Living in China

Happy places

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Twelve middle aged women in fuchsia tops are dancing in the middle of the street. Their chirpy music mingles with the lounge soundtrack of the Starbucks terrace.

I’m on Shamian Island, where colonial powers established their residence in old Guangzhou. Heavy European architecture, stucco, balustrades, pillars. If it wasn’t for the dancing ladies, the tropical heat and the dangling roots of the giant trees, I could imagine I was in Prag, Berlin or Budapest. But I can’t think away the heat, the trees, or the people. I’m in southern China, late summer, with a mild film of sweat over my face. I rolled up my jeans to let my legs breathe.

I was in that exact same seat two years and a half ago. Back then, I was living in Nanjing – it was freezing winter up on the Yangtze, and for Christmas, I fled south. I stopped over in Changsha for a day, and arrived in Guangzhou on the night of Boxing Day. I still remember that feeling, getting out onto the street at FangCun subway station. The air was welcoming. I bought peanuts from a street seller, then bananas on LuJun Jie, where I walked among plastic tables where locals enjoyed late night barbecue. I walked along the Pearl River, sipping milk tea. Teenagers were out with skateboards. And I felt happy.

The next day, as I did this morning, I crossed the river on a ferry, looking out the window at the grey waters of the Pearl River. I walked along the stalls of the Fish Market, past piles of polystyrene boxes, mounds of seashells on the floor, among the strong smell of mud and water. I walked along the canal, under the dangling branches of evergreen tropical trees. I crossed a bridge, and arrived on Shamian Island. Then, I settled on the terrace of the Starbucks with a cup of espresso. I felt safe, home, happy.

Over the course of my travels, I have gathered the memories of a few such happy places.

There is a food court in the Singapore Chinatwon, where retirees gather after dark for cheap food and beer. In November 2014, after a difficult year running my first festival and applying for a PhD, I spent long hours there, finally resting, reading Watchmen and drinking addictive sweet coffee. This is the background image on my iPad.

There is another food court, in Penang, on the seafront. I sat there with Philip in early December 2008, eating curry, fried chicken, ice Kacang. We were getting to the end of our three month overland migration journey, and after exhausting times in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, we felt that in Penang, things became easy, we were getting close to our new home, and we could breathe.

There is a cafe in Chippendale, in Sydney, where I sat down after my first major talk on the Chinese Internet in 2014, and again, after finishing a major stretch of work recruiting candidates for the first round of CAMP. It’s a little hipster place with fancy muffins, light blue pat, second hand wooden chairs, across a park and a new residential development.

There is a Bench in Queenscliffe, overlooking Port Phillip Bay. In 2011, I took an emergency two-day off there, after incorporating Marco Polo Project. I walked along the ocean to Point Lonsdale and, halfway through the walk, felt dizzy. It was evening, I was alone, and thought I might simply collapse there, from sheer exhaustion. I pause, I breathed, I looked at the waves. I slowly wake de all the way to point Lonsdale, trying to leave the burden behind. I made it there. A bus took me back to Queenscliffe, where I sat on the bench, looking out onto the water.

There are other places, but these mostly come to mind. These are places I reache after a feat – a difficult and transformative experience. There, I felt I could pause, relax, and take the time to regain strength before I start again. Is is what I am doing today. I just completed my first report for the Global Challenges Foundation – this has been one of my most difficult, if rewarding, professional experiences. And before I start again, or move on to something else, I need to take some time in my happy place, to renew.

Living in China: top 3, bottom 3

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In 2013, I spent five months in Nanjing on a Hamer scholarship. At the end of my stay, I took some notes and reflected on the best and worst things about my time there.

 

Lowlights

 

  • The internet

 

By very far, this was the worst component of my stay in Nanjing, and the one that most often caused anger. Frustration came in multiple form. Wifi not working at wifi cafes –outrageously slow, suddenly interrupted, with no clear reason. An expensive, yet unreliable 3G stick I bought, and replaced, with a card from the wrong region, so that I had to replace it again. And the annoyance of using a VPN, with sudden loss of signal. I wasted hours refreshing windows and waiting for pages to load, and every single day of my time in China, have experienced extreme frustration at the quality of the internet. It was a surprise: I actually came expecting better access than in Australia

 

  • The weather

 

I arrived in a furnace, and left an ice-box. Two of the five months I spent in Nanjing had unbearable weather – too warm, too cold. In the end, I was unable to stay home. With just a low quality air conditioning unit, even if I left it on all night, the cold humid air did not let me concentrate on intellectual work. I spent extra money to go out in heated cafés, but experienced such cold on the street my mood was strongly affected. In the summer, it wasn’t much better. Not something I had anticipated.

