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Most of my feelings from China would stem from some other not mentioned part of the experience. That is, if you could say one part of it was guitar, the other part would have been Badminton. Badminton, the sport where you are hitting shuttlecocks, was mildly funny to me initially, because the name included the suffix -cocks, which, when taken by itself, was slang for a boy’s penis. J may have said that first. Being from an all boys school, there are no surprises here. But it was not really a dream, so much as a far off distant thing-that-I-could-not-even-have-dreamed, to be able to be trained by a Chinese badminton player. And yet this was the position I found myself in come late June, the end of the school year in China. It was the beginning of some of the most vivid out of all my memories during my short existence.

The view from the room where I stayed was grand, in its own way. Overlooking a soccer field, the first week I got there, it was flooded. The rain had been pouring down for three days non stop, and the field happened to be the lowest point of land in the surrounding areas. As I was introduced to my training partner - Ou Liang Yu, an 12 year old girl - I waded through half a metre of the dirtiest water I ever intended to wade through. I imagine all manner of toilet refuse was contained within. A door opened into disused table tennis hall, which had also been flooded. The light filtered through the barred windows, and the water was dark and musty. As Ou enthusiastically bounded through the hall, with a 9 year old boy, Long Wei Min closely on her tail, I gingerly stepped through. Long Wei Min was the cousin of our coach, 27 year old Long Yu, former Guang Xi provincial player, and generally the guy with an ugly girlfriend, and red hair. We played in there for a while, I took photos of the surreal scene. Worried about the leeches and maggots that the water may have contained, we did not stay in there for very long.

That oval remained flooded for a good period of time. It actually flooded twice during my “training” period (one month). The second time, Lei Zhen Yu, and another boy, whose name will be H, because I cannot remember it, were with us playing daily. The water rose up to the level of the gym, but not into it. Training having been called off, we played a while around the oval. In particular I took the opportunity to snap some photos of the surrounding areas.

I walked across, wearing a cheap pair of thongs, trying to find the deepest part, which I found was the middle, after some wandering. I asked Ou to take a photo of me right in the middle. This is not that photo, but it gives an idea of the scale of the flooding, which I hadn’t experienced before.

On one of those days, we played basketball inside. Long Wei Min, or Mr. Annoying, as I remember him, was, of course, an attention seeker.

I took a shot at the basket that missed completely and somehow bounced out into the lake which had formed outside our gym. We were as if in a gym island, those days, and I decided that’s how we would treat the situation. Losing a ball was worse than losing a little friend, after all. So we sent Mr. Annoying out on a mission to get our basketball. It was floating, until it floated right to the corner of the oval. We didn’t realise it would float so far, and as we watched our butt-naked little friend doggy paddle his way through the disgusting waters I had not the faintest idea that what we were doing was potentially life threatening. Then again, a lot of my time in China was like that, bending the rules, living as if I was in a dream, generally being irresponsible. He must have paddled a good 200 metres by the time he got back. We were just lucky there were not too many sharp edges, dangerous water creatures, or other mortality factors present in Xin Hua city refuse water. Just that the image of little Mr. Annoying, foot paddling on a basketball, with a grin on his face as big as a stupid clown, has stuck in my head.

Ou’s old room had been water damaged by the rains, but I wouldn’t have guessed the difference if you blind-folded me and trudged me in there before nature intervened.

The first time I saw it was perhaps a month before, the time I took a chance (and a bus) to Long Yu’s home town of Xin Hua. Visiting a small city in China is not such a big deal. It was a big deal for me when it involved a 1 hour journey into another city, when the last one I had left was a small city already (of 500,000 in the city centre and 5 million including the surrounding areas), and where they apparently spoke almost a different colloquial language altogether. The bus ride was bumpy and dangerous, uncomfortable and cramped, but it was China, and I had enough Chineseness about me so I didn’t draw any looks. Looking back on it now, I count my lucky stars each day that I didn’t lose my life, in all seriousness. Those Chinese sure know how to trick a foreigner. As the bus passed through the city there was a profound sense of similarity - dirty, run down, shanty town, completely similar to the last small town, and yet one could see that the trappings of capitalism were developed to a different degree.

Here, there were no shopping complexes, as there were in Taizhou. There was a version, albeit very shoddy, of Rundle Mall here - rows of shops lining a street that was mainly for walking, although tricycles were also lining the side walk with thin old men and women trying to make a living. We took another bus from inside Xin Hua city to the actual location, which was near to the gym where we would do all of our playing. I remember walking through the oval to Ou’s room, which was not flooded at that time, following Long Yu’s lead.

