Day 82

01/07

First day of July. Had three hours of teaching today. It’s always nice to teach new students. I had some new faces in my two classes for Longwin. Then, I had an English Corner class for some middle school students. In the last two weeks, I’ve only had the two kids in that class. And the class is usually 5pm – 6pm, which on a Sunday afternoon, I have the least energy. This time, since it’s Summer Holidays, a few more kids had come and I found myself having more energy to teach – despite the new kids not wanting to speak. Summer holidays should be a time to relax and let loose, but for Chinese students, there’s not much rest time because they have to prepare for next year’s classes. English classes ramp up. Students will take any extra classes to get ahead of their classmates.

Today, I forgot my keys before I left home – you can’t open the door from the outside without a key. Luckily, I gave some spare keys to my uncle and aunty so that I could collect them in case something like this happened. So, I collected some keys from my aunty’s restaurant, had dinner and decided that I wanted to exercise and shoot some hoops. I usually like to shoot hoops on my own because it’s a bit of ‘me’ time and I want to improve my skills. I should probably start playing with strangers and being more social.

After a sweat session, some mates called me out to Arcano. Rory, a fellow Aussie was also there, and it would be the last time I get to hang out with him before he leaves for Saudi Arabia permanently. We chatted about Melbourne, played some darts and watched Russia upset Spain in penalties. If it couldn’t get any worse, my mate Chris told me that Arcano was about to close in two weeks.

Apparently, management want to rebrand the bar into something more classy (which in business means upping the prices of beers). It wouldn’t make sense for my mate to continue running this bar because most of his business comes from the expat community who are about affordable drinks.

Arcano was like my one constant every week. Quiz night. Footy. Mates. It was something I looked forward to. Now quiz night has officially ended for the summer. It’s about to be shut down. One of my very few mates here is leaving. It’s not the best situation. But then I thought, this is a great chance to get out of my comfort zone and meet new people and hang out at new places. There are a lot of bars that I haven’t been to. In fact, I felt like I could do everything within a 10 minute walk from my place – I got comfortable real early. Hopefully, I can have some new experiences in the future and get off my lazy ass to go to new places.

Day 81

30/06/18

Woke up early yesterday morning so I decided to put on a film. The Dark Knight Rises. One of my favourite films of all time. The narrative. The music. The one-liners. The pit. My favourite scene is at the very end when Batman has to take the nuclear bomb over the bay to save the people and Jim Gordon wants Batman to reveal himself so Gotham knows who its hero is. ‘A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boys shoulders to let him know that the world hadn’t ended.’ And that’s when Jim realises it’s Bruce Wayne. So. Good.

Afterwards, I watched a bit of the footy. My boys Carlton were playing Port. Kade Simpson, a Carlton legend was playing his 300^th, so I had to show him some respect by putting on the TV. Only lasted until about half time before I called it quits on the game. We always have a great first quarter but it goes downhill from there. 

Taught three hours of classes. Back to back. I enjoy teaching public lectures because it’s usually very interactive and people are engaged.

Dinner at a hotpot place with a friend of mine. I was able to get a 20% discount using my long-expired student card, which was a bonus. Caught a Didi in a taxi. Business is rough. Taxi driver got me to download another app so he can earn an extra 2 RMB. It’s a struggle for taxi drivers. Their business is being eaten up by the ride sharing apps. On the way home, it just started bucketing down with rain. I had the World Cup to look forward to. France v Argentina was a cracking game. 4-3. Lots of goals, lots of drama. Had a two hour break after the game until the next one so I started rewatching Suits and realised how good it is. Uruguay vs Portugal. Fell asleep half way through only to wake up 2-1. Messi and Ronaldo both out of the World Cup tonight. Shows that it’s truly a team game and one man can’t do it all.  

Day 77-80

26.06.18 - 30.06.18

I'm unable to recall in detail what happened during these days. I'll give it my best shot.

I had some classes. My Wednesday class - I just chilled with my classmates because we had nothing to cover and they have a test next week that I have 'helped' them prepare for. My Thursday class is declining in numbers every week and this week, my class was all females. The class is at 530pm to 730pm so people tend to be more disengaged and tired. We decided that the book is super uninteresting and instead, I'll show a movie or TV show and we can analyse that for the next class to make it a bit more exciting.

There was a funeral proceeding for Helen two days after I found out. I decided not to attend. It was still too raw for me. I will honour her in my own way when I'm ready. I went to get a haircut in the same area as Helen's place but I couldn't get myself to walk into her neighbourhood.

Some time in between, I started learning how to cook some Chinese cuisine from Baidu. My goal is to be able to cook some decent dishes for when my mum comes down in a few months.

