How to Spot a Crispy Provincial Laowai

They can be spotted blocks away, lumbering along the streets of the great city, bent forward to counter the weight of overstuffed, louse-infested backpacks. They are members of a lost tribe of sorts, a loose confederation of once-outgoing characters diminished by a misplaced sense of adventure and the hope of a financial comeback.

They move to China’s hinterland for a variety of reasons; a teaching gig at a provincial institute provides a way to pay down a student loan or credit card debt; a short-term engineering project drilling holes in the earth will take a chunk out of a hefty home mortgage; or love blinds, driving them – like sheep to slaughter – to the wretched hometown of some soft-skinned seductress.

Yet, all reasons for travelling to the sad corner of the forsaken province now seem woefully insufficient. For month upon lonely month, they endure the strange mixture of hospitality and hostility (for which a nation is known), simultaneously bullied and adored by their handlers – captives chained to a rash decision.

The surest sign that someone is suffering from Re-entry Syndrome is an unmistakable look of relief (tinged with astonishment) that contorts their otherwise unremarkable faces. It is the look of a castaway as a ship on the horizon alters course and aims its prow for the unmapped atoll. The eyes are teary, sickly – the starved, darting eyes of prey. Some white gunk plays in the chapped corners of their madman lips.  

And now they stand in the shimmering showcase city, foreign hillbillies reeking of budget travel.

An acute inability to stop talking is another telltale sign. The first compatriot they encounter is doomed, in for an earful, a full recounting of a string of minor offences committed by an malevolent manager or manipulative maiden, suffered silently and alone, allowed to fester in the solitude of a sparsely furnished flat for weeks on end, now released with insane force on an unsuspecting big city acquaintance.

The voice is ecstatic, manic, strewn with superlatives. They gorge themselves on western food and drink, talking with mouths full, bits of half-chewed fries and beery spittle flying hither and thither like poison-tipped darts. It is the “best burger!”, the “most awesome pizza!” – the mediocre BLT is now “better than my mom’s!”.

And the talk gets markedly worse as the drinking progresses. On the long, anxious train ride from their provincial outpost, several warm cans of beer and a pint of baijiu are drained - as the train rounds a final bend and barrels toward to the shimmering city.

These scruffy foreign visitors usually appear during a weeklong Chinese holiday.  Lost in the senseless maze of the slapdash city, a tourist map unfurled to find a bar known for cheap beer and western music, they wander about, attaching themselves to more experienced cohorts along the way. More often than not, they’re Canadian or from the American heartland, which makes them all the more vulnerable to the glitter and glamour of the metropolis.

There comes a time, in the small hours of the morning, when, completely off their head, they vow to move to the great city for good, leaving behind the provincial hell and its attendant miseries no matter the contractual consequences.

But by the end of the holiday they are back on the train, broke, hungover and beaten. It is better to be a big fish in a small pond, they reason, then to be a nothing amid the intimidating skyscrapers. From the webbed sleeve of the decaying backpack, they pull out a half-eaten Subway sandwich and, releasing a weary sigh, resign themselves to their particular expat fate. Memories will suffice, until they come again.