::all the cities i've seen::

L'Abri One

2009-09-24T21:02:00.000+08:00

Well.

I’ve been in Greatham, England for about a week and a half, but it feels like I’ve been here for months. Not in a way that’s good or bad—I just feel like I’m in the rhythm of it, I’m learning the place that I’m in and I’m learning it quickly. When I wake up, I expect to wake to a light breeze coming in the window, a dampness, a morning whose grayness brings out the thousand shades of green that we’re surrounded by at the Manor House.

There’s too much to say to tell it all. We work: laundry, gardening, cooking, cleaning, etc. We study, which for me means reading Marilynne Robinson’s Home. We discuss and debate, and the discussions and debates have depth, and weight.

Yesterday, we had a work day. The apples were ripe, and the workers were worried that if we waited any longer, we’d lose some. So we spent the whole day picking apples, peeling them, chopping them, rinsing them in salt water, and packing them into bags to be frozen. But then, some of the apples went to Louise and she made a streudel for the coffee break; and then Edith used the red parts of the peels to make jelly.

The food here is amazing. Every single meal thus far. All of it’s cooked by the workers and helpers, who are from Hungary, South Africa/Holland, England, and Sweden, with us helping them in the kitchen.

One of the workers from Sweden said that she doesn’t understand why anyone ever buys bread, as opposed to making it. Just thinking about the implications of that statement delights me to no end.

Most of the meals are served and eaten in the homes of the workers. And the whole place speaks of hospitality, of welcome.

It hasn’t been without its difficulties, which I think will become much more pronounced as the term goes on. You live in a house with 30 people or so. You eat every meal with them, you live with them, you debate with them, you work with them. You see them all day, they’re in the room with you as you go to sleep, and they’re there when you wake up. There’s a lot of room for discord.

But at the same time, there’s a grace in it all. It’s hard to explain.

It’s going well, I suppose, is the best way to say it all. It’s going really well.

Country Roads

2009-09-11T13:06:00.004+08:00

To say that things have changed over the past weeks would be a vast understatement. Right now I'm sitting in my parents' home in Knoxville, reflecting on the few short weeks I've been in the US. Tomorrow, I leave for England.

There's a lot to say, but I think I'll leave most of it unsaid. I've enjoyed so many cups of coffee or tea, so many important conversations. I've shared so much life with people, really, since I've been home. I don't think I could have asked for more. Thank you all for your kindnesses. Ultimately, for your love.

For a long time, my heart hadn't been in a very good place. Many were praying for healing. Be glad to know that their prayers, like mine, have not gone unheard.

And being here--something about this place still commands my attention. A country road. Horses standing against a fence. A line of trees on a hill, perfectly straight, across a meadow. Forests that swallow your car whole, sending down only speckled sunlight. A broad lake. The mist that rises from it, the life that moves inside it. And all those same things by the different light and scent of night.

There is something significant about knowing a small, winding road. How your hands move the steering wheel in anticipation of a curve. How your body articulates a reaction before your mind knows to need it. And how it can be this way with not only roads but people, not only routes but communities. And somehow, in a way that's difficult to describe, they become home, and seeing them feels like pulling into your parents' driveway.

I'm ready to see the life of the English countryside. I'll be glad to learn to live within it. And hopefully I'll have time to share here a little about the new roads I'm learning. Far away, yet again, from the ones I know.

The Strange Purposes of Winds

2009-06-17T17:39:00.005+08:00

Today I saw an elderly man with a cane, standing among piles of rocks near a construction site. He was looking around in melancholy, almost as if measuring what had been lost.

As I watched, the wind picked up pure green leaves along with the dust, and they all hung suspended in the air around him.

It was like a hole had been opened in him, one that the sky swept down to fill.

Good Morning

2009-06-03T13:43:00.005+08:00

"Sometimes I wish that I could sing or dance or paint or compose symphonies or build cathedrals to express somehow what all of this means to me. I wish I were a priest or a robin or a child or a sunset."

-Robert Benson

Yesterday I went home a little bit early. Threw the windows open to a strong wind, in spite of the layer of dust that it would inevitably leave in my house. Laid on the couch, made a cup of coffee. And waited for a storm that ended up passing us by, listening to my doors slam open and shut in turn and the wind howling around corners and through cracks. I watched the Princess Bride, which I hadn't seen in years. I couldn't help giggling throughout the whole movie like a delighted child, just like Justin talked with me recently about doing. I made some chicken noodle soup for dinner. Read late into the night.

This morning I woke up early. Or, earlier than I had to.

I got up, made a cup of coffee. Put lots of cream and sugar in, which is a little unusual for me. And I had some local snacks like graham crackers to accompany it--half covered with roasted sesame seeds, the other half with pieces of peanuts. I sat looking out my window at the still-white sky, before the afternoon's blue. Just quiet, still, but feeling something leaping inside me that just might be life. I prayed off and on. Drank slowly. Ate slowly. Just slowly enough to be late for work.

The waitress was sitting on her bike waiting for me when I got here, wearing a yellow jacket and the perpetual black head covering. When she saw me I made a face, and she laughed. I threw open the sliding metal door over our glass entrance, and walked in. The shop always has a sour smell when I first get in, so I turned on one of the fans upstairs to help it air out.

I swept the coffee shop barefoot this morning. Danced around to old 90s songs while I worked in the upstairs, while the waitress scrubbed dishes in the kitchen. Sang along to the best parts.

When I swept the narrow band of tile outside our storefront, a woman looked at my feet, and looked up at me like I was some sort of savage. Maybe I felt a little savage this morning--I was dreaming of running barefoot through soft grass.

Maybe I was dreaming of childhood. Maybe I was remembering a piece of some sort of home I had once. Or maybe I was looking towards what is ahead, a different kind of existence than this one. It was one of those moments that you snap awake and remember the deeper life whose streams flow generously under the small paths we walk. Their waters run underneath all the cities we've seen, and will see, through the course of our lives and ever after.

Baby Panda Dive-Bomb

2009-05-13T13:58:00.003+08:00

As many of you know, my dear college friends Rob, Michael, and Amy visited me in March.

While they were here, we took a trip to Xian, which ended up being pretty much perfect, from Michael dancing with a noodle which we later ate, to a sing-along of '90s pop songs while riding bikes on top of the city wall.

Much of it will have to be cherished solely in memory and photograph, but thankfully the following was captured on video for posterity's sake, and for yours.

Place to Stand

2009-05-10T17:23:00.001+08:00

I wrote the following last winter, in an e-mail to a friend.

"Today I went to the park, and the lake was frozen. Something about it really surprised me, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what it is. I thought about how lovely it will be to someday go ice skating again.

"There was a woman there, standing with her eyes closed against the sunlight. It was cold, even in the sun, but she stood unmoving for the thirty minutes that I was there, as if gathering strength for the rest of life. I understood, because I feel like that sometimes. Except, most of the time I don’t have any really good place to stand, if that makes sense."

Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.

2008-12-22T17:50:00.002+08:00

Today, I walked around the Red Park for awhile. I was surprised to see that the lake had frozen. Now it's littered with bricks and rocks tossed to test the ice. It was cold, and there were few people there. All the businesses that normally sell eight treasure tea inside had shut down for the winter.

In spring I often spend my mornings in one of the painted, open-air corridors, sharing the early light with peonies and fresh yellow buds on trees that, before coming here, I had only seen in dreams. I sip tea (whose eight treasures are some dried mix of the following: bright red fruits the shape of raisins, dates, dragon eyes, jujubes, and flowers), and leave an empty notebook in front of me. I can only rarely think of anything to write--my time there is more of an emptying than a search.

One thing that I appreciate is how life is cyclical here. It looks drastically different in the winter and summer. I love the first day that those small winter clementines appear. The winter squashes that follow. The first day you can go to the park and bear a whole early spring morning in the cold. The fleeting summer mulberries, just like the ones that purpled our young feet in Knoxville summers. The first sweet taste of strawberries. I love when the square starts filling up with people again at night. And then I love, in its own way, when these things disappear. When the whole world turns back to waiting. To sleep. To tapping its watch, making sure the seconds are still ticking by.

Wind

2008-12-21T20:42:00.004+08:00

All last night the curtains in my bedroom filled and twisted with wind coming through my poorly-sealed windows. It purred as it dove in through the hole in my kitchen window and curled around and under the kitchen door.

Today was the first cold, blustery winter day. The first one like I remember from last year, when I wore the Russian-style fur hat that my parents bought me for Christmas the year previous. I wore it when I first met my current landlord, and the next time I saw him, he didn't recognize me. Remember, I'm not exactly forgettable here. But the first time he saw me in that hat, and it alone had curled up in his memory like the small animal whose fur it bears.

This evening a friend came in wearing the same style of cap. It had been given to him by the Police Department long ago, when he worked for them. Now he's a teacher, sixty-seven years old, having twice come out of retirement, now teaching maybe the last classes of his life. As he's talking about his work, even the difficulties of his work, you can often catch him smile.

And then tonight, trying to fix the blender at the coffee shop, I cut my finger, deep. Only then did I realize how long it had been since I'd last seen my own blood. So red, so alive. I am so alive, really. It made me smile to see it.

Dance

2008-12-18T19:15:00.004+08:00

Here, fruit and vegetable carts float through the city like shrimp trawlers. Some always go to the same place. Some are more dynamic, moving all day, loudly yelling the name of their wares.

"Corn! Corn! Corn!" and on, and on, all day.

Today, I passed one full of the tiny winter clementines that we have in our city, that seem to taste sweeter than anything I've had at home. They're not much bigger than a quarter, and for maybe twenty minutes a day I'll carefully make a cut with my pocketknife, peel and eat the tiny wedges one at a time like the sections of a clock. Left will be a pile of orange peels, the fragrance of oranges, a sweet acid taste, and a burning on my tongue like fire.

The man I passed was yelling as usual. "Oranges! Oranges!" And his three-year-old daughter was moving back and forth to the rhythm of it, the familiarity of it, swaying and precisely moving her hands in a dance probably thousands of years older than she is, or will ever be.

Red Park Cafe Couple

2008-12-12T23:45:00.001+08:00

The shop had been open about a month and a half when I finally sat down with some regulars, a couple who had often come in.

They told me that they'd only been dating a month, and that every date had been at my coffee shop.

Kind of cool.

Words

2008-12-10T21:05:00.004+08:00

The street here, on both sides, is lined with tiny shops, florists or art stores or small dirty places with meat standing on hooks. Shops with gifts for friends, knick-knacks, things that spin and light up and, ultimately, gather dust on your shelf. And restaurants, restaurants everywhere, a few square meters chalked off where you sit and wait for steamed buns stuffed with carrots, or plates of noodles to fog your glasses.

And the people. When you walk down the street, all you need to do to see people living their lives is turn your head. Intimate moments, too--families yelling at each other, old couples grazing hands. People's faces lit up by a TV screen, laughing or incredulous. An old man sitting and staring, and seeing nothing.

Actually, in this the city opens to you like a book. In these shops you can read it carefully, read the families as lines in the history of this place, the streets as chapters. And each person, ultimately, only a word--a word left on a pillow the last time one wakes, or pressed into a son's hand in the final moment.

It is yet to be seen whether you, the traveler, have planted yours here to grow, or tossed it in one of the many small rivers that criss-cross underneath the city.

Wires

2008-12-09T20:23:00.003+08:00

Right now, this city's biggest holiday of the year is going on. Rams are being herded through the streets, are being sacrificed and eaten. Families are gathering together here, and individuals are returning to the places from which they've come, from which they've been sent.

It's these times when we can clearly both see and feel the wires that bind us all to our homes. And in those moments when we can't quite follow them to our origins, it's easy to see how we tangle ourselves up, choking (if only a little), straining to get just one glimpse of a blood relative or familiar road, to detect a vague scent of honeysuckle, to hear even distantly the groan of a cider press slowly bearing down, the one from the orchard our class visited when we were yet very young.

