Old Beijing Bus Stop

Old Beijing Bus Stop

Bikes are rigged with flat beds carrying bricks and produce.  A red blanket on the sidewalk  lies under some tired, wilted vegetables.  A few extra kuai for these greens are worth the time and effort.  Did they fall off the flat bed?  These are entrepreneurs.  A man has cages with birds.  Men are always in charge of the birds.  It is tradition.  Another is selling goldfish in plastic cups and hamsters in shoe boxes.  The lady with the handicapped girl is in the same place every day popping popcorn for sale alongside trinkets and hair bands.  This corner on the way to my bus stop hasn't yet been modernized.  It is busy with Chinese.  A fruit and separate (legitimate)vegetable shop are etched into the side of a building.  Meat is stacked in bloody slabs on the other side of a window which opens when someone wants to buy.  Right beside that is window which yields Chinese pastries that look and smell nauseatingly sweet.  There is always movement on this corner.  Steam comes out of the local restaurant before 7 AM where some are already slurping noodles. I'll even tell you there is a door to a sex shop and a massage parlor where later in the day skinny girls will sit in a window of their own.  This is the old Beijing.  A small side street lets out numbers of Chinese onto this corner. They are coming from a  tiny village that is tucked out of sight, somehow hidden, but right next to, the luxury high rise where I live.

This corner scared me at first.  With the garbage which never gets cleaned up in spite of the man with sticks who is sweeping,  the overwhelming bombardment of indecipherable and undesirable smells, the adult spit and the excrement which could be from animal or child,  I can't help but hold my breath as I walk through, every day.  Every day it is the same and yet every day I find something new.  Chinese toddlers don't wear diapers but have slits in their pants.  It is said that during the Cultural Revolution when there was little food, these arrangements would result in little boys losing their units when dogs would ravenously come for what had been excreted.  Mao's presence is still here.  Around the trees there is dirt, not grass.  Grass was too bourgeois, so Mao had it ripped from the Beijing ground.

I pass the same old, limping man who takes his daily exercise with great patience and care.  Short, determined grey-haired women walk together pounding on their arms.  Grandparents hold infants.  Before 7 AM, the employees at the gas station are lined up and standing at attention ready for the start of their shift  The manager is conducting the ritual to ensure company loyalty.  He shouts a series of calls which they respond to in unison.  A reminder of their collective purpose and a demonstration of their dedication to their jobs.  There is a lot going on in the morning.  It's okay to wear pajamas out and about.  This is the Beijing that is disappearing because of people like me who can afford expensive apartments.

I must admit, when I thought about Asia before coming here, this is what I feared it would look like.  I guess, though, I had pictured snakes and dead monkeys hanging from buildings along with the laundry.   And I must confess that I probably involuntarily gasp everyday I walk by, trying to protect my feet from the occasionally flying snot.  Crossing the street can be dangerous as it is not just traffic that needs to be timed right, but there are schools of scooters and bikes which have to be maneuvered through as well.  It becomes almost impossible to get across when they perhaps have decided to go the other way on the wrong side of the street.

It's a seven to ten minute walk from my building to the bus stop depending on what I might encounter or need to avoid on a given day.  Yet what I can't understand is why I don't mind it as much as I thought I would.  Those Chinese have let the white woman walk right through the dance of their day.  They never look sideways at me.  When I got brave enough to buy vegetables there, I walked away with a bagful for what was the equivalent of 2 dollars of Mao money.  They didn't overcharge me and they gave me back all my change.  For the vegetables I got,  I would have been happy to pay five times as much.  No, I don't mind it as much as I thought I would.  In fact, I am a little apprehensive of  the inevitable,  that it may happen sooner than they or I am ready.  It is only a matter of time before these shops and that village are destroyed to make way for the new Beijing, the Beijing that is the capital of the soon-to-be biggest economy in the world.  I find myself wanting to walk right through there, because one day this corner will look like my side of the street.   It could happen any day.  And if I'll miss all this mess, how will it be for limping man,  popcorn woman or man sweeping with sticks?  

"Sawadee Kha": Safety Procedures

For "my friend" Kendra

Sitting in the Chiang-Mai airport, the slurring of consonants and the lilting intonation over the loud speaker apparently call passengers.  People all over the room gather their belongings and families together and move in the direction of gate 15.  No one looks familiar to me, no one looks like me.  And it is 11 o'clock at night.   There is a strange, almost eerie feeling to be in such an unknown place.  Yet as soon as I settle into my chair, I realize how much there is to see in an airport waiting room.  The combinations of people together, the variations in races.  I guess I wonder why there aren't more white faces here. Simultaneously, I consider why it has taken me so long to travel to the other side of the world.  Why?  I think the problem is- we feel we have something to lose.  There is something to be said for not feeling you have much to lose. Yet it seems many of us are in the protection game more than the living.   Is this a fear of risking?  An attachment to things?  Attachment to identity?  To what we know?  You know you are a big girl when you can travel from Chiang-Mai to Bangkok on the way to Beijing on your own in the middle of the night.  What a feeling to be in a place which is so foreign and somehow not so frightfully scary as you had made it out to be.

