THE HUMAN CONDITION

One of the things I really, really like about my life is that I have seen a large swath of the ugliness, the brutality and the viciousness that mankind is capable of. I have been violated personally, politically and socially. I have had a lot of my idols torn down to reveal a substantial portion of reality. I have had all of this happen before I was 30 and I have come from a home of such loving and good intention that, despite humanity’s tendency to be, well, human I still have a glowing sense of hope about all the good we a capable of. In fact, I maintain this occasionally nauseating dirty hippie-dom to such an extent that many people confuse my hard earned cheerfulness with ignorant bliss. (Granted, I suspect if anything were to ever happen to my child, it would destroy this capacity of mine but thus far I have been fortunate enough that it has not proved to be an issue.) My joy at life is hard-won and not easily bent. Yeah, I can focus on the wrongs of this world or I can see all the beauty we manage in spite of the wrongs. My perspective, ultimately, does little more than inform my own life; I have been through the phase where I was beaten and destroyed by the ills of humanity but in the end, focusing on all the horrors did little more than feed on itself; misery begets misery and happiness begets happiness. I’m not suggesting a blissful, blind eye to horrors (one must grieve and go through the healthy processes with all loss) but I’m suggesting that what works best for me is that once mourning is over to live in a space where the awfulness can be let go of. And you don’t have to take my word on it. My attitude is nothing that Buddhism hasn’t been spouting for eons.

On Saturday morning (4/21) my fellow teachers and I all piled into a bus to head out on the annual spring outing. In the spirit of full disclosure; I was not looking forward to it. I wasn’t free the weekend before (see my Windows/Doors entry for that discussion) and I won’t be free the next weekend (I have to work 8 days straight to get 7 days off for the first of May). I’m a cranky bitch about preserving my private time (I think of it as self-care) and the prospect of getting up early on a Saturday to go share a single bedroom with someone who is neither lover nor relative while being in a position of potentially forced gaiety was not appealing. I had been hoping that as my predecessor was not invited on the last trip that I wasn’t going to be invited on this trip (there are many places in China that are popular tourist stops for the locals but due to various issues of sensitivity, foreigners are not allowed to visit). However, on Wednesday (4/18) I was asked for my passport information “for insurance reasons.” In other words, not only was I possibly going but my room was booked and the travel agency was putting the finishing touches on my itinerary.

Shit.

Despite my great hesitation at such levels of immersion, the potential free time being spent with a cranky Z and the prospect of bunking with a woman, I slapped a smile on my face and refused to resist the path others had deemed appropriate for me.

In retrospect, it is that publicly perceived malleability of my free will that has made my gender a rather complicated and murky thing here in China. I loathe the fact that my own will is not really considered because I lack a socially perceived penis. When I say, “No,” which I never do lightly as I have been taught to respect the power my opinion has over others, it is simply not enough. I must be willing to really fight for my, “No” and I am never guaranteed that my “No” will be heard. It is considered a sign of the benevolence of those in power that my “No” is heard and respected. In other words, I must appear grateful at all time for the respect women are free to demand in the West. When I say “No” I am asked why. When I explain that said request is humiliating, anxiety provoking or unsettling, I am met with the simple curt answer of, “But you’re in China and in China it’s not a problem [so do it].” My male counterparts do not have this issue. However, being seen as a partial child within the group has its benefits.

As a child, it is the responsibility of the parent to take care of me. Consequently, I am welcomed into far more things without question than my male counterparts. As a “woman adrift” in the Victorian sense of the word, my caretakers have allowed me into their homes with far fewer questions than my much more “capable” male counterparts. Hell, my caretakers aren’t sure I can handle caring for a home on my own while they don’t doubt that every man who would come through has no problem turning a house into a home. On occasion, I feel as though I am a wolf in sheep’s clothing as the kind of woman I am is nothing publicly understood or accepted.

As a child, I have become far more welcome into the “home” aspect of living in China than my male counterparts have been. I have seen a great many cultural things and been granted access to a clearer perspective simply out of reach for men by virtue of the very fact that I am viewed as an emotionally stunted adult. The women here now welcome me with open arms and the men do not hesitate to provide me help with any and all things I might ask.

