Advent

My Advent calendar has slowly transformed into a "Jonathan Coming Home Calendar." Take that, Christmas...

Reflections on baijio (among other things)

What precipitated the love and joy from yesterday's post? Well let me expound.

I was dancing around a fire last night...

It all originated with baijio. I hate it with a passion. Baijio is the official (ok the only) hard liqour of China which has ruined every decent meal in this country for the last two thousand years. It taste like (yes I've had some) the run-off from all the sorrows of a teenage depression, like the secretion of a foot-mashed worm on a rainy day, like the holocaust in liquid form, like the first time you get rejected by a girl. The smell of baijio makes me want to hurl. My stomach churns every time I see a Chinese waitress bring in a bottle of the stuff, because I know what is about to happen next.

As I stated earlier in this blog, the Chinese men love baijio more than reproduction. It makes an appearance at every decent meal. They crack open a bottle, pour it in their cups, and toast each other until too drunk to continue. Now I understand wanting to get drunk every time you eat a meal, but really, a civilization that is six billion years old could have invented something that tastes better.

The Chinese keep drinking it, keep pouring it, and keep toasting each other for the rest of the meal. They really love the toasting part. I don't understand why, it's more or less a game where everyone wins. Everyone toasts everyone and everyone has a good time. The Chinese look forward to this whole toasting thing from the moment they wake up in the morning with a hangover. They live for dinner’s and toasting.

But the main problem is Chinese men consider baijio a sign of machismo. The real men drink a lot. The real men pretend they enjoy it. In fact, besides cigarettes, I'm pretty sure baijio is the only sign of machismo in China. Men in America assert their manhood in many way: hunting, drinking beer, lifting weights, eating spicy food, having a beard, driving a motorcycle, sports, womanizing, business, etc. Men in China have two choices: one hundred proof fire-water and cancer sticks. That is why every man in this country does both. I am a man. I am an American. I’m expected to put the stuff away.

Now you know the foundation of my troubles, I will tell you the story.

I have a Chinese businessman named David. He appears often in this blog--see the mountain park post and the one where I ranted--and David has a friend who is a student at the University across the street. His name is Bevin. Bevin and David have a symbiotic relationship: Bevin does David's translating, teaches David English, and gets David hooked up with the Americans he knows at the University. Why all this ingratiating? Because Bevin hopes by getting on David's good side, David will pay back Bevin's kindness with a job. Do you see where I fit into all this? Yes it's the part where I am an American.

David yearns to be friends with an American. Why? I don't know. It plays into the whole dream of one day making it to America. This whole thing is just a grand production of Fevil: An Amerian Tale. Americans are not humans over here, we’re demi-god status symbols. This is why David wants to be friends with me. He wants everyone to see that he has a friend from America. He wants everyone to know that the Americans like him. He’ll do almost anything to get that.

However, David has forgot the keystone of superficial friendships: I’m the one with the power, and because of this, you better be making me happy. He tries hard—expensive dinners, exotic places—but I really don’t enjoy his company. The sad thing is he doesn’t know that. Why? He is that obtuse. He has driven me to mountain parks, and he has taken me to fancy restaurants, but I hate it. He has such narcissitic confidence. He reminds me of the person that buys a Christmas gift on the sole factor that they want someone to give it to them. He thinks that if he is having a good time showing me around, then I must be having a good time. In his mind I am having the time of my life every time I am around him. There is no way I’m not right? Because spending time with him is a privilege. Something I should be thankful for. He is lowering himself to my level. And I should get down on my knees every night and be thankful that I met a guy that shows me the countryside and buys me dinner. I want to crush his little world. Really. I want to scream “Americans DON’T LIKE YOU!” But he probably wouldn’t pick up on that. Don’t be that person readers.

So I hear you asking: “But Jonathan why do you keep doing stuff with this man?” One word: persistence. Bevin and David are the most persistent people I have met. Bevin will call three times a week and inform me of an invitation to dinner. I will decline the invitation. Bevin will beg for ten minutes. I will still decline. Bevin will call the next day; I will decline again. Eventually I wear down and agree. JC was right: persistence works. They are why I refused to pick up my phone for a whole month. They don’t take no for an answer. One time I yelled into the phone “I WON’T GO.” Bevin and David knocked on my door the next day.

Well, I wore down this week and agreed to go to dinner with David last night. He blew his last chance.

At five thirty David took me to one of the 4,000 minority restaurants in the city. David also took Ms. Lucy (a Sister).

Ms. Lucy has been one of the bright spots of my trip to China. For one, Ms. Lucy studied three years in Jersey (she’s got friends in High places up in Rome), so she understands what it’s like to be a foreigner. Ms. Lucy has empathy for me because she’s been there. Plus, she has the best English of anyone I have met in the last four months. Above all, she’s a Sister. So you know, we have a lot in common.

So, as I was saying, David treated Ms. Lucy and me to dinner at a minority restaurant last night. Dinner was going fine—I wanted to leave, everyone was speaking Chinese, pretty normal circumstances—when the waitress breaked out the baijio. Of course, everyone started drinking.