Snowfall

2008-12-07T22:22:00.003+08:00

I suppose I would say, to start, that one of my passions (and duties) is recording my life here. Trying to really capture it. And I know that lately, I have done a poor job of that.

Part of it may be that it's just been so long. What could help you best to understand? The fragrant pile of orange peels on my desk at work? My breath, quick and white, in the unheated concrete room where, in the mornings, I practice tai chi? The small clinks of forks and plates and cups, the sound of laughter coming from an upstairs room?

Would it be the boisterous conversation over cards, or the hushed tones of lovers in the corner? The crunch of snow, or the flush of a face at sudden warmth?

Holan wrote, "If there were no silence here / the snow would have dreamed it up." Maybe the silence, maybe the sleep, the solitude would speak it all best. I like to think that there was no silence here, and the mantle I bear nightly is a dream of the snow.

Regardless, all of these have been, and for a while yet will be, close companions. From these common seeds, each day blossoms differently.

Sofas ahoy!

2008-09-26T22:12:00.003+08:00

The title of this post looks vaguely like something from a different language.

But! We got our sofas in today, and I thought I'd post the pictures. This first one is mainly to let you see the art we're going to be using along that wall upstairs. That couch isn't going to be there--under the art will be four tables with chairs.

And then, here you can see the two sides, and then the overall view of the couch area by the window. This part is basically finished--it should look the same when we open.

We went with dark brown and light yellow for the couches, which match the dark wood trim/brown ceiling and the light yellow floor. We also got a few small red pillows for accents.

Renovation Pt. 4

2008-09-24T23:14:00.004+08:00

Lately, all the work I've put into the coffee shop has been really... draining. I've been tired, and it seems like at the end of every day, there's more work, not less. More problems I don't know how to solve. (In honor of this, here's a picture of Mark looking a little down.)

However, the past couple of days, things have really been moving. It was awesome getting our speakers installed so that we can play music now while we work, we got the last of our lights installed, and the place is really cleaning up nice. Our sofas are supposed to come tomorrow, and tables and chairs should be maybe this weekend.

And overall, I'm proud of how it turned out. It's really not easy to do renovations in China. Basically I had to choose the dimensions, the design, the style, etc., for every single thing in the shop. For instance, for the bar, I needed to decide the height of the first level of the bar, the height of the top of the bar, how wide, how long, I had to draw the curve for the corners, decide what the top (as in, the part toward the ceiling) of the bar would be like, how far it would come down, how tall that part would be, what materials all these things would be made out of, draw the shelving behind the bar, etc. All using the metric system, of course. I'm lucky the place doesn't look like something out of a bad dream.

Not only that, but I had to decide every material that we used. As for wood sheets, do we buy the ones that are 40 yuan, 65 yuan, 70 yuan, 90 yuan, or 102 yuan? In case you're interested, we went with the 90 yuan ones. And I had to decide that for everything: both types of ceiling materials, the darker wood we used to overlay everything, the colored metal we used for our sign and part of the bar, the stone we used in the kitchen, the glue we used, plaster, everything. We picked it out, bought it, had it shipped to the coffee shop, and sometimes hauled it in ourselves. It took us four days to find paint and have it made, for goodness' sake (including three hours when they didn't get it right of saying, "Okay, add a little more red to that one. Now a little more green to the other one. Okay, let me look at them.").

Anyways. I thought that I would put up some more pictures, in honor of the renovations being almost completely done. Let me know what you think!

KFC Throwdown

2008-09-20T23:00:00.003+08:00

Okay. So I was the bad guy in KFC today. That happened.

Basically, I had just finished hauling an eight hundred pound box of pots and pans on and off of buses for like four days, okay? It was like a tunnel of buses that you get on and off of. And then at the end of that tunnel, the shining bastion of hope in that dark night of miserably crowded buses was a KFC that I was going to grab a quick bite at before I came back home (this was all in the big city).

So, I went in, lugged the box of miscellaneous cookware up the stairs, put it down, and went back downstairs to order. I got two chicken sandwiches, an ice cream sundae, and a coke. This is a meal to relax to. This is a meal that you order in preparation for some serious sitting and doing nothing. The addition of the ice cream sundae basically makes this fact a no-brainer.

Well, I took my food back up the stairs, and sat down at the only table that I could find--which is right in the middle of the room. It's fine, but honestly, I just don't like to be so public when I'm eating Western food. You can disagree with me all you want, and talk about vanity blah blah blah, but there's no one who looks good eating a chicken sandwich slathered in mayonnaise. Maybe in the next life.

Anyways, I sat down, and immediately this guy, probably eight feet away, is staring at me. Like, no break of eye contact whatsoever, he is focused, his eye's on the prize. The prize of watching me eat that ridiculous meal. I don't know if you guys know this about China, but if staring at white people was an Olympic sport, China would have won it every year since they started participating, and in acknowledgment of this the countries that won the medals before then would have to also give them up, all the way back to their inception in ancient Greece. It is shameless. I bet if a foreigner were packed into a huge box, everyone would be staring at it as it was wheeled down the street. No one would know why. It would be all instinct.

Unfortunately, being on the receiving side of this isn't always awesome. Most of the time it's fine, but there comes a time when it is not okay. This light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel moment was one such time.

First I did the most polite thing, what I normally do: look directly at them, for a few seconds. When they actually see that you're staring back at them, they know that you know that they're staring at you. And usually they get a little embarrassed, and you can give them a polite smile (yes, I know, you were blinded by that rock star quality that I seem to have--it happens in America, too), and it's all over.

But this guy had clearly not had enough. I guess he thought, "Oh! The foreigner looked at me!" And he got all his friends to stare at me, too, but they thankfully weren't so mannerless--they glanced, but then resumed their business. He, though, kept it up. I gave him pleading glances, lowered my hat, slumped down in my chair. Through all of this I was still trying to eat. But I was getting more and more frustrated.

Finally, after seriously not looking up for about twenty minutes, I glanced up, and he was still staring at me, absolutely shamelessly, without even glancing away. So finally I threw my arms up, like, "What do you want from me?" And he just smiled that irritating smile, and so I absolutely bellowed at him, "HEY, I'M NOT AN ANIMAL!" (My Chinese isn't good enough to say anything much more interesting than that.)

SO I WAS SO SO ANGRY AND SO I GOT UP AND I SNATCHED UP MY TRAY AND MADE A BIG DISPLAY OF STORMING OVER TO A DIFFERENT TABLE WHERE HE COULDN'T STARE AT ME but actually then I saw that there were no other tables and I could only move to the other side of my table where he could only stare at my back. Which was somewhat embarrassingly anticlimactic, but it worked well enough, I guess.

They left soon after, and I was happy to see that the guy didn't glance back at me as he was leaving. I guess he got the message?

Signs and Wonders

2008-09-08T09:43:00.004+08:00

A few days ago, an old man sitting on the side of the road, smiling out from under his broad-brimmed hat, blew me a kiss.

Fifteen minutes later, in a restaurant, a two-year-old boy did the exact same thing, exact same gesture.

I smiled and smiled.

Yesterday, a stranger stopped me in the grocery store and asked when the coffee shop is going to open, and we chatted for a minute.

In fact, a lot of people yesterday appeared to know who I am, or at least were much more friendly than normal. I felt very known, and wanted.

Ramadan

2008-09-01T23:52:00.003+08:00

For those of you who weren't aware, today was the beginning of Ramadan--a pretty important time for our little city here.

I took a walk tonight and took pictures of a couple of mosques near my home. They didn't turn out very well, but I think you can get the idea.

Signage

2008-08-28T23:43:00.005+08:00

There are some coffee shops in America that sell cups of coffee not too much smaller than this one.

However! That's actually part of our sign, which was designed (or the logo was, anyways) by the illustrious Katie Sholler, a true patriot. Also, if you feel, like some people, that I look older nowadays than I did, oh, a month ago or so, it might be best to keep that to yourself.

I thought I'd post a picture so you'll know it when you see it on the street.

In other news, Mark told me that today he took a taxi and told them to go to the Red Park Café, and they knew exactly what he was talking about. Took him straight there.

Renovation Pt. 3

2008-08-24T17:20:00.006+08:00

So. We were in the big city for a while this week, and when we got back I took a few pictures of the current renovation for your benefit. While we were away, we had the paint shipped to the coffee shop, and when we got back they were already almost finished painting. See for yourself!

Here's the way that the counter turned out. On the sides is the same type of wallpaper that we used along the stairs.

Here you can see the full room, the way the colors look together. The ceiling isn't yet the way it'll be--under the grey paint will be a ceiling that looks like black plastic squares. I think that's the best way I can describe it now, but I'll take pictures later. You can tell here that the color isn't a true red (it's a little light), as I unexpectedly discovered that it's impossible to make red paint in China. Note that this is in spite of the fact that everything in China is red. It's not so obviously light when you're there, though (in these pictures the lighting was strange, and it looks washed out), and I think ultimately it'll help the place not feel overwhelmingly dark.

Here's the view obviously looking outside from deeper in the first floor. You can see a couple of the tables we made attached to the walls, as well as the way the bar looks from farther away.

Here's an above view, where again you can get a good view of the bar and the tables.

Here's a closer view of two of the things I'm actually most proud of--the bookshelf that looks like part of the wall, which I got ideas for from the internet and then designed and decided on. The design of the left side eliminates the need for bookends, and looks pretty awesome in the process. The under-stairs shelves were designed and made by the workers without us even asking, but they turned out to be very useful and awesome-looking.

Here's the upstairs, looking towards the outside window. The columns on the right were a surprise, but not a terribly unwelcome one--it'll help the wall-space to not look so terribly empty, even if we don't put that much on it (which we will).

Here's the view back in on the top floor. Again, the ceiling will be the black plastic squares, and the lights will be on the brown part. We'll also have lamps hanging over each table.

Here you can see the way the stairs look, with the border of wood and wallpaper on the wall. The wallpaper, again, is the same as that of the bar.

Let me know what you think! Hehe, but only if it's good, because most of this is non-negotiable at this point (what's done is done--forget dissenting opinions).

Edit: I should probably note that the most interesting part of the bookshelf, the way of holding books on the left side, is completely someone else's idea. My part in it was only to modify it slightly, put it with the normal-bookshelf-type right side, and decide to make it look like it's part of a wall (originally there wasn't a wall there at all).

I got enough compliments on it that I thought I should give credit where credit is due.

Wall Color

2008-08-20T21:14:00.004+08:00

So. I think, for the walls, we're going with a color similar to "Rapture," the color that I painted my room back at 110 Finley in Clemson, for those of you who have seen it.

For those of you who are more acquainted with the Chinese Dulux brand, you may note that it's about half-way between "Flaming Sword" and "Party Place."

For everyone else...

Well... It's red.

Nostalgia

2008-08-10T22:40:00.005+08:00

Tonight, as I did laundry by lamplight, I threw open my windows to a storm. The wind that rushed through carried, unmistakably, the scent of perfume. Even now, later, the house still smells faintly of it.

The lingering scent reminds me of something Pessoa once considered (or should have), under the moniker Bernardo Soares. He wrote of a kind of nostalgia for a memory that never happened.

Kodak Moments with Mark

2008-08-09T10:08:00.004+08:00

Here are two conversations that Mark and I had a few days ago:

Me : Let's order a pot of tea.

Mark : But you like red tea. I like green tea. You say tomato, I say tomahto. Let's call it off.

Me : Okay. Forget it.

And that night, walking home from the bus stop:

Mark : You know, you really are handsome. Especially at night.

Me (laughing) : Ahhh. You mean in the mooooonlight?

Mark : No. I mean in the dark.