So, at the ass crack of dawn, I met my fellow colleagues at school and bleary eyed, we hopped on the bus. I had briefly checked the sea of faces for Z but he was nowhere to be found and found myself relaxing completely. I sat with my Chinese Angel and all the girls piled into the coach bus seats around us as we all shared the various snacks we brought along to sustain us for the 3-hour bus ride. Firmly entrenched in the patriarchy, the sisterhood is incredibly generous. All women brought far more of their foods than they planned on eating so they could feed the other women around them. Fortunately, I have grown accustomed to this and so I brought a ton of food myself.

An hour later, the busses were turned on and we were off. We spent the first hour and a half in the Swingers mind frame of “Vegas, baby, Vegas!” We talked, shared music and videos. Then, after the rest stop, we all succumb to the lull of the bus engine and the rocking of the freeway, sent most of us to sleep.

Jolted awake by the bumpy road, most of us were finally pulled from our sleep. Opening my eyes, I saw that we were in a haze-filled, tree-free valley.

A familiar, warm, friendly voiced filtered into my brain asking something about America and dirty. I didn’t bother to look away from my window as I had the window seat and it was quite likely the question was being aimed at my Chinese Angel. Everyone aims their questions at her as they don’t trust their English to convey the sentiment to me and they don’t know what Chinese I understand.

“Hey!” My Chinese Angel said accompanied by the single finger nudge to my elbow, the she always does when someone in Chinese is, in fact, speaking directly to me.

“Sha?” [Wha…?] I pulled myself from the strangely hypnotic view to see a familiar pair of warm, brown eyes looking at me. Standing over our seats was the beautiful History Teacher but the way he looked at me with his eyebrows raised was so Western. It slowly started to dawn on me that what unsettles me about him is how many of his mannerisms are Western. The first time I really remember him was the picture day and I remember being unsettled by how much he looked like my brother Beavis but in actuality, photographically speaking, he looks nothing like Beavis. It’s something about the way he carries himself that is distinctly casual-Western. He is decidedly Chinese but there is something about his casual nature that is decidedly Western. He has the ability to contort his face in Western ways, he understands the vocalization of Western languages better than anyone in the English department (while his grasp of English is not textbook fluent, his understanding of the spirit of English is far closer to American English than anyone else I’ve ever met) and he understands Western gesture like no Chinese person I’ve met here. And, as there is nothing more foreign than what is closest to us slightly altered, I realized my resistance to him is how close (surface-speaking) he is to me.

“Does America have dirty places like this?” The History Teacher repeated himself in Chinese. He has the ability to make his Mandarin consumable for me in a way many Chinese people do not and so my understanding of his conversation is far deeper than most. I suspect we have similar speech patterns, concepts and general headspace as my Beloved Colleague (close friends to both of us) has been trying to set us up for some time.

I paused for a moment trying to figure out if I was capable of answering him in Chinese.

“Does America have dirty places like this?” My Chinese Angel translated into English for me.

Upon hearing her speak in English, I shifted out of the hazy space between languages and tumbled back into English parameters.

“Yes. We’re just very good at keeping them out of movies so you never see them.” I answered straight to the History Teacher who then paused to watch me as the words filtered into his brain.

As he smiled discreetly at me making it clear he understood, my Chinese Angel translated into Chinese for him and he nodded politely at the redundant effort.

I found myself wishing he was sitting further up the bus near me and not in the back of the bus with my Beloved Colleague but, knowing the Chinese, seats were not about to be switched.

As we continued winding our way through the filthy valley, we were informed that it was a coal-mining town and the strip mining was obviously ravaging the land. While I was getting the lowdown on the town we passed by what, to me, was obviously a nuclear power plant with its massive, double cooling towers and dome shaped buildings. We then passed another.

“God, that’s a lot of nuclear power plants for one valley,” I commented to no one in particular.

“Not nuclear power, coal power.” My Chinese Angel clarified.

I grew up on trips from NYC to West Point. I have passed by Indian Point many, many times in my life. My uncle won a Pulitzer for his coverage of 3 Mile Island. I have intimate knowledge of the Reed College nuclear facilities. I know what a nuclear power plant looks like (though, to be fair I don’t know what a coal power plant looks like) and those towers looked awfully familiar.
“Are you sure because those really look nuclear.” I said.

