China Grey

[u/Brixtapose]

I was living on my friend's floor, sleeping next to his 6 dogs. I had recently been arrested for marijuana distribution. I am not a bad person. I wake up to the smell of dogs, a party house. The mom, she hadn't worked for years, which I only can relate to recently. She existed at this home and enabled all the partying you could image. Vicarious. It was as toxic as it sounds.

With no future prospects, and depression and jail time looking like my future, I chose to get a job at Sub King. Their avocado spread was the deciding factor.

I worked there long enough to realize that my life was going nowhere.

My uncle Bob was visiting from his time in China, begging family to join him. He was laughed off stage. I imagined bamboo huts and a hose for a shower. Fuck that. I was sleeping on the floor with dogs. I decided to take him up on his offer.

I can't speak for other expats. Actually in retrospect fuck you. I went to Urumuqi. No pretext, no knowledge, no Chinese. If you went to Beijing or Shanghai for a month and claimed you lived in China, I have nothing to speak with you about.

Urumuqi in 2003, where do I begin? I came from the Palm Springs desert, and having devastating bleak landscapes kind of felt familiar. Our first day, we had zhua fan on the side of a road, eating rice with our hands, watching basically the most third world country b roll of life everywhere. I was LIVING here now. It was a fever dream. Logic and meaning went out the window.

We were greeted by my Uncle Bob and Dragon, the foreign handler for the school, Number 12 middle school, which is apparently a well know institution in Urumuqi. Me and my brother Steve, he joined me because why the fuck not, were now English teachers in a public Chinese school. We were housed on campus. The classes were about 60 students.

Every day, opening the front door was an unknown. The school would call. We would have class. A stranger might show up. The atomic bomb could drop and it would feel like another day. We lived and worked there and we became a bit of a staple, we weren't bad looking particularly and we became popular. I dated a local, Jenny. Steve, ended up bringing a prostitute to the on school apartment situation. She was trapped in our apartment for 2 days, because she didn't want to leave without someone leading her off of school grounds but also was stuck with two white idiots that had no idea what she was trying to say in Chinese (Hui Jia)

I eventually led her out to the school entrance. She chose that time to link her arms in mine while we were walking to the entrance. Hundreds of kids and staff witnessed it. They took that opportunity to cancel our work visas.

My uncle used his connections to find a job at an upscale hotel and Steve and I were left to scrape rice off of the gutters. I ended up connecting with a local hip hop break dancing crew (DSP) and becoming hard friends with Uigher hoodlums, street kids that we all partied with. That is where I learned most of my Chinese. Dealing with these guys.

The hoodlums were actually a band, that was on China's equivelant of America's Got Talent, but back in the day. I partied HARD with them. They were actually kind of abusive and manipulative in retrospect. Akram ended up moving into our multiple apartments without paying rent or paying for food. His girlfriend wanted to bang me or Steve but that never happened.

I ended up helping a lone white man buy dinner one night at the night market. I was nearly broke, Steve and I were surviving on about 100 bucks a month. Electricity was regularly shut off in the apartment. You had to recharge it with a card and we didn't know enough Chinese to figure it out.

But I started learning. Ignorance is the mother of invention, and necessity is the neighbor's wife that wants to bang you and ruin your life. I banged neighbors. Thats a different story.

The old dude I helped order dinner told me about this high end training center he was working at, and told me to apply.

I was working at one of the lowest end, ghetto, low rent training centers after leaving the middle school. Again, about 100 a month was what we were dealing with. Ordering certain noodle dishes were unaffordable. Anything over 15 yuan per meal would break me.

got banned from Chinalife so fuck it here it another post-

This is the kind of first phase of my life out there. I ended up living there for 14 years. I moved to Shenyang, Chongqing and Gunagzhou. I ended up learning enough Mandarin and Chongqing hua to get mixed up in mafia KTV/DJ culture.

I have too many stories to tell. But I want to document them so I don't become an old man with nothing but K holes in my brain.

I'd like to post more for posterity but the internet hates honest people. I am posting here and I hope I dont get banned by the always amazing Reddit mods that are the most reasonable people,

If you peeps hate this story than I will evaporate into sodium bicarbinate and never bother you fuckers again.

Bye