Chapter Five: Wu Wang the Poo-man 

Tiger Woods came to Watford when I was ten, partly to win the World Golf Championship, but mostly to give me his autograph (I was convinced). We both wore red on matchday-Sunday, both took our fitness seriously, and both had killer short-games. And now we were both in Watford! The stars had aligned and I was off school this Friday to finally meet a fellow member in the exclusive club to which ten-year-old-me believed he belonged: legends who can make even a sport as stuffy as golf seem cool¹. 

A kids corridor was formed on the narrow walkway between the 18th green and the scoring hut. Bustling, barging boys and girls gratefully took autographs from pros, most of whom we only half-recognised. Famous faces, too, though. Phil Mickelson, Ian Poulter, all the top guys finished their rounds and spent a minimum of 10 minutes working their way down with a Sharpie. Some seemed to stay almost an hour and my little red book (red to catch Tiger’s attention amongst the desperate flailing arms) soon brimmed with signatures. 

Excitement bristled, boiled, and then bubbled over as Tiger finally reached the last hole, a par 5. His putt for an eagle 3 dropped and the crowd exploded. What a hero. That last shot ensured he had an enormous lead going into the weekend. All those other guys were good, but they weren’t Tiger!

“Here he comes!”

“Tiger I love you!”

“Tiger! You the man!” 

And… there he went. Not every child present was going to get his autograph, obviously. But not even one? What a bastard! Though my reduced height in the mosh would suggest otherwise, I wasn’t crushed; I was pissed off. Not one! An autograph isn’t even a proper signature, more of a rushed scribble, scratched onto paper in a second but etched into memory forever. 

Tiger was dead to me. He won the tournament, but what’s inspirational about that? It lacked any human touch and I certainly no longer shared his victories. 

Maybe you think I’m being unfair. That, as an unpublished author, a failed sportsman and a ‘those-who-can’t’ teacher, I couldn’t possibly understand fame or the pressures and stresses that accompany it. Well, if you were thinking along those lines, here’s my red pen: Cross those lines out, you’re wrong! To prove it, let me take you to a 1500-seat theatre on the other side of the world…

Qinhuangdao, China, 2018

“Mister Jack! Mister Cesare! Miss Emma! Mister Ali! Mister Jaime!”

After an hour sweating and singing on stage there was a ten minute ‘reprieve’. There was one western toilet in the entire summer-school complex and, after jumping around for every song, I desperately needed to find it. Except, before I could, we were hounded by kids en route – they’d figured out our exit point from the stage. 

They wanted selfies with puppy filters and autographs on notepads, arms, hands, toys, even a sling for one boy who’d taken a fall. They say the best time to add insult to injury is when you’re signing someone’s cast, but I refrained and just wrote ‘Mr Jack :)’. 

Given the one minute warning pre-return to action, I finally broke free of the masses, the pain in my stomach reminding me I couldn’t last another hour on stage. Promising to crestfallen children who’d missed out that I’d sign later, I dashed to the loo for the world’s most rushed poo. Then it was straight back to lead the crowd choreography for George Ezra’s Shotgun summer tune. Then dance to Agadoo. Then Justin Bieber’s Baby. Then the Macarena. I loved every second of it and the crowd could tell. Scribbling on another hand or autograph pad at the end, I was told I was no longer Mr Jack, I was ‘Wu Wang’, which I’m told means ‘Dancing King’.

This was singing day, and the height of the summer-camp’s 1000⁺ attendants’ euphoria at having western teachers visit. From the moment we arrived and kids swarmed the bus, to the day we left and they stood sobbing and waving (burly teenage boys even), we visitors had a taste of what it is to be a celebrity. Lunch was more an exercise in signing autographs and answering questions in broken English than a break or time to eat. A day trip to the dragon head of the Great Wall was an extra opportunity to grab a selfie with one of us. That selfie would fast become a WeChat profile picture and soon every other kid would want an equivalent snap for their account. 

Days were hot, smoggy, knackering and yet exhilaratingly rewarding. I was ill for most of the trip. Where symptoms had started to appear teaching in Gateshead and Middlesbrough, they multiplied and flourished in their new foreign environment. Imodium had saved me on many an occasion before. Now it didn’t even slow things down. 

The Chinese I spoke to claimed that squatting over a hole-like ground-level toilet is more hygienic than our western, bums-on-seats, method. They’ve clearly, clearly never had explosive diarrhoea. The toilets in the classroom block were shared with the students and only had a swinging cowboy-bar style of door that provided little to no privacy. I couldn’t use those. Instead I’d clench and waddle the three flights of stairs down, 6 minute walk across and one flight of stairs up to the staff-room toilets. Still just a hole in the ground and you’d better remember to bring your own bog roll. 

Having the shits for a day or two is exhausting, but I’d seemed to be rough since before we’d even arrived and things were only getting worse. I was exhausted. I was tired and irritable. Grumpy and not up for anything in the evenings. This wasn’t me. I’d need to finally get round to seeing a doctor when I was home to get some kind of diagnosis.

A group of the staff had been to karaoke in the first week and, now a second session had been booked, I was dragged along as my new mate Jaime needed a duet partner this time for some Whitney Houston bangers and smash hits. In luring me out of the loo, I’d been told they had a western toilet at the karaoke club. What a treat! Ten minutes after arriving I already needed the facilities. Ten minutes after arriving, however, instead of being treated to a homely sit on the khazi, I was clenching and sprinting back to the hotel. There was no bloody toilet paper. Do people in China have self-cleaning sphincters?! 

I was at rock-plop-bottom. Back between my hotel bed and bog. Made it back just in time to the toilet and paper. Wiped up and now utterly wiped out. The next morning I was so bad I couldn’t leave the bathroom and my classes were covered. Tactically, I stopped eating at certain times of the day and made it through the rest of the trip. 

Despite telling my GP that the problems had been around before China to a lesser extent, he was convinced I’d just picked up a persistent bug in Asia and prescribed me some antibiotics. A week of them and, he assured me, I should be sorted.

…..

Having a brief glimpse of celebrity life for a month, fun as it was, I grant Tiger that it can be energy-sapping. Perhaps I could have forgiven Eldrick Tont Woods (his real name) that day if he was rushing to the loo. I can imagine an awkward but amusing press conference where he apologises for coming across as heartless to so many loving young fans but explains how when ‘You gotta go, you gotta go.’ Maybe I could have let him off the hook if he’d had a real shocker of a day, although I’m not sure. But he’d played brilliantly and, as far as anyone knows, had nothing similar to my plumbing issues. Nope, the much likelier version of events is that he was charging through the chanting, adoring crowds of children as though they weren’t there because he had a hooker waiting in the car park for him. 

My isolated fame was short-lived, but despite my GP’s dismissive confidence, my condition wasn’t. It was, in fact, incurable! Back in the summer of 2018 I still didn’t have a diagnosis and, fourth course of unsuccessful antibiotics in hand, took my toileting-tour of the globe a bit closer to home. Come back next time for some pain-au-chocolats, Portuguese poisons, and (as always) more painfully embarrassing poos… 

Footnotes 

¹ See the Inbetweeners’ definition of golf https://youtu.be/rAeO5fo1DPQ.

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Next: Chapter 6: ‘Ah, Merde!’

Previous: Chapter 4: Mr Toilet

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