Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Whoops.

I was a bitter kid in high school, with some very jaded friends. One day, two of my friends--who will remain anonymous--and I were sitting around the lunch table when one of my friends said "You know what, we should create a misogynist's club," and I, in my infinite wisdom said "Yea, we could call ourselves the three masseuses!" Of course I attempted making a brilliant pun on "The Three Stooges," (never mind a masseuse is female) only to find that I made an equally ignorant, but hilarious, malapropism on the word misogynist. After hours of derision, I discovered that misogynist is someone who hates the female race, and has absolutely nothing to do with massages. In essence my friends said "Hey let's create a club for jaded guys who hate women," while I was saying "Yea, and we could call ourselves the three girls that give massages!" In the preceding blog post, I intended the word misogynist to be a malaproptastic throw back to the glory days of high school.

The misspelling of dam however...

I can't explain it really; I never set out to misspell dam or introduce PG rated cuss words into my blog. I don't know what brought it on. It's been fifteen years since I contemplated how adding "n" to a word makes it dirty, or rather how the subtracting "n" from a word can make it clean. However, I have to admit, the entire time I was writing yesterday's post, there was a transcendent mother figure in the back of my head screaming "You shouldn't use that word in your blog! That word is too close to a dirty word! Do you know who reads this thing?! What if they skimmed over the paragraph, read it wrong, and thought you meant the bad word?" To which I replied (to the transcendent mother figure in the back of my head) "What am I, seven? Damn is not a bad word!"

Apparently I never overcame those language insecurities: I subconsciously misspelled dam five times, reread the post two times, and didn't notice my mistake until some friends pointed it out the next morning (at that point I screamed "Mother I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do it mother!).

It's only a matter of time before I dress up like my transcendent mother figure, take my dictionary to the shower, and slice it up with the huge butcher knife.

But, I feel I have to explain this thoroughly, because in misspelling dam I inadvertently stuck two malapropisms in one blog post where I only attended one. One was glaring (Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!) while the other is easily missed unless you are writing a term paper on Web Log of Madman. With that being said "damgate" as I would like to call it, was totally unplanned and slightly hilarious. That was the point of this post.

Of course, I now feel like that shrink that arrives, explains everything that has happened in the last ninety minutes, and kills all the fun and suspense of a slightly funny and delightfully ambiguous blog post. Oh well, have a good day.

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."

P.s. Dictionary? I wouldn't even harm a fly.

p.s.s. Ok. So I've waited twenty minutes for one of the 18 flies in my apartment to land on my hand so I could type "There is a fly crawling on my hand right now; creepy." But the little buggers arn't being friendly tonight. Sometimes things just don't go your way.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Yichang!

Something magical happened last weekend: I left Enshi. The destination: Yichang. My favorite punctuation for this paragraph: the colon. My mood: the happiness. It was: great. Item being revoked if my former teachers see this blog post: my diploma. Dig: it.

I wouldn't say it was a monumental day in my life, but I made a lot of big steps. I travelled by myself in a country where I don't speak ten words of the language (well, I wasn't by myself, but I didn't know a soul). I've always been hesitant to travel alone--I don't think anyone enjoys doing it, unless you're one of those crazy nut-job Peace Corps people--but something happened on Friday that made me grow up and travel by myself. I can't explain what. I think I decided that life here was far worse than any Deliverance nightmare that could happen in the Chinese country side. So my students took me to the bus stop and I hopped a ten hour Chinese sleeper bus ride to the metropolis of Yichang, home of my friends.

I rode a Chinese sleeper bus from EnShi to Yichang. In China, there are two types of buses: sleeper buses and sitter buses. The sleeper buses are nice, because if you are under 5' 4" you have the opportunity to sleep the entire trip in comfort. The sitter buses, according to my students, are the scourge of humanity. I rode the sleeper bus on the way there, and a sitter bus on the way back. On the sleeper bus I had a cot to my own, a blanket, and a nice window view of the Chinese country side. On the sitter bus (really a van), I was wedged in-between chain smokers and a vomiting baby, a loud-man driver who stopped the van every twenty minutes to pick up hitch hikers, and a guy who kept hocking loogies and spitting them on the floor. I prefer the sitter. I like my space.

I arrived in Yichang at six in the morning with a massive stomach ache and two hours of rest. Yichang is an interesting place. It's home to the largest free-standing damn in the entire stinking world (no really): the Three Gorges Damn, a massive construction project that once fully operational will be capable of destroying small c-class planets and giving power to close to four hundred million people ("Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battlestation!" bu wah ha ha ha). But I didn't see the damn. Yichang has much cooler things to offer: American friends!

I have some old friends from my college days (you know like last May) who teach at the Three Gorges University in Yichang, and they are super-awesome. When I got there, Brad, Beth and Amy--who have been here over a year and are pretty much fluent in Mandarin Chinese--had a whole day planned of showing me the city, and it rocked. The happiest I've been in China.

The day started out with an hour nap; then Brad cooked banana pancakes for everyone. After recovering from my stomach ache (non-pancake related) Brad and I headed out to lunch with three other students. During this time, I saw some Indians (Indians!), which just goes to show the differences between Yichang and Enshi. I'm pretty sure most of the people in my city have never seen a person with dark skin, ever.