What do people feel they need to protect?  I just wanted to think this through.  First we protect ourselves-from death, injury, illness.  The amazing thing is that for white people, Asia is safer than Europe or America.  In the land of tuk tuks and a plethora of street food stands and the smell of curry that I cannot get out of my nose, we are safer.  So the idea that we are in physical danger is false and made up.  Do horrible things happen to people in these places?  You bet, but it is not the non-stupid white person who is at risk.

I know people fear they will be taken advantage of or that their property is in potential danger.  I have to admit that this can happen.  I have heard of pocketbook snatchers, although no one ever seemed to look twice at my open bag.  Also, one has to negotiate prices for goods and services in advance so there is agreement.  The taxi to the apartment cost under three dollars.  A tuk tuk for two hours cost almost eight.  I think we might have ripped him off in the end.  Everyone is bargaining for the lowest prices or the highest depending on what end of the negotiation you are on.  At times you will walk away with a deal on a gold Buddha head that you don't feel quite right about.  You think you may have bargained too hard and left the seller with little profit margin.  Whoever carved the statue must have made but pennies and your stinginess is the root cause of their poverty.  And it had even been blessed in a monastery.

Once we were ripped off when the massage people, ironically friends had even introduced us, had told us that it was 120 baht (four dollars) for an hour foot massage.   Then when we went to pay, the price jumped exponentially to 460 baht and it wasn't even a good massage.  The masseuse simply rubbed oil all over our feet ignoring the pressure points which would have surely been hit if we were in China.  We thought something was strange when a German woman came from a mysterious back room complaining that her body rub was no good and that she was told it was going to be 200 baht when in the end, they were now asking for 250.  She was furious and we, with our feet in oil, thought she was being a horrible, arrogant abusive Westerner swindling the poor Thai out of a couple of dollars. Little did we know that we would soon feel the same.  Since the foot massage was my idea, I really felt I had to stick up for my friend, I didn't want her to pay too much.  So I insisted and said we wouldn't pay the extra.  There was a lot of back and forth through the beaded doorway.  After about three or four passes through the beads, each bringing a different underling to demand their new and improved price, I was asked to go back through the beads to talk to the owner.  I didn't want to go.  I had already imagined the crowded living arrangements, the smell of fish was already in my nose mixed with wafts of confusing, sharp spices and complicated poverty.  At first I refused, but I had no choice.  I looked back at my friend as if to ask, "will I return? And will you come get me if I don't?"  I was also looking for assent, but I knew I couldn't hesitate too long or it could be construed as...  I turned and went in pretending I was an American female James Bond, unafraid.  I saw what I had dreaded.  Massage girls crouching on the floor around a foot high round table eating mushy greyish food from bowls.  I held my breath.  I don't like stinky.  I wasn't sure I wanted to see where we were going next.  It seems a small dingy corridor lead behind the shop next door where schools of skin eating fish were in tanks.  I had seen this all over Chiang-Mai.  Apparently the owner of the oil rub place had this shop as well and she was getting a treatment on her feet as they were submerged in water and the tiny fish came after them to eat the dead skin.  In the end, we paid too much but not quite what they wanted.  We left quickly and unharmed.

People fear feeling uncomfortable and not able to continue with their habits.  Yes, when you travel this will happen. This was clearly the case in the beaded transgressions to the fish eating flesh shop. Or if you are in an airport all night, like tonight-I will not sleep in a bed and this is uncomfortable.  Not knowing how to get around is awkward, not knowing where to get food or where to eat results in unpleasant situations and at times hunger.  If you are someone who expects to do the same thing at the same time every day, you will be challenged.  I will admit that I have eaten some frightening food (I don't even want to mention the chicken livers for fear of bringing the taste of fat back) and have ordered dishes in restaurants which have haunted me.  I have endured smells I don't have the words to describe and would never have imagined could exist but in a nightmare.  It is all true.

Perhaps people fear losing their beliefs.  Are these their culturally ingrained customs?  It's as if, if they do something different they will never be able to come back to their former ways or somehow have betrayed them?  As if, if they walk barefoot in a Buddhist temple they will then somehow be Buddhist?  We fall back on wonder and shock when we do or see anything outside of our limited view of ordinary.  I remember feeling shocked by the numbers of white men with young Asian women and thought there was something terribly wrong with this. This is not a custom where I come from.   I felt personally offended.  But then I had to think this through.  Isn't my disgust rooted in the fact that I am an aging white woman who watches men my race and age go for much younger Asian versions? And no, there is no proportional inverse to this which would somehow give me the attention of Asian men of any age.  But what I have come to realize is that this arrangement gives both what they need.  I cannot begrudge a man who doesn't need a partner who can speak his same language any more or less than I can find fault with an Asian girl for wanting whatever she may get from the balding, overweight Westerner.  Even if it is only financial security.  That has got to be better than wondering where your next meal is coming from.  None of this really jeopardizes who I am and what I want out of life.  In the US, I would never have looked at those guys twice and the fact that this is the kind of relationship they choose only reinforces this.  If you know who you are and what you believe in, it does matter what anyone else does.  And although what you believe in may change with experience, you are the one, after all, who decides this.  Besides, I really liked waking barefoot in the temples and I may even chant Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya subconsciously.   But I figure I could use all the help I can get.

