Tales of (Old Man) Football

While I tend to regularly post about Zach's coaching and the women's team achievements, I rarely give updates on his personal prowess on the pitch. 

Yes, Zach still plays the game. 

Though, by his own words, the current playing strategy is that the mind knows what to do, but the body lags....and the knees are a bit cranky. 

As with every semester, he plays competitively with the teachers team in the campus competition. However, before the opening game began this year, a rather serious discussion took place. In Zach's retelling of their initial huddle, a fellow teacher lamented that the student opponents remain the same age, but their ages increase. By a quick calculation, it was declared that the average age of the teachers team is 42. Zach said there was a collective round of 'ai-yahs' and groans, alongside a few shoulder shrugs. With that stated, they turned to walk onto the field. 

The grizzled grit of the aged ready to take on the bravado of the youth. 

Watching these games are always delightful in the way that amateur sports can be, especially in a culture where foundational skill building is disregarded in favor of acting akin to the professionals. Every player who steps on a pitch in China is a Messi or Ronaldo; though the drama and rolling around on the field is mimicked the best. This makes for extremely comedic viewing and ample bemusement opportunities for the teachers, who stand over the floppy, young whippersnappers shaking their heads.

This semester's campus competition coincided with the Shenzhen women's tournament, which ended up being fortuitous for Zach. In one of the earlier campus games, he took a few knocks. It was not an overly physical game. However, many guys like the opportunity to take on the foreigner, not realizing that Zach is quite fearless and has a bit more muscle than them. The goalie in this game realized that it would have been wiser to go after the ball instead of Zach when he was making a run on goal. Zach got all ball, the goalie got all Zach. It took the goalie a while to stand up. 

However, this was not the fall that resulted in a mandatory pause from active play. That came in the second half, when Zach was late in a challenge and the opposing player ended up on top of him. Zach was promptly shown a yellow card ("I earned it," he declared from the field.) Four days later, it was confirmed that he had severely cracked two ribs in that tackle. It was not a career-ending injury, but it has taken about seven weeks to heal to a point that any movement does not elicit ample groans. 

It also was not a season-ending injury, as the trend this semester was to draw out every single competition to an obnoxious length. The Shenzhen tournament that was scheduled to be three weeks became seven weeks. The campus competition was to be six weeks but became ten. We bantered that it was a good thing that China was not hosting the World Cup this year as the month-long competition would have become three under the current trend.

Zach was able to play the final match against the Management major boys. These guys know Zach well and he knows them well, so he was happy he was well enough to play with them. The management crew was aware of the rib injury, resulting in not many challenges towards Zach. However, late in the second half, during a corner kick, one boy's elbow inadvertently struck Zach's ribs. Zach doubled over and the boy panicked. Zach was fine after a few breaths, but it was rather endearing at how horrified the boy was about his errant elbow. Zach calmed him down and made sure that all knew that it was absolutely unintentional. 

Zach's football calendar has finished for the semester, so the footy bag has been aired, disinfected, and stored until next season. Now, his free time is consumed by enjoying his new birthday present and yelling at the professionals.

Campus Peek: The Cats

When we moved to this campus, we were delighted to discover an entire feline population lived here as well. It was quickly obvious that the campus cats were celebrities, for the students loved, and continue to love, being protectors and paparazzi. There are even two organizations on campus to handle cat affairs. (Though, according to campus gossip, one organization is a front for cat fund embezzlement, which has caused some tetchy cooperation.)  Nonetheless, our campus feline stars are well-fed, well-loved, and well-documented. 

Yet, it is a mutually beneficial arrangement. The cats are therapy for the students. Though they are very much aware of their god-ness, our cats do deem it acceptable to be petted and watched at their whim. There are even times when humans or chosen for a leg-wind or lap-snuggle. It is not uncommon to see a student on a bench, bewildered to be the chosen napping location and contemplating the how-do-I-extract-myself-from-this-situation. However, with such coexistence, it is common to have at least a handful of students heading to the hospital for a round of the rabies vaccine due to scratches. 

Over the years, the cat community has ebbed and flowed in size and territory. We have celebrated kittens, rejoiced in adoptions, worried about sickness, and mourned deaths. They have become fixtures on our walks, especially to and from class. Their antics make the walk unpredictable; our current favorite being the splotchy, dark furred lass who regally plops beside the fountain and howls at all who walk by - either singing the song of her water kin or regaling all with her lamentations of having to go to class.