 

  • The road-works

 

They were building a new metro line in Nanjing when I arrived, very close to where I lived. And so, they were digging: works from 7am, the gentle sound of jackhammers. There was even a week-long water cut halfway through, because they broke a pipe when digging the ground. And the dust in the air. This was a nightmare.

 

Highlights

 

  • Online communities

 

The best things that happened to me in China came from online connections.

I attended a meetup of IT entrepreneurs organized that led to dinners, lunches, cafes, and new friendships. I connected with local gay people. By posting an ad on Douban, I recruited a local guy called Zhou. He put me in touch with an English practice group. Together, we ran an eventattended by the head of the Nanjing University business club who brought his friend Brian along: a recent graduate now working for Publicis in Shanghai. Brian introduced me to Kenny Choi, who opened the first co-working space in Guangzhou. I went there when I visited Guangzhou, and through him heard of a ‘walking’ event, which I joined. A sense of companionship and possibility.

 

  • Bookshops

 

I found a few stunning bookshops in China. The most striking was probably the Avant Garde in Nanjing: a gigantic bookstore built in an underground car park, with a large cross hanging from the roof. I spent hours there – as did many. For that bookshop, and many others in China, are less a store, and more a place to be. People stand or squat reading in the aisles, talks happen, there is a café somewhere. It is its own community centre. On my first visit, I noticed a young woman wearing a school uniform reading Kierkegaard with visible fascination. I mentioned this to a Chinese friend who said: ‘Well yes, when I was in grade 11, if you didn’t read European philosophy, you’d be bullied.’ It brought back to mind conversations I had with a friend in Middle School: he grew up in communist Romania, and migrated to France in 1991. He always told us how his friends, over there, would voraciously read the classics, and mocked our mushy consumerist brains.

 

  • food

 

Everyone knows the food in China is good and inexpensive. I would like to give a particular nomination for

  1. the fruit: from fruit shops to street-sellers, it’s excellent. Special mention to the dragonfruit.
  2. the little baked cakes – I’m not sure what they’re called. Some are filed with Gingko nuts, others with candied fruits, slightly savoury. Delicious.
  3. A Nanjing specialty: candied lotus root filled with sweet glutinous rice. Divine.

Chinese lowlights – internet and hardware

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Internet has been the lowlight of my time in China. Unreliable, slow, and expensive. At home, I used a 3G stick from China Unicom: 300 yuan for nine gigabytes, three nationally, six locally. The first one went quickly – I bought a second from a small shop, which turned out to be registered in another province, and so ran out after three gigabytes of usage only. Neither anger nor diplomacy got any result from the shop ladies, so I bought a third stick, which has lasted me till now. Overall, the connection was highly unstable and slow, with or without VPN. As for cafes (or even youth hostels), WIFI quality was a regular source of frustration – it varied from place to place and from day to day, without any clear explanation. Bad internet connection affected my mood and productivity considerably. I run online projects, I have collaborators in Australia: if I can’t get online, I can’t work. As time passed, my patience wore off, and in the last month, I have seen myself give up a few times before midday, after spending long periods of time re-loading pages in between timeouts.

Hardware issues made the matter worse. I bought a MacBook Air in October 2012 – it came highly recommended, and indeed, I found it amazingly practical to use. Then in October 2013, while I was visiting a friend in Tianjin, just before a week of back-to-back meetings in Beijing, my computer crashed: a flashing folder with a question mark appeared on the screen when I tried turning it on. The SanLiTun store delivered harsh news, my flash-drive needed changing – all data was lost. More annoying, they didn’t have a spare part. After much insistence, I got them to order the piece in a Shanghai store, and set up an external boot-disk, so I could use my computer in the mean time. Planning an appointment in Shanghai was another ordeal – their complicated and all-in-Mandarin online appointment system didn’t work, and the phone assistant refused to help. But in the end, I got my computer fixed, and an apology from the manager for the bad experience over the phone. All important data was on dropbox and google docs, and I got over the annoyance.

