White Buddha: ESL, Melvin in China

White Buddha: Portrait of an ESL Teacher in China

"Melvin..."

"Where was he from?"

"Portland, Oregon."

"That's weird."

"It's a weird place..."

"But he hated Portland, like, really, really hated Portland, always shitted on its hipsters, and politically correct, passive aggressive people..."

"He certainly was not passive aggressive."

"Wasn't he like 43?"

"Nah, he was 33, 34, 35, I think, but looked older because of his balding. Not sure why he didn't just shave off the sides."

"Crazy how he ran, every day practically, yet he still had such a big beer belly. And I don't ever remember him drinking beer, which is unusual for an ESL type."

"Soda and junk food, comrade..."

"Oh, he guzzled assloads of soda. His apartment was carpeted in coke cans, candy bar wrappers..."

"Remember that meme, the deep fake of him as Mord from Game of Thrones..."

"A Lannister always pays his debts."

"I hope Melvin didn't see that."

"He must have. He was always online."

"The meme of him as Shrek..."

"Man never slept, posted on his WeChat at 3 AM, status updates, like all the time."

"The cranium on him... Must have had a fuckton of Neanderthal DNA..."

"He looked better with a beard."

"His eyelids were always so droopy, puffy and red."

"And his one eye was bigger than the other. Looked all fucked up."

"He never slept."

"He was always so pissed off."

"Didn't he smoke crack or meth?"

"Nah, he didn't even smoke weed."

"Someone from Portland who doesn't smoke weed? What's up with that..."

"He watched the Fox News Channel."

"Wasn't he also a 'Flat Earther?'"

"Every time I saw him, he was angry and complaining about something. Usually about a person who was an asshole to him, or work problems, or China stuff..."

"He was on about something the first time I met him, too. But he seemed mostly normal, just animated, eccentric, a character. I liked him initially."

"It's hard to make friends in China."

"Friendships are transactions."

"Guanxi..."

"If this place doesn't make one a misanthrope, nothing will."

"Makes me feel better about my misanthropy. That's for sure."

"And my alcoholism."

"I dislike all of you. I only talk to any of you because we work together, and I have to."

"You're a humanitarian."

"Takes a special sort of human being to make it past a year in the PRC."

"Challenges your every notion of decency, China..."

"Personal space, hygiene, honesty, privacy, freedom... Pretty much everything..."

"Can't even count how many Westerners come and don't make it two weeks."

"Slipping away on a midnight run..."

"On a midnight train to Vietnam."

"Plenty of runners."

"Or they're gone, disappeared by next semester, on a plane to another country or back home."

"Or they're violent, drunks, violent drunks, bipolar, or a missionary."

"And those are the good ones."

"The only sane ones are the recent college grads or older, retired guys."

"The missionaries are occasionally okay, as long as they don't get all freaky with the Jeebus on you..."

"That's one thing I appreciate about China, the lack of openly evangelical, religious people..."

"At my old school there was a whole network of underground missionaries. They'd set up a pipeline from a Bible college in Kansas that had a special TEFL major... They'd send us lots of young, fresh college grads..."

"The head of the crew, this freckly, frumpy, 30-ish, ghost-white lady, would invite every new teacher to her apartment for freshly baked, chocolate chip cookies..."

"There, she and her posse'd gauge your spirituality through casual conversation and float an invite to services at an underground church, but if you declined, and they figured you weren't sufficiently into the Big J, the cookie invitations stopped abruptly, and you were out of their orbit, shunned, really..."

"And they'd lure students with the cookies too. That's how they roped them in. They'd do Bible study groups, weekly, at a teacher's apartment, with students..."

"Cookies for Jeebus."

"Some tasty cookies, I must admit. I could see how they might dissuade someone from eternal damnation..."

"Only the missionaries and crazies last in China for more than a year."

"One girl, a pretty young white thing, came to China, and after only a couple weeks, she had mouth ulcers and her face was covered in unexplainable, horrific acne, looked like a pepperoni pizza..."

"She went to an international clinic, and the doctor's only advice was simply to leave China. So she did a runner, and when she got back to Iowa, her ulcers and skin cleared up immediately."

"Only the missionaries and crazies..."

"Defective human beings."

"Yup."

"Hey, the dumplings are delicious."

