tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78174521222953365332024-02-20T01:45:57.281-08:00An American Emigrant in ChinaMadeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817452122295336533.post-69045564400887742092011-04-24T17:35:00.000-07:002011-04-24T17:35:49.654-07:00Abu Dhabi Dreamin'<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span> <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Allah In'shallah</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"Is this your first time in the United Arab Emirates?" The deep resonance in his voice startles me.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I am not prepared. My passport is quickly lost in his ebony hand. The best I can do is to squeak out a weak, "yes."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Sitting tall in his white robe and head scarf, he looks through me. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"Where are you coming from?"</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"Beijing." I figure he thinks I'm nervous because somehow our cultural roles are reversed and in this part of the globe, it is I who could be the terrorist.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He smiles. I try to smile and be as worldly as my passport claims I am. But...please don't look at...</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"Where do you live?"</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I am relieved by the repetition.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"Beijing." Why? Because I am proud to come from China? Or now we are both sure that I am an American who can't possibly see the world from a strictly Western slash Judeo-Christian vantage?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The light gleams off his dark eyes. He knows more about me than I would like to share. He is regal</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">and I pretend he is all knowing. If his white teeth break out again under the goatee, I think I might faint.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It's a long overnight from Beijing. Maybe I've been in Beijing too long.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"Welcome to Abu Dhabi". It is a kingdom and all the men are princes, I think as I walk away</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">trying to avoid the eyes of all the other members of the royal family.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It's clean. Suddenly instead of spitting and snotting, men, tall men, glide in their stride in their white shimmering robes. The streets are immaculate. No garbage or dog poo, no donkey carts. There seems to be order at crosswalks and at street signs. And it's hot. The blue of the sky is interrupted only by the white minarets which reach toward Allah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Driving home with my friend on the five lane road amongst palm trees, I feel like I am in LA, an LA without traffic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except, there are the robes, white and black, which seem at ease floating beside the blondes in shorts and others in suits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Paris airport the contrast in dress seems awkward. Here you want to wear a robe like the Emiratis. I want to be an Emirati. My friend tells me there are no poor Emiratis. When you turn 18 you get a car and a house. There is a lot of oil in this small land and the population is not as vast as Saudi Arabia. So the wealth is distributed. You can feel the oil money, of course like anywhere, some have more than others. Yet this is one reason they do not fear any kind of revolt. The poor people here are immigrants, Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Philipinos. Immigrants can't stage a revolution. But everybody here knows that the country would come to a halt if the Indians stopped working. It is the Indians who are the middle managers, administrators and bank workers. The Emirates depend on them. But then I have to remember that if I were an Emirati, (and I like saying it-Emirati) I would not be wearing white but black. The thin material of the abaya falls loosely when you slip it on and the black head scarf too easily falls off one's head. When my friend took us to the Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Mosque commonly referred to as The Grande Mosque, I got my chance to wear one. It is instantly slimming.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I know, right about now I am supposed to get into the whole male-female Arab Moslem power divide. It's pretty obvious where that goes. There is more testosterone here and I can see that as a good thing and a bad thing. I know the whole polygamy, more than one wife situation is a bit weird and then I think about the benefits of having a part time husband. Either way you go with your position, the arguments seem evident. In the end, of course, I would have to speak up about having to wear black instead of white in that heat. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Although Abu Dhabi is a new city located where forty years ago there was mostly only sand, its history dates back to the 3rd millennium. Its origins come from a culture called Umm an-Nar. It was a village inhabited by nomadic camel herders, fishermen and pearl divers. Like much of the Middle East, it was a tribal culture headed by powerful Sheiks with the unavoidable interference of colonial powers, Portugal early on and later the British. The houses back then were made of palm fronds and the wealthy lived in mud huts-until 1952 when oil was discovered. At this time the seven sheikdoms unified into the present federation of states. The making of Abu Dhabi as a world-class metropolis started in 1966 when the mud huts were replaced by luxury hotels and high-rise buildings making up the now memorable skyscape.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">My favorite thing to do here, besides catching up with my friends, is to go to the private beach, Corniche gate three. There is a 10 dhiram ($2.50) entrance fee and for five dollars more a Philippino follows you to a padded lounge chair of your choice and opens up an umbrella. And there you are right in front of the famous skyline on a fine white sand beach staring out on turquoise blue (did I say clean?) waters. It's unbelievable. I love Abu Dhabi. But I have to admit, since this is only March and I spend most of my time under the umbrella, that it must get insanely hot in the summer. I take many dips in the sea to cool off. No, it must get a crazy hot that I have never experienced. My friends say walking outside in summer is like opening the oven door- the heat just overwhelms you. You can't breathe. You have to move quickly from one air conditioned setting to another the way we in Beijing scurry to warmth in the winter. The sun could scorch you to ash; Make-up melts down your face.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The well-known Abu Dhabi malls provide acclimatized environments in which to move around and of course to spend all that oil money. They are destinations even for people who don't much like to shop. The architecture of these little cities is fascinating. They have indoor gardens, children's playgrounds and even massive aquariums. They are manmade habitats for the heat, really, a place to pass the day. The sport of shopping is contagious here and I take lessons from my friend's sixteen year old daughter who somehow convinces me to buy high heels and Ray Bans. I wonder how I my ankles will fare on the uneven streets of Beijing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">What I will miss most (besides my friends-the kind of people you meet in the world who give you a sense of home wherever they are-the kind of people who teach you that home is about people, not place) is the call to prayer five times a day echoing from every mosque in the city simultaneously. Starting at 5:53 AM (the time changes in relation to the sun) --- a man's voice sings-beautiful -tones which reach deep into a self so easily forgotten. It doesn't matter if you are Moslem or of another faith or of no faith at all-those notes in varying pitches reach for your soul, calling for your return. How does sound effect in that way?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every day the calls are different. The calls to pray structure the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is easy to keep track of time. I can count on an open reminder for my ancient self to be called back. It feels like safety. The kind of safety you have and understand when you say Allah in'shallah- God willing. I will see you again, Allah in'shallah-if it is meant to be. You can count on that. Really, it is all you can count on. I hope to return to Abu Dhabi-Allah in'shallah. Or at least I now have it in my dreams.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