Around four, my friends decided to go to the local Yichang House of Pain. When we arrived, we were ushered to a shady basement room where a Chinese misogynist administer unspeakable amounts of torture to my feet for the two inhuman hours. They never got me to talk, but they tried: they boiled my feet using steam, they hit pressure points on my burnt feet, they painted my tootsies in hot wax, they even raked my feet with some sort of device they lovingly called "The cow-bone." And when that didn't work, they walked on my back. I'd rather not talk about it. The pain is gone but the memories will linger forever...

And then we went to Pizza Hut! Which, in case your wondering, is akin to a fine French restaurant in America. We were greeted by a hostess at the door, and we had to wait! Amazing. The pizza's good stuff too, and it tastes just like American pizza and costs just as much. The entire time I was thinking about my Pizza Hut at home where you can normally hear conversations such as: "And I told him to git outta here before I called the cops, because I know for a fact that issa ill-eagle for an ambulance worker to talk about who he done picked up and I don't care who he picked up or just what that guy did in High school, because he shouldn't be coming in here and talking about his job like that and whats your last name again? That'll be 13.95."

So goes the night. Yichang is a beautiful place, and I am so thankful to have friends there. The little weekend trip saved my sanity and probably is, like I said, the happiest I will ever be in China. Thank you friends. I spent 23 hours in the town and 22 hours on the road, but it was worth it. There is a ton more to write about the journey, but I have promises to keep, and kilometers to go before I sleep, and kilometers to go before I sleep.

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."

p.s. I also picked up some awesome DVD's there. Yichang has an American DVD alley. We went there in-between the torture and Pizza Hut.

p.s.s. Can you find the malapropism in this blog post?

Thursday, November 22, 2007

The Thanksgiving Post

This post won't be long. I know I have been writing candidly about my feelings these last few days. However, Thanksgiving went really well. That's it for today. I'll write more about it soon. It's late.

Happy Thanksgiving.

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Well, about that whole Indian thing...

I have a funny story which may become muddled under the lingo, but I hope you in enjoy it. I was giving a lecture on Thanksgiving today in class; I know it has nothing to do with spoken English, but I ran out of things to teach the second week of October.

In the beginning, the Pilgrims left their country because of a certain kind of persecution. When the Pilgrims arrived in America, they met the Indians who taught them how to plant crops and grow food. Therefore, when the Pilgrims had an overabundance of food next Autumn, they invited the Indians over for a meal to thank them for being helpful. The Pilgrims called this meal "Thanksgiving". They called it this because they were a Certain People who were thankful to a Certain Person. The Pilgrims thought this was such a good idea, they decided to eat this meal every year in order to remember how this Certain Person helped them through their hard times.

Then someone asked a question (probably the third question that has been asked all semester):
"So do the Indians and the Pilgrims still do this today?"
"Umm, no Tina, no they don't."
"Why not?"
"Umm. They just don't."
"Why not?"
"Well because all the white people killed all the Indians."
"The Pilgrims killed the Indians?"
"No the Pilgrims did not kill the Indians."
"But if they were a Certain Kind of people why did they kill the Indians?"
"No the Pilgrims didn't kill the Indians. The Pilgrims were peaceful and the Indians were peaceful and they had a meal together," (keep in mind, the majority of my class doesn't know the word "Peaceful")
"But you said they killed the Indians."
"No I didn't. Later in history, much later, more white people came over from England and killed the Indians."
"So were these white people a Certain Kind of people?"
"Yes, wait no. Wait yes. I don't know."
"So if the Pilgrims were sick and dying when it was really cold, why didn't the Indians kill them then?"
"No, the Indians were peaceful; they didn't kill anyone. The Pilgrims were peaceful too. Nobody killed anybody. White people killed the Indians much later in history."
"So the Pilgrims had a certain meal thanking a Certain Person, and then they killed all the Indians?"
"Look WHITE PEOPLE are not Pilgrims (wait a second). Pilgrims are white, but they are not the people that killed the Indians. Other white people, who were not a Certain Kind of people (wait a second), killed the Indians much later. America was a very rich country, lots of money in the land. America had gold and silver, and white people wanted what the Indians considered their land. When the Indians fought back the White people had guns and the Indians didn't so they lost."

It's very simplified, but I'm talking on a third grade vocabulary here. Also, Chinese students are like sharks, when they smell blood they attack with unmerciful tenacity. No one asks questions in any of my classes, but the second I look vulnerable I'm like the President in a news conference. All my students starting asking questions.

