact.
MLG, I really appreciate your encouragement. Oh I believe in prayer though I am not a really religious person. Thanks hey.
I mean MLH, sorry
Women are amazing, she stuck with me through thick and thin.
Yeah Marion has also stuck with me through thick and thin
How to contact? Can you see my email? Would love to give you emotional support if nothing else.