Renovation Pt. 2

2008-08-09T00:34:00.005+08:00

Here are some more shots of the construction:

Here's the storefront. You can see the way the sign will look, though of course it'll have Chinese characters, as well as English words, made of metal soon, and with lights to shine on it at night.

Here you can see the counter pretty clearly. We're going to need to make a lot of changes to it, but the structure's there. Also, you can get a pretty good look at the rest of the room--the bookshelves I'm especially pretty proud of (I'll include some more shots when they're closer to being finished). You can see a little bit of the ceiling work (the wide part that wraps around the sides, which will later be black and contain lights and speakers).

Top view of the first floor, especially the counter.

Here you can get a better view of the ceiling work, and you can also see where they took out the old windows. They put in large panes of glass this morning, and they should finish with it tomorrow morning after I talk to them about a couple of the specifics.

Here's a few of the street right in front of my house, when the sun came out a little before sunset. It's been raining a lot lately, so the low today was 47, even though we were in the 80s last week.

Tomorrow I'm taking a mid-day break (working out a few things at the space before, doing interviews after) to go to a park with some friends that's a little outside the city and sports our very own Great Wall, in miniature. I'll try and snap a few pictures.

Renovation Pt. 1

2008-08-08T23:50:00.005+08:00

So. To be honest, at times this renovation has come pretty close to driving me (not to mention my contractor) crazy. Twice I've caught the workers rushing through a job and doing it poorly, and we've had several communication issues about what exactly I want him to do with the different things I'm having him build. It doesn't help that I don't have enough time to dedicate just to being at the space and making sure everything's going smoothly according to plan.

At times I worry the end result will be terrible, and at times I think that it's going to be the best coffee shop that ever was. Right now I figure it'll probably lie somewhere in between. And I'm excited.

Regardless! You can see here what the construction looked like a few days ago.

Moments Away

2008-07-31T20:20:00.003+08:00

Okay! So! I have figured out a way around this whole thing to where I can post text, but not pictures. Stay tuned.

This week has been busy. I've been tired, and, honestly, in a bad mood or stressed out a good bit. But, in the other moments, I've been striving to keep up a healthy exercise routine and appreciation for the beauty that's around me. For a few days, I would walk down the street listening to music, and whenever a certain song would come on, I would take short notes of the things around me that I enjoyed for the entire length of the song. Here's one example:

trees trimmed, branches the same length, to look like upside-down bowls (quick sketch)

3 generations sitting together - dad child & g-dad

a dog rooting in the grass, looking up at me and smiling

a man, suit jacket off, pants rolled up, sitting on a ledge and watching the sunset

an old man enjoying the cool of evening sitting in front of traditional Chinese gate

under it, a woman and her two sons play badminton in front of a stone carving of the buildings in Red Park

a lit-up sign for the China Construction Bank that's strangely evocative

all the flowers growing on all the ledges of apartments and in yangtais

birds playing in a circle, passing overhead again and again

Do you ever feel as if you wouldn't so much like a picture of what you're looking at, as a picture of you, doing what you're doing, looking at it? I had that feeling last night, brushing my teeth, watching through my window the last few late-night taxis find their ways home in the rain. Maybe it boils down to a desire more to capture a state of mind than anything. Or maybe mark some sort of moment, a turning point that you don't yet know the meaning of, but that maybe later you'll recognize in the changing lines of your face.

Being Blocked

2008-07-29T00:04:00.004+08:00

So. The blogger site's been blocked here, and I'm not sure how much I'm going to have access to it for the next little while. I wanted to put up a few pictures, but it looks like that's not going to work. Regardless, I'll try and keep people appropriately posted on our progress through e-mail, Skype, etc.

I wanted to write a quick explanatory note during this window of time, and I hope I manage to get it up.

But, our first two waitresses were also hired today! It's pretty wild how fast everything's moving now. Stay tuned!

Running #1

2008-07-23T23:11:00.002+08:00

Okay. So. I have been running sometimes.

This week, I ran on Sunday for about 3 miles, and did the same run today (Wednesday). Unfortunately, I was having problems getting my Nike+ thing calibrated.

But I figured out the problem. So all the runs from today on should be correct, and you'll be able to see my last five runs at the right to make sure I'm keeping up with things. Especially as busy as I've been lately (yesterday I worked an 11-hour day), I want to make sure that I find time to get some exercise to keep my energy level up.

Of course it's good for you, it's all-natural.

2008-06-27T17:39:00.006+08:00

Mark and I were in the big city today after a setback involving the wrong business scope printed on some of the certifications we got from the government.

On the way out, we picked up some medicine for Mark's cousin, and while I was waiting, I was absent-mindedly reading the labels of some vitamins behind the counter when something caught my eye. As my eyes wandered down the row, here's what I read, all of the pill bottles looking exactly the same and carrying about 100 pills each:

Calcium & Vitamin D
Vitamin C & Vitamin E
Jean & beautiful
Sheep Placenta
Compound Vitamin
Amino Acid
Galcium + VD

Red Park Cafe?

2008-06-24T01:12:00.004+08:00

Well, last Thursday we got our business license! A huge step. After we actually pull the money to a Chinese bank account at the Foreign Investment Bureau and get our official stamps made, I'll be ready to come home for a couple of weeks for my brother's wedding--which I'm wayyy excited about.

Things have been busy the past few months. I worked hard to find a commercial space and work out a lease, spent some time in a different city helping some friends, have been sorting through the process of getting all the documents necessary to start the business as well as dealing with all the government bureaus involved. I've been making a lot of trips to the big city, staying with my friend there. And it's been good, though I haven't had near enough time or energy to maintain the relationships I have in my own city.

And, well--lately, I've been feeling a little off. I think I've been too busy to really deal with everything going on now. I think that I need more time to reflect and re-sort through everything. Not only are there some big changes coming up not only in my day-to-day but also the level of responsibility I have, but before and after trips home there always tends to be a lot of soul-searching. Such is the nature of having an interesting relationship with the concept of 'home.'

I hope that you've all been doing well! And I'm including some pictures of the space that we're renting.

The potential name is Red Park Cafe. One difficult thing for me has been finding names that sound good in both English and Chinese (the Chinese is obviously more important, which is the one that I'm clueless on). But, regardless, suggestions are welcome (and needed!), so I can run them by some friends.

Don't Give Up

2008-05-10T00:20:00.006+08:00

Seriously. Don't you dare.

That Pope and his Rock Music

2008-04-26T23:03:00.005+08:00

I am getting pretty good at being able to tell if my employee, Mark, is understanding what I'm saying. Sometimes he doesn't, and I'll have to ask him two or three times before he finally admits that he doesn't understand one of the words of the sentence. He thinks he gets it anyway, but usually it's one of the rather more important words.

And I can tell when he dismisses a throwaway sentence, knowing what I mean without knowing the meaning. And--I actually started doing it without thinking about it, and only realized it yesterday--I've started throwing in extra phrases when I know he's not understanding/listening.

For instance, yesterday. I was talking about how we're going out of town again on Monday. I said we'd get back on Wednesday, "and--" (in reference to preparing for/meeting with a potential landlord) "rock it out." I saw Mark's eyes glaze a little, and he glanced to the left. The sign. So I quickly added, "as the Pope would say."

And yeah. Not a flinch.

It happened too fast for me to have willingly, consciously done it. I really hope that it keeps happening, though. I'll let you know how it progresses.

Sitting with the Fruit-Seller

2008-04-24T23:39:00.005+08:00

I probably spend at least 45 minutes every day walking down the street--I try to walk pretty much everywhere I need to go unless I'm late, especially as the weather's been getting better over the last few weeks. Normally every day I would greet, and maybe sit down with, a man who has a tent where he sells fruit about halfway down my street. Lately he hasn't been there--his tent's been closed down--and today it made me start thinking about him a lot.

I remember one time in particular that I sat down with him. He sits there all day, and different friends come, sit for awhile, and go. Normally no one says very much--we all just watch the people walking by, maybe exchange a few comments about the weather. He's a man who knows how to pass the time.

Well, this particular time I noticed that he had a bird in a cage--and I told him that it was beautiful. And it was--it's one of the dark-colored mountain birds that are beautiful, yes, but untame. As you walk up, each will glare at you with a wild, yellow eye and beat its wings against the cage.

Well, when I commented on it, the look in his eyes immediately showed me that I'd said the right thing, and it's clearly something he cares for. And he reached over, opened the cage, and took it out to sit on his hand.

The bird obviously didn't share his sentiment. It immediately started pecking his hand with its incredibly sharp beak. When it started pecking one spot over and over, he would slowly turn his hand, so that it wouldn't start tearing out a lot of flesh. It had to hurt, but he just continued to look at it in love and wonder, offering only a soft smile, handling it gently.

After about a minute he put it back in its cage--and I saw flecks of blood all over his hand where the skin had been punctured in several places. There was something really special about the moment. But something would be lost in the interpretation. I'll just leave you with the story.

Hua'er Cafe?

2008-04-20T20:27:00.005+08:00

So! After a ridiculously busy week that included a last-minute trip to the big city to get the company's name approved, I got the company's name approved! The good news is that now we know the name of, if not the coffee shop, at least the business. The bad news is that it doesn't translate very well into English. Go figure.

It's the 花儿餐饮有限公司. The last part basically means that we're a company that deals with food and drinks--basically it indicates that we're in the business of starting restaurants/drink shops. The first two words, "Hua'er," are a little more difficult to explain.

Basically, a long time ago in our area, men would be way too embarrassed to tell women how they felt about them. So, instead of going through the immense embarrassment of a red-faced "I like how your shoes are so sparkly," they would instead sing a song they would make up as they went along, that implies that they like the girl. To me, impromptu songs are a few more rungs up the ladder as far as embarrassment goes. But anyways: those songs are called hua'er.

Mark gave me an example of what a hua'er would be like: "Everywhere I look, I see pairs. The doves in the sky are two, and every railroad track has a mate. But I am alone. I use all my strength to climb the highest mountain. I look down, and I see a beautiful flower." THE END. Sorry, girls--we're too manly around here to actually say (sing) anything directly about a woman ever.

I told my friend that I'm going to sing a hua'er to the next girl I date. But it's probably going to just be an out of tune rendition of the following: "I climb a mountain... and I see this flower, right? It's a really beautiful one... and its name may or may not rhyme with someone's name who's in this room right now. Hint hint."

Eventually it became a genre of folk song, and a man and a woman would, at festivals, stand on different ridges of mountains around here and sing hua'er to each other. Nowadays, there are still hua'er festivals, but they sound slightly less dramatic.

I like the fact that it was a spontaneous, impromptu love song that rose in spite of embarrassment. You get the feeling that the guys had no other ways of expressing incredibly strong emotion, so eventually they just had to start to sing--and the only way they wouldn't be completely embarrassed was to sing something that would take some interpretation. It makes me think of the love song that stirs in our hearts when we see those first buds of spring, wake from a nap on the couch to a light breeze blowing through the apartment, or lay in bed in the early morning, inexplicably awake, listening to the rain.

Although, admittedly, Spring's not coming easy. It snowed again today. But I didn't mind. Something about the sound afterwards of it melting--like the whole world was dripping to the ground.

That whole Spring thing?

2008-04-11T12:22:00.003+08:00

Yeah, scratch that. It's been sleeting and snowing for the past couple of hours, right in the middle of the day.

Popsicle Scandal Shocks Small Town

2008-04-10T16:46:00.003+08:00

Newspapers today probably read, "Tempers flared today as the foreigner accused respected local businesswoman of trying to cheat him on popsicle purchase." The dialogue went something like this, as I approached the smiling, laughing proprietor, who was obviously having a wonderful day before I ruined it:

Me: "I'd like to buy [this popsicle]."

Her: "That'll be 1.5 kuai."

Me: "Really? It's not 1 kuai?"

Her: "No, it's not 1 kuai. It's 1.5 kuai everywhere. I'M NOT TRYING TO CHEAT YOU. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BUY IT, DON'T BUY IT."