Aren't all these fears about losing some kind of control?  And if you lose control- a spiral of destruction waits just outside lingering to wreak havoc like the devil waiting to lead you astray?  One wrong move and your life can fall into a well of darkness and murky confusion and you could lose your family and friends-like losing control of your environment is synonymous with addiction, which would inevitably lead to homeless destitution?  What if the man in the saffron robes makes you doubt yourself or his beliefs seem to come into contrast with yours?  Would this be the end of the world?  Do you really need to protect against this?

The question I ask myself now is, do I really want to protect myself against the irreplaceable challenges that traveling has faced me with?  I ask myself, what am I really protecting and is it worth it?  I, like all humans, am programmed to guard against hazards which threaten me physically, but the worst threat to my physical wellbeing, as I have been traveling these last 20 years, is really digestive, when I have not been able to process all the spicy foods.  But this has happened to me in the US as well.  We also think that only in the US will we get quality medical treatment.  Unless you have traveled you will never know that people come thousands of miles to get the medical services and care that is provided in the Bangkok. Everyone in Asia knows this. 

There is a reason the world is round.  It defies our linear logic -if we projected our linear logic it would go right off into the cosmos-into the stars.  Profound wisdom must have a circumference-must wrap around.  It holds every single dot of existence, making a point insignificant.  I keep thinking there is a reason the world is round-if you travel in any direction you will end up where you are or where you started.  There is no hierarchy in terms of place.  If the world is round there is no up and no down, no Middle, no Near and no Far East. The great thing about the world being round is that there aren't just two sides, but a whole spectrum to every thought and every experience.  And none of them are really given a preference.  A globe is a true whole unlike a point or a line-it has so many dimensions.

I am in Asia on "the other side" of the world.  This place always seemed so far away when I was growing up.  This must be what we say to each other.  This idea must be passed down from one generation to another.  For my parents Asia was further away- and for each generation it will come closer and closer.    It is 13 hours away by plane.  But Rome is 9 hours away and that never seemed so far.   Ideas originated in the mind are not always true. Ideas need to be tested and challenged.  There is a strange tension in the mind- a paradox?- I am now in the place that was once so far away.

There are so many things to know and understand-that you would never be able to get- if you had never been to Asia.  First of all, It is four hours by plane from Beijing to Bangkok.  Bangkok always occupied a dark spot in my mind-which must have come from the movies.  I pictured opium dens and child prostitution, what I got instead when I arrived was an array of beautiful yellow, purple and green colors and rich fabrics and people with their palms together in recognition of your presence.  I imagined it inherently uncivilized, what I experienced was quite the opposite.  "Sawadee Kha", the stewardesses bow in unison at the end of the safety procedures.

A Grub in the Thai Jungle

For "my friend" Kendra

Then we took another plane from Bangkok to Chiang-Mai, the second largest city in Thailand where Thaksin was from.  It is a rambling, loosely organized city devoid of skyscrapers.  It does not have the massive numbers of people that Beijing has, so we feel put at ease.  (Ironically, since it is still very busy, with a lot of movement.)  It is warm and tropical.  We are but a short drive from Burma and Laos. Which explains why in its extenisve history, it was originally controlled by Burma (1296).  It was made part of Siam in 1933. All I can think is that there are stories here.  A lot of stories and I won't get a fraction of them on this trip, but at least I get how much I don't know. More than one person mentions the old opium triangle, and more than one inssits that the Thai no longer grow opium since 1977.  This implies that it is still grown in Burma and Laos.  At least now I know where the Mekong River is and I find out it is the third longest after the Nile and Amazon.

There is another ornate Buddhist temple every few feet, 121 to be precise within the city limits, 300 in all here.  Screaming traffic by the incensed gold stupas is a vision.  Young monks barefoort in saffron robes, everyone removes their shoes to enter.  Our tuk tuk driver tells us he only spent seven days as a monk.  It is something you can do when you have money, not when you are poor.  Dedication to spiritual practice is a luxury that many can't afford.  I thought when you couldn't earn a living in the West, a last option was to join a monastery.

As soon as I entered the grounds of a Wat (temple)-and we went to many-Wat Phra Singh, Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Chiang Man, Wat Jet Yot- the list goes on- my heart rate slowed down and I had time.  I felt myself present, my breath dropped-I became almost instantaneously calm-peaceful-whole.  The temples were not crowded as the tourist season is from November to mid-February.  Walking barefoot around the temple grounds, absorbing the good blessings that have accumulated after centuries of meditation in this place.  There was certainly a different vibration, a different air quality.  Entering the temple where many giant gold statues of Buddhas preside are altars with flowers and incense and many replicas of enlightened beings.