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</div>Madeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817452122295336533.post-74193875106855910122011-02-06T16:43:00.000-08:002011-02-06T16:43:03.792-08:00Evil Spirits don't Like Smoke<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">A New Year in China</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">In spite of my vow to never be here again for the number one holiday in China, last night we ushered in the year of the rabbit. The Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, comes at the start of the lunar calendar and in fact it is suddenly warmer here in Beijing. A year ago nobody had warned me so when the explosions started outside my window; I ended up curled in bed, shaking from the heart stopping vibrations and blood-curdling noise. I was terrified. I had never experienced anything like it. I was supposed to go out that night, but was too scared to walk in the streets which looked and sounded like a war zone. Every family left in the city had invested in major fireworks and they were not timid to blow them up on successive corners. It went on 24/7 for days. After all, the Chinese were welcoming the year of the tiger which is aggressive, dynamic and forceful. I was a physical and psychological wreck by the fifth day.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">This is a new year. Not only did I go out last night, but I was not paralyzed or put out by the enormous rockets ignited on the other side of the street as I walked. A spark had even hit me and I simply moved on. Had I changed? What was different? At about 11:30, I decide to walk home to make it back just before the midnight onslaught. I watched myself happy amid the crashing and banging that was picking up all over the city. My gaze went up in admiration to the cascading, colorful lights which streamed through the sky. This year I even stopped to watch and appreciate the bright blasts.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">How strange it was to be glad, making it home just before 12 to see the massive display. I didn't even need the Winnie-the-Pooh eye cover and ear plugs I had purchased to protect myself from the mayhem. I went to bed still watching, delighted by the mesmerizing sights even as debris hit my window. When I got tired, I went to sleep despite the noise. Somehow this year it was comforting. Could the year of the rabbit really be that different from the year of the tiger? Apparently.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">My friend told me her uncle spent two thousand dollars on fireworks every year. He would open the window to his apartment and hope the smoke would blow in. The bad air was one of the things I hated most about Beijing, so of course I asked, "Why?" "Evil spirits don't like smoke", is what she said. So today I did something else which surprised me, I opened the window in my apartment and could smell the smoke, a by-product of bottle-rockets. I don't like smoke either, but I'll try anything to get rid of those pesky evil spirits.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">I can't help thinking it is a new year here in China. At first I think I just may have made it through another "blue period" of my life and may be emerging and that's why it feels new. I think it is my perpetual, unnatural clinging to a shred of optimism that might be renewing itself. But if it is not that, what else can it be that makes this year different? I don't think it is my yearning for something good to happen that brings this about. I could say it is my courage to start my life over again and again, but there is something else here. That isn't even anything new for me. This one isn't about me, I suspect. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">I don't like loud noises, smoke or chaos. But that is just the beauty of the whole thing. It doesn't matter what I think. I see my attachment to my limited assessments. I need these disruptions to keep me from a self-manipulated definition of anything. It's not exactly that I need the smoke in my house to scare away the spirits; I need to be able to open the window to ideas which are foreign and illogical to me. I need the Chinese who see the world differently than I do. I need the external input, redirection, guidance. I can't figure my life out on my own. I admit my limitations. However strong I may have proven myself to be, I cannot pretend to have enough of anything to figure this life out on my own. I need those loud noises to wake me up. We can make all the internal adjustments we can think of, but without taking in some of the external contributions, we have very little.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">It's not a new year just because I walked through the fire lit streets of Beijing instead of huddled in my bed. It's not a new year because I feel renewed confidence in myself and my purpose in the warmth of the Spring festival. It's not because I have a new outlook on life as I learn to speak Chinese to the people I meet. I am old enough to have done all these things before in other countries and in other languages. Yes, these are good and help a person to reinvent oneself, but it's not what I am talking about. What if there really is a difference between the tiger and the rabbit? What if I am really more dependent on external factors than I thought? What if I need the moon to move around the earth just enough times to shed light on my path? Is that really so crazy?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">The Chinese calendar moves in cycles of 60 years. Whether or not one can understand the two interactive systems of the five heavenly elements (in order, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water) in their yin and yang forms and the twelve Zodiac animal signs, it is clear that the calculations are a way to measure time. This ancient system has been in place since the Shang dynasty (1600 BCE -1100 BCE) long before the Gregorian one. Yet both systems recognize man's external relationship with time and perhaps the marking of times and the changing of times. That's what I really needed to remember. Times change and no matter how I handled myself or what I thought or did, different time periods would have perhaps more bearing on my life than my individual will. I found the thought I was looking for when I considered the Cultural Revolution in contrast to succeeding years. During the Cultural Revolution intellectuals were chained, tortured and publicly humiliated. Just years after Mao's death, going to college and being smart made a man a hero in his town. The man who lived through both times was not different; it was the times which were.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">This year is different, for better or worse, for its ebbs and flows, regardless of what I think. I can't help liking that. My efforts are only a piece of the complex puzzle of existence. Timing plays a big part, a huge part in all of this no matter which calendar you use. It's the only way to explain certain things. Evil spirits and I don't like smoke. I hate to admit that we have anything in common. But that doesn't even matter. What really matters is who is going to be left after the smoke clears? Like the rabbit, I'll be here reflective, gentle and ready for my next jump.</span></div>Madeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817452122295336533.post-92214165995247474242011-02-06T16:41:00.000-08:002011-02-06T16:41:10.960-08:00The Red Ribbon is on Cars and not Lungs<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It's not just because of the Beijing traffic gridlock that the Chinese government has decided to limit new car registration. It's the overwhelming increase in car purchases by the new Communist bourgeoisie. This just means that there is no hope in sight for our lungs. Another day, I can't breathe. We go days on end when the Air Quality Index surpasses 400. That is hazardous according to the American Embassy. On the "crazy bad" pollution days the reading is over 500 which is supposedly the maximum. It's hard to say how a reading could overreach the maximum, but maybe this has symbolic implications which I fail to see or am trying to ignore. The obvious meaning to me is that science is confirming what I already know; it is hard to breathe in Beijing. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have done some qualitative research on the effects of hazardous air pollution and before I lose my ability to think altogether, I must write it down. There is nothing scientific about this research, it is purely anecdotal and conclusively observational, the most fallible kind. But the physical symptoms make it hard to gain mental clarity, I have found. Yes, breathing contaminated air more days than you can count must have some detrimental effect on the brain's ability to function. Perhaps this is just the result of the dulling headache that persists in strange throbbing ways. Thinking is like trying to find a sharp edge in pea soup. The cognitive functions seem to mirror what the brain sees, haze. Indistinct images appear and disappear in the thick smoke; I think those were buildings. Sight is casualty. One has to strain to see and I am sure unwanted contaminants are attaching to my retina. I have had to increase the magnification on my reading glasses 100%. During the day it looks like the sky decided not to come out. At night, the colored lights of the city blur into bizarre, unrecognizable shapes. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It's surreal at first, but after a few days of heavy pollution the physical effects start to impinge not only on the intellectual processing centers of the brain, but also the emotional. On good days I have trained myself not to look beyond the immediate. My first year in Beijing, I thought this was a great Buddhist practice. I was living in the present, not looking outside myself for validation. The sphere I focused on was the space of about five feet. My motivation was not based on external conditions, but instead it came from a place the size a small bread box inside my solar plexus. I remember last year everyone said it had never been so bad. "This is the worst it has ever been". Until of course this year, this November. The bread box theory worked for a couple of days and then started to disintegrate of its own accord. Turning inwards is not so pleasant with the head and stomach seething. Other side effects are dizziness, loss of coordination, disorientation and heart palpitations.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I might sound like a hypochondriac, but I swear I am not. Most of us Beijingers (definition for my unscientific purposes: residents of ten months or more annually) try to carry on with our days pretending we are not subjugated by the poor air. We are so beleaguered by insufficient levels of oxygen, we don't have the strength to talk about it. Low level exhaustion is a constant. It feels as if some days you never wake up, because what you see is unreal, dreamlike. I'm sure depression is an escalating risk here. How could it not be? Detached from a recognizable reality, I go through days with a sickening floating feeling. There is no other way to describe it.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I didn't want to do it, but I decided to look up what I was breathing. I knew it was going to be a list of chemicals with names that sound like monosodium glutamate for the lungs. The most common pollutants according to the U.S. Embassy are ozone (the bad kind which is a result of a reaction between different oxides of nitrogen), inhalable coarse and fine particles, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. I have no idea what any of these are, but I get it, it's not good. Of course, then I found the actual index and now I know why I feel the way I do. A good day in Beijing the reading is in the 200's. That's "very unhealthy". </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">0 to 50 Good </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">51 to 100 Moderate </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">101 to 150 Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">151 to 200 Unhealthy </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">201 to 300 Very Unhealthy</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">301 to 500 Hazardous </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Knowing more is only making me realize I better not have any long term plans to stay in Beijing. Each of those distinct pollutants has a different set of hazardous effects. According to the U.S. Embassy, "ozone affects the lungs and respiratory system in many ways." This can cause "coughing, throat soreness, airway irritation, chest tightness, or chest pain." There is more. That is only one element of the bad air. Breathing particles may cause people to experience chest pain, shortness of breath and fatigue. "Particle pollution has also been associated with cardiac arrhythmias and heart attacks." That's enough, don't you think? "Carbon monoxide enters the bloodstream through the lungs and binds to hemoglobin, the substance in blood that carries oxygen to cells. It reduces the amount of oxygen reaching the body’s organs and tissues." This sounds like a horror movie. Carbon monoxide affects mental alertness and vision in healthy people. I wish I never looked this up. I haven't even gotten to the effects of sulfur dioxide.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I can't breathe. I guess the unscientific research had already made this evident. Having it confirmed, though, means I am not losing my faculties due to age and puts new meaning on "crazy bad". I wish there were a happy ending to this, a big ribbon to wrap up this package for the Beijing inhabitants, holiday cheer to see us into the Western New Year, but the truth is that there were 20,000 new cars sold in Beijing the first week of December (</span></span><a href="http://www.asiaone.com/Motoring/News/Story/A1Story20101209-251794.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://www.asiaone.com/Motoring/News/Story/A1Story20101209-251794.html</span></span></a><span style="color: black; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">). For the Chinese, owning a car is an important status symbol. It is part of the new world order. It doesn't matter what the government does to regulate registration or how many people they put on the street with flags to control the flow of traffic. The Chinese are going to keep buying cars. The red ribbon is on the cars not the lungs in Beijing. Merry Christmao!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div>Madeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817452122295336533.post-58479827464705667282010-11-28T16:43:00.000-08:002010-11-28T16:43:36.525-08:00Old Beijing Bus Stop<div id="AOLMsgPart_1_30a48f4a-e227-4966-87a2-1ff92e5382db"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><div style="font: 12px Helvetica; margin: 0px;">Old Beijing Bus Stop</div><div style="font: 12px Helvetica; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12px Helvetica; margin: 0px;">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 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">the</span> </span></span>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.</div><div style="font: 12px Helvetica; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12px Helvetica; margin: 0px;">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 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Beijing</span> </span></span>ground.</div><div style="font: 12px Helvetica; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12px Helvetica; margin: 0px;">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.</div><div style="font: 12px Helvetica; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12px Helvetica; margin: 0px;">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.</div><div style="font: 12px Helvetica; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12px Helvetica; margin: 0px;">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? </div><br />
<div style="clear: both;"></div></span></div>Madeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817452122295336533.post-45691600323573905092010-10-31T19:48:00.000-07:002010-10-31T19:48:27.181-07:00"Sawadee Kha": Safety Procedures<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For "my friend" Kendra </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Sitting in the Chiang-Mai airport, the slurring of consonants and the lilting intonation over the loud speaker apparently call passengers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People all over the room gather their belongings and families together and move in the direction of gate 15.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one looks familiar to me, no one looks like me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it is 11 o'clock at night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a strange, almost eerie feeling to be in such an unknown place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet as soon as I settle into my chair, I realize how much there is to see in an airport waiting room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The combinations of people together, the variations in races.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the problem is- we feel we have something to lose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is this a fear of risking?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An attachment to things?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Attachment to identity?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To what we know?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">What do people feel they need to protect?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just wanted to think this through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First we protect ourselves-from death, injury, illness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The amazing thing is that for white people, Asia is safer than Europe or America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the idea that we are in physical danger is false and made up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do horrible things happen to people in these places?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You bet, but it is not the non-stupid white person who is at risk.