Granted Glory

esteeming glory above peace

Growing Pains

A student at my English corner yesterday made an insightful observation: “I think technological advances have made our lives worse.” Her point was that the increased availability of goods and services, from food to communication, has decreased our satisfaction and, consequently, enjoyment of life.

There is certainly a lot of good that is lost as a society progresses. Let’s all share examples.

I’ll go first.

I’m not sure of China’s official label on the developed/developing scale. I do know, though, that the North, my region of residence is less developed than the South. I also know that my city is less developed than some others in the North. I also know that my immediate vicinity is termed the ‘Jing Yue Economic Development Zone’ of the city. Suffice it to say my neighborhood is economically and technologically marbled. I’ve looked on unsurprised as BMWs passed a donkey-drawn cart in front of my college.

A few months ago, I was needing to transfer some of my Chinese salary to my American bank. It’s actually a frighteningly expensive and awkward exercise. Western Union gets the job done, though, and I was glad to learn from their website that WU considers Jing Yue developed enough to host a branch. Upon arrival, though, I learned it was a developing branch. As in, a computer glitch was blocking them from transmitting or receiving funds. John, the designated foreigner liaison used his smooth English to promise me the difficulties would be resolved “soon.” He collected my number and promised to keep me informed of developments.

I made the trek downtown and settled my affairs after three days with no word. Problem solved, the limping Western Union managed to escape my ponderings.

John called me last night (Saturday night. The bank was closed.). He remembered my visit, my name and my need to transfer money and wanted to let me know the system was again functional. He hung up with a wish to see me soon. Twenty seconds later he called again to give me his personal cell phone number in case I ever needed his help with anything. When was the last time your banker did that?

We may be behind with some technological advances, but we remember what good old-fashioned customer service is like. And it worked: I’ll definitely go there next time I need to send money. And it won’t have anything to do with cutting out the two-hour trip downtown and back.

The Mourning After

Midnight concluded the official mourning period here. The uneasy silence is broken.

I am uniquely disqualified to discuss emotional responses, for the simple reason that my emotive expression is apparently inversely proportional to the intensity of that emotion. That stated, on to the discussion.

The mourning was clearly a sort of offshoot from national pride. I can’t nail down whether it is part of the Chinese cultural identity to be rocked so deeply or if it was the proffering of an expected reaction, so I won’t try. All I know is it brought back the atmosphere of the days surrounding Ace’s death at school. Most of us barely knew him, so we could honestly say we were largely unaffected. At the same time, we were acutely aware of the intense distress of those around and among us, and desperately wished to commiserate. I remember watching girls gush tears and stifle sobs in mouths that had never spoken a word to him. It seemed unavoidably appropriate at the time. And discomfortably pretentious.

So I was left to navigate the choppy waters of emotion without any depth gauge. I was assured by my students that discussing the earthquake—engaging its effects—would be a good step. At its first mention, the bright clouded and the garrulous fell mute. I was usually left to expound my own thoughts without the input of those most obviously affected. And with mixed success.

Certainly, we are all saddened by the loss of life. Especially as the rubble is sifted through the chunky sieve of human understanding in a desperate search for answers. Talking with students and Chinese friends has reminded me that platitudes don’t placate, yet they are all most people have. They’re the same platitudes that got tossed around when Ace died, only without the religious verbiage.

They didn’t mean much then either.

To Blave

Starbucks doesn’t exactly top my proverbial list of forgotten glories. There are multiple reasons for this, including the present availability of coffee and coffee drinks, my historical habitative distance from Starbucks and my general preference of less corporate caffeine and ambience sources.

Starbucks still represents a deep part of me, though, and is a lifestyle/pastime/indulgence that I engage when available. It is, in some small way, a microcosm of America—that land that disregards my willful distancing of myself from it to core my cultural self-awareness. That’s why I seek it out when available. It’s the home I experienced a little of back home.

That’s what made this gift so special. It wasn’t that I craved Starbucks, I hadn’t dropped hints, I hadn’t declared my passion for the absented watering hole. No, this gift was motivated by awareness. I’ve received plenty of gifts since coming to China—mostly tassels, terra cotta and the knick-knacks I hoped to collect. I’m so expectant of being endowed with them I rarely bother to gather them myself. And they are predictably massing themselves on various shelves, ledges and walls in my room. I love them.

If my student had arrived in Beijing planning to buy a little something for some people she was interacting with, she would have left with a distinctly Chinese welcoming gift. And I would have felt welcome and appreciated and grateful. No, she experienced a little bit of America in Beijing, remembered at least one person who might be missing it and procured him a piece.

I considered saving it for a rainy day. I contemplated receiving it like Bethlehem water. I visualized it sitting in my refrigerator while I mulled the decision. I sat in my office and drank it because I felt like it and it was handy.

It provided everything America does best: sugar, comfort, indulgence, fat, ease, energy, relaxation.

