Keeping Clean

Sunny, a new colleague of mine in the English Department, and I were talking about the U.S.  She has friends who live in New York City, and they had reported to her that New York was a much cleaner city than Shenyang.  “Is this true?” she wanted to know. “It is dirty in China?”  Well, to put it bluntly, yes, Shenyang is dirty. 

First, the air quality in Shenyang is very poor.  There are huge factories with towering smokestacks that pour out billowing plumes of smoke during the workday.  There are thousands of cars crowding the roads, and the exhaust from them fills the streets.  Many street vendors burn fires to roast nuts or cook meat, and I can smell the smoke and ash on my clothing when I get inside.  Shenyang is also a smoker’s paradise.  China Tobacco is based here.  This is the company that Harry works for.  Tobacco shops line the streets, and people give each other boxes and cases of cigarettes as gifts.  People smoke everywhere, including the school grounds.  It is also very windy and dry here, and every now and then, a big gust of wind will hit me with a bunch of grit.  I have noticed that many people wear masks over their mouths and noses when they are outside.  Some of these are even quite fashionable; one can pick a mask to match her outfit.  When I walk to and from school, I find that I feel a bit asthmatic when I arrive.  I am very grateful that Vicky’s family does not smoke, and the air inside the apartment is much cleaner.

Next, people spit here. A lot.  Men spit. Women spit. Children spit.  Some are considerate and spit into a sink or trashcan, if one is handy, but most people just spit onto the sidewalk or into the street.  The sidewalk is dotted by little wet globs of mucus and spittle every few yards.  I know that this is one of those cultural differences that I should not be offended by.  But I just am.  I think it is totally gross, and I have to remember not to let anyone see me make a sour face.  I think the spitting has to do with the poor air.  Maybe sniffing and snuffling to clear one’s sinuses of grit and pollution and expelling it on the ground is healthy for the individual doing it, but I’m pretty sure it’s not very healthy for the people standing nearby.  I am especially offended when people spit near a food vender’s cart. Yuck!

Trash is another issue here.  In some ways I think the way Shenyang deals with its refuse is more sustainable than what we do in the U.S., but it makes for a messy sidewalk.  Most of the products that people purchase here are not packaged the way they are in the U.S.  People carry their own bags and containers to the market in which to carry things home, and there is just less to be thrown away.  I like and respect this.  There are some trashcans on the street, but not too many. When there is something to throw away, most people will just drop it on the sidewalk. Sanitation workers carrying cloth bags and natural bristle brooms walk up and down the roads sweeping the litter into their bags. At the end of the day when the vendors have wheeled their carts away and there is a lot of litter, it is swept into little piles and either burned or picked up on a cart, after it has been picked over for any reusable or refundable items.  I’m sure that there are huge landfills here somewhere, but it seems that people produce less trash.  In the classrooms at my school, for example, there are only tiny little trashcans, smaller even than the one I keep in my powder room at home.  There are no plastic liners in the trashcans, either.  When one fills up, a student takes it to the water closet at the end of the hall where there is a larger trash bucket that will be emptied (on to the street?) at the end of the day.

The water closet is also where we wash our dishes after lunch and wash out the mops we use to clean the floors and chalkboards of our classrooms and offices.  The sink is a long trough with several spigots for cold water.  There is no hot water in the building.  The trough has holes drilled into it, and all of the water flows down to a single drain in the floor. 

Keeping one’s own self clean amid all of this can be tricky.  My host family is very careful not to waste any resources.  I respect this, but it means that I don’t shower or do laundry as often as I am used to at home.  I take a shower about every three days, and even then I do not leave the water running the whole time.  My “shower” is actually a handheld showerhead and a drain in the floor of the bathroom.  There is a plastic tub I can fill up if I want, but I haven’t.  I feel awkward, like I am splashing water all over the whole room, and I try to be careful.  When I finish washing, I have to wipe down the walls and the floor of the room so that it doesn’t mildew.  The whole process takes me quite some time.  The towel Vicky has given me to use is also not what I am used to.  At home, I have over-sized, Egyptian cotton towels with my initials monogramed on them.  After a shower, I use two – one is for my hair, and I also have a matching bathmat underfoot.  When I decided to take a shower for the first time here, I saw a stack of threadbare hand towels on a shelf in the bathroom, and I wondered where Vicky kept the regular towels.  I asked to borrow one, and she pointed me to the hand towels already in my bathroom.  They are tiny, but I guess that I’m not meant to wrap myself in them.  I just dry off and try to move on.

Vicky has a washing machine and dryer combo, but we only use it for washing our clothes.  When they have rinsed and spun, we hang them on a line in front of her living room window to dry overnight.  I’m sure that it must save a lot of electricity.  It is kind of satisfying to hang out the laundry, too. The line is on a crank that raises it up and down so that the wet clothes can be hauled up and out of the way.  When elevated, they don’t block the view as much. It’s fun to wind the whole line up and down.

The floor of the apartment is kept very clean.  Vicky’s mother sweeps and mops every day.  We all take our shoes off at the door and change into slippers in the house.  I am very self-conscious of my comparatively huge, sweaty feet, and I’ve gotten in the habit of washing my feet and changing into clean socks as soon as I get home.  The tabletops and other surfaces are not nearly as clean as the floors.  The dining table is covered in plastic. As we eat, we put any bones or gristle right on the tabletop next to our bowls.  After dinner the plastic is wiped down with a wet cloth, but the cloth is used again and again, and I'm not sure it has been changed out or washed since I have been here. Dishes are washed in the kitchen sink with water and (sometimes) soap, and are put back in the cupboard still wet.  Since it is a risk for me to drink the water here, I have to be careful to make sure that any bowl or spoon I use has dried off completely before I put food in it.

I have been keeping one of Vicky’s mugs in my room and using it for coffee in the morning, and for brushing my teeth.  After each use, I wash it using boiled water and soap.  I have bought some paper towels to use, too. 

I think I’m doing an OK job of keeping myself clean and healthy, but I feel like a big, stinky mess, and my hair is definitely not its prettiest right now.  I have to confess that I can’t wait to check into my hotel in Xi’an (in two weeks!) and take a long, hot shower, for real.