SIMPLE PLEASURES

As I write this, I must confess that I am indulging in one of the most exquisite things I have had in quite some time; bread and salted butter. May I suggest you do the same? Get yourself a delicious, handmade loaf of good bread, tear off a hunk, put some salted butter on it and indulge as you read this. None of that wonder bread stuff; we’re talking grown-up time Italian or French yummy bread. For an extra sinful twist, put a little honey on it. Or, even toast it up. God, there is some thing so primal about bread and the smell of toast must be in my DNA or something.

Anyway, back to my story…

My predecessor from last year now teaches almost exclusively at a local college. My predecessor is a “unique” individual who’s looking for an Asian Mena Suvari to his Kevin Spacey. Nevertheless, as I am neither “too young” nor notably “subservient” we have a polite, asexual, professional relationship. He has given me many tips on how to cope with some of the more difficult aspects of this job (ie. Am I really just an overpaid babysitter for the kindergarteners? Yes and no.) and ways to keep the younger kids’ attention for more than 10 of the 45 minutes of class time. While he has been giving me tips on how to manage my job, I’ve been giving him tips on how to manage his. Ironically, I am much better suited for his job and he for mine. He has absolutely no interest in culture or history or art or politics or anything even remotely nuanced; ie all the things a college student is interested in. I have absolutely no (long term; I can handle a year) interest in being anyone’s dancing, exotic foreign monkey; ie. all the things younger students are interested in. Consequently, when my predecessor has (in his opinion) an eye-roll-worthy student who is far too “precocious,” he passes the student off to me because, frankly, I love talkative, “precocious” students. There are so many students in the area desperate to articulate their thoughts fully in English and I suspect my predecessor cuts them off mid-thought. There is nothing more discouraging that being on the precipice of new thought and being met with bored, condescending professors who have (not) seen and heard it all and couldn’t give a crap about your passion. I know: I was an art history major at Reed College.

Saturday (9/23), I spent most of my day with a curious and gentle 18 year old young man. My predecessor had declared the young man “tedious” because the young man loved to talk about film and the Chinese culture “as if it’s the best thing the world” [insert eye roll]. Nothing warms my heart more than actively ignorant, Western-cultural elitists taking positions as, essentially, cultural ambassadors to areas that have minimal contact with the Western world. Between our foreign policy and foreign presence, it’s no wonder the world is less than keen on us. Regardless, what I saw was an arrogant teacher interested in phoning it in and who is resentful of any student who challenges (even inadvertently) him. Recognizing more than a little of myself in this neglected young man, I spoke up. I immediately insisted that my predecessor pass along my contact info so that I may meet with this young cinephile.

When we first met, he thought we might be the same age. He was quite surprised to find out I was 10 years his senior. Our beginning conversation was a bit awkward as he is clearly in the midst of his angst-riddled teenage years, to say nothing of the fact that he’s been in school with one Western professor who is clearly not interested in anything of interested, so why on earth should he trust another Westerner with his passions? We made stilted conversation for a little while, he asking the occasional question and me answering to the best of my abilities.

Quickly, we found our way from the Post Office by the Bell Tower (a perfect meeting place, by the way) to Geming Park (just hop on the number 11 bus on the East [North flowing] side of the Bei Dajie; the Bei Dajie is the main avenue that runs North/South from the Bell tower and bisects the old city; you can’t miss the Bei Dajie). Geming Park is actually a memorial park for the 40,000 residents of Xi’An (1/3rd of Xi’An’s population at the time) who were killed in the revolution. However, as with all parks in Xi’An, along with the somber memorials, there are many amusement park rides, water games and badmitton courts for entertainment. Unlike many parks in Xi’An, Geming Park is free to enter (though the amusement park rides cost a fee).