"But you said the Indians were peaceful." Someone else said.
"Look they were peaceful in the beginning. There are lots of different Indians, some were peaceful some weren't. The pilgrims met peaceful Indians, and they had a meal together because everybody was peaceful."
"So all the white people killed the Indians and the Indians didn't fight back?"
"No the Indians fought back later, they even fought each other, they just didn't win because the white people had guns."
"So the Indians helped the Pilgrims grow food and then the Pilgrims killed the Indians?"
"No! Did I not just say they had a meal together? Did I not just say they were peaceful? The Indians helped them plant food and then the Pilgrims invited the Indians over as a way of saying thank you for helping them. No one killed anyone. It was peaceful. Nobody killed anybody!"
"So why didn't the government stop them?"
"Look there was no government, did I not just say they came to America because nobody was there? They came to America before anybody came to America, before it was a country."
"But you said they landed at the state of Massachusetts."
"It wasn't the state of Massachusetts then! It was just a piece of land! They landed at what is now the state of Massachusetts! They left their country for a piece of land that would later be called Massachusetts, on a piece of land that would later be called America! They left England for America because nobody was there!"
"But you said the Indians were there when the Pilgrims got there."
"Yes the Indians were there when the Pilgrims got there. The Pilgrims came to America because there were no white people in America."
"Do you hate Indians because you're white?"
"Look I don't hate Indians. I'm 1/32 Indian myself. It's not a great time in American history, ok, nobody is proud of it. The Indians now live on big pieces of land in the middle of nowhere. The point is, the Pilgrims came and they were peaceful. The Indians helped them and they were peaceful. They had a meal together giving thanks and they called it Thanksgiving. Nobody killed anybody!"
"So why don't they eat together today?"

Ugh. I hate teaching. Today I walked to the back of class to find, to my extreme horror, that a student was playing with a live turtle. I don't know if playing is the right word. The student had placed in on top of something so the turtle couldn't move. She was sadistically watching the turtle flail its legs and arms in a desperate, yet futile, attempt to get away. It was a form of entertainment for her, just like the archetypal spoiled child that never learns to respect animals (see "Finding Nemo"). Yes, I'm teaching college. What did I do about it? Absolutley nothing.

Because? I am one snide remark, one hateful glance, or one tortured animal away from going the book of Judges on one of my classes. When I lose it, I'm going to lose it big: I'm going to knock over a water cooler or a 100lb. lecturn or destroy a chair or some other form of primal aggression to remind my class that I am, in fact, three times bigger than any one in the room. It's been brewing in me for a long time. I just can't take it any more. I've tried talking over the class. I've tried teaching 50 students a subject I know nothing about. I've tried asking them to be quiet. They don't care, I don't care. So I might as well scare the bejuses out of them so I can teach the last four weeks in peace, and because I've been slowly losing my mind since I got here (I've resorted to fear of physical harm as a way of keeping order in a classroom? It's like I'm using the dark side of the force). At the very least I'll yell for ten mintues and then leave the classroom for the rest of the day. I really don't care; because what's the worst they can do? Fire me? (I've been living by that mantra for two months now).

Looking back on it, I should have learned their names (even though it's pretty difficult to learn the names of 140 girls that all look the same, especially when they change seats every time you make a new seating chart), so I could discipline them personally. It's too late for that now. I hope it doesn't happen, but I almost did it today, and I almost did it yesterday. And I never had a temper. What is happening to me?

Happy Thanksgiving!

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."

p.s. Before today, everyone in my oldest class did not know the words: issue, especially, recieve, describe, influential, source, invent, aggressive, proud, conflict, excessive, narrow, difference, and physical.

Describe? They've been learning English for 5 years and they don't know the word describe?

p.s.s. What's that movie starring William H. Macy that we watched in Dr. Prill's class? The one where the professor begins the movie on the verge of getting tenure and ends the movie beating the snot out of one of his students? Ok, it's Oleanna. I knew all along. I feel like William H. Macy. Everything is getting to me: this life is taking years off my life.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Another post.

Without further ado, I present to you the top ten answers to the top ten questions asked to foreingers in China:

1.Huh? I'm sorry I don't know what you're...Could you spell that?
2.Chinese girls are very pretty, they cook really well too.
3.Umm, I came to Enshi because...
4.Steve Nash
5.Umm, I left America because, umm...
6.January
7.No, I don't plan to get a Chinese girlfriend before January.
8.No, I really don't have the money to go to Beijing for a whole month in August.
9.Let me give you my email instead.
10.It's very spicy.

There a ton of honorable mentions such as: "No I don't have a girlfriend," or "I actually have three or four girlfriends in America," and "No I don't smoke."

The smoking is the saddest part. Every man (not an exaggeration) in this country is a chain smoker, and there will be a lung cancer epidemic in twenty years like the world has never seen. All the men know that it's bad for them, and that knowledge doesn't stop them. Oh well.

Here is one hour in the life of Jonathan Harrison:

5:30: Student from last night knocks on my door to invite me out to dinner with Chinese buisness man. I ignore the knock. He leaves (I will never know how he found out where I live).

5:31: The phone rings.

5:38: Another knock on the door. Presumably my 11 year old friend, but I would rather not take my chances.

5:39: Phone rings.

5:49: Phone rings again.

5:58: Someone else knocks on the door. My guess is Tina and Elsa, two of my students.

5:59: Phone rings.

6:11: Phone rings.

6:21: Phone rings.

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Another long post.