At this point, the waitresses of the establishment began dancing around a bonfire in the middle of the restaurant (it had a courtyard feel). I feigned interest and left the table. Seeing that I might be interested, Lucy decided that I might enjoy learning how to dance Chinese style and guided me to the fire. Last night I was dancing around a fire with eight Chinese waitresses, the sole reason I came to China.

Unexpectedly, who expects these things, a group of twenty drunken people yanked me out of the conga line into the midst of their bacchanalian revelry. For about thirty seconds I lost all power. I couldn’t escape. I had about two inches of moving room, and there were random hands grabbing my arm and pulling me every direction. They surrounded me like a pack of blood-shot eyed zombies all moaning one-word “driiiinkkkk”. And then they tried forcing baijio down my throat. When you’re surrounded by a mob there is a second where everything starts ticking faster and you think to yourself “Oh I could die.” Granted it isn’t a realistic fear, but you are at the mercy of twenty drunk Chinese. You don’t think about knocking someone over or pushing your way out. You worry about holding your footing against the weight of twenty individuals. They just keep pressing closer and closer, without any coherent thought to what they are doing. And then occurs to you, you’re in this position because you are a foreigner. No other reason. You may die in this blasted place because a pack of baijio saturated Chinese forced you into a blazing bonfire.

I broke out, somehow, enraged out of my mind and soaked from neck to waist in baijio. I smelled like the wretched drink. I made my way to our table, and for the rest of the night I endured the constant toasting of David’s good friends and coworkers, who were eating at the same restaurant on the same night.

Yes, David took me to that restaurant to show me to his entire workplace. I have no humanity around this guy. David uses me to look cool; Bevin uses me to get on David’s good side, and I get a free three dollar meal. Everyone is too involved with his or her agenda to notice that I hate it. Even Sister Lucy.

After dinner they drove me to the foot of my apartment. I was soaked in baijio, livid, and exhausted. After we parked Ms. Lucy said, at the same time I began thanking the good Father for delivering me from evil, “You are the host, you should invite them up to your apartment.” I lost Ms. Lucy, my one Chinese friend who understands. She saw me hating the entire night. She had to know I wanted nothing more than to change clothes and get away from these people. She had too. Now she was on their side.

I invited them up to my filthy apartment (it’s that way to deter guests) in hopes the visit wouldn’t last long. I’m not sure what part about the night signified I was the host. It must have been my baijio soaked jacket. They sat down in my apartment and stayed for about an hour and a half, but that is not the length of it.
They played the part of “annoying houseguest” perfectly: they open doors that are closed for a reason, they touch things you don’t want touched, they stick around longer than they should. It doesn’t help the situation.

And David, right on cue, begins asking me to accompany him to Lichuan sometime in the next week. Lichuan is a town that is three hours away from Enshi. Its main claim to fame is beautiful scenery and that one cave. Lichuan is an overnight trip, and we will spend the night in a beautiful hotel. All my houseguests—Lucy, David, Bevin, David’s friend—were trying to convince me to do it. It was rather funny actually. They had no incentive except “It’s going to be really pretty.” I sat there in disbelief. How dense can a group of people be? What are they not telling me? “It’s going to be really pretty?” That’s all I get out of it? Oh man, they don’t know Americans. I didn’t want to do it. So I turned him down for Friday. I turned him down for Saturday. I turned him down for Sunday. I turned him down for Monday. BUT TUESDAY! TUESDAY I HAVE FREE!

They caught me in a lie. Apparently, New Years Day is a holiday in China and the student’s don’t go to class on that day:
“What do you mean you teach on Tuesday? It is a holiday, students don’t go to class.” Ms. Lucy said.
“What? Wait a second. You celebrate New Years twice in this country?” “Yes.”
“Well I’ll be.”

In extreme frustration I agreed.

Sitting there on that couch, hating everything about the last few months, I had an epiphany: if I could just leave the city by Monday and not tell anyone, I wouldn’t go on Tuesday, I wouldn’t have to talk to Bevin or David ever again, and I wouldn’t have to worry about calling them up and telling them I hate their guts (it has come to that point). Yes that’s right, and I could take my four thousand yuan and I could see the country! I could tell my friends at home I saw the Great Wall. I wouldn’t be cursed to a lifetime of “You went to China for four and half months and you didn’t see the Great Wall?” (or Shanghai, or Hong Kong, or pandas, etc.). Yes that’s right! It’s possible. I’m done with classes; I don’t have anything holding me here. All I need is to find a place to stay, pack my apartment and buy my plane ticket. It would work. I would be out of the city in three days! I had it; I had the ultimate plan. I would travel solo and see the country before I left forever. I became excited. I never become excited about anything. It lasted until three o’clock today.

The money. I lost my bankcard a couple of weeks ago and I have no money, and will have no money for a week. For some reason, I had some wild notion that you could walk into a bank, show your I.D. and clean out your account. I was wrong. My waiban and I went to the bank, and I have to wait seven days before the bank will give me a red cent. I’m stuck in this town for one more week. I probably won’t see Beijing.