This semester, our campus cats have become a bit more brazen in their explorations. Early last month, I saw students post on Wechat cats meandering into their classrooms, especially in Building One. The pictures and videos were hysterical. One snapshot showed a teacher removing the cat from the classroom, handling it as though it was a dirty diaper. Another featured a cat who chose to plop on the laptop keyboard and refuse to budge. One video captured the iconic behavior of batting everything off the desk, followed by a textbook chew for good measure. 

During one morning class in late March, Zach quickly walked into my room and declared, "I have been chosen." 

I was baffled, as were my students. 

He smiled and said, "A cat is in my room." 

The Chinese collective 'ahhhh' was exclaimed, followed by a dash over to take a peek.

Jealousy abounded. We were shocked this one had decided to prowl up three stories. However, Zach said it took a thorough cat scan of the room and deemed it a worthy nap spot for the remainder of class. Sadly, it has not returned. 

We adore our campus cats and are grateful for the moments of whimsy and distraction they provide on a daily basis. 

Concerning Pressure Washers

There are two phrases we frequently mutter, one in Chinese and the other in English. The Chinese phrase was one of our earliest to learn after arriving in the adopted motherland, whereas the English phrase was offered for our use months later from a fellow expat. In those early months, we had no idea how often we would use them or how appropriate they would be in the years to come.  

We also learned in those initial days of China life that development lag is a real concept, with an added layer of what gets skipped completely. For example, last week I had to explain a paper check to a student. China honestly went from payroll being cash in a brown paper bag to direct deposit; a cash-to-mobile-payment society - skipping all the steps in between. In a more mundane daily item example, garden water hoses made it to China, but I have yet to see a nozzle attached to one. Thus, over the years, we have had numerous oh-that-finally-made-it-here moments; lawnmowers, leaf blowers, tape dispensers, to name a few. Around the middle of last semester, when walking to class, we had our first sighting of a pressure washer in use. On our return journey, post class, we had cause to exclaim our key phrases:

First, a good, "差不多" (cha bu duo) which translates to "good enough," followed by, "There are experts in China, but we have never met one."

It was clear, as the water dried, that the pressure washer handler was unaware that every swipe of the wand would be seen. Instead methodically cleaning the tiles, the library quad had been transformed into a canvas of surrealist scribblings.

The subsequent uses since that day have been incrementally more methodical in movement, but all still falling under the "差不多" category. However, this past week, it was a very bold return to surrealist scribbling upon the main road towards the teaching buildings. 

This installment even moved onto the sidewalks to add texture and depth. 

Of course, we exclaimed our favorite phrases, shared laughs with our students about it, and spent our walks to class practicing pareidolia. I am sure there are pressure washer experts here, we have just never met one. Life is more interesting this way. 

Shelved Stories: The Pyros

One afternoon early in the spring semester, we faintly heard the familiar swish-swish-swish of the Chinese long bristled brooms. It is a sound so intrinsic to our Chinese life soundtrack that at first we thought nothing of it. Yet, after a few minutes, it caused us to pause because on our current campus it is not the norm for street cleaning as the usual deep hum of a yellow-clown-ish-leaf-sucker car that bebops around leaving a wake of quivering leaves in its wake the king of campus cleaning. The change of sound instigated some sleuthing.

I made the rounds of the hutong windows, discovering the source to be two older men attempting to deal with the barrage of fallen leaves around the football field. I smiled. I was happy to see a couple of local residents take an interest in the upkeep of the area since, during school holidays, ground workers disappear and are slow to return once the semester begins.

I should have known better.

Fifteen minutes later, our hutong was filled with billows of noxious smoke. We rushed to the back windows to discover that a calm cleanup had turned into a horrific bonfire. Quickly attempting to close windows to stop the black clouds from continuing to engulf our hutong, we also screamed a few cuss words in multiple languages. The Chinese definitely resulted in a casual glance from the pyromaniacs.

In a sea of dry brush and leaves, the men thought it smart to start a fire in an effort to burn the leaves. Obviously they had grown tired of the work of actually sweeping - their task was daunting. Nonetheless, billows of black, nasty smoke continued to permeate our hutong and our entire building. Zach ran to the guard house by the gate to raise the alarm.

Within minutes, the comrades had been summoned and the men were ambushed with bureaucratic figures. Our yells and curses had been noted, for as the men tried to explain their fire ways, gestures and pointing was directed towards our hutong. (I was watching from the balcony to see how this would end.) During the heated exchange, a groundskeeper appeared to join the fray.

The groundskeeper seemed to be miffed that they were encroaching on her job.

The men were aghast that their quest to eradicate the stairs of leaves was thwarted.

The bureaucratic comrades were upset to have been disturbed from their afternoon slumbers.

It was a grumpy lot all around.

