White Buddha: ESL, Melvin in China

"It's so cold too, that water, in the winter, like demonic, satanic, poltergeist type cold..."

"Think of that, the guy making your food basically wiped his ass with his hand and didn't thoroughly wash it. His long fingernails full of fecal-particles. You're basically eating his shit."

"You aren't a true China expat unless you soil your pants at least once."

"Every long-term China expat has a graphic diarrhea story... Hot pot, fire sprinkler ass shits..."

"I don't have diarrhea that often anymore, think I'm inoculated..."

"China went from extreme communism to extreme capitalism, practically overnight. There's bound to be hiccups and diarrhea along the way..."

"The diarrhea factor is why I try to cook at home whenever possible."

"But then the water is dirty, contaminated with heavy metals. Really nothing you can do..."

"Gives me rashes if I shower too often..."

"Ever noticed how much dust is everywhere, on the floor, the counters? You'll clean it and the next day it's back. Never seen anything like it..."

"Did any of us think it was gonna be healthy to come here? At least in the countries we come from we can see the pollution levels, can complain about it, force governments to do something. But in China, they censor that information, and jail or kill you if you speak up..."

"The lengths to which they go to keep people ignorant."

"Ignorance is bliss."

"Ignorance is diarrhea."

"It's basically North Korea-lite."

"That's why everyone eventually leaves. Look how many Overseas Chinese there are. There's a reason for that."

"I'm too invested to go, for now... Came when it was going to be the 'next big thing.'"

"I'm not throwing in the towel just yet."

"China is sort of like an abusive spouse you can't leave..."

"Stockholm Syndrome."

"You're institutionalized..."

"And I'm not even a Muslim."

"When they were rounding up all the Uyghur Muslims, to put them in the concentration camps, I got stopped twice by PSB units, who said they were conducting an 'operation'. Once they saw I was a foreigner, one without a Muslim name, too, they let me go, but if I was..."

"Guess from their perspective it made sense, taking Tibet and Xinjiang... All the natural resources, geographic, military buffer... Fucking sucks for the locals there, though..."

"Cultural genocide."

"Icky genocide stuff aside, what could really make it better? I mean, it still has potential. There are lots of genuinely kind people, especially the young ones who weren't traumatized by famines, floods, and Mao Yeye..."

"They have survived a lot."

"They tolerate us. Mostly."

"Fucking honkies."

"The dichotomy of chaos and totalitarianism."

"Is a shrinking number of Westerners coming to China..."

"Not many of the young backpacker, ESL types coming anymore..."

"They're in Vietnam and Thailand."

"Taiwan and Japan."

"Good Korea."

"Indonesia."

"Tajikistan..."

"Most of the foreigners now in China are from those BRI countries, Africa, Pakistan..."

"Loan Shark Diplomacy..."

"But seriously, what could make it better? A real country people would want to actually move to, travel to, retire to, rather than just work and or flee..."

"They should fill all those empty apartment buildings with expats."

"Thai bar girls."

"Strictly enforce laws about grandparents not letting little kids poop and piss on the street."

"Impose caning punishments, Singapore style, for nuisance crimes like spitting and littering."

"They could have Saudi Arabia type religious police out lashing motherfuckers for spitting or smoking in elevators."

"I'd volunteer for that job..."

"What I wouldn't give to cane a dancing granny..."

"Outlaw dancing grannies!"

"Outlaw stinky tofu."

"Outlaw squat toilets."

"Outlaw lying. I've never come across so much dishonesty."

"Being in China sure has made me far more distrustful of others..."

"Lying doesn't have the stigma it does in the West."

"White lies, though..."

"Outlaw white people."

"Legalize guns!"

"You crazy? Could you imagine the carnage... Way easier to outrun a mucker on a stabbing spree than a mucker on a shooting rampage..."

"Not as afraid of spree stabbers as I am of escalators, elevators, building collapses..."

"Outlaw crappy construction!"

"A lady died recently because she opened a door marked 'Exit,' thinking it was a stairwell, and it turned out the door led to nothing, and she plummeted to her death from the 5^th floor..."

"Fucking chabuduo."

"There're building collapses almost daily, new buildings too. They'll throw up a new, fancy looking apartment building and a year later it's got cracks in the foundation, leaking pipes... Buildings from 5 years ago look 20 years old."

"Acid rain..."

"Built-in obsolescence."

"Tofu concrete... The 2008 Sichuan Earthquake... That's why so many died."