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I know people fear they will be taken advantage of or that their property is in potential danger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have to admit that this can happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have heard of pocketbook snatchers, although no one ever seemed to look twice at my open bag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, one has to negotiate prices for goods and services in advance so there is agreement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The taxi to the apartment cost under three dollars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A tuk tuk for two hours cost almost eight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think <b>we</b> might have ripped <b>him </b>off in the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone is bargaining for the lowest prices or the highest depending on what end of the negotiation you are on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At times you will walk away with a deal on a gold Buddha head that you don't feel quite right about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You think you may have bargained too hard and left the seller with little profit margin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whoever carved the statue must have made but pennies and your stinginess is the root cause of their poverty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it had even been blessed in a monastery.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then when we went to pay, the price jumped exponentially to 460 baht and it wasn't even a good massage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The masseuse simply rubbed oil all over our feet ignoring the pressure points which would have surely been hit if we were in China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I insisted and said we wouldn't pay the extra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a lot of back and forth through the beaded doorway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn't want to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first I refused, but I had no choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I looked back at my friend as if to ask, "will I return? And will you come get me if I don't?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was also looking for assent, but I knew I couldn't hesitate too long or it could be construed as...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I turned and went in pretending I was an American female James Bond, unafraid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw what I had dreaded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Massage girls crouching on the floor around a foot high round table eating mushy greyish food from bowls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I held my breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don't like stinky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wasn't sure I wanted to see where we were going next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems a small dingy corridor lead behind the shop next door where schools of skin eating fish were in tanks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had seen this all over Chiang-Mai.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end, we paid too much but not quite what they wanted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We left quickly and unharmed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">People fear feeling uncomfortable and not able to continue with their habits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are someone who expects to do the same thing at the same time every day, you will be challenged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have endured smells I don't have the words to describe and would never have imagined could exist but in a nightmare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is all true.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Perhaps people fear losing their beliefs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are these their culturally ingrained customs?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As if, if they walk barefoot in a Buddhist temple they will then somehow be Buddhist?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We fall back on wonder and shock when we do or see anything outside of our limited view of ordinary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt personally offended.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then I had to think this through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what I have come to realize is that this arrangement gives both what they need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if it is only financial security.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That has got to be better than wondering where your next meal is coming from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of this really jeopardizes who I am and what I want out of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you know who you are and what you believe in, it does matter what anyone else does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And although what you believe in may change with experience, you are the one, after all, who decides this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides, I really liked waking barefoot in the temples and I may even chant Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya subconsciously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I figure I could use all the help I can get.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Aren't all these fears about losing some kind of control?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you lose control- a spiral of destruction waits just outside lingering to wreak havoc like the devil waiting to lead you astray?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if the man in the saffron robes makes you doubt yourself or his beliefs seem to come into contrast with yours?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would this be the end of the world?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you really need to protect against this?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The question I ask myself now is, do I really want to protect myself against the irreplaceable challenges that traveling has faced me with?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I ask myself, what am I really protecting and is it worth it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this has happened to me in the US as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We also think that only in the US will we get quality medical treatment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There is a reason the world is round.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It defies our linear logic -if we projected our linear logic it would go right off into the cosmos-into the stars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Profound wisdom must have a circumference-must wrap around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It holds every single dot of existence, making a point insignificant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no hierarchy in terms of place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And none of them are really given a preference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A globe is a true whole unlike a point or a line-it has so many dimensions.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I am in Asia on "the other side" of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This place always seemed so far away when I was growing up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This must be what we say to each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This idea must be passed down from one generation to another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For my parents Asia was further away- and for each generation it will come closer and closer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is 13 hours away by plane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Rome is 9 hours away and that never seemed so far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ideas originated in the mind are not always true. Ideas need to be tested and challenged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a strange tension in the mind- a paradox?- I am now in the place that was once so far away.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There are so many things to know and understand-that you would never be able to get- if you had never been to Asia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First of all, It is four hours by plane from Beijing to Bangkok.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bangkok always occupied a dark spot in my mind-which must have come from the movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I imagined it inherently uncivilized, what I experienced was quite the opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"Sawadee Kha", the stewardesses bow in unison at the end of the safety procedures.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
