Work

In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Johnny muses that maybe someday the unions will fix it so that a person can work steadily but still have some time to himself - "now it's work all the time or be a bum," he says. Although the adults closest to me all appear to have some leisure, they are all fairly affluent. Whether or not things have changed for Johnny's class I do not know.

In China, however, things are much as Johnny described them. Chinese people work like maniacs from the time they begin school until retirement. People are so busy that it's quite common to send babies to be raised by their grandparents and children of four or five to boarding school. I was appalled when Zheng Xiaoxue told me she'd boarded at five, and I couldn't quite explain to her why this seemed so wrong. "They have teachers," she pointed out. "It's not like they just play all the time." This was so far from being my objection I thought it best to change the subject.

If you're too busy to raise your own children, you maybe shouldn't be having children. It's not as though there's a population shortage. But the children are busy, too - school days are longer here, and high school students don't do sports or work part-time jobs or have any outside activities the way we do in America. There is simply no time.

One of my teachers told me that her parents don't want her travelling or going out, saying that these things are a waste of time. Children aren't allowed much free play time, either - they are supposed to be studying whenever they're not sleeping. The Chinese have no concept of pleasure or "the pursuit of happiness" as a right that people ought to have.

I wonder why this is. Perhaps it's related to the population - the competition is incredibly fierce, because there are more people than jobs or space in colleges. If this is the case, then when the population is under control (which I believe it will be someday - if anyone can do it it's China) people will be able to take time to breathe.

Wang Ba Dan

Instead of an essay, this weekend the fourth years are making movies. Originally, the assignment was to make a movie about what happens to the characters in Zhang Yimou's worst failure, "Keep Cool," which was this week's movie lesson. But C. got Mao laoshi to change the requirements, and so now we're just making a movie where we act crazy and see what people do.

Really.

Our movie is called Wang Ba Dan, which means "bastard," and was one of last week's vocab words (movie classes often have a lot of rude vocab, which is what I like about them). Me, C, and B dress up in traditional Chinese outfits (the boys' have more or less the same one, only they also have little beanies) and wander around Chaoyang causing trouble. So far I haven't done too much gangstering (which in Chinese is a verb!), but merely worked the camera. However, there is much left to do - yesterday the boys fought over corn by the subway station, then when we had everyone's attention began to ask people about Mencius and Confucius. Tomorrow we are going to take a small paper cup of spare change we gathered from our classmates (somehow asking classmates for money is not so embarrassing if you are wearing a qipao) and scatter it in a public place. We have other plans as well, with greater or lesser potential to get us arrested, so I think it's quite likely our group will have the best movie.

Today we had a fairly pleasant field trip to a reservoir two hours from Beijing. The amount of time travelling to and fro greatly exceeded the amount of time actually there, but it was nonetheless nice to get out of the city and climb a mountain. The weather was not so good though; it's dreadfully sticky out, and the boys I was with both took off their shirts, which I suppose is their perogative.

Women are Tigers

Spent the weekend in Datong, a tourist town in Shanxi Province, to the west of Beijing. We took the train Thursday night after our midterm - sadly, my last Chinese train experience was spent sleeping. (I've been doing that lately - thinking about Last Things: Last Train Ride is the first that I'm aware of but there will be more as the days go by). We pulled into the station rather early - around six thirty - and proceeded to the hotel for breakfast.

ACC's field trips are always rather intense and mountain-climbing-centric, which is all well and good but can be tiring. On Friday we visited the Hanging Monastary, which was a little disappointing because it was so packed with tourists. I love Buddhist sites, especially monastaries, but this one had no monks and no pilgrims, only tourists. Then we went to Heng Mountain, which is one of the most sacred and famous mountains in China. This I did enjoy, because I got to talk to the nice Taiwanese teacher mentioned in an earlier post, C. and Xi Shiyuan, and some Taoists, who C. enjoyed teasing.

"Are you American?" one of them asked him.
"Yes," said C.
"But you don't look like her," the Taoist pointed out, motioning to a blond-haired girl.
"I used to," said C. earnestly. "When I was younger. Do you like blond hair?"
"No," said the Taoist.
"Me neither," said C., "So I dyed my hair black."
The Taoist did not ask about C.'s eyes or anything else that distinguishes him from a white person, and we moved on.
"Do you eat meat?" we asked.
"No, we don't kill anything."
"Can you get married?"
"No, women are tigers."

Women are tigers! That is my new favorite thing!
"What about Taoist women?" I asked him.
"Women cannot be Taoist," he informed me.
"Because they are tigers?"
"That's right."
"What if a woman really wants to be Taoist?" C. asked.
"She can't."

Shi laoshi explained that these people come to Taoism at a very young age, maybe eight or nine, and their master tells them women are tigers and they are scared and grow up believing it. I for one was vaguely flattered to be called a tiger, but my temporary roommate Chen laoshi, a Chinese girl studying in the U.S. and working as a T.A. over the summer, was somewhat affronted.