"Occasionally a building will collapse during its construction, killing all the workers."

"Man, I feel for those migrant workers, from Anhui, Ningxia, those places..."

"Confiscate government property, reallocate it to the migrant workers!"

"Fill the Forbidden Palace of Zhongnanhai with migrant workers!"

"Purge the rightists!"

"Rise, comrades, start a new revolution! One led by a friendlier, not so genocidal Mao type dude..."

"Democracy. Voting. Preferably a parliamentary system."

"Chinese democracy. The real kind, not some shitty Guns N' Roses album."

"You kidding? Think of who would vote, all those crazy nationalists... Hell, they'd bring in some halfwit who'd wanna nuke Japan."

"Outlaw the daily anti-foreigner, five minutes of hate in the newspapers and evening newscasts!"

"Outlaw the daily anti-Japan bullshit war dramas!"

"The TV and movies are terrible in China. Those propaganda documentaries, sappy soaps..."

"And their popular music, all those trash love ballads..."

"No wonder they have no soft power globally..."

"Totalitarianism and heavy-handed censors don't exactly assist the creative process, comrade..."

"Outlaw censorship!"

"Second that. The CCP actually censors portions of its constitution online..."

"Legalize Google! Down with Baidu! Down with Jackoff Ma!"

"Mr. Xi, tear down that firewall!"

"Legalize weed. If they smoked that like they smoke cigarettes, imagine how chill they'd be."

"Clever idea for when automation hits. 1 billion people out of work. It could be massive chaos, riots, social unrest..."

"Forget that. The facial recognition system, surveillance cameras will have weaponized lasers, flamethrowers to target, incinerate and neutralize counterrevolutionaries, those subverting state power... Really think they'll only deduct sesame credits?"

"If only they'd had that in 1989."

"Outlaw security cameras!"

"Troublesome foreigners, picking quarrels! China's technology will be peaceful and most harmonious!"

"Outlaw foreigners!"

"Outlaw ESL teachers!"

"Definitely."

"We're fucked, ultimately, a dying breed... Simultaneous translation apps, talking robots will do away with us..."

"Outlaw robots!"

"It's like every once arduous process, language learning will be obsolete... Instantaneous translation ear buds, AI, all that; we're on the precipice of the next industrial revolution... Soon to be washed away by the tidal wave..."

"Outlaw AI!"

"There's a nerd working on an app right now that's going to eventually decimate nearly every ESL, language learning job... It's only a matter of time..."

"Outlaw nerds!"

"And the Filipinos are coming... As a stopgap before the robots, they'll replace us all with qualified Filipino teachers ready to work for $500 a month and they can spell and know all the basic grammar rules we don't."

"We're dinosaurs waiting for the asteroid..."

"Outlaw asteroids!"

"And outlaw the Filipinos! Except the chicks!"

"Outlaw all fempats!"

"Outlaw any ESL teacher not under 30 and not over 55!"

"Outlaw all expats!"

"The worst people I've met in China have been, by far, the expats."

"Especially the Americans."

"Especially you."

"Exactly."

"A country gets the expats it deserves."

"Exactly."

"America doesn't have the history or culture of expatriation that Britain or Australia does. That's why only the military, criminals, losers, drunks, crazies, perverts, basketball players or missionaries come abroad..."

"I can understand leaving Britain. The British Empire was really a result of explorers in search of places with better weather..."

"And better-looking women."

"Elizabeth Hurley, Kate Middleton, Kiera Knightly?"

"Outliers. Probably Viking DNA..."

"All the most mental expats in Asia are Americans."

"Well, there was the 60-something Australian guy with the pink hair, who wore those long, golden imperial era traditional Chinese robes and was always running around, laughing, poking people in the back or stomach."

"All he ate was French toast at the café next to school, every day, 2 or 3 times..."

"And he'd ride this unicycle around the campus and be drunk on baijiu by the afternoon, often passed out on the steps of the library. Other teachers, students and security guards would have to carry him, by his arms and legs, back to his apartment."

"Or how about the South African with the purple mohawk who was always dancing and singing that song Beez in the Trap and taped dead cockroaches to his neighbor's door..."

"Then there was the Indian who'd throw chalk at sleeping students in class and stalk around the campus, fondling females, touching their legs..."

"The Polish lady into eugenics who claimed Asians didn't need sunglasses because their eyes are slanted and can block out the sun..."

