TRAVEL WRITINGS

So, I just came back from Brazil. I’m still trying to get my barrings around the city, so MUCH has changed in two months… my old bar street is no more than a dead and dried-up alley-way, and there’s a bunch of new places popping up all over the place! But most importantly, I’m still homeless… crashing at a friend’s place, the search for a new apartment goes on.

Finding an apartment in Shanghai can look somewhat like looking for a place back home when you first glance at it, but it quickly becomes a roller-coaster nightmare of misadventures.

Not knowing where to turn I started off with the that’s Shanghai classifieds section. Prices jacked up like you would not believe, my budget shouldn’t be max 3,000RMB (about 350$USD), but 3,000$USD for my French palace, expat style.

So, I figured I would do the next best thing: go to an agency. Along one street corner there can easily be 2 or 3 real estate agencies, there are literally thousands across the city, so you just choose one at random in the area you are looking into. Seeing my white face walking into their place, makes dollar signs appear in the pupils of their eyes.

I was reminded of an English class conversation a friend of mine had with a student: “so you’re renting your apartment, right? How much are you charging?” asks my friend. The answer came as naturally as anything one would do and without the slightest trace of shame , even though my friend is a white foreigner himself. “Well, if it’s a Chinese I’ll charge 1,500RMB (175$USD), but if it’s a foreigner I’ll rent it for 3,000RMB. The apartment’s got a lot of stuff you know, a foreigner can pay this, no problem.”

Money certainly seems to grow somewhere… just haven’t figured out where.

Agency tours have a particular flavor. You’re honest in the prices you desire, while they try to get the most out of the deal. So they bring you to a number of apartments in your stated price range, apartments that look more like dumpsters than anything else.

They make you visit a number of these. Often you’ll accumulate up to four agents with you as they go through a number of other agencies each one there for a piece of the pie.

After a while, you say you’d like something better than the crap hole they’re showing. And bang! They bring you to this swanky palace that rocks your world… it’s just 2,000RMBs (240$USD) more than what you said was your max!! Many of us, tired of turning in circles breakdown and accept this.

... so I had to enlist the help of friends! Being helped by all my wonderful Chinese friends (Thanks Lea, Michelle, Jenny and Ivan).

Friends that relate what the agents think (and comment loudly that) “she’s only the translator so we can still take advantage of him.” But, I persist. I make my list of demands: two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, fully furnished, newly renovated, 3,000. “Oh yes! I have just the thing for you,” replies the eager young girl behind her desk. “It’s a penthouse, with a little garden, 200 square meters, parking space,...”

I sit there, hearing the live translation from my friend, and she automatically reacts: “this is impossible! For 3,000RMB what’s the catch?!” The real estate agent stops… “3,000… RMB??? oh!! I thought you meant USD, he’s a foreigner after all.”

In the end I finally visited a place I liked. There was no furniture there, but the house was newly renovated, spacious, big bay windows to let the sun in and fairly centrally located. The agent guaranteed me all the furniture would be moved in the following day. I must act quickly? Many others want this place? ok, ok! You want 1,000RMB deposit? no problem, here.

Human stupidity. I come back the next day. The bed is minuscule (I’m 189cm/ 6’2” and besides, I’m no child anymore I wanna spread the eagle!), they put in ugly shelving everywhere that cuts in on the light and space, no microwave oven (forget real ovens, non-existent in China), no pots, pans, glasses, bowls… not even a pair of chopsticks! A couch from the junkyard sale. Not even bedding.

Ok. Now I’m pissed. you change things around to what you told me: double bed and fully furnished or you give me the deposit back.

Negotiations drag on. I guess my Chinese friends don’t always understand how exhausting it is to assist to all this as a foreigner. They do do all the negotiation work, but much like in Lost in Translation I only get small parts of the on-goings… and when it’s your money that’s on the table, with other people negotiating how much it’s going to cost you… it would be nice to know!

So, I loose patience. Fine, I had enough, if it’s gonna be like this every time I pay rent I want my deposit back.

No way. You gave it, you loose it, too late. My friend threatens that she has connections with the courts, knows judges, knows the police, and that because I’m a foreigner this case will be famous and they’ll have to pay the big bucks… basically: “don’t mess with me.” They don’t move. She calls the police. They don’t move.

The police walks in: one is on our side while the other seems to have been bought by the owner of the agency. Yelling: my friend the lawyer, the landlord, the two police officers yelling at everyone including themselves, the real-estate agents and even I got a few words in there.

