Election Parties

I may have been the only American in the small country hamlet of Fengyang, China (pop. 80,000, at least according to the only credible person who would give me an estimate), but I had the good fortune to be joined at the university by two other foreign English teachers from Australia, Grant and Sue Rogers.  Grant and Sue had already taught at the university (Anhui Science and Technology University) in 2005 and 2009, so they had seen the town before it had a major intersection, a traffic light, and cars.  Not that there weren't any cars then, but it was mostly the electric scooters that are still widely used throughout China.  And whenever anything is widely used throughout China, that means you would encounter hundreds of them whenever you walked out your front door.  Grant and Sue are world travelers, having been to the Andes Mountains, all across China and Tibet, and throughout Europe, even hiking the Carmino de Santiago de Compostela.  They exuded friendliness and carried a spirit of adventure that I admired and appreciated whenever we talked or went to a university event, like the English speech competitions or dinners hosted by the English department.

Besides learning from their experience as foreign teachers, and admiring their friendly relationships with nearly all the Chinese we encountered ("Hey, there's my friend!  Hello, mate!  Ni hao, ni hao!"), I took away some enlightening and entertaining stories from the land down under.  Poisonous snakes, mud crabs, vicious koalas, hazardous fishing trips, and more, yes, but Australians have pluck, so they take all that in stride and enjoy the good times driving up the beach and exploring the land and cities of their beautiful country.  About one poisonous snake encounter, Grant told me that he and Sue were in their living room one evening when he spotted something and told his wife there was a snake under her chair.  "It was an Eastern Brown," he told me, "They're not too dangerous, but I didn't want to muck around with him that night, so I went and clubbed him on the head and got rid of him."  Could you imagine that story taking place in any other country?  And the people just dealing with it coolly and the next moment back to acting cheery?  50 years ago in southern China they would have counted their blessings and ate the snake, but then they wouldn't necessarily go back to being cheery.  In America, I'm sure there are wives who would have moved out and sold the property after hysterically running out the nearest exit.

Sue and Grant

Anyway, the story I want to share today is a topical one, being that the Presidential Election finally takes place tomorrow.  Grant shared with me that, in Australia, they have Election Parties.  I gathered that, after voting, friends would get together and watch the results and generally discuss politics.  Gathering with politically-mixed company to watch election results: sounds like a great idea, right?   Americans can't even remain friends on Facebook because of political posts, but apparently the Australians can take the arguing in good humor.

Case in point: Grant was hosting an Election Party and wound up arguing with his friend Biuw (Australian for "Bill."  Just having a little fun with the Australian accent.) and it got so bad that he said, "Get out of here!" and threw him out of his house.  The next day, Bill came over to Grant's house, stood in front of the open door, and tossed his hat into the living room.  "Now," Bill asked, "am I as welcome in your house as my hat is?"  Grant waved him in with a big gesture, "Aw, Biuw, get on in 'ere."

It's a shame you couldn't hear Grant tell it.  I'll try and do his stories the best I can from here on out.

-Mantis