Posts

Posted on

I’m not old enough

Reunions are for old people. I mean, I haven’t been invited to the MBBC Class of ’07 Reunion luncheon and fundraiser. But someday I will be. I’m planning now to be poor so I don’t have to give any money. Or to be rich and powerful and have already given so much they wouldn’t dare ask for more. But I’m losing focus.

That focus was intended to be upon the reunion I just attended. I’ve just begun my second semester of teaching, and it was time to reconnect with long-lost friends. So, the Giraffes of English Essentials Summer Camp 2007: “English in the Wild” reunited for the first time since November. Those in Changchun, anyway.

It had all the elements of a successful reunion—old friends, sitting around and eating, catching up, exchanging contact info, going to dinner, expressions of vague plans for increased communication, money changing hands. One element was missed, I suppose. There were no new family members (see paragraph one).

It was good times, though. We all left, no doubt, with the same thought: Let’s not wait another four months to do this.

Things move fast in China. (video after the break) Continue reading “I’m not old enough”

Posted on

A new entry for the improv book

I read this article and immediately wanted to blog. I wanted to think of something funny and clever to say about it, but that just couldn’t happen. I mean, there is no way to top a story about a woman who grows onto her toilet. What could I say to make this story any more ridiculous?

I could spice it up by mentioning that it wasn’t even her own toilet. Or that she had sat there for two years. Or that she just wanted to be left there until she felt like leaving. Or that the medical team had to pry the seat off the toilet and leave it attached to her until they got to the hospital. Or that they blame it on her difficult childhood. Or that it happened in some rural Kansas town and became the big news in the city.

But all of that is already in the story. I suppose I just have one question.

OK, I’m single. I admit that at the outset, acknowledging my lack of understanding regarding romantic relationships. But how exactly do you end up as the boyfriend in this situation?

So many things should have prevented this. Like, how did it start? They’re both sitting there watching Lost and she excuses herself. By the end of the episode, he realizes she’s been occupied a rather long while, but doesn’t want to be rude and say anything, so he goes about his business—cleaning up, washing dishes. How long did he ponder the situation before going to check on her, and getting the response, “I’m fine. I’ll be out in a little while”?

How late did he stay up waiting for her to emerge? At some point he had to go to bed, no doubt mentioning discreetly through the long-closed door the circumstances necessitating his action.

Next morning, and the door’s still closed. Same awkward explanation of his behavior as he heads off to work. No doubt he was a little distracted from his work, but walked into his house confident that normalcy was restored. And the door was still closed.

At some point, he had to start taking her food.

At some point, his excuses for why he didn’t have a girlfriend with him when he went out stopped being necessary.

At some point, she became furniture.

Officially the worst first date ever.

Posted on

Alone Together

Thus concludes a series of notes about my recent travels. I didn’t post them earlier because they were mostly written as notes or based on notes scribbled in free moments in cafés, restaurants, train stations and buses. I have tried to modify them only enough to make sense of them, not to make them read-worthy.
 
Exertion encourages sociability. I met more foreigners on the Wall today than downtown yesterday. Only the rare exception didn’t meet my gaze. I got a few nods, and one guy even managed a ‘Hey’ between pants. I’m crediting the difficulty of the climb with the difference. It could be the commercial nature of downtown that caused the withdrawal, but I don’t think so.

And the wall hike was certainly exerting. Anyone who has been to the wall or talked to someone who has been knows it’s more than just walking. 

Jasmine Tea

A successful climb means mounting countless indefinitely spaced steps and uncomfortably pitched ramps. 
[Refill jasmine tea here] Add snow, then have people walk all over it to pack it down and glaze it over. I hoisted myself by the handrail as much as I walked. The sun and traffic had melted it down by the time I made my return trip, but I got up in time to catch frost on the trees at the top.

I didn’t really feel bad dismissing the vendors with a bu yao and a hand wave, and I was ready to help a few English speakers learn the art, but they weren’t overly receptive. Dan paid the full price to get his name engraved on a bronze plate despite my warning. The Chinese man next to me agreed with my estimation that it was too expensive, but Dan didn’t believe either of us. Or didn’t understand the local’s concurrence with my evaluation. Or didn’t care. I didn’t when I first came. Too bad the exchange rate only favors those who understand economics.

—————

Another lesson learned: Know the names of the places you want to go. Then, when you lose your original directions and no one at the tea house has an English map of Beijing, you can still get there.

To be fair, I wasn’t stranded. I could get to various places and find my way from there, by taxi or by memory of the previous day’s events. But that was hardly ideal when I was trying to get to a specific new place.

My good choice? Looking for the directions in the tea house before I tried to get on the bus. And having a cell phone and English speaking friends.
 
(18 Jan 08 | Beijing)
Posted on

Self-exploitation

Thus continues a series of notes about my recent travels. I didn’t post them earlier because they were mostly written as notes or based on notes scribbled in free moments in cafés, restaurants, train stations and buses. I have tried to modify them only enough to make sense of them, not to make them read-worthy. 
 
Buddhists call it enlightenment and describe it in terms of repeatedly beating yourself against a wall until, dazed and bloody, you turn go the other way. Psychologists only slightly less violently describe it in terms like absorption, saturation, and explosion. Literary types like to label it inspiration and credit their muse, while more religiously it’s known as an epiphany. For most of us, it’s finally getting it.

I read on several travel sites that you shouldn’t give money to child beggars, but I could not make sense of that. Wouldn’t children be more deserving of assistance? A few blocks to along Sisowath Quay was enough to make me appreciate the guidebooks’ insight. The child-beggars just bothered me. I didn’t know why or how. I just knew they did.

Child beggars

My insight came as I was making use of the wireless internet in Café Fresco. The café is on the corner lacking a nice view of the river, but providing plenty of passersby for visual consumption. I was thoughtfully gazing past my computer and out the window when a boy forcibly arrested my attention. He was poorly dressed but happily jumping around on the sidewalk while his mother talked nearby. He was enjoying his view of the café customers. He met my gaze and reciprocated my smile. It was the same happy interaction I’ve had with countless other kids on this trip. The wave was what killed it. It tipped Mom of about his happy interaction with a foreigner and quickly intervened. She inverted his hand and helped him into his practiced supplicant posture. The smile faded, the happiness evaporated and he was again the disturbing beggar boy.

Call me naïve, but forced depression just rubs me the wrong way. As does exploitation. His mother’s exploitation of her son’s helplessness. Her exploitation of my magnanimity toward her son. I’d have gladly played with him, taught him some English, bought him a meal and generally had a grand ol’ time of it. But I resented being lied to. She didn’t money to feed him. He wasn’t sad, poor and needy. He was still uneducated enough to be content with his low-income life. His mother was working hard to change that.

Perhaps that’s part of how we need to act as children to enter the Kingdom.
 
(04 Feb 08 | Phnom Penh)