Then four days ago, as I was browsing the net at a friend’s house, my screen froze. The flashing folder was back. I went to the Shanghai Apple store this morning, and got the same harsh news: my flash-drive died.  They were decent enough to recognise that after three months, this was an embarrassment. ‘SSD drives never break’, said the guy from the Genius Bar. But they didn’t have a spare part for me, so I’ll have to get the thing fixed in Melbourne. Fortunately, I bought a warranty extension in October – so won’t have to pay extra. And fortunately, I did regular back ups on time-machine, so won’t lose much data. But the Shanghai people weren’t able to properly order the piece for me in Australia – though they did say they would try to send an email – which means possibly more back and forth trips to the Apple store in Chadstone.

These IT issues have been a constant drain of energy throughout my stay in China. It’s hard enough to deal with everyday interactions in Mandarin, get used to a new country, make a new set of social contacts, all this while preparing two collaborative international projects and studying the language at an advanced level. Now imagine the same thing with your tech cyclically breaking down, and no reliable service to fix it. I guess Apple was alright, in the context of China. Their phone service is a nightmare, their repair did last for only three months, and they’ve got a short stock of crucial spare parts. More generally, multiple details in attitude and expression, which could be summed up as ‘cultural differences’, added to the sense of frustration. But I did manage to get a temporary boot disk, and the technicians in store were polite, understanding, and helpful to an extent.

More importantly, though these IT issues were a great drain on my usual productivity, they were a great learning lesson on three fronts:

* I learnt to let stuff go. In general, I’m a reliable planner: I give myself a list of things to do, and then I do it all. For the last month, I slowed down, both socially and professionally. There’s emails I may never send, blog posts I’ll never write, New Year’s greetings I’ve missed, articles I will not translate. That’s OK, when I get back to Melbourne, ‘where things work and people smile’, I’ll take stock of my losses, and start afresh.

* The frustration of unreliable tech gave me direct emotional insight into the multiple frustrations that people in China live through every day. It explains the tired faces and the cynical words, both among locals and expats. The frustration extends beyond tech – it’s everywhere in a society where service and infrastructure is unreliable. I’ve come back to my reflections on trust – as I learnt, you can’t even trust an Apple computer to work here, or a repair from a genuine Apple store to last over three months. Gradually, you trust everything and everyone less.

* Finally, my interactions with Apple were a great opportunity to reflect on culturally hybrid spaces, and the particular challenges they pose to globalising economies. At every step, my relationship with technicians and customer service people was distorted through a number of lenses – my attempt at adopting a ‘Chinese’ mode, their attempt at servicing a ‘Westerner’, and our common struggle to fit these cross-cultural efforts within the framework of Apple’s generic service processes.

I came here to learn the language and the culture. These tech issues were very painful, and they did harm projects I was trying to set up from here. But they might have made my learning better – so that ultimately, I’m not unhappy that I had to face them. A four month stay abroad will have highlights and lowlights. And I believe the wisdom of a true cross-cultural learner is to take both of them in. Learning is not always pleasant in the moment it happens. Sometimes, what you learn is even slightly grim. But you’re still that little bit wiser, and better ready to face the future.

Angry laowai – on ‘Western looking places’

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When I left Australia, I wrote on my facebook page ‘Good bye Melbourne, where things work and people smile’. I have indeed experienced my stay in China as, largely, one of things not working and people not smiling.

My apartment’s been the focal point for this. A washing machine that doesn’t spin dry, a fridge-door that does not properly close; a night without electricity, five days with no running water; two floods. I’ve had similarly experiences outside. I yelled at an Apple customer service person for sternly refusing to help me book an appointment online. I yelled at a small China Unicom shop for selling me the wrong internet card and refusing to refund it. And I left without paying at a Shanghai cafe who tried poisoned me with mustard noodles – yelling at the waitress on the streets. I’ve also left a trail of ‘never again’ cafes in the neighbourhood – generally for drastically bad WIFI, and a ‘mei banfa’ shrug from the staff.

