June 2021; pour some sugar on me

Some things we do out of love. Walking the dog maybe, painting a picture. Some things we do out of passion. Baking a cake, or going to the theatre. Some things we do but we bloody hate doing them. Going to the tax office. Cleaning up the kids puke on the floor. And some things we do simply because we feel like we want to. A simple pleasure. I started this silly little blog exactly one year ago, just because I wanted to. It’s grown to mean more than that to me now. If you go back to get it out I describe how it’s become some small kind of self therapy for me, a way to put pen to paper (or rather skin to keyboard) and just get some feelings out there. And over the course of the last year, it seems to have become more than just a way to kill 10 minutes on the metro for some other people too. Since I started the Sunday Scribble I’ve received some truly humbling and heart warming feedback from people. How some people have learned from it and taken a few points into consideration, and just spent a few minutes to think a little more. I’ve never claimed to be anything I’m not, but if by some miracle I can help someone to deal with something, or possibly broaden someone's outlook a little, then I’m a happy chappy.

Sometimes the Sunday scribble has real meaning and maybe even some kind of moral or message. And some weeks it’s just me blathering on like a drunk uncle at a wedding. Some times it’s a little more upbeat than others, and a few times it’s been downright salty. But I’m a firm believer in equilibrium. We need the dark to balance the light. We need bad to counterweight the goodness. And this week, exactly 1 year-in to writing all this stuff, it’s time to balance the saltiness with some sugar. As I’ve explained before, some of my feelings towards certain things here aren’t born out of misery or the disliking or frustration of something, they come from pure love and admiration. The things here that bother me only bother me so much because I love this place. I just want better for all of us, for the whole country. And we can absolutely achieve that. Together. So this weeks little piece is all about the love baby, hearts and flowers and puppy dogs and kittens, pour some sugar on me. For this week I’ve decided to jot down some of the things I’ve grown to love, appreciate and care for, here in this place I call home. Get ready for something you may not be accustomed to; me being sweet. Are you sitting comfortably? Good, then I’ll begin…

The first thing I want to mention might make someone in another country spit their tea out, but it’s the feeling of personal freedom I’ve felt here over the years. Stuff like internet aside, I don’t think I’ve ever known a place where I feel so completely left alone to do my thing. I can walk down the street with my dog, or maybe sip a cold beer in the park, and nobody bothers me. People smile, people say hello everywhere. It doesn’t feel like people are being judgemental. I can wear whatever I like, I can sit on the grass if my feet get tired, I can drink a bottle of wine on a park bench If I wanted to, and nobody really cares. I could walk through downtown in a yellow bikini if I so wished and get nothing more than cheers and woof whistles. Do your thing. I can watch watch endless documentaries and movies for free. I could probably read a copy of Mein Kampf in the library if I wanted to. People mostly just.. leave me alone. And that’s the way I like it. Of course there are some things incomparable to other places, some things we really shouldn’t talk about or write all over wechat about. History stuff, government stuff. But those things aside, I feel free here. Free as a bird. And that’s a damn good feeling.

Now this goes pretty much without saying, but China is an extremely safe place to live. Easily safer than anywhere else I’ve ever been to. I’m from a pretty rough part of London. There’s places there I wouldn’t dare go to after dark. I’ve know countless people getting robbed and attacked, ending up in hospital because some drunk idiot (or just an idiot) had a bad day and decided to punch someone's face in. But here, in my 11 years, I have never, not once, felt unsafe. Zero. Men and ladies alike can walk down the streets alone at 2am and not feel uneasy. Try doing that in many parts of the western world’s big cities. I’ve had a couple of drunk guys want to fight me, but both times they were so pathetically hammered they could barely stand up. And it may be a Shenzhen thing, but people don’t really ever fight here. People lose their temper kinda easy sometimes, but it’s always just a lot of shouting and swearing before they eventually go their separate ways. In London there’s no time for shouting and making a big song and dance about things, it’s just wallop and you find yourself laying on the floor. I worked in pubs for a long time in London, and things get rough. Things get very physical, I can show you the scars to prove it. But here I’ve only ever seen one serious altercation, and it was between to western guys. Shame on us. I think one reason for the feeling of safety here is that justice and punishment here is swift and strong. No “be nice and we’ll let you out soon for good behaviour” like in the UK. Here, if you do bad things, you can get locked up for a very long time. And isn’t that what punishment should be? To be truly punished? Play by the rules and just behave properly, and you can live a very safe and happy life here.