“Yes. Coal plants.” My Chinese Angel laughed at my silliness and I was immediately distrustful. I don’t distrust her; I distrust her information. It’s her access to information that worries me. The lack of critical thinking I have spoken about ad nauseum tends to flare up when it comes to dissemination of information and the Chinese people simply accept, without question, the word of their government.

“Well, nothing I can do about it. I’m here and I just hope we’re not staying here.” I thought as we wound our way through the valley to the Yellow River. I did my best to block thoughts of Chernobyl and the stories of my uncle’s risk taking from my childhood and focused on the small things of the moment like the flavor of the gum I was chewing.

Our caravan of five coach busses pulled up and all of us piled out by the banks of the Yellow River. The breathtaking view and beautiful winding water helped wipe the thought of potential radiation poisoning from my mind.

As I was trying to embrace the Zen about the moment, I saw a large group of teachers from the Primary school joking about and taking photos.

And there was Z. All the beautiful teachers from the Primary School were doting him on but he was still looking miserable. As one of the women, who looks remarkably like a doll, started to dig into his bag for various things, clearly intent on flirting with him and he was clearly intent on not enjoying himself, it dawned on me that when he’s in a dark mood, there is simply no removing him from it. And, it wouldn’t be so bad if his dark moods didn’t descend so frequently. We all have moments when we’re miserable but Z just has too many moods, has been too battered by life for me. I simply am too old to believe I can rescue anyone from their misery. I am too old to rescue Heathcliff.

In that moment, I realized there was no way it could ever work between us. Granted, I also realized in that moment that his misery was caused by my physical proximity and emotional distance, so I did the best thing I could do, which was to descend to the lower level to be out of sight of him. I don’t want to torture him but there’s no way I’m going to give him a false sense of comfort simply to make my trip more comfortable. For the first time, he was miserable for a reason only I could alleviate and I really had no desire to do so. I’m not angry with him; I’m simply unavailable.

And as I descended, his group descended too. In what would become the first in a remarkable set of coincidences, Z and his friends were constantly right next to me. In a group of about 200, it became a bit obvious that they were making quite the effort to be near me without engaging me at all times.

“Great, I’m back in high school.” I thought.

However, the sorority I’m a part of in the Middle School is lovely and supportive and so they consistently made an effort to engage me and welcome me into their fold. It’s nice to be with a group of women who see you as modest, kind and a decent human being. Nevertheless, I prayed that we would finish our viewing of the river and get back on the Middle School bus where I was guaranteed not to be seeing Z and the unspoken drama.

We soon reentered the bus and I noticed that the seating arrangement had changed slightly; the history teacher was now across the aisle and up one row from me. In other words, as he turned to speak with his new seatmate, he was facing me with an unobstructed view.

However, the crankiness of having just seen that Z was here, in a bad mood and the fact that the bus seats are built for people with a much smaller body definitely erased any pleasure I would have had at seeing the steady, happy, Buddhist History Teacher.

We set back off out of the toxic valley and as we passed the “coal” power plants, I breathed a sigh of relief that we would be staying in a hotel at least 2 hours from there.

We stopped for lunch and my Middle School girlfriends all dragged me, hand-in-hand to the table they picked out for us. We put our things down and then raced to restroom.

When we got back formerly empty table next to us was filled with Z and his friends. Of course, all the beautiful girls were surrounding him, fawning over him and giggling like there was no tomorrow. Z looked miserable.

I had a brief moment where I considered relieving the tension by going over and speaking with him but then I understood that the brief moment of relief I would feel would come at the cost of a false sense of hope and I have no intention of lying to him about where my heart is. We had several chances and the bottom line is to be with him would be compromise me in ways I am not willing to be compromised. In other words, it simply cannot work between us and to make amends for the sake of a little comfort would be incredibly disingenuous of me.

So, I immersed myself in my girls and did my best to enjoy the pleasures of the moment. We sat at our table, ate, took care of each other, shared stories, took pictures and were generally silly. At times the giggling at the next table became intrusively loud but for the most part we managed to have a good time and I managed to force the drama from my mind.

