I went on safari last night.
“Bring nothing, I have everything you will need.” Hesitate to believe anyone who tells you this, especially when you don’t know where you are going. That is not entirely fair. I knew were I was going, but I had no idea what I was in for. I should have, it is all perfectly reasonable with the right amount of distance, but I had no distance last night. I was in it. I was in the show. I was the show. And I was the primary audience. I was the critics and I was the reviewer. I was the show from start to finish.
With house slippers on, the thick plastic pink kind, I followed my friend. I go where she goes and I do what she does. I am her shadow. Her brilliantly blinding, impossible to ignore, even if you tried, shadow. With basket and bag in hand we make our way into the darkness. The moon has not yet risen and my eyes didn’t adjust to the dark. I fumble my way through the hallway around the corner, down the corridor and out into the alley. There is not much more light there. We make our way through the tangle of twists and turns. The allies that must lead somewhere because there are people maneuvering obviously on their way to and from somewhere. We pass the common toilet. I have vivid memories from earlier that day. Down a new alley, one which we haven’t yet traverse toward the light. A red light sign hangs above a door at the end of an alley. It claims all sorts of things but all I can understand is how much it costs. 6Y. Six qui. Six RMB. A man stands in the light of the door waiting and staring inwards seeing only what I will come to see.
We approach the door and part the plastic hanging strips that divide what is inside from the rest of the world. The cold air has been gnawing at me since we left the room and now it has claimed my ears, my breath and has settled in on my bones. In a flash and a flurry of flapping plastic doors, money, people, steam and keys we pass through a crowd of bodies past a desk, a decrepit seat removed from the back of a van, passed a room where fire and water meet and into a room sticky with wetness and naked women. A fleet of lockers stand with open doors. A mirror reflects back what I am desperately trying not to notice in the first place and the heat searches out my lungs and battles the cold from my ears.
It is somewhere in here that I notice the swelling panic. One that surprises me and yet that I cannot and don’t even pretend to hide. I am supposed to take my clothes off. Here. In front of these women. I have felt naked already, since the moment I got here. Here in China. I have felt naked every moment in China. I have been stared at, ogled and photographed. Like a movie star and an animal in the zoo. With each passing day as I submerge myself deeper and deeper into the real China the staring progresses and festers.* I thought that I had already discovered and endured the worst of it and that if I could maintain this I could survive. But this shower thing. Oh my goodness. Who knew I was such a wuss? Who knew I was so shy? I used to be a nude model, sitting for hours in front of thirty people or more while they scoured my body with their eyes… it was their duty to look at me. That didn’t bother me. What was this then, that I felt like I was drowning in fear? My breath shortened and my mind narrowed. All that I knew and all that I thought was about this. Naked. Women. Staring. Fat. Tattoos. Blonde. Oh god. I can’t even stand it. And a voice of calm and compassion said, “do not worry my dear it does not matter” in a soft Chinese voice. Words I could hardly believe at the time. But I soon realized I had no choice, no alternative. It was this or nothing. It was this or perish. And so I took off my sweater. And my shirt. And my other shirt.
And my pants. What I came to understand, in a miraculous twist of irony, was that the only time I was noticed, was when I was in an embarrassed panic, fully clothed in a room full of women. The less clothes I had on, the less I was noticed. and stark naked I felt invisible… or free from the eyes of others. It was naked that I felt the anonymity that I had been deprived of since my arrival here nearly a month ago. A naked woman amongst naked women is of no note. Blonde, foreign, fat, tattooed or otherwise. It was I who did the looking. I who was the voyeur. The watcher. The thief of glances. The child in the room. I was more than naked, I was innocent, I was new, I was oblivious. I have been this kind of naked often in China. Not knowing how or what to do in the most obvious and basic of circumstances. I have been the child that needs teaching. Here is the toilet. Here is how it works. Here is the phone here is how it works. This is food, let me show you how to eat. Here is the street. This is how you cross. Let me hold your hand. Let me lead you with your arm. Let me show you how…
And I was clean. Washed and new. With the dirt and the dust of the last week went the panic, the modesty and the pretension. I am sure it is not all gone. But maybe a little. Maybe for a little while. I sweat in the steam room. I scrubbed. I washed. I rinsed. I dried. I lotioned. I dressed.