Me (handing her 2 kuai): "Ah, I'm sorry. Really, 1.5 kuai is okay."

Her: "1.5 KUAI IS NOT 'OKAY'. IT'S THE PRICE. ASK ANYONE. ASK THAT OTHER WOMAN SELLING POPSICLES. I'M NOT A CHEAT."

Me: "I mean, 1.5 kuai is really good! I'm sorry! Thank you very much!"

Is that Idaho? Or a kidney?

2008-04-10T16:31:00.005+08:00

Every day after class, I walk to lunch through a street where people are butchering sheep on the side of the road, with large numbers of carcasses just hanging up next to them. And today, I wasn't really paying attention, and I came *so* close to stepping on a random organ that had made its way to the street. It's the type of thing where you see it at the last moment, and immediately exert all your strength to lunge forward and step past it.

I think maybe it was a sheep's kidney.

I feel like I should be able to be a little more definitive about that. I think if I saw where it was positioned in the sheep I could've figured it out--but when it's lying in the street, it's a little more difficult. It's like how you can name a state if all the lines are drawn, but it might be difficult to draw Idaho, for instance, in the exact right location on a blank map (Idaho in this way--and maybe others?--is much like that nameless internal organ thrown in the street).

Spring!

2008-04-07T20:29:00.003+08:00

Now, it snowed here last Wednesday. My heat actually runs from November 1st to March 31st, and it snowed on October 31st and April 1st. Awesome.

But it seems like now we've finally entered spring. Just in the last two days I've seen a lot of trees budding and flowers blooming.

I went for a long walk today to enjoy the sun and warm weather (and because I didn't have anything else to do), and tried to snap a few pictures on my way.

I'm assuming that this is home-made incense out drying in the sun--perhaps because the family used all theirs up during last weekend's GHOST FESTIVAL. Which, unfortunately, is nothing like Halloween. There are a lot less costumes and candy involved, and a lot more burning your possessions (including cars and houses) to appease your ancestors.

A shot of the 70-100 or so mosques in our city.

So! At one point in the day I went over to Red Park Square, which is pretty near my home, and read for awhile. While I was doing this, a *really* old man wandered over and started looking at my book. He tried to start talking to me about it but his accent was so strong, at first I could barely understand what he was saying. Finally I realized that he was pointing at different letters and saying them, like 'M. C. B." And really, those were the only ones he knew. He kept finding M's, C's, and B's.

So finally these two young boys came over, and started laughing at him when they saw what he was doing. Finally he asked, "What, can you speak English?" They said yes, and then he asked, "Well, then what does 'M' mean?" And the kids started dying laughing again. And the old man furiously starts yelling at me and everyone within a mile radius, "These kids think they know English, but they don't even know what 'M' means!"

I was trying really hard not to laugh, and mostly succeeded.

In other news, I just ate a hot dog type of thing without properly cooking it (I just microwaved it)--which I only realized afterwards may be somewhat more ill-advised in China. Well... I've always wanted to check out the inside of the local hospital--be crossing your fingers!

Vegetarians and Paper Shredders

2008-04-01T18:11:00.007+08:00

A few days ago, I was in class learning about food from my employee, Mark.

Mark : If someone is trying to cheat you, and you are getting angry, you can say, "[DON'T TRY TO CHEAT ME! I'M NOT A] CHI SU DE REN."
Me (writing it down) : Ah, okay.
Mark : Or, you can say about someone else, "[Don't try to cheat him. He's not a] chi su de ren."
Me (with a look of realization) : Wait. Wait. "Chi su de ren"? Vegetarian?
Mark : Yes!

So, basically here 'Vegetarian' is an insult reserved for the gullible. Sorry, Michael and Amy. When you come, I'll do my best to explain that you don't eat meat, but you're not 'vegetarians,' per se.

And then, yesterday:

Me (seeing a paper shredder) : I want one of these so bad.
Mark : Oh... what is it?
Me : It says in Chinese what it is.
Mark : But what does it do?
Me : It cuts up paper!
Mark : I know, but... why?
Me : So other people can't read it!
Mark (laughing) : But you can just burn it!

Silly Americans with their paper shredders.

It's sort of been awhile. I make no apologies!

2008-04-01T17:16:00.005+08:00

So. Instead of waiting and making some massive post about EVERYTHING that's been going on, I'm going to put a few random pictures on here to try and sum up the past few months. But this doesn't mean that my time was divided evenly between the actions present in the pictures, or I would've spent about a month just eating Holethings. Which doesn't sound like a bad idea, but sadly wasn't a possibility.

One might think that a Holething would be something like a donut hole, but One would be wrong. In fact, it is a donut on a plastic stick. Note that Valentine's Day Holethings are available, next to the normal Holethings that you've come to know and love.

This speaks for itself. I think with this kind of name, you're not exactly giving your business the chance it deserves. It doesn't exactly bode well. Anyways, when we went to this place Michael paid probably a little too much to get "Sandwiched," wherein the cooks get to throw sandwiches at you for about a half hour. But I guess it was a pretty interesting cultural experience.

Would've been nice if I wasn't brutally ill basically the whole time I was on vacation.

This mall really, really felt like America. But a little bit cooler than America. And at the moment, significantly hotter than America.

And... back. I wish my apartment wasn't always this messy. But, as the Rolling Stones song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" wisely says, you can't always get what you want.

And now I'm running out of batteries on my laptop. But! You guys should know, I've begun the process of starting the coffee shop. As soon as we find an actual location (cross your fingers), we're on.

You can call me Bond. Mister Bond. Mister Bond Coffee.

2008-01-25T00:07:00.001+08:00

My computer has been making funny noises. If I appear to drop off the face of the Earth, I wanted you all to know what likely happened.

More posts to come about the winter! But for now, I felt like I needed to leave some mirth in my wake. But, how can I best acquire mirth, you may ask, in a culture in which happiness is perceived so differently from the one in which I was socialized?

I buy it! And here is a reproduction of the text on this can of (sort of) coffee-like mirth:

Mr.
Bond
coffee

American pattern

>> I'm young...I'm coffee

Friends from Afar (But Not That Afar)

2008-01-23T11:50:00.001+08:00

So! It is going to take a few posts to really describe everything that's been going on here. First of all! As some of you may know, a certain high school friend came with a friend to visit me in December, as he was on Winter Break from his teaching position in Hong Kong. Call it an FHS 5 1/2 year reunion, I guess.

It was really great having friends in. Scott stayed with me and we put Diana up at a nearby hotel. In the mornings we'd run around the city a little bit, I'd work in the afternoons while they continued to poke around, and in the evenings we'd have dinner with friends and see whatever sights we could manage. Scott and I stayed up late every night talking, and it was a wonderful, though exhausting, few days. It was also during Korban, so tons of people were herding rams down the city streets twenty and thirty at a time to the mosques for people to buy and slaughter, celebrating Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son.

Not only that, but one day I took a day off work so we could take a one-night trip up to a city in former Tibet, the site of one of the world's most important Tibetan Buddhist temples. We stayed in an amazing little American-style lodge called the Red Rock Inn, which put us back about 20 yuan ($2.50) for the night.

We had a heck of a lot of fun while they were here. It was great hesitantly introducing an old friend to a new home that I love, and seeing him and his friend begin to love it as well. It was great getting to know Diana. It was fun talking about books, movies, and music. And I have to admit, the fact that I won basically every time we played cards or Settlers of Catan didn't hurt. I'm hoping that this semester he'll take the time to practice a little. Next time he comes to my city, he needs to bring his A-game.

Also! They came bearing gifts from Hong Kong, and they bought me even more housewarming gifts while they were in my city, including a set of coffee cups and a sweet clock that matches my furniture. It was really kind, not to mention the kindness of traveling out here just to see me in the first place. And I hope that they enjoyed themselves, and I genuinely feel like they did.

To be continued...

A New Home

2007-12-23T23:01:00.001+08:00

I've had a new apartment for awhile now. But I guess I'm finally starting to have a new "home." Many of you have probably heard me wax poetic on that word plenty, so I won't go into it again here. But I thought you might like to see the progression of my living space over the course of the past week and a half or so.

12/11/2007 - The Beginning

12/12/2007 - After Carpet Installed on 12/11

12/12/2007 - After Light Fixture on 12/12

12/23/2007 - After Furniture Bought on 12/15 and Christmas Tree Put Up on 12/22

Thanksgiving, Etc.

2007-12-05T22:23:00.001+08:00

So. This is actually something I wrote a while ago about my trip up to former Tibet for Thanksgiving, and now I thought I'd go ahead and put it on my blog.

I left our city on Saturday with a couple of friends. I suppose we got up there at about one o'clock and started eating almost immediately. We had chicken; stuffing; garlic mashed potatoes; rolls; tacos and fiesta chicken care of the Brazilians, Mexicans, and Peruvians; sweet potato casserole; a pork roast; spinach with cheese; and desserts including, but not limited to, apple pie, pecan pie, Tollhouse pie, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, and regular cheesecake. It was pretty unbelievable.

After lunch, the guys all headed out to this field in the middle of *nowhere* for some good, old-fashioned flag football. There was nothing around but plains, and then massive mountains in the distance--it looked like we were playing on the moon. We ended up playing for three hours or so, at the end of which I was personally covered with dirt, and with my fair share of wounds. I went ahead and told the others that I wasn't even going to try to catch any long passes, but I ended up playing a good game--scoring a couple of points and making an interception.

That night, one of the couples there had us over to their apartment. It's very warm, and decorated like Christmas. And we were all packed in, laying all over everything, and just drinking coffee and chatting. It really reminded me of all the late-night talks we'd have with friends in college.

The next morning we had a pretty unbelievable gathering, where we all talked about what we were thankful for. I talked about how thankful I was just that I could be there with so many close friends, having something that really felt like a holiday. I also talked about being thankful that things are allowed to happen to us that we wouldn't have chosen, because we would always choose poorly. We also talked and sang about Christmas coming up.

I ended up staying another day, rather unexpectedly, which was really more of the same--excellent times with people that I hope to continue to get closer to. Then, the next day, it was back home.

As another random piece of information, the next Sunday, I ended up leading an English corner of about ten students.

Afterwards I had dinner with the teacher who'd set it up, one of his old students, now about 30, who'd come to the English corner, and my best friend here. It was one of the best times I've had in China so far, with everyone interacting very pleasantly, everyone relaxed and engaging each other. Even though most of the conversation was in the local dialect which I can't understand at all, it was just... perfect. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I felt incredibly comfortable around each of the individuals. But something about it reminded me of home.

Put on your red shoes...

2007-11-26T18:44:00.001+08:00

A post is pretty long overdue here--so much has been happening! For now I want to talk about three weekends ago, when I took a trip to the Big City for my friend's birthday.

I took a Santana (read: car) to get there, and as always, it wasn't without incident. At one point we came up on a huge crowd of people standing in the road. We stopped, and they all started shouting and banging on the windows. As it turns out, a man had just gotten in an accident and was very badly injured--he was covered in blood.

We all got out of the car, they put him in, and he was rushed to the hospital as we got on a bus. It was disturbing--I think everyone knew he was going to die. I hope he made it, but I don't know how likely that is.

The bus went to the hospital and dropped us off to get back in our original car (well, our original car, but with a little more blood everywhere). And we continued on to the city.

I'll just give you the highlights, the first of which is the school dance that three friends and I attended that night. First of all, my friends all told me that they weren't going to dance. But anyone who knows me knows that I don't put up with things like that. So when the music started, sure enough I had them all out on the dance floor, and we were having a great time.

However, then the slow dancing started. They all sat down, with all kinds of excuses--they didn't know how to dance, they were shy, etc. Well, almost immediately a girl asked me to dance. I danced with her for about a minute, and then said, "Actually--can you help me? Can you teach my friend how to dance?" She reluctantly agreed, and I had a teacher for one of my friends.