The old city is still bound with the crumbling old walls, a moat surrounding.  Tiny streets, intricate single lanes tangle together and even a map won't help.  If you venture down one you will see gardens and shacks or manicured two story teak houses.  Every walk of life side-by side and at the present, at peace.  On every corner a small Buddhist shrine-a gold house on white stilts, fresh incense burns.

Curries-red, green-coconut milk and chilies.  I love the Thai soups and vegetables-fish soufflés in banana leaves.  I went to Thai cooking school for a day and made spring rolls and Pad Thai, pumpkin in coconut milk(what else).  Kaffir limes-the bumpy kind-smashed garlic, don't take off the skins and bird's eye chili-don't swallow.  By the time I had gotten back to China, my digestive track might never be the same again.

This seems to be a handicraft and weaving capital.  The tribes who have migrated from China or other destinations live in the mountains surrounding the city. And the city has one bazaar after another of beads and woven change purses, bags and scarves.  The merchants seem to be constantly setting the goods out and taking them down.  There is more stuff than could ever be sold.  Supposedly the Thai government is supporting the hillside tribes-the Hmong, the Karen and the Mien  They still live in their traditional ways.  The Hmong live in the mountains and now only come down for education, commerce and to work in the fields.  The women do the weaving, take care of the children, stay home-the men can have many wives.  There many types of Karen the white, the red, the long neck.  The white are the ones where the women have to wear white if they are virgins.  The women weave and the men, what we saw were the men sleeping behind.  The women's weaving is what provides clothes for the family and the way they make money and the men are the emissaries to the outside world who bring the weaving to market.  It is said, if a woman can't weave she cannot have a family-it means she cannot take care of her family.  The long necks are the tribes where women wear solid gold for about a foot long wrapped around their necks.  Long necks are a sign of beauty-but we are told that the gold protects the throat from tiger attacks.  Gold is also worn on the knees for this same reason. 

My friend and I are on an elephant.  Elephants are the symbol of Thailand.  There are many here and are deemed good luck.  This is not a dream, but it feels like one.  The lumbering steps of the giant beast rock us back and forth and we had no idea where we were going, but apparently the jungle is the destination.  I thought we were going on a tourist expedition around in a circle near camp, but we just keeping lurching side to side on a steep path.  As soon as we are out of sight of civilization, our elephant driver cries out in a high pitch squeal bringing his large metal hook near the head of the majestic creature.  We get the crazy driver (I make up the story that he is an opium addict, and none of the elephant drivers speak English so...). Of course at first we gasp-but then I realize this is his fun: looking for a reaction from the tourists in the middle of the jungle.  My mantra from this point on is, don't react.  Don't let them see you react.  That is what they are looking for.

The next stop was bamboo rafting.  No one told us to bring a change of clothes or our bathing suits.  All I can think is, do any of these businesses have insurance?  This whole thing is a civil suit waiting to happen.  Our mantra came in handy.  As we are in the middle of nowhere sitting on bamboo stalks lashed together with rope on a river that has got to serve as the passing towns' sewage system.  The natives (they seemed to be from the tribes) stood at the front of makeshift rafts pushing off the bottom and rocks with yet another bamboo stick in a form of ancient steering. Our raft captain was wearing boxer briefs which had a gigantic rip down the back. "Don't react."  It became a game of his to slap the surface of the water near us in order to splash and get us wet.  Really, who was going to stop them?  Again, I assured my friend that no reaction was the best way we were going to get out of this.

I found myself eating in open air roadside restaurant on the way to the jungle.  Bare benches, uneven wooden tables and dirt floors.  So far away from home and any known signs except, of course, Coca Cola- I was hungry and so sidled up beside my friend who assured me it would be okay.  The vegetables were crisp and clean tasting and the boiled potatoes were warm and wholesome.  The cold Chang beer (I never drink beer) seemed to go well with the meal.  And I found a simple happiness.  A surprising, profound contentment.  An unexpected completion, as if I had found something I had never known I was looking for. Who would have known this would make me happy?   Thinking back over my life, I can't really say which turn brought me here. I wonder how it all led to this place alongside a road in the middle of the Thai jungle. 

And it is at that moment that I get the feeling of overwhelming simplicity.  Like really I am just a grub on a leaf. (Thank you Zorba the Greek). There are eventualities you would never be able to plan for.  There are blessings for which you would never know how to pray.  And suddenly without any intention on my part, this moment becomes magnified.  My life does not expand out, it seems to expand inwards.   And I am that grub tasting the leaf of the earth, touching it, smelling it, beating on it.  I tremble.  I am reaching and peering beyond the end of the leaf into the whole terrifying magnificent mystery.  I am too dizzy and delirious to say I like it or not.  And it wouldn't matter anyway.