That evening I went with C., Xi Shiyuan and his roommate, and Chen laoshi for noodles. We wandered around gormlessly for awhile and, to tide ourselves over, purchased some Stinky Tofu. I'd had Stinky Tofu once before, in Chengdu, at Zheng Xiaoxue's insistance, and I can assure you that it lives up to its name. When there is a Stinky Tofu vendor nearby the entire block is unbearable. They say the worse the smell, the better the taste, but the Stinky Tofu we had that night was quite tasty and mildly scented. I suppose it must not have been the real stuff, which is quite all right with me.

We ended up having snails and noodles outside, which was pleasant. I like hanging around with the other fourth years, because we use our vocabulary words and sentence patterns constantly, and say things like "My mind is full of capitalist decadence!"

Datong, being a tourist town, is very full of decadance. Prostitutes propositioned C. and poor Shi laoshi (C., who had just shaved his head, told them he was a monk, and they apologized profusely) and as we walked along the street we passed adult shops and street vendors selling obscene Japanese videos.

Last night I had the good fortune to eat dinner with Chen laoshi, Zheng laoshi, and Wang laoshi, all Chinese people. We had a very nice meal of various Datong specialties (the food was very good on this trip) and then walked through the busy downtown, packed with vendors, fortune telling machines, games, and shops. Chen laoshi purchased more Stinky Tofu, very pungent this time, and it was terrible. I was surprised that it was so crowded - Datong's kind of a nothing little town ("Its specialty is that it has nothing special about it," C. informed me, and I was pleased at the paradox) but the only time I've ever seen more people in one place was at the temple fair my Chinese brother took me to over New Year's.

Returned to Beijing very early this morning, tired, but quite satisfied.

One Month

Yesterday I went with some people I don't normally see much of but whose company I enjoy to the Korean restaurant for banfan, and then on the way back we got milk tea and it struck me: I'm going to miss this place.

I am going home in a month, and for the most part that's been a source of comfort to me. Cockroach the size of my thumb in the bathroom: six more weeks. No internet access: five more weeks. The only three options are boiled, fried, or deep fried: four more weeks. But there are so many things I'm going to miss -

ginger scented shampoo
the way the guy at the Korean restaurant always knows that I'll have a banfan, no meat
having everything be 1/8 the price of the same thing in the US
bootleg DVDs
goofy Chinese pop
lychees, mangoes, and coconut milk

Since coming back from Luguhu, all I can think is that Beijing just doesn't measure up, and of course in most ways it doesn't, but I've been here a long time now, and it's sort of grown on me. I will be sorry to leave. I'd kind of forgotten that.

To Datong this weekend for our field trip. Hopefully there'll be stories when I return.

Italy Noodles

Yesterday afternoon Liu Xi and my roommate Meiyi invited me to go to their teachers' apartment to make dinner for them. I am, of course, always game for Western food, particularly when it's under Y40, and I love going to teachers' houses. This is generally because my teachers - I'm thinking of Jim Henle and the deVilliers in particular - are wonderful cooks, but I also love having a chance to get out of the weird atmosphere of College/ACC and peek at people who have lives.

The teachers in question, Wang laoshi and Xu laoshi, are new this semester, and in fact I remember attending Xu laoshi's "tryout" last spring. They're from Taiwan and when I learned that they lived together I assumed they were married, since under other circumstances I don't think Chinese people can have co-ed roommate situations. It did not take me especially long to surmise that this was not the case, however - they are the exception: two women can live with a man if he's gay - wasn't that the premise of a TV show before I was born? I have now met four gay Chinese men and all four have been absolutely delightful - all the loveliness of Chinese men with none of the unpleasant personal habits. Or at any rate, fewer. Chief among the sins committed by Chinese men are hacking phlegm all over the place (the ground in Beijing is seriously coated with a layer of phlegm at all times), growing their fingernails really long, and smoking all the time, which causes the long fingernails to yellow. I hasten to emphasize that not all Chinese men do these things - not even all heterosexual Chinese men, and not all gay Chinese men - presumably - refrain. Just the four I've met.

So, moving right along from my charming racist overgeneralizations, the two teachers and my friends and I went to Fabao for ingredients, then to their apartment in the professors' dormitory to whip up some "Italy Noodles" and fruit salad. This is the second time I have made Italy Noodles for Chinese people - the first was in Chengdu with Zheng Xiaoxue - and I would say it was fairly successful. It was so nice to have a meal that was not literally dripping with oil. There are only three methods of preparing food in China - fried, deep fried, and boiled. The teachers seemed to enjoy it (they claim Taiwanese food is not as greasy as Beijing food - I am not sure) and we talked about which Chinese pop idols are the most handsome.

"We have a saying that girls who hold their chopsticks really high up will marry someone from far away," Wang laoshi told us as she helped herself to salad. "Maybe a foreigner or someone from another province, and girls who hold their chopsticks lower marry someone nearby - "

"Like their roommate," said Xu laoshi, and shifted his hand to the very end of his chopsticks.

"Well don't do it on purpose!" Wang laoshi scolded him. "I really want to find some handsome guy," she confided, "but people see me with him all the time and think we're together, it's so annoying!"

"Thanks," said Xu laoshi.

