Monday, January 29, 2007

BILL MURRAY

I do love what the universe lays out for me. I was just lamenting to my friend about how my writing has slowed not because I find it difficult to keep up the energy required to write but because I’ve been feeling rather nebulous. In my nebulous state, the clarity I need to carve out the gist of what I want to write simply has not been around. The haze has kept me from my normal routine. The haze has come between me and the gratitude I should have at the beauty I can’t see in everyday life. I’m getting old enough to realize that my nebulous writer’s block is nothing if not simply a part of being alive and just like the ephemeral nature of happiness melancholy is ephemeral too. With nothing left to do but ride out the storm of "eh" I’ve been indulging in all the indulgences that come with my position that I have thus far neglected. I’ve been shopping up a storm. I’ve been eating out at lovely, delightful restaurants most nights. I’ve been indulging my girl friends and I’ve been keeping company with the loveliest of French men.

Le Francais (my Brazilian Angel’s husband) needed to call in an engineer to fix one of his machines here in Xi’An. So, his company shipped out an engineer forthwith and my Brazilian Angel, goddess of the rescue that she is, swooped in and shook the culture shock dust of him like only she can. Le Francais and my Brazilian Angel have been showing him the city and they’ve been getting on famously. Then Sunday night of last week, Le Francaise thought it would be a nice idea to get us all together as my French is minimal and the engineer’s English is nonexistent. (The common language amongst the Foreign business community here is English, so if you don’t speak English, you’re relatively out of luck… though there are several French businessmen in the West Egg community.)

In person, socially speaking, I’m a rather quiet and reserved woman at first. I’d rather hang back and figure out how I fit in the picture than bombard the room with my personality. Granted, once you know me, I’m a bit of a ball of fire and I will not be swayed from my often obnoxious personality but at first I just like to observe. I wouldn’t say I’m shy; I’m cautious. I have a tendency to get too attached to people, need them too much, and so I get wrecked easily. The whole "hanging back" thing is about understanding how we’ll fit more than, "Gee, I hope they like me."

As it has been my experience here, Westerners are not to be trusted. They’re always out to pilfer something and then brag about what a superior race they are. So, when my Brazilian Angel suggested I meet with the new French colleague of le Francais, I was a bit cautious. First, I was a more than a bit nervous about my terrible French. My French comprehension is not too shabby (considering it’s been a decade since I’ve lived in France properly) but my conversation is truly horrid. Parisians (as I was living in Paris) tend to be spikey about the abuse their language takes (the rest of France, as has been my experience, tends to embrace foreign attempts to speak French) consequently, the last thing I wanted to have to deal with was condescension at my terrible language capacity while supping with an imperialist.

Frankly, I couldn’t have been more wrong. The French colleague was charming and kind and every bit in love with China and the Chinese as I am. He was very low key and took every opportunity to set me at ease without an ounce of arrogance. In fact, he was the antithesis of arrogance. He was the ultimate breath of fresh air compared with much of the rest of the foreign business community here. When I spoke and my Brazilian Angel attempted to clarify everything I said, he would cut her off with, "No, no, I understand" and then return to me with questions to flesh out the idea. If I seemed lost or confused by anything, he would slow down his speech and simplify his words without the slightest hint of patronage. It was the first time I’ve ever felt really encouraged to speak French without fear of humiliation and it was the first time in Xi’An I felt that a Western male was actually interested in talking to me and not the "single White" chick.

So we hit it off last Sunday and then on Saturday, my Brazilian Angel, Le Francais, the Engineer and I went sight seeing. My Brazilian Angel is nothing if not Brazilian and so, by design, she was the life of the party. She effortlessly managed to organize us all and keep the interesting conversation going. She truly is wonderful, especially when you’re overwhelmed by things to the point of sliding into your shell; all you need do is not say "No" and she will keep you moving until you’re back to your normal self.

I, on the other hand, was the quiet American with minimal other languages. The Engineer and I, it turned out, are quite similar in temperament and so he spent much of the time hanging around with me.

We went to the "Red Pagoda," (I’m not familiar with the official name) and wandered around for several hours. It was wonderful and peaceful and funny. There were several buildings in the pagoda compound devoted to quite Catholic depictions of what awaits you in the afterlife if you don’t behave. Essentially, there were (at least) three buildings, two stories high filled, floor to ceiling, with cartoonish dioramas of a Buddhist hell. In one corner of one building, there were lots of nude women rolling about in boiling water. Flushed and writhing, it was difficult to tell if the women were pre-orgasmic or pre-flesh-being-boiled-from-their-skin. The fact that the women were beautiful with perfect bodies did not help the confusion.

"It may be hell but the artist sure did create this with a lot of joy." I commented.

"It’s inspiration but I’m unsure what it’s inspiration for," the Engineer commented as he gestured to the vat of writhing nudes.

Giggling, I nodded. "It’s very Catholic." I commented.

Putting the emphatic look that only a good, lapsed Catholic can, he nodded as we ducked out of HELL PART ONE. Frankly, I can think of nothing better than a little flirtation and a lot of giggling in the face of such demonstrative threats.

We wandered about the Buddhist grounds a bit more, reveling the calm and serene beauty within the brutally loud and hectic city. We studied massive Buddhist tablets and little chickadees in the trees. When we had our fill of the nude, minimalist calm of winter’s natural exterior, we passed by the monks at the entrance and wandered out into the street.

From the street wandered outside to the small alley of stores just outside the entrance. Inside one of the stores, le Francais tried on a Buddhist monk robe and negotiated a good price for it. I wandered the cd’s and incense, trying to find the floral one I smelled once but have yet to find again. I’m not a patchouli kind of girl but that one floral scent was a smell I could and would like to live with. The Engineer came over to chat with me briefly and I explained what was going on within the flamboyant negotiations between the shopkeepers, my Brazilian Angel and le Francais. As they finished up and I finished translating, the Engineer and I wandered back outside.

It slowly dawned on me that I was able to translate from Mandarin to French without shifting into English first. It’s a bit dizzying to realize that you can have a full, broad relationship within a foreign world complete with branching out into yet another foreign world without visiting home. I haven’t felt like that since the training wheels were taken off my bike.

Once le Francais was properly monk-i-fied, we wandered to a restaurant and my Brazilian Angel started organizing all of us like the lost puppies that we were. She started explaining what there was to eat and she started exploring the restaurant to see the broad spectrum of what was offered. I knew immediately that I would have a sandwich. The Chinese make this fantastic sandwich out of spiced, salted pork in very plain, dense flatbread.

"What are you having?" the Engineer asked me.

"The sandwich and probably some noodles," I answered without hesitation.

The Engineer nodded and my Brazilian Angel returned. She spoke briefly with le Francais and then she turned to the Engineer. "Do you know what you want to have?"

"The sandwich and probably some noodles," the Engineer said.

In that moment I realized I had found my Bill Murray to my Scarlet Johanson from "Lost in Translation." The Engineer liked me, in spite of my "I’m a wallflower" self-dismissal when held against the bright, brilliant beauty of my Brazilian Angel.

We each had a sandwich, which he claimed to like very much and split a bowl of noodles. It was quite lovely and full of quiet physical jokes about wrestling with slippery noodles and chopsticks while my Brazilian Angel filled the quiet with lots of interesting tidbits.

After lunch, we did a brief tour of the South and it was decided that Bill and would meet up on Sunday (1/28) to take a tour of the Tang Paradise park. We dropped Bill off and headed home to drop off my things before I met my Chinese Angel for dinner at La Seine (the fancy French restaurant) for her birthday celebration.

My Chinese Angel and I met up and had a delicious, five-hour dinner. I was beyond thrilled that she enjoyed the exploration of all things "foreign." Granted, that quiche, fruit salad, pumpkin soup, escargot, grilled salmon, Bordeaux and tiramisu is "foreign" is strange to me and I felt a bit silly exposing her to such status quo cuisine in my world but she claimed to be thrilled with it, so I was happy.

The next morning, I put on RFI (Radio France International) internet radio in preparation for spending the day with Bill. I was definitely overwhelmed by the thought of, after the better part of a decade, flying solo in French without a net and I figured that listening to RFI would be akin to warming up before the marathon.

My taxi pulled up to the hotel and he hopped in. I explained where we wanted to go to the cab driver and we were off. Bill and I bisoused and then began talking about the fascinating differences between Chinese and Westerners. It wasn’t a conversation about the absurdity of such a backward culture but a discussion about the humor to be found in cultural divides. Bill, like myself, is a bit of a quiet jokester/prankster and so he has, on more than occasion, exploited the cultural divide to a humorous end. (Case in point: the Chinese, as has been our experience, by and large work with many people in an office or with many people coming in and out of their office. He decided to see how long it might take one of his Chinese colleagues to break through the mask and impose upon him if his door was closed but it simply did not happen. Finally, defeated he gave up on his experiment and returned to the Chinese way with his tail between his legs.)

We then talked about our homes. He told me about the village in the North of Bourgogne that he’s from. He talked about how, when he’s home in Bourgogne, he goes from his village of a couple thousand people to his mother’s tiny village of fifty or sixty people on the weekends. He recounted the beauty of the forest, the sheep, the cows, the nature and all the peace that his home has to offer.

"On Sundays, I have one assignment; to go for a drive, find a road I have never seen before and explore it," he recounted to me. "Sometimes you find abandoned homes and sometimes you find nothing but I like to explore."

"That’s perfect," I sighed. It’s safe to say I long for that.

I told him about my home and how I have the advantages of New York City and the advantages of living in a small town at the foot of the mountains with the nature, the turtles, the deer, the rivers and the comfort. I told him how I go for a hike in the mountains everyday and on the weekends I look for abandoned homes.

As I was recounting pieces of my home, I kept tripping up over my French and, as my frustration mounted, I decided to lance it by apologizing for my horrible French.

"No. It is my fault. I should speak English but I don’t . _I_ am sorry." Bill offered earnestly. In that moment, I felt utterly understood. I have met people who respond to me effortlessly, I have met people who meet me where I’m at, I have met people perfectly complimented to me but in Bill I realized I have found a friend who is just like me. He is calm and steady. He is silly and observant. He is incongruous and creative. He is quiet without being shy. He is a perfectionist at work and a pushover at home. He likes to explore the forest and look for ruins. He’s fascinated by foreign cultures and has a transient profession that takes him all over the world for months at a time. He realizes that normally one must make an attempt to meet the other person half way but that sometimes life gets in the way and it’s just not possible to do so, consequently, gratitude is important to express… even if said expressed gratitude obliterates any notion that fully making up the difference myself is an effort of any sort. He’s just like me.