Guan Yu-God of Wealth 02/10

I went to bed with explosions banging outside my Beijing apartment on the fourth night of Chinese New Year.  They began again this morning around 8.  Today is the fifth day, a very important one in the 15 day celebration.  This is the day the Chinese pay tribute to the birthday of Guan Yu, the Chinese God of wealth. The fireworks, that everyone seems to have is supposed to get Guan Yu’s attention and bring prosperity. My friend said it another way, “this is the day you bomb the **** out of poverty.  This is a big one.”

I can’t imagine how this could get any bigger. I can’t believe that nobody told me what it was going to be like in Beijing during this time of year.  I don’t know what to make of the whole Spring festival celebration.  There seems to be so much more to it than ushering in the year of the Tiger.

One thing is for sure, this is the most important Chinese holiday; there can be no doubt about that.  My nerves can attest to it.  A westerner could never imagine the intensity of the first night when the Chinese welcome the deities of heaven and earth.  Beijing became a simulated war zone for incessant hours on end. These flashes of light and horrific blasts are also meant to scare away Nien, the children eating monster of Chinese mythology.  I should have suspected something when I saw fireworks tents set up on virtually every corner a week before the big night.  My ears are ringing.  And it is not over.

There is so much to know about this holiday, so many ancient stories, so many rituals.  I am sure I won’t begin to understand them this year.  I like the one about the Jade Emperor- Tian Gong-heavenly grandfather-Taoist ruler of heaven, man and hell.  On the eve of the new lunar year, the Jade Emperor comes down and assesses the deeds of men and rewards and punishes accordingly.  His birthday is the ninth day of the festival, so there is clearly more to look forward to.

What most people do know about Chinese New Year (Chun Yun) is that it is the largest yearly migration on earth when the Chinese must reunite with their families if at all possible.  The ritual cleaning of the house and red decorations help dispel evil spirits.  Ancestors are worshipped.  The food preparations begin weeks in advance to ensure large quantities for the New Year’s dinner.  After dinner the Northern Chinese make jao-zi (dumplings) together which they will eat at midnight and of course blow up state-of-the-art fireworks.

I thought maybe I should get out in the streets today and explode some poverty of my own, but given the way a number of Chinese survive here (no sanitation, no heat),  I am going to leave it to them.  I can’t help wonder how a devoutly secular state can be so superstitious.  Is this how they became a world economic power?  No doubt some Chinese would say so.  And since China’s rising world standing is based on it’s economic strength, maybe this day does have a role in Chinese optimism. How little we know about anything that happens anywhere outside our sphere.  When China does rule the world, we will know which gods are honored and what rites are performed on every day of this festival.  Until then I have learned that the fifth day is for the God of wealth.  I wonder if Washington knows this when the President meets with the Dalai Lama later today.

The Moon Festival and Mao Day 10/09

The Moon Festival this year was on the fourth day that air pollutant levels reached category 4 (unhealthy) here in Beijing. The thick grey air made the festivities look eerie like they were in fact taking place on the moon.  Decorated tables and lanterns are set up everywhere outside so families can gather to watch the full moon rise, to eat moon cakes and to sing moon poems.  This year no one could see the table on the other side of the courtyard let alone the moon.

In spite of the red eyes, aggravated sinuses and headaches, side effects of breathing “suspended particulates”, people share their moon cakes with loved ones staring up at where the moon would be in a ritual dedicated to bringing happiness.  Every one will receive a moon cake as a gift. They are wrapped in shiny paper and placed in elaborate boxes inside matching gift bags.  But the people I know who have tried them make a face so twisted in regards to the taste, that I haven’t even looked at the ones I received.  Yet I think I will keep the box.

While the Moon Festival is on the 15^th of the 8^th lunar month, National Day is celebrated October 1^st.   Nothing is more important than National Day for the Chinese.  From the 1^st to the 3^rd it is illegal to work, but since the Chinese are really more capitalistic than Americans, it seems hard to imagine they’ll stop work for anything, even for the memory of Mao.

This is the 60^th anniversary of the founding of The People’s Republic of China and Beijing is pulling out all the stops. The area around Tiananmen Square will virtually shut down so that one of those colossal feats that only the Chinese can pull off will take place.  Parades with supernaturally synchronized movements, red flags and the most spectacular display of fireworks make me proud and I am not even Chinese.  Security snipers have been posted around central Beijing for a month.  A friend was staying in a hotel along the square last week and happened to go by the window, only to find rifles pointing in his direction.  Offices and apartments have been taken over and searched and the owners must move out for about three days.

The city has been given an overnight facelift.  Instant gardens have sprung up along roads; green netting has been laid over dirt.  It looks almost like grass from far away.  The best thing about National Day is the fact that the Chinese authorities will surely make it rain tonight.  They have the power and the technology to do that.  And even if this means we will have a “blue sky” day tomorrow, I’ll be watching the parade on TV. 

