P-Timers

“What ya doing just sitting around?”

“Passing time, man, passin time.”

In the workforce there are full-timers, part-timers, and the unemployed, in China there seemed to be another grouping, the passing-timers. Mao once said, “Women hold up half the sky.” Well, it seemed like in many places in China they’re holding up much more.

When we would venture off the tourist path into more rural areas, time and again Sarah and I would see groups of men who looked like their posteriors had become one with their seats, as if it had been ages since a work day had been had. I call these guys the passing-timers. They whittle away the daylight hours in groups of two to ten, playing cards or chess, rolling dice, smoking, shooting the shit, or just staring off into space. On hot days they find shade and go topless. Meanwhile, you peak into their families’ front doors or at their plots of lands and you see the women of the house working hard, running a business out of the front room, taking care of the family, tending crops, basically getting things done.

Apparently, the men sit around while the women make the world go around. I recently finished reading a book about a Peace Corps worker in Togo, Africa. He described the men of his village in nearly the same way. But when harvesting season came, these guys were out before sun-up and back after dark, working the fields. I don’t know if it’s the same in China, one can only hope that they try to hold up their half of the sky.

Forget about retirement, these guys are lifelong, professional p-timers.