Granted, I know it’s a bit of an oversimplification of a separate and fully realized individual but I exist in a vacuum here. Most of my fellow Westerners are imperialists I wouldn’t socialize with at home. The closest thing I have to compatriots here are my colleagues who have a healthy respect for my culture and values but have no visceral understanding of it. They have never seen my culture in action and while they love and appreciate me beyond anything I could have ever hoped for they do not understand me; they accept me. They have no great passion for the upper middle class indulgences or romantic, classical education and the great love of the arts it invariably instills in those of us too incongruous to be labeled "winner" during our formative years. They are utterly perplexed by my distaste of New Money vulgarity and my preference for more a subdued appearance. Bill understands because he lives it.

So we arrived and he paid the cab fare, despite my insistence that we split it. He then purchased my entry ticket to the Tang Paradise park and refused my offering to pay for that too. I thanked him and didn’t feel weird about having him take care of me, I felt simple gratitude laced with nothing, not even guilt.

As we made it through the gate, we were handed maps. We opened them up and checked out the sights.

"I can’t really understand this. It’s all in English." He explained.

I looked at the map and then back at the woman who handed us the map.

"Wait a moment." I said.

I went back up to the woman and pointed to the map. "Yo jiege Fa wen ma?" ("Do you have this in French?")

She briefly looked at me, confused and then it clicked in her head that I was speaking Mandarin. "Meiyo." ("No, we don’t have any") She explained.

I returned to Bill. "Sorry, they don’t have these in French."

"I’ll just have to depend on you for an explanation," he smiled at me.

I nodded, checked out the map and translated everything for him, the sum total of which were completely unhelpful names of things. "See, not much in English either."

We both shrugged and head off, up over the massive granite bridge spanning the narrow side of the gigantic lake. At the end of the bridge was a waterfall.

"Oh, humidity." I breathed a sigh of relief. "I have always lived near the ocean or large rivers. This is my first time living near a desert. I’m not used to such dry conditions. I love the humidity in this air."

"After my first week here, my hands started to itch and flake. I thought I was having a reaction to something, so I took some allergy medication but it did nothing." Bill explained as he dramatically scratched at the back of his hand, making me giggle. "Then I went to work and mentioned to my secretary that I was having an allergic reaction I couldn’t fix. She told me it wasn’t allergies but dry skin." Bill makes a comic face indicating his surprise at it own ignorance and the simplicity of the answer turning my giggle into laughter. "She got me some moisturizer and it healed right up." Shrugging, he briefly showed me the back of his hand and then gestured with a dismissive flourish into the wind in that way that is so very French and for the first time in my life I found charming, not irritating. "It’s dry here." He said, mock knowingly making me laugh even more.

From the waterfall, we wandered up the hill to the right, away from the sprawling lake and fortress to the left. As we wandered up the hill, I spied a ravine off even further to the right. Down the ravine was a waterfall and a very well kept promenade. "That promenade begs to have its solitude broken and be walked in," I thought.

"Do you want to go and look?" Bill asked as I silently spied the waterfall. It hadn’t occurred to me that I might want to go check it out. I was just looking.

As it settled into me that perhaps I wanted to go see something off our casually chosen path I turned to look at Bill. I’m so quick to stifle my natural urge to explore in the presence of others in order to stay on track and this was the first time anyone had, one, noticed I was thinking of going elsewhere and, two, verbalized an offer to put our previous plans on hold to indulge my flight of fancy.

"I just saw that you were looking and thought you might want to go see." Bill explained self-consciously.

I smiled, more grateful than he will ever know and nodded.

We descended the ravine, passing beautiful park employees decked out in Tang Dynasty dress, hiding amongst the little blind corners of the path carved in the rock to have a cigarette. As we passed the smoking women dressed not unlike characters out of some Disney attraction, I thought about the explanation I have always heard about why Chinese men who smoke find Chinese women who smoke unattractive; a woman smoking is a sign of misery despite the fact that a man smoking is a sign of masculinity. Somehow it just felt right that the women who have taken a job in a Disney-like park hocking their glossed-over and simplified culture with such drama and fan fare would, secretly, take their breaks to go and smoke in private. It was then that I decided I had no interest in seeing the exorbitantly priced theater spectacles that these women were hired to perform and which Bill had already expressed was my decision to see or not (despite the fact that he was paying). The park alone was beautiful enough. All the park needs are the standard maintenance people; not men and women paid to be falsely cheerful while hocking the plasticized version of their culture.

As we reached the bottom of the ravine and broke the solitude of the promenade, I settled into such comfort that I started making silly jokes that Bill really seemed entertained by. He asked if I had been to other countries and I said none in Asia but plenty in Europe. He told me about Japan and how wonderful the culture is there too. He explained about one of his trips there and how lovely it was to visit such a rich culture.

We made our way around the stream-lined promenade and started back up the hill as Bill expressed his great regret at not having been a better student. From what he described, I suspect he’s dyslexic too. He explained about having a visual memory and how difficult languages are for him, even French. I told him my little brother is the same way, avoiding telling him that I’m the same way too. Most people don’t believe me when I explain how difficult languages are for me and that my "forte" for languages is not, in fact, a forte for languages but an incredibly high threshold for my own humiliation, inability to understand and desire to say, "This sucks. FUCK IT!" English was just as hard for me as every foreign language I’ve ever learned and one of the reasons I started writing regularly was to maintain what everyone else simply had.

Nonetheless, I felt that Bill would think I was mocking or patronizing him and I lack the French fluency for the nuanced explanation to say nothing of the fact that, on the surface, I am simply good at languages. If one does not speak the native language of a country, one must at least speak English to get by. I not only speak minimal Mandarin and slightly more English, I was managing to maintain my half of our conversation in French. The last thing I wanted was to make Bill feel like I was patronizing him especially when he made no overcompensating-because-he-felt-emasculated-by-my-control-of-our-external/Chinese-interactions gestures.
So under the brilliant, clear, beautiful day, we made our way back up to our original path as he explained his difficulties in school and his great desire to have been a better student, allowing him more access to languages. He explained how he finally found an English teacher who understood his difficulties with learning and helped him sort out a way to learn visually. He explained that the teacher had used the movie "Saturday Night Fever" to help him learn and how most of his English comes from that method.

At that, I was positive he was an undiagnosed dyslexic and my heart went out to him, thinking about how untenable it is to be labeled "stupid" despite the fact that you’re not and you know you’re not, to say nothing of the fact that when he was a student, dyslexia was not understood much less tolerated by teachers.

We wound our way around the outer edge of park and then hiked up one of the hills for the lookout. We joked about the steps in China and how they’re just a little too short for our long legs (he’s my height).

"But do be careful on the way down. These granite slabs can come loose from the earth and I don’t want you to fall." Bill explained his lovely gesture in the quietest way.

"Okay." I said, making the mental note to take all the steps carefully on the way down as nothing inspires my obedience like a man concerned for my safety.

At the top of the hill, we took in our first overview of the city for the day. The day was beautiful and clear and you could see for miles; an incredibly rare thing in Xi’An in the past few decades. We turned around, taking in the 360 degree view.

"Ah, the calm, the beauty, the grace, the…death?" I thought as I looked over the view and then found my vision resting on a massive skull and crossbones. Apparently, next to the Tang Paradise is an amusement park and the top of one of the scary rides has a massive metal skull and crossbones.

I explained my train of thought to Bill and he laughed, explaining that he had the same general thought when he saw it.

We then descended the large hill to meander through a garden of the fourteen hand gestures/seals of Buddhism. There were massive, 8-foot-tall hand sculptures in the fourteen different gestures of Buddhism lining the path. I explained what each one meant and he kindly listened with interest as I butchered the French language.

I don’t know when it occurred to me but it slowly seeped into me that I was with a kindred spirit. Language and cultural barriers aside, sometimes people are just meant to understand each other.

We found our way to a long, covered bridge that bordered the massive lake and we entered. Strolling through the covered arches, I looked up and noticed that the keystones of the arches were covered with ornate plates. The plates that were facing us were covered in Chinese characters and pictograms. The plates to our backs were women dressed in Tang Dynasty dresses. I pointed them out and Bill, pulled himself from the view of the lake to photograph the plates.

I then looked out to the lake where Bill had been photographing. The lake was still as death. The sky and city reflected back onto itself infinitely. The lines between heaven and earth vanished, lost within the distant, dark haze of pollution. And I was happy to be able to spend that moment there with my new friend.

Slowly we continued our stroll through the archways and made our way to an open plaza with a four story octagonal building. Just outside the plaza, there was a sign that spoke about how deep (and therefore dangerous) the water in the area was. I hopped out to the sign and showed Bill the character for water. On the first night we met, Bill tried to force himself to remember the word for water after he heard me ask the waitress for some. As the character is quite simple, I thought it would be nice to show him.

"Water" I pointed to shuai.

"’Deep’ what does that mean?" He asked, reading the "The water is deep. Take care." sign.

I completely forgot the word for "deep" in French and so I had to explain it. "It’s the opposite of shallow." I then held my hands together, my lower hand hovering just beneath my upper hand. "Shallow" I said and then I dropped my lower hand, "not shallow. ‘Deep.’"

"Oh, deep!" Bill finally understood. The French word for "deep" is "profound" and it possesses all the connotations both of the physicality of "deep" and the intellectual depth of the English "profound." "Like Johnny Deep [Depp]. Johnny is very profound." I laughed. "Of course, it’s because his woman [the word for "wife" and the word for "woman" in French is the same thing so even though they’re not married, she’s still considered like his wife] is French."

"Obviously, Vanessa Paradis’s man is very profound." I countered and we both laughed as we entered the plaza.

In the plaza there were tall blocks of sea green glass with the life sized silhouettes of Tang Dynasty women etched into them, effectively appearing as though the ladies were on the other side of a translucent, colored door. We walked up the path to the building entrance, passing by the silhouettes and climbed the stairs to the second floor balcony of the building.

On the balcony, we got yet another breathtaking view of the city. However, as we emerged from the stairwell, I got a view what looked like a construction dumpsite. I studied it for a moment and then realized it was not a dump site but and outdoor water slide attraction attached to the nearby aquarium.

"Oh my god that’s ugly." I exclaimed.

"Yes. Most modern buildings are. Architects and contractors are more interested in building quickly and making a statement that creating something with beauty." Bill explained. "That’s why I love cultures with such deep history. There is old architecture with great beauty."

"Very true." I commented, loving every second of our conversation. "I’ve never understood why women fall all over themselves at the thought of French men. I mean, I like French men just fine but I’ve never noticed that the advantages of French men far outweighed the advantages of any other nationality. However, I may have been mistaken." I thought to myself.