Of all the soul-crushing experiences I’ve had in the last few months, this one tops them all. I don’t feel excited about something often, and I don’t know why I became excited about this. It’s not my style to want to see something. It’s not my style to get excited. But I wanted to do something alone. I wanted to overcome my lack of adventure. I wanted to go to a big city in a foreign country and survive on my own. I didn’t want a life cursed by “You didn’t see the Great Wall?” exclamations (and believe me they will happen).

I don’t know what happened to that cursed piece of plastic. I’m pretty sure it was stolen. I’ve looked everywhere in my small apartment and can’t find it. And now I have to wait a week for $500 cash. I guess I shouldn’t have lost it, I should have foreseen this coming and cleaned out my bank account when I had a card. I guess I should say it’s my fault, the whole fact that this China experience has been a disaster. I could have done so much couldn’t I? I should have traveled alone in October holiday when I had the chance. I should have made closer friends with my students. I should have cleaned my apartment, or read more. I should have bought into the culture and ingratiated myself with every person I knew. I should have fought the loneliness instead of letting it beat me. I should have invited my students over instead of surfing the internet. I should have done a myriad number of things that I didn’t do.

I planned on writing an optimistic blog post earlier in the day. It had something to do with overcoming obstacles. Hogwash I know. Is there a home after living in this place? Is there? The hits never stop coming. Something about this place just wants to keep you down. Take me home. Take me home and don’t ever let me leave. That’s all I want. You know that by now.

“I’ll see you in the morning if nothing happens.”

A Post Four Months in the Making

Brace yourselves...

I hate this. I hate this more than Tennessee football. I hate this more than Christian Laettner of the early 90's. I hate this more than the Backstreet Boys, O-town, N'Sync, Britney, and Christina combined. I hate this more than bad summer movies. I hate this more than 80% of my time at Lipscomb. I hate this more than the Adair county marching band. I hate being a stooge. I hate being a pawn. I hate being a high-class call-boy who is treated well because of his nationality. I hate living here. I hate the joke that somebody should do this for more than an hour. I hate being the only person that feels this way. I hate living here. I HATE Baijio. I hate that I didn't leave three weeks into it. I hate being the center of attention every time I leave my apartment. I hate that I ever stepped on that plane out of Nashville. I hate that I haven't seen the sun in close to a month. I hate the one time that I listened to others instead of trusting my gut it turned into this. I HATE THIS.

I feel a little better; you must have seen that coming. I've wanted to type that almost every day, but I've always held back until now. I didn't want to scare anyone I guess. My coming home can't wait 13 days, 10 hours and 10 minutes. I guess it will have to.

Well, I will not divulge the event's that brought on this blog post. Divulging these events would take three hours of explaining, and I don't feel up for it. Honestly.

In the words of Haley Fuller, and I don't think she would mind me quoting her on this, "I definitely don't have reverse culture shock." Haley has been home a week tomorrow, and she has no reverse culture shock. You don't understand people. At my orientation they TOLD us we would have reverse culture shock and they TOLD us that it would be much worse than the initial culture shock when we left America (Of course, they also told us that once we recovered from initial culture shock we would enjoy life in China more than life in America; I can't speak for Haley, but I on the other hand...). I have seen people experience Chinese reverse culture shock, so I know it exists. When somebody has a total absence of it altogether, something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

I say this because I know I will follow suit. For a total of six hours I will be the happiest man to ever grace the confines of LAX. Let me tell you that. When I return to Nashville and venture out in public, you better believe I'm going to stand there wide-eyed and say "Nobody's staring at me. Nobody's STARING AT ME!" ("My mouth's bleeding Bert! My Mouth's Bleeding!"). I will have reverse culture euphoria. I'll be a hoot and a half for about a week, and after that I'll be just a hoot for the rest of all time.

Well here's another blog post just in case you thought I had a spontaneous, Dickensian, Christmas-inspired change of heart.

BAH!!!!

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

p.s. I might post the story tomorrow. I'm just too tired for it right now.

p.s.s. Man, it takes a lot of rage to hate something more than I hated Laettner in the early 90's. Really.

Calculations and stuff.

Hmmmmm...

I have two weeks left, a little under two weeks actually. Two weeks ago was December 12...

I guess everyone has counted down to something. Of course, most normal countdowns end with a ceremony like marriage or graduation. I have never counted down to ceremony, but I have counted down twice before: when I moved out of Mrs. F's and my current countdown to coming home. During that first countdown those last few weeks were almost unbearable. Here we are again, two weeks left.

I'm guessing most people, like myself, create mathematical formulas to make the time pass quicker when they near the end. Some of my favorites:

Multiplying the days by twenty-four, the remaining hours by sixty and the remaining minutes by sixty. It gives you one large sum that never stops moving. Let's see: 1,245,600 seconds. Give or take a couple hundred seconds. On second thought, I don't like that one...

Better yet, let's go with percentages. I have been in China total of 123 days, and I have 14 left. Therefore I have 10% of my time in China remaining. Oh dear. That's depressing. 10% of my life is over two years. 10% is the difference between an A and a B. I'm trying to forget this one...

Or you could shave days. Let's see, since tomorrow it will be 13 days, and today is almost over with. Let's just say the countdown is at 13. And since I'm counting down the days until I get back in America, let's just pretend it's a countdown to leave so it's really at 12 days. Yea I don't like that one either...