He took a key out and unlocked the first lock around the gate. Then, he unlocked the second. The small courtyard contained an abandoned outdoor table set (the same kind which I might find in Adelaide school yards) on which was strewn some laundry, and a bucket of water, which Long Yu promptly emptied on the ground. He made a few knocks on the door, and so my second impressions of Ou became known, “Mmmh… uhhuh… mmm… “. He explained she was very tired from her grade 6 exams which she had had just today. He opened the door and collected a number of badminton racquets, without strings, and a few sets of strings, which we then proceeded with to a nearby sports shop which had a badminton stringing machine, which Long Yu requested use of, and the shopkeepers, his friends, obliged. I watched this with fascination.

My first impressions of this character were in Taizhou’s big gym, behind the little gym, where I was playing badminton one day, randomly, with my surrogate mother in the town, Ding Mama. She motioned to me with a glint in her eye and a smirk on her lips - “Look over there.” We cautioned over to court number 3, where a young boy was playing, with an old man. The man was playing hard, obviously trying as hard as he could. I remember this man’s style. I went to eat at his house once. He played the Erhu for me, or rather, he was practicing it, and I happened to interrupt. He plays badminton with a stiff stance, but still runs around the backhand very well, and I never reached his level. This little boy, however, seemed very relaxed. I judged, he was no older than 15, but he was holding his own against this guy, as well as playing several shots which I thought were pretty amazing. Most importantly, though, it looked like he wasn’t even trying. A beautiful backhand drop shot from the backhand corner of the court, a push, then, a powerful smash. Pretty close to the lines. I was excited to see this. It had been in the back of my mind - when would I get to see a real Chinese badminton player? Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to play with them, or even get trained by them. I was getting closer, maybe. The teacher? Someone said a name. But it was a name far off, even then, I asked, when does he come? When can I see him? Then someone asked me to play. I was pretty nervous, actually. Doubles, with the boy. This was the first time I played with Ou.

We won, actually. And she was friendly enough, too. Her coach was one of two coaches that I knew of. The other was the one that I offended by telling him things I shouldn’t have said. I learnt a lot of that during those 6 months in China. Learning to keep my mouth shut. That coach really was exceptional though, I wish I had a photo of him to show.

Jiang Jiao Lian, he was one handed. I mean, literally, he was born without his hand. He had his arm, but all there was, was a stump at his wrist. If I met him now, I would ask him all these questions about phantom limb pain. He played badminton like a pocket rocket. At first he didn’t look so good, then I heard he had trained in Nanjing Academy for many years. I never found out if he made it or not. Regardless, he was (and is) a damn good player and coach. And he did it without one hand. He served by holding the shuttle with his one hand, throwing it up a bit, and grabbing the racquet back and hitting it. I suppose he didn’t feel sorry for himself. He could still drink. He could still smoke, too, that fit old guy - a “one of many” contradictions to be found in Chinese society.

I remember my first sighting of Long Yu. He was teaching kids in the gym. I remember he looked young at first, and relatively unremarkable. Wearing a long sleeved windcheater. I peered at him through a net, as he motioned to the kids, simple technique. Could you tell? Did those years of training, someone whose life had been badminton, show? I was shy, but it was one of my playing partners who introduced me first. I can’t remember exactly how he greeted me - it was friendly, for sure, a hint of surprise at my country of birth. Apart from that, it was like most other meetings with people there. I was abnormal, and special, and it was that part of me that enabled me, both in the eyes of others and, gradually, in my own eyes, to do things I had never dreamed of.

