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."