Intriguing future career
Kunming is a nice city, so this is something I’ll need to keep in mind.
In case the link doesn’t work, here’s the article from City Weekend
The Human Petting Zoo print version
By Richard Baimbridge, October 23, 2003
Make a spectacle of yourself A Desperate Writer Travels to Kunming’s Expo Garden, Where Foreigners Are a Hot New Tourist Attraction
The afternoon of my debut performance at Kunming’s Expo Garden, I take the microphone and shout “Da Jia Nihao!” to the massive stadium. From somewhere in the upper-most balcony comes a faint smattering of applause (the rest of the seats are deserted), as a gust of wind whips across the stage. Thankfully, the act I had to follow wasn’t a very tough one. A skinny Australian guy in hiking shorts playing the flute for a single old Chinese man who was either sleeping or meditating – it was hard to tell which.
“Don’t worry,” a Spanish classical guitarist from Algeria reassured me before going on stage. “When we perform, the people mostly just leave. They don’t actually throw things at us.”
Looking out over the vast empty arena while upside-down in a head-stand, I thought, “My life has really hit a low-point.” Like Kim, the Algerian Spanish classical guitarist, I had come to Kunming broke and in a state of desperation. We’d both seen the same poster in Dali: “Foreigners with special talents needed for outdoor performances. Have fun and earn money. Free accommodation.”
As jobs go, at least this is a pretty easy one. You’re essentially paid to stand there and be you. Kunming’s Expo park is a standard stop on those flag-toting travel packages, where herds of Chinese tourists in yellow hats shuffle past, stopping long enough to pose for a picture with a real, live laowai (often the first time they’ve actually seen one), shake hands, then continue on their way. Any “talent” you might have is an after-thought at best.
That’s not to say the people aren’t talented. Kim’s actually quite a good classical guitarist. There’s a rock band called *1/2 便 面 (Instant Noodles), with members from America and the U.K., who play Elvis tunes and can also sing in Chinese. My special talent is yoga. I stand on my head, contort myself, do some acrobatics. It’s not “entertainment” in the traditional sense, but like Kim says “For Chinese to see a real white guy sitting on a yoga mat is entertaining in itself.”
Kim had been living in Thailand for the past six years, playing in hotel lobbies and restaurants until he was thrown out of the country. After the bombings in Bali, he explained, Algeria was put on a blacklist, and many Asian countries expelled anyone holding an Algerian passport. He ended up in Yunnan, met a girl, woke up one morning and she was gone, along with all of his money.
The pay isn’t bad—YY250 a day to practice yoga for four hours, which is something I tend to do by myself for free every day, anyway. And you get a nice room in a four-star hotel with buffet breakfast. During Golden Week, the Expo Garden actually drew big crowds. The park is a vast series of stages and pavilions, partly dedicated to a different region of China, and partly to the nations of the world. It’s a bit like Disney World, though the representations of other cultures are often questionable, if not utterly mysterious. Sweden, for example, is represented by an exhibition of lawnmowers. The USA, oddly but somewhat appropriately, is a large homage to vitamins. North Korea is closed and has no electricity.
For some reason, I have been moved to the Palestinian pavilion, performing yoga under a large portrait of Yasser Arafat. Groups of Chinese people gather, as I balance with one foot behind my head, and I sometimes overhear them comment that yoga is “a kind of kung fu that comes from Palestine.” The perception is so interesting that I can’t bear to correct them.
Aside from being somewhat culturally misinformed, most of the people are quite friendly and eager to learn. I teach little kids, soldiers, beautiful women, and the elderly how to stand on their heads and do back bends, while Kim sits next to me, playing Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” on the Spanish guitar. In fact, people seem to love us. We pose for endless photos, shake hands, chat with tourists. Some people just want to touch the hair on my arms to see what it feels like, and I patiently indulge their curiosity. The rock band is a bit more arrogant. They have a big stage, and insist on being driven to their gigs in a deluxe white golf cart. It’s impossible not to make jokes about Spinal Tap in front of them. “Hey! Did you get them to change the sign yet?” I taunt. “First Instant Noodles, then puppet show.” They put on their sunglasses and speed away in the golf cart, leaving Kim, the Aussie flautist and me behind to walk back to the hotel.
Perhaps we have hit a low-point in our personal lives, but when you see the people waving at you, smiling, laughing, singing along to a tune or trying to stand on their heads, it doesn’t seem so bleak after all.
If you’re interested in being a human tourist attraction, contact Mr. Langer at 13888556446. The Kunming Expo Garden is looking for foreigners “with special talents” on an on-going basis. A daily salary, free accommodations, and transportation costs are provided.