The Puppy, the Rubble and the Guards 09/09

On the way home from work today, I remembered some details that I wanted to make sure I wrote down: The puppy, the rubble that was a village and the grey uniformed guards.  I’m not sure in what order.  The puppy- a tiny scruffy little thing about the size of two hands.  It wandered into the courtyard where we were having our expatriate drinks on a Friday afternoon. We are right on the edge of a village or Hutong.  When I say village- there is a very precise image attached.  It doesn’t matter if you are in Beijing or the environs 200 km away (I don’t know about further from Beijing because I have never been.) the materials and the structures have little variation.  Long thin single story constructions made of a weak brick and those narrow streets which look more like dirt paths.  One “house “ abutts the next, there is no space between dwellings the size of small rooms.  So here I am trying not to breath, in a dingy café on the periphery of a Chinese village, trying to relax and blend.  And beside the fact that I can’t get the smell of human excrement out of my nose what is really killing me is the puppy who has wandered in alone and lost and obviously orphaned.  And wagging her little tail.

That small dog didn’t know it was grey when it was born white.   It didn’t even know that it was stumbling around as it advanced towards the feet of customers.  Why was it that puppy wouldn’t let me unwind?  I could forget the people I saw washing and hanging their whole lives in the dusty street, but that puppy.  It wouldn’t let me forget and it wasn’t there to make me remember either.  I can’t tell you what it was and what it meant, but I haven’t been the same since.  That was two weeks ago.  I can’t let myself think about it at all or about what has happened to it.  I just can’t.

The village rubble is a reference to seeing a village off the road from home to work disappear in the span of a few days.  All of a sudden a teacher in our shuttle bus cries out, “Hey, that was a village, wasn’t that a village?”  And we look and see debris in piles.  The feeble bricks are maybe more solid than soil, but not much.  And now they are in small clumps which amount to nothing.  Total and complete destruction and there is not even a sign of a ball.  Everyday we drive by, fewer structures remain and more piles accumulate.  And men sit around in circles in plastic chairs amidst the ruins and …talk?  Men seem to do this here in the most unlikely places.  You can look in the woods and see cinder blocks on end in a circle and bikes parked on the road nearby.  Some men, usually older, have gathered to talk.  I know, next I will have to imagine what they are saying.

Guards in grey suits stand at attention everywhere we turn.  Most are skinny, so skinny their pants would fall down if it weren’t for their belts.  Every time we come by they stand up straight with their hands firmly at their sides, when they greet each other they salute.  In the compounds where westerners live they watch the front gate, the back gate and are stationed at doors.  A little “Ni hao” here and “ni hao “ there gets the foreigners pretty far.  But between Chateau Regalia and school is Merlin Champagne, Rits Garden, Lemon Lake, Capital Paradise, Dragon Bay Villas, Yosemite Park and Beijing Riviera.  These are just a few of the compounds where foreigners live.  And I am not kidding.  All around there are guards, taking it very seriously.  As if there were any real danger.  I have never felt as safe in a US or European city.  The only incident I know the guards had to deal with was when a neighbor in the apartment building next door set off fireworks on a Saturday night.  Man, they have good fireworks here.  It was like the Fourth of July and the Battle of the Bulge all in one, except of course without the causalities.  But I was glad and went to bed that night with a smile because I thought, at least that will give them something to do.

The Village beside the Castle 09/09

I went for a walk in the village adjacent to school.  Clearly this encampment has not yet been cleared away to make room for “Modern China”.  These villages, I am learning, are much the same everywhere throughout the country.  First of all they are single storied and the roofs are low, often made of a rough scalloped terracotta. The streets are cement worn by time and the earth is showing through.  People are doing their simple washing in basins in the narrow street.  A woman picks out one crude pot and rubs her hand over it.  The dark water falls away and the misshapen container is set on the brick wall beside her.  An old man with a bundle of sticks is clearing (sweeping?) the street.  Moving dirt and debris from one place to another

I wanted to look in, to see inside the houses and imagine the life which took place there.   I wanted to take pictures of what I saw, but of course then it dawned on me that these were peoples’ homes- how would I feel if someone walking by my house took a picture of its interior?   But it was unreal, like a park for a time gone by.  I had to keep reminding myself that these were not characters in an ancient novel, but people trying to live their lives.

The rooms were very small and the windows had no screens.  Everything looked put together from something else, makeshift.  Mattresses on the floor in a room almost the same size and ceilings so low I could lift my arm to touch them.  I saw a room I would have had to bend my head to get into.  Tiny tables that looked like the kind in a forgotten preschool program and miniature chairs were lined up.  What was this? Attached was what I believe was a kitchen because there was something that looked like a stove and many of those ill-begotten pans I had seen earlier. I surmised it was a place people came to eat.  Perhaps a restaurant or was there an arrangement between families?  Would people be coming back from work tonight and relaxing and enjoying themselves in this tiny room?  I couldn’t imagine more than three people in the place that had diminutive chairs for twenty-four.