Or when taken to extremes, the meta-physical time jump. I usually ask myself where I was one week ago today, say "Wow that doesn't seem like that long ago," and then I apply it to the future. So now the countdown is down to seven days. And since two weeks ago was December 12, and that doesn't seem that long ago (yea it does) then technically I should be leaving any second now. Well, we're 0 for 4...

Or better yet, pretend I am loving this and that the countdown is really something I'm not looking forward too. Then you have to ask why someone would countdown to something when they are not looking forward to it. That's why you don't ask...

And then I slap my head and say "You idiot! It's just two weeks!" When Haley hit her two week mark I kept thinking "Man if I could just make it two weeks, hot dog I'd be set!" Well it's passed. I've been telling myself since the first of October that if I could just make it to Christmas, man, I'd be sitting pretty. Well that happen yesterday. So I'm good, I'm slowly realizing that I should just enjoy it while I can, because it ain't happening again.

And yet when I'm thinking all this mumbo-jumbo, the comedian in the back of my head keeps saying "And you were supposed to do this a whole year!" (rimshot) (canned laughter). Sometime I forget that fact, and then I remember it, and then I forget it again, and then I think "Who were these people kidding? Do this a whole year?" I don't blame the College or the organization for wanting some form of long-term commitment of course. So I guess when I say "These people," I mean every person that has done the China experience and liked it. They must be out of their minds (I have started so many posts with "I believe we should institutionalize anyone who enjoys doing this..." before realizing we would be committing many of my good friends to the loony bin). Of course, before I left I asked seven or eight people who had taught in China before if they enjoyed it, and all recommended it. A 100% approval rate is hard to question.

Alright, alright, alright. So I'm the nut. I realize it, and I hate nothing more. Every single daggum person that has come to China loves it. And what's more, every single daggum person that leaves our beloved Country loves the experience. You could put me on Ripley's Believe it or Not: "Up next, a man who left America and didn't have the time of his life. Believe it, or not?" Ugh, I'm never going to overcome this English-major-travel-abroad-inferiority-complex. I'm like that penguin who just wants to dance! (I didn't like that movie by the way) While all the other penguins want to travel and they don't understand why I want to dance (mixed metaphor but you get the point). Man. I'm going to be regulated to the dust-bin of humanity. Maybe my experience is situational, or maybe I'm just a wuss. I don't care, either way get me home.

Anyways, to sum this up, a list of things I am looking forward to:

No one staring at me in public, no one yelling hello, no mandatory hard-liquor every time I eat a decent meal, no one expecting me to have the secret to English fluency, not being approached by strangers for the secret to English fluency, not being the center of attention everywhere I go, not being used by one person to get on another person's good side, not losing my bank card, not being woken up every morning at 6:15 by the school song, Chick-fil-a, not being offered cigarettes every day, not being cut in line, no more random cell-phone pictures, no more inquiries into my girlfriends, my ability to speak Chinese, my ability to use Chopsticks, my future plans to travel China; family, friends, etc.

But in the spirit of fairness, I would like to list the things I will miss about China:

When I am the recipient of a smile from a pretty Chinese girl.

Now see! Being here isn't all bad. I know I'm going to miss that!

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

p.s. Happens a lot actually. If I'm thirty and still single, I'll be coming back.

p.s.s. But let's not count on it.

Christmas Eve

I had plans to attend Christmas mass tonight from seven to nine. Of course, I had already told a lot of my students that I would be going. And, being that it is a particular meeting, I saw it as the best oppurtunity, in my few remaining weeks to maybe smile or look happy or something. I guess it was one of the few things in the history of this train-wreck that I've been looking forward to. Well...

I got a call at 3; it was my translator. She said "You will have a Christmas Dinner today at 5:30." I said "Ok," and hung up the phone. They sucker-punch you with social events over here. By the time you think of the logistics of doing such things, its to late to rescind the invitation. And as I've stated earlier in the year, it's almost impossible to tell someone "No," once they have you on the phone. In fact, it's an insult to turn down an invitation to anything, even though they give you ten minutes warning, even though you've told them weeks before you have plans, even though you don't want to go, etc. And when the invitation is coming from the people that could make your life a living heck if they wanted too, well...

I will miss mass. There is no way I can make it now. Chinese dinners average three or four hours (don't ask me how). I should probably beginning my answers to the plethora of inevitable Christmas questions I will have to answer a dozen times: "What do you do on Christmas?" Do you celebrate Christmas with your family?" "What do Americans do on Christmas?" "If Christmas left San Diego on a train heading in an easterdly direction traveling 95 kph and Thanksgiving left Denver on a train in an westernadly direction travelling 35 kph and the distance between the two Holidays is 2,000 km, and both left at 14:15 Beijing Standard Time, at what time in the American Eastern time zone with the two intersect?" (man I wish).