As we poured out of the restaurant and headed over towards the busses, I noticed the History Teacher hanging by the side of our bus, talking to another teacher. As I was filing in to the bus, he cut in front of me and boarded first without saying anything.

“Goddamn I wish I could express myself better in Chinese. He is the man to know on this trip to historical places.” I thought.

Flopping back down in my seat, I looked up and caught the History Teacher looking at me. Remaining behind the mask, he quickly blinked away.

“If I catch him doing that again, I’m going to start flirting with him because I think he changed seats to be near me and I need something to counter this bullshit with [Z].” I thought, narcissistically.

The bus headed off towards our next destination; a Ming Dynasty town so remote that the Cultural Revolution left it untouched. It took us an hour to get there and I spoke very little as I was trying to hear what the History Teacher was saying.

I was raised on trips to historical locations with my mother the historian. There is little I love more in terms of trip taking than historical trips. That there is a trained professional with an intimate knowledge of history whose very job it is to teach people about said history is so exciting sets my geek heart all a twitter. I have never worked harder to understand Chinese than when he was speaking and I managed to get a fair amount of it.

We disembarked our busses and then hiked down to the village. My Chinese Angel, not remotely entertained by history was clearly looking for something to do as I bounced around like the world’s largest geek trying to investigate and study everything.

While I was bouncing from place to place, it became clear that I was truly an anomaly. Most of the people I work with have never met a white woman before. They have, however, seen white people in the flesh before. They have seen “my kind” walking around downtown Xi’An and fairly regularly in the media.

This town had clearly never seen a white person before. I was stared at like a trigonometry pop-quiz. The locals, so jaded in their view on tourists started flocking from their houses to investigate the white girl.

It became so insane that at one point, I simply had to take a seat and allow every stranger with a camera to sit next to me, put their arm around me and take a picture. After the fifteenth person, I simply stopped asking, “Who the hell is that?”

My Chinese Angel made fun of me, teasing me for having “so many fans.”

“You should be my agent. You should arrange and charge money for pictures with me.”

She thought that was a great idea and from then on, any time anyone asked for a picture with me, we joked about her being my agent, protecting me from the swarming paparazzi.

Once the hoopla died down, I started to notice the very tall gym teacher in from the Middle School is always taking pictures for the school.

“Hey! You always take pictures but does anyone ever take your picture?” I called out to him.

He turned around to me, confused and looked at my Chinese Angel for a translation, which she promptly provided. He shook his head shyly. I love that a man who is so strong, intimidating and masculine in the Cary Grant sort of way becomes shy around little old me.

“Gai!” [Give me!] I ordered, taking the camera from him. “Na li?” [Where?]

Hesitantly, he handed me the camera and like a little kid, he giddily skittered off to the nearest cool doorway.

I looked down at the camera and prepared to take a picture. Just as I sorted out what was what (took me about five seconds) the camera turned itself off. “Mei you dian!” [No power/Turned off] I called out.

Normally, he doesn’t come to people; people go to him. However, as I was looking at the camera for an On/Off button, he skittered over to me.

“Zher” [Here] he said as he pushed.

“Xie xie” I said very properly and I’ll be damned if he didn’t blush as he hurried back to his doorway.

I took the picture and he seemed quite happy with it.

We then hurried about and I maxed out on pictures. From then on, I refused to take serious pictures with my friends. I spent the rest of the afternoon taking silly pictures and generally acting like a dorky 5 year old.

We headed back to the bus, went to our hotel, had dinner, which was notable because it was the first time at a banquet where I was allowed to stay with my friends instead of being forced to entertain the head honchos. It was great. Well, my girlfriends were awesome but Z and his harem were, of course, inhabiting the table just to my back in a room full of twenty some odd full tables, so that was weird.

That night there was a big ceremony and while I took a seat in the back of the auditorium with my back-of-the-school-bus-naughty-girlfriends, Z and his entourage took the row of seats right next to us. Z then shifted his seat back from the row to single himself out as the girls continued to fawn over him.

