Hefei: Family and Friends

Hefei is a major Chinese city in interior China, located in the Anhui province. It is a 4hour train ride west by bullet train from Shanghai.

I am making my way towards Chengdu and eventually even further west China, before my trip to Thailand, attempting to see what Western China is about.

I imagined Hefei as a bit of a pit stop. I have an Aunt and Uncle here, as well as a cousin and 4 year old nephew. I planned to make family rounds, wander the city some, and move onwards to more well-known or culturally relevant cities, or smaller and unique villages.

First we take a weekend trip to Huang Shan, or Yellow Mountain. A famous Chinese tourist site.

See, Hefei is a massively growing city, a major metropolitan site where businesses that can’t find lodging in Bejing, Nanjing, Shanghai, or Hong Kong flee to. It’s nickname, said sarcastically [or not if you are Loyal Party Member], is the “Paris of China” and anyone who knows Paris and/or China knows exactly how tongue-and-cheek that phrase could stretch.

But, as it so happened, I got fairly sick. First. Let me say it was only a cold, and if this is truly the worst illness I get on the trip, I have made it scot-free. I expect to find something worse at some point.

And second, it wasn’t even that bad. Two fevered nights of sleep and I was back to drinking and abusing my body. [Pro-tip. Don’t do that. Recover. Idiot.]

But that outgoing night did give me a wondrous meet. Enter Dave Weldon. A graduate student in Anhui University. He is studying plasma physics and he is originally from Illinois. The sight of a large white man in a straw hat is unique in China, particularly this far west. And he draws many eyes as we met in the Shipyard, a tiny back alley collection of bars and restaurants and stores

We play board games in a pseudo-Irish bar [no Guinness but a surprisingly diverse beer list] with a wonderful collection of expats, all who are in China either teaching English or studying in school. [There is also two Chinese students. One of which invites me to the hospital she works at. More on that later.]

Over the next week, I see more and more of the expat community. We play mahjong and drink alcohol. We do the karaoke thing; I read some poetry at the soft opening of a rooftop skatepark-bar. [S/O Zeke, Mary, Liz, Harry]

It’s fun.

Expats are a very transitory state of being, especially in China. It’s apparent. Raising a family in China is an option B, to being anywhere else. Around the Mahjong table, no one is staying in Hefei past December, and only one person is staying in China by moving to Shanghai.

They’re still world explorers; no one is heading back to their home town. They all have plans to be elsewhere; roaming the big ol’ planet.

But while China and the Chinese language have been part of their lives for years; they find themselves looking elsewhere.

See, China has not been my favorite travel destination. Maybe it’s only been 2 weeks, and I need to make more experiences; but I’m hoping for more. China’s culture seems muted; the people seem distant [like when I say I’m American, it’s immediately a competition. What’s better in America. What’s better in China. Why Chinese people are better. Have you heard this Loyal-Party-Member news? [No.] Listen to this Chinese/Taiwanese singer? [Definitely no]]; and I get the nagging feeling of being watched by the police state. [Because they are watching everyone]

I think I miss the shrines. The onsens. The nature. China these last two/three decades has been pretty industrialized; overwhelmingly like Tokyo’s skyscrapers; with Houston’s roads, New York’s trash, and the fleet of scooters, bikes, and cars that honk in a chorus of unsatisfied, frustrated, and self-centered people. Individually, they are nice and chatty; but collectively, the mass humanity of Chinese people make them disposed to care little, if less, about each other.

Younger Chinese are better. Less standoff-ish and more aware of the shortcomings of their country.

And I’m not trying to despair China. It’s government is a totalitarian government, that much is true. The culture is one of an oppressed people doing their best for themselves and their families; unwilling to risk their own [very recent] wellbeing and economic growth to fight a hopeless battle against a terrifying police state. None of this is blame [except on the Loyal Party Members] and most of it is sadness. An entire culture, 5,000 year old; stagnant because the ruling class is afraid to give art, music, news, voice, power to the billion plus people they oversee.

Those who try are scoffed by the general populace as hippies or unemployed, as who wouldn’t want a secure Loyal-Party-Member Job?

Hefei feels like the worst of those parts. The culture has been bulldozed for new buildings. The growth is for fancy government jobs, or stores that make money; aimed towards the growing-young-wealthy-middle class. The DJ for the major club was a fake; a tiny girl with practiced dance moves and wearing a pair of unplugged headphones; intermittently touching dials on the Pioneer CDJs before her.

It seems like the perfect metaphor. The girl is rail thin, dressed in impeccable streetwear. The crowd is crowded but muted; no one’s dancing and everyone’s watching. The girl has clearly practiced; her dance moves are crisp to the point of being robotic; but it’s simply on the beat; no awareness of song transitions or drops. She’s clearly faking the DJ work. The headphones never go over-ear. There’s no song selection. No beat matching or cue-ing. She never even touches the decks. There’s no one in the DJ booth; she’s alone on stage.

But everyone parties on regardless. Bottles are popped. People are watching the lights and the dancing [sort of]. The venue is dope; outdoors in a beautifully built commercial center. A waterfall writes Chinese characters in the cascade of droplets; the décor is high class, there’s hundreds of people in the crowd.

But for all of it. Fake. Fake enough to hurt my teeth.

Still. I performed poetry at the skatepark/bar which does have a lot more heart; cheering me immeasurably. People are still trying. It’s a hard country to be raised in. But they’re doing their best.

I admire it. The struggle is real. But I cannot say I love it here; and outside of my expats friends, do not ever expect to be back in Heifei.