"When they don't give you diarrhea."

"I'm an expert in diarrhea. A diarrhea connoisseur..."

"All the food poisoning and diarrhea has turned me into a germaphobe. I scrub the fuck out of everything now..."

"We're all gonna get cancer or some shit... Cancer of the ass..."

"One teacher got ball cancer and had to have one of his testicles amputated."

"Another guy, an older one, got lung cancer, but didn't know it. They found him dead in his apartment on campus."

"Crazy Stevie, from Wales, dude with the humpback... I remember him..."

"His Chinese wife stuck flyers around the apartment building asking for donations..."

"Remember that Irish lady, a couple years back, the one with the partially paralyzed face and googly eye, who died from leaving her gas tank on in the kitchen?"

"Then there was that American, hippy, granola lady last year who, on her first night in China, not knowing better, drank a glass of the tap water and had to be rushed to the hospital. Died the next day..."

"Every semester at least one teacher dies, has a nervous breakdown, or gets fired for punching or molesting students. That's why they have language written into the contract about such things..."

"Not sure why'd you'd even need to molest anyone. Plenty of beautiful women around who aren't students."

"Especially for older guys. All those 'leftover' women the locals won't touch."

"I like touching them."

"And ample supplies of hookers if all else fails, or so I heard, like, from somebody..."

"Cops shut down the brothels in the last city I worked. Replaced them with veiled kiosks selling adult toys..."

"They got factories in Dongguan developing AI sex-bots. Bladerunner shit."

"Already is Bladerunner in China, the smog, crumbling buildings, neon signage lit up at night."

"Gritty and cyberpunk as fuck."

"I dig the neon lighting."

"I've gotten to seriously appreciate the absence of a tipping culture..."

"It is a beautiful thing, not having a waiter or waitress in your face every five minutes because they're desperate for tips, needing to kiss your ass..."

"Chinese restaurant servers are usually polite, friendly but not servile, occasionally rude, but they're there when you need them..."

"I sorta like it when they're rude to me... Find it refreshing..."

"People doing stuff outside, at parks, hanging out, kids running around... That's something I like about China. Folks not so shut-in and hyper-paranoid like in the States..."

"Every girlfriend I've had is afraid to go outside... Afraid of the rain, because it's so wet... Afraid of the cold, pa leng!, afraid of heat, because it makes her sweat and sweat is sticky and gross, and afraid of the sun because she'll tan and her skin will be dark..."

"Sajiao..."

"I got sajiaoed out of a job once. Had a summer gig, nice paying one, summer camp in another city... Girlfriend supported it, at first, but then sajiaoed, ripping down our pictures from the walls, screaming about how I'd meet a girl in that city..."

"So I quit, and I told the guy who hired me I couldn't go because of my girlfriend. Figured he'd be angry, but he laughed and was quite understanding..."

"Every girlfriend I've had has looked through my phone, computer, searched my apartment..."

"My last girlfriend demanded I delete every girl from my phone and WeChat contacts..."

"A Chinese buddy of mine caught his wife installing a listening device in his car..."

"I had a Chinese girlfriend install a GPS tracking device on my phone..."

"Not hard meeting ladies in China, particularly if you're white and tall... The difficult part is what happens afterwards..."

"They're way better after 30. Far less sajiao, princess shit..."

"It's that way everywhere, comrade..."

"I like how the ladies in China appreciate my pasty skin..."

"And they think all British men are 'so gentlemen'..."

"British dudes kill with the ladies abroad, anywhere they go. That's why you see such high numbers of British expats... The States is packed with them too..."

"I appreciate the directness of people in China, the brutal honesty, the lack of political correctness. You'll know where you stand with them..."

"Totally is that way with the women. Some feisty, strong ladies... Let you know how they feel, one way or another..."

"Sajiao aside, the women are what I dig best. Beautiful, elegant, feminine, slim, high cheekbones, perfect china doll faces."

"I never really understood 'yellow fever' until I came to China."

"Once you go Asian, you can't go back to Caucasian..."

"Too much starfish sex for my taste. Feel like a necrophiliac sometimes..."

"Can't kiss either, plunging tongues down your throat like a succubus."

"Lack of porn leaves them at a disadvantage."

"Lack of experience too. Can't date much when being kept a prisoner of their parents and the State..."