I also went to a popular bookstore called Libraire Avant-Garde on Guangzhou Road near Nanjing University. It's located in an old carpark, and has a pretty cool vibe about it in terms of interior design. Although every book was in Chinese, I couldn't have left this bookstore without buying a book. Luckily, I found the business and economics section and found a book called from 'Made in China to Created in China'. This was a topic that I was deeply interested in. The rebalancing of China's economy from a low-cost manufacturing country to a knowledge-based economy. It might take me a whole year to read this book but I have to start somewhere right?

Day 76

25.06.18

I was eating lunch by myself downstairs when I received a WeChat message from my friend Helen's account saying that Helen had passed away. This is was in response to one of my messages asking her how she was going.

I froze. I went empty. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't even eat anymore. It was only a couple of days ago when she came over to my house to chill and got me some ice tea because it was a hot day. We talked about her situation. She was still super depressed but I always convince myself and try to convince her that she would get better. I told myself, at least she was leaving the house and away from thinking really bad thoughts. At least she was distracting herself and having a laugh around me - which wasn't the case when I first saw her. She had been on medication - to regulate her emotions, to stop her from doing unthinkable things. Now, the unthinkable has happened.

I'm struggling to come to terms to it. It was just so sudden. And I thought to myself: why does this happen to me? 23 year old kid, who initially just wanted to catch up with a woman that I had met a couple of months ago, who was the daughter of my mum's good friend. Initially, it was just supposed to be a catch up. I've just moved to Nanjing - she's from Nanjing. Makes sense to catch up,

Then, I was thrust into her situation. She told me about her depression. Is it fair for me to know this? I'm just a guy, who doesn't really know her, now she's told me something very personal about her life. Could I have not cared? Maybe. But as anyone would do, you want to try to give some support. You don't want to think yourself as the saviour but someone who can be there when others can't, because if you have hope, you think that even the smallest bit can help.

So I got to know her a bit more and found out a lot about her personal life. She told me that the first time we met, she was putting on a show - she seemed happy and she brought her son along. In fact, she had already decided to divorce at that stage - her mood was far from happy. I would check up on her often, whether it was via WeChat, or in person.

I felt like I was one of very few people who actually knew and understood how she felt before she died. Maybe I was the only one to know. She said she felt uncomfortable speaking about her true feelings to her friends because she'd feel embarrassed and lose face. Since I'm almost a stranger, she told me everything. She told me her mum couldn't understand her too, and there were some details that she'd left out when speaking to her mum. She had lost all hope. It was a personality issue. Someone who had had a relatively comfortable and smooth-sailing life and never dealt with serious challenges, faced a challenge that was too overwhelming for her to handle. She wasn't mentally strong enough. She couldn't control herself in the end.

It's weird because I feel separated but invested at the same time. Separation because I don't really know her and I never will. Invested because I knew her in her final state and the state that she died in.
So back to my own question: Why me? It will forever be part of my experience here. It's something that was put in front of me and something that I have to learn from. It is what it is and we have to move on from it. Let her be an example of how not to handle adversity. Let her remind us that we need to confront our own demons instead of trying to avoid and escape from them.

RIP Helen 23.06.18.

Day 75

24.06.18

Long day of classes today. 9am to 6pm. Accidentally taught a kid for two hours instead of one - at least he gets his money worth. Surprisingly, I wasn't so tired after class so I decided to pick up some Sichuan special meat on the way home and have a healthy dinner at home. There were still some vegetables sitting in the fridge so I cooked some of them and made some congee with my rice cooker. It was a nice change having dinner at home - I've been eating out 99% of the time here in Nanjing.

Day 74

23.06.18

Chilled with my friend Joy for half the day before having classes in the afternoon. After grabbing some dumplings for dinner, I went to Arcano to watch the footy and World Cup. It was busy that night so I did my bit behind the bar during the busy periods. A crowd of people had come to the bar after the wedding so lots of traffic. Some people thought I looked like a high school student. I get that a lot here with how casually I dress and how young I look.

Day 73

22.06.18

I honestly don't remember what I did on Friday. I would have set up my rice cooker. Bought some groceries. Went to the bar to watch the World Cup. There was a prom after-party at the bar - full of 18 year olds who had just graduated high school, having their final drinks together before everyone parts ways. It's different here in China. Everyone in the class came to this celebration. The classmate relationship is much stronger here than anywhere I've been. You would never have this in Australia - maybe it's because we change classes every year so it's more difficult to build bonds that run this deep. So many of these guys already smoking and drinking as well. They start them young here.