It's Christmas eve and I'm bummed beyond belief, but I am going to do my best to keep this post from following the standard theme of "Look how much Jonathan hates certain life decisions!" That mentality is becoming cliche on this thing, and I'm running out of ways to express it. OH THAT THIS TOO SOLID FLESH WOULD MELT, THAW, AND RESOLVE ITSELF INTO A DEW! OR THAT THE EVERLASTING HAD NOT FIX'D HIS CANON 'GAINST SELF-SLAUGHTER! (that's Hamlet). Maybe I'll try a picture:

(I don't like the picture either. Merry Christmas).

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

Today

I don't lose things on a normal basis. I did not lose my bank card once while I lived in Nashville. However, since coming to China I have lost my Chinese bank card twice. I have no idea how I accomplish this feat: I leave the card in my pants' pocket and only take it out to withdrawal money or put it in another pair of pants. I find the process pretty full-proof. So when I can't find the card in any of my jeans, well I have no idea where to look.

I had special night planned for myself. Around six, I would take myself out to a nice western restaurant (the only one in the city, but still pretty nice), buy myself a nice steak dinner, and return to my apartment to write Food Blog Post Number 2 on Chinese western food. By going out alone, I would enjoy life by myself; I wouldn't succumb to the tempation of changing into my pj's at 6:30 and vegging until bedtime at 12. Well, I woke up from my three hour nap at 5:30 and discovered, sadly, I had lost my bankcard. In the span of two minutes I went from steak dinner to wondering how I am going to live off fifty yuan for the next week (it's actually pretty easy).

Of course, I've already tore my apartment to pieces looking for the cotton-picking thing. I've looked in almost every nook and cranny I have in this apartment. I've looked in pants I haven't worn in weeks (although I last used it on Wednesday). I've even looked in rooms I hadn't been in since Laura died (movie allusion, nobody named Laura has ever died in my life). Just how could I lose that thing? The last time I lost it, I found it in the most inconceivable place: lounging around the stand-up air conditioner in the most isolated corner of my apartment. Why I found it there will go down as one of the mysteries of my life. Just how does a bank card end up behind a stand-up air conditioner? Really? Was I standing beside the air conditioner and decided for some weird reason that I would put my bank card on top of it? Did I wake up in the middle of the night, take it out of my pants, fling it across the living room and then go back to bed without remembering? Really, how does a bank card end up there? Well, as you can imagine, if I found my bank card there last time, I have no clue where to look now.

It takes full eight days to get a new one, and I'm too stubborn to go back to the bank and ask for a new one a second time. I have one choice: find it. Well, I guess I have something to do tomorrow.

Today I went out my students to a park near the city. I don't understand somethings about living here. In America people waste time, I know this, but the time-wasting is usually something that happens without forethought. Here, my students plan days in advance to waste time. When I say time-wasting I mean walking around for three or four hours and staring at trees. I might find this tree-watching fun if I were doing this with friends, but when I'm doing with five or six people who are conversing with me in broken English every minute of three hours, it's exhausting. After walking around with my students for three hours--and I had to insist on leaving early--I came back to my apartment and took a 3 1/2 hour nap. I slept 9 1/2 hours last night. At least I'm well rested.

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

Goodbye Haley.

Haley left yesterday. In one fell swoop I lost a lunch buddy, coworker, exercise companion, dinner friend, confidant, etc. In one fell swoop I lost every good thing about living in this country. She kept me sane, she listened to my problems, she talked to me in fluent English, and now she is gone. I can't live knowing that when the phone rings it won't be her on the other end (unless, of course, she is calling me from America). I will never see her (in China) again. I will never visit her apartment to have peanut butter sandwiches with one of her classes again (that happened once); I will never eat eggs & tomatoes with her at that one place with that one guy with really long finger nails again; and I will never curse her under my breath after she insists on running three miles in the Chinese countryside again (that happened once too). Every time I walk by her building, I look up at her apartment, sigh, and reflect that I will never see her live there again. Sometime in the near future, I will go to her apartment door, knock, and hope by some miracle she will open the door, but she won't; she is gone forever When she lived there, I went to that place for solace, as an escape from the country. Now, I consider it nothing but a shell, a memorial to all the good times we had together. Haley, in the words of the poet Fergie "I'm going to miss you like a child misses its blanket." The Backstreet Boys once sang "Show me the meaning of being lonely." You did just that, but that's ok, because you're in a much better place now...

See you in like eighteen days.

Now that Haley has left, I will face one of the greatest tests I have faced in my short life. For the next eighteen days, I will face one gargantuan demon: loneliness. I hate being alone; I live for talking to other people (who understand what I say). It's what I enjoy the most in life. In fact, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it now. I'm going to proclaim, to the entire world, that I, Jonathan D. Harrison, am an extrovert. There that feels good. I enjoyed idle time in high school, but since then (see blog post 57), I'm not sure what happened. Anyways, I don't like being alone. I will give you an example:

Someone told me a few weeks ago of a person who bought a plant, and I got jealous. Why? I was jealous of the companionship that person had with their plant. Yes the loneliness over here is that bad; it causes twenty-two year old young-men to covet flora (and they had a small plant too). That was before Haley left. Now she is gone and I've started talking to my furniture.

I don't know how I will survive until January 10. The next few weeks will be some of the longest weeks of my life. I don't know how I am going to do it. I really don't. This obstacle seems almost insurmountable.