With slumped shoulders and hung heads, the fire was stamped out and a bucket was fetched.

As we worked to de-smoke our hutong, I commented that the mundane always tends to turn into mayhem in this country. Though, a piece of me felt for the gentlemen. I feel they were lulled into a memory of days long gone when the campus was mere farmland and they could burn anything and everything. In their quest of helping, they were swept away by the way things used to be done and eagerly pursued that path. I wonder upon hearing our yells were they yanked to the present and stunned to see buildings hovering around them.

However, I also feel that these two would have made an excellent showing on the evening news - eyebrows singed, smoking clothes, and a blazing football pitch behind them - spouting phrases such as: "we don't know what happened", "...and with a big whoosh it all went up in flames", and "we just wanted to clean up the leaves." 

Mishmash Mutterings

I never imagined that we would plop into this tropical village, become completely infatuated with its idiosyncrasies, and do everything possible to uncover the charms.

I never imagined that we would set up a home on a campus inhabited by 30,000 students, eat at the canteen (and get sick), enjoy Chinese food from around the country outside the front gate (and get sick), walk alongside multiple students as they desperately tried to figure out their path, judge endless competitions, and find job stability.

Five years.

This could be the beginning of the end, as there is supposedly a law that foreigners can only teach at the same institution for five years.

This could be the beginning of another year, for it is China - laws change, laws are ignored, laws are perpetually misinterpreted.

Either way, five years is much longer than I ever dreamed to be in one location and whatever may come in ten months, I am not in charge.

In honor of a new semester, I snapped some photos over the past week to highlight the changes and not changes of our beloved campus.

Our first year, a scary Soviet-style science building stood here. We returned our second year to an empty field which became a wild jungle. Third year, a little bulldozing was the prelude to a continual stairway construction. The project lasted so long that when completed, the staircase was already falling apart. Last year, concrete was laid and a tombstone erected in honor of those students who died in the pursuit of knowledge. The latter is hypothetical, but the tombstone is real. When I left for the summer, this plaza was halfway completed with marble, which was already discoloring.

Imagine our surprise to return to disaster. Everything completed was torn up, complete with a large hole that had been filled was unfilled. Sarcophagi are sporadically erected throughout the plaza and the makings of a fountain have been laid. In five years, I have seen the library fountain turned on six times, so I do not have much hope of actually seeing this one in action.

Life lesson of China: If a fountain is turned on, someone important is in the area.

Second life lesson of China: Construction work will begin two days before people arrive. Work will only happen when people can see it.

I learned a new Chinese phrase this week, which translates to "tofu building." This phrase describes a new building that falls apart like tofu. After two years, a few worker protests, and the polluting of the west lake, we have a new teaching building. Zach and I decided to take a stroll through it three days prior to classes beginning. Imagine our surprise to find a majority of the ceiling on the floor.

As well as, most of the building is incomplete, it was flooded via a firehouse leak, and it is a building that looks fifty years old already. We shared these observations with a teacher friend, who told us that she refused to take classes in the new building. Why? When she was completing her masters at another university who built a new building, within two years the rate of cancer among students and teachers skyrocketed. They tied it to the new building.

I have one class in this tofu building.

In five years, nothing has been done to the football pitch. It has been a soggy season, so this has been a common sight.

The incursion of cars in this country has been staggering. When we started, we might see one or two personal vehicles on campus. Today, it is a continual traffic jam. Stripes have been liberally painted on any flat surface to designate a parking spot, yet it still is not enough to contain the influx. However, Chinese do not heed traffic or parking rules anyway, so the yellow lines are viewed more like guidelines for what parking could look like.

Another side to this very visible increase of four-wheeled freedom has been body weight. Yes, China is getting fat. Nice terms such as big boned and strong looking has made its way into the vernacular.

While most of the world is fearful of a bee colony collapse, China's stance is as follows: Screw the crisis and butcher a tree. We came home this week to a very naked front yard. Instead of relocating the hive or, heaven forbid, just letting it thrive, hacking a tree was the only way to deal with a natural beehive.

Freshman are coming. Their arrival is preceded by every storefront looking like this one. Forget refrigerators, microwaves and totes, all a Chinese student needs is a bucket, mop, broom, dustpan and hangers.

One thing that never changes is the Chinese ability to sleep anywhere. We caught this glimpse of our diligent tile workers at the end of the afternoon siesta.

Why were they sleeping on our sidewalk?

Another bout of construction chaos as school began. If I had snapped a picture to the left of this, the scene would have been piles of sand, strands of fishing wire, and mounds of tiles.

Oh, China.