Some of the walls and brick had once been painted white, yellow, red but they had not retained the color.  Age mingled with the hues in a dingy claim that left all the walls a shade of grey.  Ragged time had grown on these walls and had infected its people.  They were propping the old village up enough to get through another lifetime.  One room through an open door stood out as it had a clean white coat of paint over a rough wood. There was one chair in the room reminiscent of a barber’s.  A mirror faced the chair, nothing else was in the room.  Such effort was made to make it clean and nice; I surmised that it was the beauty parlor. This was a business where someone was trying to make enough money to pay for that paint.

Nothing seemed real here and I turned around and looked back on our school that loomed above the village like a feudal castle of the 21^st century, monolithic and huge.  It was the place children with opportunities would go everyday, but the people of this village would only go there to clean.  And still they greeted us with a smile and a wave “bye-bye”.  It was the edge of town that stayed with me through the night though.  It was the smell of the other side of China—human excrement is not to be confused with any other smell.  Human excrement, it must have been some kind of public toilet.  Human excrement, not just a waft, but an enduring, relentless reality that went on for 100 yards.  The dank stench made me want to gag.  And people walked on this end of town, coming and going to work every day.

I had to go home and take a bath.  That night it haunted me.  The smell never left me.  And that night it dawned on me why my foot massages are so cheap.  China has a huge underclass that will work for nothing, which sustain themselves in these rudimentary ways and somehow accept it and have enough energy to go on and serve me and rub my feet.  I could not separate the smell from the vision of the skinny gentle-faced girl who kindly washed my feet and applied pressure to points in my furthest most appendages. And because I was told this is not a tipping culture, I hadn’t even left a tip.

Massive, Oriental Lillies, Foot Massages 09/09

Beijing is built on a scale of greatness.  No one should ever underestimate the Chinese.  Beijing is said to be 100 miles by 112 miles.  It is massive.  I was dropped of at the Temple of Heaven which is by the Hiongchiao pearl market- and we walked what looked like a few blocks on the map which actually turned out to be miles.

We went from the Temple of Heaven through Tiananmen square and right up to the Forbidden City.  Great names huh?  Mao is everywhere-on money and billboards.  The place is enormous!  Every building is like a huge monument.  When the Chinese do something they do it BIG.  The national museum makes the Metropolitan look like a shack.  And everything is so spread out that you walk for miles.  My feet were killing me-so I did find the Dragonfly and had a two hour massage for about $60.  The session started with an hour foot massage while another rubbed my head and neck.  I am not sure if that was all reflexology or what, but I have never had those specific parts massaged and- I could feel a difference in my whole body ALL night long.  I could feel the connections to my internal organs.  I still am recovering from the foot massage.  I may never be the same again.  No, according to Chinese philosophy I am sure never to be the same again.  Everything is always changing.

The story told about why Lao tze wrote the Tao te Ching is that Lao tze was leaving the country of Chou as he was witnessing its decline and the guard at the border simply asked, “Since you are going away, Sir, could you write a book to teach me the art of living?”  And he did.  So I am going to take to heart the Tao te Ching and see if I can follow its teachings so I can live the art.  So I can allow change to happen, expect change to happen. So I can live.

After all, I am in a place where I care about different things than I had ever thought of-  a typhoon hits Taiwan, finally I care about things on the other side of the world.  Finally I care about the Eastern hemisphere, because I am here.  I am trying to learn Chinese and it is hard.  My head hurts from even trying.  There are sounds and details in tone I can’t imagine ever mastering.  Even counting to ten is an ordeal.  And I am good at languages.  How many of us have completely ignored those sounds, have never tried, have no idea?  If this is not the unknown, I don’t know what is.  When I realize where I am I can’t believe it.  So much has happened in a week.

The most amazing thing is that my favorite flowers, oriental lilies, are really inexpensive here.  For twelve stems I pay under $10- just 60 kuai.  Kuai is “bucks” for yuan.  In the states they cost 12 dollars a stem.  Perhaps when you allow the tides of time to take you, you may find what is most pleasing.  The flower lady at school comes every Monday for orders.  I am going to get a dozen oriental lilies a week.  Flowers and foot massages are my greatest indulgences.  And I save so much money in every other aspect of my living that I can really enjoy them.

The Beijing Chronicles Begin 09/09

I didn’t need to change my watch since Beijing is exactly twelve hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. One of the first insights into this new culture was noodles.  Let them eat noodles for breakfast and noodles for snack.  I like noodles and I ate all the noodle meals on the plane.  And the sun never set that night.

On my first day in China, the sky was out and even blue.  After an over-the-top buffet, (when people ask me what I am doing in China now I reply, “eating”) we went to Ikea so the new teachers could buy what they need for their apartments.  This is the only Ikea from Beijing to Shanghai.  They built it and the Chinese come in droves.  By the time we left, it was a wall-to-wall warehouse of household goods and Chinese.  The Chinese came crowding in to get a feel of the kitchen towels, to study the utensils, to inspect the hangars.  But the most interesting part of the experience were the Chinese who came to take their after lunch naps on the beds in the third floor showroom.  And they were allowed to sleep on.  Whole families come to Ikea to visit, sitting in the chairs in the display living rooms.  Or the gentleman we have seen on several rugs in the store sitting cross-legged and meditating?  He is completely undisturbed by the people rubbing by.

