Chapter 105

So again I was faced with a mountain of inefficiency. I had to turn up at the test center at 7:30, where there was a huddle of 100 people around a table with an elderly employee yelling out names. I stayed outside, knowing that when it’s my turn someone would just figure that my very uncommon name is a giveaway. Then we got carted to the driving test circuit, and I was eighth in line, so I didn’t do the test until almost noon. I was really, REALLY hoping I’d get it over with and not have to go through the same waste of time and inconvenience of rescheduling classes, not to mention the humiliation. I visualized the circuit in my head, and every time one trainee got in the car and did the part that tests proper use of headlights, I’d stand nearby and look, reviewing all the possible options.

People were failing left and right, for the dumbest nitpicky reasons. One guy went past 25 km/h before switching to third gear, another one looked down at the stick shift and triggered the face recognition software, and one girl, during the headlights test, disengaged the bright lights by pulling the stick towards her but pulled a teeny bit too hard and turned them back on for 0.01 seconds. Immediate fail. God-dayum. There’s an instructor sitting on the passenger seat but he doesn’t speak or can be spoken to, it’s all done through a computer, he’s there to ensure safety because it’s a live road and to drive the car back if there’s an error being done in the middle of the circuit. So when the car would set off, it would either come back fifteen minutes later at a low speed, or it would come back much before, zooming past, with the instructor behind the wheel. And then everyone would go AWWWWW! in disappointment.

So I was nervous, but I also knew that I did everything I had to do, my fate was in the hands of my Lord And Savior, Satan Prince Of Darkness. The test started. “Turn on the headlights”, the robotic voice said. “You are overtaking a car at night”, and I had to give two flashes of bright lights. “You are stopping on the side of the road”, and I had to engage the four-corner flashers. And so on. Then I drove around, making sure to forgo any habits and notions of safe and courteous driving and ensuring I drive like a drooling derp and... I passed. I did a little victory dance when the computer said “100 points, success” and almost thanked the cunty little instructor.

I had to go back to the main center to sign a form, then haul ass to get back home, eat a quick lunch and then go to work. There were two girls from the middle school coming out of the dining hall, carrying a plastic bag filled with bottles of Gatorade and water. There were maybe twenty bottles in the bag, but with their insect muscles, they were struggling hard, so I stopped my bicycle and told them in Chinese to put their burden on my panier rack. They seemed terrorized by what is likely their first interaction with a foreigner, and I said “Come on! I have class in 10 minutes. Where do you want to bring those bottles?” “To... to the soccer field. We have a tournament” one replied sheepishly. I said I’d bring it there and drop it at the corner, they thanked me. My good action of the day. So perhaps when they hear their racist uncle rant about those no-good long-nosed barbarians next time they have a family dinner, they’ll just think “Hey that one guy at the school was alright”... or maybe their Confucian transactional mindset will be already anchored deep in their psyche, and they would just assume I’m a sucker for going out of my way to help total strangers with no direct benefits to my person. Ever a glass-half-full kind of guy, I’d guess the latter is quite likely.

I had a few classes and they went well, I was in a good mood after chucking that weight off my shoulders. I joked around with the students a lot, while still getting a lot done and keeping them interested, but not too distracted. At the end of the twelfth-graders class, I overheard them talking about Canada, and one of them asked me which universities have the best reputation, and which one is the best between Waterloo, Utoronto and UBC. I have 0% of an idea. I went to the closest university from where I lived at the time with my parents, and even my major was chosen a bit randomly.

“What about McGill? Have you thought about that one? It’s a good English-language university in Montreal, and one of my former students went there”

They were utterly confused, until one of them said “Oh, you mean Mai Ji Er?” They only use the Chinese butchered version of place names, which often can be almost unrecognizable, with the limited sounds and phonemes that this language has. A girl asked me where I did my bachelor’s, I told her, and pulled my old ID card I still have in my wallet twelve years later (that I still use to get student pricing at museums sometimes). They all huddled and giggled at the younger, clean-shaved me, and said I used to look like Mika. No idea who the hell Mika is, they pulled a phone and did a quick image search, it’s some effeminate-looking guy who looks nothing like me aside from being white. At any rate I liked that they seemed so interested, perhaps next week I’ll prepare pictures of Canadian cities I know.

I went home, poured myself a nice beer, ate crackers and watched some wrasslin’. The tag team champions, a duo of enthusiastic black dudes, were defending against some redneck and a terrifying and absurdly large black man. The hulking guy went in first but the defending champs coaxed the redneck to start the match, they isolated him and beat him up with colorful tag moves while the huge black dude watched from his corner, powerless. Eventually a tag was made and the 7-foot-2 giant made quick work of his two fellow African-Americans. I thought the two smaller (well smaller by WWE standards) champs would survive the early onslaught and find a way to victory, but they got smashed and lost their title. Then it was another match featuring a giant, a white dude with a huge beard this time, who was fighting Shane McMahon in a steel cage. Shane is the son of WWE owner Vince McMahon, so he’s already a billionaire, but he also wrestles, playing the role of the scumbag owner messing with his athletes, like his dad did in the 90s against Steve Austin and others. He always takes some incredibly scary bumps, and this match was no exception, as he got thrown by the giant dude from the top of the cage. Ouch.

At night I rode the skateboard downtown with the dog, I had a nice NEIPA at the craft beer tent (now just a craft beer trailer, in this nice weather), got some takeout from a cheap Sichuan restaurant, and went to the bar for pub quiz night. The quizmaster crafted some pretty cool questions about various topics, and my team won both the bonus tequila round and the final tally. Good times.

I’ll be going to Shanghai this weekend and I won’t bring the computer, so Chapters 106-108 will be published a bit late.