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</div>Madeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817452122295336533.post-77798337331837875932010-10-31T19:36:00.000-07:002010-10-31T19:36:49.429-07:00A Grub in the Thai Jungle<span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For "my friend" Kendra </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Then we took another plane from Bangkok to Chiang-Mai, the second largest city in Thailand where Thaksin was from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a rambling, loosely organized city devoid of skyscrapers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It does not have the massive numbers of people that Beijing has, so we feel put at ease.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Ironically, since it is still very busy, with a lot of movement.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is warm and tropical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are but a short drive from Burma and Laos. Which explains why in its extenisve history, it was originally controlled by Burma (1296).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was made part of Siam in 1933. All I can think is that there are stories here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This implies that it is still grown in Burma and Laos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least now I know where the Mekong River is and I find out it is the third longest after the Nile and Amazon. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There is another ornate Buddhist temple every few feet, 121 to be precise within the city limits, 300 in all here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Screaming traffic by the incensed gold stupas is a vision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Young monks barefoort in saffron robes, everyone removes their shoes to enter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our tuk tuk driver tells us he only spent seven days as a monk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is something you can do when you have money, not when you are poor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dedication to spiritual practice is a luxury that many can't afford.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought when you couldn't earn a living in the West, a last option was to join a monastery.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt myself present, my breath dropped-I became almost instantaneously calm-peaceful-whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The temples were not crowded as the tourist season is from November to mid-February.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Walking barefoot around the temple grounds, absorbing the good blessings that have accumulated after centuries of meditation in this place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was certainly a different vibration, a different air quality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Entering the temple where many giant gold statues of Buddhas preside are altars with flowers and incense and many replicas of enlightened beings.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The old city is still bound with the crumbling old walls, a moat surrounding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tiny streets, intricate single lanes tangle together and even a map won't help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you venture down one you will see gardens and shacks or manicured two story teak houses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every walk of life side-by side and at the present, at peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On every corner a small Buddhist shrine-a gold house on white stilts, fresh incense burns.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Curries-red, green-coconut milk and chilies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love the Thai soups and vegetables-fish soufflés in banana leaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went to Thai cooking school for a day and made spring rolls and Pad Thai, pumpkin in coconut milk(what else).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kaffir limes-the bumpy kind-smashed garlic, don't take off the skins and bird's eye chili-don't swallow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time I had gotten back to China, my digestive track might never be the same again.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This seems to be a handicraft and weaving capital.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The merchants seem to be constantly setting the goods out and taking them down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is more stuff than could ever be sold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Supposedly the Thai government is supporting the hillside tribes-the Hmong, the Karen and the Mien<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They still live in their traditional ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Hmong live in the mountains and now only come down for education, commerce and to work in the fields.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The women do the weaving, take care of the children, stay home-the men can have many wives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There many types of Karen the white, the red, the long neck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The white are the ones where the women have to wear white if they are virgins. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The women weave and the men, what we saw were the men sleeping behind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is said, if a woman can't weave she cannot have a family-it means she cannot take care of her family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The long necks are the tribes where women wear solid gold for about a foot long wrapped around their necks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long necks are a sign of beauty-but we are told that the gold protects the throat from tiger attacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gold is also worn on the knees for this same reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">My friend and I are on an elephant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elephants are the symbol of Thailand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are many here and are deemed good luck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not a dream, but it feels like one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mantra from this point on is, don't react.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don't let them see you react.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is what they are looking for.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The next stop was bamboo rafting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one told us to bring a change of clothes or our bathing suits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All I can think is, do any of these businesses have insurance?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This whole thing is a civil suit waiting to happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our mantra came in handy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It became a game of his to slap the surface of the water near us in order to splash and get us wet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Really, who was going to stop them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, I assured my friend that no reaction was the best way we were going to get out of this.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I found myself eating in open air roadside restaurant on the way to the jungle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bare benches, uneven wooden tables and dirt floors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The vegetables were crisp and clean tasting and the boiled potatoes were warm and wholesome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cold Chang beer (I never drink beer) seemed to go well with the meal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I found a simple happiness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A surprising, profound contentment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.3pt 56.65pt 85.0pt 113.35pt 141.7pt 170.05pt 198.4pt 226.75pt 255.1pt 283.45pt 311.8pt 340.15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And it is at that moment that I get the feeling of overwhelming simplicity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are blessings for which you would never know how to pray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And suddenly without any intention on my part, this moment becomes magnified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My life does not expand out, it seems to expand inwards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I am that grub tasting the leaf of the earth, touching it, smelling it, beating on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tremble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am reaching and peering beyond the end of the leaf into the whole terrifying magnificent mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am too dizzy and delirious to say I like it or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it wouldn't matter anyway.