Bureaucracy and saving face or should it be saving face and bureaucracy?  The simple tasks like buying a cell phone can reveal so much about a country.  All the young Chinese take English in school, but all the Chinese do not learn English in school. The young cell phone salesman looks at me and I look at him both talking earnestly in our respective tongues as if one of us is going to have an epiphany and be suddenly able to speak the others’ language.  His eager, smiling face lifts the phone to explain the feature.

Ni chin fuoo shikuai yuan chong nung- that’s not real Chinese

Yes, that looks very nice.  I’ll take that one.

Shum lun taodo ni mai- that’s not real Chinese either, but he wants me to write my name on a piece of paper so he can make an invoice for me.  Once he has done that I can go with my scrap of paper to a central location where two women sit behind a desk.  No one is speaking a word of English except me and I am not at all embarrassed by my stranger status.  I can read numbers so I hand over 609 kuai for my simple Nokia which will only work in China.  What I understand is that I can buy other sim cards when I go to other countries and simply swap one out for another.  That seems like a good deal.  My friends abroad can text me on this phone, but I won’t be getting any phone calls-I will have to get Skype for that.

One of the new hires though made the mistake of asking for an iron which was in fact out of stock in the store.  The Chinese cannot tell you such a thing-“we are out of stock on that item”  because it is a matter, even this, of saving face.  They do not want to lose face by telling you that.  So a BIG problem had its origins with the out of stock iron.  It was unclear how all this got blown out of proportion, but as one of the new hires was trying to get an this alleged iron and as well as a hairdryer, the flustered young sales person gave the wrong scrap of paper to the customer who went to pay for the items and then returned to the designated salesperson with the proper documentation to be given the items of purchase.  But much to everyone’s chagrin, the sales person came back with only a hairdryer and it took almost an hour with a crew of Chinese-English translators to figure it out.  The new hire had in fact paid for merchandise that was now not being given to her because it is supposedly against the Chinese nature to admit a mistake.  The matter could not be sorted out.

“The Chinese drive like they walk, if there is a space they will take it.”  This is the first generation with cars.  There have been a lot of changes in just the last eight years.  All the farmland is being taken up and developed.  These are the neighborhood compounds built up for expatriates and the nouveau riche Chinese.  Where we live looks a little like Pleasantville or a set on the Truman show.  There are some cars parked outside, but mostly they are ghost towns.  You hardly ever see anyone.

But assume that your emails are read, your telephone calls are monitored and your whereabouts is being tracked at every minute.  If you have a bad day in a traffic jam, be careful, what you say.

American Emigration 08/09

I’m an American emigrant in China.  When a series of unfortunate events occurred last year; I ended up with no job and no income, forced to cash in on my tiny retirement fund paying a 20% penalty. I had to find work.  For the first time in my 47 years, I decided to go for the money.  I am a teacher and going for the money is not exactly a motivation I knew.

But my son was in his first year of college and given that I am still paying off my own student loans, the financial horizon was utterly grim. I got focused and applied to any job for which I could fashion my resume. I was on Monster.com, signed up with search services, awake in the middle of the night when I got another idea for whom to inundate with my cover letter and references.  I was thinking public relations, editor, non-profit organizations, and admissions at my alma maters (NYU and Dartmouth).  I got nothing, not a call.  But giving up was not an option, so I joined not one but three agencies which place teachers in schools abroad.  At this point I was ready to do anything, go anywhere for a well paying job.  I couldn’t afford (literally) to be picky.

As I did research, my sights started to narrow on China. After an interview in San Francisco, I landed a job in Beijing.  I hadn’t even watched the 2008 summer Olympics; the only pictures I had of Beijing were of smog and inordinate numbers of dark haired people.  I signed the contract anyway and here I am.

I am an immigrant in China wanting what all immigrants want, a better life, a way to provide for my child, a solid economic future free from worry.  I found it in China.  Here I have a choice of luxury apartments.  I have a comprehensive health care and dental package that covers my son and me ANYWHERE in the world and not a penny is taken out of my paycheck.  The school pays for my Chinese taxes and since I don’t break $80,000, I will be exempt in the U.S.  No, it’s true that I am still not making six figures, but do you know what it feels like to have enough to give half my salary to my son’s education and still be able to eat?

There are a few more advantages that make this sacrifice worthwhile; one is the fact that teachers are honored here.  The way we are treated with respect by the community we serve, parents, administrators, and students alike makes all the difference.  My visa says that I am a “foreign expert”; when was the last time an American teacher was seen as an “expert”?  Not only does my pay increase every year, but there are bonuses for continuing the contract because experience and age are valued as well.  I really can’t see why I would come back or how I could swing it financially.  I have to admit now that I want the American dream just like the next gal.   And I found it in China.