I got 80% of my deposit back… and a headache.

Which in the end is exactly what they want you to have, they want you to have a mother of a migraine so you finally break down. Chinese, particularly Shanghainese, has this particularity of sounding like people are about to go at it and kill each other, while they’re truly bonding together. After a while it makes you just want to say: “yes, ok I’ll do it. Whatever it is that I’m suppose to do or not do. Just stop!

kudos to Hunter S. Thompson who helped me through osmosis

In the true spirit of journalism, I had brought my faithful attorney with me on my adventures in North India. It seemed to me unavoidable that at one point or another I would need his counsels.

After a confusing rickshaw ride that took us to every ends of Delhi all I could see were blaring lights and people huddling inside our little three-wheeled cart… I tried to explain that we didn’t hide the Dalai Lama in the back seat, but it was useless. The Indians just didn’t want to listen. This trip was going to be awesome, even if there were no dealers to be seen.

We were too far away from the Delhi ghettos of Paragange, where all the lost western souls go to find themselves in the 60’s style. Sex, drugs and tabla, rock&roll is squarely replaced by mediation… a truly sad reflection of this country.

Squished together the white western souls live and get lost in an India that is not india, confining themselves in monasteries and ashrams they look at the greater spiritual Gods. Indians used these same gods like so many pills and drugs to forget fighting hunger, floods and so on, while the white souls (try to?) find a greater understanding of the human nature in these vengeful gos of war.

The bus looked at us with an evil grin. I think it knew full well we had tried to replace the good old traditional ways of traveling by the government buses with a deluxe bus, just as my attorney had advised me. However, the deluxe bus had already ran away to far away lands, and the government four-wheel monster looked at us with that grin that is only known to the masochistic community. It rattled it’s metal shef skin with pleasure, letting the bolts roll and shake in their socket for an intensive 14 hour session. Lady Dominatrix was in the house.

Shaken, stirred and sleepless we got off at Kulu… we still had a 1 hour jeep ride to Vashisht.

“As your attorney, I advise you to take a taxi and get there as fast we can to satisfy our basic requirements: beer, food, shower and bed; in any order available.” And so we were off.

The roads in the mountains are truly unforgiving, and it is with a constant obsession that the Indians in this region continue to build more and more roads. Roads that look down on a cliff one kilometer downwards. Roads that allow the holy cows to climb mountains while still playing in traffic. The only comfort of this obvious danger is that if our jeep was to swerve off the road to avoid killing one of those holly beasts, we would then fall directly into the Ganga (the Ganges)... as my attorney advised me, we would be twice holly and would have to be granted access to the greater heavens—which I am not quite sure to have access to under present circumstances.

Our Jeep crossed a construction team. The road was blocked, we didn’t know for how long, but this was more comfortable than the bus and so I just got comfy. But then, I saw him.

I did.

Everyone has been looking for him, but I know where he his. Ten o’clock at night, in the Himmalayas, not a white folk for hundreds of miles and so he stood outside the jeep looking at us. He seemed confused and curious, but I knew what was going on. The long white turban. The black and grey beard. Osama just looked at me as I stared right back at him… As a good journalist, just too tired to have an interview I took notes on his whereabouts to come back later, now, it was time for a hotel and bed…

Arriving in Varshist, we faced a great stairway that climbed into the darkness of the Himalayas. Far up there were the lights of our hotel in the deep deep darkness – or was it the eyes of God looking down upon us?

We started to climb the stairs. All our pack sacks seemed able to do to help us was to pull us down. I felt like someone had drugged my drink. Fifteen hours on an Indian bus certainly does strange things to you. Clearly, I couldn’t see straight.

We were half way there, when a sound came to my ears.

Rattle. Rattle.

I turned to my attorney. “I think we have a rattle snake in our path.” He wanted to run back down, but nothing was going to keep me from having a warm bed and a good night sleep. I went first. Squishing myself against the opposite wall I walked as far away from the sound… When I was level with it, it seemed to have increased.

My heart was beating as fast as Jacques Villeneuve when he was with Williams.

I took a stone to throw it. It landed in the bushes and the snake burst into loud hissing… I waved to my attorney to come and make his way to the higher level while I crouched and squinted my eyes through the darkness of all nights watching for the invisible reptile…

“As your attorney I think we will have no problems pleading insanity,” as he ran up the stairs and I wasn’t far behind him, this story was getting just all too weird for me.

It’s only when we got to the room that I started to feel comfortable, safe and secure. The hotel room is like the safe haven from the outside world. It becomes your base of exploration for the world, and saves you from those evil times.