I hope to give such gifts.

I’m told some people buy things simply because they want to buy something. It doesn’t matter what, as long as it’s relatively appropriate. I’ve never understood that. I only buy something when it convinces me I need it—usually a fairly difficult process, I happily report. I gift the same way. Unfortunately, I’m often as hard to convince in that situation too.

Those of you most familiar with me are most aware of my gifting malaise. There’s a reason—I despise intentional gifting, the sense that a gift is owed and is accordingly proffered. It’s not that I find it bad or wrong. I envy those of you good at it. Because I’m terrible at it. An object informs me it belongs with someone I know. I acquire and accommodate it. It’s a special moment—the hair rises on the back of my neck and lays down on the side of my head, colors saturate, planes sharpen, a withdrawal thrills me.

So when my gifts are lame, don’t blame me—blame the objects’ poor communication skills.

Or my ability to interpret them.

Static v Clarity or Circumlocution

alize I should probably clean my bathroom floor. Except I feel I just cleaned it because I’d been planning to remake my bed after washing it last. I didn’t, though, because after I washed it last time, I had to finish washing the kitchen and life-room floors. When I finished washing the floors, I planned to wash my cleaning rags, but figured I should wait to do that until I had finished washing and drying the dishes so I could include the towels and dishcloth. Only, it was about dinner time, so I had to dirty some dishes to make food. I struggled a little with dinner because I couldn’t find my favorite spatula until I remembered I had used it to make an egg at lunch, so it was dirty. So I washed it—and a few other things while I waited for the rice to finish. I ate at my desk, like normal, while I wrote on a few Facebook walls. I had seen the generative messages on my wall a few days before, but I had been taking a break from grading to write a blog post at the time, so I didn’t want to stop and respond. My desk was still a little messy with the odds and ends I had set on it to get them out of the way while I dusted and swept, so I didn’t really feel bad leaving my bowl on the desk until I finished my messages. One of my students IMed me with a question about class, so I broke off Facebook to check what I’d assigned last week and remembered I needed to make copies for class the next day. I got back with my copies and realized I hadn’t stopped at the store as I had intended to, so I’d have to go to out between class and my SAC the next night. That was cool, though, ’cause it reduced my demand for dishes. Of course, when the SAC was over, I was too tired to do much more than read a few chapters before drifting off to sleep. Sleeping in was OK—to make up for getting to bed so late—since it was a class-less morning, a day to finish the odd jobs I’d been putting off. I washed up some dishes and called back my friend that had been trying to reach me when I had been at class and SAC, then realized I was hungry. Lacking food in the house, since I had forgotten to go to the store, I headed out to get some. Walking near the bookstore, I remembered the email I had promised to send a friend, so I took care of that as soon as I got back—even before putting away the groceries. I couldn’t really bring myself to dirty the dishes I’d just washed, though, so I ate an apple and planned on an early dinner. Of course, the apple was with the food I had shelved on my bed to write the email, so when it was consumed and the rest were put away, my bed needed straightening. It was about time to change the sheets, and I was in a cleaning mood, so I pulled off the old sheets and put on new, but realized I couldn’t wash the old ones because I had finished off the bleach last time I cleaned the bathroom. I’d just been to the store, though, and I wasn’t going back out to get bleach. Besides, it would be easier to pick that up when I restocked my cleaning supplies, but I usually did that at Walmart, which meant taking a few hours, and I’d probably want to get some of the less-locally-available foods when I was there anyway, and since I’d just bought food, I didn’t need to buy more at Walmart, so the sheets could wait with the cleaning rags to be washed. Anyway, my last trip to Walmart had reminded me that I should get a new ink cartridge, which required a trip downtown, so maybe I should make that trip this weekend. Which means moving lesson planning to a new time, as I had done this week’s lesson plans after my Walmart trip and that didn’t work so well. And shouldn’t I be establishing a regular time to do lesson plans by now? Don’t I know what a normal week looks like? Of course, my friends didn’t—I needed to message them about when we would meet next since the new EC time might conflict with our original plan. So I sent that message and realized I had been waiting on an email from another teacher, so I checked on that before heading out to dinner. Quick mirror check: looks OK, except the mirror is dirty. I should probably clean it. Of course, then again, the whole bathroom could stand another cleaning—especially the floor. I’ll do that as soo

Birdseye

Of Rome and Rhetoric

A brief survey of world-wide power struggles could lead us to a sense that we are entering a golden age of reason and restraint. Consider the peaceful and hailed resolution to the election debacle in Kenya—powersharing. A similar truce resulted from the most recent Pakistani elections: two non-allied politicians have set aside differences to effect change, while their hated rival promises to work with them legally and in all good faith. Columbian, Venezuelan and Ecuadorian presidents stopped calling for each others’ physical and ideological dismemberment and resolved their differences in discussions that included both monetary remuneration and the highly unusual admission of wrongdoing. The official passage of power from Fidel to Raul went off without a single shadow of Cold-war era overt or covert ‘liberation tactics.’