I find it difficult to type this post. Not because I have a burdensome message to convey, but because every time I sit at the computer to write, the only thing that comes out is how much I can't stand living here (I venture to use the word "hate", but realize you should only hate things such as Nazi's and Tennessee football). I also realize that the chronic negative attitude wears on others as much as it wears on myself, and I can only write about it so much before everyone gets tired of hearing it. However, this mood is not something that wavers in and out; it's something that's more persistent than I can possibly explain: I believe the collective time I've been happy to be here amounts to around two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. I can't be false to myself. I would love for this blog to be a travel monologue about all the great things that I have seen and how this is the best decision I've ever made. On the contrary, after 84 days and what I feel is giving this whole thing a fair shot, I would venture to say this maybe the opposite end of the decision spectrum. That's it. I've said my piece, and I will keep it at that. I'll stop, besides the random asides about loneliness, talking about how low I feel.

Here is one anecdote that is partly responsible for the love festival found in the previous paragraph:

I'm one of those people that hate telling someone "no". I try to avoid it all costs. I was informed, before leaving, that the Chinese also hate telling someone "no" and will not press the situation if you politely refuse. I was looking forward to this aspect in the culture, but when I got here I discovered that this only works if you are Chinese: if Americans try to politely refuse, the Chinese press the issue worse than a telemarketer working to feed his wife and five kids (which just goes to show, that if you ever travel to another culture, fully expect all the bad things to apply to you with full force and all the good things to never show up when you need them the most). However I, like most people, have learned to disappoint others at the sake of my own sanity, but this doesn't mean I enjoy doing it.

I picked up the phone at 10:30 tonight; because of the late time, I was expecting it to be someone I enjoyed talking to (i.e. someone from America), only to discover it was an English student from the University across the street.

Now, this merits some explaining. Haley and I teach at a college of 7,000 and there is a University of 27,000 across the street. Through our connections, we've met many of the English majors from the University, and these English majors, understandably, want to become good friends with us in order to improve their English speaking abilities. Knowing these English majors has it's good and bad consequences: they have better English than the majority of our students, so they've been able to help us shop and do a variety of other things; however, they have also been overzealous in their friendships. So Haley and I have had to handle both the social advances of our students (which is what we are paid to do) and the social advances of students across the street. We're handling twice the load than should be expected. Until you've heard your phone ring thirty times in one afternoon, you really don't understand.

So I pick up the phone at 10:30, fully expecting my family on the other end, only to hear a student from the University, and he has a request. Do you remember the joyous blog post from three weeks ago? The blog post where I explained how I woke up at six in the morning to spend ten hours driving through the Chinese country side to see a mountain park that was under construction? Well same student, but this time he, or the business man he knows, wants to take me to the Sichaun province tomorrow morning. We are to leave at eight in the morning and return by three or four.

It's hard to describe the ridiculousness of this trip. This is akin to someone in Nashville calling a good friend and saying "Hey man, were going to drive to Kansas City tomorrow. We will be leaving around eight in the morning and should return by three or four." Sichuan is the home of the pandas, but it's two provinces over (and yes I double checked, he said Sichuan). Three weeks ago, we left at eight in the morning, stayed within the province, and returned around ten at night (after being told we would get back around three or four). Now how in the heck are we going to drive two provinces over and get back by three in the afternoon? I almost said some expletives in the phone about how that was the biggest load of baloney that I had ever heard and if Mr. Business man ever wanted to make a trip that didn't break the laws of nature to go ahead and give me a call because I wouldn't be picking up the phone from here until the end of time...

It would be a difficult trip to conceive even if we flew. I guess we could have gone by plane, but you can only get flights from Enshi to two cities: Wuhan and Chonqching. Neither is in Sichuan. I guess we could have taken a private plane, but I've never seen a private plane fly out of this city. Really it boggles the mind.

I don't care if a family of talking Panda's would have greeted us when we stepped off the plane, I wasn't going on this trip (seriously, even if the Pandas watched UK basketball and listened to Tom Waits, I still wouldn't consider going). So I politely refused; I said I had plans to eat lunch with my neighbors and couldn't make it (the truth). And the guy spent the next ten minutes trying to convince me that I really didn't need to eat lunch with my neighbors, and I needed to go on this trip. Even if the lunch plans were a lie this student had a snowball's chance in heck of convincing me to go on this trip. Nothing irks me more than a person who thinks their impromptu plans are more important than someone else who had the foresight and respect to plan ahead. I never lose my temper with anyone, and I didn't in this situation, but I came awfully close. That's something that never happens in America.

Of course, I was the last of five foreigners to turn the student down, which explains his desperation. But really people? Are we not human? Do we not bleed? Do we sit around staring at the phone thinking "Man I have nothing to do tomorrow. I sure do hope that one guy calls and invites to drive me all over creation because I have nothing but free time on my hands and oh I sure hope he calls because I never get a phone call and I would just be dieing to pick up the phone if it rang right now. And even though if I called him and asked him to do something when it wasn't convenient for him he would politely refuse and I would just have to accept it, and even though if I politely refuse a request it is shoved down my throat like Judas in Lucifer's mouth in the tenth circle of Hell, I certainly hope that phone rings sometimes soon, because I've been doing nothing but waiting all day and..."

Here's the straw: if I picked up my phone, my day would be filled with four or five of these situations. This, along with the stares, the hellos, the ogling, the dinners, etc. make up one day in the life of Jonathan Harrison. But like I said, I'm trying to think more positive from here on out. I swear.

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."