Now – isn’t it surprising that I can spit this list of complaints easily – and most of my facebook posts are similar complaints? Why am I not mentioning what does work – the fruit or fried noodles available at 11pm from three different shops, the reliable train and metro system, or the very lovely folks at the BanpoCun cafe? No, for some reason, my western brain is terribly distracted by these few things repeatedly not working.

For a large part of my stay, these ‘things not working’ have been a drain of mental energy. I was trying to focus on my studies of the language, and building networks, and running Marco Polo Project. Meanwhile I needed to factor in added layers of contingency: could I wash my clothes and dishes, or would there be no water? Could I expect to send emails, or would the WIFI stall dead. All sorts of daily routines I had adopted as natural – jump on the computer in the morning, watch a film online, skype with my partner back home – were no longer a given.

But more than the annoyance of contingency planning, what really got me was, each time, a sense of ‘having been deceived’. Whenever I got angry, outside, it was at a ‘Western style’ place, or a Western brand (Apple). At the small shops serving noodles on plastic tables for 2 dollars, I adapt. But at the loungy place with jazz charging four dollars for an espresso, I expect ‘Western’ standards of services. Yet there’s no deep logic to it. Even considering the bad service or low quality WIFI, these ‘western style’ places (which might also be ‘Japanese’ or ‘Korean’) do provide a more quiet atmosphere, and in a city with constant pressing and pushing, that is precious. Apple had horrible phone service, but at the Shanghai shop, they were nice and efficient. So things are not, altogether, terrible – and I think my anger may be fuelled, partly, by a sense of nostalgia. Or even colonial frustration. Why are these people not all speaking perfect English (why should they?)

Still – one thing stands out, which I’ve discussed also with locals: people in the Chinese service industry – particularly waiting staff – are paid remarkably low wages. They’re not happy with it. And the brightest people certainly look for other jobs – or make sure they work as little as they can. Meanwhile, as a side effect of the population figures, or through some cultural desire for ‘warm and noisy’ (热恼), these underpaid waiting staff come in large packs – standing and sitting around in fours and fives – but not smiling much. And not making things work any better.

Am I the only one to feel this way? Or is there, at a deep level, a lack of care for efficiency, which is the most radically alienating thing in China?

The cost of low-trust: low efficiency

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Last night I was invited at a dinner with Chinese people – entrepreneurs, angel investors, a TV producer. Too many conversations entangled for me to perform at my best – but my seat neighbour, fortunately, was considerate enough to speak slowly, repeat, and listen to my broken Mandarin.

At some stage – after much baijiu toasting and spicy thin sliced beef, our conversation rolled on Chinese workers’ efficiency. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘I did hear, and observe, that Chinese workers are not efficient – but is there a cause?’ – ‘No trust’, replied my seat neighbour.

We then started pulling it apart – though my limited language skills, unfortunately, did not allow us to go quite as far as I would have wanted. If two people are joining in a business deal, or a work agreement, but there is no trust between them, then haggling will start: ‘you pay me first – you do the job first – no you first.’ This haggling, in and of itself, is a loss of time. And because it is not guaranteed that the pay will come – why do the job well? And because it is not guaranteed that the job will be done, why set aside the money to pay, or why offer good pay?

I proposed a piece of theory that I developed earlier: trust is the most fundamental element in any professional relationship. In a trusting environment, staff and partners are selected based on their competence – because everyone, a priori, can be trusted. In a low-trust environment, trustworthiness trumps competence: I’d rather have someone do the job slowly to a low standard, rather than pay for a competent person to do nothing, or worse. And trustworthiness comes with personal connection, habit, long-established networks. Hence nepotism and guanxi plays, and hence a perception that, ultimately, who you know matters more than what you know.

Lack of trust extends outside of the workplace, to doctors, teachers, politicians and the media – none of these, according to my seat neighbour – and others who since had joined our conversation – would be trusted here. This is not just a China story. We should take it as a warning, but also see the need and opportunity: Australia has built a relatively high level of trust. What happened? Is it replicable? And is there something we can do to help Chinese businesses, groups or councils increase the level of trust, and – to some extent – mitigate the negative consequences of this situation?