"My favorite was the Iranian math teacher who got into a running slapfight, shouting match with a hooker outside a KTV..."

"Oh no, the best was the 50-ish British lady whose AC in her apartment was broken so she left the refrigerator door open in her kitchen the whole time... Her lessons consisted of playing duck-duck-goose... with college students."

"She wore a British judge wig and carried a cricket bat everywhere, although I never once saw her play cricket..."

"I got drunk and had sex with her after the Christmas party... She kept the judge wig on the whole time..."

"You're a humanitarian..."

"Glasgow guy... Glasgow guy... The shaved head guy from Glasgow who'd go out every weekend to bars, headbutt random people, and get in fistfights and be bashed by the locals..."

"Everyone from Glasgow does that."

"The Glasgow kiss. A headbutt to your nose. That just means they like you."

"Sure, you got your winners from everywhere, but the worst overall are American."

"I've never seen ESL teachers who fight amongst themselves as much as the Americans do..."

"The Americans are the worst."

"Remember that fat redneck guy with the mullet and baggy FUBU shirts and jorts... He'd go out into the crowded Shanghai city streets and scream out 'NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGUUUUUUUUUUURRRR' simply because he could. He'd look so relieved afterwards."

"Or the short, hairy wackjob from Maine, who called himself a 'Maniac' and was constantly talking about his bowel movements, in graphic depictions, bragging about how highly rated they were on ratemypoodotcom..."

"The craziest American I remember was that white supremacist, skinhead guy who taught his students the hail Hitler salute, hit on students, and went off on an anti-Semitic tirade at the Christmas party and later tried to steal a cell phone from a hooker."

"Didn't that guy get his contract renewed?"

"No, they actually fired him because he had a psychotic breakdown in class over students playing on their mobile phones..."

"But they did let him stay rent free in his apartment for 4 months afterwards, and he flipped out on an African girl exchange student, calling her racial slurs, and they still let him stay another month even after that."

"I got drunk and slashed that guy's bicycle tires."

"Was he the guy who bottled Melvin?"

"I'm not sure."

"Didn't Melvin get bottled twice?"

"Three times, I think. Definitely once by a Chinese dude at a bar."

"Melvin also got jumped by a group of taxi drivers in Beijing, something about them demanding he speak Chinese because it's China and Melvin freaking out over it..."

"That Boston dude, the one who'd do Bill Burr impressions, he ran up on Melvin. I remember."

"Boston guy, that crazy fire-red hair ginger, he'd get piss drunk, every night, go to McDonald's, and strip bare-naked, sit down and eat his food... Then he'd put his clothes back on, leave, and go out and pick fights, mostly shoving matches, with random people."

"Boston dude tried to choke out Melvin. On Thanksgiving, I think..."

"Sneak attack, ninja shit. Ran up from behind, jumped on his back, piggyback style, and started strangling him."

"Then Melvin fell backwards on him, with all his weight, which was a lot, and knocked Boston guy out cold and stomped on him a few times before some other teachers pulled him away, all kicking and screaming and shit."

"With two Chinese coppers watching, one smoking and laughing. The other staring, jaw dropped, practically a deer in headlights."

"Chinese cops are useless. The whole place is lawless, basically."

"I got physically attacked by a crazed nationalist Chinese guy at a bus station in Hangzhou. Accidentally bumped into him when he was trying to cut in line, and he started screaming insults at me, laowai this, that, and he punched me in my chest a few times, right in front of a Chinese cop, who stood silently, watched and did absolutely nothing."

"Boxer Rebellion 2.0"

"No, comrade, that's just 'The Wild Wild East.' No laws. Cops are only there to smoke cigarettes, bust people for jaywalking, and torture dissidents... They otherwise don't do shit."

"Shi de. Piss off a rich person or someone in the government and the cops will move quickly then. You'll have a knock on your door, be invited for tea, disappeared, promptly..."

"The CCP is like the mafia. You gotta know someone to get in, be vouched for, then you're in for life, and if you fuck up, they off you..."

"I wonder how long they'll last, the CCP, their dynasty..."

"Can't currently envision how they'll fall... With their tech, facial recognition software, control of all media, communications systems, malware and spyware and bugs in smartphones..."

"People said the same things about East Germany, the Stasi..."

"True. But no totalitarian regime ever had such weapons in their arsenal..."

"The next revolution will be the 'Smashed Surveillance Camera Revolution.'"