Thursday, November 15, 2007

The Language

Today in class, I heard someone, very quietly, ask their friend "Do you think Mr. Harrison is crazy?"
"Yes Echo," Mr. Harrison said "Yes, I am crazy."
"I was asking Challen."
Well my students think I'm loopy, what else is new? I don't blame them. I sing to myself 95% of class to crowd out the omnipresent screeching in my head that says "YOU ARN'T TEACHING THESE KIDS ANYTHING!" Sometimes I laugh for no reason. Sometimes I dance. Sometimes I stare off into space. Last week a different student in a different class asked me "Why do you hate Enshi?"

It's been a long week. I have been teaching 20+ hours and have given another two hours of lecture. Today I introduced some of my students to the Beatles.

The Language. I am not a linguist. I will never profess to be. In fact, I think I am the opposite of a linguist (whatever that is). Whenever I lost my wanderlust, I also lost my fascination for learning other languages. Although, as I stated earlier, trying to learn Chinese has made me appreciate western languages a lot more than I used to.

Chinese is almost beyond explanation. As many of you know, Chinese is built on tones, and not words. There are a lot less words in Chinese than there are in most other languages; therefore, it's not so much what you say but how you say it. In Chinese, one word can have four different meanings. There are four different tones--one level, one rising, one falling and then rising, and one falling--and the four tones are applied to almost every word. Therefore, if you say one word the wrong way, it has the wrong meaning. For example, the two words Zhu Yuan, the name of our University, also mean the bordello across the street. It's hard to express the limitless awkward situations that arise from a language that works this way.

I also think, and this is the most incorrect opinion ever posted on this blog, that when someone speaks Chinese, the listeners subconsciously choose the meaning that applies to the situation. When I was learning Spanish in high school it was hard to decipher what a native speaker was trying to say, but when I learned more words understanding became easier. When someone speaks quickly in a Western language, you can understand what they are saying because you know the words. When someone speaks quickly in a Eastern language, it's impossible to sit there and decipher just what tone they are using. I know what the tones sound like, but the speed is too quick to hear tones. And I don't think that hearing the tones is something that comes with being immersed in the language for a long period of time. I've been here for over two months, I've been listening for the tones, and I still don't hear 90% of them. Therefore, I think the Chinese hear a word and apply the right meaning to the situation with lightning quick reflexes. I know I'm wrong. This tone-deafness is a product of Western ignorance, but I still wonder why every program on T.V. has subtitles.

Chinese has also helped raise my appreciation of other foreign languages. For one, I have only heard of three words that have the same meaning in Mandarin as in English: Tofu, Typhoon, and Mama (and let me tell you, these come in handy all the time). Other languages are chock full of words that have crossed the language barrier. Mandarin has three. You think, and this boggles the mind, that English speakers would have adopted Chinese words that describe distinctly Chinese objects, such as chopsticks, dragon, or even Pagoda. Nope. Pagoda is Portuguese. Nothing in English makes sense in Mandarin. We're on the other side of the world here. If I had to choose one example of how Eastern and Western cultures are different, the language would be it.

However, I'm apathetic for learning the language. Even in the face of China's mythic economic boom, even with the prospect of a guaranteed job from here until the day I day, and even though it would make life in China a thousand times easier; I don't care to learn the language. To me, learning the language is as interesting as memorizing the breeding habits of squirrels. Why? Because when I look up an English word in a dictionary, I see Latin, German, Spanish or French as the root language, never Chinese. My main beef for learning German in college it was nothing but dead weight unless you ever travelled to Europe. But man, German seems practical compared to Chinese. Of course, two years from now I'll probably be the bush of Africa wondering why I didn't learn Chinese when I had the chance, and how Chinese seems practical compared to a rare strand of Swahili; the grass is always greener...

I guess appreciation of other languages is not Jonathan's strong point. I'll probably never amount to much because of it, but that's ok, because the same fate awaits us all. Well, here's to another lonely day.

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."

p.s. Practical isn't the right word. As far as practicality goes, Mandarin is up there with Spanish. But my dream job is not to speak the language of a culture for which I have a lukewarm affection. I don't think anyone would want to that for a living. Really, I want to give this world travelling a second shot; because I think this is an isolated situation. Everyone who goes abroad loves it, except for me. But you try walking class and having ten seperate groups of people yell "HELLO" like I yell "HERE KITTTY KITTY KITTY" every time I see the neigbhorhood cat. And you try weathering this everytime you go out in public. Anyone would go mad. There is no doubt in my mind.

Monday, November 12, 2007

?

Wow. I'm pretty sure that last blog post was contradictory and didn't have a point. Not my best work. Oh well. I was trying to say that while some people say they enjoy travelling, their definition of travelling in no way resembles what I am doing. And even though I am in a foreign country and not enjoying it, if I was doing what most consider travelling, I would probably be enjoying it. And even though I'm not travelling per se, I just might want to do it sometime in the (far-away) future.

I also meant to say, but failed miserably, that if I was living long-term in a western culture, I might enjoy this a little more. The East is so far removed from everything I know that I find it difficult to relate with any one here.

