I am sitting on my (hard Chinese) bed drinking room temperature sake straight out of the bottle and eating these weird saltines with lime filling.
Not kidding. They’re surprisingly delicious.
Why? Because I didn’t go to the grocery store that has wine and snacks.
Why? Because in order to go to the grocery store that has wine and snacks, I have to get on a bus or take a DiDi without speaking any proper Chinese, navigate through an angry gaggle of e-bikes (which is what those moped things are properly called here), find the wine aisle in a sea of people and disgusting tanks of seafood and piles of pork tongue, get through the check-out again without speaking to the checker, and then schlep whatever I can carry back out of the grocery store (and, by the way, last time I went to this grocery store, I got horribly lost trying to get out and ended up wandering through a labyrinth of tiny indoor poorly-lit shops full of children playing weird musical instruments and shouting in unison and I swear I didn’t smoke anything before-hand), get back on the bus or DiDi still with no Chinese language skills, and then haul it up to my hotel room.
Everything is that difficult here or more, at least from my perspective. I can’t order a sandwich without practically giving myself a panic attack.
And it’s a good thing I’m not a fussy eater, or I probably just wouldn’t eat at all here.
I don’t eat things with the faces still attached. Sorry.
Anyway, the grocery store that I can walk to and that is never crowded has a bunch of sake, but no screw-top wine, so it was either buy the sake or try to ask the clerk for a corkscrew without speaking Chinese. I went with the sake. And a bag of grilled squid chips and a bag of kimchi chips because why the hell not. You know, they actually were pretty good.
All this is to say that I think I’m usually a pretty ok traveler. I don’t get stressed much, largely because I plan ahead and know how to make a new plan if the first one fails.
Here, though, all bets are off. I can’t plan anything. That doesn’t stop me from worrying about everything, though. It’s exhausting to walk around all day and to feel completely stupid and useless the entire time because you never have any idea what’s going on.
And, if any of you have any sort of wacky brain chemistry stuff going on, you may recognize this pattern of finding one thing to worry about and then spiraling into your own personal hell of worrying about everything in your life and everybody else’s life. I am worried about:
- Getting around in China
- Getting through customs when I have to fly home
- Finding souvenirs for people since my time is running short and all I’ve bought so far is tea… and a lot of weird snacks that I already ate
- What to do in Shanghai this weekend… without speaking Chinese
- My cat who now has a tapeworm
- The cat who lives at the conference center and, if I had to guess, probably also has a tapeworm
- Moving when my apartment lease is up in February
- Christmas. Just all of it.
- Coming back home and possibly finding that everyone has forgotten about me and moved on with their lives while I’ve been gone, and I won’t fit in anymore
- Not doing enough stuff while I’m in China because I should be grateful that I’m here and it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
- Where that gross smell is coming from (although I think that one is legit because there’s always a gross smell coming from somewhere around here)
I could keep doing this all night. I’m not sure I really have a point to make here, but if I did have one, it would probably be that life has once again shown me that I’m not as badassy of a badass as I thought. As I get older, it’s a bit easier to accept that, so there’s the silver lining.
This is the conference center kitty. She is cute, but kind of an asshole. I named her Chichi. It just seemed to fit.
And because I don’t want to seem like I’m complaining too much, let me finish by telling you that I went out for drinks with colleagues on Friday night and it was delightful. We drank too much and bitched too much and talked too loud and were very obnoxious and I loved every minute of it. My new friends have made this experience worth every worry.
So, by the way, I’m also worried about:
- Leaving my new Duke Kunshan University friends and not being able to find enough excuses to talk to them when I get home
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