This happened two more times, though, so all my friends had teachers, and ended up having a blast. It was nice to be in one of those situations where I knew how to be the hero--where I just knew how to help my friends have a great time. So many times I feel like that's all but impossible here.

Then, the next highlight was the next day at the SNACK FESTIVAL 2K7.

Which apparently was going on. They had foods from all over, including Hong Kong, Japan, and India. I had rice cooked in bamboo, Japanese tofu, some type of... other... Japanese... thing... involving eggs, Shanghai dumplings, and some other interesting types of rice and teas.

I opted out of some of the *most* interesting foods (pictured above), as I was about to take a three-hour bus ride.

Road Work

2007-11-17T11:23:00.001+08:00

What would a place be without its evil geniuses, hatching plots deep in the city's streets? You're right; not much of a place at all.

Thankfully, we've got 'em in droves. Doesn't this look like something you'd see at Universal Studios? I bet Batman would love to break up this party.

The Big Chill

2007-11-07T10:53:00.001+08:00

So, at this point, writing this as my heat is on and sunlight is pouring through my window, it's hard to even think to write about just how cold it was Before. Before my heat turned on on November first, that is.

I guess I'll let pictures tell it for me.

This is pretty normal night-time attire. Fur boots, long underwear, jeans, shirt, sweater, fur vest, coat, scarf, fur hat. Well, sometimes not the hat. But I wore all that more than you'd think.

Wait--you thought this post was about things Before. So why the pictures of snow?

Well, it actually snowed the night before my heat turned on. Awesome. This is part of the truly beautiful view from my window.

This is another part of the view out my window. You couldn't really see it in the other picture, but this mosque dominates the view here from my desk. It's really delightful just to stare out over the city--it's really a beautiful place.

HK

2007-11-07T10:38:00.001+08:00

Did I mention that I was in Hong Kong for a few days?

What a unique place. Unique, and exhausting. It seems like every time I tell people here that I was there, they are SO jealous. To try and describe why it would be a less than ideal place to live, I tell them that if you see your friend on the street, while you're still walking you tell them, "Oh, goodess, I'm so busy but I'll give you a call sometime, yeah going to be late gotta go!"

Whereas here, if you see an acquaintance on the road, by the time you walk away you know that their daughter-in-law's brother is going to be married in a few months, as well as their general feeling about various ways of cooking lamb. I don't know. It's just very different, a much slower pace here.

However, I will say that HK is a great place to visit. There are so many beautiful and interesting things there. And my city... maybe isn't. But to live in? We win hands-down.

As far as what I was doing in HK goes, I was seeing Scott, one of my best friends from high school, and staying with a family from near where I went to college. And it was really good to be able to spend time with him in a foreign country (though, admittedly, very unusual), and the family made me feel so at home. It was a really good time, that left me exhausted, but in a different way, entirely content.

Person I Would Most Like to Meet

2007-10-30T14:19:00.001+08:00

Open Note, to a Chinese Person Who Has Wisely Chosen to Remain Anonymous:

I understand that you live in a place where manners as Westerners understand them many times are not part of the socialization process. What may be a folkway in America usually doesn't even reach acknowledgment here. People hack, cough and spit on the ground even indoors or on buses, people blow their noses straight to the sidewalk (finger holding closed the other nostril), people push and shove instead of standing in lines. They will pee on the side of the street. In times when it doesn't matter, grown people will sprint to get on a bus before anyone else. They will yell. They will be near-violently physical in insisting that you buy their product or use their method of transportation. They will talk right in your face for several minutes, when you've told them that you don't understand English. They will try to cheat you every time because you are a foreigner (we call it 'foreigner tax').

That is all fine. I understand that it's a culture thing.

But for goodness' sake, if you're going to throw dirty water out of your 2nd floor apartment window, take a look downstairs just briefly. I mean, a casual glance, less than a second. Because it wasn't like that splashed my shoes. It landed right on my head, bull's-eye, to where I took a taxi the last five minutes of my walk home so I could towel off. I would think it was purposeful except that I couldn't bear to. First of all, it's literally freezing outside, and being soaked doesn't help. Then, the smell was somewhat less than ideal, though I've been avoiding that thought pretty persistently. A friend was waiting for me, and so I had to wait for an hour and a half to take a shower. Before I finally did, my hair had dried and stuck together. It was at the end of a long day, and while now it admittedly seems pretty funny, at the time it was almost the last straw.

And if you ever see me around again and want to learn some interesting new words in English, please, please introduce yourself.

Most sincerely,
Drew

Learning some common sense.

2007-10-27T12:24:00.001+08:00

You know, it's always a little strange, even disconcerting, to be approached here confidently by someone who doesn't speak English. I mean, it's wildly unusual to be approached confidently by anyone at all. So, when a woman came up to me tonight as I was walking through the city square, I was a little confused. She started talking pretty quickly in Chinese, and when I didn't understand, she said that she didn't speak much English.

Now, I know this may sound a little strange, but I immediately knew she was a prostitute. She was dressed modestly, but after all, it's pretty cold outside. It was in an area of town where there are a lot of hotels (almost any time you stay at a hotel alone in China as a male, you'll get phone calls from callgirls, and if you unplug your phone or don't answer, you may even have some knocking on your door). Pretty much the only women in most big cities that will approach you are prostitutes, especially with that kind of confidence. It was at night, in sort of a darker place in the square, without many people around. I mean, it just made sense. But she didn't seem like she was propositioning me. It sounded like she was asking for my phone number (yeah, right), or maybe she wanted to give me her phone number in case I was interested. But she was acting so strange. And she kept saying something about me coming in the morning to see her (huh?). She kept saying the word phone. And she kept saying something about electricity, maybe. Really, my Chinese isn't very good.

Okay, so all of a sudden I realized that she was one of the attendants in China Telecom, which I'd visited this morning to try and get a phone line connected in my apartment. She wasn't the one I was talking to, she was at the other desk. I'm surprised, honestly, that I even vaguely remembered her. Immediately I'm sure my entire demeanor changed (from "Why are you talking to me?" to "I am so excited to see you!"--a big switch). I had said I'd come in this afternoon, but I didn't have time, so I let her know that I'm going in again tomorrow morning. I'm glad I didn't just say, "I don't want it" and walk away.

There's a pretty deep lesson here, boys and girls: don't assume people are prostitutes just because they're talking to you.

Jump

2007-10-24T09:11:00.001+08:00

Old people here are afraid of escalators. They leap on and off, and before each jump you can see them mentally preparing themselves for a possible ugly demise.

Triumphant return: Take 2

2007-10-21T12:47:00.002+08:00

For the last few days I've been preparing for the long haul. It's going to be awhile before I leave this area, and longer until I see the faces of my family. And honestly, I'm glad for the chance to finally put down roots here.

I don't really know if, by and large, it's possible for me to communicate what my life is like. One friend (and my constant advocate with my parents) told me that she cries when she reads my blog. At times things are difficult, it's true--but I think that to see my last few days here would warm anyone's heart. I guess the best way to explain my preparations for the long winter would be to say that I've been storing up gratitude.

I apologize, because I expect that this will be long. I finished up a novel tonight, which always makes me start thinking like a novel, and writing like one besides. Bear with me--next time I'll be less verbose.

I arrived, still sick but rested, back in the city on Thursday afternoon. I'd stayed the night in the bigger city a few hours away. Trying to keep my last Japanese encephalitis vaccine refrigerated throughout the trip was a constant source of frustration and amusement.

At my hotel there, I'd tried to communicate my request in Chinese to no avail--so they told me they'd call their English-speaking friend. The conversation went like this:

Girl: Hello? What is it?
Me: I have a thing. I have something...
Girl: Okay...
Me: I have to keep it cold. I must keep it cold. It needs to be cold.
Girl: Okay...
Me: But it can't freeze.
Girl: ...
Me: It can't be like ice. The thing, the something, can't become like ice, hard like ice.
Girl: Ohhh.
Me: Do you understand?

At this point, she has been so encouraging, we have communicating so well, that my heart was absolutely brimming with warmth for all the Chinese people who have spent so many long, hard hours learning my mother tongue--these dear people who, by simply being in my path make my life a little easier. That's when she replied to my question.

"You want to make a long-distance call?"

It was too funny not to laugh, and after another good long bout of broken Chinese and wild gesticulations, I managed to get my point across. I believe that my protection against absurdly distant tropical disease has remained intact.

Getting into the city, everything seemed like home. It was admittedly a little discouraging to walk into my apartment and survey all my things still piled up in the otherwise empty concrete living room floor. But as soon as I walked into the dining room, kitchen, and bedroom, which are more as they will be, it felt like I'd lived here for ages. It's true that it's cold in my house; they don't turn the heat on here until November, and it snowed last week.

But there's something about seeing all the flies in my kitchen, flown in the large hole in the window, huddled in the top corner of the room. Walking around in wool long johns given to me by the caring, worried wife of a close friend here, with a steaming mug of a walnut/soy concoction that tastes like a mix between oatmeal and a vanilla latte (I took a chance on it at the grocery store and never looked back). Pulling on thick wool socks, and then fur-lined boots that are tough as nails but cost next-to-nothing. Wearing a fur cap, more clothes inside than outside, heaping on blankets in front of a space heater I bought that hardly makes a dent in the night's dusty chill. Something about it makes me feel like I'm in love, and gratitude is a song that my apartment thrums with.

My gatekeeper and I like each other too much to have never conversed, I have kids in my apartment building who love me for having spoken in their class, and everyone I meet on the stairwell excitedly asks if I live on the fifth floor, and tells me what floor they live on like it makes us closer than blood. It feels like a community, as does the street that I live on.

That first night back in, out walking, I bought some roasted chestnuts, just removed from a huge cauldron filled with live coals. The next day, going to my boss's house for work, I entered to the sound of Christmas music. It may be just me, but everything here has felt vaguely festive.

Two friends from a different city in China came in town, and their encouragements will help all of this last through inevitable difficult times to come. Which is to say nothing of my joy at being able to host them.

And this is also not to say that I've forgotten where I live. On Saturday on the way to work I saw a man kill a sheep on the side of the road, and you should thank me for not being more specific.

But I've just been seeing old friends, taking my time, reading a lot, getting enough rest to try and get over this illness. I've been walking a surprising amount, smiling at all the inquisitive strangers. Trying to keep space in my life to feel like I'm really living it, trying to be holy. Tonight I started feeling almost like I've been wasting time, and I spent a long walk home trying to decide whether I've been irresponsible. I'd forgotten to get money out of the ATM, though. When I took a taxi back out, a man had just busted a flat. I asked if I could help, and did most of the work changing the tire. On the way home, again I just felt... placed. Purposed. And always very, very alive.

I've had many tell me that what's most surprising living overseas is how much more you feel both the good and bad things that come your way. And eventually, apparently it levels out. Well, I think that already I've found this to be true. But it's not just leveling out that's happening. I've been learning a lot about tough moments. And right now, a lot about joy.

Where I Wake

2007-09-11T22:28:00.002+08:00

This is where I wake every morning. And I'll admit that, if I move, I'm going to miss this room.

The thing is, I don't have to move. I just found out yesterday that I can live here for another six months. But he's raising the price by 100 yuan per month (from 350 to 450), and I'd have to be out after that. Even without the price change, I would feel ridiculous painting this place and really making it home when I'm only going to be here for a little while.

And if I don't, I'm going to feel like I'm in transition that entire time. Few things sound worse.

Right now, actually, I really want to explore the possibility of living in a pingfang--a small, one-story area with different rooms in a square around a small courtyard. My boss isn't so keen on me living in one, though.

Perhaps with good reason.