But all I need to do is survive right? In order words, to survive the next eighteen days I have to not die. That seems pretty easy; I've been not dieing for a while now. In fact, I'm pretty sure I haven't died a single time in my life. If I did die, chances are I couldn't avoid the situation, so you know, I don't have to put much effort into the whole not dieing thing. I'm not stressed about it. So I'm set right? In order to survive, I have to not die. Wow, it sounds simple when put that way. What am I afraid of? Am I losing my mind? I realize the stupidity of my statements, but I'm still dreading the next few weeks. What makes me dread them? Really! What! I've nothing to do for three weeks. Arggghhhhh. I am my own worst enemy Jonathan Harrison, I am my own worst enemy (Web Log of a Mad Man: The only blog where someone refers to themselves in both the first and third person in the same sentence.)

Despite all this, I do have a plan for survival. First of all, I'm avoiding loneliness. I've been making with plans with anybody that calls. I'm picking up the phone when it rings. Shocking I know. I have also resorted to computer games from past. Games that take up hours and hours of your time. I'm also writing more rambling blog posts. I'm also going to watch It's a Wonderful Life--my favorite movie--every day until the time I leave. I can hear myself now "WHY WOULD YOU EVER WANT TO LEAVE BEDFORD FALLS GEORGE BAILEY! WHY!? STAY IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY!"

Eighteen days and then I'm back in America. It's always darkest before the dawn I guess. In the next eighteen days I could find life or I could lose it. I could overcome all the darkness or not. I could come back a much wiser person, or I could come back changed for the worse. The next eighteen days will, as they say, make or break me. That is why I feel this way. I have a fear that it's going to be the latter. Honestly. Maybe I'm being overdramatic, but the next eighteen days I will face who I truly am, the worst parts about myself, without any assitance from another human being. It's going to be a test, a very difficult test.

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

p.s. One of my students just called and cancelled.

p.s.s. My week old speakers just died.

p.s.s.s. On Thursday a freshman girl showed me her camera phone. In the span of one class period she had taken 70 pictures, 67 of those pictures were of me.

p.s.s.s.s. I do have three other American friends in this town, and they will help me with my lonlieness. So I am thankful for that, but it won't be the same without Haley, she left some big shoes to fill.

p.s.s.s.s.s. I do own a plant that sits on the ledge on my back porch. Her name is Daisy. Here is a picture.

A Far Side Cartoon

"AHHHHHH QUIT ASKING SO MANY QUESTIONS!" I'm sorry, I really am. I'll tone it down for today's blog post. I do appreciate your responses.

ESL students say funny things in English. It's true. They don't mean it of course, and they try hard, but that doesn't mean we can't find some joy in their statements that are, let's face it, a lot funnier than most native speakers will ever be. ESL students say profound things as well, and who doesn't need some good profundity? I guess I'm trying to convince myself that laughing at their innocence isn't cruel. But you know what? The little boogers laugh at me when I pronounce mandarin wrong in class. So they deserve it.

A few weeks ago in class, I passed out some Far Side Cartoons and asked my students to analyze and comment on what made the cartoon humorous. I, being an idiot, thought the assignment relatively easy; I was wrong. I spent the rest of class walking from one side of the room to the other explaining some relatively simple humor ("The dolphins are speaking Spanish! Dolphins don't speak Spanish in real life! It's funny! Why don't you get it!?"). Well, before I explained one cartoon to one group, they wrote a classic response. Here is the cartoon and their response:

"This is a funny story. Professor Schwartzman can understand what the dog say. He'll be dogs good friends. He can often communicate with dogs as he feel alone. In the future, human being can communicate with every animal. If you were alone, you should contact with animals. Animals will share your sorrow. You can relax."

Well, my interpretation goes something like this: "This cartoon is funny because Professor Schwartzman spent a lot of time making this breakthrough machine, only to discover that it's not a breakthrough : dog language is just as simple as it seems."

Something like that. I don't expect anything too complicated. I guess I find their response funny because it says more about Mr. Harrison than it does about the students. Every week, I get a "Why are you lonely," inquiry from someone; it has become pretty obvious I don't enjoy what I'm doing. So I give them a chance to comment on my melancholy and this is what they say: "Chilax Mr. H. You lonely? Get a dog man. Don't worry, some day science will let you talk with animals and then you'll never be lonely again. It don't matter if you don't like talking with us. When science comes around you'll be ok."

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

Vague, Philosophical Meanderings

In the words of Styx, I've got (t t t t t) too much time on my hands.

For the first time in months, my day ended around six o'clock this afternoon. Most days, I finish teaching at twelve and veg for ten hours (with brief breaks for eating and running). But today, after teaching until four, I went shopping with some of my students and returned in time for dinner. Well, I didn't have time for my daily four o'clock depression, but I did think a little more than usual about my time here in China. I ended my musings with a couple of questions. I hope you will give your input.

