A Pearl Worth Diving For

A Pearl Worth Diving for

A Pearl Worth Diving for

My Life in the Unapologetic City of Shanghai

Daisy Bugarin

New Degree Press

Copyright © 2021 Daisy Bugarin

All rights reserved.

A Pearl Worth Diving for

My Life in the Unapologetic City of Shanghai

ISBN:

978-1-63676-947-9 (Paperback)

ISBN:

978-1-63730-013-8 (Kindle Ebook)

ISBN:

978-1-63730-115-9 (Ebook)

For my parrot, Joan, who always wonders where I go when I leave for China.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I. THE DIVE

Chapter 1. Zhouzhuang: A Day Trip to Chinese Venice

Chapter 2. The Global Citizen

Chapter 3. Unfiltered China: An Acquired Taste

Part II. ROCK BOTTOM

Chapter 4. Dancing with the Devil

Chapter 5. Morning After

Chapter 6. Expats & Immigrants

Part III. DISCOVERY

Chapter 7. A Call from Taipei

Chapter 8. Finding Home in the Horn of Africa: Rachel’s Story

Chapter 9. The Tale of a Hundred Kids

Part IV. THE PEARL OF THE ORIENT

Chapter 10. The Interview

Chapter 11. My Dearest Shanghai

Chapter 12. Evening Tea

Chapter 13. Goodbyes

Acknowledgments

APPENDIX

"珍珠不在海边。如果你想要一个，就必须潜水"

—汉语谚语

Pearls don’t lie on the seashore. If you want one, you must dive for it.

—Chinese Proverb

Introduction

June 2018

The gentle pitter-patter of summer raindrops on the car window now sounded like impatient fingers drumming on a hard surface, waiting for my response. I sat quietly in the back seat of the taxi with my lips pursed, my heart pounding furiously. The driver whipped his head around to face me.

没听到我说话？你付车费，要不我报警了！(Did you hear me? You pay the fare, or I call the police!) he yelled at me.

I had been warned about culture shock when I first moved to the city of Shanghai in August of 2017. I was told there would be social mannerisms that I would find odd and misunderstandings that would arise because of language barriers. But no one ever mentioned the inevitable hidden challenge of being a Westerner in Asia: being unnecessarily overcharged, sometimes up to ten times the actual price. Western tourists tend to be viewed as gullible. After living in Shanghai for a year, I was already hard to fool, but that didn’t stop the occasional local from trying to rip me off.

Now I sat in the back seat of a taxi alone, staring at a total that was easily three times what I should have been charged. Up until then, I had never been cornered into paying an unfair price like this. I was nineteen years old, and, at that time, my Chinese was only good enough for me to express to the driver that the price was too high. He immediately erupted in anger and spewed words back too quickly for me to catch anything other than the last sentence: Pay or I’ll call the police. I glared at the meter, watching the total increase slowly the longer I stayed in the car. Outside, the rain picked up. I realized I didn’t have an umbrella.

Maybe if my Chinese were better, I could argue my way out of this, I thought to myself bitterly. Maybe if I had a Chinese friend with me, this would not even be happening to me right now. Humiliated and on the verge of tears, I dug into my purse and began counting my money.

傻老外 (stupid foreigner), he sneered. His words struck a nerve; upon hearing them, I lost my composure. I flung the fare into the passenger seat before opening the door and stepping into a deep puddle. The rain was coming down in sheets now, and I could barely hear the driver’s new wave of angry slurs directed at me. I slammed the door behind me, cutting off the sound of his voice completely, and bolted for the safety of my apartment. I did not stop running until I had arrived at my door, where I took off my soggy shoes and flung them onto the floor. I locked the front door tightly and dove under the security of my bedcovers, not bothering to change out of my wet clothes.

As I began to cry in the privacy of my small room, I realized achingly that the country I had grown to love did not necessarily love me back. No matter how long I lived here, I was still viewed as just another gullible foreigner that could be manipulated into bringing in a quick profit. It was painfully obvious that I didn’t belong here, and I felt naive having ever thought that I could fit in.

