SHORT STORY BY JOCKO WEYLAND
She works off a muddy street in the far Northeastern outskirts of Beijing in the scrappy, dirty slums off any tourist routes. One-story linoleum-floored tenements lined the road. the one room serves as bedroom, living room, bathroom and kitchen according to the hour of the day.
In front of many are bicycle tire fixing shops or tables where the inhabitants sell liquor and cigarettes. The street is really more of a track, wide enough for one car, where dirty rainwater and human and other waste collects in the troughs between the buildings. Since there are no sidewalks jumping from front step to front step is advisable for your health.
Farthre down the sodden track is a putrid public restroom surrounded by a murky pond of effluvia and urban detritus as well as storefronts with faded red awnings postioned between the cigarette stands and tire shops. The stores are open to ventilate the dank summer heat fuming from the narrow interiors and several women in their 30s lanquish in the humidity within the store's confines conversing on cell phones, while watching Chinese soaps on the TV.
The dull devotion to TV coupled with the occassional galnce out the window seems like a time-tested devotion to boredom practiced by everyone on this road with the women wanting to hear the TV dialogue more than the banter of pasers-by.
A few doors down from the public latrine a 30ish woman eats noodles with a young girl. Seeing me the girl puts down her bowl and skips down the street avoiding the puddles. it's obviously not the first time she's left the room today.
A faint drizzle drips from the coal sky and the woman beckons with her hand. I have no where to go and enter to the twelve feet wide by eighteen foot long room. A green cracked plastic curtain nides the interior. I sit down. the girl's bowl is nearl;y fll. The rain taps on the tin door with a pleasant tinkle, however the humidity rises even higher than usual that pattering mixes with the exaggerated explosions and breaking glass of an action the action film in the next room.
On the wall calendar kittens play with a ball and a poster of an old man with a Fu-Manchu beard hides a long crack. There are plastic food containers, some green, blue andpink plastic tubs, a sink, and a tired old chair next to a tattered redfelt-covered desk that looks like it's about to fall apart.
Hair products are lined up in front of a mirror, three hangers dangle on a string, one cooking pot is on the floor, a little can with a toothbrush in it is under the table, and a head of lettuce sits on the desk. Surprisingly, there is no TV set in this particular room. A fake leather purse hangs from a nail near the mirror and the pale green paint is flaking off the walls and ceiling. Outside the rain starts coming down harder and harder, splashing the muck and making a racket as it hits the roof.
The room's floor is weathered, though a straw broom and grey mop against the wall are evidence the yellowed linoleum has been swept and mopped many times. Now alone, the woman sits on a dingy foldout bed that doubles as asofa beneath a photograph of her in the mountains north of Beijing. There is a smile on her round face and a gleam of happiness in her eyes, and she appears to be on the verge of laughing.
For all intents and purposes just another typical Chinese tourist on a typical day trip, and just likeeveryone else getting her picture taken with the mountains as a scenic backdrop. The photo was taken by one of her customers, a computer technician who later became a friend.
The woman on the couch is about thirty-five years old, with kindly, pretty but not beautiful face, and she wears an athletic sweat suit with 'Cidhlia' written in white lettering across the front. Herj et-black hair is tied in a ponytail and she possesses a slightlymischievous, coquettish manner.
The room is a supposed hair salon, though no haircuts have been given here in quite some time because this is the woman's place of business where customers who might turn into friends come to pay for her favors. She is a prostitute, and behind the green curtain there is asingle bed, or more accurately a cot, and a knee-high stool next to it. The stool is where she sits to perform oral sex on men lying on the cot. The service costs 50 Yuan, about seven dollars, and she says she always uses a condom.
She's from the southeastern province of Zhejiang and came to Beijing about a year ago. Back home she mended clothes, but there wasn't any money in that. She worked as a clerk in a grocery store for a while but still could only barely make enough money to survive, and then a friend suggested washing hair and that segued into turning tricks. She gets one or two customers a day and her busy time is from seven to nine in the evening. As she talks she stretches, luxuriates, puts her feet on a customer's legs, and stretches some more.
"Some are good, some are bad," she says about her clients, very matter of fact. If they come in stinking of liquor she send sends them away, and thirty percent of her earnings go to her pimp who comes by once a day to collect.
She lives in the room with her nine-year-old niece who is in Beijing for her summer vacation the girl who was sent outside.
She wants to know why anybody would want to talk to her and is curious to know if 'they have people like her' in America. She seems mystified and slightly suspicious that anyone would be interested in what she does, in her hopes and aspirations, but then shrugs off her doubts and says, "It's ok to talkabout life."
Part of her motivation behind getting into this line of work is that she needs to make money to help a sick relative back in Zhejiang who has some sort of kidney problem that requires a 30,000-Yuan operation. She says theword 'kidney' but can't write it down because she is illiterate. When askedshe won't reveal her name because "They'll catch her."
The Police, that is, who haven't demanded any bribes lately.
Once someone robbed her with a knife and took her phone. The whole time she holds the phone in her hand as if itwas some kind of talisman and while she's talking the little stuffed teddy bear attached to it by a small chain bounces and jumps. She mentions that she misses her six year old daughter who lives with the woman's husband in their home province, and that he doesn't know what she does for money but that she still loves him.
Does she like some of the customers? "Some."
"What's your big dream?" "
"To sell clothes," said with a shy smile. Shedoesn't like doing this and isn't happy but there is no other choice. She says she's only going to do it for a few more months, and that she wants to go to Hong Kong or Taiwan and sell clothes.
