Unsavory Elements: Stories of Foreigners on the Loose in China.

I’ve been a tourist in China a couple of times. I’ve climbed the Great Wall, toured the Forbidden City, and walked along Shanghai’s bund. But I’ve never lived in China, and that’s an entirely different thing.

I was curious. So, rather than pack up and move halfway around the world, I bought a book: Unsavory Elements, an anthology edited by Tom Carter that is packed with the China stories and experiences of 28 writers.

Here is just a taste of what you’ll find.

“Paying Tuition,” by Matthew Polly”

painting by Nicki Chen

Foreigners settle in China for all kinds of reasons. For Matthew Polly, the author of one of my favorite essays, “Paying Tuition,” it was to study kung fu at a famous Shaolin temple. He signed up as the temple’s only foreign student more or less prepared for a grueling training schedule and lots of hard work and pain. What he wasn’t ready for was the expense: US$1300 a month.

It took Polly three long, expensive months to realize he was being charged the sucker foreigner price. He succeeded in bargaining it down to the smart foreigner price of $550, but that was still far higher than the Chinese friend price or the Chinese friend-of-a-friend price or even the Chinese stranger price. By then he was nearly broke and in need of a money-making scheme.

And so began his ambitious t-shirt project: The negotiations with the manufacturer. The 2000 shirts. The suitcases and hired vans. The bribes and duties. His hilarious story concludes with a saying not from Confucius but from Chinese slang that succinctly describes someone’s first business venture:  “paying tuition.”

“The Shoe,” by Kay Bratt

In Kay Bratt’s story, “The Shoe,” an American woman who volunteers at a Chinese orphanage takes a physically disabled six-year-old girl on an outing. She buys her a “happy” meal at McDonalds, a new frilly pink dress, and a single sandal. By story’s end, we wonder with the author what will happen to the girl with one leg whose parents abandoned her but refused to give her guardianship to the government so she could be adopted. After you finish the story, you may want to follow up by visiting Kay Bratt’s website.

“East of Nowhere, South of Heaven,” by Alan Paul

batik painting by Nicki Chen

A few pages into Alan Paul’s essay, I’m shaking my head. OMG! What was he thinking? Why did he take his wife and in-laws, his wife’s great aunt and sister and, especially, his 3-, 6-, and 9-year old kids into the Tibetan region of Sichuan’s “wild west”? Didn’t he know ahead of time that part of the trip would be over a “half-built, high altitude road with no guard rails in the dark of night”?

Then I paused and remembered some of the dangerous trips we took our kids on when we lived abroad. (Paul’s story, in fact, was the impetus for me to write two earlier blog posts: “An Easter Week Trip to Mindanao” and “Scorching Our Feet on Taal Volcano.”)

I could sympathize with Paul’s desire to give his children “genuine China experiences,” and I understood his naiveté in believing the person who said the dangerous nine-and-a-half hour trip would be nothing more than a three-hour drive over a bumpy road.

Raising your children overseas is sometimes a guessing game. But, we told ourselves, they’ll thank us for it later—if they make it out alive.

“Red Couplets,” by Jocelyn Eikenburg

photo courtesy of Jocelyn Eikenburg

With so many Chinese men available, you’d think most resident single foreign women would have a Chinese boyfriend. Not so, according to Jocelyn Eikenburg. During her first three years in China she said she spotted no more than four or five Chinese men and Western women together in public. She would have noticed, too, especially after she fell in love with her Chinese boyfriend, Jun.

Having a relationship with a Chinese man wasn’t simple though.

When Jun moved in with her (only days after their first kiss), they had to keep their relationship a secret. If the school where he was a graduate student found out he was living with a foreigner, he could have been expelled and asked to reimburse them for his tuition and expenses.

Another challenge was visiting Jun’s parents in the countryside. The couple didn’t dare kiss or hold hands, and Jun’s father made it clear that he didn’t like the idea of his son having a foreign girlfriend. Later when Jun wanted to visit Jocelyn’s parents in Ohio, he couldn’t get a travel visa.

Oh dear! you might think when you finish the essay. Is the deck stacked against them? My suggestion: Visit the author’s website, speakingofchina, and see how they’re getting along today.

These are only four of the 28 fun and informative essays you’ll find in Unsavory Elements. Check it out.

If you’ve already read it, what did you think? Which were your favorite essays?

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