This part of my China travels was not so much a hurdle to be overcome, as all the other things I have talked about so far, as it was more of a theme that persisted throughout the entire month in Xiamen. A really large, creepy, flying-slash-crawly theme.
As most of my loyal readers know, I'm not big on bugs. Roaches give me the heebie-jeebies, fire ants, no matter where their mound is located, always seem to find -my- legs, and yellow flies are really God's way to punish mankind, and me in particular (just read this, this, and this if you want proof). So you can imagine my absolute joy when, upon stepping into my bathroom in Xiamen for the first time, I saw two long feelers slowly coming up out of the sink. Two skinny, brownish red feelers that were attached to what appeared to be the largest cockroach I have ever seen. Granted, it was two in the morning, and my powers of observation might have been a little diminished, but people, that cockroach had to be at least five inches long. Unperturbed by my presence, the bug calmly crawled out of the sink, and started to work its way up the wall towards the mirror. In the ten seconds it took the bug to get out of the sink, I not only realized it was -truly- enormous, but that a) with everything I had brought, Raid wasn't one of the things on my list, and b) that my go-to roach killer (a.k.a husband-dear) was about 6000 miles away, blissfully unaware of this creepy crawler threatening his wife. So I did what any sane person would do to get rid of a cockroach, I screamed. Apparently, cockroaches do have ears, for as soon as my piercing yell finished reverberating around the bathroom, the roach scurried down into the hole between the two faucets on the sink. Relieved, I immediately sprung into action, and while intoning "eeuw, eeuw, eeuw, eeuw", took out all of my jars and bottles, and strategically placed them over every single hole in the bathroom. After all, if I couldn't kill the damn thing, I could at least stop it from invading my space.
If only that had been the end of the bug problems, but the nighttime visit by the largest roach on campus was only a sign of things to come.
First, there was the American graduate student one floor down from me, who, when my students moved into the rooms next to hers, regaled them and myself with tales about the bedbugs she may or may not have had. Another student soon joined her, and almost casually mentioned that bed bugs were really very common in China and nothing to worry about. I think her attempt was to assuage our, now obvious, fears, but I am pretty sure she achieved the exact opposite. My students weren't sure if they had just gone from the frying pan, i.e., plywood beds, into the fire, i.e., beds with bed bugs, or if they should just chalk this up to this particular student's active imagination, but to say they were less than thrilled was an understatement. Fortunately, this student also had a solution: Chinese bug spray. I'm not sure if Chinese bug spray contains particularly vile chemicals, has magical powers, or if the creatures bugging this student weren't bed bugs at all, but it got rid of whatever was ailing this student. So my students immediately went out to the local convenience store to stock up on this bug killer, and refused to take their luggage into their rooms until they had bombed every corner of their rooms, while wearing trash bags (yeah, I'm not sure about that part either).
Now you all might be cool cucumbers, laid back and unconcerned about minor details such as bugs, but that is not me. Not if I have to live somewhere for a month, and then want to go back to a bug-free home. I know I just jested at my students for being less than thrilled, but, as husband-dear will gladly tell you, my response was slightly hysterical as well. Slightly, I promise. Really. I mean, all I did was immediately stalk up to my room and strip my entire bed looking for signs for the little buggers, and even though I couldn't find any, I still went out to purchase said bug spray, and liberally sprayed it all over my room, mattress, sheets, and everything else I could get my hands on, oh, and then asked husband-dear to order one of these for when I got home. And then checked myself for bug bites every morning for a month. That's not over the top at all, is it?
Right.