They're heated with a coal stove, so depending on whether you recently put coal in, in the winter they're usually either really hot or freezing. They don't really have places to wash, so I'd have to use a public shower (but I've been showering less often anyways). They can be sort of unsanitary, with the bathroom the type that you have to have shoveled out. And they tend to be full of coal dust.

But it's a more traditional home, and you get a yard, and it's generally just a more peaceful, natural setting. I'd also have more control over when I could leave and come home, and I could really make the place home. I've never been someone who's shied away from difficult things, and I feel like the times when I'm most comfortable are the times when I fall away from Dad. Perhaps it's idealizing the situation, but I can imagine waking up to cold in the night, throwing some more coal in the stove, and reading the Office of the Night Watch before going back to sleep. I feel like the type of maintenance such a place needs does good things for my soul, even if at times it's a hassle or frustrating.

What I'm saying, in short, is that I may need a good, warm sleeping bag after all.

Finally! Some pictures.

2007-09-10T20:09:00.001+08:00

Well, it's been a long, hard road, but now I can finally get pictures off my camera. I don't really have time to write, but the other night I went to a performance in the big city square here. It was basically a bunch of kids from a school doing musical performances to celebrate something or other. Here's one side of the square:

Someone saw me walking up (I tend to create a commotion) and grabbed me to sit at what they call here the "Chairman's Table." Anytime there's any kind of performance here, usually there's a table in the very front reserved for VIP's. Seeing as how I'm not Asian, I am automatically a VIP.

A couple of my friends sat up there with me, and we had a lot of fun making faces at the kids and watching all of them doing skits, singing and dancing. It made me think of those performances we used to work so hard to put on in Elementary School. But at the same time, even in the performances that were obviously supposed to emulate American dancing, everything was so distinctly Chinese. It's really interesting, because you know that it's different, but sometimes it's hard to pinpoint what exactly about the performances are so foreign. Or, native, rather. Foreign to me.

Afterwards, I went on a walk around the city, and took a few pictures of the city at night, largely deserted. Here's a street near the square:

And then here's one of the three biggest hotels in town (one of two I'd recommend):

I *told* you guys it was a city. It's not a big city, but it is a city. I have a few more pictures I'm going to ration out since I haven't been taking many. But I hope everyone's been doing well. I have so much to tell! But no time, no time. Soon.

Popsicles, or, Almost Getting Hit By Cars

2007-08-28T23:28:00.002+08:00

So, in light of a recent post I made mentioning popsicles, I thought that I would make another to further elucidate the subject.

See, many of the current popsicle manufacturers in China have started something truly unique: putting a thin layer of ice around the sides of the popsicle, and making the inside much softer than any ice cream bar in America.

Ingenious, right? Even though it's not nearly as delightful to eat, there's no having to worry about potential drips or, worst of all, the complete loss of one half of the popsicle, broken off and fallen because of structural deficiencies.

Well, wrong. The ice, unfortunately, doesn't continue to the bottom of the popsicle. Therefore, walking down the street you look absolutely ridiculous trying to attend to the top and bottom of the popsicle near-simultaneously. Once you get near to the bottom, the ice has also already started to break up, making the whole thing one barely-cohesive mess on a stick. As this requires all of your concentration, if you are walking in the city square, for instance, hypothetically, you will almost get hit by a car.

Of course, this isn't entirely your fault, or even the popsicle's--cars in China are much less predictable than in America. You can almost get hit by a car while sitting in the living room of your fifth floor apartment if you aren't paying enough attention, especially if you left a window open.

Walk in the Rain

2007-08-28T23:14:00.001+08:00

Tonight, I had dinner with a friend of mine, and then I'd planned to have a different friend come over and hang out at my apartment. He ended up calling me at about 8:30 to cancel, though. So I went for a walk.

The night was a little chilly and rainy. I picked up some moon cakes in a bakery that I passed--small cakes with filling, made because the Moon Festival is coming up.

I won't get into everything I thought about on the walk. So many thoughts are doggedly pursued and then dropped on a walk like that, it would be difficult to write it all here. I will say that sometimes long walks like that can go bad with so much time to think, but this was not one of those nights.

I've always been someone who has thought about background music--what music I would like to have as my soundtrack, or just what would be perfect. "Trailways" by Red House Painters for walking under trees with sunlight streaming through, for instance. There is also a certain way that the sun will strike a lake as you drive by that sounds like "Tahquamenon Falls" by Sufjan Stevens. Tonight the call to prayer started to bellow from a mosque I was walking by and echo from building to building. And that is the soundtrack to this place, to the lives that weave through these streets and alleys.

I walked to another part of the city, the large square that I've mentioned before on here. It's about the size of three or four football fields, but because of the weather it was completely desolate. There's something about a place where there should be people when it's empty--like something is wrong, like it's being used for something that was never intended. I walked to the very middle, where there's a huge pole with lights in a ring around the top. Looking up, the rain was falling regularly, but larger drops in two concentric rings because of the lights. The drops would be illumined as they passed the lights, then fade like sparks. It was really indescribable: the whole of it, me standing, looking up, the strangeness and simple beauty of what I was watching, how unusual of a place it was to find it, alone in a huge city square.

I was recently told that the phrase, "Zhen qi guai," means "How strange," but that that isn't the whole of it. There's also beauty implied.

It's hard to describe exactly, but as I walked home I had a whole different set of things to think about.

Restful Day

2007-08-25T12:11:00.002+08:00

Things have been a lot more busy here than I expected. I expected there to be a lot more quiet, a lot more rest, than there has been. Part of it may be living in a city--even on what you plan to be a quiet walk, crazy encounters can occur.

So yesterday, after kind of a frustrating day at work, I stopped and picked up a strawberry ice cream bar on my way home. Now, some of you were privy to my absurd Good Humor strawberry shortcake ice cream bar cravings in the days leading up to my return to China. Well, I've found something here that's not the same but... well... it's just close enough to be dangerous.

I threw open the windows, put on both fans, threw on a tank top and some old jeans, listened to country music, ate the ice cream bar, and just felt amazing. I can't really describe it, it just really felt like home. It's true that it doesn't take much to feel at home here--so much of life is so foreign that one day when I saw two different people using the ATM on a walk, I felt like I was in America.

I had plans to have coffee with a friend last night, but I sort of knew it was going to fall through.

So after that, I went to the grocery store and picked up a bunch of different snack foods (usually it's about 50/50 when finding new foods, only about half will be edible) and some things to use for dinner, and headed home. I put on some music, cooked an absolutely amazing dinner (admittedly, I was surprised), tried all the snack foods (all three edible as snacks, though I won't buy one of them again), and watched the latest Harry Potter movie.

It was really quite the excellent evening.

But! For now I need to head to lunch/work. My boss's wife is making tortillas!

Jialifuniya Girls

2007-08-25T12:05:00.001+08:00

It's been a long time since I've written, and so many things have been happening!

On a walk last Sunday, I ended up seeing tons of people that I knew, so this week has been really busy.

A few days ago, I was walking down a couple of the newer streets in town, almost like a downtown kind of area, when four very attractive girls around my age stopped me. They all had matching nice outfits, and so it seemed that they were co-workers. So they all started talking to me, and I didn't have any idea what they're saying. But I went with them, because... well, why would I not go with them?

So there was a little tent type thing, and a table under it with a book on it. There were about four other girls waiting for us, and they all watched as I sat down at the table and started looking at the book. It was basically all glamour shots of a couple. Extreme glamour shots--wind in their hair, lying on sofas, airbrushed like crazy. The girls asked if I had a girlfriend, but I, of course, don't. After they all volunteered each other for the job, they said it's okay for just one person to get glamour shots, too. Thank goodness.

After I told them it was too expensive and started to leave, they asked me to sit back down. They really wanted me to stay and hang out. But then it was just really *absurdly* awkward, because I didn't know how to say that much and there were these eight girls just asking me things like who I think is the prettiest and whether I would marry a Chinese girl. I was actually surprised that here, almost as many people ask about marrying a Chinese girl as in America.

It happens a lot--a girl asking if her friend is good enough to marry, or whether I think she's pretty. I try to pretend not to understand for as long as possible, and when they just don't give up, I say I'm too young to find a wife.

Letting the Days Go By...

2007-08-16T21:42:00.001+08:00

Random Happenin's:

Last Saturday, I went with "Baxter" to the Great Wall of my city. Which is a short, imitation Great Wall that they put in a park a little ways outside the city. It was pretty... majestic? We were talking about Islam since Baxter is studying to be an imam, and he asked, "Are you Christmas?" I said that yes, I celebrate Christmas, etc. And he said, "Yes, but ARE you Christmas?"

He meant to ask whether I'm a Christian. I kept correcting him, but he never did quite get it.

They actually had one room at the park full of different rocks cleaned and on shelves. I asked what the rocks were, whether they were sculpted, but the people had just gathered what they considered to be the most beautiful naturally formed rocks in the area into one room. The idea of the aesthetics of naturally formed rocks was really interesting to me, and we spent a lot of time looking closely and choosing our favorites.
I went for several long walks around the city, which were really amazing, and did good things for my heart. In one part of the city on Monday, I bought a small turtle that I think is supposed to be like a chia pet. I watered him when I brought him home, in any case, so I'll keep you posted about whether I'm right or he's a turtle made of dirt.

It was in the same part of the city where I'm thinking about living. My potential future apartment isn't in as good of a location as this one, and it isn't as nice. But there's something about it that's indescribably appealing. You have to walk through an alley separated from the road to get there, which usually has old women sitting there just talking, or maybe shucking corn. Off of the alley are many other branches of smaller alleys, both sides brick, overgrown with grass and flowers, ending in doors half the size of a person. As I told a friend of mine, it feels like a secret garden--it feels like anything could happen there.
I had coffee with an old friend of Lee's and one of her friends on Tuesday. We talked a lot about the environment in China, especially desertification, and they told me about the Green Wall of China--a line of trees being planted to stop the spread of the Gobi Desert in northwest China.
Yesterday morning, I spent about two and a half hours teaching a friend of mine to do the Electric Slide. I cannot even describe how fun and hilarious of an experience this was. My doctor friend came over last night and hung out for a long time, which was very relaxing and encouraging.

I Made a Huge Mistake

2007-08-11T18:41:00.001+08:00

So. This evening I took a walk around the city. It was the first time I'd just gone for a long walk since I got here, and it was really nice. So I was walking along, passing through the city square, when I hear this truck coming up behind me. You know how sometimes when something loud approaches, you'll see someone on a cell phone run away from it, clutching the phone tightly to their ear?

Well.

That happened with a girl in front of me. A loud truck was coming--it made sense. And it made even more sense when it turned out to be one of the huge trucks that drives around the city spraying everything with water. Turns out *everyone* else knew it was coming somehow, so after it passed *I* was left standing alone in the road with my left side completely soaked. In case you've forgotten, it was in the city square, so about eighty percent of the city's population saw it and immediately burst into laughter. Including me, actually--I threw them a thumbs up (which I hope isn't a bad gesture here), and couldn't stop laughing for about twenty minutes.

People kept giving me strange looks as they saw me walking down the street half-soaked, though. But seriously--if you had huge trucks driving around your city for the exclusive purpose of spraying massive amounts of water everywhere, surely you wouldn't be that surprised to see the occasional person with one side of his body drenched.

There are so many situations every day in which I do the exact wrong thing. Walking in the grocery store today, a guy tried to hand me a box of something or another that was long and rectangular, red, with a picture of bees and a honeycomb on it. I thought he was trying to get me to buy it, and stood there trying to get him to understand that I didn't want it. Finally he just threw it in my bag--it was a free sample. I opened it when I got home. I think it might be toothpaste--there's a picture of a smile on one side of the box. But then, toothpaste is one of those things... If it's not toothpaste, you *really* don't want to be using it like it is.

I definitely need people to be understanding and graceful. But they are. And I love that they're so ready to accept that I have no idea what I'm doing.

