(Written 8/29/06)
BEING ANGELINA JOLIE

So, I’m finally settled in to Xi’An and lord has culture shock hit me hard. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s culture shock or jet lag, but, either way, it’s hit hard. And it’s none of the hard that I like. The little voice inside my head that usually speaks up to doubt things has been doing nothing but weeping since I first got left alone in my apartment the first night. I joked with my friends before leaving that the first thing I was going to do when I was finally alone in my apartment was look up at the sky and think, “Dear god, what have I done” and then realize that it would take everyone I love at least another 12 hours to be under the same sky that I just cried out to. Well I’m here and it’s all hitting me at once, even physically.

Usually when I move to a new country, my body allows me a two week vacation/grace period in which I do not have the gastrointestinal overhaul, however, I have been here two days and already it has started. The air quality is very poor; you literally cannot see the sky for all the pollution. The world is plunged into a mystical white haze and on particularly bad days, your throat burns for all the pollution. You see, they burn coal here for power. Considering that the world looks like Brigadoon, it’s no wonder the Victorians were such tortured romantics. Between needing to boil the water and the burning air, I realize exactly why it is that tea remains so popular here. The air has the faint scent of sulfur and the tap water reeks of it. The only consumable water is bottled. There is really no such thing as washers and dryers, so one washes their clothing in a bowl at home. I kid you not, in my swankiest of swanky apartments, there is a washboard. Sadly, it is not the one attached to the stomach of Takeshi Kaneshiro as I think finding that in my bathroom would certainly cheer me up. Speaking of bathrooms, there is no difference between the shower and the toilet area with only a brief shower curtain to separate the two, so the floor is sloped marble with drains on the far side from the door. Oh, and toilet paper or tissue of any kind is difficult to come by, so one must always have a supply handy, even when going out.

On the upside, the people I’m working for could not be nicer, the food could not be better and my fear of a roach infested apartment is completely unfounded as I have found a total of two crickets in my bathroom because the trap was left off the shower drain. The people are incredibly warm and gracious. They have spared no expense to celebrate my arrival and have put me up in a very large, very expensive apartment. My home office is the size of the other teachers’ apartments (and then theirs are shared between three people or a parent and child if the parent comes with a child) and I have a massive kitchen, two bathrooms, a massive bedroom and a gigantic living room, all completely and newly furnished with only top of the line stuff; even my own flat screen tv. I am the first American to ever work at their school and so, I am told, only the best students who test the highest will be allowed to attend my class. Granted, there is a little bit of the “bird in a gilded cage” sensation as I have been told to be home every night by 9pm because I am a young Western woman and they want to make sure nothing bad happens to me but like I said before, when it comes to options of “suck it up” or “give it up” I’m going to do my best to suck it up. How can I complain that in a communist country, the only imposition on my person will be the occasional group tour of my home to observe the Westerner in her natural habitat and that I need to be home by curfew for my own safety?

Xi’An sees a lot of Westerners in the old city but not a lot of them out here in the more residential area. I am living and working in a very expensive, very new international style community compound missing only a Starbucks. Many of the people here are from the surrounding countries, most especially Korea but I believe I am the only Westerner running about. I have a fifth floor apartment with a grand balcony overlooking much of Xi’An (or at least what is visible through the mist) and the new compound. The space the compound takes up is about the same as four midtown Manhattan blocks. I believe I am on the Southeast corner of the compound, which means my school is on the Southwest corner but without the sun perpetually behind smog cover, I am without real bearing. 24 hour security and lush gardens are everywhere. Just below my bedroom window, I have a view of one of the many playgrounds. In the mornings, children climb on the jungle gym as their parents and grandparents do their morning calisthenics. It is a wonderful communal feel and, short of me not speaking the language, just like a very nice enclave back home.
It’s strange though, that everywhere I go, I am declared to be a great beauty. Now, like I said before, I’m nothing to shake a stick at, but I’m certainly no great beauty. I am the child that would result if Velma from Scooby Doo and Zena, warrior princess hooked up. Nevertheless, the men pointedly look at the women who are my escorts and briefly glance at me. A moment later, they do a double take and stare at me, often stopping what they are doing to, hypnotized, watch me walk by. One teenager ran in front of me today to walk backwards so he could study my face as I walked and another almost got hit by a car as he stopped dead in the middle of the street to stare, jaw to the floor at me. I have made it a point to politely say “hello” in Chinese to break the ice. Unlike Western men, the machismo of Eastern men is brought down several notches with contact. The less I am a priceless, inaccessible gem kept under wraps, the more shy the men become. On more than one occasion, the men I will be working with have raised a toast to my great beauty and whenever I meet male teachers for the first time, the first words out of their mouth are “Great Beauty.” Somehow, with a single day’s worth of flight, I have been transformed into a woman of such exotic beauty that even the most beautiful men are too giddy and shy to look me in the eye for extensive conversations.

I never realized exactly how profound it is to have to import your “exoticism.” I come from a country where “exotic” is the norm and so the thought that “exotic” would be profoundly appreciated and respected seems strange to me. In America, the attitude seems to be “Oh Christ, here we go again” when someone with a new culture comes along. Nonetheless, I am greeted with the same awe inspired stares that my more tabloid-worthy friends have received. It’s the look of, “I know exactly which pantheon you are from but I never thought I’d encounter you in my real life.” Many men have come chasing after me just to say “Hello,” as if my validation that their ability to greet in English makes their day. When I smile and say “Hello” back, they say “Hi,” wave and trip over themselves walking away.

It is truly a strange predicament as I am accustom to the American definition of “great beauty” as being gym hardened abs on a petite frame and a tan so dark you must both tan and fake tan to achieve it. I posses none of these traits because, frankly, to meet the American standards of beauty would, for me, end up being a full-time job. I mourned the loss of never being Cindy Crawford and moved on with my life. I have reached a place where I see both the assets and the drawbacks of being beautiful and made my peace with my place in the middle of that bell curve.
Now the safety blanket of neutrality I had grown accustom to is gone. In America, any man professing my great beauty had already been drawn in by my personality and was enraptured by my mind or was trying to butter me up for something, usually the phone number of one of my hot girl friends or one of the fabulous perks of one of my pretty cool jobs. I understand that in America, I am not stop-dead-in-the-middle-of-the-street-and-almost-get-hit-by-the-oncoming-car beautiful but I am here. In America, I’m not even buy-the-woman-at-the-end-of-the-bar-a-drink hot. Having suffered from eating disorders as a teen, I find this return to the active presence of my aesthetic more than a little unnerving. Not being lithe was sin I could not come to terms with and certainly nothing I could forgive myself for and so, as an adult, I simply walked away from it. I couldn’t get over it, I couldn’t get past it and I couldn’t get through it. So I just walked away. It was one of those things that would ultimately consume me if I let it, so I just had to leave it be. Now I have the victory I so desperately sought as a teen and, like my victory over my other fixations, I am neither happy nor sad about it. I am merely melancholy at the stupidity of my youth.

This unexpected challenge is an ongoing one. It will not cease until I leave the area, which won’t happen for a while, and so I was quite scared for my mental health until one of the men offhandedly explained my great beauty. Apparently, Western eyes are considered a thing of great beauty and that is where this talk comes from. And, as eyes go, my Irish eyes are a fairly aesthetically pleasing set, even by Western standards, so that I guess I get that. Even my friends who have agreed to my face that I am entirely too big have always consented that my eyes are really pretty. One friend who shared my disappointment with my body once told a makeup artist who was fixing me up and waxing poetic about my eyes that, “It really is all about the eyes with her.”