Do you remember the glory days? Do you remember when Jonathan had a passion? I'm guessing most of you don't. I'm talking about High School. Wait, I hear you say "Jonathan considers High School his glory days?" I answer yes. When was the last time you heard someone say "Man, College was aight, but High School, man those days were fun,"? Probably never. Most people consider High School the hormone-bloated stepping-block to the beginning of life. Now that things have ended, I reflect on college as a huge step back in my life. What happened? And what made High School so fun?

Like I said, I had a passion. I had goals. I had a monster work ethic and I hardly stopped for dinner. I wanted to be an all-state Horn player. I wanted to make state in Academic Team. I realize those goals don't jolt reverence into the masses, but I worked hard. I would go to school--where I played horn for three hours--come home and practice another three hours, study my inane Literature study guides, go to bed and do it again the next day. If my parents informed me dinner was ready during my practice session, it would make me livid; I would respond with a belligerent "Eat without me!" born out of the frustration of having my focus broken (sorry bout that Mom and Dad). When was the last time you heard of a teenage boy getting angry because someone told him to eat food? Gosh I was nuts. I'm not even sure that was me. Which explains why college friends listen with polite incredulity (I've only told two or three, no one wants to hear High School stories for Pete's sake) when I tell them about my unbelievable past; they have no reason to believe the story I tell them. I usually end the conversation wanting to say "You don't understand. I worked harda than most people do in their entire lives. I had class. I was a contender. I was somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am now, " (with apologies to Marlon Brando). And then college happened...

Well, I hit a brick wall. I remember typing essays my first semester that went something like this "I worked way too hard in High School. Honestly. I'm going to enjoy college instead of rushing from place to place with only 15 minutes for supper. I don't care if it does affect my GPA." I should have shot myself in the foot instead; I burned out at the exact same time everyone else entered the "Life starts now," phase. Imagine a Red Sox fan who has given up on his team the year before they win the world series. He has been cheering for years and years, but all the Bill Buckner moments wear him down and he gives up hope. He stops caring about his team and the entire game of baseball. Of course, the minute he gives up, the BoSox turn the ship around and he watches the entire world jump on the "Reverse the Curse" band wagon, and the only think he can think is "Yea, it's cool now, but just wait until the Red Sox blow another four game lead, and then I'll these people will see what's like to put so much into something only to have disappointment." Of course, those darn Red Sox win the World Series, and all the fans (including the bandwagon newbies) revel in the camaraderie that comes with cheering for the same team. And the old Red Sox fan curses his luck at giving up one year before it paid off, and he feels like he can never go back now that he has transcended baseball. However, it turns out his transcending baseball ostracized him from the maddening crowd, and three years (and another world series later) he fumes in the corner failing to convince others that he watched every game until the 2004 season, and watching baseball is pointless, but no one listens (sorry for the long analogy, I tried to use UK basketball in some way but it didn't work).

I struggle to find a word for the mentality of the Red Sox fan. The mentality originates from the mindset that everything in life has no point, so you know, why work at it. I don't call it laziness, because, believe me, if I had a good reason to do something and I would do it. I want to call it an Ecclesiastical mentality, taken from the book of course, but that adjective means something else. I want to call it nihilism, but that's not a good word either. I don't know what to call it. I started taking up this viewpoint near the end of my Senior year of high school. About the time that food stopped tasting good and my favorite T.V. shows just weren't as funny anymore. I'm not depressed. I've been depressed, and I never want to feel that low again. I'm just, you know, meh. I'm meh. Good word. I've got the mehs. So you know, college passed on. I loafed and I blew an unlimited amount of opportunities to improve my life.

Well, acknowledging this fact has not changed my ways. I'm still the same old college Jonathan, trying to find the old self deep down inside me, but still seeing no reason to put in the effort. Yes, I had ambition in high school, but I can't get over the reasons behind the ambition. I wanted respect in high school from my peers, that's why I worked so hard, but those urges had their base in selfishness. I wanted people to listen to what I said because I was good at what I did; I wanted girls to like me for the same reason. I had a mini-enlightenment at the end of High School, and for some reason, I figured abandoning that work ethic because it was based in selfishness would make me an inherently better individual.

HECK NO! I could not have been more wrong. I should have hit cruise control on the slightly selfish-ambition and had a grand old time in college. I once devoted my life meticulous, hard-nosed practicing three hours a day; Now, I'm too lazy to read! Argh! Why didn't I stay ignorant? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?! The Jonathan of yesteryear would have said "Ten hours to myself? Now I can become great at anything." The Jonathan of today says "Wow, ten hours until this bloody thing starts over again." I enjoyed life so much more when I seized the day for all the wrong reasons. Transcending a slightly flawed work ethic ruined my life. I've been a shell for four years now.

You know, and this is the sad part, I think something started giving me the answers to my shell state before leaving the country interrupted everything. Life sucker-punched me back to age 18. I never was gung-ho about coming here, but I didn't think I needed to be. I hoped the bad vibes would evaporate once I settled. They didn't; they only got worse. And as one or two good friends will attest, I had many major fears about living here and only one didn't come true. So I have to ask why. Why?