It's so funny here to watch people with children as you walk towards them. Parents or grandparents immediately bend down to their children, however young, and start shaking them or poking them in the ribs, trying to get them to speak something in English to you. If they do, it's a resounding "Hello!" before they immediately hide behind the adult.

Home again, home again...

2007-08-10T11:36:00.002+08:00

Well, I arrived back in my little city at about 6 last night. I had dinner over at my boss's apartment with his family, hung out there for a while, and then came to the apartment, absolutely exhausted. But even though I was worn out, when I went out onto the street to grab some water, I was absolutely beaming. It's good to be back.

Last night I definitely realized how lonely it's going to be here. I've never actually lived alone, and it's sort of a sad feeling coming home at night. But I definitely think that I'll ultimately benefit from living a life with more quiet, more solitude, in it.

Today, I went out to grab a cable that I needed, and I slipped on some flip-flops. I was definitely thinking, "Is this okay? I'm pretty sure this is fine." And then, on the street, everyone kept *staring* at my feet. It's ridiculous how embarrassed I was for wearing flip-flops. On my way down the street, I kept seeing people who were absolutely scowling at me, too. But when I smiled and nodded to them, they would erupt into the biggest smiles. That's one of those things that happens all the time here, but it's just really funny to re-realize.

So I got to where I knew I could buy the cable, and the guy's like, "Hey--are you Lee's friend?" I said yes, and he asked if I was living in Lee's apartment, and I said yes, and he said a few things that I couldn't understand, and I kept nodding, and then he said he knew Lee and he's glad he's my friend now, too.

I just love this place. There are going to be tough times. But right now, I'm elated.

Another Day Alone, Pt. 2

2007-06-26T09:47:00.001+08:00

So now I'm at a hip little restaurant that looks like it could be in America. It's not American food, though, and not at American prices. I didn't realize it when I came in, but it's actually Korean barbecue, which all of you should try if you have the opportunity.

My day was pretty interesting. After I left China Mobile, I went to this office--but they said I'd have to leave and come back later. I was so disappointed, because I was tired of dragging all these bags all over the downtown of a big city. I know that the reason I hate it is that I don't like feeling like a tourist--even though it's inevitable when you're in China and you're white. I had one person randomly tell me, "Welcome to our city!" It was nice, but it made me feel foolish.

But instead of running all over the place again, I managed to make friends with the female owner of a drink stall outside the office. She gave me a free ice cream and a little stool she had behind the counter, and we chatted. It was a lot of fun, barring one conversation with a man who walked up wanting to talk about Taiwan. She also watched my bags as I went back in to get the papers.

There, I had to rewrite my resume, but then I finally got the papers I needed to apply for a work visa at the Chinese embassy.

That same woman helped me find a cab, and I made my way to the hotel and took a great nap. Now I'm trying to decide whether a girl across the room is this older man's date or daughter, I'm waiting for my dan chou fan, and everything seems just about right.

Another Day Alone, Pt. 1

2007-06-26T05:10:00.001+08:00

So, I just saw a woman trying to make two monks leave the step outside her business, while they were trying to sell her water and a girl was trying to hand all of them flyers.

However.

Right now, I'm sitting in a China Mobile because it's the only place I could find to sit down, and I'm pretty stressed and worn out. The bus here ended up making tons of long stops along the way. When we finally got here, I was told by three different taxi drivers that they couldn't take me to the center of the city because their roofs weren't painted yellow.

Finally, a guy on a motorcycle asked me where I wanted to go. At this point I'm carrying a full backpack and a largish piece of luggage. I tel him, and he says he'll take me there, and he says the luggage is no problem. I thought I was going to have time to ready myself, but we were going as soon as I got on the back, with my left hand clutching the bike, and my bag slung over my right shoulder, with a notebook in my right hand and my arm trying to keep my bag wedged between me and him.

Also, apparently there is no need when you're on a motorcycle to stop at red lights, or even ever slow down for anything ever. In case you guys were wondering.

Well, 20 minutes and several near death experiences later, we got to the center of the city, and he asked these police officers where the place is I want to go. They didn't know, but this random woman helped me get a cab and explained how to get there. Evidently the motorcycle driver was through with me (even though, I'm *pretty* sure I wasn't screaming--admittedly, it's a blur).

It was about 12:45 at this point, so the government office won't be back open until 2:30. So I've been lugging all my stuff around downtown trying to find a place to sit, but it's all banks and cell phone stores. I'm not exaggerating, either. Besdies banks and cell phone stores, there were only two antique stores and nothing else on the two-block stretch of road I've walked past. Hopefully, the rest of the day will go a little better.

Another Trip

2007-06-25T11:34:00.002+08:00

First of all, with the last story, there was one thing that I failed to mention. The first two foreigners in the city, we sat down for a meal in a small village home on a hill in the middle of nowhere, and while we were eating, they put on... Michael Jackson music videos. And then the English channel, a special on metalworking or something. It was really sweet that they were trying to make us feel at home.

I also figured out what it was that they were trying to get Lee to market. Actually Meg was right in her comment--it's called chongcao, and it's a type of caterpillar that burrows into the ground. Then spores of a fungus essentially find it and burrow into its head, mummifying the caterpillar alive. At one point in the spring, the fungus grows out of the ground as an iridescent blue stick, and it's pulled out with the caterpillar still attached. No one's really sure of what type of relationship the fungus and caterpillar have--the jury is out on a lot of things related to this phenomenon, but people think it's really crazy healthy, so they're sort of expensive.

Since the last time I wrote, things have been really busy with trying to finish meeting Lee's friends and see everyone one last time. On Thursday night we had dinner with my boss's family and two women from Finland doing linguistics fieldwork for Helsinki University, studying the dialects of the people in our area. One of them studied Chinese for a year in a city that I've been to several times, so it was fun to chat and hear about how it's changed.

On Friday the two girls who visited at the beginning of the month came back through. The day before, I'd actually found a crock pot at a supermarket there, and I was excited about the chance to use it to make Apple Chicken stew. Well, I bought everything, and managed to get everything ready just in time to leave for lunch. I turned it on high, and we ran out.

Well, the thing is, the crock pot had had a hole in the lid. I'd duct taped it, engineer that I am, since most of them in the states don't have that. But then I was thinking--am I sure it's a crock pot? It could be a rice cooker. Which would actually make more sense. I asked Lee, and he confirmed that, in fact, neither of us read Chinese. So we have no idea. Luckily, even though I still don't know what it is, when we went back later we discovered that it can indeed function as a crock pot, regardless, and the stew turned out to be pretty delicious alongside Lee's famous mashed potatoes. The girls brought homemade cookies and brownies, and it was just lovely. As one of our courses we actually had the mummified-caterpillar fungus, which I have to admit I did not expect to actually eat.

We had a good night playing Imaginiff and just talking, and then on Saturday we traveled with them to a Tibetan village that sits at 10,500 feet above sea level. I thought I was high at 5,500, but there I got winded after walking maybe a hundred yards. I had met two people there that I wanted to see again, and a friend of mine also started a Western restaurant in this city that we wanted to visit. And it was just so wild--these people we stayed with have no running water in their house, they don't take showers or brush their teeth, and they love it. And they're amazing, hilariously sarcastic people, around my age. We played Skip Bo and watched The Office on their kong. Good times.

We also got to have some great pizza and yakburgers (he calls them "Big Yaks"). And the rides there and back were through some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It's like at every turn you see a different postcard.

But now? To the big city, and then America.

Having Best Friendship

2007-06-24T21:22:00.001+08:00

The other day, I met a guy around my age in the center of town. I think he may be on his way to becoming an Imam, and he told me he wants to study in Pakistan.

Anyways, we had a three or four minute conversation and exchanged e-mail addresses so we could hang out when I come back this fall. The following is the conversation that resulted, with his name changed to Baxter. His e-mails are italicized for easy reading.

Dear friend:
Nice to meet you ,Iam your friend baxter.I hope you have a good time in my hometown.

Baxter!

It is good to hear from you! Thank you very much. I will e-mail you when I come back in town in August, and hopefully we can spend some time together.

Your new friend,
Drew

Dear friend:
when I looking your E-mail, I think you are a true friend, I
feeling very happy. thank you so much. no matter how far between us .we have best friendship so you are my best friend ,I will waitting for you .
Say hello to your family,say hello to you girlfriend

friend:baxter

Village People

2007-06-19T09:58:00.002+08:00

First thing's first: we had a great weekend with different folks coming in to see Lee while he's still here. It was really good to meet a lot of the Westerners that Lee's had a chance to get close to. Talking openly was really encouraging--and three of the people, including a young couple around my age, only live two or three hours away. We went to the zoo, played some Phase 10, chatted and told a lot of stories. It was pretty awesome.

Yesterday, Lee and I went to a village. The people there said we're probably the first foreigners to ever go there, which is a pretty crazy thought. We went to visit the home of a high school student that we're friends with. The father kept trying to get Lee to market this thing in America--it's essentially a dried caterpillar attached to a stick, and you're supposed to eat the whole thing and it makes you strong. It was funny, though--at first they said it was a plant. And I said, "Wait, is that a caterpillar?" And our friend said, "In winter, it is caterpillar. In summer, it is plant." Hm. Hm. In any case, the man gave Lee some samples even though he tried to turn them down, so I think we may fear-factor them sometime this weekend.

We had a good time hanging out there, though. People grow corn, wheat, and potatoes out there, and the whole area was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen--huge hills, covered with the deepest shade of green. It was worth the stomach problems that resulted from our lunch there.

Last night we hung out with a friend's family, and afterwards I went for a late-night walk. It's been cold here, and it's a great feeling to be bundled up against it. I was surprised at how eventful the walk was. First I met two Muslim women in a store on the riverfront. We had a very halting, difficult conversation in Chinese for a couple of minutes before they asked me what I do. I said it's difficult to say, and one of them says in perfect English, "In English." And I said that my job was to mail things out for my boss, and they understood perfectly, when I'd been struggling over how to say that I work here.

I met another guy whose invitation I declined to go into a karaoke bar. I met a Muslim who felt like he should be anti-American (which is rare) that I had a short conversation with that ended very well. And I was called over to a table of people, half of whom were drunk, and I sat and talked with them for a few minutes (fairly unsuccessfully). Because they were a little far gone, they were talking very quickly and slurring, so not much actual conversing occurred.

And overall, it was just kind of a good time to be alone in the city. I arrived home feeling very refreshed.

Home Again

2007-06-13T17:34:00.002+08:00

On Monday I did a bunch of the official things that need to get done for me to live and work here. The highlight of this was most definitely the physical. I got it in an office building somewhere in the city I was in--you parked in the back and went up this back staircase to find the place. The sign is tiny.

So I go in, I write down my name and birthday, and immediately they start sending me around to all these different stations. It was like an adventure, or a video game, and each different one was a test or a level that you had to pass. I'd go in, they'd motion for me to lay on the table, motion for me to lift my shirt, they'd put gel on my chest, attach all these suction cups to me, wait ten seconds, and they'd stamp the paper and send me off. In one room they attached a red lead (positive voltage) and a black lead (ground) to my arms, and I was terrified that they were going to shock me. Luckily, my boss was with me and could explain most of what they were doing. I got an EKG, an ultrasound, a chest x-ray, and then all the normal stuff from a doctor's visit. Then we headed home that day.

On the way home, there were different people on the side of the road with boxes and boxes of bees. Apparently these people start in northern China at the beginning of summer and start moving down south as the flowers finish blooming where they are and start blooming more south. They follow the flowers until they finally end up in Tibet. Apparently the specific area that I live in, though, is famous for its honey. They live in ramshackle tents, in groups of two or three. They have just huge drums of honey in their tents. The man let us taste some absolutely fresh honey, and it was amazing--if I hadn't known, I might not even think it was just honey. I don't really know how to describe it.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to travel. I love being on the road headed somewhere far away for absolutely no reason. There's something about me that just craves it.