We ascended another two flights to the top of the tower to see what we could see and we were greeted with more spectacular views of my beloved and incongruous Xi’An. She’s modern and she’s old. She’s got obscenely wealthy high-rises crowding ghettos of falling down apartments flanked by blossoming apartment complexes and the cranes building them surrounding massive park spaces of ancient artifacts and modern sculpture. Xi’An is a cacophony of life; the old and the new echoing back onto itself into infinity.

It was then that Bill started to proactively reach for and hold open the flaps that cover doorways (in lieu of doors) to allow me to pass before him. It was also then that I realized this is precisely what I needed to find my voice again. The nebulous haze that had descended upon me had started to lift and I was beginning to feel as clear as the still lake.

We wandered around a few more buildings and then Bill asked me about San Francisco.

"Do you know San Francisco?"

"Yes, my grandmother lives there. I know it quite well." I explained.

"Tell me truly what you think of it. It has always been a dream of mine to go."

"It’s a wonderful city. The sights are fantastic. The people are wonderfully kind and progressive. It’s fun to get around." I gushed.

"That’s it. I must go. I must go to San Francisco." He declared definitively.

We stopped in front of a plaque explaining in Chinese English precisely what we were looking at. Bill stopped talking to look at the English and I followed his gaze. It’s safe to say that the translated plaques are always a bit difficult to read, even for me who deals with Chinese English everyday.

Bill shrugged his shoulders, "I can’t read it. It’s too difficult."

I smiled. "I can’t read it either. It is too difficult."

Bill laughed, "I guess Chinese English is hard."

I nodded. "It’s true. And the funniest part is that the Chinese, who are so innocent about their romantic intentions always choose the words that are a bit sexual to explain their great passion for something."

Bill laughed and explained how true it is that the Chinese are incredibly earnest in their personal relationships. He has, on occasion, attempted to lightly tease a fellow colleague (good naturedly) as we do in the West. Instead of countering his teasing, they simply accepted the comments at face value and moved on, leaving Bill feeling like a heel and trying to explain it was just a joke. I ran into the same problem (see any number of my earliest interactions) and we commiserated about how bad we felt overstepping that boundary.

We continued our wandering around the lake and came upon a large playground. I was fascinated with the enormous game of Chinese Chess (or Othello as my beloved math geeks know it) where each black or white piece was large enough for a person to sit on. I was so enraptured by the massive Chess sculpture, I failed to really notice the two waterwheels attached to some monstrous contraption that ended over a small gazebo. Whatever it was, it wasn’t working as there wasn’t any water in the streams surrounding the island the gazebo was on so I really paid it no mind.

Bill got very excited upon seeing the contraption and started wandering about the enormous thing. This got my attention and I turned away from the Chess sculpture. I studied the monstrous contraption, confused but Bill returned to me to explained how it all worked, ending with the water falling over the gazebo. With Bill’s explanation, I understood what happened, I just didn’t understand why. So, I went to the plaque in front of the gazebo and did my best to decipher what it said.

"Air-conditioning." I said.

My engineer friend got even more excited and started taking pictures. "Yes. It must be the first air-conditioning. I must have pictures of this. The Chinese are a truly brilliant culture. So much of what we have, so many of the inventions in the world come from China. They are such and old and rich culture and they have given the world so much."

I couldn’t have agreed more.

As Bill told me about the various engineering contributions China has given the world, we wandered to the granite island carved to look like a dragon boat. Bill, at this point, had grown accustomed to my habit of walking into a room first studying the floor and then studying the ceiling. This time he beat me to the punch and found the most beautiful corner of ceiling while I was still studying the ground. He led me to a corner where the ornate stained glass ceiling was not only beautiful in its arabesque complexity but lined with large, colorful, swirling glass balls the size of pool balls. Perhaps several hundred of these balls lined the outside of the beautiful square of light and his immediate sharing of his discovery was the loveliest gift I’ve received in a long time. It felt like the ceiling was made just for my pleasure.

We wandered throughout the "boat" and at the front of the boat was a ceiling of repeating dragons.

"It’s amazing that the whole world has dragons but where to they come from?" Bill asked himself the same question I have asked myself over and over since the beginning of time. "Perhaps it’s some prehistoric animal that died out just as man was beginning and has somehow managed to stay in our collective unconscious." Bill answered himself with the same answer I’ve stuck with over the years.

We made our way out of the dragon "boat" and around the lake towards the massive fortress stopping along the way to meander on the Chinese bridge promenade. The white granite bridge led to nowhere and circled back onto itself.

"Oh, at last, ducks." Bill sighed with relief as he spied the only two ducks I had seen all day. "I would have thought there would be more ducks and swans in the lakes here. But, no ducks or swans." Bill glanced at me as I was looking out onto the water. "Oh, never mind. You probably don’t know which bird is the swan."

"Yes, I do. Big, white bird that sings one song before it dies. It’s a ‘swan’ and there are lots of swans and ducks in the spring, summer and fall."

Bill smiled happily and seemed relieved though I don’t know why.

"In France, there is a very interesting radio show. It’s about a man who backpacks through different countries with the soul purpose of convincing local people to let him spend the night with in their home. It’s very interesting. He reports on which countries are the easiest and which countries are the hardest to find a place to sleep. He said in China, it was very easy." Bill pauses to watch a Chinese family pass us by. "But I would know how to approach them. I wouldn’t know the first thing to say."

"Me neither. That’s such a great idea for a radio show."

Bill agreed and he continued to tell me about various episodes.

We walked around the base of fortress and Bill worked up the nerve to ask me about my film work.

"You said you worked in film. Do you mind if I ask you why you came to China?"

"I love film. I love making film, I love watching film and I love the process. However, I was working in production. It’s a very difficult job for a woman and I left it before I began to hate it. Someday I want to return to write and direct."

"The one regret of my whole life is that I never worked in film. It is my great passion. I would have loved to be a director."

We talked some more about film and made our way up the grand staircase.

"You know, when I first moved to China, I hated it." Bill confessed.

"Me too. I hated it for a month. I got in the first day and thought, ‘What have I done? I want to go home! This is such a mistake!’. I thought, ‘I can’t breathe. The air is terrible. The people are so different from me. I don’t know what to do.’"

"Me too. But, you know who helped me enormously? [Your Brazilian Angel] She came in, she took me out to dinner, she showed me the city, she showed me how to get around and now I love it."

"Me too. In my head, I call her my Brazilian Angel. She saved me. I would not have lasted in China had I not met her. I would have gone home. I owe her more than I could ever repay her." I concurred.

Bill and I reached the top of the enormous steps and he pulled back the curtain for me. We entered and wandered around the small museum. At the center of the large, square room was a royal court made to look very life-like and I found it incredibly unsettling. I expressed my unsettled sensation to Bill and he teased me by commenting that he thinks he saw one of them move.

"That’s not funny." I turned around, creeped out.

"No, seriously, look. She moved." He said again, trying to stifle his laughter.

And I did what any mature, adult female fully in control would do; I shivered off in a creeped out waddle.

Fully entertained, Bill followed me. I don’t know what it is about boys but when they pull my pigtails and I know it, I just can’t help but be even more indignant, to their great delight.
Still creeped out, I ascended the next set of stairs but not before Bill hurried ahead of me to grab the sound blankets acting as a door and pull them out of my way.

At the next terrace we reached, we looked down at the plaza below to see an acting troupe gallivanting about on stilts and putting on a good show for the plaza. We spent a good half hour watching the stilt-wearing acrobat actors bounce about to well-timed live music and put on a great show.

As I watched the bright colors flap about several stories below, I found myself wondering what Bill was thinking and what it’s like to be inside a brain that functions in French. I wondered if the words of beauty he might be thinking were "belle" or "jolie" or "beau" and which pieces of the performance they applied to. I wondered what he thought of the music as he’s not a fan of the atonal Chinese traditional music but the folk music the Chinese were playing was much more tonal and traditional in the European sense.

The performance ended and we continued our lap around the wrap-around terrace. As we made it back to where we had started, another performance was starting up on the plaza below. This time, instead of allowing a pillar to be between us, I nestled myself into the space just next to him and he immediately turned himself to face me.

As I watched the multi-person dragons dance about on the tall platforms below, Bill watched me. We talked about something, the likes of which I can’t remember, only that it was so comfortable standing there, close to him as he watched me. I was glowing under the thought that the universe had given me this brief moment to restore me. I saw the ephemeral nature of this gift in the warm glow of his gaze and knew that whenever this day ended, I would always think of it fondly.

From there we wandered up another few floors to the top wrap-around terrace and discovered a room with a three-story tall gold pagoda mockup. We studied the pagoda for a bit as the Chinese studied us; a tall European couple and the essence of exotic in this exotic place. A woman and her daughter walked in as I was reading the sign below the pagoda and Bill laughed.
"They are completely shocked."

"Who?" I asked.

"Them. Their mouths are on the floor." Bill pointed to the mother and daughter walking past us, backwards, to gawk at our exotic nature. "Younger women look at me but older women never do."

"It’s because of me." I explained.

"Why?"

"They think I’m your wife which makes you safe to openly observe because I will make sure you behave. But, unfortunately, younger women won’t look at you as openly when I’m around. Sorry." I faux apologized.

Bill shook his head, indicating he had no problem with not being looked at by younger women.

I smiled and took out a yuan coin. The sign explained that if you drop a coin into the jug before the pagoda, the pagoda would light up and play music. I dropped a coin into the jug and immediately the pagoda lit up with different colored twinkle lights that rimmed the roof of each wrap-around terrace. It clicked and whirred under the movment of light.

"Wow," Bill sighed. He walked to the far corner of the room and took a picture of the pagoda and its dancing lights.

When Bill returned, he studied me for a moment and noticed my irritated look. "What’s wrong?"

"There’s no music. The sign says there will be lights and music but there’s no music. Only clicking. Hmph." I pouted.

Bill smiled at my pout and shrugged.

"Well, it wasn’t very expensive." I tried to console myself.

We watched the show until it ended and then Bill took out another coin and dropped it in the jug. "Perhaps there will be music now."

The lights clicked on again and the show that had been several minutes long suddenly was cut short after less than two minutes. Surprised, we looked at each other.

"Well, it wasn’t very expensive." Bill echoed and we found the way out.

As we were easily ten stories up, looking down the shaft of the narrow circular stairs was quite dizzying.

"Oh!" I gasped as I looked over the edge and felt the swirl of vertigo hit me while looking at the Escher-like staircase that seemed to fold back onto itself forever. I rarely get vertigo. In fact, if I was hard-pressed, I couldn’t come up with a single case of it before. Leaning back, a bit swirl-headed, Bill reached out to steady me. Once he was sure I was steady, he looked over the railing.

"It’s like that movie with James Stewart." He paused to find the name of the movie.

"Vertigo" we said at the same time.

"Yes, and with the actress…" He paused to find her name.

