Parts is Parts, and Old is New

Part—the greater part, I believe—is born of light, the very embodiment of laughter and easy care. It is in the throes of this bright half that the best of times are found, the highest points burned indelibly to memory, constant reminders of great possibility.

Then there is the other part. A smaller part, perhaps, but no less critical. A thing of darkness, this part. Found skulking, peering from the blackest shadows of the world, lying in wait. Striding streets of night, alone and alive, burning… but for what? Silent in a dark room, lost in thought, drawing strength from the depths of loneliness.

Life is found in these extremes. The greatest of life, and the most terrible. And these extremes are found in man. You and me. One and all.

Needless to say, I prefer the former.

And that is what sent me out into the dark night, alone, this past Friday evening. The search for laughter.

What I discovered was quite possibly the worst oversight I have ever made in my short life. Well, all right, there's no way that's true. But it’s my worst oversight since I’ve been here by… well, a damn sight.

There, not more than 300 feet from my cozy little alley, rests a welcoming little establishment with several signs. One has a bottle of wine. One shows that gargantuan Budweiser bottle cap.

The other simply says, “Bar.” Yeah. In plain English.

So I’m an idiot. Well, that’s no news. And, as those of you who know me well can attest (and if you don’t, how the hell did you manage to find your way in here?), better late than never, of course, is much more than a saying in my book.

As soon as I read those three little letters, I lit up like a Nazi library. One, of course, because I could read them at all, and two, because they said the word I most wanted to see and had never hoped to find so close to home!

I ran inside as fast as my booted feet would carry me. I charged up the stairs, careless of the tipsy couple on their way down. I burst through the bamboo-covered doors, never stopping to acknowledge just how odd it was that a big fat Santa was painted over the top, with “Merry Christmas!” written out in big, sparkly letters.

Well, I guess it didn’t seem odd, not right then. Sure felt like Christmas to me.

Within moments I was comfortably settled at the bar, drink in hand and the next one waiting patiently for me to finish. Turned out it was a karaoke bar, as I guess most of them are here, from what I understand. There was an islander theme to the place, with a little river trickling through, and fake trees, and bamboo everywhere. A little hokey, true, with some poor, tone-deaf bastard screeching unintelligibly over the speakers, but who really cares about any of that?

Let me put it this way. You going to care WHAT Heaven looks like, so long as you get there?

I thought not.

So I’m enjoying my Tsingtao beer, tolerating the music, trying to understand the weird dice game the bartender is trying to show me. Little cups with six dice apiece. I think I’m supposed to make a bet somewhere in there, and that’s something I’d prefer to avoid. “Wo ting bu dong!”

“I don’t understand” is a phrase I’d like to learn in every language. Never fails, I tell you.

Around my third beer or so, I’ve swiveled around on my chair, and I find a whole table of folks staring at me. One raises his glass. I raise my bottle.

He drinks.

I finish.

A friendship is born.

Within moments I’m seated around their table, talking through a child translator who only seems to know the question, “What’s your name?” But that doesn’t matter, because apparently good drink and good song make for a universal language of sorts, and the karaoke machine had a couple Phil Collins numbers in its system.

After a stirring rendition of “Against All Odds,” which earned me a bouquet of flowers, I got back to drinking. Soon I had out my dictionary too, and my little notebook, and we set about the task of trying to understand each other.

The night passed in a blur of fun. At last we decided to leave somewhere north of 2 am, and I felt a pang of regret as I was helping my newfound friends down the stairs and into the street. They had committed no crime, but I imagined there would be a hefty price to pay for keeping pace with me, about 6 hours hence. They deserved better.

A few of them piled into taxis and left for home. The rest led me down a couple of streets to a restaurant which I can only guess was the Chinese equivalent of a Denny’s. Except they served a huge bowl of angry-looking shellfish. And lots of alcohol. After I scared my hosts by “shooting the bai jiu” and explained that scotch and whiskey were generally more powerful (I had basically forgotten that they couldn’t understand me at this point) I declared that everyone should try it.
A couple did. One ran to the bathroom immediately. The other waited a few minutes longer.

