The October National Holiday has passed here in China and it will be Thanksgiving in Canada on Monday. Taking the last few months into account is a bit of a blur with a few minor blips.
I changed jobs from a language mill to a nice middle school gig where I can actually feel being respected and my opinion really matters. The thumbnail version goes somewhat like this: I was working every day and in what seemed like every available minute trying to keep myself busy. It worked. As I was going along, I was finding time to meet a girl whenever I could make the time. One of the nights in question changed my life.
While taking her home, we were riding my motorbike when we were hit by a car that came out from a parked position to do a u turn and go back up the hill. I had the bike where it needed to be, with my lights on. Her lights weren’t. Looking back, it makes me happy that Canadian cars have DRLs (Daytime Running Headlights). In the end, I went headfirst over the hood of her car onto the road. The girl with me went off the back of the bike. The next thing I remember was being in QianFoShan hospital being asked a few questions by a doctor who spoke English. (The accident was May 28, 2011…etched in my mind.) He followed up daily to check on my discomfort. After getting out of the hospital I was cooped up in my apartment. Two weeks. Two weeks that should have been longer before feeling like I was being guilted to go back to work. I went. Unwillingly, but I went.
The first couple of weeks went in a really difficult fashion. Feeling like death some days, I lumbered along. After about a month I started to feel almost human again. Tired, constantly, but human. I am sure that I wasn’t the best company either. Shaky. I did get through it though. Right up until I had to meet the woman that hit me. The real price of doing business in China. When it comes to sorting an incident like this out, the insurance companies seem to take a back seat. They pay in a painfully slow manner, but they do pay. That is the same. The difference was the meeting….
It was surreal. She wanted to talk business. Frequently business gets done over dinner, which is fine. In this case, she was there with 4 friends. Not the ideal situation. I was more than a little uncomfortable with all of it. To top it off, I was still angry over the incident. (For the record, the anger is still there, but it has subsided considerably. I realize they can’t drive and that all the old Asian driver jokes I used to hear have a grain of truth.) I survived the meeting, went home and tried to sleep.
The summer was spent recovering more. I think it is basically complete now, at least in the physical sense. I get tired more and have a feeling of the room spinning from time to time when I get overtired. To be honest, I don’t know if that will ever go away. Some nights it scares me. I even went to do something totally Chinese and attempt to recover my soul from the street where it happens. Unfortunately, some days it feels like it works. Some days it doesn’t.
Over the rest of the summer I kept working. Working, working, working. It seems that’s what I know best. Life takes a back seat to work. And fatigue. I seem to have a lot of that too. The continuing work does that too. It turns out that I really love teaching.
Fast forward to today. I had to meet with her again. The upside was this was the end of it all. The ordeal was over. Finally. It had nothing to do with money. I wanted to try to find some closure, something to hold onto that meant that one chapter of life in China was finally written. And now it gets written again. The real closure, or the attempt, is by putting it into words. I felt horrible today and was up all night last night in some form of torment or another. Hopefully I can put it all behind me.
In the end, I realize I am a school teacher. An open-minded school teacher who enjoys seeing when a kid gets it and understand. When the light goes on. Couple that with the respect that I get, its worth it. As I put the accident behind me, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I realize there are lots of things I still want to accomplish. A lot of it here in China.
I suppose I will someday become an egg. White on the outside and Chinese (yellow) on the inside.