"Kim Novak" I finished for him.

"That was a great movie."

"Yes! Really great!" I concurred.

"Are you okay to walk down the stairs? We can take the elevator if you’d like." Bill offered kindly.

"No, I’m okay. I’ll just walk near the wall."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, thank you."

As we descended the staircase, we were passed by a couple with a woman wearing, as always in China, heels.

"Women always wear heels here." Bill commented. "I never understand why they are always wearing heels. Their feet must always hurt."

"I don’t know. Sneakers are hard enough for me to not fall down in. I can’t wear heels. I would never stand up." I concurred with his confusion.

We made our way back towards the entrance and I felt better than if I had just spent the past four hours doing yoga.

"Tomorrow I will go to work and tell [le Francais] that I had a wonderful day." Bill flattered me and I discovered I had to resist the urge to hug him.

"And I will say the same thing tonight to [my Brazilian Angel]. Thank you."

"No, thank you for your company. It was a wonderful, relaxing, refreshing day. One of my best in China."

"Thank you."

"What would you like to do? We can head home or perhaps do something else. Whatever you’d like."

Sleepy from the sunny day and afraid to ruin a really beautiful day, I resisted the urge to suggest we go back to his hotel and instead suggested we head to our respective homes.

"Do you know how to tell the driver to make two stops? We will drop you off and then I will go to my hotel. Of course I will pay for it."

"Oh, thank you and yes. Yes, I can explain how to get from here to my home."

And with that, we piled into a taxi and headed home, the warm glow of the day and the familiar company had lulled me into a state of such relaxation that I knew nothing but the moment. I explained to the cab driver how to get to my home and then how to get to Bill’s hotel.

"East or West" the cab driver asked when I explained that my compound is by the North Corner Round About.

"East" I explained.

"What did he ask?" Bill asked.

"There are two North Corner Round Abouts and so he asked if I was going to the East or West one. ‘Do’ is East. ‘Xi’ is West." I explained.

Bill nodded and smiled as he sat back contentedly into his seat. And as I found myself resisting the urge to snuggle into his shoulder, I realized that I made the right choice to call it a day. I’ll be free to wreck the loveliness next time I see Bill but for one afternoon, I had perfection.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

TITS AND TAT

So, it’s been a quiet week since I last wrote. I’ve since become a blonde again (Saturday 1/20) and found a wonderful Korean ("South" he was quick to clarify to the American, as if the South Korean flag pin he was wearing wasn’t enough.) hair stylist and elegant salon owner. He speaks a little English and quite a lot of Mandarin and when he discovered that I was single asked me, "Do you think Asian boyfriend?" to which I was utterly perplexed.

"Think?" I asked, confused as he put foils in my head with the attention only the hair on the blondes of the Sistine Chapel during the renovation have ever known. Surrounding us were a fleet of hair stylists fascinated to know how to handle my Western hair and even more fascinated to know what goes on in the head of an unmarried Western woman in her late twenties.

He broke his utterly intense hair concentration to flash me a conspiratorial look. "Yes, think" he smiled in the way that let me know that no matter what word he was using, he meant "desire" in all its connotations. I had yet to learn that the word for "want" and the word for "think" in Mandarin are the same thing.

"Keyi" I said the Mandarin equivalent of "It’s entirely possible" because I knew he wouldn’t understand, "It’s entirely possible." "Mei guo ren, Zhong guo ren, Thai guo ren; mei yi sa. Ta shi hao nan ma?" Or "American, Chinese, Thai; the value of that is nothing. Is he a good man?"
He smiled and nodded at this and then one of his 4 official assistants (the other five people were unofficial and there more as a tutorial than a professional position) asked me. "You are beautiful. Why no boyfriend?"

And though my mind raced from thoughts of, "What relevance does beauty have over relationship status" to "I’m in love with a boy but for whatever reason, he’s not interested in being my boyfriend" to "What business is it of yours?" So, I just shrugged because really, what does one say to the romantic equivalent of, "You’re tall so why don’t you have shoes on"?

The assistant then told me his five-year plan to go to LA and open a hair salon. It would appear that everyone in China (even if they’re Korean) has a five-year plan to go abroad. I’m often reminded of the college applications I filled out with that bullshit "Where will you be in ten years" question, as if you could possibly predict all the things that will effect (affect?) your direction. I never felt comfortable answering those questions and yet I feel utterly inadequate not having an answer to said question. Somehow, saving for your retirement and taking life as it comes doesn’t quite seem to be enough.

As the Koreans (and Asians in general as has been my experience) love them some big hair, the Korean hair stylist curled my hair effectively turning me into every blonde doll I’ve ever seen here in China. I returned to my Chinese Angel (she found the hair place and was getting her short hair permed, effectively turning her into a gorgeous Anime heroine) and she was bowled over by my hair. The irony of turning into another large breasted, curly, blonde haired, Jessica Simpson drone in order to reclaim my pride in my unique status was not lost on me.

And, as I got out of the cab that took me home and crossed the street to my apartment complex, it suddenly occurred to me that I had inadvertently turned myself into a Bentley. As my curly hair and breasts bounced across the street, men stopped dead in their tracks. One man even failed to stop his car all the way before he got out and started hollering, "Hello! Hello!"

Monday (1/22) I had my last bought of primary school classes but Z was nowhere to be found. (I had made a promise to myself that if I saw him I was going to ask him to come see some pictures from around the world as I miss him dearly and really just want to spend some time with him.) The one drawback to now having become a blonde is all the extra attention the males at school are giving me. Okay, not ALL the attention (it is flattering to see that the men who have always tried to be cool around me, now simply cannot help but stare for long, extensive periods of time; there is nothing better for a gal’s ego than seeing the impenetrable male’s faÁade crack at the mere sight of you) but the attention from my boss sucks. He spent the day making up excuses to come and see me, one of which was a "teaching summary."

I was asked to write a "teaching summary" for all my work in the primary school, the likes of which I am completely ignorant about. I have tried writing teaching plans and every time I try, the teaching plan is returned to me full of comments about how none of it is remotely adequate despite the fact that the things I am asked that I am familiar with in concept are, in fact, well documented within my teaching plan. The lack of English literacy amongst my English teaching colleagues is a little scary. Then there’s the small divide between East and West. Now, I’m no brilliant "teaching plan writer" however, I do know the basic structure of a teaching plan and how to execute one and the fact remains that "Western Teaching Plan" and "Eastern Teaching Plan" are nothing like each other beginning with the Eastern Teaching Plan’s focus on all the things you did wrong in each individual class and how you will promise to do better next class.
Consequently, I am more than a little anxious about having to write a "Teaching Review," to say nothing of the fact that my boss doesn’t read English or speak it nearly well enough to understand anything I would say, regardless of the simplicity of the words. Writing is one of the places where the divide between Mandarin conceptuality and English conceptuality cannot be made up. People who speak excellent English simply cannot write or read it. Perhaps once I am better at Mandarin, I will be able to make it more easily consumed by my Mandarin colleagues but I’m nowhere near that capacity now. In fact, I can think of about 4 people I know in China who might understand the gist of what I write but they would, invariably, return to me to explain the minutia. (It’s times like this I realize how I’m the only native English speaker I know and while it’s advantageous for everyone else around me that my high IQ rests primarily in my "Wordsmith" abilities, it sucks for me.) It seems like a waste of time to me, not to mention, earlier that day he came into the office to inform all the other English teachers that they were exempt from writing said Teaching Review.

Tuesday came and went without obvious note as I realized that my blonde hair is rather threatening to the women at work in the middle school. All the men noticed and all the students returned to their jaw-on-the-floor, "teeeeeeeacher" breathless declarations of my great beauty, however, not one of the teachers commented on my hair. Both my naughty classes were well behaved and they both asked me to take off my glasses so they could see me without spectacle, as it were. However, there was nary a word from the teachers. I’ve long ago noticed that Chinese men will not acknowledge openly anything that their female friends, colleagues and relatives find threatening and the silence of the men spoke volumes. The one exception to the silence was the tall gym teacher with the rambunctious son and whose ass I kicked in volleyball. He went from not making eye contact with me to asking the students to introduce us. (A man in China is not allowed to initiate casual conversation with a woman unless he’s been introduced formally.) I think the thing I like most about Chinese men is that, unlike most of the American men (and women) I know, a true interest in a woman leads to his ability to speak. Generally, the more a man is romantically interested in a woman, the more he has to say to her and not in the nervous-talking-thing way. It’s a genuine conversation with full back and forth and a genuine interest in her opinion. Such comfort with one’s own self makes me quite comfortable myself. Fortunately, most men are willing to attempt basic English and that makes me more than willing to butcher Mandarin. Between the basic Mandarin/English conversational skills and rather advanced comprehension skills, the simple act of conversing with men in China is really, really fun. The men are silly without a hint of cynicism and are willing to do anything to make a girl smile.

I then got home to realize that the repairs of the cable between Taiwan and the US have taken a major step backwards as I am now unable to get my AOL mail again. We’ve been assured it will be fixed before February but I highly doubt it. Back to Gmail. Again. Google, thank you for "selling out" to the Chinese government.

Wednesday, (1/24) I was supposed to go shopping for things to turn this apartment into a home. However, my Brazilian Angel has been dying to get me to a specific sweater shop for ages now and I finally relented. Wednesday morning, we took the bus to the sweater shop and instead of just seeing where it was, I ended up shopping up a storm. The store is an "irregular" store, selling lots of high-end tops that have a little something wrong with them. Most of the sweaters (as it is winter) are Merino wool but the tags were sewn on the outside of the seam instead of the inside or perhaps there is a small hole in the sleeve near the seam. As the store sells them for 19 yuan (a little under $2.35 at a 7.5 exchange rate) a pop I can certainly bust out my scissors and needle and thread. Hell, I have to do that at the start of every fall anyway what with the occasional moth hole and whatnot.

"Chris, you really need to start wearing tighter clothing." My Brazilian Angel said as I reached for a sweater I was sure would be loose on me.

Frankly, I have always liked the Annie Hall look as I just feel naked if people can make out my shape beneath my clothes. I guess, rationally speaking, there’s nothing wrong with my figure but I have always loathed it nonetheless. The fact that I have giant breasts in comparison with the women here and the Chinese women I’ve met are more obsessed with weight than I am doesn’t help the fact that I feel disgustingly fat.

However, at 19 yuan a pop, I could afford to (guilt-free) indulge in a little, "What if" shopping.
"Okay," I stated firmly, putting down the oversized hoodie and picking up the form fitting, rather daring top the store clerk had picked out for me. "I know I’ve lost weight but there’s no way I’m this small," I thought as I took the sweater. "Stop it," my inner Michi argued with my inner Chris. "Her job is to know what size I am by looking at me. You haven’t bought clothes since you were in the US and even in the US most of your clothes were baggy." So I bit the bullet and continued to shop in a similar size range. I finished shopping and asked if there was a changing room where I could try all the stuff on. I was offered the utility closet with a full-length mirror and bad lighting.