Finally, somewhere close to 4, the late night meeting was adjourned. We went our respective ways, and I imagined that would be that. It took me a moment to realize I hadn’t spent one red cent. Or Jiao, I guess, being where I am. Nodding to myself in silent appreciation, I made the short journey home, up the stairs, into the bedroom…

Suddenly, my phone is ringing. I haven’t been asleep for long, I know that—I spent some time messing around on the computer and getting photos off the camera before I finally crashed—but it can’t have been long.

I look at it. It’s one of the guys, Qin Huan. The only one who spoke ANY English. He’d left earlier that night, before Denny’s.

“What?” I answer. Not my nicest greeting ever, but I don’t do too well on 4 hours sleep, at least not when I’m expecting more. Not that it mattered. He didn’t understand anyway.

Eventually I realize he’s inviting me to lunch. I look at my watch. It’s just turned 10. “Now?” I ask, dreading the answer.

I clean up a little and he meets me at the bar. Within minutes we’ve cabbed it to a nice little rise a mile or two east of my apartment. Gated community, keycard entry on the buildings, the works. It’s high class.

Just who have I made friends with?

His father, his wife, and his one-year old daughter are there to greet us when we arrive. Well, his daughter didn’t do much. But the other two were pretty enthusiastic.

An absolutely delicious-looking spread was laid out. Now, mind you, I have about 4 dishes so far that I really like here, and I’ve copied their Chinese names into my notebook so I can order them again.

All four are on the table.

This guy was paying attention.

As we’re settling down to eat, Huan tells me, “This after, after noon… play… we playing basketball.” Then he pops open beers for us. Well, ok. It’s just now nearing midnight in the States, so I can work with that. But if I’m playing basketball later, I’ll have to have a nap.

Luckily, this part he understands. After lunch, the whole family beds down. And they actually gave me the master bedroom. As I’ve said before, I think I’m going to like it here. A lot.

An hour later, he woke me up, and then I took him to basketball school for the next four hours.

All right. That’s a lie. But playing with these guys IS making my head swell, being that I have no real basketball skill whatsoever. And hey, when I come back to the States, maybe I won’t suck.

I’m still a little leery when it comes to trusting the locals here, because I just don’t know, and I certainly have a lot to learn about the nature of Chinese friendship. Well, I’m leery trusting anyone, but that’s another issue entirely. Either way, this weekend was a good one, and a good start. Amazing how something so familiar can seem so new and exciting when it's experienced from an entirely different place, physio-, psycho-, or however-logically you like...

...of course, that's about as profound as saying it's a different feeling standing on the boat deck rather than pounding on the bottom of the hull and suffocating. Oh well.

Now, so you’ll know I’m not fibbing, about any of it… picture time!



Me, Paul, and the bartenders.



This table looks like trouble...



"And you're the only one...
who ever... knew me...
at allllll..."



Little Qin.



Triple threat position.
(I tossed this in, of course)

Well, that does it for another edition of This Old Life. Have a good Sunday afternoon, State-siders.

The World Must Be Crazy

Two entries in one day? Preposterous!

Well, it has to do with several things. One, I spent the evening with several of my fellow teachers, who are now in awe of my heredity-gifted drinking prowess. Their hard rice wine here is roughly the strength of Jack Daniel's, yet much easier to drink thanks to the flavor.
Apparently they can't wait to go ganbei-ing with me again.

Which is awesome.

Two, I have continued ruminating very heavily on thoughts that have recently been brought to the fore, though they have certainly haunted me my whole life.

A little background, and I'll do it as best I can in the Cliff's notes version. Around the age of 12, I realized something wasn't quite right. The way people were, where they found their satisfaction. I couldn't see it. I couldn't share it. This led me, for many years, to believe I was somehow defective.

This overbearing feeling drove me to apathy in many pursuits, including school and the corporate jobs of my early 20s. Some of the people around me (mostly the older ones, mostly the authority figures in my life) were unsympathetic. Things are as they should be, they'd say. You need to decide what you want to do. You need to focus on your future. Money, they'd say. You don't understand because you don't have a family.

Well, I wanted to understand, I did. I wanted to see how these things could drive them to such lengths. I wanted to feel as they did, to find fulfillment in the basest of endeavors, to be so happy doing something that seemed to matter so little. I just couldn't.

This is not to say in any way that I looked down on these people. I looked up to them, in fact. But I believe, now, that I had glimpsed the machine at such a young age, I could not succumb to my life as dutiful cog without asking some questions.

