This series is called ‘Secret Listening’, from the Chinese word 偷听Tōutīng. I know this can be — and should probably be — translated as ‘eavesdropping’, but secret listening captures it better and adds a bit of jest. These little stories or remarks stood out to me, and show a more personal side of China away from the news. I have sometimes changed names or used the anonymous moniker ‘friend’.
Read all parts in this series here.
60-year-old ayi: “My grandson is already 20 years old now. My son, when he was in high school, he made a classmate pregnant. They both weren’t even of age yet, so they couldn’t marry; the baby was already born before they turned 18. They were both so clueless that I had to take care of the baby, yet neither of them went to university. They’re still together, but he just does whatever his wife says. It’s better to have a daughter.”
My phone rings, a delivery guy is calling me:
Him: “F%@ your mom, really, F*@$ your mom, what the f@&!!!!!!”
Me: “Eh?”
Him: “Oh my god, sorry I don’t mean that to you. It’s this security guard, he didn’t let me in, now your lunch is ruined. I fell. I’ll give you the money back on WeChat.”
Colleague: “I’m getting a scooter. There’s just no benefit to buying a bicycle, it’s even more expensive than a scooter.”
Seller on Xianyu: Hey sorry, you bought that stroller for 50 RMB. Can I buy it back? I need it. I can pay the original price again.
13 year old: “I’m sending a photo of my new shoes to my friend.” Me: “But you can publish on WeChat Friend Circles?” Her: “Nooo, if my team mates see that. Everyone who has new shoes, they’ll be stepped on. So you have to hide new shoes.”
Friend: “I’m so mad (气死我了). On Taobao, I wrote to the store; “Excuse me, do you have sizes for people who weigh 190 pounds?. They answered ‘Sorry, we only have women’s sizes.” I replied, ‘But I’m a woman!’.”
Me: Hey, you changed your WeChat avatar?
Friend: Yeah, my girlfriend forced me, she wants a matching pair of some cartoon.
Eva: Eat some rice noodles.
Me: I really don’t like that.
Eva: I thought you did?
Me: I know on our second date we had rice noodle and I said I like it, but I just said that. Maybe if I said I hated it, we wouldn’t be together now.
Colleague eating some pumpkin and corn, clearly not happy with his meal. He takes a photo and sends it via WeChat to his girlfriend: “She wants me to lose weight, and demands I eat healthy. But sometimes I still eat at Burger King next door. I don’t send her that.”
Lady from Anhui: “My mother liked basketball, so much in fact that it cost her her grades and she couldn’t go to university. I don’t like it, I don’t like sports in general, it makes me so tired. My son is tall, he’s good at basketball but his eyesight is bad. He can play well at their home field, but as soon as they move to another place, he cannot score.”
“Our teachers in primary school never took money or gifts from parents, but in high school (初中) they do! Especially expensive gifts like make-up, and they’re so nice to those students. My grades are alright, I try not to give them no reason to lash out.”
Eva: “When I was small, there was no air conditioner, just fans, those super big iron ones. We would shower with cold water, and go to the top of our apartment building to cool down (乘凉). We’d put watermelon deep inside the well to keep it cold. Ice cream was just 0.5 RMB. But later, we had our own fridge, my sister and me we’d make our own ice cream. Not in those premade ice cream molds, we just used cups and chopsticks and froze them in some lemonade.”
A kid in a restaurant comes and sits at my table:
Him: “My mom says not to talk to strangers.”
Me: “I also don’t know you.”
Him: “Yeah, but you seem friendly.”
Friend: “When we lived in Shanghai, we had an ayi who had two sons. They’d sleep on the ground, they’d all be so healthy! Those two sons would sell fruit all summer long, they were never sick. Then, when the summer ended, they went back to high school.”