I knew my ego would never survive seeing myself in any state of undress, much less in fitted clothing under such environs so I made the rash decision to simply purchase everything and try it out at home. For less than the cost of a normally priced sweater in China, I got seven. I took them home, tried them on, realizing they all fit by Chinese standards (tighter than my fragile self-confidence is comfortable with).

Without my primary school classes, I only have one class on Wednesday. I figured that would be the perfect time to give a new sweater a test run. I chose the eggshell, Merino hoodie with two Adidas-like orange stripes running down the sleeves. Beneath the hoodie, I wore my matching orange Wonder Woman t-shirt. I tried to forget the fact that the cousins haven’t really changed size since I lost weight and I headed off to class.

In the teacher’s office, I took off my jacket and wasn’t given a second look by any of the women there. As everyone has commented, ad nauseum, on every aspect of my appearance save my newly blonded hair, I tried to take the appearance of my new sweater and my old cousins to no comment as threatening. In other words, I forced myself to think I looked pretty good. I tried to ignore my urge to believe I looked like shit because they also don’t comment on my appearance when I’m dying of the flu and look beyond awful. The true litmus would be my kids. My students love to tell me (in English) exactly what they think of me, brutal or kind. In fact, they take great pride in know exactly how to articulate their always-strong opinion. Hell, their opinion is so strongly articulated that some of the young women teachers are swayed towards anorexia when their students tell them that they’re fat.

So I headed off to class with a matching scarf wrapped around my neck in a vain attempt to partially cover the cousins up. I started class, noticing that there were several jaws on the floor but no one said anything.

"Okay, so I look strongly something," I thought. "Thank god I’m a foreigner and can get away with looking like shit from time to time. I may have to just chalk this one up to a loss."

As I made the rounds collecting the verbal answers from each student, one of the boys grabbed my scarf and caressed it. "Teacher," he said, "this beautiful."

"Thank you," I said as I watched him formulate the words to say something else. "Here it comes. Brace yourself," I thought.

He reached up and touched the sleeve of the sweater. "This beautiful too," he said breathlessly. All the students (boys and girls) around him nodded in agreement.

And then it occurred to me that men like things that bounce. Tight clothes show the lines of nudity with the bounce of movement. The cousins bounce. Curly hair bounces. Blonde, curly hair bounces most visibly of all. It always comes back to sex. Such a tortured topic sex is and yet it permeates every-fucking-thing. Silly, really.

Yesterday, Thursday (1/25), was my last day of classes before my vacation. I had my Chinese class first thing in the morning and my demure, kind teacher made no comment to my hair. She does not approach topics of envy without my bringing them up first. Case in point: She mentioned something about my glasses and I told her that blue eyes are, in fact, a genetic mutation of green eyes and therefore they are the, genetically speaking, weakest make up of eyes around. Consequently, most people with blue eyes need vision correction of some sort.

"But in China everyone has black eyes, so we think blue is beautiful." She said.

"I think black is more beautiful that blue. Besides, black is healthier than blue."

She smiled and nodded at this. She is aware that I had/have something going on with a Chinese man, so she knows that I’m not just patronizing with that comment; I truly mean it.

Nonetheless, she looked surprised at the first sight of me and then said nothing. I worked hard at my terrible Mandarin and the class ended all too quickly.

I headed off to the teacher’s office first and settled into my seat as my beloved colleague came over to pump me for more information about the US. He also offered me help on continuing my Chinese studies. His English is (obviously) very advanced, so the books he uses in understanding English are ideal for the early English speaker learning Chinese. He loaned me two of his books and I plan to go to the bookstore today to purchase them if I can find them.

I held my last two classes of the semester as rather loose affairs. In my first class (the period just before lunch) they had just received their English homework for the night. I told them they could work on it in class and I would help them if they had questions. It worked out pretty well as all of the students did have questions and I was able to answer most of them in a succinct and clear manner. I then corrected their homework, explaining which answers were wrong and why they were wrong. It’s nice to feel like a real teacher from time to time and not just training wheels for foreign exchange.

At lunch, the Dreamy Teacher you may remember from photo day who looks unsettlingly like my younger brother, showed up. He’s one of the male teachers who’s really interested in talking to me but afraid to use his English. I was walking to lunch with a flock of girls from my favorite 7th grade class who love to dramatically declare their love for me and toss themselves about in the most operatic fashion. While I was walking with the girls, Prof Dreamy (who teaches history) showed up and the girls all forgot me entirely while squealing over Prof Dreamy.

"They adore me but the moment you show up, I disappear." I teased Prof Dreamy. He’s a nice fellow who isn’t put off by the fact that we have no common language. He’s also a polite fellow who is rather unaffected by the notion that he is the essence of male beauty as understood by his culture. I respect little more in a conventionally beautiful person than their lack of attempts to trade on it. Being the jealous girl in the back of homeroom class who always wanted to be accepted by the cheerleaders but wasn’t and so made fun of them instead, I am given to looking for the first sign of people trading on their looks and find it a most distasteful quality.

He looked at me, smiled broadly, a little nervously and said, "Ting bu dong." (I don’t understand your foreign language.)

I shrugged, "Wo ting bu dong han yu danshi zhe shi zhong guo bu mei guo." (I don’t understand Chinese but this is China not America.) I always do my best to own the fact that in someone else’s country, it is the foreigner’s responsibility to meet the locals in their native tongue not the local’s responsibility to meet the foreigner in their native tongue. The Chinese really would like to meet English speakers in English, so I feel it imperative to remind them of the fact that this is THEIR country, not mine.

He smiled and nodded, turning back to the girls and using them to translate between us.
As our entourage piled into the cafeteria, I was met with lots of "Lao hao"s. "Hello teacher" is "Lao shi hao." "Lao hao" is "Hey teach’!" In other words, it’s my greatest victory in China. I am fast disappearing as "Teacher" and not just becoming "Lao shi" but rather becoming "Lao," the ultimate in casual student/teacher relations. I stick out like the sorest of sore thumbs but somehow, in a mere six months, I’ve managed to become accepted as utter normalcy.

Even as a blonde with large cousins.

Friday, January 19, 2007

IN WHICH I INADVERTANTLY PULL A FAST ONE

"You are a good girl. You are like traditional Chinese girl." For the umpteenth time in China, I hear these two sentences spilling from the lips of people close to me and for the umpteenth time I feel like a fraud.

Frankly, I have had a lot… a lot of lovers from both genders and I feel neither remorse nor pride about that. I have a libido that controls me more than I control it and I feel neither remorse nor pride about that. I have a mouth that could make a drunken sailor blush and I feel neither pride nor remorse about that. I have a mind far too educated and far too independent to be appropriate and I feel neither remorse nor pride about that. I am, simply put, who I am. I have made peace with my demons as much as possible and find myself to be neither saint nor sinner. I am, most proudly, a human being. I am a ball of contradictions that simply wants to love and be loved and have a few fantastic meals and see some sights along the way.

However, this notion that I am not the "Promiscuous Foreign Girl" everyone thought I would be before they knew me somehow seems dishonest. I am everything they accuse my "kind" of being. I don’t care how many lovers I’ve had. I won’t roll over and accept the status quo simply because it’s the status quo. However, I won’t reflexively reject it on the same basis either. And, I am worried about this idea of me as a "good girl" because, at my core, I’m not. I’m not a "bad girl" either but the idea that the notion of me being embraced as a paragon of virtue by people who embrace without the option of divorce frightens me. I don’t know what the "good girl" answer to all questions and dilemmas are and even if I did, I would only coincidentally choose the "good girl" route. Ultimately, I choose to care for my own mental health before the feelings of others. I worry about hurting the people I care about here because I am always just me. I do the best I can and do what I feel is right in the moment but I can’t be anyone’s paragon.

And I don’t know why I’m consistently thought of like this. The only thing I can think of is that the Chinese value the mellowing of age; the comfort of one’s own skin as paramount. The petty, rash impulsive nature of youth has started to evaporate from me, leaving self-acceptance in its stead and perhaps that is what they respond to. I have no interest in brief, tormented love affairs anymore. I understand that sexuality is overwhelmingly powerful and that everyone possesses it, so I have no desire to toss mine around aimlessly to dash young men across the rocks simply because I can. I get that day-to-day life can be brutal and so people should be more forgiving of transgressions, especially their own. I also get that if you don’t understand why someone is acting crazy, it says more about your ignorance than the other person’s lunacy. Not to mention, said "lunacy" most probably has something to do with "not feeling worthy" either of love and/or respect; very little makes most people more crazy than that. I have a weakness for youth that has the naked courage to need me and very little patience for adults who fool themselves into thinking they need me to fix them. I understand that losing my temper serves only my own rash ego and the more time spent wallowing in my own rage means that I spend more time as a burden to others who have better things to do that babysit. I understand that the efforts of most days are futile, that most of the energy one puts out into the universe will not come back to you but the days that aren’t futile, those days the energy does come back more than makes up for the futility. I love nakedly because full disclosure is the only thing that allows me to sleep at night; what happens between when I’ve seen you last and when I see you next has nothing to do with me and I certainly have no control over it but if I love you as best as I can manage in the moment I am granted then I did all I could.

But I am no one’s Diana. I am no one’s virginal goddess of the hunt, free from blight or blunder. Quite the opposite. I have come to all of these "good girl" conclusions because nothing else works for me. I have broken and rebuilt myself in a multitude of incarnations. I will continue to do so for the rest of my life. This is not the thing of a "good girl." This is the thing of a real girl who fears the inevitable wounding of the people she cares for now that they’ve revealed they have a vested interest in her placid faÁade.

And, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that it makes me a little angry that the perspective of me as "like a traditional Chinese girl" is only a liability. If Z’s parents saw me as "like a traditional Chinese girl" I would be in his gym, laughing it up right now with he and his boys instead of sitting at home, alone on a Friday night (1/19) writing this entry as a way to avoid the raging debate in my head over calling the married, obscenely wealthy Hong Kong banker I met at last night’s West Egg party who offered to take me on a tour of Lanzhou and inner Mongolia because I’m "beautiful" and he does "a lot of business in the area" when I revealed that one of the reasons I came to China was to see Lanzhou and inner Mongolia. Ultimately, I won’t go on that tour without a chaperone (ie. without a large group of fellow West Eggers) but the devil in me really would like to be someone’s kept mistress. I would be lying not to admit I am in dire need of being worshiped by a man, any man, as a fully sexual woman right now.

