A BUTTERFLY FLAPS ITS WINGS

American and Taiwan piss me off. Neither area upsets me in particular but the exclusive relationship to the exclusion of PRC has left my American web pages fucked.

Due to Taiwan’s unfortunate and deadly earthquake early this week, the connection with America has been broken and I can’t get at my AOL mail. I also can’t get at most of my usual websites (Perez Hilton [because I’m that girl] to Myspace [because I’m that 15 year old boy]). Fortunately, Google and all things Google related either came with a contingency plan or a server that is not involved with Taiwan. Consequently, reach me at cholzer@gmail.com for the next indefinite period of time. They’ve estimated it to be, at minimum, three weeks to repair the broken cable. However, it’s China and 3 weeks can be 2 weeks or 6 months however, one thing is sure; it will not be 3 weeks.

So, what’s a girl landlocked in PRC to do without access to her usual internet outlets? Bother her boy and girls of course.

I dragged my Chinese Angel out to dinner last night. I’ve made the executive decision that she needs to be a writer. She is in possession of such great stories and such an articulate tone that the world simply needs to hear about her life. We’ve made a pact that I will write a series of questions and she will answer them to be compiled into a book.

She then asked me why I liked a "Chinese boy." Race relations and the politics of "White" and "Chinese" have become a topic of acceptable discussion around me, I think, because I’m dating (in Western terms; "good friends" in Chinese) a Chinese dude. My willingness to consider a Chinese mate has shifted me from exotic and benevolent "other" to exalted member. The teachers are now coming forward, comfortable in asking about the perspective of Chinese in within my culture and notably the lines of racism. They are really interested to know what my family would think of a biracial relationship. And, I guess the funny thing is, I never actually asked my mom what she’d think of me dating a different race than myself. It never occurred to me to ask. I’m fully aware that dating a man from a different culture concerns her because that inherently means a divide in value systems and therefore a harder long-term relationship but it never occurred to me that his race would be an issue. Granted, as previously stated, I have problems understanding racial lines (I get, abstractly, that there are African, White, Aboriginal, Asian, etc etc etc but to be totally honest, I can never make it work with actual people I know) and so I am remarkably unprepared to discuss race relations in depth with anyone.

Nonetheless, I find myself to be the spokesperson for all Chinese/White relationships my coworkers have ever seen. The number one question that comes up pertains to why no White women date Chinese men but why White men plunder Chinese women. Granted, before, in my naivety, I would have said something about the perceived subservience of Asian women. However, now I see it as the predatory behavior of my male counterpart. The willingness of the Chinese people to love and love regardless of fault is not an act of subservience but an act of courage. And, it is courageous precisely because there are deceitful and opportunistic men like my predecessor lurking about. Frankly, I can’t say which is better for society (self preservation or blinding love) but I certainly am smitten with the notion of chivalry, the right to work and the expectation by her employers that, as a wife, a woman might need to work a little less in order to make her home. In America, a woman is fortunate to have an employer who would be understanding of that need. In China, it is expected of the employer. I am also smitten with the notion that romance isn’t dead, that people take their time to get to know each other and that a man is not only expected to be able to keep a proper house all by himself but also help his wife when he finally gets married. (Granted, I’m not smitten with the notion that "her" family essentially becomes a footnote.) Nonetheless, I have no idea why White women don’t end up with more Chinese men.

Maybe it all goes back to Sex and the City… yet again. I am constantly reminded of Carrie dating the Russian and how, at the pinnacle of their romance in New York, she faints. She then informs him she can’t handle all the romance and he needs to take it down a few notches. Ultimately, their relationship ends when he hits her (revealing that a man that romantic is, in fact, the chauvinist we suspected he might be) and she goes running back to the roller-coaster that is Big. Maybe White women are just raised to distrust earnest gestures. After all, it’s easy to feign earnestness if you’re not invested. In fact, "earnestness" seems to be the calling card of the White predator or the irretrievably naive.

I don’t know. Whatever it is, I’m at best built to guess. I’m not built to have the answers. The best way I could answer all the questions my Chinese Angel had about my boy and (essentially) how could a White girl like him was to take her to meet him. Hell, that is the one answer that obliterates the notion of even entertaining all those questions for me. It’s got to at least answer a few for her.

So, I took my Chinese Angel to his gym because it was Thursday night (12/28) and I knew he’d be teaching his class.

His gym is up one flight of stairs and the stairs leading to the second floor are open to the open dance studio environment. My Chinese Angel went up the stairs first and as I poked my head up to view the room, I could see Z at the mirror leading a fleet of stunning beauties in a routine of some sort. He was already looking at the reflection to see the head of my Chinese Angel and at seeing me, the smile that crossed his face obliterated everything else on the planet.