I will be thinking about this question further – and would very much welcome your thoughts!

Shigong – on trusting Chinese infrastructure

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‘No, my building is ground zero’, said a friend, ‘I’ve had jackhammers from six again this morning – so I just wake up and walk around – I can’t stay home anymore.’ Massive ‘Shigong’, or infrastructure works, have been going around Nanjing University since I arrived. I’ve had mud up to my ankles on the way back home, walked along a thin ledge of ground beside a moving excavator, and woke up to the pleasant sounds of jackhammers before 6am a few times. Yet I learnt I should count myself among the lucky ones: my jackhammers stopped after a while.

I left for Beijing ten days ago, and expected the Shigong outside my building to be finished when I came back. Indeed, I pulled my suitcase back along a freshly covered path, and the mounds of dirt had been swept clean – beside the thick layer of brown dust, nothing remained of the previous chaos. I put down my bags, and turned on a tap to get water for tea. Nothing came out – and nothing came out from the bathroom taps either. On the little path leading to my compound, I had noticed an unusual line of people queuing in front of a tap with empty water bottles and buckets. I picked up my empties from the kitchen – lazy man’s luck, I had a bunch of four-litre bottles I never bothered throwing away. ‘How long will the water be gone?’ I asked, hoping for quick respite. ‘Day after tomorrow’, replied a neighbour. Then added, philosophically ‘Lucky we got a tap working here, it would be really annoying otherwise’. I nodded. It’s been three days, and the water hasn’t come back. ‘Day after tomorrow’ seems to be short for ‘who knows?’

Running water is such a part of my daily life I hardly notice how much I rely on it every day – whether I quickly wash my hands or clean a cup, running water allows for my daily purification rituals. My dirty laundry took two journeys to the tap – and I collected the used water for my flush. I experienced something, and I’ve grown a deeper appreciation for the daily comforts of life in a developed urban environment. But it surely wasn’t fun or particularly pleasant. So for the last few days, I’ve been just a little bit grumpy, just a little bit frustrated I couldn’t wash properly – body, tea-cup or underwear – and couldn’t get a cup of tea whenever I felt like it without planning ahead.

By global standards, I am still in a privileged environment. A walk down the stairs will take me to the nearest tap, and I won’t have to queue for long. The water there may not have the cleanest taste, but if I boil it properly, I can drink it without immediate harm to my body. And I can get as much as I need for free. By relative standards, however, I am experiencing hardship: ‘if this was a shantytown, I would understand’, commented my father. ‘In a Chinese metropolis, it’s surely not normal’. I live in a rather wealthy central district of Nanjing, the capital of China’s second richest province, and an aspiring global metropolis. Yet as I discover, it’s not simple operating as a fully-connected citizen of the globo-sphere when practical details of your water recycling management require so much attention. And it’s that little bit harder to plan international skype meetings and visits to local innovation communities when you’re not sure you can get a shower, or boil yourself a cup of tea.

‘Not knowing is the worst’, right: this applies to Chinese infrastructure. It’s actually quite good when it works – but you cannot rely on it. I’ve experienced it with internet access, I’ve experienced it with transport, and now I’m experiencing it with running water. 没办法’, there’s no way, say some of the locals, resigned. Others pester with annoyance. The service is gone, the cause isn’t clear, and nobody knows when or if things are gonna work again. In other words, basic infrastructure cannot be trusted – and people treat basic service provision in the same way they deal with major weather events.

This lack of trust in basic infrastructure affects the whole society. If anything might break at any moment without sign of warning, long-term planning and risk management become laughable pursuits. Why build solid, if nothing is assured –cheap, fast and low quality makes more sense among such levels of contingency. Expected standards of service also drop accordingly: my cashier/waiter/doctor/ teacher/manager might have no running water today, no wonder they’re in a bad mood. Maybe this transaction cannot be completed on time, because some part of the system has collapsed. Let’s try it anyway – but if it seems too hard, we should give up: surely something must be wrong somewhere, or we’re just out of luck. And this attitude, in turn, breeds further chaos.