I need to be touched, kissed and worshiped. I need a man who sees nothing but my nudity and is undone, at least for a moment, by it. I need a reason to close my eyes, toss my head back and gasp. I need to feel beautiful for my specificity, not my iconography. I need warm hands on me and strong arms around me. I need to drown in the scent of another. I need to submit and be undone by a man who wants nothing more than my submission and undoing at his beckoning. I need a man to make me my whole self because he makes me forget myself.

"Good girls" don't suffer from this dilemma.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

A BREED APART

I spent the past few days thinking, reflecting and generally being in mourning. I spoke to no one here, talked with some of those closest to me in the states and avoided writing like the plague. I excised the badness and rejoiced in life on Monday (1/15). I rejoined life brighter and sunnier than I’ve been since before I got sick.

And I realized I should thank the universe. For a moment, I had perfection. My whole life I have wanted to be the right person at the right moment with the right person. I’ve always either needed to be someone else or needed my lover to be someone else. For a moment, I had love that needed nothing further. Whether or not I ever have it again, I can die a happy and grateful woman having known it.

I had a man who was secure enough in his own self to adore me neither in spite of nor because of my own greater power. I had a man with whom I could talk about things and who shared his great passions with me. I had a man who shifted the gravity in the room and for whom I shifted the gravity of the room. I had perfection. I was want for nothing. All the things I loathe about myself, all the tomboy aspects of me, all the ferocious opinions, all the dorky inconsistencies and all the days without makeup were on full display and yet still he made no secret of adoring me. He did not hesitate to help me in any way possible. He did not merely speak of helping me and potential future plans but he followed through on his word and rejoiced in merely making me happy. He did not hesitate to tease me, pull my pigtails and do all the silly things a boy does to make a girl chase him. I have never known a man to be so fully articulate in the joy of bringing me joy. I had a man who was more serious about me than I was about him. He made all the things I fear, loathe and am irritated by not vanish like a fairytale but ebb and easier to bear, like real life. I truly felt love by a truly good man.

And I felt protective of him, not because he needed me to save him but because he wanted me. I wanted nothing more than to show him every happiness he created for me. The vulnerability my brave, strong and virile man did not hesitate to show me made me feel all the more complete and all the more distinct. I felt like the only woman to ever fully exist when he was around. All my crippling fears about relationships melted away and my greatest fear became that he would provide me with joy and not know it.

"Can you feel his love?" My Chinese Angel asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"When he is with you, can you feel the love he has for you?" She asked.

And I had no idea how to answer that. Words seemed so trite. At the time, I thought, "He radiates beyond anything I ever dared ask for. I’ve never met anyone with my frequency like this."

On Friday, when I realized whatever it had been was over, Yente said to me, "Perhaps he said those things but did not mean them."

"No," I thought, even though I nodded in contrition. He had followed through on too much. He had supported me in too many ways. He had let me in too far. I've heard all those words spoken as empty promises before. This wasn't that. Whatever his reason, it was bigger than he. It was bigger than his word and he was powerless against it.

"You’re not Chinese. Parents get crazy about interracial grandchildren." My mother said and I opened my mouth to protest.

But as it sank in, it just felt right in all the wrong ways. His shift came not long after I told him about how my mother was accepting of him. He was greatly surprised by the idea of my mom being unchallenged by his presence. Quite possibly, he was inspired to finally inform his own parents. Love can’t conquer everything. Nonetheless, they are the people who created such a man, so I can’t be angry with them even if they find color of my skin and the shape of my eyes unsuitable for mixing with their bloodline.

"Let me call him." My Chinese Angel insisted today (1/16).

"No. Please." I begged her. The one thing I realize and know in my gut is that he would have told me if there was something to be done. By not telling me, I know there is nothing I can do and it would hurt me unnecessarily. Every action he has ever taken has been to protect me. Whatever they are, he has very good reasons for not telling me. Considering my welcome when I went to see him at the gym, he hasn’t even told his best friend/co-owner of the gym.

No, there is nothing left to do except thank the universe for the gift if saw fit to give me. I now have empirical proof that the kind of love I have always sought does exist.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

BABY JESSICA

So, I took some time out to mull over Z and made the decision to go see him one on one. I had talked with some of my girls back home and was reminded of myself and them in real time, which always does me good. When things fall apart abroad, to have voices from home reach you outside your own head, some how steadies things unlike anything else in the world.

Essentially, I was having a hard time reconciling all the things that had gone on with what was going on now to say nothing of the fact that he utterly vanished when I was sick. His hot/cold act had my head totally spinning. And, like the glutton for punishment that I am, I sought something more concrete than passing, public moments.

And I got my intimate, private moment.

And I am now simply confused.

I tracked him down at his gym and tried to talk to him. He didn’t understand when I asked if he was mad at me, so I asked if he was still my good friend.

"Please believe that I am your friend." He said.

"Okay." I said, not really sure.

He invited me up to hang out in the gym while the yoga class finished and sat on a couch together. He paid me very little mind and I just grew more and more confused.

I was clear that I was sitting there with my boy’s body but I have no idea where his mind went. I don’t understand what vanished but whatever it is- either figment of my imagination or real trait formerly adored- it’s not there anymore. He barely glanced at me and instead was enraptured by all the cute groupies bending themselves into the most suggestive of positions.

And I found myself in the twilight zone. Everything was just as it had always been. The gym was there, my boy was there, his boys were there, the students were there the teachers were there, the reception was there, everyone was as staggeringly welcoming as before, the lockers and the bathroom were all still where I had last left them but I didn’t understand a damned thing going on there. I found myself thinking, "Of course he’s watching the beautiful Barbies giggle as they bend themselves into the perfect Down Dog. Why would he notice you?"

For the first time in a long time, I was in a truly foreign place with someone I didn’t understand with whom I have no common language. I’ve never had such emotional vertigo in my life. So, when the yoga class was over, I got up and left.

I did my best to be friendly and light but the last thing I wanted was to be humored. So, the last thing I wanted was to be there with him right then.

I think I’m just going to chalk it up to a figment of my imagination. I’m a lonely girl who was desperate for affection and so I projected way too much onto this one boy eager to be helpful.

I was mistaken.

Friday, January 12, 2007

SWAN DIVE

So that hurt.

Something happened and now Z’s not interested. He ran super hot and now he’s super cold. I don’t know what happened between "I want to take you to my home" and dead silence during my week of illness but whatever it was, it killed any interest he had in me. Once again I feel like a fool and once again I feel myself saturated in all that I loathe; bitterness. I want to lash out and sleep with people to spite him. I want to drink and make a fool of myself. I want an explanation. But most of all, I want that explanation to be, "I’m sorry, I’m a fool. I’m still interested. Please forgive my rash action."

I guess this week’s lesson is to learn that I’ve become strong enough in China to get kicked in the gut while I’m down, feel like the world’s largest fool and still manage to be a functional human being.

And now I have to go find more tissues as I’ve literally blown through the 400 I had in my house.

I wanted to see all my friends before but I didn’t want to have to leave China to do it.

Now I’m glad I’m leaving China. I don’t know that I want to come back. It’s amazing what a difference one man can make.
IN WHICH I STUMBLE INTO MOTHERHOOD

I’ve been under the weather all week. Monday (1/8) I went to my morning classes but briefly collapsed under the fever and the flu. That knocked out my afternoon classes. (China’s got no such thing as "sick days" and I hate taking sick days to begin with so I tend to push myself too hard when it comes to work and being ill.) I called my head boss, almost in tears because I was so frustrated with myself and this constantly-being-ill issue. (Not having my usual immune system is obnoxious as hell because I rarely get ill in the States.) He told me not to worry and he rescheduled other teachers to take over my classes for me.

He then left his work, fetched me the medicine the doctor told me I needed to be taking and showed up at my door to cheer me up a bit. We sat and chatted and he fetched me water as I did my best not to pass out on him. I then asked if he could call Z and explain to him what had happened as the news of me collapsing at work is most certainly too much information not to be flying about. I wanted Z to have the full, clear story and my boss promised he would do so. Unbeknownst to me, my boss headed back to his office, called Z and proceeded to inform a fleet of other teachers that they were to cover my classes for the next few days.

After he left, I took a round of pills and then headed back to bed and crashed, sweating, shivering and freezing the whole way. You know you’ve got a bad fever when you get your temperature reads "A little high" from your armpit after you’ve been standing outside in below-freezing weather for several minutes and you took fever-killing naproxen.

The next morning, I woke up in a pool of sweat but the ache of fever completely dissipated from my joints. I rolled into the shower and discovered that I had completely lost all sense of smell. I ate a minimal breakfast because I figured I should (despite my utter lack of desire for food) and realized I had lost as sense of taste. I realized I haven’t been this sick since I was a little kid and was still working on building my immune system. Considering my high fever, the incredibly dry and freezing air and the abuse my ENT system was taking from my constant, side splitting coughing, I wasn’t entirely confident I’d be getting my oral factories back.

"That would really suck. I really like taste and smell." I thought as I watched the yogurt reach my lips and then sensed the cool, smooth texture cover my deadened tongue. "Well, at least I’ll have a good story about how I lost my sense of smell living in China and I’ve already got my favorite perfumes picked out." I then thought about how I’d ever be able to tell if food had gone bad or if something wasn’t clean or how I’d know if my lover was near.

Nonetheless, I felt well enough to stumble to the Kindergarten and teach my Tuesday morning lessons and so I did. Granted, that hour totally wiped me out so I went back to my apartment and slept from 10-2:30 and then headed off to the Middle School for my afternoon classes.
Now, the thing about me is that I’m a control freak. I am most at ease either in safe environments (around my benignly crazy friends) or environments I’m able to be one step ahead of in my head. When I’m sick, I lack the energy to be one step ahead of anything and so all I can do is react without any premeditated anything. The last thing I needed was to be that sick heading into a Tuesday Middle School series of classes. (Tuesdays being the two nightmare classes that are the sole reason I get paid to be here.)

I showed up at my office looking a mess, I’m sure. I flopped down, gasping for air because when you’ve got the flu, walking up three flights of stairs is akin to running a marathon. Sitting at my desk, I waited for my heart to return to my chest and then the bell rang. Not a single one of my colleagues said a word to me. You can be assured that if no one says anything to you one of two things has happened; one, you’ve offended the group somehow or two, you look like hell and to ask you how you are would be to invade your privacy and right to be unhappy in peace. (I once had a friends tell me, "I know it’s rude to ask, but you don’t seem like everything is okay")
"Oh dear, sweet Jesus." I thought as I got up to go teach, leaving the deafening silence.