On some nights I travel to the faux Starbucks down the street. On the wall, there are three Van Gogh's , the foremost being a copy of The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum Arles at Night, a painting for which I have a slight affinity because there has been a poster of it in my sister's old bedroom since I was 13. Every time I stare at The Cafe Terrace, I can't thinking there are probably five people in the entire city who have even heard of Van Gogh, much less know that he painted it. The painting is nothing more than high-brow eye candy being exhibited because of it's ties with Western culture. No one ever looks at it. Nobody even appreciates the beauty. Nobody cares that it's a masterpiece. It's just a thing on a wall that takes up space. A painting that is only wanted because it's from the West. When I look at that painting, I feel like I have more in common with The Cafe Terrace than I do with most people I meet. The only reason I was allowed to come here, the only reason I am oggled at, the only reason I am so popular is because I am from the West. I feel more connected to a work of art than I do most human beings; now that is real loniliness.

Tonight, for the first time, I heard of the story of San Diego. San Diego, probably not his real name, was a nineteen year old guy from San Diego CA. He was good looking, single, and got all the attention in the world from every girl in the city. San Diego taught at the University across the street. He also, you guessed it, breached his contract and left a semester early. Apparently he couldn't take the attention.

San Diego, The Cafe Terrace, and I are going to play poker some day.

I guess that is what I was trying to say.

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."

On Western Culture.

I used to have wanderlust. I'm not really sure what happened. Sometime between seventh grade and college all desires to leave the country left myself. I believe I have covered this earlier in the year. I don't have a desire to immerse myself in other cultures, in fact, I don't understand that desire at all. That translates into other things as well. When I arrived in China, the "cultural high" that everyone talks about lasted 14 waking hours. I think for most people it lasts around two weeks. I first experienced cultural shock in a terminal of the Los Angeles Airport, which is documented by the voicemail to a good friend in which I uttered the now immortal lines "I don't know if your asleep right now, but I'm in the the airport in L.A. calling from a pay phone and I'm pretty sure this is the biggest mistake I have ever made in my entire life." I ate at the airport McDonald's that night because I was already homesick and needed some comfort food (where was I, California?). I maybe the victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy, I'm not throwing that out the window, but nothing has occurred to date to make me think that this should be enjoyable. And everyday that goes by I think "How could anyone want to do this ten months?" But I feel the majority of people who love travelling, have no where close to the same experience that I have. Maybe I'm missing out on something. Well we've been over this before. There will be a quiz on Monday. But with that being said, I think there maybe some point in the future, where I might enjoy travelling to some other foreign countries in the west. Let me explain.

I don't consider what I am doing as "travelling". I find it insulting to call it that. To me, travelling consists of no responsibility, short-term pleasure seeking in foreign countries. I don't see anything wrong with that, as long as the person used some form of self-discipline to earn the money spent while going abroad. Pleasure without self-discipline creates social monsters like Paris, Mary Kate and Ashley (WHY LANCE WHY!!!??). Granted, I did have wonderful beneficiaries who helped me get here, but I also have a full time job--an easy full time job, but a job nonetheless. I also have not left this city in over two months. I would like to challenge those of you who love travelling to go over seas and spend over two months in the small city, without leaving once. If you done this, you have my have my respect, and the right say you love travelling, but I will venture to say that most of you have not. If you do this, you might discover something shocking: that anyplace becomes like "home" after while, in the respect that everything, no matter how different, becomes monotonous and second-nature. Every place has its good and its bad, and every one is basically the same. I didn't need to go 13,000 miles to find that out.

But with that being said, I think I would like to "travel" in the future. I think it would be cool to see other foreign countries--in the west. There are so many times where I here people speak Chinese and I think "Man, what I would pay to be learning German again, that was actually easy and pretty cool compared to this," or French, or Spanish, or ANY Indo-European language (I'll go in-depth on the language later). China is too different for me. Everything is different over here. It's like at some point in the past someone said "Ok were going to make sure we have nothing in common in with everyone else," and everybody did just that. The toilets are different, the food is different, the music is different; everything is different. They even have a "Chinese chess". I can deal with the toilet, the food and the music, but the chess kills me. The call our form of chess (which is the chess everyone else in the world plays) "Western chess." It was invented in INDIA! Is India the west? I'm not sure. It's the straw that breaks the camel's back. The Chess.

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."

P.S. I went mad on projectgutenberg.com today. Not that I plan on reading Two Gentleman of Verona, Twelth Night, Agnes Grey, All's Well that End's Well, As You Like It, The Complete Works of Lord Byron, Dubliners, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Henry V, Henry VI Parts 1-3, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Julius Cesear, King John, King Lear, An Interpretation of The Qur'an, Lyrical Ballads Volumes 1 & 2, Macbeth, Mansfield Park, Measure for Measure, The Tempest, The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an uninhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates; The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer's Night Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Northanger Abbey, Oliver Twist, Othello, Persuasion, Richard II, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Sense and Sensibility, The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volumes 1-3, Taming of the Shrew, and Wuthering Heights all before January, but hey, I got my options.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

My favorite person in Enshi

There are somethings in life that make you laugh. This is one of them. On Friday night I was walking up the stairs to my apartment, when a kid came bounding down the stairs in my direction. Upon seeing who I was, he opened up an English book and began asking me for the correct answer to a few questions. I obliged. Even though I didn't recognize who he was, he said he had something for me and told me to go wait in my apartment. He later showed up at the apartment with some form of Chinese food. And well, I guess a friendship was born. Apparently we had met at a supermarket at some point in the past; I don't really remember when that was, but I'll take his word for it.