“I don’t know what to do.” I told my Chinese Angel.

“I don’t know either. He’s everywhere you go.” She commented.

“Do I say hello? He won’t even look at me. I don’t want to date him but I don’t want him to think I hate him. I have no idea what to do.” I said.

“I have no idea what you should do.” She confessed equal confusion.

“Christina! Please come here!” Hollered the voice from the superior who thinks he’s in love with me.

“Oh no," I muttered under my breath. I looked to my Chinese Angel as we had both seen the man gesture to the seat directly behind his front row seat. She’s fully abreast of how much I loathe the special treatment. “Shit.” I fumed as my Chinese Angel laughed at me.

Quickly, the man who thinks he’s in love with me shooed away enough diligent teachers to make room for both me and then my entourage of girlfriends so I wouldn’t be alone for the meeting. In many ways, I feel like royalty. I am always welcomed in through the front door and my girlfriends who are otherwise one of the group are treated with an extra special dose of reverence. It can get to be a bit much, so when things like single rooms are offered to me to accommodate my Western sensitivity, I try to make the active effort to choose the option everyone else is forced to choose. While I understand that they will never forget that we are different, I want them to understand that I consider us equal as human beings. However, during ceremony, it is still a bit difficult to remain one of the crowd.

So my ladies in waiting and I were ushered to the front, given tea and accommodated just as the officials were while the plebes were forced to just hang out. We were then entertained for several hours. I knew at some point that the notably powerful of those of us being entertained were going to have to start entertaining the people who spent days practicing for these performances. I would be one of those notably powerful people.

However, I had a splitting migraine from the heat, the day in the sun (though I wore sunblock so no burn), the lack of water, the smoke and the general stuffiness of the room. I realized that if I didn’t get out of there quickly, I was going to throw up or pass out or both. So, as the party began to shift from formalized entertainment to less formal, soon-the-powerful-will-be-entertaining-us, I ducked out with my ladies, begging off to go to my room and sleep off my headache.

The next morning at breakfast, I was bleary but felt much better. As my ladies in waiting descended upon our table, I noticed that Z was at the table just next to us. I had to resist the urge to scream, “FUCK OFF!” because I am simply not a morning person. Frankly, don’t fuck with me if I haven’t had my caffeine; it’s not pretty.

And, the fact that breakfast is the one meal of the day that is MINE and I was forced to eat a Chinese breakfast of salty, pickled vegetables, 1,000 year old eggs and fried breads with sweet red bean paste with no coffee/caffeinated tea, fruit, yogurt or juice was setting me off on the wrong foot. I’m generally superficially agreeable and willing to bend on most things. Breakfast, however, is not one of those things. I will whine, bitch and moan the whole time. I’m breakfast-rigid. Being stalked by my ex while being expected to eat smelly, pickled brown eggs whose egg yolks -formerly yellow but now green- oozed forth from the shit colored egg white without an ounce of caffeine was not putting me in an amiable mood.

“I need to find a supermarket.” I told my Chinese Angel. “Like, soon.” I’m not demanding and I’m rarely serious. “Like, if you’re not coming, I’m going now.”

“No, I’ll go with you.” She said, clearly understanding I was having issues. “Let me just finish.”

“Okay.” I said and I settled back, trying to look at something that wasn’t my ex or the putrid egg.

Perhaps three minutes later, perhaps three decades later (depending on if you asked a clock or if you asked me) we were heading out the front door to the nearest grocery store for supplies. I was so giddy and felt so liberated getting into the grocery store, I started to sing along to the melodramatic love song playing on the sound system.

I grabbed my Chinese Angel and held her while I sang, mocking the melodrama of the song as she tried to lean over the bins to find some dried seeds. At one point we both collapsed on the floor laughing as the people running the store just stared at me. It was clear upon entering the store that I was the first Westerner they’d ever seen in the flesh and having that much attention can be liberating; they’re not going to stop staring at you so it’s not like you’re going to do anything to make them start staring at you. You’re doing the time, you might as well do the crime.

On the way back to the hotel to pile into the bus, I saw a little shiz tzu rolling about in the street and I immediately went up to it and started speaking to it. Its little tale started twitching and it just watched me as I spoke to it lovingly.