I reached my first of two nightmare classes and, upon seeing how utterly wrecked I was, they were surprisingly kind to me. They still gave me a hard time but their cynicism at having been labeled the "bad class" of the school was softened away by their sympathy for me. I gave in to an informal style class very quickly and they (for the most part) dropped their adversarial attitude. The bell rang and I went to my next class where most of the students melted their adversarial attitude, though a few still remained.

I was notably ready to kill this one student who felt it would be cute to reply to everything I say with "Ting bu dong." ("I don’t understand your foreign language.") Even when I said it in perfectly feasible Chinese. He’s a smart-assed little brat who seems to really like me despite the fact that I loathe him. I think he’s just entertained by my "stupid human tricks" factor. Rarely am I aware, anymore, of not being viewed as human… except when he’s around and then I’m constantly reminded.

As I was tired and sick and being baited to fight, I had a hard time doing much else aside from surviving the moment. A group of four boys called me over to them.

"Teacher, please write your name." One of the boys said as he held out a pen and pushed some paper towards me.

"My full name?" I asked. I have, already, written "Christina" more times than I can count so, at this stage of the game, it had to be about more than just my first name.

"Yes." The boy nodded.

I nodded and wrote my name on the blackboard so as to provide everyone with the same access to my name.

"Teacher, please write your name." Another boy from the group called out, holding the pen and paper.

"I just did. Can’t you copy it?" I asked, really wanting to get back to the lesson.

"Please, teacher." He insisted. Being raw and still edgy from the baiting, my antennae went up.

"Why?" I asked, as I approached the twittering teens. Clearly they were excited about something.

"Please. Write. Here." The second boy repeated his sentiment.

At this point, I was close enough to get in the boy’s face (which is what I do to intimidate students into honesty; it’s like a lie detector by proximity) and I did so. After all, the class before this one tends to forge my signature and alter their grades, so I’m not exactly trusting of students from Tuesday classes who want more of this sort of information on me.

I stared at the boy for a while, waiting for him to crack and confess his motivation for my signature. When I had stared at him long enough and I knew he would break, I gestured ever so slightly with my eyebrows and he spoke.

"Piaoliang" he whispered breathlessly as he gestured one hand over his face.

Now, my fever had just broken earlier that day. In a "When it rains, it pour move" my period started at the same time my fever broke. I was emitting more snot than I could possibly know what to do with. I felt weak and helpless. I felt emotional and raw. Essentially, I felt a great many things but "attractive" does not rank anywhere near the things I felt.

"Piaoliang" means "gorgeous" for the specific qualities of a woman (her hair, her dress, her, in this case, face). A beautiful, elegant women as a whole is "meili" but her individual parts are to be complimented like art, hence "piaoliang." There are many kids in that boys class who like to tease me and say, "Teacher/Chris I love you" or "You are beautiful" but this boy never does. He prefers to sit in the back of the class and not make much trouble.

I pulled back, as it was my turn to crack a little and the boy just kept staring at me wide eyed, enraptured. I looked at the other boys and they were staring too, nodding in agreement. As these boys never cause me much trouble and are certainly good-natured, I was pretty sure they weren’t jerking me around.

Having had my power role completely inverted, I simply shut the hell up and wrote my name.
Wednesday came and went without much note.

Today (1/12), Thursday, I had class with my puppy dog crush student. We were in the midst of a very informal class as I’m still ailing.

Towards the end of class, my puppy dog crush called me over and asked how it is that I’m happy every day.

"I’m not happy every day but I’m happy when I see you. So, it looks like I’m happy every day." I explained.

"I want to be like you. I want to be happy every day." He said. I knew there was more coming.

"Shenme?" I asked the Chinese equivalent of "What?"

"Please don’t tell my English teachers or my parents or anybody." My puppy dog crush asked for my confidence.

"Yes of course." I promised.

He then unspooled a story of love, loss, heartbreak and redemption the likes of which is only possible under Middle school pettiness. He ended his story with the Catch 22 he now finds himself in. Any choice he makes he loses and he wins.

"Have you ever been through anything like that?" He asked. In that moment, I realized I had motherhood staring me right in the face.

I don’t really think of the mark of motherhood as giving birth. I don’t even think of it as the marathon three am feedings. I think of the mark of motherhood as the blindsiding questions asked at the most random times about the true, gray nature of life and the pain all happiness seems to bring with it in some way. I think of motherhood as the day the kid asks you which is more important, the love of friends or the love of a lover. I think of motherhood as the day my son figures out that the damaged song bird he’s in love with is damaged beyond his ability to fix her and so he must mend his own heart or be lost to the abyss. I think of motherhood as the day my daughter realizes sexuality is so over powering it turns a reasonable boy into a callous moron.

I looked at my puppy dog crush and realized this was my first moment of motherhood. So, I called upon all my own mother had offered me; the truth. I said I had and I explained which person in the drama I had been. I explained that it was painful for me and that I was sorry he found himself in a similar situation. I hope that by seeing that I’ve made it through all of that a relatively okay person, he’ll have some hope that all will be livable down the line. I told him that the decisions he had to make about his life he had to make on his own and no one could make them for him but that I would always be there to listen to him if he needed someone to talk to. So, I gave him my number and told him to call me anytime he wanted to talk, even if I don’t have much help to offer.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

IN WHICH OUR PASTY HERO DISCOVER HE IS A SHE

I have always thought of myself as a gay man trapped in a woman’s body. Frankly, that’s the only way I’ve ever been able to rectify my gender inappropriate machismo and bravado with my overwhelming lust for men. In other words, if you don’t bring me the flowers I want for my birthday, I will, in fact, punch you. However, it would appear that I’m going to need to revise that, as I realize now that I am, overwhelmingly female.

I have the flu. It sucks. Fever, the shakes and so much nose blowing, my upper lip looks like Angelina Jolie and I swapped after she got in a fistfight. I’ve had the flu since yesterday morning (Saturday, 1/6) and while it’s better today, it was so bad yesterday, at one point I collapsed on the floor crying at how shitty I feel and how I’m a million miles away from healthcare I recognize. I know I’m truly sick if I catch myself being overwhelmed with self-pity. I don’t know, something about the achy joints of a fever dissolves my emotional ability to keep it together. I felt so shitty, all I could think about was calling Z to have him come take care of me the way I know he would. It made me cry a little bit more that, for the first time in my life, I was nakedly about to reach out to someone else to take care of me. I’ve taken care of myself, more or less, since I was 16 and the only time I’ve accepted the offering of support from others, it’s always sheepishly and regretfully with profuse apologies for infringing. I’ve always tried to be blasÈ or fabricate ulterior, more benign reasons for actually requesting help from others. I’ve never told another person, face to face, "I need you to save me. Period." I hate admitting I need other people because I’m afraid they’ll see how much more I actually need them and then be scared off.

However, as I reached decidedly for the phone to ask for help and making no attempt to level out my weepy voice, I understood fully that he would come over and take care of me, no questions asked. I have never been so sure of anything in my whole life. And I had no problem asking him to get me whatever I needed. He would call a doctor, take me to the hospital, fetch me my medicine, fetch me food, watch movies in English with no Chinese subtitles, pamper me and stay with me (platonically; he’s clearly not ready to engage me physically), leaving only to teach his training classes. I knew it would make him happy that, at my weakest moment, I called him to take care of me like the tragic Victorian heroine I never would have imagined myself capable of much less allowed myself to be. In my emotional rawness and complete lack of defense, that he was all I could think of to help me would have meant a lot to him. Hell, when I told him that my mom said to say, "Happy birthday, [Z]" he clearly understood the implications of my mom knowing him and wishing him well. (I thought it would be a good way to answer the unspoken question that every other Chinese person has been utterly fascinated by, "How does your [WHITE and for whatever reason infinitely superior] family feel about you dating a… CHINESE?") He stopped mid-Chinese-sentence, studied me for moment and said, "What" clearly disbelieving what he had heard. I repeated myself, first in Chinese and then in English so he was clear that I was clear what I was saying. He shook his head, disbelieving and then broke into a touched but small smile. He said, "Thank you" (In English). He didn’t speak again for a few minutes as he just watched me.

And then my weeping turned into sobbing because, as a girl, I realize that he works seven days a week, most of the day and we live a country where there’s no such thing as sick time. He sleeps in a cold building, is up early (never my fault) and goes to bed late (usually my fault). As much as it blows for me to be sick, he simply cannot get sick.

So, I cried and cried (which really helped the whole "fish lips/runny nose" issue) thinking about how I wanted to call no one but Z. I didn’t want help from anyone but him but I couldn’t put him at risk. Instead of reaching out to my boss or beloved coworker (like I have with illnesses past) I just holed up in my apartment and moved into my bed because I’m batshit insane. And just to confirm how far gone I am, I am intensely satisfied that tomorrow, if the topic comes up, and he asks the inevitable "Why didn’t you call me" that I can say, "I didn’t want to get you sick" and not "Well, I just called [insert another man’s name]." Only someone off their rocker wants their love interest to know that they want no one else, to the exclusion of their own health.

I’ve never wanted a boy to be this clear that I’m his possession. At first, my Doubting Thomas figured it was the language barrier and the ability to project fantasy onto him but the consistent and naked courage, generosity, gratitude, humor and straight up kindness is positively mind-boggling. I’ve been lucky to be in love with one truly good man before. I never thought I’d get another one. I think about all the good men I’ve been surrounded with and how, when I was younger, their gestures of kindness were beyond unappealing; as if a man who "likes me too much" is a drawback. I see all the men I’ve been bumping into since Z and I established our direction and I see how many men are beginning to gather the courage to approach me romantically. And, while they would all be wonderfully nice in their own way, I think I’m finally old enough to let those opportunities slide. As incredibly tedious as it may sound, I’m finally ready to jump in the deep end with both feet.

I guess I just finally had to admit I was a girl.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Q AND A

So, my good friend wrote me a list of questions pertaining to my time here in Xi’An. I like the questions as they’re a good review of all the stuff I’ve been through and a reminder of the things I’ve learned that I now take for granted. Here’s the "transcript".

What is it like for a hater of conformity to find herself in a land that, at least in my mind, is strongly conformist and hidebound in tradition?

The hater of conformity in me loves being here. They are conformist on the "surface" (read: the defensive face they present to the foreign/unknown is all the same) however, as their society is so unbelievably homogeneous, they are actually a lot freer than Americans to explore their own person. They all fully understand the rules of propriety, commonly accepted manners and common history which leaves them free to explore their own personal likes and dislikes. In fact, most Chinese people are (initially) put off by the liberal approach to being flexible and amenable as it presents no real picture of the individual they're dealing with. They are (initially) drawn to the people we think of as narcissistic assholes because those people have no problem articulating exactly who they are with great specificity. America's society is about exploration of the individual so our manners run towards being flexible about our individuality ("Oh, I don't know, I like noodles and rice. Whatever you want.") while China's society is about homogeneous unity so their manners run towards being staunchly individual ("I want noodles. I refuse to eat rice tonight. Period. End of story.").

