Perspective (Marcus)

Practically all Chinese building complexes have guard stations located at their front and rear entrances. You will find almost identical looking stations at places such as schools, housing communities, factories etc. They always consist of a small square building, a retractable boom gate, and an electric(and what we assumee to be 'ram proof') gate grill.

The above photo is the front entrance to our school. On the left is the guard unit, a small stand with umbrella for guards to stand on in case a formal greeting or somesuch is required, and to the right the retractable fence. Across the road in the background is a housing complex called the Yin Yue Yuan, and it has a guard station there also.

I don't exactly know why so many buildings have these, nor what motivated them, but they are everywhere.

As we returned from dinner; from one of our regular haunts out the back door of the school, the window to the back of the guard station was open and three of the guards were in there talking with each other. We have seen in there before, but tonight if got Courtney and I talking about how they live compared to us; they being the Chinese, and in this particular instance, specifically the guards.

We really like the guards. Since day 1 they have always been super friendly to us and every time we pass in or out of the school they make absolutely sure they call out a hello, give us huge smiles and waves. They are really really nice guys. One day when we were up at the local market, we brought them some sweetened rolls and things back, but it was a bit awkward then as we didn't know them very well. They are slowly advancing into 'Good afternoon!' the like.

It's funny, we have more interaction with these 'lowly' security guards than any of our so-called co-workers(ie the other teachers).

So anyway the light was dimming as it was heading into night and the light was on, making all in their little room clearly visible. These guys live in there. There are approximately 4 bunk beds, two of which I could see had mosquito nets around them. They basically spend their entire lives in this little room - or the front room watching the gate. There is no leisure time, there is clock on, clock off. The time they do have off from working, they are usually just hanging around the guard box anyway, as there's not really anything else for them to do.

Their families likely live in another province entirely. They would send a large percentage of their wages(which would be comparable to peanuts) back to their families to help support them. In the front entrance there are actually two guard stations - the one that is actively used, and another one. In the other one we think the families of some of the older guards live.

As we walked across the deserted basketball courts to our own home, we discussed how we returned to a spacious two bedroom apartment, yet here these guys live in a room roughly the size of our bedroom where there is at least 4 per room, possibly more. I don't know, it just gave us some more perspective on the whole difference in cultures.

If here in China we were suddenly thrown into a room like that to live - and only one room, we would feel terribly hard done by, as culturally we have grown up in complete comfort, yet here they know no different. What would they think of us, knowing the size of the room we live in? Hell our little building is not even joined onto the main teacher dorms - it's a seperate little entity, like a super sized townhouse. What would they think as they constantly see us with our hands absolutely full of shopping bags - another large haul of western comforts coming our way from Metro.

Honestly I think these guys - the guards, would think absolutely nothing of it. Outwardly they don't appear judgmental like any westerner in that particular role likely would. They seem like genuinely lovely, yet simple people, content with their lot in life. Or are they? Here are the barriers of cultural difference that I really don't think we'll ever understand - at least, not anytime soon.

From a job point of view, i would not be surprised if our fellow teachers thought differently. I would have no doubt they are more than aware of the size of our paychecks compared to them - the favour shone on us compared to them - ie the large apartment and particular attention from the principal. In a lot of ways we're made to feel above them - as honored guests and the like. Every now and then we'll be reminded of the class layers that exist here - such as when we're invited to banquets, the wedding etc - however we as ourselves just feel like us.

Ramble ramble. I'd like to get to know the guards better - it's people like them that make me wish I could speak at least intermediate chinese to really have a basic conversation with them. Who knows, maybe one day.