</span></div>Madeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817452122295336533.post-38344901785239597952010-09-29T19:19:00.001-07:002010-09-29T19:24:40.652-07:00Guan Yu-God of Wealth 02/10<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">I went to bed with explosions banging outside my Beijing apartment on the fourth night of Chinese New Year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They began again this morning around 8. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today is the fifth day, a very important one in the 15 day celebration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a big one.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">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. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know what to make of the whole Spring festival celebration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There seems to be so much more to it than ushering in the year of the Tiger.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">One thing is for sure, this is the most important Chinese holiday; there can be no doubt about that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My nerves can attest to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A westerner could never imagine the intensity of the first night when the Chinese welcome the deities of heaven and earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I should have suspected something when I saw fireworks tents set up on virtually every corner a week before the big night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My ears are ringing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it is not over.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">There is so much to know about this holiday, so many ancient stories, so many rituals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am sure I won’t begin to understand them this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like the one about the Jade Emperor- Tian Gong-heavenly grandfather-Taoist ruler of heaven, man and hell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the eve of the new lunar year, the Jade Emperor comes down and assesses the deeds of men and rewards and punishes accordingly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His birthday is the ninth day of the festival, so there is clearly more to look forward to.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ritual cleaning of the house and red decorations help dispel evil spirits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ancestors are worshipped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The food preparations begin weeks in advance to ensure large quantities for the New Year’s dinner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">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),<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am going to leave it to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t help wonder how a devoutly secular state can be so superstitious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is this how they became a world economic power?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No doubt some Chinese would say so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When China does rule the world, we will know which gods are honored and what rites are performed on every day of this festival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until then I have learned that the fifth day is for the God of wealth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wonder if Washington knows this when the President meets with the Dalai Lama later today.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><br />
</div>Madeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817452122295336533.post-39086093168952957872010-09-29T19:18:00.001-07:002010-09-29T19:24:18.251-07:00The Moon Festival and Mao Day 10/09<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This year no one could see the table on the other side of the courtyard let alone the moon.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet I think I will keep the box.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">While the Moon Festival is on the 15<sup>th</sup> of the 8<sup>th</sup> lunar month, National Day is celebrated October 1<sup>st</sup>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing is more important than National Day for the Chinese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the 1<sup>st</sup> to the 3<sup>rd</sup> 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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">This is the 60<sup>th</sup> 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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Parades with supernaturally synchronized movements, red flags and the most spectacular display of fireworks make me proud and I am not even Chinese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Security snipers have been posted around central Beijing for a month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Offices and apartments have been taken over and searched and the owners must move out for about three days.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">The city has been given an overnight facelift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instant gardens have sprung up along roads; green netting has been laid over dirt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It looks almost like grass from far away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The best thing about National Day is the fact that the Chinese authorities will surely make it rain tonight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have the power and the technology to do that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And even if this means we will have a “blue sky” day tomorrow, I’ll be watching the parade on TV.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"></span></div>Madeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817452122295336533.post-10937287023900345302010-09-29T19:17:00.000-07:002010-09-29T19:23:57.204-07:00The Puppy, the Rubble and the Guards 09/09<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not sure in what order.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The puppy- a tiny scruffy little thing about the size of two hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I say village- there is a very precise image attached.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long thin single story constructions made of a weak brick and those narrow streets which look more like dirt paths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One “house “ abutts the next, there is no space between dwellings the size of small rooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So here I am trying not to breath, in a dingy café on the periphery of a Chinese village, trying to relax and blend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And wagging her little tail.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">That small dog didn’t know it was grey when it was born white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It didn’t even know that it was stumbling around as it advanced towards the feet of customers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why was it that puppy wouldn’t let me unwind?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could forget the people I saw washing and hanging their whole lives in the dusty street, but that puppy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wouldn’t let me forget and it wasn’t there to make me remember either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t tell you what it was and what it meant, but I haven’t been the same since.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was two weeks ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t let myself think about it at all or about what has happened to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just can’t.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of a sudden a teacher in our shuttle bus cries out, “Hey, that was a village, wasn’t that a village?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we look and see debris in piles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The feeble bricks are maybe more solid than soil, but not much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And now they are in small clumps which amount to nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Total and complete destruction and there is not even a sign of a ball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyday we drive by, fewer structures remain and more piles accumulate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And men sit around in circles in plastic chairs amidst the ruins and …talk?