You look very terrible, Miss Mary: Unsolicited Advice for the Laowai

I’m still sick. Not sick like last week when I was horizontal and feverish, with my nasal cavity draining like Victoria Falls. No, this week I’m exhausted from working all weekend, sleeping terribly, and breathing in the disconcertingly opaque and smokey air all morning. According to the US consulate’s air quality reading, this afternoon we were veering into Very Unhealthy.

The romantic early morning mist is actually smog.

My exhaustion shows- undereye bags deep enough to carry a few loads of laundry, the gaunt cheekbones of a still fleshy cadaver, the colouring of… well, the colouring of someone not in peak form.  I’m like the canary in the coal mine, dropping dead from carbon monoxide poisoning long before the miners head down to work.

You may recall Victor from last week’s post. He was the one who bought me my much needed meds, back when I was a hacking, snorting, sniffling mess.

These drugs. But when at a place

If you’re ever sick with a cold and/or cough in China, flash this picture at the pharmacist. 

But as confusing as foreign languges might seem to you, it’s best that you consult a doctor before getting medication. If you get the wrong medicine and were you to overdose, you might need some addition treatment for drugs that you’d have taken.

Today, he sat himself down opposite me as I worked at my desk and asked me, with a few dry, brown leaves poking out from inside his hoodie, what exactly do people do in bars? And, is it true that there are bars where Chinese girls go to find foreign boyfriends? Oh, and Miss Mary, your hair looks very strange today.

This is what terrible looks like. Am still not sure what’s wrong with my hair.

China is frequently the home of the rather disconcerting non-sequitor.

I’ve been in classes where we were talking about clowns or horses and suddenly it is declared that I’m really quite fat.

I’ve learned to roll with it, after 6 years of intensive training in Turkey where my appearance (and its myriad flaws) was constantly scrutinized, dissected and frankly stated aloud without even the pretence of cushioning the blow.

There was that one time when I was in Kayseri, recovering from a two week bout of bronchitis, feeling feeble and consumptive and at what was quite possibly my lowest adult weight ever. Walking to school for the first time after several days spent wasting away in bed, barking, I ran into the German teacher at my school, who blurted out that my thighs were really quite fat. Another time, I was jogging around the school ground one morning and as I went past the head mistress of the high school (my boss), she reached out, slapped my ass, and scolded, “Popo, no no!” (a stupid line from a jeans ad at the time that meant something along the lines of ‘minimize that ass, lady!’). I’ve had my lunches scrutinized by my adult students, and all of my body parts analyzed for acceptability.  Advice was always forthcoming, whether I wanted it or not.

So yes, today my hair looks very strange.

This was followed up with a very earnest declaration that I looked very terrible today, and could he give me some suggestions? I’m not sure he realized the impact of the word ‘terrible’ so I’ll let that slide. At least he didn’t launch into a lecture about how I ought to start wearing an inch of makeup to look presentable (I’m looking at you, Turkish ladies!).

Among the things I need to do to stop looking so terrible:

  1. eat an apple every morning
  2. drink milk before bed (cow milk, not soy or rice milk. I had to clarify this)
  3. eat very little dinner
  4. go for a walk after dinner
  5. go to bed early

All of which I tend to do anyway these days (except the milk thing. I don’t like milk).

Also, I need to drink more water.

That was stated, in spite of the fact that I already had a huge mug of hot water before me that I sipped throughout our analysis of my terribleness.

It’s filled to the brim with water.

Sometimes I don’t quite know what to do with all the brutal honesty I get here. It’s not done in a cruel way, merely as a matter of fact. Like saying, oh, my, it’s chilly out today! And I think it’ll rain. And you’ve gained weight, haven’t you? Hey, I wonder what’s for lunch?

But now I have to go teach for several hours, fully cognizant of the fact that my hair looks very strange and that I, overall, look terrible.

I really wish I knew what was so strange about my hair. Anyone?

 

Postscript: Heading out of the school after class, sometime around 7:30pm, accompanied by Victor and Paula (my TA), in search of a taxi that can legally leave Minhang and go all the way back into central Shanghai. No such luck. As we flagged down a ramshackle local taxi to take me to the metro station, Paula reminded me to dress more warmly tomorrow, and Victor added, ‘and when you wake up, wash your face with cold water!”

Apropos of nothing.



16 thoughts on “You look very terrible, Miss Mary: Unsolicited Advice for the Laowai”

  • Hey Miss Mary!

    May I say it? You don’t look terrible at all, but you actually do look a bit ill, tired, exhausted in that particular photo. So, no surprise and – in my world – nothing to hide here.

    I guess too many Chinese people (even the so called ‘modern’ and ‘educated’ ones) can’t understand why you don’t just go to the next human garage and get repaired… As they’re educated to believe that’s always possible and always a good thing to do. Maybe a part of the 24/7 competition they build into the whole society, the ‘collective egoism’ combined with a skin-deep view of everything that’s different, no fun, not bright and shiny…

    Anyway: in my experience, there’s no reliable way to do something with your hair that would make it less strange for most of all Asian people. And you better don’t believe that’s different for males ;-). You live in a country where 1.3 billion minus a few lousy millions of people have usually straight, mostly black and, thus, boring hair on their heads. I mean, that’s why so many of the modern Chinese people spend ages with their hairdresser, right? Using tons of yuk gel and liters of acid gurgling dye just to get these boring hairs look different. And just so often it looks simply artificial and/or ridiculous afterwards. So: never mind – or try not to mind, at least!