“[Chinese Angel]! It’s my dog from home! She followed me here!” I cried out excitedly.

“It does like you.” She said watching the two of us play a little. “Yes, she did come to see you. She must miss you.”

“I missed her!” I hollered as the shiz tzu and I danced around on the front lawn of the hotel together.

When I finally decided it would be prudent to actually get to the bus about ten feet away from me before it left, I stopped playing with the dog and looked up. The entire school was watching me leap around with the shiz tzu.

The men who are my bosses started to laugh and clap. My colleagues all started to high five me. They were all fully entertained by my glee at the doggy.

I simply bowed and hopped onto the bus. Normally, I’d be horrified by such a scene but it’s been made clear to me that my Chinese social circles here need to see my humanity. And, not being one to put dignity over humanity, I was glad to provide them fodder for the, “she’s a real human being” mill.

We then headed to a small village filled with Ming Dynasty art and as we bounced back and forth around the village, more jaws were dropped and more photos were taken. The older men, lead by my Beloved Colleague, all grew interested in having my company and hearing my thoughts on a variety of topics ranging from the upcoming presidential elections to what my thoughts on the noodles they were eating were. So we talked and I had a good time and we finally piled into the bus again.

As we were heading towards our next destination several hours away, the Middle School teacher came up to where my Chinese Angel and I were sitting. We discussed a myriad of things from how “normal” tattoos are and how you can tell the “hooligan” tattoos from the “normal person” tattoos to what sorts of women American men find beautiful and why the prospect of marrying a divorcee doesn’t really bother most American men.

“Why are so many people divorced in America?” She asked through my Chinese Angel as my Chinese Angel worked as interpreter for the conversation despite my ability to keep up with most of her questions.

“Well, when people marry young in America, they tend to have a hard time staying married and often men cheat. In America, it is believed that if a woman married a man for love and then he cheats on her that her heart is forever broken. If a man cheats on a woman and she’s not angry enough to leave him, people think that she didn’t really marry him for love.” I wasn’t about to get into leaving a woman for cheating on a man because, well, frankly, the men are pretty comfortable with their own sense of free will and what interests me is introducing the idea that women might have serious political power in the public sphere of the home. “People in America are waiting to get married until they are older and older now because once men are out of their twenties, they don’t cheat quite as much.”

“Why do men in America cheat?” She asked.

“It’s not ‘men in America.’ It's all men. All men in their twenties. Men in their twenties cheat. When they get older they tend to calm down a bit more.” I love men. There are few women I know who love men as much as I do but the fact of the matter is that men in their early and mid twenties are simply, hormonally driven. It takes a truly special man to be able to transcend that drive and see clearly enough through the haze of hormones to maintain monogamy. I don’t see it as a judgment call on men, I see that simply as what is.

She laughed and shook her head as the History Teacher, whose attention had been perked up and was watching me directly for some time now started to laugh too and shake his head.

“Well, maybe in America men cheat but men in China would never cheat.” She replied haughtily. In that moment, I realized that the human condition cannot exist for her men or her world falls apart. The beauty of a human being struggling to reach grace was forfeit for a world of men who could simply never make a mistake. A perfect moment is not a hard earned moment of grace but the status quo and anything short of it is disappointment.

And with that sentence, my Chinese Angel dropped out of the role of translator, full well knowing those were fighting words for me.

You can fuck with me. You can insult me to my face. You can compromise me but come anywhere near the things I love and I will take your ass down. To imply that by virtue of their status as political constituent that my male counterparts are somehow intrinsically flawed with their tolerance for humanity, their tattoos and their adoration of adult women with adult sexuality and a sexual history sets me the fuck off. Do not even get me started on the self-righteous, arrogant, “Not in Utopia” bullshit that the younger Chinese tend to pull aimed at my men. Do not fuck with my boys especially in a country where I have had to fend off the hoards of married men with a fucking shotgun.