"Jingwen thought you were married," said Liu Xi helpfully, referring to me.

After dinner the others had to finish their homework (not me though - I had an important date with David Duchovny. Fourth year is great), so we headed home. It was raining hard, as it has been lately, so the laoshis sent us off with umbrellas and a slice of dried kiwi apiece.

And the best part was, I think they may let us come over again.

Dinner with Courtney

You know how sometimes something really bad will happen, but the result will be something really good? For instance, getting a really, shall we say, incompatible roommate and having to switch rooms last semester was inconvenient and upsetting, but it led to my sharing a room with Courtney, and that was wonderful. She is one of the funniest people I've ever met, she was friends with all the cool kids, and she had an enormous DVD collection. What more could one want in a roommate? She's still in Beijing, though no longer at ACC, and yesterday I took the subway (changing lines three times) to Wudaokou to meet her for dinner.

We went with her boyfriend The German and her roommate, Julia, to a nifty Korean place for non-greasy, non-Chinese food, which is always a pleasure. And we spoke English - I am so over the language pledge, have I mentioned that? - and talked about actual things, and my brain was happy. We talked about wanting to have our obituaries in the New York Times, about education, about the first major world event we remembered. This really reflected the difference in our ages: the German's was Chernobyl, which took place when he was 13. He said that afterwards they didn't eat grain or drink milk for five years. Courtney and Julie remembered the first Gulf War; I was only six or so and didn't even know we had had a war until years later. Mine was in eighth grade, when my History teacher Mr Morrisson told us there was a threat of nuclear war. "There was no time in the nineties when that was not the case," The German informed me.

And then after much good, brain-strengthening conversation, we watched a movie, and since the subway stops running at 10:30 in Beijing, I was obliged to spend the night on the couch. Crashing on the couches of friends with apartments is one of my favorite things; it makes me feel so grown up. Courtney has her own washing machine, which, far more than the five years age-difference, makes her seem like a grownup.

In other news, I have my email back up and working. My quality of life just went up 235%.

The Tattoo

Some days are easier than others. Some days slip by in a haze of uninteresting studying and Sex and the City reruns (I know) and I barely realize I'm in Beijing.

Beijing is a funny city. It's an international city in the sense that there are hundreds of foreigners who for one reason or another have decided to spend some time with the word LAOWAI tattooed all over their bodies. The tattoos are invisible, but Chinese people can see them. This does not bother the foreigners I am thinking about at the moment because as far as I can tell they live their lives completely seperate from China. This could be Otterdam, or anywhere; they read That's Beijing! and do not think 60 yuan is very much to spend for a gin and tonic. They probably don't speak Chinese. Their Beijing is not my Beijing, but from time to time I pass through it.

Nor is my Beijing the Beijing of the locals; I'm not that deluded. There are times when I do forget about the tattoos, but no one else is forgetting them, as I'm reminded every time a Chinese person pantomimes at me or shouts "hello" off a minibus.

"I thought you'd be pleased to see other foreigners," Luo Wei said to me once, in Luguhu. "I thought you'd be excited." But pleased and excited is not what I feel, not at all. Other foreigners just made me feel more foreign, as though by virtue of my whiteness (or something) my alliance had to switch from the Chinese people I knew and cared for to these laowai I didn't know from Adam.

"We are all one family in a home we call China," we sang last semester. But I have never been so far from home.

These are things I tell myself on the hard days:

this is not my real life
elsewhere there are people who love me
I am lucky to be here
struggling will make me stronger
someday I will come home.

Tai Qi

Walking up the steps to the internet cafe, a young Chinese guy called out, "Hurry up!" "You hurry up," I retorted, and then realized that he had, of course, been talking to his friend, a few steps behind him. I should have known a Chinese person wouldn't speak Chinese to me out of the blue, and indeed he looked up and responded with the only English word I bet he knew, "Hello."

There are times when one hates this country.

Today I had a meeting with the ACC field director. We all have to meet with her this week to discuss our feelings early into the semester. I have this belief, left over from childhood, that if you tell your problems to grownups they will be able to fix them. They never actually can, but I am undeterred.

I told her I felt frustrated. On the one hand, I have reached a point in my Chinese where talking to other foreigners is actually making my Chinese worse, as awful as it sounds. I think I've already reached my peak and now I'm just wasting time. But on the other hand, I don't especially care. I've already been to Luguhu. I'm not coming back to China for years, if ever. I am no longer interested in learning this language. Been there, done that.

Her advise, though I found it unsatisfying at the time, was actually the best and only advise she could have given: When you're in a situation you cannot change, you may as well try to enjoy it. And anyway, two months is not a long time.

So I guess that's what I'll do.

Today was our first Tai Qi class, which was enjoyable, though the passers-by could not help but stare at the crowd of foreigners moving their arms, ever so slowly, into the White Dragon Position or whatever it was. When I first arrived in China, the staring didn't bother me - why shouldn't they stare? But it bothers me now. Someday, as I told Zheng Xiaoxue when we were in Lijiang, I will return to America, and I will not be a monster anymore. But for now I just do the best I can.