But honestly, this whole past weekend I just wanted to be back here, to the city that's quickly been becoming my home. We had a calm night on Monday night when I got back, but then last night we went with a bunch of friends for another night of karaoke. This time it was even more fun than last time--it was similar, but there was a lot of dancing, and everyone was really into everything and having a lot of fun.

But, I guess that's probably more than enough for now.

A Day Alone, Pt. 4

2007-06-11T12:44:00.001+08:00

Over the course of my walk, at one point I passed a building with lit-up four-leaf clovers across the top. It looked really interesting, but I couldn't see inside. It didn't look sketchy at all, and for some reason I had to know what it was. So I went in.

Just inside was an entrance room, but there was no one standing there. There was only a staircase down. I gingerly started walking down. I noticed that there was a security camera focused on the stairs. The place had a distinct smell of warm mist, but not after a rain.

When I got to the bottom, I saw that it was something like a bar--expansive, but empty except for two men in the corner who had to have been in the mafia. An attendant came up to me. I asked him in English what the place was, but it's clear he didn't understand. So we have the following conversation in Chinese:

D (waving my hand around) : What is this?
A : (something in Chinese)
D : A bar?
A : Yes.
D : Do you have Jasmine tea?
A : Me?
D : The bar.
A (looking at me like I'm crazy) : (something in Chinese)
D : I don't speak much Chinese. I don't understand.
A : We don't have it. We have (something that sounds like "flower tea")
D : You have flower tea?
A : No.
D : Do you you have tea?
A : (5 minute string of Chinese I don't know)
D : I don't understand. I'm sorry. Goodbye!
A : Sorry. Goodbye!

But, now I think I'm headed home. It was a long walk, and I'm pretty tired. Also (the real reason), I think I'm sitting next to a vent from the bathroom, I feel awkward about moving, and there is a bug flying around my head rather persistently.

A Day Alone, Pt. 3

2007-06-11T12:38:00.001+08:00

Right now I've moved to a hotel in this same city. It's a horrible little place with no air conditioning, but I realized too late that I didn't bring enough money, and there's nowhere I can get more until tomorrow. Tonight I'm eating fried rice in a cheap hole-in-the-wall restaurant and hoping that it'll tide me over until tomorrow. I'd like to go back to that kafeiguan later, but that would leave me with 2 kuai--barely enough to buy a bottle of water.

(And later.)

I wrote down the name of the coffee shop I was in earlier and am in now--Oasis coffee Beautiful family: Graceful & Cosy Greenland Coffee Island. At night, though, the dive bar feel is lost--all the lamps are lit, there are Christmas lights and nice music, and the place overall lives up to the word "cosy." It's empty except for me.

I just went for a walk and decided to write down some of the things I saw. I'll post them here for your benefit:

A toy poodle with its ears dyed pink.
A girl trying to describe something to a friend, making a sound like a train.
Construction workers wearing wicker helmets.
Three 15-year-old boys in dress pants and no shirts drinking beer at a table.
Three men on motorcycles wearing construction helmets.
Someone who yelled "Hello!" to me and gestured with his hand at an entranceway covered with a dirty towel.
Girls practicing a dance in front of a school gate.
An open door covered with a picture of Santa Claus, through which I could see a dark, narrow stairwell up.

A Day Alone, Pt. 2

2007-06-11T08:32:00.001+08:00

One of Lee's friends here that hung out with us this weekend, is a little younger than the others. He's basically a foreigner fanboy. He doesn't speak much English, and when we were talking on Saturday, the conversation sounded like this:

"I like American sports. Michael Jordan?"
"Yeah, Michael Jordan is awesome."
"I like American music. Michael Jackson?"
"Yeah, Michael Jackson. Very cool."
"I like American military."
"What?"
"American military. US. A army."
"Yeah, American military..."

The next day, just me and him were waiting for others in his room. He was showing me all kinds of things--pictures of foreigners that he's met, a tape of a bunch of old folk songs by people like John Denver and The Carpenters--and then he says something about the military again and goes to get something out of his huge closet. And I don't know why, but immediately I couldn't get the thought out of my head: he's going to pull out a gun. I don't know how he's gotten it, but he's going to pull out a gun and I'm not going to know what to do but I'm going to have to stammer something about it being cool but then he's going to want me to hold it...

But it was camouflage, and goggles? US Military goggles, evidently, and real US Military camouflage that says "US Army" on the front and "Harley Davidson" on the shoulder.

A Day Alone: Pt. 1

2007-06-11T08:27:00.001+08:00

I am sitting in a darkened coffee shop unlike really any I've been in. It sort of has the look of a dive, but the things in it are nice. It's like someone wanted to own a dive, but couldn't fathom the idea of starting a business and not having nice furniture in it. Ultimately, though, the strangeness isn't unpleasant.

The other day, Lee and I watched a movie with a couple of friends of ours. One of them made dinner, everything was very nice, and then we watched a movie on the wall with the friend's projector. Anyway, at one point in the evening one of them was talking about how dangerous the roads are, and he tells a story about a woman being hit by a bus and having her brains splattered on the sidewalk.

And I'm so uncomfortable because it's so random that I start up with nervous laughter, and then everyone's looking at me like I'm the *most horrible person ever*. We didn't talk about it for a few days, but somehow it came up again last night and Lee said that he almost did the same thing. It made me feel a little better.

The past few days we've been out of town, staying with some college students in a dorm. It's been a lot of fun--chatting on Friday night, talking about life and girls and all singing Alison Krauss along to a guitar, and then on Saturday a walk, lunch, karaoke, dinner, and roller skating.

Karaoke was crazy. I guess I didn't think it would be so exactly what you see in the movies. A room all to ourselves, darkened but lit very hip, a couch running the length of the wall, blasting music, singers that are as enthusiastic as they are horrifically untalented. It was so much fun. I sang "It Must Have Been Love" by Roxette, and did duets to "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" and "Say You, Say Me." And there was dancing, which was fun but strange.

Skating was just absurd. I guess it must be like this in America, but it's just funny how much of a range there is in skating ability. There were guys skating backwards in trains at breakneck speeds, and then girls falling (hard) every five minutes. I'd been skating maybe twice when I was ten, but I guess I'd been skating and rollerblading, so I picked it up pretty quickly and was about average. I took a lot of breaks, though, because there was one girl in our group who couldn't really skate. At all. So I'd chat with her every once in a while, tell her about life in America ("You go driving at midnight? And then you drink coffee?!"). A few times she let Lee and I take her skating, holding her between us so she wouldn't fall.

What's really different about skating in China is that there are no rules. People are going in every direction, as fast as they want, and you'd just better to your best to not get bowled over.

Overview?

2007-06-07T14:19:00.001+08:00

This is an amalgamation of different journal entries and e-mails, etc. This is one post that may be a little out of order for that reason.

The trip definitely started off with a bang. I was in a taxi going to the bus station to come here when these guys ran up and started banging on the windows and saying the name of the city where I'm headed. I bargained with them, but by the time we settled things and I got out of the car, the bus was pulling away. One of the guys was putting my bag under the bus as it was moving, and I jumped on, but I was hanging out the door trying to make sure the guy wasn't going to steal my bag or something. Everyone was yelling.

Then we drove around the city for literally an hour and a half trying to fill up the bus. What was funny was, a lot of the time it seemed like the drivers were actually convincing people to take a three-hour bus ride to a different city. The people would shake their heads, say they didn't want to go, but after a 5-minute conversation they were on the bus and on their way. And in some places, bees absolutely swarmed the bus, and I couldn't understand how people were going about their business with all these bees around.

Strange.

Here, things have been good. Me and Lee have been getting along really well. It's amazing, really, how awesome things have been.

Two girls came through the city a couple of days after I got here, friends of his. They've been here almost two years, and are headed back to the States soon. They were in town a couple of days, and the second day I made dinner (spaghetti with homemade sauce), and the four of us had a candlelight dinner. Then we all sat and took turns asking questions, and then each person answering in turn. Almost all of the answers were long (the questions were things like, "What was your worst dating experience?"), and we spent about six hours just telling about our lives through stories. It was one of those surreal experiences that leaves you feeling as if you'd known all the others for years.

I may actually go whitewater rafting in Thailand in August with the girls and a bunch of other folks. I know, I know--I am officially everyone's hero.

My Chinese tutor is a girl around my age, which has been a lot of fun. She's pretty funny, and it helps me learn Chinese to try and figure out how to joke with her in her own language. She says I act like I'm 19. Well, I said she looks like she's 12.

Things with my future boss have gone really well. We had a two-and-a-half-hour lunch the other day, just the two of us, which went really well.

The other day, Lee and I and a visitor we had from Australia were invited to a Muslim man's home to have dinner. It was another surreal experience. We ate in an enclosed garden full of beautiful plants, under a kind of lattice completely filled with ivy so that before it got dark we were in the shade. Two birds hung in cages from the lattice, one a canary, one that he called a "pearl bird," which he said only lived on a nearby 14,000 foot mountain. A kitten kept meowing around our feet, then crawling around the ivy on the lattice trying to get to the birds. The man couldn't speak English, but a friend of ours, the one who he invited us through, was there to translate maybe one sentence every half hour. The rest of the time, he expressed himself only through smiles and hospitality as we spoke English.

The food was all prepared by the wife whom we never saw. The dishes were brought out by his son, who didn't talk to us at all. I suppose it's the man's place to be the social center of the home in such a situation. But yes--he didn't eat, he just watched us eat, and if he felt like we weren't getting enough he would put more on our plates. I was stuffed to an absurd degree.

And! More will come soon, I'm sure.

Escape

2007-06-01T11:43:00.001+08:00

Today, as we were riding by, a bright green bird escaped from a cage now holding only three others, and was flying from tree to tree. Everyone on the sidewalk stopped to watch, the boy owners running underneath, anxious but silent.

Superstar

2007-05-31T08:35:00.001+08:00

Today, I was passing a man, both of us on bicycles. As I was coming up on him, I rang my bell. He glanced to see where I was, but he was so surprised to see a white person that he almost wrecked. He knew I knew what had happened, and he flashed me a big smile.

Airport Food

2007-05-28T05:38:00.001+08:00

No complaints about the Kiss n' Bake at the Beijing airport. 18 yuan for a 1-slice-of-ham, 1-slice-of-lettuce sandwich, but it struck just the right chord between bland and tasty for my mood. If I'd had the presence of mind to wait, I probably would have gone to the "Flavor Tang" (a name which in the past I've coined to be synonymous with "the bomb") to hunt down some jiao zi or the like, but oh well.

Sabbath

2007-02-12T12:39:00.001+08:00

So, I took a somewhat different approach to this weekend, and worked on Friday night and then all day yesterday, and today I observed Sabbath. I didn't allow myself to touch my computer, just experience life with my roommates and friends and drive around, experience some quiet time and rest. I have to say, it ended up being absolutely amazing. I just feel so refreshed and thankful after today.

There are some areas of my life where I haven't been obedient lately, and I hope that today helped me get to a place where I have a larger Strength backing my self-discipline.

Beautiful, beautiful day, though.

First Post

2006-12-10T12:14:00.001+08:00

Everyone needs a fresh start every once in a while.

This is what's so powerful about getting to the end of the long journey in Murakami's Kafka on the Shore and suddenly seeing the second-person message so strong in the last sentences:

"You finally fall asleep. And when you wake up, it's true. You are part of a brand new world."

It's also what makes our hearts quicken when we read in Rev. that God will "give each of [us] a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it."

We all need this new world. And we all need a new name, one that represents the new person that we are, and not the person we were yesterday, or the day before, or the day before. And sometimes I think we need to cherish and keep that person secret, while we figure out exactly who he is.

So here's to the new world that started this morning. To all the cities I'll see today. And to all the ones I've walked through, as a stranger or native, to get here.