I have many photos of my time in China. I tried to take those “nice” photographs, thinking I know what makes a good picture. Well, I realised that being able to appreciate “good” photography, doesn’t at all translate to being able to take good photographs. Having said that, there are a number of photos I’m proud of. The first few nights in Xin Hua, I stayed in an old motel. It was relatively clean (and when I say relatively, I mean relatively), although the bathroom had no lighting. I usually took a shower at night, so this was a problem. There was an old TV there, though, which was a very unexpected bonus. I left it on, because I was a bit scared to be there by myself. The general prevalence of barred windows in the city didn’t bode well for personal safety. I moved from there to the fourth floor of a disused Jiu Dian, or hotel. I never asked why it was disused, and why there was a lady, A Yi (meaning aunty) a friend of Long Yu’s, who was living in the room behind the front bar. The toilets smelt really bad, although I got used to it, and every time I squat down and got bitten by mosquitoes I wondered if they had spawned directly underneath me, somehow hatched by my warm and sludgy offering. It was rather like a haunted house, although it was very cordoned off to make any real money. The good stuff was locked behind doors. We could see, for example, every time we walked up the flight of stairs to the fourth floor, that what used to be a restaurant still looked like a restaurant in some ways, and yet was clearly not with it. Some chairs were stacked, a few tables were on top of each other, yet others still had their tablecloths spread over them. Still freakier were the random cups and plates strewn around the place. The strangest thing about it is that now, thinking back, I would go to that place in front of the rope and take out my camera and take photos of the scene. And yet at that time, this never crossed my mind. In the midst of all my happy snapping, I never thought it interesting enough to take a photo of this restaurant scene. One may only pin it down just to an exposure factor. I got so used to seeing things like this that it no longer was remarkable. One thing that was remarkable, to me at that time, was the view from my fourth floor room in the morning. The sun would peek over the oval, and when our lake had formed, this created a unique view, a strange view. I spent some time taking some photos of this view, interested in “an outsider’s view of this world”. In many ways, although I didn’t think it at the time, the view that is imprinted in my mind is that of a foreigner. I would rarely look over Adelaide and think the same things. Those boys who played basket ball there on the outdoor court, rain or shine, flood or no; we don’t get those kinds of boys in Adelaide, either.

One thing that was completely remarkable but utterly despicable were the mosquitoes. I arrived in the beginning of the hot season. When the rain ended, the heat began, and it was really, really hot, and humid. Sleeping at night began to be a big problem, when one only has a bamboo mat and a thin sheet to cover oneself, the presence of mosquitoes creates a world-shattering conundrum - do you lay this sheet underneath to provide some respite for the pelvic girdle and the 7th cervical vertebra, or do you cover yourself with it, in an attempt to sleep, lest mosquitoes biting every part of your body keep you awake. Mind you, I made sure I always had a mosquito repellent burning away in the room. This mosquito repellent, at least in shantier towns, comes in the form of a black incense coil that you burn for the smoke which it produces, which usually keeps mosquitoes away. Here comes the second conundrum: do you leave the window open to allow for some respite from the consuming heat produced not only from yourself, the inflammation from mosquito bites, the heat and humidity in the air and the incense burning away beneath you and allow 10 million more mosquitoes and who knows what other insects into your room, or do you close the door and try to avoid suffocating to death? Let me tell you now, these conundrums could have been the death of me, had Long Yu’s girlfriend not visited and the A Yi allowed them to have a room containing an air conditioner. I even tried burning two of these coils once. I still seemed to spend hours waking up and slapping at those bites that would redden and itch in the morning. After Long Yu’s girlfriend came, both Ou and I slept in their room, with them on a double bed, Ou on a single, and I in a corner on the floor.

I had heard of Long Yu’s girlfriend from a tea I had with him once, in a nice tea cafe place where the waiters dressed up in the western style and they had a really nice kind of tea, actually. We talked about relationships, in limited fashion (insofar as I could speak Mandarin), and he mentioned his girlfriend, who he said, or joked (I could never tell, with him), was “very pretty”. I also remember the time at which I showed him G’s photo and he laughed - I was bemused at his reaction, wondering what kind of person he was. I still do not have much of an idea, actually. But when she came to sit in to watch us train, it was just a random day, when we weren’t expecting it. I took one look at her, and eyes wide, looked at Ou, who was hitting with me. She then looked, then back at me, and mouthed, chou. Ugly. Chou si le, extremely ugly. She thought it was very funny, so I guessed that Long Yu had been talking about her before. That, or it was common to believe that such an apparently high level badminton player should be able to find a pretty girlfriend. Furthermore, though secondary to her looks (I’m mean, but I’m just recounting the situation here), her ability in badminton was not to be questioned. I remember conversing on the bus, standing up next to Long Yu, about his girlfriend and badminton. She played some level higher than he, possibly national, though I can’t remember. He was very sure that she could not beat him still, though, despite the fact that she was still playing, while he had not played professionally for years, and she was at a higher “level” than him. He put this down to the differences between the genders. I guessed this about tennis, but did not really think it made such a difference in badminton. Watching her play for the first time, I marveled at the sheer speed of her wrist as she served. The shuttle would nearly hit the roof, which was no mean feat for a forehand service, especially for a girl. The racquet really moved too fast for my eyes to catch. She of course beat everyone she played with ease, in that gym. It was joy to watch her play - speed, finesse, reflexes. The match between her and Long Yu was never proposed, and I never saw them play, though I did see them play doubles together, once. That was a sight to see, as well.