I think this kid is a genius. Seriously. He displays a keen sense of empathy and understanding that I have seen in very few people to date. For example, today he took me to the movie theater. Before we left, he bounded up to Haley's door, knocked five or six times and when Haley didn't asnwer returned to where I was standing. He said "Her air-conditioning is on, but she did not answer the door. I think she is home but does not want to go." First, he was able to deduce that Haley might have been home because her air-conditioning was on. Second, he understands that she might be at home but refuses to answer the door because she does not want to go, and he respects that (this trait is not uniform across the culture, someone called my apartment on Thursday night five or six times in succession, the phone rang 49 times. Yes, I counted. About ring 30 they started knocking on my door. Would you want to spend time with someone who calls and lets the phone ring 49 times? Would you want to spend time with someone who thinks that if I don't pick up the phone, I just might answer the door? I mean really). Third, he knew the term "air-conditioning". And while we're on the subject of English, his spoken English is better than the majority of my students. He seldomly asks me to repeat myself, and he understands the majority of things that I say.

And he is eleven.

Yea, eleven. He picks up on social hints quicker than people five times his age. At the movies today (yes an eleven year old boy escorted me around town), he could tell I didn't want to stay for a second screening of "The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D" and asked if I wanted to leave. And did I mention we missed the first part of the movie? So we had all the reason in the world to stay and catch the part we missed. On Friday night, after we finished watching the CBA (he hates basketball by the way), I said "Man I'm tired" and little-buddy was out the door in thirty seconds.

It's really scary how enjoyable it is to hang out with this kid. He doesn't really talk unless you ask him a question (or he is asking you a question, which doesn't happen that often), but when he does talk his pronunciation is impressive. In a life surrounded by people who talk as much English as possible in order to improve their speaking ability, it's refreshing to just hang out with someone who says absolutley nothing. But it's like he knows what it is like to be a foreigner. He does all the right things. Like I said, it's scary. And did I mention that he is eleven?

I guess it shows what kind of time I'm having when my favorite person I've met so far is an eleven year old boy. I promise not to crack any Michael Jackson jokes. But I can't imagine what people think when they see a twenty-two year old American talking to an eleven year old kid in the back of a bus.

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."

p.s. 250 million watching Yao vs. Yi? Believe it.

Friday, November 9, 2007

What blog? I have a blog?!

So I know it's been a while; I got so wore out by the food post that I had to take a week off from all forms of writing. Honestly, I have a better reason for my absence; I've given up the internet in my apartment. I was spending 4+ hours on it a day and I decided, thankfully, that my time would be better spent reading a book, preparing for class, doing my job, etc. Although this will have a direct correlation to the decrease in posting frequency, I do think I will post more than once a week. So there is no need to worry.

Something you do need to worry about, 11/11 is National Singles Day in China (thank you for the information Lucy). This is the day in which all the singles in China (mostly males) have a good time celebrating their singleness. I'm not leaving the apartment tomorrow, picking up my phone, or answering the door. Too many people know.

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."

Friday, November 2, 2007

The Food Post (Part 1)

The moment has arrived. You have waited weeks, possibly months, hopelessly clicking on the "refresh" button on the off chance that I might post it. You have sent a myriad of pleading emails, where you begged me to write it. You have missed work, funerals and family weddings so you could be on the internet when it finally happened. And now the moment is here: Jonathan's blog post on Chinese food.
Or one part of it.

Typing an entire post on food is quite an undertaken. That's one reason why I've taken my time in writing something about it. Believe it or not, Chinese food is a large part of the Chinese culture (and as the old joke goes, over here they call Chinese food simply "Food"), and there are several different settings and characteristics to write about. For the sake of my sanity, I will break the food post into three separate postings. For today, I will write the blog post on the mostly soul-sucking experience that is the formal Chinese dinner (not because of the food, just normally what transpires while everyone else is eating).

But before I type that, let me cover some basics. First, forget everything you know about Chinese food in America. "General Tso's Chicken" does not exist outside of America, neither do fortune cookies. The entire buffet style experience is an American invention, and, as you could guess, so are the sugar-loaded dishes that you will find on the the buffet. Most Chinese would hate Chinese food in America: it's too sweet and too saucy. Granted, there are a few dishes in China that are reminiscent of something you would find on an American buffet, but this is an exception to the rule.

Second, the Chinese LOVE rice. It's a staple of every meal. I was told at the beginning, to my extreme joy, that a strong man should eat seven to eight cups of rice at every sitting (this included me). Eat your heart out Robert Atkins.

Third, most Chinese food is extremely oily and extremely spicy, but this is not the same as saucy. There is a difference.

Fourth, boneless meat does not exist in China. The Chinese eat fish, pork and beef. I hate eating fish. Most of it looks pretty good until you bite into a piece and discover you choose some form of fish rib cage. Then you are faced with the predicament of pulling thirty tiny fish bones out of your mouth at a table of ten people without looking like a complete idiot. I don't mind pork and beef, but it is still annoying to stick a huge bone in your mouth, chew around it, and then spit it back out onto your plate. Because, and I didn't mention this, in China it's impolite to touch your food with your hands.

