Day 222 - Back from China! - On Challenge and Clubbing

Wednesday the 20^th of February 2013-02-20

I’m back in New Zealand! Have spent the past two months teaching and travelling around China. To be honest, as of today the I Am Challenge has never been so difficult.

Right now, I’m decrying the fact that I have to wear the t-shirts for another 5 whole months. Holy moly it’s such a long time. I come back feeling so different, wanting to change, wanting to express myself differently and wearing these bright shirts that glare nothing but my name is feeling incredibly….well, challenging.

Wearing the shirts around China was an Experience. Sure, there were the hard moments when it was too hot or too cold for them to be comfortable when hiking, or travelling around places such as Harbin and Dali (these shirts are definitely not catered for sportswear), but apart from that, it was a pleasant way to introduce myself to people while hostelling, and it created a great tale to join the multitudes.Washing them at hostels was a comfort. It was great knowing that no one would mistaken my washing, given that it's got my name on it!

However, I would say that throughout the trip, there were definitely times where wearing the T-shirt was hard going. Especially during some moments ‘a la Shanghai’ where I was trying to present myself out to be more ‘fashionable’ than I generally look in a T-shirt. One of the most difficult times would’ve been when I went clubbing.

 Shanghainese clubs are flash.

Walk in and glance at the beautifully ornamented counter. A waiter stands there stoically - hair flicked back with white cotton gloves. As we approach the entrance, we are gifted with a free ‘Dickies’ bag, and are banded with a bright yellow tag that will guarantee us unlimited drinks for the night. As we’re lead through the black curtains, past the grand piano to the cloak room, the lights dim, and a loud bass begins to boom.

Flashes. Darkness, and overwhelming music. Turn the corner to the dance floor, and between the rattles of dice and smoke, I'm suddenly engulfed with shifting bodies and piping songs on flat screen.

I pace along the wooden floor, and weave my way between judiciously placed bar tables. Each one has a delicately arranged fruit carving – watermelon, to be exact: crimson and juicy they’re sliced into tiny pieces, each pierced with a toothpick to be delicately eaten, one by one…

Deep leather couches sit on the embankment. Raised one step above the dance floor, they encircle the room. Shadowed by small leather lamps, the seats turn to reveal suave Asian men lounging deep within its folds. Many are smoking, and although you can’t see the curls of cigarette smoke, wafts of tobacco and nicotine permeate throughout the cavernous room.

As of yet, I’ve omitted the main characteristic of a club. Perhaps you’re wondered? The ‘mei nu’.

Oh! The ‘pretty lasses’. Yes. This was China, so it meant seeing delicate little pretties tottering around on high heels.

O.K. I mock. Friends - I do apologise. Despite being the ‘Kiwi girl/Hua ren (foreign born Asian)’, I couldn’t help but feel very out of place. I’ll admit it: At that point, I was a tad envious. I hadn’t brought to China any ‘fancy’ clothing. I’d rocked on in, in traveller’s mode with jeans, trainers and a fading I Am Challenge T-shirt. Garbed elegantly in high heels, those girls looked very….feminine.

Beautifully applied make-up, with gargantuan eyes (the height of Asian fashion). Hair dyed and styled in various shades of amber, with the occasional curl.  They glanced surreptitiously at guys attempting a mix of ‘delicate female’, or ‘girl with the mysterious charm’. Standing alluringly  in pixie like dresses at high bar tables, they picked at the watermelon with polka dot painted fingernails and batted their fake eyelashes….

Apologies. I kid again. They looked damn hot. 

An interesting thing about Chinese fashion is that girls exude an almost ornamental beauty.  I find it strange as I can never imagine myself to wear somethings that many girls wore that night - the fake eyelashes, the large contact lenses and nail polish. I had a resolution to try nail polish at one point in Shanghai (story for another time), but otherwise it all seemed so strange.

Perhaps what they say about you ‘getting stronger’ from things that don’t ‘kill you’ has an element of truth within it. That night, I remember sitting at the bar, feeling a tad awkward and chatting to a drunk Korean dude who’d just broken up with his girlfriend. 

It was a quarter of an hour into the evening when I’d suddenly clicked, and suddently began to see the whole hilarity in the entire situation: I didn't look like the other girls, I didn't act like the other girls... and I didn't actually want to be like them. I was in Shanghai, on an internship, out to explore the city, travel and have fun. I wasn’t intending to spend the evening going out with anybody, there was no way in the world that I’d ever dress like the Chinese girls, even if I had a choice. 

Chedder-like enough, something the challenge has stuck. There have been so many times in Auckland where I've struggled with having to go out wearing another 'I Am Carmen' shirt that it's almost become a source of pride for me. I don't see why China should be any different, and the fact that 'I Am Carmen' is what I’m going to show the world.'

Spent the rest of the night dancing on one of the bar tables. At some point, I also jammed with the DJ and flashed the Chinese girls incredibly bright grins. I feel incredibly lucky to have grown up in New Zealand, to have so much choice, and the freedoms that others may not have. I didn't realise it, but I'm finding that the challenge has been giving me something that I've grown from. Seems like clubbing and the Challenge have provided an interesting learning curve. 

So, that’s enough for me now.

It's Day 222 of the I Am Challenge.

Carmen and Kirk 

(Fellow EPs on Red Wings Internship)

Carmen, over and out.