"Gotta teach them... Provide experience..."

"Japanese, Taiwanese, and southeast Asian ladies are far better in the sack..."

"Fucking firewall..."

"Gotta deprogram them..."

"Bottom line... Chinese ladies are red-hot, more feminine than Western women, way thinner... All that rice and vegetables they eat..."

"Once you go Asian..."

"But if you aren't in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing or Guangzhou don't count on too much sport-fucking. Anywhere outside of Tier 1 it's generally gonna be marriage, your hand, or prostitution."

"Better watch out in Beijing. Hear there's gangs of pissed off young incel types, Chincels, with baseball bats and knives, going after white dudes with Asian girls...Out looking for honkies to fuck up..."

"Remember the French guy in Beijing whose fiancée got stabbed to death, in public, broad daylight, at a shopping mall, by a young Chinese dude with a samurai sword? Not one passerby helped, and she bled to death on the street..."

"Yeah, fuck Beijing. They closed the famous food street, too. The one with all the fried insects, scorpions, and crazy Asian snacks."

"Fascist assholes... No more fried grasshoppers and tarantulas?"

"Forget the insects, I gotta worry about my girlfriend getting slashed by maniacs wielding samurai swords?"

"Shanghai, comrade. The Shanghaiese are too apathetic and rich to care."

"And, unlike the big ruffians up north, they're usually too girly-man to put up much of a fight."

"I don't know, those long fingernails they got. Shanghai dudes going Freddy Kruger, Wolverine on your ass... Slash you to shreds..."

"I've seen tattooed, scary, gangster triad types, all over, north to south. Not the types I'd want any problems with. Hate to be caught making one of them wear the green hat..."

"Have no fear, comrade, the fuckbots are on the way. All equipped with QR codes..."

"The mobile phone payments are handy. I've gotten to appreciate them."

"At least you don't need a VPN for those."

"Couldn't live without my VPN."

"VPN, hand sanitizer, tissues, condoms, air purifier, pollution mask, McDonald's, noise-cancelling headphones, bottled water, probiotics and penicillin. The essentials of the China Expat Survival Kit..."

"My VPN was down for almost a month last year during the 'World Internet Conference.' Was brutal..."

"My VPN gets molested every June 4^th..."

"Thank Mao for pirated DVDs..."

"Loves me some pirated DVD..."

"Probably my favorite thing about China is the public transportation links, not needing a car."

"The subways are great when they're not too jammed with the masses."

"The bullet trains. War-mongering imperialist countries need to catch up with that infrastructure..."

"Infrastructure's top-notch, girls are pretty, food is tasty, but all the daily life stuff, the small annoyances, the attrition of it... That's what gets to you... That's much of what drives everyone out eventually..."

"I can't understand anyone who'd come to China for a regular job. If you're not making buckets of cash in IT, business, or seriously forwarding your career, teaching at an upscale international school or simply doing ESL to live a stress-free lifestyle, travel, have fun, then how could you do it?"

"Defective human beings..."

"World travelers..."

"Dropouts..."

"Misfits..."

"Alcoholics..."

"Diaosi..."

"Disgruntled former high school chemistry teachers..."

"Disgruntled former university adjunct professors..."

"Career changers..."

"Hermits..."

"At large criminals..."

"Those in the witness protection program..."

"The divorced, the indebted, the curious..."

"The binary..."

"Conspiracy theorists..."

"Globalists..."

"Bolsheviks..."

"Sinophiles..."

"Maoists..."

"Sexpats..."

"Like you."

"Guilty as charged, comrade..."

"Why is it that men are stigmatized for liking Asian women, foreign women? Mail order brides? Younger, legal age, ladies? Yet you'll never hear anyone putting down a 'cougar' or being pissed about fat older white ladies prowling Jamaica and Africa for the BBC..."

"To each his or her own, I say... Everyone has his or her reasons, and as long as they're not hurting anyone..."

"Only things I'm hurting are my lungs and my rectum..."

"The lower cost of living is a big reason for me... At least for ESL you got low hours, disposable income, cash for paying off student loans, debt, doing an online master's... Beats many other alternatives... I know lots of folks who bettered themselves with it, moved on to greener pastures..."

"Fucking gig economy..."