    There’s no lack of people which still believe you can (and must) manipulate everything that’s natural on yourself until it comes anywhere near to the healthy standard outfit dictated by others… the media, the ads, the self-made competition in everything they do. That’s surely all the more the case in an overall quite artificial lifestyle of modern, booming China, where so many people are getting hysteric about their look and how it may boost their chances on the way ‘up’. And, to be fair, many Westerners still do believe in the same, don’t they? And, of course, taht’s not only about hair… (hello to the ‘plastered faces’ league 😉

    However, if it’s about hair, I also guess some people over there just can’t understand what it means to deal with swirls, natural resilience, let alone natural curls. Years ago I once spend hours getting a hair cut in China. Almost had to break the hairdressers hand to stop him trying to ‘cure’ my swirls and the skin cancer I’ve been born with using any undefined herbal acid. And who in China actually cares about the damage the permanent exposure to all these funny chemicals in Chinese life do to your hair and the rest of your body? No problem, as long as you can ‘repair’ yourself using a traditional medicine, one of the thousands herbal liquids, or at least Granny Yin’s snake guts paste with some ying-yang straightening bear willy extract (given the fact that animal genitals are always an important ingredient, because you newer know, right?).

    And, of course, they are often just envious. Because you’re already different, standing out from the crowd without any effort, by definition and nature. Thus, I’d think telling you that being/looking different, in terms of not being artificially uniformed, is sometimes just a kind of natural human reaction – sadly. Actually, just looking different in general may be a rather questionable gift at times. All the more if you look a bit weak or ill, because that reminds people that such a state of being actually exists… and it makes you fragile, more vulnerable in a way. Not really helpful if you have to live amongst ‘the masses’ of ever young, allegedly beautiful and, thus, successful folks. Sadly, people’s instilled tactlessness doesn’t help either..

    Heads up! … And you have a nice mug there, btw… ;-))

    • It’s an awesome mug, isn’t it? I have two, one red and one blue, both very artistically feline. They make me happy when I’m having this kind of day…

  • Every now and then I’ll be lecturing/giving directions and one of my students will surreptitiously point at the top of his/her head. This is the universally accepted sign in Ms. Usedsongs’ classroom that the teacher’s hair is standing straight up. I’m so glad they are gentle about it.

  • Is it only the English-speaking world that skirts around talking about other people’s appearances so matter-of-factly? Italians are just as – uh – direct, in my experience. Maybe it’s to do with translating into a different language – I know there have been times when I’ve said something in Italian that’s fine in English, but has garnered horrified gasps from the recipient – or maybe it’s just the lot of the teacher. We’re not human, you know. We’re just there to do the students’ work for them and to roll with the punches.
    Katja recently posted..Chocolate-Orange Fennel Upside-Down Cake

    • I do wonder if different cultures have different sensitivities. Today in class, we were doing self descriptors and two of the boys (who aren’t fat, just sturdy) wrote “I am a short and fat boy…’ There was no judgment attached to it. It just was. Mind you, they were 8-10 year old boys. Not the same as a 25 year old female colleague berating you for the state of your ass.

      I’m trying to approach it like the 10 year old boys. Descriptor, I whisper to myself when I fear I’ll collapse from the weight of all the criticism, it’s just a descriptor. Like brown hair and green eyes…

  • Drinking hot water is the Chinese culture’s solution to everything that could ever go wrong with you. So drink up!

    Also, since I’ve been struggling with back pain and we’ve established that it is problems with the bones, I’ve been told that I should probably eat more bones to help that (WTF?).

    As Chinese logic goes, that would mean that you need to eat more of whatever body part you are having issues with…so for your hair problems (which I also fail to see, by the way), you should chow down on more hair. There, problem solved!
    Kelly recently posted..On A Personal Note

    • So are you eating lots of bones? Not sure what I need to eat– should I be loading up on things that look terrible? Must remember to go to hairdresser to get floor sweepings to add to my omelet.

  • Oh dear, brutal honesty, I do not miss it. Luckily, my students seemed to have picked up on the fact that calling the teacher fat is not all that acceptable in the States. In fact, a few of them will even be so kind as to point out when I look nice… although they always say stuff like “you look nice today” with special emphasis on “today” because apparently it’s not an everyday thing, my looking nice.
    Sally recently posted..Stuff I Really Kind of Like About My Life at Home: Wegmans

  • Hahahaha OH DEAR! BTW before I forget, I am in LOVE with that cat mug.

    Bosses in Asia are brutal. I remember my job in Daegu. My boss came running in, panicked, and said, “are you OK?” “….yes, why?” “what about your weight gain?” “……..”

    She then proceeded to advise me of the shops for fat men that I could buy clothes at. When I told her that I wear a Korean medium (sometimes small), she refused to believe me…I’m never wearing a purple shirt again.
    Tom @ Waegook Tom recently posted..Six Quirky Korean Habits

    • And you know what the best part is? I have TWO cat mugs! The other one is blue (with fish around the rim) and I use it at home. Can you believe it? Two whole cat mugs, just for me!

      Almost makes up for the fact that I look terrible these days.

      So, hey, how about that weight gain of yours… 😉

  • It’s not just personal appearances that get analyzed. The contents of my grocery cart are also frequently examined and commented upon. I hear hen duo dongxi quite often. Usually this happens in line, with one or more ladies peering over my shoulder. Why are they so curious to see what the foreigner is buying? And am I really buying that much??
    cosmoHallitan recently posted..Working Out the Kinks in Thailand

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