an almost good start

He looked a little rude. We bumped elbows and I held my ground. I’m sick of having to do that, and it’s not a China thing. I don’t quite relate to that guy in the hostel who is sick of Chinese people. I just deserve some space on the plane, and sometimes you have to push back to get it.

How did we start talking? It wasn’t like India, where he would have asked me if it was my first time and whether I wanted to stay at his house. In fact, he didn’t look back when he left, and he only gave me his card after I’d given him my email address. He’d seemed so excited about it before…

The guy spoke English to me and Shanghainese to the woman to my right – I doubt it was his wife because this woman probably doesn’t live in Canada. No English, and I’m sure no French either. She found out halfway through that I spoke Mandarin, and that made for conversation about vegetarianism and the right way to kill Chickens. I don’t deny that there is a right way, but should I have as readily agreed? The last thing I remember is her making fun of my forgetting how to say Subway (in Shanghainese to the guy – not sure whether she thought the tones on 地铁 would throw me off).

She’d found out I spoke 普通话 when I heard her entreating the stewardess, “牛肉没有了吗？？” - somehow these two women had arrived at the same page but didn’t’ know it. The stewardess said “sorry, we’re out of beef. Only chicken.” And the Chinese lady said “牛肉没有了吗？？” again. As the stewardess stared blankly, I explained to my neighbor that yeah, there was no beef left.

He works in real estate. [Speculation. It drives people out of their homes. But that’s Shanghai, so you can either get in on it or leave.] He did try leaving the business to go to school, and that didn’t work out for him. Not sure why. I’m not sure about a lot of things he said – he said them all in English but w/ heavy accent and confusingly.

He’s impressed by my major (especially the word “policy”). Everyone seems to be. He says that if I can spot the trends in China, then companies in the US will want me to work with them and find good partners/deals. He probably has a point, although I’m not sure I’ll live in China long enough to handle that duty. I can work in the US and travel to China from time to time, though.

Money doesn’t belong to the people who have it; those people are only stewards. In fact, what good is money besides getting you food to eat and a place to live? The real power isn’t in government, but in the people, whom the government is a servant to. The people care deeply about basic things like clean water and safe land. He tells me these things and I ask whether most people think this way. He says that they don’t, and it’s too bad. Because if you think only of making more money, you can only get this far in your mind (shows a certain level with hand). If you start thinking about things this way, you can get over here (a level much higher and off to the left).

Now he works in environmental clean-up. Chemical plants, when they pack up and move, often leave behind nasty polluted earth and groundwater. In real estate, this creates problems if not dealt with. So he gets teams together to find and clean the pollution. Not bad. He tells me that he’ll probably continue doing this environmental work for the rest of his life. He likes it. “It’s meaningful,” he says.