I remember vividly times walking down the night time Xin Hua street as a group of five, Long Yu, his girlfriend, myself, Ou and Mr. Annoying attached to one of our hands. We headed for the public baths every night. There was minimal street lighting - most of the lights came from roadside stalls which may have still been open at that time. One of those was a deep fryer stall cooking some tasty stuff that I actually never hazarded to try, on account of being too full from the dinner not to long before. The other one was a watermelon stall, which stood there night after night, as if a welcoming party to our dirty, but soon to be clean bodies afterwards.

Cleaned by watermelon - the three of us “kids” usually broke into a chant, imitating the loudspeaker that was replaying a recorded message, over, and over again. It was one of those old style hand held ones which I had no idea had the ability to record and play back, although at that time I wouldn’t have been surprised at anything anymore. The watermelons were piled up high, illuminated on the giant tray by two spot lights in the two back corners of the stall, which had been built on the back of a pick-up truck. Daaaa xigua…. henpianyidi….. daaa xigua… it meant, “Big watermelons! Very cheap! Big watermelons!” said in that kind of Julian Casablancas tone. So one time, the stall owners heard us laughing and motioned towards our party. Long Yu greeted them warmly, as he seems to be very good at. In a moment, they had invited Mr. Annoying to up on top of the pile. To become… King Watermelon Head.

We headed off to the public baths, as normal. These I actually quite enjoyed - they were reasonably clean (much cleaner than those I had been exposed to in Taizhou, surprisingly), and even if I never quite got used to the boiling hot water and the all around nakedness of all the men around me, I did start to appreciate the relaxing room they provided after the shower had been taken. I also did not try the massage they had for offer, which I observed numerous times, and which would be many other people’s dream come true, I am sure. I tried the spa, once, which was filled with water as hot if not hotter than the water spurting from the shower-heads; Long Yu insisted that it was good for the muscles, which I wasn’t arguing with - it was the imagining of a smell of my own roasting flesh that was putting me off. Maybe part of the secret of my surprisingly strong constitution were these regular boiling showers, actually. Well, I always did need to ease up my muscles.

Playing made me pretty sore. One time I was so sore I could not move my arm up above shoulder level, and I was still trying to play badminton. I was quite amazed, however, at my body, and how it adapted. Prior to this I had done no serious sport training, no fitness training, or anything. Though I had played a lot of sport in my schooling years, the intensity of those times in no way prepared me for what I faced in that one month. Oh, and what I wouldn’t give to go back to that time and do it all over again. The soreness just blended in - one day with the next. Playing constantly, playing through soreness and pain, into warmth and comfort, tiredness, food, and sleep.

The daily schedule, was 5 am wake up, 5:30-7am training, following which we were ordered back into bed, without breakfast, for a sleep. The next training session was at 11am, until 1pm, the same day, after which we would have lunch, in the food shop a few doors down from the oval. Then, we would sleep once again, or rest, until the final session, from 5 until 7:30pm, after which was dinner, usually at the same food shop in which was had had lunch. Training generally consisted of footwork drills, shuttle drills, and fitness training. I probably ate the most food I have ever eaten in my life, during that month. We had fun at that place - my record was eating four bowls of rice, along with copious amounts of oil with pork and vegetables, various oily soups, and my sometimes our favourite dish, boiled sea snails. For lunch, and for dinner. Long Yu told us we were not allowed to eat the sea snails from that shop after the first few times, because it was dirty. One time, he wasn’t there, so the three of us (Ou, Mr. Annoying, and myself) ordered it anyway. Every time we finished lunch and dinner, we could barely walk up the stairs to our rooms.

If I walked up to the top floor, I would reach the laundry area, where A Yi fastidiously washed our clothes and hung them out to dry for us either outside or inside a small room to the left, if it was raining.