It became clear to me that my Chinese Angel was ducking out so I switched into Chinese. When I get angry, I either get exceptionally good or exceptionally bad with language. When I’m defending a beloved, I tend to go the ‘exceptionally good’ route. “I’m not talking about ‘American men.’ I’m talking about men in their twenties. Men in their twenties cheat. American, Chinese, French, Thai, German; it doesn’t matter. I’m talking about men, not countries.” And then I switched into English as I lack the vocabulary to express what I said next. “Politics do not exempt you from the human condition.” Livid, I glanced away from the naïve music teacher (who was so offended by what I said, she got up and changed seats) to see that only one male on the bus was looking at me (the History Teacher and with notable amusement at that) while all the twenty something women were watching me slack-jawed and the older women were trying not to laugh out loud.

The History Teacher, amused and shaking his 26-year-old-head, looked me straight in the face and said the only thing that could have stopped me cold and diffuse my rage in this specific situation at someone attacking my beloveds with their self-righteous hypocrisy. “Not all men cheat” filtered across the bus from his warm, steady voice.

I immediately wanted to backpedal but suddenly I lacked any vocabulary at all. I hadn’t meant “all men” but in my effort to articulate it being a part of the human condition, I had used the incorrect English. That he understood my English to such exquisite detail surprised me. That he considered my debate as a legitimate discussion floored me. I took a breath and tried to vocalize but couldn’t. After a few blinks and my mouth hanging open for a few seconds, he chuckled to himself and clearly took great, overt interest in me. It was the sexiest thing anyone has done since J argued the autonomy of my desire.

When we arrived at the hot springs, we piled out of the bus and the History Teacher informed me that he was going to keep an eye out for me.

“I’m hard to miss. Just look up.” I said, and he smiled.

We passed by some swings and he asked if he could push me in the swing on the way back. I nodded and said that would be fun.

We then took a few pictures together and he took to standing very close to me.

As we piled onto the ferry, I asked to see his wooden beaded bracelet.

“Zhe shi shenme?” [What does this say?] I asked about the character that alternated with carved images of the Buddha.

“Fo” He explained.

“’Fo’ shi shenme?” [What does ‘Fo’ mean?] I asked.

“Bu hui.” [I can’t explain it to you.] He said as he shrugged.

“Hey, [Chinese Angel] what’s Fo?” I asked.

“Buddha” She called out from the other side of the little ferry we were riding on.

I gave the History Teacher a look. “Ta shi Fo.” I said pointing to the next bead with a carving of the Buddha. He had a picture of the Buddha, I wondered why the silly boy didn’t just point it out.

The History Teacher nodded, “Dui, Fo shi ta.” [Yup, that’s the Buddha.]

I resisted the urge to put the bracelet on and gave it back. We wandered about the wetlands park for a while and lots of people took lots of pictures of and with me. Again, I think I was the only Westerner to be there and so there was quite a flock of people around me at all times. Unfortunately, I lost sight of the History Teacher as I was really growing to like his company.

On the way back, there was about a half mile of a vine-covered arcade spotted with benches. At one of the benches was my favorite history teacher.

“Can I have a picture with you?” He asked in Chinese.

“What?” I asked, confused. He had not ever asked to take my picture. He and I are the two people always being photographed at the school and so when we’re together, we’re simply photographed to insane degrees. Actively seeking out a photograph from either of us just seems insanely redundant. If there is one man I am photographed with, it is far and away him.

“Sit down.” He said as he put his arm out along the back of the free side of the bench and pointed to the space inside his arm. Clearly he misunderstood my confusion with my lack of Chinese.

I’m sure you can guess that it was difficult for me to accept sitting with his arm around me. I just about hurtled myself at the bench and wriggled into his nook before he hand a chance to second guess having his arm around me.

Sitting there was lovely and it was the first picture in China I really wanted taken. As I crossed my right leg over my left in a gesture away from him as a desperate attempt to cover my all-too-eager flopping down, he crossed his right leg over his left in a gesture towards me. I don’t have to see that picture to know I look the most like me as I know me.

We then continued on and headed back to the market outside the wetlands park and I found the red bead, lotus bracelet I had seen on the way in. My girl Frenchoise back home calls me Lotus and I really wanted to get it because the moment I saw it, I thought of her. So, I got the lotus bracelet and headed back up the path with the swing.