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Men seem to do this here in the most unlikely places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can look in the woods and see cinder blocks on end in a circle and bikes parked on the road nearby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some men, usually older, have gathered to talk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know, next I will have to imagine what they are saying.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Guards in grey suits stand at attention everywhere we turn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most are skinny, so skinny their pants would fall down if it weren’t for their belts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every time we come by they stand up straight with their hands firmly at their sides, when they greet each other they salute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the compounds where westerners live they watch the front gate, the back gate and are stationed at doors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A little “Ni hao” here and “ni hao “ there gets the foreigners pretty far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But between Chateau Regalia and school is Merlin Champagne, Rits Garden, Lemon Lake, Capital Paradise, Dragon Bay Villas, Yosemite Park and Beijing Riviera.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are just a few of the compounds where foreigners live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I am not kidding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All around there are guards, taking it very seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As if there were any real danger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have never felt as safe in a US or European city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Man, they have good fireworks here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was like the Fourth of July and the Battle of the Bulge all in one, except of course without the causalities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><br />
</div>Madeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817452122295336533.post-77074299313388583512010-09-29T19:15:00.000-07:002010-09-29T19:23:26.674-07:00The Village beside the Castle 09/09<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">I went for a walk in the village adjacent to school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly this encampment has not yet been cleared away to make room for “Modern China”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These villages, I am learning, are much the same everywhere throughout the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People are doing their simple washing in basins in the narrow street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A woman picks out one crude pot and rubs her hand over it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dark water falls away and the misshapen container is set on the brick wall beside her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An old man with a bundle of sticks is clearing (sweeping?) the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moving dirt and debris from one place to another</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">I wanted to look in, to see inside the houses and imagine the life which took place there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it was unreal, like a park for a time gone by. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had to keep reminding myself that these were not characters in an ancient novel, but people trying to live their lives.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">The rooms were very small and the windows had no screens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything looked put together from something else, makeshift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mattresses on the floor in a room almost the same size and ceilings so low I could lift my arm to touch them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw a room I would have had to bend my head to get into.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tiny tables that looked like the kind in a forgotten preschool program and miniature chairs were lined up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps a restaurant or was there an arrangement between families?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would people be coming back from work tonight and relaxing and enjoying themselves in this tiny room? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t imagine more than three people in the place that had diminutive chairs for twenty-four.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Some of the walls and brick had once been painted white, yellow, red but they had not retained the color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Age mingled with the hues in a dingy claim that left all the walls a shade of grey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ragged time had grown on these walls and had infected its people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were propping the old village up enough to get through another lifetime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A mirror faced the chair, nothing else was in the room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">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<sup>st</sup> century, monolithic and huge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the place children with opportunities would go everyday, but the people of this village would only go there to clean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And still they greeted us with a smile and a wave “bye-bye”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the edge of town that stayed with me through the night though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the smell of the other side of China—human excrement is not to be confused with any other smell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Human excrement, it must have been some kind of public toilet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Human excrement, not just a waft, but an enduring, relentless reality that went on for 100 yards. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dank stench made me want to gag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And people walked on this end of town, coming and going to work every day.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">I had to go home and take a bath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That night it haunted me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The smell never left me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that night it dawned on me why my foot massages are so cheap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div>Madeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817452122295336533.post-2167209455013636082010-09-29T19:13:00.000-07:002010-09-29T19:22:44.147-07:00Massive, Oriental Lillies, Foot Massages 09/09<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Beijing is built on a scale of greatness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one should ever underestimate the Chinese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beijing is said to be 100 miles by 112 miles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is massive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My feet were killing me-so I did find the Dragonfly and had a two hour massage for about $60.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I may never be the same again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, according to Chinese philosophy I am sure never to be the same again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything is always changing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">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?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I can allow change to happen, expect change to happen. So I can live.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">After all, I am in a place where I care about different things than I had ever thought of-<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a typhoon hits Taiwan, finally I care about things on the other side of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally I care about the Eastern hemisphere, because I am here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am trying to learn Chinese and it is hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My head hurts from even trying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are sounds and details in tone I can’t imagine ever mastering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even counting to ten is an ordeal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I am good at languages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How many of us have completely ignored those sounds, have never tried, have no idea?