Chinese water land

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The pace of Chinese city life can quickly get exhausting – noise, pollution, and people everywhere need some antidote. My lovely friend Aaron found a perfect solution: a trip to Chaobai Xinhe, some 30 km north of Tianjin – a peaceful landscape of marshland and lakes, with long horizons, reflecting skies, and soft wind in the branches. Enjoy the view!

Trust, unilateral decisions and fait accompli.

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I announced a series of posts on trust – here is the second. The setting hasn’t changed – we’re still in a bar on Qingdao Lu. This time I will focus on a recent interaction with a friend, to better understand how trust is grown, or eroded. The phenomenon I describe is minor, but I believe, on a very small scale, it represents very clearly what often happens on a larger scale – and therefore presents a very valuable case study.

Few days ago, I had lunch with a friend at the 32 Qingdao Lu café. We discussed a collaborative project, and I told him about my psychological difficulties in China, how I struggled with my energy levels, and what I learnt I should avoid – mostly loud environments and spaces that foster aggressive or competitive behaviour. I was happy to share this and receive support. I really value this friend, but a sense of alienation from him had been weighing on me. We mostly met in settings I was uncomfortable in, and so didn’t have a chance to connect at the level that matters to both of us. The lunch was productive: we clarified ideas and set goals. Then after lunch, we both focused on our respective tasks. I had planned – and announced – a long afternoon preparing for coming meetings in Beijing and Shanghai. He was going to proof-read a book.

I was quietly reading about online literature when, out of the blue, the friend announced he’d invited ‘that girl and her American friend’ to come join us. The goal was not for them to sit and proof-read with us. We’d previously chatted about flirting in straight and gay contexts, and mentioned ‘that girl’ then. I was annoyed. Not only did I have work to do: my energy still wasn’t very high – I had spent the previous afternoon locked in my room to recover some – and flirty straight environments neither energize nor comfort me. I superficially knew the two girls, I found it weird to sit at the next table and ignore them, probably wouldn’t much enjoy the type of interaction that was about to take place, so I packed up my stuff and left, annoyed at what just happened.

Today, I lost a small measure of trust in that friend. It’s not a big measure and repairing it shouldn’t be difficult. But this loss has a cost. It’s interfering with our prospects of collaboration. I like working with him, but if he drains my energy by generating environments I dislike and leave, then I might have to focus on more efficient partnerships – and avoid his invitations. It’s interfering more broadly with my other projects – should I look for another place to work and concentrate, if this café changed its vibe. And I have to think more about sharing information with him in the future – should I introduce him to the various environments or circles of contacts I am building here, or keep him out of the loop to maximize my own energy levels. In other words, it’s added a cognitive load for me, and might lose both of us opportunities.

I wrote before that ‘trust implies a belief that other people will not simply walk over you to push their own agenda without prior warning’. In that case, it’s precisely what didn’t happen – my friend invited two girls over, without consulting me, while knowing I had other plans and may not enjoy the sudden change from a work to social space. My friend imposed his own desire on our shared environment, with no regard for my desires or prior consultation.

This new plan was not presented as a possibility for me to discuss or approve, but a fait accompli – the girls had been invited and were on their way. It was too late, or too complex for my tired mind at the time, to negotiate an alternative. I could either submit or leave. In other words, what only minutes ago was a collaborative environment – two people exchanging ideas to reach a common goal – had suddenly changed nature. At some point in time, our shared space had become open to the first initiative. I didn’t make a move, and I lost the ground. But there had been no warning sign that the race was on.

Such behaviour is by no means rare. Many people may find it surprising I even noticed. What made me lose a measure of trust in this friend is the sudden, unilateral change I experienced from a collaborative to a competitive environment. I believe this is a crucial part of how trust is grown: by explicit disclosure of the rules that apply at any moment in a relationship, and in shared settings. Sudden shifts in these rules, cunning tricks, or simple disregard for unspoken conventions, may win battles and even wars – but they will not grow trust, nor the wealth of ideas, opportunities and material goods that, often, come along with higher levels of trust.