When I got the swings with my entourage where I had been promised a push, the History Teacher was nowhere to be found.

“Where [the History Teacher]?” I asked indignantly.

“Over there” my Chinese Angel pointed him out in the distance, far ahead.

“[History Teacher]” I hollered out for him but considering that Chinese is not in the chest but the mouth, it was extremely difficult to yell over the howling wind.

My Chinese Angel took over hollering for me as her Chinese strength is clearly far superior.

He finally looked up and headed back to us.

“Ni wang wo le!” [You forgot me!] I hollered at him, teasing.

“Bu shi. Bu wang.” [No, I didn’t forget you.] He accepted the teasing good-naturedly. “Come, let’s go now.”

“Bu shi! Ni wang!” [No! You forgot!] I said, feigning insult, as we started to walk away from the swings.

Just as I was growing comfortable with flirting shamelessly, the man who thinks he’s in love with me showed up, overhearing my shameless flirtation.

“Christina, do girls in America like a boy like [the History Teacher]?” The man who thinks he’s in love with me asked.

“Yes.” I said, trying to balance the unspoken issues at hand with the budding flirtation I’ve got going on. I’ve never been so consistently cock-blocked by anyone before and I didn’t want him meddling again.

“Do you like him?” he straight out asked me.

“[Man Who Thinks He’s In Love With Me]! I thought Chinese people were subtle!” I cried indignantly. It was the only thing I could think to say without creating far more drama.

“What’s subtle?” The History Teacher asked immediately.

“Qiao miao” my Chinese Angel translated quickly.

The History Teacher laughed and said, “No. Chinese people are not subtle.”

And with that, he headed up ahead of us and into the restaurant to sit at a table far away from us.

After lunch, the History Teacher passed by on his way out.

“Lao shi,” I called to him. “Lai” [Come here]

He came over and was all smiles.

“So, if an American girl like me could like a Chinese boy like you, could a Chinese boy like you like an American girl like me?” I asked, sure he wasn’t going to be able to follow all the “likes.”

He looked at me and snorted a small, ambiguous laugh.

“Ting de do ma?” [Do you understand?] I asked.

He then said something to my Chinese Angel and she laughed. I looked at her sternly for an immediate explanation.

“He says you won’t need a match maker. You can find a boyfriend in China.”

“Mei wen tie” [No problem] he said. He then said something else to my Chinese Angel.

“What do you want in a boyfriend?” She asked.

“Two things; funny and smart.” I answered looking straight at him. He nodded and headed out.

We finished lunch and headed out to where the busses were parked.

From behind a massive stone tablet, I could see one of the trees shaking as someone snapped off some of the blossoms. The History Teacher emerged from behind the tablet with a handful of tree blossoms.

He handed them to me. For the second time that day I was speechless. A boy just picked me wild blossoms. I’m a sucker for that kind of romance.

“Smell” he said and I complied. They smelled heavenly. “Eat”

And I laughed as everyone looked at me like a lunatic. “Really?” I asked timidly, realizing he was serious. I never really think of eating flowers as most of the flowers I find beautiful and fragrant aren’t so hot for the digestive track.

He nodded.

“You first,” I pushed the flowers towards the History Teacher as he snapped off a few blossoms and started to eat.

Uncertain, I took a few blossoms and ate them. They tasted, well, like flowers. It was cool.

We then piled onto the busses and headed home, sleeping most of the way. When we weren’t sleeping I was told about two lesbian teachers who are in love but fighting and how strange it is that women would be gay. It’s expected that men will sleep together but lesbianism in China is as taboo as gay men in the US. I found it an interesting turnabout.

I was also asked by my Chinese Angel, as everyone else slept, if I was interested in the History Teacher.

“Yeah, I think so. He seems really nice.” I said.

“But you didn’t like him [romantically] before.” She said.

“People change their minds all the time. I like him now.” I explained and she nodded.

“I think the language will be a problem.” She said seriously and I laughed.

“Of course. Besides, men tend to be really bad with languages. I know I’ll have to be the one to bridge that gap but that’s okay. I want to learn Chinese anyway.”

And, as none of us are exempt from the flaws of human condition, I vocalized my lust for yet one more man.