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this is not the unknown, I don’t know what is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I realize where I am I can’t believe it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So much has happened in a week.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The most amazing thing is that my favorite flowers, oriental lilies, are really inexpensive here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For twelve stems I pay under $10- just 60 kuai.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kuai is “bucks” for yuan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the states they cost 12 dollars a stem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps when you allow the tides of time to take you, you may find what is most pleasing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The flower lady at school comes every Monday for orders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am going to get a dozen oriental lilies a week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Flowers and foot massages are my greatest indulgences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I save so much money in every other aspect of my living that I can really enjoy them.</span></div>Madeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817452122295336533.post-47558860077809000342010-09-29T19:11:00.000-07:002010-09-29T19:22:02.448-07:00The Beijing Chronicles Begin 09/09<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let them eat noodles for breakfast and noodles for snack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like noodles and I ate all the noodle meals on the plane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the sun never set that night.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">On my first day in China, the sky was out and even blue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the only Ikea from Beijing to Shanghai.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They built it and the Chinese come in droves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time we left, it was a wall-to-wall warehouse of household goods and Chinese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Chinese came crowding in to get a feel of the kitchen towels, to study the utensils, to inspect the hangars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they were allowed to sleep on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whole families come to Ikea to visit, sitting in the chairs in the display living rooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or the gentleman we have seen on several rugs in the store sitting cross-legged and meditating?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is completely undisturbed by the people rubbing by.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Bureaucracy and saving face or should it be saving face and bureaucracy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The simple tasks like buying a cell phone can reveal so much about a country. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His eager, smiling face lifts the phone to explain the feature.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Ni chin fuoo shikuai yuan chong nung- that’s not real Chinese</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Yes, that looks very nice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll take that one.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once he has done that I can go with my scrap of paper to a central location where two women sit behind a desk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one is speaking a word of English except me and I am not at all embarrassed by my stranger status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can read numbers so I hand over 609 kuai for my simple Nokia which will only work in China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I understand is that I can buy other sim cards when I go to other countries and simply swap one out for another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That seems like a good deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">One of the new hires though made the mistake of asking for an iron which was in fact out of stock in the store.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Chinese cannot tell you such a thing-“we are out of stock on that item”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>because it is a matter, even this, of saving face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They do not want to lose face by telling you that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So a BIG problem had its origins with the out of stock iron.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The matter could not be sorted out.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">“The Chinese drive like they walk, if there is a space they will take it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the first generation with cars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There have been a lot of changes in just the last eight years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the farmland is being taken up and developed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are the neighborhood compounds built up for expatriates and the nouveau riche Chinese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where we live looks a little like Pleasantville or a set on the Truman show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are some cars parked outside, but mostly they are ghost towns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You hardly ever see anyone.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">But assume that your emails are read, your telephone calls are monitored and your whereabouts is being tracked at every minute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you have a bad day in a traffic jam, be careful, what you say.</span></div>Madeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817452122295336533.post-61407308251064002062010-09-29T18:54:00.000-07:002010-09-29T19:20:56.176-07:00American Emigration 08/09<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">I’m an American emigrant in China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the first time in my 47 years, I decided to go for the money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am a teacher and going for the money is not exactly a motivation I knew. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was thinking public relations, editor, non-profit organizations, and admissions at my alma maters (NYU and Dartmouth).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got nothing, not a call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But giving up was not an option, so I joined not one but three agencies which place teachers in schools abroad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At this point I was ready to do anything, go anywhere for a well paying job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t afford (literally) to be picky.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">As I did research, my sights started to narrow on China. After an interview in San Francisco, I landed a job in Beijing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I signed the contract anyway and here I am.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I found it in China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here I have a choice of luxury apartments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The school pays for my Chinese taxes and since I don’t break $80,000, I will be exempt in the U.S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">There are a few more advantages that make this sacrifice worthwhile; one is the fact that teachers are honored here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The way we are treated with respect by the community we serve, parents, administrators, and students alike makes all the difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My visa says that I am a “foreign expert”; when was the last time an American teacher was seen as an “expert”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only does my pay increase every year, but there are bonuses for continuing the contract because experience and age are valued as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I really can’t see why I would come back or how I could swing it financially.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have to admit now that I want the American dream just like the next gal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I found it in China.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><br />
</div>Madeline Raynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240185006243391880noreply@blogger.com0