Well, I've said some nice things, now's the fun part: wailing on the city that gratiously accommodated me for the past 5 months like it was a disobedient Iraqi prisoner. Problems I had during my Wuxi experience:
The co-workers - man have I been waiting to talk shit about these guys. First, I want to make it clear, that I had no problem with my Chinese co-workers. They weren't the chattiest or friendliest bunch but they were more or less sane and helpful. My problem was with the other laowais (foreigners) employed by my school...
My students were enrolled in a German sponsored program designed to eventually send capable students abroad to study business and earn a bachelor's degree in said field. As such, throughout the semester we cycled through a roster of guest lecturers, predominantly Germans, and predominantly crazy. As Matt Damon would remind us, there were some good Germans. R., who was there for the first two months or so of my contract, was a decent well-balanced normal fella with whom I shared many a beer. The Sirens, as I ironically thought of them, were three attractive and normal-acting gentle-ladies of my own demographic who were also committed to taciturnity, unlike their namesakes. And there were some older fellas who seemed perfectly fine, but with the exception of an interesting half-hour discussing the blitzkrieg with one guy who was 70 or so I didn't interact with them much.
But then we come to the crazies. M, who was a German of Korean ancestry, and whom R had talked up and later introduced me to eagerly (since we shared a Korea connection) was fucking batshit crazy. At first I thought he was just one of those insecure people who talk too much about themselves, and who're commonly encountered among expatriate circles. But I think it was when he and I were walking down the street, cross current through a river of motor-bikes, and I made some innocent comment about being annoyed by all of them, and he then jumped in the air and with a way too loud "hee-YAH!" tried to dropkick the next bike that crossed our path, I think it was then that I knew he was crazy...
Then there was T, whose passions included talking about himself, talking about history, talking about anything basically. Imagine it's a sub-zero early morning. Imagine our hero, underdressed, shivering, waiting outside at the bus stop for the university's bus to take him to work. Imagine T, an even slighter, portlier fellow than our hobbit-like central character, at his elbow. Imagine 30 minutes have passed by in this Siberian purgatory, and Anthony is trying to hail a cab because it doesn't seem the bus will ever come. Frostbitten toes and fingers. A noseless future. Cold that makes me curse myself for ever damning the sultry sufferings of summer. And T is following me around like a guardian angel, totally ignoring the crisis at hand, and together with the cold talking my fucking ear off about the 7 year's war. This guy never shut up. Never ever ever. I can see him now, a doomed 3rd class passenger in the bowels of the sinking Titanic, consoling sobbing co-passengers with his thoughts about sauerkraut.
There was also Mr. S, who I more or less grew to like but who bugged the hell out of me at first. He was the other English teacher, and was a native Mauritian with Canadian residency. He'd lived an interesting life it seemed: he had published several books about Mauritius, served in its foreign service, and traveled extensively. He was also much older than I, and tho he couldn't hold a candle to T, he too was no stranger to over-speaking and seemed to be an expert in everything. He claimed to be a trained hypnotherapist, and insinuated several times that he would be happy to put me under to cure whatever ailed me. He believed in past lives, and his wife, D (who I only met once) was a renowned psychic (supposedly). (When I asked her to read my palm, all she would commit to was that I had a hard time holding onto money - which is certainly true, but considering that I was on my 5th or 6th $7 jack and coke at that point I remain dubious.) He also claimed to be a Christian, and when he finally squeezed it out of me that I was an atheist he kept bringing up issues of faith over and over again. He wore sunglasses inside almost all of the time, and a ring with an oversized purple gem on it constantly. He had more children than a Catholic prince, and all seemed to have accomplished great things - one was a brilliant doctor, one was the former Miss Mauritius, that sort of thing. But as I said I grew to like him, well, that's going too far...let's say I grew to dread his company less and less.
There were others, but I've covered the two I loathed the most, and Mr. S who was arguably the most intersting, and in so doing have expended more words than they merit. More Wuxi negativity to come.