Don’t buy it.

Allow me to remind you of the effectiveness of the longest-running peace talks in modern history. Israel’s ongoing discussions with her neighbors have accomplished approximately nothing. We’re talking multiple rockets launched across an arbitrarily placed and heavily fortified border into civilians. Daily. To say nothing of China’s relations with Tibet and Taiwan. Or the entire continent of Africa. And may I point out that half of the inhabited continents still admit regions controlled by self-styled ‘warlords’?

Lest you think the last paragraph a sulky reveling in unfinished business, I remind you that those regions not mentioned above are governed by politicians who, for example, play word games to pretend they are noble in their shameless power-grabbing or create new offices to work out of while their puppet holds temporal power.

And before you condemn this article as unnecessary schadenfreude, allow me to state the reasons for my nihilism. I recently finished reading (in audio form) Sir Winston Churchill’s History of the English Speaking People. I could find no point in the history of this great people—the founders of constitution-based government, the progenitors of modern democratic structure—in which political development was accomplished by disinterested parties. Indeed, that oft-cited paragon of the the recognition of the universal rights of mankind, the Magna Carta, was little more than the protection of a particular class’s rights signed and enforced only when that class had the physical strength to support it. Our great nation of liberties can be quite easily reduced to a list of the watershed interests that determined the governance of the moment.

Certainly there were selfless and far-sighted individuals—groups even—who acted out of a genuine desire to benefit mankind. Such individuals were quickly swallowed into or manipulated by systems highly efficient in heedless self-promotion.

It goes beyond government. This inability to survive as a society is deeply rooted in humanity and is patently obvious in our systems of education, religion, resource allocation and family structure. No thinking person really questions it, yet we can’t fix it. Think socialism. Think survival of the fittest. Think bread and circuses. Think Nash’s Equilibrium Theory. Think existentialism. Think nihilism.

And people call my faith a crutch.

The Best and Brightest

If my day weren’t full enough after finding Colbert Report episodes to download, I stumbled across an article to provide the packing peanuts. Adding to the joy is the BBC’s characteristically British coverage. Read the short version to slam your funny bone against the story’s ludicrous details as frequently as possible. Read the full version to find out one of the men involved is named Barney Jones.

I’m tempted to think this article is actually a work of fiction, because it hits so many humor points. I don’t really care if it is. It wouldn’t be any less funny if I read it in the Onion.

It’s Thursday

The trees on campus have suddenly burst forth their offerings of flowers. From nothing yesterday to furry white limbs today. With the same glorious burst of spontaneous beauty, I bring you video update two.

Indefinite Temporality

Yes, my site looks different and boring. That’s because I just upgraded to Wordpress 2.5. While it doesn’t change a lot for you, things look pretty different from my end. So until I figure out how I can make the best use of my site, things will be changing whenever I have time to mess with them.

In Other News…

It’s a boy! If China were a pregnancy, I’d be giving birth. Today officially marks nine months. And for those of you that think it’s ridiculous to talk about a man giving birth, you’re not reading your news very well.

Also a boy: Kent Halsey. Kent has officially been awarded a highly coveted place on the blogroll both because he is an all-around cool guy, and because his stuff is always worth reading. I’m not even kidding, I invisibly added his blog to my blogroll as soon as I set this thing up even though he hadn’t posted in something like five hundred days. And my faith paid off. Kent is back online. Definitely worth celebrating—a celebration of reading, that is.

In case you were wondering, it’s moderately official: Binge drinking makes you dumb (as in, actually causes dumbness, not the weird verb tense that I’m sure has a name I don’t know that means binge drinking proves you are dumb). I say ‘moderately official‘ because they performed what seems a relatively unscientific test (see science disclaimer) on twenty six binge drinkers, comparing their results with a control group of thirty four. And all to prove that binge drinking is bad. It hurts your memory. So now I know not to trust habitual binge drinkers’ judgment. ‘Cause I would have otherwise.

I have discovered I like links. It think it makes me feel academic, with links functioning as footnotes.

I am actually going to be helping teach basketball today. You might want to wipe the spittle off the screen. I hate laughbursts because of the spittle.

And, finally, global warming is a hoax. OK, so that’s not exactly accurate. They say, though (and this time I actually know who ‘they’ are), that temperatures have decreased over the last few years. Temperatures peaked in 2005, and are now back to 1998 levels. And while these temperatures still seem to be higher than previous decades, I can’t help but question their evidence. Anything that has ‘proven’ rising temperatures in the last three years has suddenly been proved wrong, and anyone who said anything contrary is a liar. More or less.

Powered by Wordpress | Presented with my tweaked version of WP Premium theme
Copyright 2007-2008. Justin Jones. All rights reserved

• Home
• Welcome
• Study help

Login

Username:

Password:

Remember Me