“Bring nothing, I have everything you will need.” Hesitate to believe anyone who tells you this, especially when you don’t know where you are going. That is not entirely fair. I knew were I was going, but I had no idea what I was in for. I should have, it is all perfectly reasonable with the right amount of distance, but I had no distance last night. I was in it. I was in the show. I was the show. And I was the primary audience. I was the critics and I was the reviewer. I was the show from start to finish.
With house slippers on, the thick plastic pink kind, I followed my friend. I go where she goes and I do what she does. I am her shadow. Her brilliantly blinding, impossible to ignore, even if you tried, shadow. With basket and bag in hand we make our way into the darkness. The moon has not yet risen and my eyes didn’t adjust to the dark. I fumble my way through the hallway around the corner, down the corridor and out into the alley. There is not much more light there. We make our way through the tangle of twists and turns. The allies that must lead somewhere because there are people maneuvering obviously on their way to and from somewhere. We pass the common toilet. I have vivid memories from earlier that day. Down a new alley, one which we haven’t yet traverse toward the light. A red light sign hangs above a door at the end of an alley. It claims all sorts of things but all I can understand is how much it costs. 6Y. Six qui. Six RMB. A man stands in the light of the door waiting and staring inwards seeing only what I will come to see.
We approach the door and part the plastic hanging strips that divide what is inside from the rest of the world. The cold air has been gnawing at me since we left the room and now it has claimed my ears, my breath and has settled in on my bones. In a flash and a flurry of flapping plastic doors, money, people, steam and keys we pass through a crowd of bodies past a desk, a decrepit seat removed from the back of a van, passed a room where fire and water meet and into a room sticky with wetness and naked women. A fleet of lockers stand with open doors. A mirror reflects back what I am desperately trying not to notice in the first place and the heat searches out my lungs and battles the cold from my ears.
It is somewhere in here that I notice the swelling panic. One that surprises me and yet that I cannot and don’t even pretend to hide. I am supposed to take my clothes off. Here. In front of these women. I have felt naked already, since the moment I got here. Here in China. I have felt naked every moment in China. I have been stared at, ogled and photographed. Like a movie star and an animal in the zoo. With each passing day as I submerge myself deeper and deeper into the real China the staring progresses and festers.* I thought that I had already discovered and endured the worst of it and that if I could maintain this I could survive. But this shower thing. Oh my goodness. Who knew I was such a wuss? Who knew I was so shy? I used to be a nude model, sitting for hours in front of thirty people or more while they scoured my body with their eyes… it was their duty to look at me. That didn’t bother me. What was this then, that I felt like I was drowning in fear? My breath shortened and my mind narrowed. All that I knew and all that I thought was about this. Naked. Women. Staring. Fat. Tattoos. Blonde. Oh god. I can’t even stand it. And a voice of calm and compassion said, “do not worry my dear it does not matter” in a soft Chinese voice. Words I could hardly believe at the time. But I soon realized I had no choice, no alternative. It was this or nothing. It was this or perish. And so I took off my sweater. And my shirt. And my other shirt.
And my pants. What I came to understand, in a miraculous twist of irony, was that the only time I was noticed, was when I was in an embarrassed panic, fully clothed in a room full of women. The less clothes I had on, the less I was noticed. and stark naked I felt invisible… or free from the eyes of others. It was naked that I felt the anonymity that I had been deprived of since my arrival here nearly a month ago. A naked woman amongst naked women is of no note. Blonde, foreign, fat, tattooed or otherwise. It was I who did the looking. I who was the voyeur. The watcher. The thief of glances. The child in the room. I was more than naked, I was innocent, I was new, I was oblivious. I have been this kind of naked often in China. Not knowing how or what to do in the most obvious and basic of circumstances. I have been the child that needs teaching. Here is the toilet. Here is how it works. Here is the phone here is how it works. This is food, let me show you how to eat. Here is the street. This is how you cross. Let me hold your hand. Let me lead you with your arm. Let me show you how…
And I was clean. Washed and new. With the dirt and the dust of the last week went the panic, the modesty and the pretension. I am sure it is not all gone. But maybe a little. Maybe for a little while. I sweat in the steam room. I scrubbed. I washed. I rinsed. I dried. I lotioned. I dressed.
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