Some Like it Hot

You can’t run away from your problems. And even if you try, your new location will present a whole new set of challenges for you to deal with. One of these challenges is best represented in a tale that I’ve debating putting onto the World Wide Web for weeks now. Some stories beg to be told, even at the expense of the author’s dignity. This is one of them:

Last week the toilet in my apartment broke. While I’m ever thankful that it’s a ‘real’ toilet and not one of those holes in the ground, I’ve been at war with this thing since I moved in. It won’t even flush the paper from me taking my makeup off at night. Usually I wait five minutes, send up a prayer to the toilet gods, flush again, and the problem fixes itself. But one day it didn’t.

‘Ok’ I thought. ‘I am woman. I can deal with this problem all on my own’. I put on my pink rubber gloves and reached for the plunger that was in the apartment when I moved in. When I picked it up I saw that the red rubber had a huge crack, rendering it completely useless. I went to work, came back, and tried to flush it again. Nothing. Still, I had faith that it would fix itself. For the next two days I showed up to work early and stayed late so I could use the hole-in the ground toilet at the courts. My boss probably thought I was really committing myself and stepping it up. Little did he know I just really had to pee. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking ‘Darrah, it’s no big deal. Just go out and buy another plunger’. You’re a genius. Why didn’t I think of that? But it wasn’t that easy. First of all, I scouted out the store below the courts. They had all the cleaning supplies one could ever want, but no plungers. Secondly, I had this thought; I stick out like a sore thumb in this neighborhood. I’m like the zoo animal that people stop to watch as I walk by. Men will almost break their necks taking a second look at the American girl (which is no different than the captivation every man feels towards me in America), children and old women shamelessly stare me down as I pass, and young women will pretend not to see me, then take a peek when they think I’m not looking. The guards at the gate of my apartment complex heckle me when I come and go. I really didn’t want to be seen walking down the street carrying a big red plunger.

But on day three I’d had enough. I benched my insecurities and set out to buy one. I double-checked the downstairs market. Nada. I walked up and down two blocks checking every store. There were no plungers for sale anywhere. I didn’t want to ask anyone because the thought of flipping through my lonely planet book on Mandarin and trying to mime a plunging motion made me cringe. I went to four stores…  five stores… six stores, all the while trying to look like I’m just casually shopping. But everyone knows. In my mind, everyone can tell what I’m looking for. These ‘stores’ are more like yard sales; a collection of lamps, snacks, bathmats, bottled water, and other random items that people may find a use for. Each store I walked in to was a lost bet. After an hour of searching for the elusive plunger in the summer heat, I finally I gave up and went into a shady convenience store for a bottle of water. I greeted the store worker, grabbed a cold bottle of water from the fridge, and browsed the strange yard sale items on the shelves. I looked up to a dusty corner to see buckets, a bouquet of toilet brushes, and one. blue. plastic. plunger. My immediate reaction was to climb the shelves to commandeer my prize. I wanted to grab the thing and protect it like a newborn baby, cradling it like Gollum did with the ring. ‘My Preciousssssss’.  But I could feel the clerk’s eyes on me, and I didn’t want to seem overly eager and excited to buy a toilet plunger. So I played it cool and took another lap around the store to peruse the drinks and snacks, all the while keeping one eye on the treasure on the shelf. I picked up a coke (I don’t drink coke, but it seemed like a legitimate, casual purchase), set it on the counter and gave the clerk the ‘one minute’ finger. I walked to the dark, dusty corner of the store and picked up what I believe to be the last plunger for sale in all of China. I set it on the counter with the water and Coke (‘Oh, you know, just coming to the corner store for a refreshing beverage and a plunger’).  It worked. The clerk was completely fooled my by casual facade. Sucker. (One could argue that the clerk didn’t give two shits about what I was buying, but ‘One’ should pipe down and stop ruining my story). The best part about this purchase was that the handle unscrewed, so it fit into a grocery bag. Double score. I held my head high and walked back to my apartment like one of my Navajo ancestors coming back to the village after a successful hunt. I am woman!

Yes, each new place we visit will stretch us in ways we never could have imagined. As I mentioned before, it sometimes seems that we can’t escape the problems of our past either. I was reminded of this fact while giving a lesson under the scorching Chinese sun yesterday. Usually, my schedule is nice in China. Weekends are busy, but weekdays involve a voluntary fitness and practice session in the mornings, a long lunch break, then giving lessons in the late afternoons and evenings. Yesterday I was disgruntled by an inconsistency in this schedule. After giving an 8:30am lesson, the weather was heating up to a temperature borderline unbearable. It was one of the hottest days since I’ve been here. After my morning lesson, I sought refuge in the clubhouse where Danimamma informed me that I was scheduled to give a 2pm lesson. I know my jaw dropped, but I quickly saved face so I’d at least appear as a team player. There is a back-story here:

 It was back in April when I was presented with the opportunity to come to China. I had been teaching at the tennis ranch in Texas for just over 8 months. As the weather got warmer, I felt pressure to decide whether or not I’d be staying on staff to be a summer camp counselor. I knew staying through the summer would be a fun learning experience. But working 24 hours a day, 6 days a week in the Texas Summer heat is not my idea of a good time, no matter how much I love my job. Thus, I decided to try something new and a little less demanding and give China a try. There is a strange but great connection between my past and present here; three years ago Howard took a group of kids from Zhongshan to the tennis ranch in Texas for summer camp. They loved it, and the kids who speak English well enough will talk to me about the ranch every time I see them. Their tennis bags are branded with the ranch logo and every once in a while they’ll sport their worn out ranch t-shits, bleached by sweat and sun. There’s something in the water in Texas that gives people a tennis bug (which is much better than the bugs you will get from the water in China). This is why it was difficult to leave.

I came back to the courts at 1:50 P.M. to meet Billy- the only kid crazy enough to schedule a lesson at 2 in the afternoon. It was HOT. I watched Billy sweat, hyperventilate, and all but collapse as he hit his first basket of forehands. Ten minutes in, I decided it was time for a much needed water break. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut; I had to ask.

‘So, Billy, why exactly do you want to play in the afternoon when it is so hot?!’

Billy is one of the kids who fell in love with his experience in Texas, which explains what he said next:

‘When we go to Texas we get up very early. We stay in a room…all Chinese men. It is always so hot. We play always. In the afternoon we exercise…play tennis. I play Turbo. What is it? No……Top Gun. I think now I should exercise in the hot like Texas.’

I had to make sure I was hearing what I thought I was hearing.

‘Wait. Billy. Are you telling me that you scheduled a lesson in the heat of the day so you would feel like you’re back in Texas?!’

‘Yes.’ Billy replied with a straight face, even though I was beside myself with exasperation mixed with laughter.

‘BILLY!!!!! I CAME TO CHINA TO GET AWAY FROM TEXAS!!!!!’

I don’t think he knew exactly why I was laughing so hard. But I was no longer upset about being out in the heat. After all, it was only an hour and a half….not a whole summer.

Try to run if you wish, but life is full of old problems and new challenges no matter where you go. Even when the heat is unbearable, let’s appreciate the sunshine. When we can laugh at ourselves and find a way to appreciate even the shitty parts of life (no pun intended), our world is a much happier place to live.