Hanging out at the Ming Gate

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If you’ve ever wondered what happens on a sunny afternoon in a Chinese city – this video will show you. Two days ago, I went out for a walk with two friends around the ‘Gu Gong’ area – ruins of a Ming dynasty palace in the centre of Nanjing. Locals were enjoying life, dancing and playing music under 14th century stone arches, bringing memories of Rome, Aigues Mortes, Athens and other places I love along the coast of the Mediterranean.

I don’t like noisy places – reflections on trust, mood, and sensivity.

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Last night, I had a bad experience.

I discovered a great bar on Qingdao Lu, not far from where I live. I started going there every day, spending hours reading or talking to the barman. The place has been around for over 17 years, and is a favourite with local writers, artists and musicians. They play jazzy Chinese music from the 60s, the barman’s a painter, and the waitress is working on a novel.

Once I brought an Aussie friend here. He found out the room upstairs had a KTV machine, and organised a singing party last night. I was glad: I’d brought these wonderful people new customers, and found my friend a nice venue for his party. Connecting people has always been one of my greatest joys.

The singing party started very nicely: friendly conversations, most of them in Chinese, some light singing, and a civilised mood. Then another crowd arrived: a Chinese girl dressed in a leopard print dress and pink shoes, and her stern long-haired friend. They spoke English only – showing no concern for those in our group who didn’t understand it well. They selected vulgar pop songs. And they messed up the sound system, pushing up the volume and upsetting the balance.

The warm local jazzy vibe was gone, replaced by the blaring atmosphere of expat bars and night-clubs. Conversations were lost among ‘I can’t hear you’s’. My brain was cluttered by a mild competitive tension in the air, the very loud music, and the bad singing of long-hair side-kick. Deciding the mood was never coming back, I picked up my hat, and left, angered and disappointed by that sudden turn of events.

Since I fled that obnoxious party, I’ve been feeling a deep sense of melancholy. This bar had become a replacement home here in Nanjing, and the people in the crowd are some of my closest friends. This should have been the safe space where I can relax and I enjoy – instead, it brought me profound discomfort, and only the mildest mitigation. No wonder I feel sad: I find myself homeless and friendless now. I’m mourning.

Of course, this is all the result of high natural sensitivity. Some of it will pass. But the feeling of pain last night, and sadness today, are nonetheless real. I did experience physical aggression on my ears. I did experience a clear shift from a safe supportive space to competitive indifference. And I’ve lost a measure of trust in the people who were there with me.

Lack of trust has been a recurring focus of my reflections during this trip – and I will write more about the question. I think this recent emotional experience is a good place to start. I said I lost a measure of trust in the people who were there with me last night. Trust, at one level, is the belief that a person has a clear intention to minimize your pain and maximize your well-being, in the short and long run. In other words, trust implies a belief that other people will not simply walk over you to push their own agenda without prior warning. Trust implies a sense of shared interest – whereby maintaining the relationship matters more than satisfying the desires, passions or appetites of the parties present.

Why did I lose trust last night? I was enjoying myself, when the panther lady changed important elements – the language in the group, the type of music played, the sound intensity – without any prior consultation. I changed behaviour – became passive – then I expressed discomfort – no solution was offered. The place had become hostile. Therefore I left.

I hear the butch voices that say ‘don’t be so soft’ or ‘why do you care so much’. Everyone fight for themselves and the loudest roar will take the prize – fine, I can roar as loud as anyone – but if I have to roar, and fight back – what energy remains to meet and connect people, advise friends, build networks? And why should I bother, if the result is I just to build uncomfortable settings for myself? In other words, I believe that competitive behaviours, authoritarian decisions and loud environments will result in a loss. The sensitive ones – who may well be the smart ones and the caring ones too – the ones that bring people together and make them joyful – these will walk away.

The feeling doesn’t really matter. I’m solid, and I’ll smile again soon. What worries me more is how much got eroded last night – how long before it grows back. And more importantly, how much is eroded every day by similar blunt attitudes and environments.

So there it is, the cause for my sadness: I mourn the things that might have been last night, the connections not made, the tender discussions not had, all that got lost in the noise, trampled under pink shoes and the vulgar swinging of a leopard-print dress. The projects aborted. And that layer of trust I lost.