Of course, I never asked those questions. No. I tried to fight them, all the while bitching and moaning about how unfulfilling it all was.

Go through a little personal hardship, and I end up retreating to China, not to lick any wounds, but instead to pry them open, to finger them until I figure out what makes the nerves sing.

And this brings us to now, where, thanks to some interesting conversations with a very good friend--conversations we, oddly enough, might not have had if I were close-by as before--my mind has been set aflame once more by question and possibility.

Like I said, when I was young, and for many years after, I thought I was defective.

Well, it is not me.

The way we are, and the way we live. Even if you consider yourself good, many things are wrong. And it's not that anyone is to blame. It's the system we're born into, the machine we're made to operate.

Without going into too much detail, our behavior and entire socio-economic culture are a vestige of an antiquated way of life, the remnant of old customs needed to survive among peoples divided. But we need not be divided. Not anymore.

In a world where we can speak from half the globe away in an instant, where we can be connected to anyone through an apparatus smaller than a dictionary, why be divided, by anything? It is foolishness.

How much time and effort have we wasted, earning money to feed ourselves, spending it and earning it over again, going nowhere? How many years have we lost, years that we were developing weapons to ruin each other when we could have been pushing further into space?

We made the moon in the 60s.
I have two words for you:

Rotary phone.

How far could we be, then, if we weren't en...? Well, I won't say it. Yet.

This is merely a dance across the surface waters of my mental delving, but it is plenty for now, and plenty off topic. These lines of thought are better explored over hard liquor amidst the din of some seedy bar.

But being here sure is a good place to think, what with not being able to effectively read or speak!

Anyway, here, and I hope it works. This is my best attempt at a visual image for the brokenness of what we feel is right. And yes, I know it seems harmless enough. But see, that's the best trick of all.



At first glance, it made me sad to see them tied down. But then I laughed. Long. Hard. Because, I realized, I'm just like them.

A primate on a long leash.

Except one day... one fine day... I'm gonna rip the damn thing off my neck.

The First Lesson

Well, introductions are over. The second week of classes has arrived, and I had better do my best to try and teach these poor students something (aside from what a poor teacher I am).

Actually, thus far, the first lesson has come off rather well. And I could not be more surprised.

Last week, I had difficulty getting the students to ask me questions using Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. Understandably, I was a little concerned going into week 2. So it was that, late on Sunday night, I found myself sweating it out over a notebook, rubbing oily palm on stubbly face, trying to devise a plan to teach them parts of speech.

Noun. He. She. It. Desk. Student. Me. You. I.
Verb. Is. Am. Are. Was. Run. Jump. Swim.
Adverb. Very. So. Quickly. Fast.
Adjective. Strong. Good. Fast.

I drew this on the board and ran through it slowly and methodically. Using the sentence, He is very strong, I did the best I could to illustrate how the various parts of speech work. To my delight, they actually seemed to get it!

Some classes were better than others. A few got the distinction between active and passive voice. Others understood This/These and That/Those, and how they can operate as (pro)nouns, adjectives or adverbs. It helped that Chinese has a direct translation for every different singular form of This and That.

Zhege - This (pronoun) i.e. What is this?
Zhe - This (adjective) i.e. Who is this student?
Zheme - This (adverb) i.e. I can jump this high.

They almost universally understood the concept of Near and Far, thanks to me running around the classroom and flailing my hands like an idiot, and how it relates to This and That, in basic terms.

Last and most fun, two classes actually managed to understand prepositions, which is fascinating considering the differences between Chinese and English in that grammatical regard.

When each class seemed to have digested about as much as they were going to take in without getting bored and unruly, I wiped the whole board clean, divided them into two teams, and started making them play mad libs.

Only one class out of the six I've taught so far has had any trouble with it. But some pretty weird thoughts have come up.

Why (verb) you (verb) (prep) (noun)?

Became

Why do you jump to him?


Anyway. It'll be interesting to see if it stays successful throughout the week. And even if it does, I have no idea where I can go with the plan next week...

I guess that'll come to me.

Here's a picture of my blackboard the first week, where I let them try to give me a Chinese name. The first one is some sort of egg breakfast food. I don't know (or want to know) the rest.




