Beijing The Behemoth

Beijing the behemoth. At the airport I’m beat from being up some thirty-odd hours, but too sentient to think of sleep, the hotel be damned. Throw me instead into this sea of concrete, bemused smiles and unabashed stares.

In the taxi with Chris, the school’s recruiter, Iphigenia and I watch the towers of concrete repeat themselves for miles. I command myself to take in every detail, no matter how small. But I’m fading fast and when the city center at last comes into view, she’s too late. The fatigue has unfortunately set in and I can’t make out much but the obvious: taxis, bicycles, rickshaws. . . .

And so the hotel it is for us, because anyway I’m just too damn worked up. I don’t have a map, I don’t speak Mandarin, I haven’t changed any money yet. I promise myself a good random stroll the next morning, one which will enlighten me as to the way of the street, the dao of the hú tòng. 

But the morrow brings nothing so edifying. Only a short walk with killjoy Chris, who clams up at all my questions, and then an expensive coffee at an arty café. Initially he wasn’t even going to let me have my chic caffeine fix. Pulling me aside after we entered he hemmed and hawed a bit before saying, Actually this place is, well, um, it’s rather expensive, you know. I’ll have to wait to have Beijing as a lover.

We leave for Tangshan, where we are to begin our teaching assignment. There is no bus station as such—just a side street north of the central train station where the bus pulls up and waits to be filled. I’ll be amazed if I remember where to find it should we be lucky enough to return on a paint-the-town-red visit. An hour and a half or so eastbound toward the Bohai Sea and we’re there. Flat, grey Tangshan and its dun-colored environs—lugubrious. 

Hmm . . . and Iphigenia grabs my arm just as I’m getting back on the bus to Beijing. Damn.

We’re supposed to start teaching tomorrow, Chris notes, and so we visit the school to meet the director, heart-attack-prone Lola Xiao, who, eyeing Iphigenia greedily, is downright obsequious. Later Chris would tell us that Lola can’t wait for enrolment to rocket after she tells the parents she’s landed a native-speaker who also happens to be a woman.

Lola says she hopes we like the flat but, they’re very sorry, they haven’t had time to clean it. No problem, we say, we can manage. When we get to our flat we see that Lola did not deceive. Months of disuse have left the window sills grime-covered. Empty cobwebs hang forlornly from the ceiling. The floors are caked in dust, the kind that from Tbilisi to Tangshan accumulates hourly like a hirsute man’s stubble. It will take days to clean before we are comfortable letting our effects touch the surface. But Chris is adamant that we show up for work tomorrow as planned. We beg clemency. Give us a day, will you? No, says he. Iphigenia breaks into soft sobs. Wendy, a secretary at the school who accompanied us to the flat, comforts Iphigenia and beseeches Chris to take pity.

Hem, haw.

Look, I say, trying to keep my voice even, we’re here and we want to work. And we’ll work damn hard for you these next few months. But we thought the place would ready for us, and it’s not. So give us a day to clean it up, and we’ll be in the next morning, ready to go.

Hem but no haw. Chris, at Wendy’s prompting, even brings himself to ask whether we need help cleaning. We respectfully decline. They direct us to the closest supermarket where we buy mops and disinfectants. Then, on hands and knees we scrub the bejesus out of the place, clearing a path of grime so that we can walk from the front door to the kitchen and the bedroom. Hours later I step back to admire our work and wipe the sweat from my forehead. I sneeze violently and when I blow my nose it’s black.

Before we fall asleep Iphigenia whispers, I wonder what time the earliest bus to Beijing leaves?  

Beijing the lodestone.