I've just come back from a few days spent judging but yet another English contest here in the P R of C and I must say it was hideous. The Rose and I were together, which is an invitation to fun and/or danger, and we had our usual plans for that lovely city (not Beijing): We check into a suite at a five-star hotel and divvy up the sweet sweet privacy. I usually get the bedroom, while he flops on a very luxurious roll-out bed in the living area. I take multiple baths in the bathtub big enough for four, while The Rose records in the other room. I go to the gym while he naps: he goes to the gym while I nap. It's our sanity after a year of being in the city. Best of all, since we're on the executive floor, we can eat and drink for free in the executive lounge, so it ends up costing us very little for our sanity.
So, after making reservations, and showing up at the gig that had sent us to that city in the first place, we were horrified to find that we were going to be sequestered in a rural three-star hotel, forbidden Internet access, and worse of all, told we'd be fired if we didn't hand over our cell phones. There's a lot I will do for cash in hand, but giving up my last link with my embassy ain't one of them. The Rose countered with some witty argument and in the end we were allowed our phones but told we HAD to stay in the hotel. We couldn't take pictures with our candidates, we were escorted to the toilets (I believe I told my handler rather acidly that I could wipe my own ass, a line I hadn't expected to use until I was eighty). Jurors on the OJ trial had more freedom. I might add that my room was grotty, the TV was all Chinese (hardly stellar) and that my room had neither air conditioning nor a mini fridge. The Rose was next door, which was nice. My part in the show was done after the second day, so I elected to come back to Beijing so I could catch up on some work for graduate school.
Little did I know what consternation this would cause. Let's see, I've lived here twenty years, speak a moderate amount of Chinese, can read well enough to get around, and oh yes, I'm pushing fifty. The show was sent into a flurry: oh dear, they'd have to find a driver, they'd have to find an escort, they'd have to pay me (rather less than the amount I had bargained for) and in the end I was sent to the train station with two students, neither of whom spoke English as well as I can speak Chinese, one of whom got car sick and spent much of the time hanging out the window vomiting copious amounts of white fluid, the other a useless male who sat up front and listened to rap music. At the train station, the idiot escort got into the wrong line then pulled me out of the right line to queue up at an automatic ticket dispenser which of course I couldn't use as it was for Chinese citizens only... Escort thought I could breeze in, grab a ticket, and then swan several thousand meters away in less than two minutes and make the two o'clock train.. we had to line up back at the queue he had pulled me out of, where there was a twenty minute wait in line, then get my ticket, then I had to sprint the distance, only to have Escort try to make me go to the wrong terminal as he misread my seat number for the platform...when I finally ditched my escort and got on the train back to Beijing, my phone binging with the collection of messages and IMs and emails of two days without contact with the outside world, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I wish I had stayed, I wish I had spent more time with The Rose, but work calls, and I am always afraid that I'm boring The Rose. I don't know how anyone can be so witty and generous and kind: I keep waiting for him to be an ass, and when we work together, it just doesn't happen. The contest was the usual mix of misplaced egos and overconfidence, with a sprinkling of big words inappropriately used. There were also some sweet moments, kids from the sticks who were overwhelmed with what they had accomplished. As I stepped into an elevator at one point I realized I was probably the last generation to have the odd pleasure of witnessing someone's first elevator ride. While I kvetch a lot about the lack of air conditioning, the fact I couldn't stay where I wanted, or the lack of ice cubes, I do believe my heart is in the right place, and I am deeply grateful for those moments of clarity when I get to experience someone's pleased astonishment and surprise.
As for the contest, I can tell you nothing: I signed a confidentiality agreement, I can't tell you who was there, how anybody did, I couldn't take pictures, and while I could tell you more, we should leave it at this: Please poke your eyes out after reading this, and I'll let you live.