Understandably, some people would assume my story ends there—that soon after, I packed my bags and fled for the safety and familiarity of home. But that’s the funny thing about love; you tend to evade all reason. And I was madly in love: with this country, with this city, but most importantly, with the version of myself that had been sculpted by my life here.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was starting to understand life as an expat. Even though sobbing under my bedcovers felt like a far cry from the expected glitz and glam of living in a high-rise apartment in one of the most thrilling cities in the world, my experience was far from uncommon; foreigners of all races in every country experienced the same challenge. And the reality was this: living in a foreign country is just not as glamorous as social media suggests.

When you move abroad, you are no longer a tourist; you are a full-time resident who is prone to see the good, the bad, and the ugly of your host country. When you live far away from your home and family for most of the year, you will be filled with a complicated sense of loneliness that is inseparable from the feeling of freedom. Your daily life will be filled with moments of looking stupid and then trying desperately to look less stupid. When you overcome these challenges, you’ll be graced with a fleeting sense of accomplishment. And as you see your friends from back home succeeding in the absence of a language or cultural barrier, you’ll start to wonder if you made the wrong decision going abroad in the first place.

Welcome to the life of an expat: a life of equal parts embarrassment and adventure. This book is an honest account of my life as a foreigner. If you plan on moving far from home—and especially abroad—let this story serve as your guide to what you can expect. Your new home won’t be nearly as glamorous as you expect; in fact, you are inevitably going to hate life overseas before you can truly begin to love it. But your host country will mold you into a person wiser than your years, and you are going to make memories that will put a smile on your face for a lifetime. So, with all that said, if you’re still bold enough to consider moving abroad, read on.

PART 1

THE DIVE

Chapter 1

Zhouzhuang: A Day Trip to Chinese Venice

Eighteen is the age of illusion.

For most of my life, I thought I would magically become an adult when I turned eighteen. From that day on, I would be able to vote, buy cigarettes, and sign legal documents on my behalf. So, imagine my surprise when—not only was I not an adult— the clock had reset itself, and I was a child all over again.

I was eighteen, but I might as well have been five years old. I was a high school graduate but illiterate. I was gifted going on dumb foreigner. The day I stepped off the plane in China, my life reset. Everything I had accomplished up until then didn’t matter anymore; my slate was wiped clean.

I had to relearn how to write my name, introduce myself, and ask where the bathroom was. I now lived in a world where I understood nothing, and most people didn’t understand me.

That magical wave of adult knowledge I expected to arrive at eighteen never came; the closest I got was the daunting realization that I had lived the first chapter of my life on autopilot. I had gone through the motions of everyday life without even thinking about them. But now, the switch had been flipped off, and I had no choice but to stumble through life like a small child.

October 2017

The Chinese characters were taunting me. While the commotion of the bus terminal kept me alert enough, I was still exhausted from waking up early and trying hard not to fall asleep. I rubbed my eyes as I tried to focus. All across the long digital blackboard, the names of different cities were flashing in red, orange, and green. There were split moments where I could recognize the names of cities, and I would feel proud. But moments later, the characters would disappear and be replaced by ones I couldn’t read.

I knew上海 (Shanghai), which is where we were at the moment, and I had learned 周庄 (Zhouzhuang) because it was our destination. My eyes skimmed across the rainbow of characters to find 周庄 but couldn’t find it.

You find it yet? Josh asked me from behind. I shook my head. A gentle ray of early morning sun spilled through the window, forcing me to squint as I pulled out our bus tickets. 上海 →周庄 was printed in the upper left-hand corner. I looked around for anyone who could help us.

It was the first week of October, and the bus terminal was filled with people traveling for the Chinese National Holiday (国庆节). Most of the red plastic seats were occupied, so we only had two spots to share between the four of us. I was too restless to be sitting down though, so Josh and our friend Elli were seated doing Chinese homework while I was pacing around trying to find our bus on the board. Our fourth member, Dayna, was nowhere to be seen.

