There is an I in Beijing

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.

Alone

How you act when you’re alone may be your single most defining characteristic.
 
And, no, I didn’t just misquote the most famous definition of ‘character.’ 

I’m chilling in Beijing alone, right? My goal is to blend in. I mean, I know I don’t. The frequent stares I collect are a regular reminder of this. I don’t want to be an intruder, though. I find my own way even when it means walking around the block to find the subway station rather than struggling through the entirely possible audio/visual spectacle required to ask for help. I noted the subway station sign two stops back. I can get there if I need to.

I feel like a spy. An inept, under-informed, ill-equipped spy.

At the Forbidden City, I intentionally avoided spending time at the hot spots. All the foreign gawkers were there. I mean, I saw those things—who wants to miss the important stuff?—but I didn’t linger. No, I did my lingering in the more secluded parts of the garden. I hate tour groups. The drawback to my touring style is that I might miss things. The advantage is that I see what I want when I want. For example, scurrying past the highlights might have cost me a thorough history lesson, as my auto-guide hadn’t caught on enough to my touring style to keep talking as I moved away. I wasn’t ignoring her. I was interested. I just didn’t want to collect attention. But she said she enjoyed touring with me, so apparently she didn’t take it personally.

I don’t aim to be antisocial. That happens naturally when I travel alone and try to avoid attention. For example, I talked as much as I could at lunch. I ate in a little sidewalk shop in an alley off the main road. A middle-aged couple, their English-learning teen son, and the apparent uncle whose mutterings 

My dining companions

sounded exactly like Steve Carell to me occupied the other table in the dining closet. I almost exhausted my Chinese and the waiter’s patience ordering my lunch, but I had enough left to realize I was serving as the sole subject of their table talk. Once assured I could only reduce the attention by speaking to them, I answered what questions I could about myself and found out even less about them. I finished quickly and left new friends for the second time (the first was the volunteer Forbidden City tour guide). Both my appetite and my need for conversation sated, I wandered through the streets for a little while longer.

My desire for invisibility no more results from fear than it does from asociality. I blundered into three different banks trying to get my six month Chinese nest egg incubating in my American bank, but to no avail. I generated plenty of attention there—wandering from desk to desk gathering their tellers gets noticed. But I did it. And wasn’t even embarrassed.

Now I’m ensconced in my corner seat at the mall’s Starbucks overflow. Five of us loners occupy various tables. Most of us are pretending to be busy. The smart-but-dull-looking fellow next to me is browsing his paper for the third time. The businessman in the corner is holding his cell phone. He’s yet to use it, but he looks ready. And you can bet he’ll be loud when he does. Next to him is the is the Americanized (i.e., chubby) student pounding on his laptop. Apparently, the quality of the character is directly proportional to the strength of the stroke. Directly across from me, the shy girl is pouring a morose gaze into her frappuccino between sips. She won’t stay long—you can only do that if you’ll watch people. And I put on my best philosopher-poet face and hide behind my pen.

++++++++++++++++++++

Unrelated Extra: Chinese marriages are strange creatures. This dorky middle-aged man is waiting for his immaculately dressed beauty queen wife to bring him his drink. She married in for financial and social security. I really can’t say what his reasons for the marriage were, but that’s not for lack of possibilities. They interact like Emperor and concubine—she’s submissive and helpful, but he knows enough to offer her genuine love. I highly doubt they have any of our romantic ideals of passionate love, but they both work at it. He looks his best for her. She looks her best for her. She needs pampering; he provides it. In return, he gets a devoted, submissive, beautiful wife. She expects, but doesn’t demand, and he provides. No silly emotional ties to hold onto. Just seeking mutual benefit. You can’t say it doesn’t work.
 
(17 Jan 08 | Beijing) 

Break Out

Thus begins 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 or buses. I have tried to modify them only enough to make sense of them, not to make them read-worthy.


I woke up this morning and felt scared for the first time. Scared about this trip I think I’m going to make, I mean. It was a little encouraging, because it seemed I should be struggling with it at least a little bit, and I really wasn’t. Others’ success has somehow morphed into an easy time for me.

The feeling just kept building.

All morning, I was double-checking to make sure I had money and identification. Those seem to be the items most essential for emergency provisions. I was really woefully unprepared for this little excursion. I realized last night that I’m taking my computer, with my entire life aboard, into who knows what situations, and I didn’t have a single byte backed up. If I lost some of this, I might as well start prostituting my soul on the street because I really have nothing left. Fortunately, I was confronted with the need to make some such provisions in time. I also grabbed up just about all my cash, with no idea how much I’ll spend or how to do so most effectively. I think I’m going to transfer it to my US account, but I’m not sure if that’s the best idea. Or, really, how to do it.

So as I walked into the airport alone and needing to figure things out, I felt a little overwhelmed. Cute Chinese faces smiled at me from all sides as I frantically scanned the little board I assumed told me where to go. It did. In English. I would have found it sooner if I had looked at my flight arrangements in advance at all. I didn’t even know what airline I was flying. Things quickly came together, though, and I was impressed at the level of English. My only previous domestic Chinese flight had been, well, frightening. I don’t know if six months in China had informed my expectations or if the situation had actually improved, but I was comfortable and informed.