Fora related article click on this URL
http://www.mangozeen.com/gbh-chinese-toys.htm
She works off a muddy street in the far Northeastern outskirts of Beijing in the scrappy, dirty slums off any tourist routes. One-story linoleum-floored tenements lined the road. the one room serves as bedroom, living room, bathroom and kitchen according to the hour of the day.
In front of many are bicycle tire fixing shops or tables where the inhabitants sell liquor and cigarettes. The street is really more of a track, wide enough for one car, where dirty rainwater and human and other waste collects in the troughs between the buildings. Since there are no sidewalks jumping from front step to front step is advisable for your health.
Farthre down the sodden track is a putrid public restroom surrounded by a murky pond of effluvia and urban detritus as well as storefronts with faded red awnings postioned between the cigarette stands and tire shops. The stores are open to ventilate the dank summer heat fuming from the narrow interiors and several women in their 30s lanquish in the humidity within the store's confines conversing on cell phones, while watching Chinese soaps on the TV.
The dull devotion to TV coupled with the occassional galnce out the window seems like a time-tested devotion to boredom practiced by everyone on this road with the women wanting to hear the TV dialogue more than the banter of pasers-by.
A few doors down from the public latrine a 30ish woman eats noodles with a young girl. Seeing me the girl puts down her bowl and skips down the street avoiding the puddles. it's obviously not the first time she's left the room today.
A faint drizzle drips from the coal sky and the woman beckons with her hand. I have no where to go and enter to the twelve feet wide by eighteen foot long room. A green cracked plastic curtain nides the interior. I sit down. the girl's bowl is nearl;y fll. The rain taps on the tin door with a pleasant tinkle, however the humidity rises even higher than usual that pattering mixes with the exaggerated explosions and breaking glass of an action the action film in the next room.
On the wall calendar kittens play with a ball and a poster of an old man with a Fu-Manchu beard hides a long crack. There are plastic food containers, some green, blue andpink plastic tubs, a sink, and a tired old chair next to a tattered redfelt-covered desk that looks like it's about to fall apart.
Hair products are lined up in front of a mirror, three hangers dangle on a string, one cooking pot is on the floor, a little can with a toothbrush in it is under the table, and a head of lettuce sits on the desk. Surprisingly, there is no TV set in this particular room. A fake leather purse hangs from a nail near the mirror and the pale green paint is flaking off the walls and ceiling. Outside the rain starts coming down harder and harder, splashing the muck and making a racket as it hits the roof.
The room's floor is weathered, though a straw broom and grey mop against the wall are evidence the yellowed linoleum has been swept and mopped many times. Now alone, the woman sits on a dingy foldout bed that doubles as asofa beneath a photograph of her in the mountains north of Beijing. There is a smile on her round face and a gleam of happiness in her eyes, and she appears to be on the verge of laughing.
For all intents and purposes just another typical Chinese tourist on a typical day trip, and just likeeveryone else getting her picture taken with the mountains as a scenic backdrop. The photo was taken by one of her customers, a computer technician who later became a friend.
The woman on the couch is about thirty-five years old, with kindly, pretty but not beautiful face, and she wears an athletic sweat suit with 'Cidhlia' written in white lettering across the front. Herj et-black hair is tied in a ponytail and she possesses a slightlymischievous, coquettish manner.
The room is a supposed hair salon, though no haircuts have been given here in quite some time because this is the woman's place of business where customers who might turn into friends come to pay for her favors. She is a prostitute, and behind the green curtain there is asingle bed, or more accurately a cot, and a knee-high stool next to it. The stool is where she sits to perform oral sex on men lying on the cot. The service costs 50 Yuan, about seven dollars, and she says she always uses a condom.
She's from the southeastern province of Zhejiang and came to Beijing about a year ago. Back home she mended clothes, but there wasn't any money in that. She worked as a clerk in a grocery store for a while but still could only barely make enough money to survive, and then a friend suggested washing hair and that segued into turning tricks. She gets one or two customers a day and her busy time is from seven to nine in the evening. As she talks she stretches, luxuriates, puts her feet on a customer's legs, and stretches some more.
"Some are good, some are bad," she says about her clients, very matter of fact. If they come in stinking of liquor she send sends them away, and thirty percent of her earnings go to her pimp who comes by once a day to collect.
She lives in the room with her nine-year-old niece who is in Beijing for her summer vacation the girl who was sent outside.
She wants to know why anybody would want to talk to her and is curious to know if 'they have people like her' in America. She seems mystified and slightly suspicious that anyone would be interested in what she does, in her hopes and aspirations, but then shrugs off her doubts and says, "It's ok to talkabout life."
Part of her motivation behind getting into this line of work is that she needs to make money to help a sick relative back in Zhejiang who has some sort of kidney problem that requires a 30,000-Yuan operation. She says theword 'kidney' but can't write it down because she is illiterate. When askedshe won't reveal her name because "They'll catch her."
The Police, that is, who haven't demanded any bribes lately.
Once someone robbed her with a knife and took her phone. The whole time she holds the phone in her hand as if itwas some kind of talisman and while she's talking the little stuffed teddy bear attached to it by a small chain bounces and jumps. She mentions that she misses her six year old daughter who lives with the woman's husband in their home province, and that he doesn't know what she does for money but that she still loves him.
Does she like some of the customers? "Some."
"What's your big dream?" "
"To sell clothes," said with a shy smile. Shedoesn't like doing this and isn't happy but there is no other choice. She says she's only going to do it for a few more months, and that she wants to go to Hong Kong or Taiwan and sell clothes.
Fora related article click on this URL
http://www.mangozeen.com/gbh-chinese-toys.htm
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