Maybe we should ask the lady who sold us the tickets, Elli offered. Her tight brown curls bounced as she looked over at the ticket counter across the room. I followed her gaze but dismissed the idea once I saw the long line of people waiting in front of the window.

Guys—look, they have snacks! Dayna hurried over with bags of goodies in her hands. I smiled when I saw her, both because she was amusing but also because I was glad we hadn’t lost her in the crowd. Then again, her long blond hair made her stand out in this sea of people. Josh stood up to offer hir¹ seat to Dayna before walking over to me.

That lady over there looks promising, Josh said, pointing at a woman in a blue uniform. I’ll come with you for moral support. We made our way over to the older woman. She looked at us but said nothing.

请问，我们要去周庄 (Excuse me, we want to go to Zhouzhuang), I told her, pointing to our tickets.

Zhouzhuang? She asked us before saying something else in Chinese.

不好意思，我听不懂 (Sorry, I don’t understand), I replied sheepishly. She pursed her lips, looking annoyed before eventually walking away. I was trying my best, though, I thought to myself sadly. Maybe if I actually spoke Chinese, this would be a lot easier. The four of us had only been learning Chinese for a month, but we were still eager to go on a trip for the holiday; a day trip to Zhouzhuang water town. Many of our friends had already made their plans, so we were determined to go on an adventure of our own even if we didn’t speak the language yet.

It’s okay, Josh assured me. We’ll figure it out without her. I followed hir back to our group, where we both stared at the board of rainbow characters together.

Josh ended up being right. I jumped with excitement when Zhouzhuang finally appeared on the board; our group had been at the right gate the whole time. As we lined up to present our tickets, a different station worker was kind enough to escort us onto the bus and even told the driver where we were getting off. The four of us smiled and waved to her as the doors of the bus closed.

I spent the two-hour ride attempting to sleep, being interrupted only once at the border between Shanghai and Jiangsu province. Border patrol officers hoped onboard to check everyone’s ID cards and residence permits. When we finally arrived to the Zhouzhuang station, we followed our GPS to the ancient water town. There was only one problem.

I don’t see a water town, Josh said as we walked through a full parking lot. We had stopped to ask for directions multiple times by now, and each person had told us to go through this parking lot. I’m not seeing any boats.

The entrance is probably up there, I said, pointing to a colorful sign in the distance surrounded by large flowers. It looked more like the gate to a theme park than a traditional Chinese water town. As we got closer, we saw that people were lining up to get tickets. We hopped in the back of the line and waited patiently. Dayna wandered away from our group momentarily to look past the gates.

This looks more like a theme park than anything, to be honest, she noted. Deja Vu. I barely paid attention to her; I was rehearsing the Chinese pronunciation for 周庄古镇 (Zhouzhuang ancient water town) in my head. I listened to the Google Translate voice once again to be sure and then whispered it to myself repeatedly until it was our turn. I walked up to the ticket window and was greeted by a lady in a blue uniform. I pointed to the Google Image picture.

这里是周庄古镇吗? (Is this the Zhouzhuang ancient water town?) I asked her, pointing to the gate. She nodded as she slid our tickets under the window. I distributed them as we began walking through the entrance. Once inside, we were surrounded by sand-colored buildings and giant potted lotus flowers in every corner. We followed the few people in front of us over a small wooden bridge to an open space with food vendors. I walked ahead a few steps to look down the different paths. There was no sign of the water town.

Let’s just ask someone, Elli suggested. I shrugged and walked up to a man selling food. By now, I had the Chinese pronunciation engrained in my head.

周庄古镇在哪里?(Where is the Zhouzhuang ancient water town?) I asked him. The man pointed in the direction we had just come from and said something too quickly for me to understand. I smiled stiffly and nodded, having not understood a single word.

As we retraced our steps,