"Won't happen as long as the proletariat have rice in their bowls..."

"Let them eat rice!"

"For all their ills, the CCP has improved many people's lives and at least care somewhat, unlike Cambodia... I mean, if you're a PRC citizen would you really want to go back to the Warlord Era?"

"They could probably last for a while, so long as their economy keeps up and they don't go full fucktard and invade Taiwan..."

"Won't make a difference, Taiwan. The world, US included, won't give a damn about it, a tiny Asian island... Maybe lip service will be paid, but there's too much money, business done in the Mainland..."

"I think most people anywhere are quite happy to trade human rights and privacy for food, housing and jobs..."

"But how would they feel if they knew seventy percent of their soil and groundwater is toxic?"

"And that the Red Nobility have their princelings, princesses and wealth in Vancouver, and the technocrats in Beijing have their own protected farms, water supplies, industrial air purifiers..."

"I think most people would choose technocrats who give them contaminated food rather than technocrats who give them no food..."

"The CCP is a lot better than what preceded it. That's for sure... The Qing Dynasty was a bunch of corrupt shitbags..."

"And Chiang Kai-shek was a cunt."

"Whatever becomes of the CCP, they won't go quietly, riding off into the sunset... They began violently and will end violently..."

"The barrel of a gun..."

"A bunch of gangsters..."

"Kleptocrats."

"Don't they make you scream out an oath and kill a live chicken and drink its blood when you join?"

"Prostrate, prostrate before an 88-meter-tall jade statue of Xi Dada!"

"I for one certainly hope they don't takeover the world... The 'China Model', that sort of totalitarian, Orwellian society, with world domination, total hegemony... It'd be the end of art, creativity, thought..."

"Won't happen. In the end, authoritarian systems always flame out..."

"They'll lose the Trade War, Tech War, any new Cold War. They can't innovate. They've got no allies, no soft power, nothing better to offer."

"Best hope for the CCP is getting back to reforming and opening..."

"Then losing the Poohbear and his bootlickers. A transparent, benevolent CCP could be beneficial for everyone..."

"Make China Great Again!"

"Bring back Hu!"

"Follow the Taiwan model..."

"Sad irony is that China could rise to 'Number One' if they'd only allow freedom of speech, expression, rule of law, reform their schools, truly join the world, but that'd threaten the Red Nobility, billionaires at the top of the CCP, so it won't happen, and, being as such, they can never surpass a certain threshold..."

"China has loads of smart people... If they let them loose, followed the Taiwan model, they'd be unstoppable..."

"Return the Mainland to the ROC... The capital split between Taipei and Beijing... The CCP as one of multiple parties..."

"Melvin wanted to join the CCP, didn't he? I remember him having a socialism phase..."

"I can imagine his induction ceremony. That's sure to go viral..."

"Wasn't Melvin already in a viral China video? The one with those asshole expats fighting at a McDonald's in Shenzhen? That was him, wasn't it?"

"Could have been... I never watched the video..."

"I'm usually too happy at McDonald's to want to fight anyone..."

"At least those dudes weren't naked in public. In a McDonald's."

"Was the Boston guy naked when he attacked Melvin?"

"I can't remember."

"There was a laowai jogging butt-naked, except for running shoes, late nights, early mornings, around the Bund in Shanghai for a while, back in 2010. Not sure if they caught him or if he's still doing that."

"It was Melvin."

"Where is he now, Melvin?"

"Wasn't he in Cambodia?"

"Deep in the jungle..."

"He joined a cult..."

"I bet he overdosed on smack."

"Got his kidney stolen. Fucking dead in a dumpster in Manila or India."

"No, he was in China. I saw his timelines on WeChat. He taught at 6 schools in 2 years or something."

"His last place he posted about had this terrible on-campus apartment that wasn't heated and was freezing cold, flooded regularly, and had no working light in the bathroom..."

"Place had moldy walls, flying cockroaches and swarms of mosquitoes, even in winter, and brutally loud honking trucks and fireworks outside, constant drilling sounds at all hours..."

"Sounds better than my first apartment in China..."

"Construction noise, fireworks, hacking and spitting, honking and drilling sounds. The soundtrack of China."

"The drill is like a national instrument. Children practice it, have recitals at primary schools."

"Melvin was super salty and posting something about how his boss laughingly refers to him as her 'enemy' and that he told her to fuck off at a meeting because they got into it over a chair or something like that."