The Crazies

China attracts its fair share of nuts, with no place being as rich in characters as Beijing. Most foreigners here fall into three camps: students, crunchy with enthusiasm and body filth, corporate expatriates who are put up in such cushy surroundings that they can well believe they are still "back home" and long-term expats with no real skills, no real jobs, and who stay because they married a local or are avoiding possible persecution in their home state. There are a few sub-categories, of course, but the trend holds pretty solid. Needless to say, the last category is especially loaded with nut jobs.

My downstairs neighbor is one of them. On my second visit to the real estate firm that was handling my lease, my realtor confessed that the downstairs neighbor of one of the flats I was considering had already paid him a visit--twice--pumping him for details about me. This is not a good sign. As we walked over to the apartment so I could take a final look, a tall, grey-haired woman with an obviously half-Chinese toddler literally jumped out of some bushes to take a good look at me. Then she launched into her verbal assault, the bulk of which was: I am a home-schooling mom, even though my daughter is only 18 months, so she's on a strict schedule, I'll tell you when you can do anything noisy and that includes sweeping the floor, and btw, how much money do you make and what is the name of the school where you teach. In other words, it was a grilling: what was my financial status, as well as FEAR ME! I AM A HOME-SCHOOLING GOD-DESS AND THEREFORE WORTHY OF ALL LOVE AND ADMIRATION. I KNOW MORE ABOUT EDUCATION THAN THEE!

Some homeschooled kids turn out ok, but in general, their mothers are nut jobs too: how many homeschool moms have actually bothered with studying education? Precious few. You think you can learn that from the internet? Do you know how to teach reading, how to use math manipulatives such as Unix cubes, how to spot dyslexia? I do: I have enough respect for the profession to not only get trained in it but to update my skills far beyond what is required in my home state. If you fling the name of some home-schooling website from the Internet at me and think I'm going to fall down at your feet and praise you for having actually read a whole web page, you're wrong. You want to discuss education with me, fine: I'm pretty well versed in ECE, ELM, and various ECE theories and practices including Montessori, Waldorf, and Reggia Emilia. I study brain-based research into education. So put up your dukes, and let's spar. What I will not tolerate is someone acting as if they are socially superior to me because they can home school. And that is precisely what this woman was trying to convey. Even the realtor, with his limited English, understood that The Bitch Downstairs was trying to one-up me, and for the life of us both, we couldn't figure out why. (Ok, well, maybe insecurity.) I'm old, I'm tired, I'm poor: why would anyone feel the need to try to top that when it's so obviously out there? I will not apologize for being any of those things---I took a pretty sound beating from life, it lasted a LONG TIME, and  yet I'm still moving forward. So there.

A lot of parents in Beijing homeschool because they can't afford the outrageous school fees. Even sending your kid to a local school can cost about 10,000 USD per year, with first a "registration fee" of three to four thousand dollars, then fees per term for study. Some people ask me, "Why didn't you send your kid to the American school?" For starters, there isn't one. The US government does not provide a free education for its citizens abroad unless you are working for the government--in which case, they pay tuition for your children to attend an international school, but that school might actually be British, Canadian, or set up and run by a private investor group which is multi-national. Why should the government sent up free schools for US citizens?  They shouldn't, they aren't obliged to, and they didn't ask me to come here and live. As long as I earn less than a certain amount  per year, I don't even pay taxes in the US. I do pay whopping big taxes to the Chinese government, but then again, I live here. As far as I'm concerned, my own government is off the hook regarding the education of expatriates abroad. Sadly, not everyone gets that.

So, back to The Neighbor. I mentioned to a friend who lives nearby that I had been graced by a visit from The Crazy Neighbor and she launched into a story that chilled my very bones. Apparently while Crazy Neighbor's husband was gone (doing what, we can only imagine) she took to haunting the common courtyard area, small child in tow. She could be found day and sometimes night lurking in the bushes, ready to pounce on anyone walking by and tell them in three different languages all about her home schooling (which she has yet to begin.) One day to my friend's surprise, she launched a different attack. As my friend--a sweet woman with a shy manner which belies her rapier wit--was struggling with her bike lock, Crazy Neighbor approached. "Do you like chicken?" Crazy Lady began. My friend struggled to come up with a reply that could be innocent and not lead to further conversation. No need. "Because I don't have any," Crazy Lady continued. "But I could give you some spiced crab apples."

Do you see what loneliness does to people? If only Crazy Lady found a nice play group for her daughter, got out, saw some people, she might take to having safe, sane conversations with people who were genuinely glad to see her and her toddler daughter, who is indeed adorable. Instead, we run, and even text each other when she's outside, that mad lonely gleam in her eye, desperate to assault us with a conversation that proves that no, no, she's not trapped in a crap marriage in a country she doesn't like with a kid she can't afford to take to a local school so she can have a flippin' cup of coffee in peace and quiet...how very well I understand, and how deeply grateful I am for the poverty that forced and forces me to get up and go to work every day. Even today. Happy Sunday.