Privately, they tell their bosses off, lovers fight and children rebel in order to get it all out in the open within their community. However, once ceremony dictates unity, all differences are laid aside and the people come together. As the ultimate American ideal is not to offend the individual, the Chinese ideal is not to deceive the individual. Truly, honestly, I've never met a group of more earnest and open people. Yes, as always, there are the assholes but by and large, not nearly as many as in the same social circles in America. However, when you couple their ceremonial and defensive focus on unity with their belief that time is a birthright (they believe that they should take time to seriously consider anything you say), not a luxury (as we see it; answer first and revise later), you get the overwhelming image that it is a whole country of conformists. Essentially, the main issue, methinks, is that Americans are easy to know but hard to love. The Chinese are hard to know but easy to love. And, unlike Japan, they are a country large enough to cut us out if we're bastards. Japan isn’t big or self-sufficient enough to tell the US to go fuck itself, consequently, China has retained a much more distinctly Asian feel.


Are there many other non Asian foreigners there? Is there a community ofAmericans, or Europeans, etc. where you might find some camaraderie?

There is, in fact, a very large expat community here. I'm in touch peripherally with most of those communities. However, as I'm over the culture shock, I find very little relief within the European ghetto. Most of the businessmen here are white trash (of varying countries) with a good exchange rate. They live in these gated communities and treat the "natives" like objects. The most intimate interaction any of my business counterparts has with "Maid," "Driver," "Dirty Businessman," or "Dragon Businesswoman" is when "Maid" washes their underwear. My fellow teachers are all primarily middle aged men looking to pilfer as much "untouched" Asian poontang as possible. I've only heard of one other female foreign teacher in Xi’An and the greater metropolitan area and she's in her 70's. The foreign students (Xi'An is the place to study Mandarin) here are all primarily students complete with the social angst/desperate need for the next kegger or utter cultural imperialism in anticipation of bleeding the locals dry once they become financial whizes. I don't have compatriots in the people who look like me.

I have compatriots in my colleagues. I have solace in the boy who is so taken with me, he broke his vow (people's word here is, in real time, stronger than the law) not to date, has already told me he wants to take me home to meet his mother and is willing to brave the unknown, laying aside all his culture's understanding of everything, simply to be around me and make me happy. When I need the things he doesn't understand (and consequently fears), he simply asks if it will make me happy. If it will, he will stop at nothing to get it for me, despite my archetypes reputation for being fickle and too easily swayed from lover to lover. I have solace in the women who protect me in so many ways and on such a frequent basis that I'm aware of the glaring fact that I will never know all the ways in which they've snatched me from the jaws of a serious problem.


You must draw a lot of attention there, being, I assume, so much taller than most if not all the people around you. Plus, being Caucasian, well educated, outspoken compared to the average person... do you ever feel uncomfortable being a Tall White American Woman? My guess it that even in a large city, most of the populace has had no real contact with non Chinese people.

I used to be uncomfortable being the Tall White American but I've since become "Sister Teacher" in my community. As I do attract staggering amounts of attention, the compound I live in (several thousand people and several city blocks) is fully aware of who I am and all the women call me "Meimei laoshi" which means "Younger Sister Teacher" and also a play on the word "beautiful" (meimei means "younger sister" but mei inflected slightly differently means "beautiful" and when you double up on a single word you make it the most extreme quantity of that word possible [ie. "ren" means "person/people" but "renren" means "everyone," "tian" means "day" while "tiantian" means "everyday" and so on and so forth]... they inflect "mei" like beautiful, not sister). Frankly, I'm one of 5 non-Asians within a several mile radius, one of two women and I'm the only SWF.

When I first arrived, every time I would leave my apartment, men would literally stop in their tracks. One dude almost got hit by a car watching me pass. All the eateries around here give me a discount for eating there. All the shopkeepers give me little gifts with every purchase. All the children test their English out on me. All the guards (military guards protect my wealthy compound) keep an extra eye on me. (Case in point: any time strange men enter my building with me, a guard will escort me to my door and make sure I am safely able to lock the door behind me) The cost of all this star-like treatment is the star-like treatment; I am frequently asked by strangers (to me; they know who I am) for a picture with their children. They ask me to help them with their English and everyone knows that Z and I are seeing each other, despite the fact that he tells everyone I'm his "English Teacher."


Tell me more about the social protocols there. You mentioned some in your blog relative to dating, and I do want to know more about that, but also more generally about daily interaction with strangers, coworkers, bosses, shopkeepers etc.

"Stranger" is a relative term. As I am a rare and incredibly valuable commodity, anyone who is in anyway attached to the school feels that we are "familiar" regardless of whether or not I know them. As said commodity, I must (well, not "must" but I would be an ungrateful and irretrievable brat if I didn't) maintain a happy face and take the time to humor all the people involved. To be fair, no one approaches me blind. They all say "I know so-and-so." That it is known that I am seeing a Chinese man, I am considered even more of the family. I am not just benevolent "other," I am the movie star from their hometown that knows them. At times, the questions get a little intrusive but it's not so much about "getting the dirt" but fully understanding me. To them, I look so vastly different than anything they've ever seen before (that was not on the silver screen or on their tv) that they truly lack the social filter. It's not about their lack of manners but about their ignorance about their own ignorance. And, if my good friend introduces me to their good friend, we are good friends, regardless. It is expected that I am to be allowed to make demands on them for logistical matters and they are allowed to make "information" demands on me for curiosity matters. (I'm allowed to not answer any question I want, of course, but once a good friend introduces a good friend, the questions are allowed to be asked.)

"Coworker" is more a gender thing. The sisterhood is alive and well here. My female coworkers all know all my business and their job is to keep me safe. They advise me on the way things are done in China and we compare and contrast with the way things are done in my home and then we negotiate the happiest medium. If anything were to happen to me because I made a bad judgment call, it is not going to be considered my fault but theirs. My male coworkers are not really allowed to approach me without a formal introduction ("formal introduction" being, first they spend time getting on the very, very good side of my female friends/coworkers, then spend time with my friend and I and then after a few we're-in-the-same-place-at-the-same-time chances for me to observe his behavior is he allowed to ask my girl friend for an introduction). The only caveat to that is holidays when pictures are being taken and then they still must have another female coworker ask if I would be willing to take a picture with them. My boss is quite literally considered my older brother. Any formal decisions to be made can only be presented to me through him and then, once I've decided yay or nay, he must deliver the news. As the first Western woman to work in this school system (it's a privatized one), I am considered more important than the men who run the entire school system. (Contrary to the "misogynist" notions so prevalent in the West, women are more highly regarded than men in China. Women are believed to be the balm, the even keel and the true voice of any family/workplace. As you can’t completely obliterate one gender for the other, men must be given public respect, because it is the women who carry the true weight. The only people shucking off their daughters are poor farmers who can't afford to lavish their daughters and instead need a workhorse of a son. In fact, within China, the families that give up their daughters for adoption are considered the lowest of the low. Every Chinese person I've met is ferociously ashamed and beyond disgusted that anyone would give up a daughter.) At all meetings, I am given the second most important seat, regardless of the attendees and my presence is applauded. Publicly, my word is gospel and not questioned. Policy is set according to my unchallenged opinion. It's all a bit overwhelming at times which is (one of many reasons) why Z is so important to me. (His single job as my boy is to keep me truly happy. If I'm down, I can talk about it, he helps me and then he does his best to either comfort me or make me laugh. It's a lot like the idealized fantasy of a lesbian lover.)

"Bosses" are actually more afraid of me than I am of them. Like I said, it's openly accepted that I'm on par with the most important of leaders within our community. Not to mention, the kids love me and I love the kids. The English test scores, while not as high as everyone wants, are higher than they've ever been. If I leave, that they'll end up with yet another middle aged man looking to damage the reputation of the female teachers is almost a given.

"Shopkeepers" who know me are incredibly giving, as previously explained. Shopkeepers who don't know me are curious but stand-offish at first. However, once I speak Chinese to them, they're incredibly accommodating. Shopkeepers who don't know me but see me walking arm in arm with a Chinese girl friend or closely with Z are as welcoming as the shopkeepers who know me. In fact, I get better prices than my Chinese friends.


How's the water?

The water here sucks ass. Xi'An is a desert city so the city's water supply comes from an underground spring. In other words, it reeks of sulfur. At first I thought it was the air pollution but it was later explained to me that it comes from waaaaaay down below. Can't drink it but I'm kept in bottled water by the school. I've got a water "cooler" type thing, only it's a water heater, not cooler; no "cold" only hot and room temp.


What sort of creature comforts do you have?

I have access to anything I could possibly want. I make a very good living and could afford to eat at the pricey French restaurants every night. I could move into four star hotels every weekend. I can shop in the European ghetto that ships everything straight in from Europe every day. I did that for a little bit while I was drowning in culture shock. However, I'm a privileged, white New York girl; no one knows how to embrace "ethnic" like my kind. I've since let go of most of my creature comforts. The only part of my diet that doesn't really exist in China is the high-end Swiss chocolate (they LOVE them some chocolate here but most people don't indulge in Swiss chocolate). I've switched my coffee for tea as the tea here can kick some coffee ass. Besides, how much more "creature comfort" does it get than "Chinese food" for a New York girl?

I made the mistake of venturing into McDonald's a while back and after half a small meal (think half a happy meal size). I thought I was going to explode from the fries alone. Dear god that shit will kill you fast. And, I will not even speak of the sin that is KFC. Don't eat it at home. Won't eat it here. Though, I do hear King’s Coffee (the coffee house attached to all KFC’s here) is pretty good.

And, speaking of my fat ass, my boy owns a gym so I can work out and take classes anytime I want. In he and his coworkers, I've got five personal trainers all of whom want to train me not only because I'm dating the owner but because I can teach them English. As I'm a jock, I know all the English terms they're looking to learn as the gym is going global in a few years and English is the universal language of the upwardly mobile. So, Saturday nights I get my Yoga class and Thursdays I get my Pilates class. Between classes, my fellow worker-outers teach me Tai Chi and my boy's best friend teaches me Tae Kwon Do.

The only things I really miss is a Mac compatible world (Mac is made in the US, so it's completely priced out of China's buying power), the usage of the word "right" instead of "yes" and men touching me. Here, men and women touching is seen as disrespectful if they're not dating and while I get that, rationally speaking, it's probably best for society that sexual rules are strongly prescribed, it doesn't change the fact that I grew up with brothers, gays and guy friends who spoiled me with platonic physicality.

Yeah, and bagels. I miss them too. My world would be perfect if I could just get a lifetime supply of H&H bagels.