Turning around to close the door, before throwing myself on the bed… my plans were yet again halted. A large spider the size of Godzilla was hanging over the door, motionless just waiting for a pray… and I wasn’t going to offer my hand. In true gonzo journalism style, before doing anything I had to record the event: I took pictures.

I went to the bathroom to find my weapon of choice: a toilet brush. The multicolored stick in one hand I approached the door, laying low… you never know with these creatures, they might be planning the invasion like the well documented movie Arachnophobia. Making my way around the bed, I noticed a long line on the wall. I must have been one meter long. One on the spider’s friends had been squashed and repainted the wall to my room… her legs still stuck on the wall and pointing outwards towards the live one. Even though Indians would not allow me to kill her under fear of getting the Gods mad, I was ready to sacrifice to my karma points to my soul.

I swung, letting the rainbow colored sword come down where the live spider stood. It was as large as my hand, but still it would have no chance against my powerful multicolored weapon.

The darn thing was too fast. It flew out of sight. I could only imagine that it went to communicate to its other friends that killers slept in this dear old room.

I was too tired. I slept with with my pink, blue, orange and yellow sword at my bedside.

The next morning everything seemed like a bad dream. As I stumbled to the bottom of the stairs to fetch breakfast at the German bakery my rattle snake was still there. In the form of a broken hose. The rattling sound of the water coming out and hitting the grass. I even went down to the construction site. Osama had disapeared. Only my pictures of the spider remained.

My arms spread out I sore above the land, down valleys at incredible speeds, just to pull up at the last second. My flying would make Harry Potter jealous. The Nymbus 2000 is no challenge, not even the Firebolt can rival my flying style.

Ting dong ting dong ting

What’s this? There are no funny Chinese doorbells in my free skies! I see a cliff, and I race down it’s face rushing faster and faster, freeeeeedom! Dong ding tong dong ting what the?? Dong ding tong dong ting it’s too late I can’t pull up… Dong ding tong dong ting

OK OK OK Dong ding tong dong ting ooooooOOOOOK! Dong ding tong dong ting I’m awake! Dong ding tong dong ting Jesus, hasn’t anybody taught you that you ring a doorbell twice and then leave? Dong ding tong dong ting Guess not!

Dong ding tong dong ting

I open the door. It’s one of the janitor women waving her hand in the air trying to explain I must sign something… not quite sure what. In English, I say: “I’m not the landlord, all bills are his responsibility, I don’t speak Chinese, I was sleeping, bye bye.”

No more bells. How great. I actually even find sleep again… Dong ding tong dong ting WHAT?! Dong ding tong dong ting jesus! You people never give up! I told you 30 minutes ago, I don’t speak Chinese! Dong ding tong dong ting

I open the door: 3 police officers. (Mistake number one: anyone who knows me well will know I’m a bitch on wheels in the morning, and the police won’t stop me from that, I had AK-47s in my face a number of times, the police is nothing).

“What do you want?” I ask. Apparently I don’t have my temporary residential permit. “All foreigners must register in three days,” he tells me. I answer that “I’m not a temporary resident, but a tourist, you can check my papers to that effect. I’m not paying rent here, so this ain’t my place but my friend’s, so I’m not a resident.” It won’t work. They come into my apartment.

My blood is already boiling, but I keep a calm face. I have a job interview this afternoon, if they want they’ll keep me all day, or until the end of the week if they feel like it! This job is too important, I want it. So, they inform me I must pay a fine. I explained that in two years no police officer has ever fined me, no matter how late I’ve been… the other police officers have always been nice to me (mistake no.2).

“Police office… you come,” says the youngest one.

“Ok, I’ll go tomorrow,” I retort. “I have an important job interview today and you’ll make me late. You know I’m here now, I’m the only foreigner for miles, I’m quite easy to spot.
- No, your job, not important. You break law illegal. You must pay 100 RMB.
- My job interview not important??? WHAT?? (mistake no.3)
- Yes, you must come.
- Ok ok ok, just let me make a phone call…”

Calling my friend, I warn her I was gonna be late to meet her to visit a hot new apartment just before swinging to my job interview. The third police officer that had been silent finally speaks out, he wants to speak to her. WHY??? errr… ok.

He gets on the phone. Talks in Shanghainese. I’m lost, no clue what the hell he’s saying. The phone comes back my way. “The police officer says the neighbors are complaining that you had all kinds of strange girls in here in the middle of the night. Maybe prostitutes,” my friend informs me.

