What then is freedom?
The power to live as one wishes. Marcus Tulles
Cicero
Marcus
hits the nail on the head concerning my experience of living in China. It's one
of those strange contradictions we love about the Middle Kingdom that for
all the bad stuff we read about Communism the reality for us expats is somewhat
different.
We have the freedom to be who we want to be.
Didn't like yourself back home? Hell, you can make up your own biography and
tell the story of your life to every other barfly you meet. You can be the man
or woman you really want to be. We are anonymous; no one knows who you
are or where you came from. And to be frank no one cares – most
friendships are here today - gone tomorrow, sort of affairs. Most of us in
China have an edited past we trot out in conversations. Things we don't want
our newfound pals to find out about us. Those things that set us on the road to
China - and keep us here. Failed marriages, failed businesses, failed careers,
failed personalities. We can then impress our newfound best buddies with the
tales of our travelling - fiction or non-fiction - who cares? If it's a good
story its worth repeating. Let me tell
you about the wonderful times I have had wandering around lonely as a cloud
through S.E. Asia with only bar girls as company. Or the great money I was
making in Korea. Or that time in Cambodia when... recounted a hundred times
to the similar faces, in similar bars all doing similar things to maintain our
sanities.
There are many other freedoms.
The UK has one of the largest totals of CCTV cameras in the world. The British
Security Industry Association (BSIA) estimates there are between 4-5.9 million
cameras. In the UK I am constantly being surveilled. This is for my own safety
I am informed. In China I can go about my legal business without being filmed
and analysed. This is a joy. There’s a weightlessness that goes along with this
freedom – it can make one feel a little giddy. The positive side of CCTV in
China is all the road junctions are monitored and in the event of an
accident there will be film. But still I remain giddy - the iron cage of
rationality has not imprisoned me yet.
At work, I am not being
constantly micro managed. I get on with my teaching with little
interference. We all know our classroom practice gets fed back to the
managers and parents through the spies in the classroom. I have
never found out who my classroom snake in the grass is but whoever it is
they seem happy enough with what I do. So I enjoy my work and get to be
creative and feel I am helping my students get to the foreign universities
they dream about.
The consequence of the freedoms I enjoy in
China is a lack of stress in my day-to-day life. I can do what I want, go where
I want to without having to constantly look over my shoulder or worry that my
'performance' targets are not being met. For me that is a massive plus in my
life. That ‘freedom’ does not give me the right to break Chinese law
though. Let me quote my namesake Robert Burton (1621) here – ‘When they
are at Rome, they do there as they see done.’ Many foreigners ignore this maxim
parading about as if the laws of the country do not relate to them. For
instance, our local police come to the campus (where I live) once a month to
check up on us. They are friendly and chatty, they do not want to enter my
apartment, they are just checking everything is okay. A British colleague told
me I should refuse their visits as it was a 'bloody cheek' and this would never
happen 'back home'. I think he has been away from the UK for too long and is
out of touch with what is happening in the world.
Other expats work illegally, drive motor
vehicles illegally, take and sell drugs, despite the very severe penalties
should they get caught doing so. It's like they live in a bubble of 1st world
privilege that saturates a colonial mentality evidenced by the way
the use racist language to speak about their friends and colleagues - 'chinks,
slopes, chinky, japs, gooks and other racialised ethnic slurs.
China is not without its
idiosyncrasies. Many of the things expats hate are things that are culturally
different to the ways we think things should get done. As a sociologist I
am more patient, understanding we can get too ethnocentric about the way life
is lived here. One thing that irritates even me, Dr Laid Back, is that last
minute management thing when they call, 'Oh Dr Rob there’s a meeting tomorrow
do you have a PPT for it?' 'What? You just this moment told me, how
can I possibly have a PPT ready?' - 'Oh Sorry.' Or your phone rings at
7:48am 'Dr Rob, you have a class, where are you?' 'I'm in bed, my first
class is this afternoon.' 'No Dr Rob we changed your timetable, you have
a class now. Class A Room 3.' 'But no one told me.' - ' Oh Sorry.'
Yet the Chinese teachers suffer
the same problems, for less money, I am told it’s a management thing
whereby they expect employees to jump to their slightest whim to show
commitment to the employer. I still don't get it though and it’s annoying.
This forments within many
expats a resentment that allows them to witter on about 'Oh we didn't do it
like this in my last school' or just ignore last minute requests from the
people who pay them. It's as if we are so much better and worth more than our
Chinese teacher colleagues who have little say in how their employer treats
them. It annoys me that some expat 'teachers' (I am using the word 'teacher'
advisedly here because some people I have met in schools are plainly not
teachers) think they can swan up to class, fill their 45 minutes with something
or other they might have put together at the last minute, and swan off down to
the local bar for another evening of telling each other the same stories they
have told each other a hundred times.
That attitude breeds an arrogance (not far removed from the
racism mentioned above) where we can blame the Chinese for all the things that
go wrong with our easy life. How often do we hear - 'Oh the bloody Chinese,
they haven't got a bloody clue, bloody idiots.' I will admit I have fallen into
the same trap myself – it’s so easy to push the blame somewhere
else, mindlessly disregarding that this is their country and their
systems. We are the visitors; we are the aliens, the immigrants, and the
refugees if you will. It is WE who are different - not them. We are the
Laowais.
This is my sixth year here and I am not yet
tired of the Middle Kingdom. I will be here for many years, my adventure is not
ending - I will continue to live as I wish.
Happy
New Year.
Dr
Rob Burton