They've ended up giving me a name I probably don't deserve, but I feel compelled to humor them because I guess it's a pretty high honor. The Shui Hu Zhuan (Outlaws of the Marsh) is one of the four great classical Chinese novels. Written in the early 14th century by Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong, it details the exploits of a band of outlaws in the Liangshan Marsh in the late 12th century, during the Song dynasty. (Thanks, wikipedia).

I had actually read most of it in college because it's the basis for a series of video games I used to play, Suikoden. That, and I was taking an awesome Chinese Lit course at the time. I was planning to read it again here, and word must have gotten around with the students that I was talking about it.

Here, they all know the book. Think Shakespeare. Hamlet. Only, they don't sigh when you talk about it. So it's like somebody went back in time and had Shakespeare write about Batman. That's not how I view it, of course--I can't read the original Chinese prose. But that's the only way I can understand a bunch of 12 and 13 year old kids revering this ancient work.

At any rate, the name they gave me. I have a couple of characters I like from this book above others:

Lu Zhishen, called the Tatooed Monk, a giant ex-military man turned monk who metes out vigilante justice as he sees fit (with an 80 pound!!! staff) and gets rip-roaring drunk at every opportunity.

Li Kui, called the Black Whirlwind, a fiercely loyal whirling dervish of death who wields twin axes and uses them to answer every problem without ever thinking of a better solution.

Of course, you can see that these are both vastly flawed, but basically good men, as I myself am. As most of us are, if we're being honest.

But they did not name me after one of them.

They did not name me after any of the 107 very fallible, very morally ambiguous heroes they might have chosen from this 100-chapter, 2000 page masterwork.

Instead they chose the one character in the whole damn thing who is pure of heart and mind.

The leader of the 108 bandits and undisputed hero of the story, Song Jiang.
The Opportune Rain.
Known for benevolence.
Pheonix-eyed, and swarthy (which I am decidedly NOT).

Needless to say, that one left me scratching my head. Feeling humbled. And welcomed.

Here is a picture of me at the English corner, where I was so named. It seems like a good photo to stick next to "mobbed" in the dictionary.

Idyll's End, Idyll's Origin

I decided to take a brief break from tinkering with my old story to gather a few thoughts about the one that will begin in a day's time. After all, I've done nothing but traipse around like a carefree tourist for the past week since my arrival.

Now comes the living part. The working part. The beginnings of relationships that will need to last me a year, or more, if I so choose.

My experiences with my students so far have been slim. A lunch here, a pickup basketball game there. I can only hope I'll be of some use to them, because I aim to milk all can from my time here.

I still have yet to meet any foreigners here in Anqing aside from my roommate. I have had decent conversations at random with a few Chinese students at Anqing Normal College, but aside from them all the English is broken at best. Which is fine, because I'm trying to learn another language anyway. Now, if I can just find a Chinese English speaker who wants to improve as much as I want to learn, perhaps we can strike up a tit for tat deal, or some such.

Of all my preconceptions going into the trip(most of which I did my best to discard at the sage advice of one Dr. Holland), only one has held any sort of truth, and it had nothing to do with the Chinese. I still feel at complete peace with this decision, this journey, and this strange, yet somehow welcoming place. God has put in me a kind of strength I've never known, I guess, because historically I don't hold up so well in situations like this.

Leaving home for college. I was a worthless wreck.

Moving to DC. Fine enough, on the outside... but it was a damn ordeal compared to this.

I have no explanation for this, except that experience has certainly hardened me somewhat, and I am gripped with, and somehow comforted by, my profound need to be here. I still don't understand that last part, but I'm sure I'll get there.

Anyway. That was a rambling one. Once classes start back I'm sure I'll find my way over to the local college, where I'm almost certain I'll find more English speakers, perhaps even a few native. Maybe, then, at last, one of them can direct me to a nice low key place to sit and have a beer that isn't a brothel.

Don't ask.

Ahem. Yes, well I've figured out how to order food at least, so I'll survive. I go into any restaurant and say, wo yao niurou, or wo xuyaou niurou, if I'm desperate (I want/need beef). And let's not forget the pi jiu (beer). I just repeat it over and over until someone gets me. Not the most cultured thing, but hey, I've only been here a week. Give it time.

Now, I'm going to sleep, because I played 2 hours of pickup basketball and walked 7 miles to see the fountain in People's Park at night, only to find that it wasn't working.

10 to 1 I feel like I got beaten with a baseball bat when I wake up.