The blood is boiling. That’s it! I close the phone. “What the fuck did you just tell my friend? What kind of bullshit is this?”

“Please respect us. Please cooperate with us. We told your girlfriend…
- She’s my friend.
- ...we told your friend to come here.
- You also told her I had prostitutes and many girls here.
- No, no, replies the police officer who now looks afraid of me, his head hanging low like I was his mother giving him hell, a weird sensation I assure you. We told her no such thing.”

This is where I truly loose it. I have been composed up to now, but I’m spitting fire. I’m not even sure what came out, but it was something that looked like “Gou na hao zi” (it’s none of your business) even if I had different girls here, it’s my private life. I leave the room mumbling under my breath something like “f*cking China.” If lightning could actually come out of my eyes, we would have three 3rd degree burnt bodies.

They leave. I have to show up at the police station later. What a week (read post from Monday). I had the police in my face twice too much. If this much bad stuff is happening something good has got to happen eventually… right??

My friend and landlord, Ivan, calls, “what happened?” Oh Jesus! I explain the story in as much detail as I can remember. He’s outside of himself. Michelle has confirmed the story to him, about the police telling her that I had different girls here all the time. “I haven’t seen a girl here in 3 months! And you’ve been here for barely one.”

He’s gonna come down to the police station.

My mother always told me that when I get mad people just get terrified of me. I always wondered why. I’m a matchstick man. I guess I can get pretty intense though, with the shit I’ve seen not much can move me. But still, all my friends always tell me I couldn’t hurt a fly even if I tried, which in the end are my true feelings – vis-à-vis physical force.

At the police station, after Ivan slammed the door of the neighbors in protest for this mess, our three-person delegation goes to the main counter. My friends are well received, I’m not. My friends are informed that I insulted China. That I acted in a way that “scared” the police officers at the scene. And that my fine has now been doubled.

This guy. The oldest of the three – the other two are kids – was really enjoying this. Making a foreigner fold to his desires. Making me bend the way he wanted to. I was hating every single nanosecond of it, and he knew it. So it lasted a long time. He talked… and talked… and talked… and talked.

My Chinese friends started to make pressures for me to take off my I’m-going-to-kill-you-slowly look and put on a smile. I tried.

The only thing this poor old police officer didn’t expect is that my two friends are very well connected people. One a law major working for the government that knows a number of people, the other works for a magazine and is well connected in the media world.

The prostitute-and-different-girl-at-every-night story disappeared. “What? no no no never mind that story…” the police officer would reply. He3 eventually explained that ll of this happened because the day before I was walking on the streets proudly, and walk passed him without acknowledging him. Note to self: bow when meeting police officers in the street.

I wish I was back home sometimes, I would sue the bastard to his last penny. I could actually potentially sue him in China, if I had a lot of connections (guangxi), and not only a little, like now.

And, even though he knows he’s wrong, he goes on… This foreigner disrespected China and Chinese officials.

I finally crack. Time is flying by, I need to get to my interview: “I’m sorry. Feichang duibuqi!” I want to end this quick. What a mistake!! My admission gave him so much power that the speech continued with doubled effort. Explaining how I was bad, and how I had broken the law, and not tried to understand China and Chinese people… how horrible I was.

Finally I sign a bunch of papers… fined: 200RMB (24$US). I’ve delayed my interview in the last possible slot without looking tooo bad. And I still have an apartment to visit, a place that’s gonna fly away soon.

Thank god for my friends here. This could have been a nightmare…(sic)

Standing on the tube (the same one with the wonderful view of a boy pooping in a bag from the previous post) I realize I’m standing in a puddle of piss. Now, just how bad is this day going to be? I’m sweating from the heat, my shirt is sticking to my skin. I’m not quite sure I smell so nice anymore for my interview. And besides, if there is any aftershave left, the puddle of piss now on my shoe soles will take care of it.

The apartment is wonderful! It’s great! Better than I expected. There is work to do, they have no sense of decoration here, but nothing I can’t help and fix up a little. I want it. I give my friend the deposit money and rush out the door to the job interview letting her resolve all the paper work and negotiation. Did I mention my friends are wonderful?

The job interview goes like a dream! [not naming names] gave me really positive feed back, and when I sign a contract I’ll keep you guys posted, but nothing is signed yet, so silence is of order. However, I was told to “count yourself in!”

I guess ying-yang does exit. Thank god! So, when the shit hits the fan, it sometimes flies in a different direction…apparently.