James, the English speaker and head of the household I’m joining in Beijing, had a business appointment, so he send a student to collect me at the airport. After a slightly frustrating game of electronic, bilingual Marco Polo, we connected and grabbed a taxi. Actually, Evander had only ever passed through Beijing on his train rides to and from school. With my knowledge of airports and his knowledge of Mandarin, we made it safely on our way. The only problem was that we didn’t know exactly what way we needed. Long story short, our taxi ride ended with my paying a mutually agreed on price (since we’d stopped the meter kilometers ago) while Evander and the driver exchanged apologies for misdirecting and ignorance of our destination.

Evander left shortly thereafter to start a twenty-hour train ride home. I sat and played with Samuel, James and Elsie’s son who has figured out the first level of a rubix cube and liked my computer. Whoever thought widgets would be handy quick-reference applications was one of those simultaneous genius/moron people. Widgets are remarkably handy, and they provided the mainstay
 of our afternoon. Particularly the translation widget. 

When our minimal knowledge of each other’s language failed us, we turned to gestures and sound effects. As a last resort, we took turns typing a sentence in our language, letting it translate it into the others’ language, then re-translating it to laugh at how mistranslated it was. And taking pictures. If you thought middle-aged folks were suckers for Photo Booth, you were right. But so are unusually bright, bored, eight-year-old Chinese boys. We let the Apple and rubix cube fill the afternoon and Elsie’s savory kitchenwork flank it.

Not a particularly daring beginning, but it was enjoyable.(16 Jan 08 | Beijing) 

Lights Out

So I’ve been traveling in southeast Asia. I’ve seen and learned a lot. This post really has nothing to do with that.

Light Switch It’s really just an observation—Asian people must be kind. Or at least lacking in that humorous malice that Westerners specialize in.

Here’s where I’m coming from. It’s a relatively standard Asian engineering practice to place light switches outside the rooms they affect. So, to turn on the lights in the bathroom, you hit the switch in the hall on your way in. It works. I’ve used these switches for months and, after three or four nights of gently probing the wall in the dark, didn’t think much about it. Then I started sharing living spaces with other people, and I found myself a little worried that someone might accidentally turn the lights off on me. I quickly reassured myself by recalling the complete absence of any such prior occurrences, but I still wondered.

And then I imagined what it would have been like to grow up that way. I had siblings. I think I would have either developed bat-shaming night vision or had a flashlight surgically planted in my head. Seriously, I can’t imagine that ever getting old—it’s always an inconvenience to have the lights turned off on you, and others’ inconveniences are continual founts of juvenile joy.

But it’s not the slightest problem here. There’s a lesson to learn from Asia. Or, optionally, one to teach.

Setting Up

   

Diggin’ In

It’s about time.

I mean, I’ve had my own place for over a month now—kitchen just sitting there quietly. Patiently waiting.Two things drove me to my madness.

1) May. The person, not the month. She’s really great at gently and not-so-gently teasing to encourage positive behavior. In this case, she teased me at the last couple meetings when I brought drinks or fruit. I figured it was OK since I was a guy, but the guys who have come before me ruined things by being kitchen wizards. Since there are a number of them that cook, the girls can skate in with pre-made stuff and nobody notices. But we guys are rather the minority. And the vets had been cooking, so the bar was set.Allow me to hesitatingly question the sanity of these guys. I mean, I’m all for cooking and that, but when the girl:guy ratio is hovering somewhere around four to one, why divulge your culinary prowess? Keep it to yourself; let the kind ladies take care of you. They like it, you like it—everyone’s happy. Start cooking and people start expecting it. I’m just sayin’.

2) My olive oil. I was about to cook. I could feel a rubbing deep within me that gradually produced heat. It was going to spark; I just didn’t know when. So I thought I’d fuel it. On a trip to Walmart, I purchased a bottle of olive oil and a fruit bowl. I was ashamed every time I went into my kitchen. My empty fruit bowl sighed quietly for purpose. The olive oil teased the cultured man buried deep within me. The fruit bowl was filled within 48 hours (and subsequently emptied even more quickly). The olive oil took about a week to work its magic.

So, the gauntlet was thrown at last week’s SF. The theme this week would be Mexican. I surreptitiously picked up said gauntlet and ran to the computer.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but I’m in China. And they don’t really sell the ingredients necessary for most Mexican dishes. But after a dogged browse, I found what I was looking for—a simple Mexican recipe that used fairly common ingredients. Including salsa.

Now I can buy salsa here at an import store, but buying it would have been about as cost effective as having some shipped via two-day mail from home. So it was back to the recipes. Soon I was staring down a salsa recipe whose main ingredients were right around the corner from me. Sparks were flying.

One trip to the store later, and those sparks were a legitimate flame of interest. I wandered around the store continually re-shocked to find everything I needed. Even fresh cilantro, limes, and chicken bullion with English packaging. I came home, cleaned my produce, and made salsa. I even added ingredients and made up my own steps to make it more the way I thought it should be.

Driven by my initial signs of success, I stocked my kitchen and pressed on. The flames had blown up into a raging inferno. I not only made my chicken tortilla soup, but made up a marinade and made my own dinner for the first time since getting here. I even had cilantro garnish.

So, no, I’m not an accomplished chef. Considering similar historical trends, that fire is probably going to burn itself down into some smoldering coals in a little while. But I’ve cooked.

It tasted good.