After a brief tour of the park in which my companion explained many of the memorials and the Chinese characters, we picked out a spot at the picnic table and sat down to watch the busy commotion on the bridge over the lake. Over the lake was a long, winding Chinese bridge made out of concrete. In the center of the bridge (and lake) was a Chinese pagoda where many musicians in formal (think “black tie” not “traditional”) clothes were playing classical music. Some singers, equally formally dressed and with sheet music, joined the musicians as the music wore on. As they singers ended up singing for hours and hours, I asked my companion of they were singing opera. After a brief scolding that I shouldn’t presume that because in one place in China something is popular that it is popular everywhere, I quickly explained that, coming from New York, whenever anyone formally sings in a park for hours at a time, it’s usually opera (or a musical; but to explain “opera” vs. “musical” was to dive into semantics). Fortunately, I think that issue was cleared up and we continued talking.

It was nice to be around a curious, if not somber, 18 year old. He liked that I was so open (granted, compared to my predecessor, how could I not be?) and had many questions about student life in the United States. I explained as best I could and conversation, on occasion, turned, as it always does, to sex. Because the whole metropolitan area seems to be aware of the “fact” that I have “a boyfriend” he wanted to know about long distance relationships. Primarily, he wanted to know if there was “place in [my] heart for only one.” I told him that when I was younger I thought so but now that I am getting older, I don’t know how true that is. I said for me that there is only room for one at a time and some loves are greater than others but I don’t know if there is room for just one love.

He explained that he had left a girl behind in his hometown that he loved greatly but that he no longer knew how to feel about it all. I told him I thought that love is what it is; that you can’t make it be something else and the hardest thing about getting older is growing apart from the things you loved so passionately when you were young.

He then asked me about sex. He started with what sex education was like in the United States and when we first learn about sex. He was amazed that sex education was taught in schools and he wanted to know how young we started learning about sex.
I explained that my first sex education class was when I was 9 or 10. I also explained that your science teacher or gym teacher teaches it and it is not very exciting. I explained that you were taught simply what a doctor would teach you if you asked him/her about sex. Generally, we learned the anatomical names for everything, exactly how babies are made and how STD’s are spread. I also explained that I grew up in a very free and open household where I could and had asked most any question about sex whenever the curiosity struck me.

He then told me about a mountain in his hometown that had been carved into the shape of a sleeping woman in memorial of an empress who had been buried in his hometown. We talked of film and culture and art. We talked about writers and their personal histories. He always seemed a bit surprised by his own knowledge of homosexual artists and I eventually told him I felt it was perfectly normal for people to be homosexual and that I have many wonderful friends who are homosexual.

And then he asked me about my thoughts on sex. I told him I thought it was perfectly natural and healthy. He said something rather cryptic, “People like you do think that.” Normally, that sort of statement would have insulted me but we had long and consistently established that “people like [me]” were “open” and “nice” and people he liked “very much.” He had been saying “people like [me]” a lot, so I often asked him what he meant by that and he always said, “open, nice.” I asked if he thought that, “open, nice” was good or bad and he said, “Good, I like people like you very much.”

Non-insults aside, I also told him that sexuality was very difficult for every teen I ever knew. I asked him his thoughts on sex and he said, “I think most 18 year old boys want to try it.”

“I think you’re right.” I concurred. “I think many 18 year old girls are afraid of sex because they see it as just about giving the man pleasure. But, as women get older, they start to understand that sex might be nice for them too.”

We continued talking about Wong Kar Wai movies and eventually left. We separated at the bus and he left, awkwardly, not saying goodbye and as I watched him go, consumed in his own thoughts, I felt relieved that yet again, I have no desire to be a teenager. It sucked the first time, why would anyone want to go back? As an adult (I won’t say “full-grown” because I’m far from it) I get to dictate so much more of my life. I can keep the small-minded morons to a dull roar unlike when I was in school. I can decide when and where I want to go (within obvious limitations) and the Technicolor of everything being new has begun to wear off into the comfort of beginning how to learn to do things well.

As I went shopping at Carrefour that night, I realized that if I want two kinds of similar cereal, I may have two kinds of similar cereal and not have to depend on the Jude to have to get it for me. I had forgotten how much I actively like being a grown up. Granted, the blows are harder but the independence is sweeter and it doesn’t need to be taken.