An upvote for China

Hi, my name is Richard Juckes, I'm new here. Thanks for Steemit guys!

I've been teaching ESL, in China and Turkey, since 2001, so I guess that makes me a teacher, but right now I'm between jobs ... the teaching, the kids in the classroom, is great, but ... that's an old story, which I'm sure you've heard before. Here's a different one, from last month.

We were travelling through Guangdong, and because of the tail end of a typhoon a whole bunch of trains were delayed late into the evening. The departure hall was crowded, we'd got soaked twice during the day, and everybody was patiently waiting. With simmering stress.

And then a drunk guy came up and started talking to my wife; and then he started trying to give money to my son, forcefully. My wife called for the police. There are always police.

They talked quietly to the guy, standing carefully, not directly in front of him, maybe a pace and half away from him. There were two of them, but in fact only one of them interacted with him at first.

One of them put the money, a single note, into the guy's pocket. He really was very drunk and didn't seem to notice this. Then they led him to his bags and took him over to sit by the security check. The money fell from his pocket, and another waiting passenger gave it back to the police who put it more carefully into a deeper pocket. They searched his bag and found his water bottle, and filled it - there is always somewhere to get boiled water, for tea, or for instant noodles, or for drinking, and so everybody travels with a flask of some kind . They told him to drink, and I suppose he started to slowly sober up.

They also found his ID and took it off to an office, just to check. And then they backed off, leaving him sitting there. After a few minutes perhaps he stood, and they suggested he sit for a while longer.

About an hour later our train came, and he was still quietly sitting there. I like to think that when his train came thirty minutes or so later, one of the policemen walked him to his carriage, handed him over to the staff on the train. Perhaps they told him not to drink so much in future, something moralistic. My wife, cynically Chinese, said that the police just behaved in this way because they didn't want to have to deal with all the paperwork and stuff. I like to think that whatever the internal motivations, it was all just so humane.

So there you are, an upvote for China.

As well as trying to write, I am also spending too much time on Duolingo, but this morning, having last night watched a bit on YouTube on the blockchain, it is a little difficult to focus. I woke up this morning with some kind of understanding of the whole thing. I lay there for a while, revelling in the possibilities, and then 'pff', it was all gone and I'm as confused as ever.

Here's a quote I found on Tumblr:

Myn eyen gan to smert for studying

Thanks for reading.