Now of course this also has an adverse side effect, which is that many people here think the rest of the world is not so safe. And comparably, it’s not. When you live in possibly the safest country in the world, then everywhere else by rights is gonna be more dangerous. But less safe doesn’t necessarily mean bad things are going to happen. Just be aware. Don’t go out alone after dark, especially ladies. Don’t walk around Paris or Barcelona with a big map and looking like a tourist. Stay safe. But here, we really don’t have issues like that, at least not in my experience. This is a very safe place to live. Actually I think the most dangerous aspect of living in China is the food, but that’s another story altogether… ;)

Now Shenzhen being the migrant city that it is, people naturally come and go. Some for days or weeks, some for years, but eventually most people pack their bags and haul out. And I don’t mean just non-Chinese people here, I mean Chinese people too. And in that time, knowing that this is not a forever-place, it has this special kind of aura about it. Kind of like being on holiday for a very long time. I still have that feeling now. And for many people, because of the that it feels a bit.. magical, for want of a better word. You talk about all these new feelings and experiences, the good stuff and the bad stuff and the stuff that makes you crazy, and you have a damn good laugh about it. You can also be whoever you want to be, not stuck being the person you were before. Many people successfully reinvent themselves here, it just took a change of scenery and bigger change of mindset. I’ve seen fast foods cooks become actors or businessmen. I’ve seen waitresses become models. I’ve witnessed I.T nerds morph into playboys, and a whole lot more.

Over the years you have these fleeting friendships. They come and go, and that’s fine. Sometimes, with some of my longer standing friends here, we’ll reminisce about some of the old faces, and ponder “I wonder what happened to him?…” Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s not, but hey, like the song says, that’s life. Some people come and meet the person of their dreams and live happily ever after. Some people find the life here just too hedonistic, get all too wrapped up in booze and drugs, gambling and partying and so on, and become washouts. And some people just get old and die. I’ve lost two very dear friends here due to hospital errors, but that could have happened anywhere in the world. People come and people go. But you’re all new here in this big swirling cauldron of dust and smoke and modernity. People come together and sometimes forge relationships that last a lifetime. Sometimes you might know a person for mere days but their memory will stay with you forever. And if we weren’t here, together, at this time, that never would have happened. And that’s really quite amazing to me.

This next one might make me sound like a bit of a princess asshole, but I can’t leave it out because it’s true. Being here, being me in this gargantuan place, makes you sometimes feel a little bit special. You are an abnormality, a bit of a spectacle. You don’t fit in, and sometimes that actually feels really rather nice, in a few different ways. Just yesterday in the metro station a young man walked up to me and asked, very politely, if he could talk to me. Of course, absolutely. He asked where I was from, and quite surprisingly he asked what my hobbies are. We talked for several minutes. He must have been maybe around 14 but his English was exemplary. When I eventually told him I had to catch my train he did something really quite delightful, and confidently shook my hand. What a little gent. I’m so happy to talk to people like this, it break downs barriers and builds trust and understanding. But it’s not just these moments, there’s been dozens, maybe hundreds of times, where a small thing can really make my day. The lady who gave me her umbrella in the rain. (LINK) The chilli eating contest in Guilin. The time I met a senior gentleman on the metro who was an interpretor in the Korean war, and he set about telling me so many intimate parts of his life story. How much he loved his wife. These are the things that I’ll never forget. These people looked at me, a bewildered foreign face, and decided to engage me. London can be a very cold and distant place between people. China is so very warm to me.

One thing that isn’t so much about being in China itself, but just being here, is the amazing places I’ve seen. Now I’ve rode motorcycles around maybe 20 different European countries, but the things that have really made my jaw drop have all been here in China and Asia. The mirror-like rice fields of Yangshou. The bund in Shanghai. The great wall. The never ending street food stands of Kunming. The heavenly beaches of Thailand. The friendliness and kindness of the people of the Philippines, yet surviving in such abject poverty. Flying into southern Japan and watching the sunset over the ocean. The mind altering temples of Cambodia. The crazy hustle of Hong Kong. I know for a fact that in a decade here I’ve seen and experienced more than many people will know in a lifetime. Moments that have made my heart overflow with joy and peacefulness, and moments that have made me sob uncontrollably. I treasure each and every one of them.

It’s getting time to wrap this up, I’ve been told I waffle on too much sometimes, so I’m going to end this with the thing that truly makes me love, adore, this place. This huge, sprawling, endless miles of mountains and plains and rivers, of scorching sun and freezing cold and everything in-between. The thing I love most about China is the people. Being here has really taught me that the people who’ve experienced the hardest of times are also the ones who will happily share with you all they have, as much or as little as that might be. Of course there are good and bad people the world over, but people in China truly have good hearts. People laugh a lot. People ask me questions but it’s not coming from any bad reason, they are just genuinely curious. People want to learn more about others. I love how people will strike up a conversation just to listen, not to talk about themselves. I’ve met some truly amazing people here, I have friends here that I could never hope to dream of meeting back in London. Professors, inventors, millionaires and hustlers, professional gamblers, gangsters and police officers, and all good people. The conversations I’ve had, the stories I’ve heard, would truly be enough to write a book (but nobody would believe it.) People here are humble. People are grateful for what they have. Most people are genuinely honest. People will help you when you need it. And possibly the thing that means the most to me; people are welcoming. Every single day I feel blessed to be here, among these people.

After more than a decade I don’t consider myself a foreigner here, even though many will always see me as such. In the first few months of 2010 I never would have dreamed that I’d ever even visit China, never mind live there. But the twists and turns of fate are mostly out of our hands, and destiny can turn your world upside down and inside out. I was offered the chance to come work here for a while, play some music and experience a different culture, and then go back to the normality of London. Back to the job and the band and the apartment and the relationship. I came to China for 6 months, 11 years ago. Home really is where the heart is. And my heart is truly here.