Day 7: A new name (and beginning?)
I felt popular. Walking back from meditation I was once again called by cell phone. Fabian’s nearly inaudible voice this time. He told me that he found a solution for the internet and was coming to see me. Ok, fine. Nothing better than a call in the middle of the road to look like a future businessman in shorts.
Back home, I didn’t know what to do. Cleaning seemed to be the only option, but what? There is no real feeling of achievement from cleaning if nobody else can enjoy the results. So I decided it was about time the neighbors knew that this apartment is once more occupied. And not only that, I wanted to make a good impression, so what about cleaning up that front door?
I was starting to get a bit discouraged when I took a good look at the big red ‘gate’ (as called by the locals). Five years of dust made it seem more grey than red. Nevertheless this future businessman commenced the tiring task and after three buckets of water, I was satisfied. As the final touch, I replaced a sticker of a lotus flower from some kind of Hindu religion with my own paper lotus flower. There are now practitioners living in this apartment.
Now, I wanted of course to go back in and do something else. There was just that little problem that the door closed itself while I was cleaning it…and the keys are still inside. Great, this is exactly the kind of things you hear about in pubs or read in blogs, never actually experience. I shut myself out while cleaning the door, with everything – keys, cell phone - left inside and I didn’t even know if there was a janitor of some sort. I was only reduced to a self-made homeless person for ten seconds, as my mind was racing for solutions. And I remembered Fabian. Well, I guess that’s one of the advantages of being popular. Else what are the chances of getting visit 5 minutes after shutting oneself out? Fabian, of course, had his son’s spare key. So besides a near-panic moment, no harm was done.
Try telling that to a Japanese girl that doesn’t know any English. Modulating a door wasn’t that difficult. But I don’t know what made her laugh: the story itself or the exaggerated movements on the imaginative doorknob? At least it’s one more point for Belgian-Japanese relationships.
There is also great news everybody! My name is no longer Thomas. In class I would from now on be identified as Fan DeBang. (范 德邦). That is what was written on the small paper that the teacher gave me. DeBang means ‘Virtuous country’, and it is not referring to my native country. The teacher didn’t give us these names by hazard, she simply took our English names and find some positive Chinese counterpart. She clearly took ‘Van den Bossche’ as the base, why not my first name? Well, we got enough Tomasi’s (Tomaaseu) running around here, a Van den Bossche however, is not that easily found outside Belgium. What a pity that the Taiwanese people had more difficulty remembering my Chinese name…
In a certain way I felt reborn. Got a new house, new school, new name, other people around me and completely different things to do than back in my old home. With Danny back from his trip and loads of Chinese homework to do, I sure had no time or memories anymore to count the days. Instead I’ll just try to recount the things that cross my mind while writing the next post.
