The guardkeeper

   Here in Shanghai I live in a small complex of 3 buildings, and mine is number 2. To go inside there is only one entrance, or at least I only know one, because I’m to lazy to explore beyond block 3, but I don’t think there is another one.

   In this entrance I mentioned there is a small office where is usually the guardkeeper, in fact they are four different guys but i don’t know if they are parking attendants or professional assholes. Only three are like that, because the one that made me write this it’s the one that is working around 7, when I arrive from work. Maybe I had a bad day, maybe I’m tired, sad or whatever, but this guy always makes me smile with a big “¡HOLA QUE TALA!” (like How are you doing in english, but in spanish should be Hola que tal, not tala). That works like a big slap to wake me up.

   Many times he is in his office, protecting himself from the cold, but when he sees that I’m there he opens the window as fast as he can and with half of his body outside shout his spanish sentence. One day he tried to tell me that he lived for 8 years in Spain, but he didn’t learn spanish, and that was long time ago.

   There was one day I used the military salute, and suddenly he came to attention and made the military salute too. Then he tried to explain me, as best as his mimicry could, representing a war, a naval fight, with all the sounds and explosions, machineguns and all the stuff, that he was in the army or the Navy, I think it was the Navy, because he said that every second. But he tried to say that wasn’t a good job for him, it was so dangerous for him, so he resigned. All the things that you can understand, only with mimic, just amazing.

   Sometimes, during the weekdays, maybe he recalls that I’m gonna be there and I see him outside with his office chair with only 3 wheels left (it must be a 6-wheels chair), with a small notebook and his chewed pen, just waiting for a new spanish word. He writes on the notebook and shows me, and if it’s okay he makes me say the word one thousand times until he can follow me and do it by himself. It’s really funny, how he tries to say the word and then with his pleased face and looking like a superhero he say the word to the first guy who crosses the street, with the only answer of a scared face and maybe the guy thinking why God put together the crazy guardkeeper and the laowai. 

  Meanwhile, he tries to teach me some word in chinese but he always abandon me because i’m an impossible case for me, and he only says “spanish, spanish”, denying with his head, but it’s to hard for me, maybe because he has a strong accent or because I’m too bad with chinese, or maybe both. But there he is, now he can say his “Hola que tala”, and “Muy bien”, and it’s good for me that he forgets the other words, or I’ll be home everyday around 22!

In fact, it’s really nice that even if I cannot say more than 2 or 3 words in chinese and he cannot go beyond “Muy bien”, and maybe one word in english, we understand each other and it’s really good to see him with his toothles smile and his notebook waiting for the next 5-minutes class with his spanish friend from the 17th floor. Sometimes if I’m late I can see him bored in his office, but he only needs “Hola” to show his smile and there we go again. And I hope it’s like this every time.