It was here I spent quite some time reacquainting myself with myself, mucking around with various potted plants, and hand-washing my badminton attire so that it would be hung out and dried before the later-day training session. I found out that water from the sink that was situated outside here drained into an open hole on its lower right hand side, which emptied directly into the gutter, spilling out occasionally onto the ground below. This, I reasoned, was a no less hygienic way of doing things, just slightly more… free-form. Somehow, I have fond memories of this place, perhaps because of the cool breeze which always blew there, and the rough stony appearance of the exterior. A mysterious stone shed-like room containing daily whatnot, and a man who lived somewhere nearby, though I never established where.

Fond memories extend particularly to my extensive waltzing around the city proper, in free time. This was usually during breaks 8 - 11am, and 1 - 4pm, when I had slept enough, and did not feel too tired from eating. It was on one of these walks that I went with Ou to buy a new mobile phone for herself. Indeed, it occurs to me now that from what I have written I would have to wonder how one would manage to purchase such a technologically advanced item from such a place. Of course, at that time this didn’t occur to me, at all. We went into a few shops, and it was during conversation that I discovered the practice of age changing, for the purposes of badminton competition. Of course, parents wish for their children to do well (and girls, as they get older, wish they were younger, as do we all, as do we all). If they were to raise their child up to do anything in particular, but perhaps particularly sports, it would be beneficial for their children to have a few years head start over their competitors, with no one any the wiser. Of course, if everyone did it, it would all become rather stupid, but I suppose it’s one of those things that is a sort of taken for granted cheating - nearly everyone does it, so that the playing field is still level. It was clear that Ou believed her birth certificate was fabricated for the purposes of badminton, but I wonder whether Chinese parents would have numerous other reasons for changing the age of their daughter. Being such an enormous country, I had assumed, and indeed witnessed many examples of how much hard work it took to stand out in the massive, massive crowd. This human wish to be special might be granted more easily by a simple bribe at the registry, and the extra (two, in Ou’s case) years would give this new human a better chance in life, no matter what the pursuit. She was actually 14, rather than 12. In year 6, instead of 8, I figure she might in fact be rather more immature than others her age. Then again, if others her age were also in year 6, what would it matter? I do have to remind myself though, it was for the sake of badminton. The age group competitions, x years and under. Last I heard, she placed in a competition, good for her.

Walking alone usually, I came across a fight in the streets, on my way back from an internet bar one day. It was about 10am in the morning.

And what can I say? A bizarre spectacle, and while it would appear that others thought so as well, in reality they were all part of a bigger bizarre spectacle, for the outsider to look in, and see.

That is not to say I felt superior to these crowds, in that I came from a country that did not treat fighting in the street as a spectator sport, but rather, as a result of the lack of foreigners in the immediate area, and my status as most likely the only one in the entire city, I felt obliged to observe, and listen. Of course, it could have just been me being distinctly Chinese.

I would have another opportunity to display how Chinese exactly I had become (whether this is good or bad) when I encountered a dog by the side of the road. I have written shortly about it in the description.

To recall, Long Yu was called out to dinner perhaps 5 times, and every time I went, each to a different venue. I use the word venue because the quality of the locations was just so variable - it would be a fallacy to catagorise them together as “restaurants”. I did, by the way, get diarrhoea nearly every single night. It was regular, though, so I wouldn’t call it a change in bowel habit. Walking by myself, I was able to try some very delicious food. A traditionally baked type of dough, formed into a bread-like thing, either in salty or sweet forms, was the first thing I discovered. Next, I found out that I had gotten so used to the Taizhou taste of noodles that I did not enjoy any of the noodle places in Xin Hua I ate in. I stood one day in the middle of a street, next to two food stalls. At one was an old lady making some kind of fried egg-with-stuff dough sandwich, which I bought and liked very much the taste of. I stood there in front of her stall, making a video of her doing her stuff, preparing the dough which she would later sell. I even videoed a boy buying one, the entire process, making up his dough, exchanging the money, giving the goods in a plastic bag. Oil on the hot plate, get the dough. spinkle and smear various random tasty condiments, wrap tightly and make look drool-worthy. All this in the rain, outside, in a 1 by 1 square metre cart. Not exactly the most hygienic thing in the world, I must say, but this sort of atmosphere certainly aids the appetite. The other guy had a stall built into which was a wood fire oven, which he used to cook his food. It was dough stuff again, but the coolest thing was watching him make it. I don’t think I took any photos of it, but I did video the process - he did it with such speed, accuracy, it was like watching an Olympic champion perform some kind of hand routine: take flour to make dough, with other stuff, throw it in a perfect circle around the rim of the hot hole, place towel and cover.