Fifth, I have not eat with a fork since I left America. Chopsticks are used at every meal. I have been given a spoon twice since being here. I would try eating with it, only to find myself subconsciously ditching the spoon for the chopsticks ten seconds later. I'm pretty much a master at using them. If you don't eat with chopsticks you will die from starvation. There is no choice in the matter.

Without further ado, the Chinese formal dinner. First I'll begin with the main course at every meal:

JUST KIDDING (ha ha ha; however, here is a funny little anecdote, take it what you will. After we had been in the country around three days, Haley asked our translator the infamous question: "Americans think that the Chinese eat dog. Is that true?"Our translator "Dog? Oh no no no no no."
Haley: "So what does it taste like? Our translator "Oh not very good at all." Actually if you're hip on history, you can probably guess where this is coming from. But I am here to tell you that no form of domesticated animal is on the menu in China).

Sorry, back on track: the Chinese formal dinner. At Chinese dinners, everyone sits around a circular table. On the table is a huge glass lazy susan. On the lazy susan are the dishes for the dinner. These dishes include several plates of cooked food, most being vegetables mixed with some form of pork, chicken or beef. In addition to these dishes, Chinese dinners include a "hotpot" which is a large metal pot placed upon an open flame cooker (reminds me of something you take camping). Inside the pot is a form of soup that includes lots of meat and vegetables. The hotpot is the main course. Here is a picture:
This is the aftermath of a Chinese dinner (I would have taken a picture before we started eating, but I had been snapping photos all night, it seemed rude at the time). But you can see the lazy susan, the dishes, and the hot pot in the middle. When eating at a Chinese dinner, you grab whatever you want to eat with your chopsticks and put it straight in your mouth or into your bowl--which is usually filled with rice, and then repeat. That's right, your double dipping with ten other people. But it hasn't killed me, yet.
Ahh yes, but I hear you asking (those of you who made it this far), "But Jonathan, what do you drink?" Ahh I am so glad you asked! BEER! BEER! (sometimes juice) AND MORE BEER (ok and baijia too)! Let me explain in depth.
In China, at the dinner setting, the Chinese have a tradition of toasting the hell out of everyone at the table. This tradition is called the Chinese Wine Culture, and I could live without it. The Chinese Wine Culture consists of toasting someone at the table and then drinking a glass full of beer or hard liquor; a formal drinking game if you will. If you had the right personality, you could excel by toasting everyone at the table four or five times while getting soused on your own weapon of choice. However, I prefer not to get soused in public and I usually find myself thinking "Gosh what if I forget to toast someone? Best not toast anybody at all," However, you offend everyone by not doing anything, so I offer one or two meager toasts and hope the dinner ends soon. The problem is the alcohol.
I am a man and in China alcohol is a machismo thing. The more you can put away the more manly you are, and the less you drink, well you know. So I am expected to love drinking beer and to love drinking lots of it. For starters, the taste of beer makes me wretch (esoteric FYI, PBR is the best you can buy, that should tell you something). In China, turning something down is considered extremely polite, and if you turn something down, chances are you really want it. You can imagine the confusion that ensues. Usually at these dinners it's just me and Haley, and since I am the American guy (women are not expected to drink) I bear the brunt of the alcoholic aggression.

And then there is the baijia. As mentioned earlier in the year (or when I began typing this post), the only hard liquor in China is rice wine or baijia. The good baijia averages at an amazing 50% alcohol content, and the good baijia is what appears at Chinese dinners. Whoaaa buddy. Baijia is what you are SUPPOSED to toast everyone with. The Chinese pass around beer (or juice for the ladies) out of politeness for the foreigners that don't want to end the night singing "Father Abraham" while jumping from chair to chair, and trying to kiss all the waitresses before finally giving up and screaming "LET'S GO TO THE KARAOKE BAR!!!" at the top of their lungs (didn't happen. You think I would be coming home early if it did?). So on top of the beer, this hard liquor also makes an appearance, making the awkward situation even more so. And well, everyone at the table wants to have a good time, so if you turn down the baijia, you ruin the fun for everyone, and pretty much the entire dinner.
With all this being said, the food is extremely, extremely good and inexpensive. It puts American restaurant food to shame. First of all, the food is fresh. I once asked for Chicken at one of these dinners and it took forty minutes for us to finally get our food. I asked why it took so long and the only response was "It's fresh." It took so long because they were actually KILLING THE CHICKEN! I love it. Good times. Also, it's cheaper than you would ever believe. The picture above with seven dishes and a hotpot cost around $15-20 American dollars. It could easily feed ten full grown men. Have you ever heard that fact that the majority of the world lives on less than one dollar a day? It's not because the rest of the world is suffering, it's because you dang Americans are paying way too much for food that doesn't cost very much at all. You think Wendy's isn't making a killing of the dollar value menu? And guess what? In China, it's even cheaper to cook for yourself! But yea, I guess what I'm trying to say is that the food in China is very good. Have a good day.
"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."
p.s. sorry about the random spacing and almost maddening lack of paragraph breaks. Blogger does not like it when you add pictures. I tried to fix it but nothing seems to work.