If all nighttime roads lead to M2, all daytime ones lead to real estate and Harvard. I don’t consider myself particularly ungrateful (but to be fair, as a Generation Y-er, I am speaking in relative terms here), but sessions at work make me realize how appreciative and lucky I should feel for the opportunities available to me. Here I am, typing away on my new HP dv4- by no means a top-of-the-line machine, but far from shabby still- in the king-sized bed of my emperor-sized hotel suite, and every day I hear stories about how it costs upwards of 200,000 yuan for an 80-square foot apartment in Nanjing. How Annie will still be paying off her mortgage loan when her yet-to-be-born child is an adult. How Robert is a slave to the bank. How no one knows what’s to come or just how much worse this could all get.
How lucky I am.
They don’t say that, of course. But I can feel the sentiment. It’s in the sudden shift in social posturing when people find out you’re American. Never spoken of, but undoubtedly in the air, and you couldn’t miss this nonverbal cue even if it hid behind the feigned aloofness and genuine hospitality of your new local friend.
I wonder what continues to drive members of the CCC to places like Mazzo and M2 on weekend nights. Their success rate must be close to nil, as I don’t imagine (expat) girls to be looking for this subpopulation of awkward, aging Chinese men. Of course, the CCC isn’t the only collective out there, but it’s probably the most baffling.
What separated Mazzo from M2 was the interpersonality. Maybe that comes with spending over a thousand yuan for a booth, but it still seemed a lot more family friendly than Shanghai clubs. The music was a welcome throwback to the hits of the early 2000s, although I can’t say I didn’t miss my Pitbull and Gaga. The setup was nothing spectacular, but a couple things did stand out. It was less dark and smoky, which led to more exposure (also known as the CCC member’s mortal enemy) and less confidence in the general populace to bust signature moves. It was indeed disappointing, as I had been looking forward to trying out the Spongebob in the public arena for some days now. On the bright side, there was opportunity for a different kind of dancing that had been missing from my life for far too long.
Times like these, I wonder whether my allergy to Chinese mosquito bites (rural and urban, apparently) is enough to keep me away from this country in the long run. If I can’t venture into the countryside without coming back with welts, or even be in a five-star hotel without escaping the buzzing wrath, can I possibly live here comfortably for, say, two years? What about four months?
I don’t really give the idea of living in another country long-term the thought it probably deserves. Too comfortable in the wealth and diversity in Oakland and Cambridge, I’ve never seriously considered the pros of living in, for instance, China at some point in my life. Being in Nanjing, short though the time may have been, I can’t help but think may be a valuable (and cheap) experience at some point in my twenties to stay abroad for a while. True, it may be frustrating not being able to communicate on the same level as I would in America, but this truly is a fascinating country with a lot to offer, if you dig deep enough. Little expat hangouts like Ellen’s could provide the Western respite I’d inevitably crave, and I’d have the chance to indulge my laughably irresponsible hotel-as-home fantasy.
I think I’m most afraid of not having regular access to friends. But to be completely honest, there’s no reason for me to think I’d have such a luxury at any stage in my post-educational life. It’s truly a frightening prospect, being thrust into the real world with few familiar faces to fall back on- could be another reason to stay a career student. I guess I really fool myself into thinking that America is the only option for me- not that that’d necessarily be a bad thing, the U.S. is great. The problem is that I feel like this internship is supposed to open me up to such possibilities, and I’m only doing myself a disservice by being myopic about not just the answers but the questions themselves. Hard to ask the right questions when you only care about leading off every response with “America.”
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