Anyway, once again, I would love to tell you that was it as far as bug tales were concerned, but it's not. Our second issue centered on China's stealth mosquitoes. Call me spoiled, but I'm used to mosquitoes that make noise. You know, that annoying buzz that will keep you up half the night, convinced the little bugger is about to fly into your ear. Chinese mosquitoes have apparently evolved into a more superior nuisance, as they're small, and quiet. If you look very closely, you can see them hovering near the ceiling right before bedtime, but most of the time, you have no idea that there are mosquitoes in your room until you see them using your arm or leg as a meal. Or when you check into a hotel, and see the tiny blood spots and mosquito remnants on the walls. Now add to this the fact that most of us didn't have weatherstripping on our doors (as I mentioned last week), that my window had a nice gaping crack on the side that didn't have a screen, and you can imagine that our lives were just filled with mosquito-induced joy. Now you may wonder why we didn't bring any bug repellent and use it if these suckers were so bad. Well, we did. Some of us brought the heavy-duty Off! Deep Woods with 25% deet, while others went for the more gentle approach with Avon's Skin So Soft, while one student had even brought a mosquito repellent coil (no, I am not kidding). None of them, and I do mean none of them, worked. None. We were very lucky that Xiamen is not known for having malaria-spreading mosquitoes, or we would all be up a creek without a paddle. Instead, the only that did work, as we found out after about ten days, was an obscure Chinese remedy that came in a green glass bottle. Lime green, it smelled surprisingly good, moisturized your skin, and kept bugs at bay, so in all, it was quite the little miracle drug.
Overall, however, our biggest bug-related problem could not be solved by any sort of repellent. The largest problem we faced every day and night was the Chinese cicada. I'm actually not sure if these particular creates are cicadas, or locusts (which is what the locals called them), but I do know that they were a true pest. Chinese cicadas are, first of all, incredibly large. Put your two thumbs together, and you're close.
Second, they fly. And that's OK, because cicadas here in Georgia fly too. What's less OK is that there are thousands and thousands of cicadas who all love the warmth and light of a building filled with humans at night, and who thus try their very best to get into every building on campus. They will fly at windows, doors, and into humans if that's what it takes. So imagine walking back to your building after eating dinner, or going into town, and having over-sized bugs fly into your arms, your head, your body incessantly. Or walking up your stairwell only to be attacked by a cicada that is trying to fly into your corridor but can't seem to find the door. Or, the best part, stepping over what you think its a dead cicada, only to have it come to life, and attempt to fly up your skirt. It's just plain creepy.
And third, while we were in China, it was cicada-mating season. Great. Good for them. Find a mate and love on them is what I say. The problem is that during mating season, locusts or cicadas or whatever they are do two things. Number one: they die right after doing the deed. Yep. They find their soul mate, make sweet locust-love to them, excrete eggs, bury them, and die. It's like Titanic for bugs. So this means that those black, hard-shelled insects that were madly flying around your hallway and trying to get into your room via the missing weather stripping (told you it was relevant), will be dead little carcasses in the morning. One morning I counted as many as 52 dead locusts on our floor and in our stairwell. Just what one wants to see before having breakfast, I assure you. Number two: they "excrete mating fluids" (don't ask) to attract their mate. Again, awesome. Do whatever it takes. But they do this during the day, while trilling and clicking away in the hundreds of trees around campus. So as an unknown foreigner, it's very possible to spend the first few days, or maybe even the first week (or in the case of one professor, all four weeks until the very last day) wondering what those drops of water are that keep raining down on you from the canopy of leaves overhead, and to possibly delight in their coolness. Until a local fills you in, and you realize why everyone carries around umbrellas even when it's not raining, and in you're in the shade.
And the best part? Chinese people eat the little buggers. So whenever several would make their way into the lobby of our building (where we liked to converge at night after dinner), the owner of the little convenience store there would ask us to catch them so she could stir fry them, while the night guard spend many evenings scaring the women in my group by catching a cicada, pulling its wings off, before handing it over to "a yi" as the woman running the store was affectionately known.
I'm sure I was supposed to learn something from this experience, maybe something about how bugs in Georgia really aren't that bad, or perhaps how you do get used to even the worst living conditions (because you do), but all I really care about is how I'm no longer surrounded by wound-up horny cicadas whose sole purpose in life is to scare the living daylights out of me.
Now it might seem to hard to believe after all these tales, but we did actually have a good time in China too. I will talk about that next. Promise.
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