I essentially shoved my shy angel up the stairs and dragged her across the back of the studio to the sofas along the right side of the gym. We flopped down on the sofa and she immediately tried to figure out the routine he was doing. I felt her moving to the deafening music and as I watched my glowing boy try- in vain- to maintain his focus on the class, I realized that I shifted the gravity of the room for him just as he shifts the gravity of the room for me. I was reminded of sports day when he and the other male teachers were competing to see who could clear the highest high-jump bar. After each leap, he would roll off the mat and look straight at me. Frankly, I have no idea why I am this fortunate but I’ll take it. I guess sometimes you just win the lottery.

The class finished the intense workout and as they shifted to the cool down, Z gestured that he’d be just another minute. They finished their workout and he did his best to balance coming to see me and maintaining his professional position. After each class, he works with a few of the women to perfect their motions and he’s clearly got a few groupies. It’s a testament to his focus on me that I’m not completely destroyed by my inferiority complexes. In fact, and inexplicably, I’m not threatened at all. I even found myself thinking, "Damn right girl, he’s worth that attention."

As he worked with several of the women, the Cha-Cha class started up and my Chinese Angel and I were invited to join the class. Now, I’m a belly dancer. Cha-Cha is not my thing. It’s too tight and I lack the discipline to perfect such feats of whatever to be any good at it. My Chinese Angel was interested though and so I helped her as best as I could. We worked on the Cha-Cha for a bit and then Z showed back up.

I finally got to introduce my Chinese Angel and Z. I introduced Z as "Wo hao peungyou" ("my good friend" aka "my boyfriend as soon as he puts the moves on me") and put my hand on his forearm. My Chinese Angel is clear on who Z is but I wanted Z to be clear on who he is. Ultimately, my burning desire to introduce the two of them was fueled primarily by the need for him to hear, publicly, where he falls in my world. I think I miscalculated trying to keep him from the public sphere that regards my every move. I think, in my desire to protect him from the gossip hounds, I may have come off as ashamed or unsure of him. This is not at all what I had intended so I was desperate to clarify. In an effort to be definitive, I threw in the physical contact. Physical contact with the opposite sex definitely does not exist here without intention behind it, so, short of shoving my tongue down his throat I really couldn’t have been clearer.

However, there was one flaw in my plan to be definitive with physicality; lighting. The lighting that flew through my veins as I touched him completely obliterated my ability to talk so, like the ass to end all asses, I stumbled through the introduction and proceeded to utterly butcher his name. Fortunately, he’s got cheetah-fast reflexes and he picked up the conversation, covering for my complete ineptitude.

They talked for a few moments, introducing themselves and then Z told my Chinese Angel that any classes she ever wanted to take, she was invited to take free of charge. They then spoke a little more and Z disappeared into the back.

"He wants you to stay." My Chinese Angel said. "Shy boy. So sweet. A good man with a good business." Frankly, there is something so lovely about seeing a man doing what he is most passionate about. "He wants you to come do your yoga anytime."

We hung around and waited.

"Where did he go?" I wondered aloud.

"Went to shower." She explained. "He wants you to stay."

A few moments later, Z showed back up clean. He pulled my Chinese Angel aside and explained something to her in rapid Mandarin.

She turned to me, "He has American friends he wants you to meet." The Chinese, being a tight knit people, feel that, when away from home and stripped of all things familiar, the best thing is to find your fellow countrymen. Z knows I have no family and no American friends here so he has already expressed his desire to give me that circle of friends. "He wants to have a dinner and have you all together." In other words, he wants to make a happy home for me here.

I turned to him, nodding happily, "Yes, I would like that."

He watched me and then nodded.

"Could you please tell him there’s something I want to show him? When he has time, I want to show him something." I asked my Chinese Angel.

My Chinese Angel told him and he nodded.

"I will call you," Z said.

"Hao." I said. And with that, my Chinese Angel and I left, heading back to my apartment. As we were leaving, Z awkwardly reached out to put a hand on my shoulder. It was the awkwardness of stammering a polite denial for the benefit of society when all you can think is "But YES." He clearly wants to do a lot more than just touch my shoulder and so his gauge for appropriate contact is all off making him far more awkward that I’ve ever seen him. Such a lucky girl am I.

Once we were back in my apartment, my Chinese Angel and I went over the "do’s and don’ts" of Chinese dating. Fortunately, short of "don’t make the first move" I have actually and inadvertently broken all of them. As I cringed with each one she listed and I said, "Oh, but I did that."

"Before or after he said, ‘I think we are good friends’?" She would ask.

"Before" was always my answer.

When she was done listing the commandments I had broken, she paused for a long while. "You need to learn to cook some dishes. Housewives should be able to cook."

And, I am utterly giddy. I just wish I could get at my email addresses to share my happy news. Damn Taiwan and the US’s elitist relationship.