"I'm living the Chinese Dream. One that doesn't include 996 and paying a fortune for a crumbling concrete box that you lease from the Jinpooh Bear, on an ever so tenuous basis..."

"I got a foreign passport already. I've achieved the Chinese Dream..."

"If you got the right connections and can handle the physical, environmental, emotional and mental challenges, China can be a fun place to be. At least while you're still young..."

"Or just crazy..."

"Or tough..."

"It's a decent place to teach. A lot of the students are a pleasure. They generally don't talk back, give teachers shit."

"It's the flipside, the positive aspect of authoritarianism, creates some obedient students..."

"Teachers are generally quite well-respected in their society. Not too common for students to challenge them, shit on them..."

"Might also be that parents can beat their kids. Used to be like that in the States, now parents can't do anything..."

"Think that's a big reason why there's such a culture of little bastards, sluts, and freaks shooting up schools... No parents around to smack 'em upside the face, slap the taste out their mouth, no belts, switches, spankings... No discipline or fear of consequences..."

"You'll still hear about spree stabbers at schools... Kid in a high school stabbed eight of his classmates the other day, during morning readings..."

"Media doesn't perpetuate those mucker stories as much as in the West. Ban that news quickly..."

"Ah, students, kids, people in generally, are good and bad everywhere. Students in China are just not usually as demonstrative with it. More passive aggressive than anything. Rarely openly hostile, rude..."

"I had a few students who were openly rude, but only a couple. One who asked me, in class, why I was fat, if I was gay... Another who sat in my class with his chair turned backwards so he could face away from me... Aside from that, had very few problems..."

"My students are usually too busy staring at their phones to give me any problems..."

"The English majors are usually the best. Quite friendly, eager to learn, and genuinely curious about other countries and cultures."

"My classes of Art majors hardly ever turned up on time, or at all on occasion... Girls covered in tattoos, goth makeup, lazy as anything, respectful and friendly, though..."

"Mao help you if you ever are stuck with Computer Science majors, especially classes filled with boys. I've never seen such lazy oafs... They'll play on phones, watch TV on tablets, wear ear buds, talk over you and not give any sort of a fuck."

"The Computer Science students' determination not to learn and lengths they'll go to ignore teachers are impressive..."

"The worst is the Chinese college students' teacher evaluation system..."

"Whether students 'like' you, rate you highly, is largely the basis on whether they renew your contract, for both Chinese or foreign teachers... So you're basically compelled to be 'nice' to them..."

"It's like Lord of the Flies..."

"Children of the Corn..."

"It's a guanxi based society... If the school likes you, you're respectful to the students, nice to the administration, patient, don't give them shit, they'll keep you around for years and rip you off far less..."

"Although if you're too strict or too 'serious' as the students say, you're generally toast..."

"Nah, if the administration likes you, if you're not showing up to classes drunk, you're polite, friendly, punctual, don't cause trouble, keep your paws off the female population, they'll give you a chance, pull you in for tea, and allow you the opportunity to lighten up, correct your ways, quit pissing off the customers..."

"But if no one likes you, like the guy they recently let go, you're a ghost..."

"That crazy Korean American guy throwing books at students, got into a kickfight with one... Everybody hated him..."

"No, that was last year, just this past semester, the ex-marine guy..."

"The bald head, muscled-up dude from South Carolina, oh yeah, he would get all drill sergeant on the students, be strict about phones, was fighting a war against digital devices in his classes, but he said they were ingenious at concealing them, that they'd find ways to hide phones in their books, clothes, use smart watches, girls hiding wireless earphones under their hair..."

"The students complained about him being too strict and his classes being 'boring', so the school sacked him..."

"It's the inmates running the asylum..."

"The Chinese teachers don't usually care about that stuff, the phones, tablets... I've seen Chinese teachers playing on their phones, too, during classes. But did hear about one throwing her students' phones out a window once... So there is progress being made somewhere..."

"The students are fried. Those stupid propaganda classes they sit through, being burned out from the Gaokao, and, mostly, I think it's because they know they can't fail..."

"They can't fail?"

"For Oral English classes, if they fail or get too low a score, an admin will just change the grades..."

"For subject courses, Chinese universities will make teachers create an answer key for every exam and a corrupt administrator will circulate a copy of the answers to the students, before the test, to ensure none fail..."