O.k. so shopping really does give you something to write about. Is a slightly flawed work ethic better than no work ethic at at all when abandoned for higher values? Are all work ethics flawed? Is there such thing as a pure work ethic for unselfish motives? And what is the point when we all die anyway? Comfort? A higher good? Art for art's sake? Is asceticism the true meaning of life? Would I have found happiness in China if I had abandoned every pseudo-selfish wants for the sake of everyone else here? What will I do when I get back? What is the point of the game of Life when we all end up with our little blue and pink pegs in the big house at the end (really the board game Life has to be the most depressing yet, at the same time, true things ever made; go to college? Have kids? Fire Insurance? Doctor? Janitor? Try to win? Sucker, no one wins in the game of Life, the same fate awaits us all: a tiny plastic mansion)? If China was for me, why was I placed here where I would not enjoy myself? What valuable lessons will I learn from this? Will I learn any lessons? Why, for the first time in years, did life suddenly open up before I left, but come to a crashing halt when I got here (and no, it's not because China gave me something to work towards)? Why can I not break out of this laziness when I know a different life is much more fulfilling? Is this a test? Why am I so alone? Is there something wrong with coming home early? If there is, why is the alternative better? Why can't Asian women be taller? Why do I regret most of my long-term life decisions? etc.

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

p.s. despite the absurd length, I have more thoughts on all this jazz, but I either can't post them or just got tired of writing. And um, you don't have to answer all the questions.

p.s.s. I bought a new coat:

Wuhan, Pollution, One Month Left, etc.

Many people have gathered--friends, loved ones, family--to watch my blog fade off into obscurity.

I've neglected my posting duties recently. Every time I've sit down I find nothing to write about: no refreshing insights, no boring anecdotes, no complaining. I feel empty.

I think if I ever get my PHD, I will write my dissertation on the superiority of Mr. Goodbar over Krackel (Yea, my writer's block is that bad, but have you ever met anyone who preferred Krackel over Mr. Goodbar? I think not).

In college, our English teachers taught us that if you ever have writer's block, sit down and write anything and the problem will fix itself. This is what I am trying to do.

This past weekend I flew to Wuhan (the capitol of Hubei province, home of 12 million potential friends), to visit some old buds and just have a jim-dandy weekend. I loved every minute of it. My friend Lucy (who gets an shout out on the blog) took me to all the foreigner hot spots in the city for some Waigoren watching. I would like to challenge you to go to the nearest McDonald's, sit down, and every time a white person walks through the door say to yourself "Wow, did you just see that? A non-Asian just walked through the door!" And think about me, your beloved blog writer, who gets a high every time he sees a white person he doesn't recognize.

I ate western food too. I ate a real cheeseburger and had a real milkshake. A REAL MILKSHAKE! And then I went to the western supermarket and bought peanut butter and ritz crackers. PEANUT BUTTER AND RITZ CRACKERS!

Ok, I didn't go to Wuhan to see white people or eat food; I went to Wuhan to see friends. I consider the days I spent in Wuhan as some of the happiest days I will ever have in China, and I'd like to thank my friends for that. There is not much more I can write about the subject, because it's just hard to write right now.

However, I should feel thankful they didn't place me in Wuhan. In two days, I got a sinus infection from the devil-spawned pollution of the city. When I came back to Enshi, I brushed my teeth with a brand new toothbrush; the toothbrush turned a rust color the next day. I hacked up something on a towel (hey I was sick) and the next day that part of the towel turned the same rust color. I got friends in that city; they're breathing that crud every day. Not much I can do about it, but still. Horrid details like this keep me from buying an I (heart) China t-shirt. Horrid details like that make me cynical, bitter, and irritable about where I am right now. I realize most of the pollution originates from useless products that fuel the American capitalistic machine, but you think someone would have said "Maybe we shouldn't be doing this," ten or twenty years ago?

Twenty-eight days until I'm back in America. I can't wait. The time hasn't flown by. I'm not going to lie, it feels like a blooming eternity since I got here. I'm going to tell people that I spent five or six years in China one semester. Then those people will say "You saw the great wall right?" and I will say "No." Then those people will say "But you went to Shanghai right?" and then I will say "No." Then those people will say "But you had to go to Hong Kong?" And then I will say "No didn't do that either." And then they will say "So what did you do in China?" and I will say "I taught English in a town called Enshi; don't worry, nobody in China has heard of it either."

But at least the air is fresh!

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

P.S. It feels weird typing that knowing Mrs. Franklin has passed on.

P.S.S. What in the heck is happening to my country? I'm going to tell my students I'm going back to America to get shot. Since when is gun control a bad idea? I'm all about rights and everything, but this is getting out of hand.

Mrs. Franklin

I have discovered one thing: I am terrible at writing epitaphs. For about two hours last night I sat in front of my computer compacting the life of Mrs. Mabel Franklin into one blog post, and I failed miserably. Well, here I am to try it again.

I have to face a few problem. I am not talented enough to describe Mrs. Franklin's persona to those of you who never met her. I do not have time to tell, in detail, all the spiders, breakfasts, and nightly talks that I endured while living in her house. To those who never met her and those who do not know that I lived under the care and supervision of a 91 year old woman for one year, I'm afraid you will have to be left out for one blog post.

Mrs. Mabel Franklin passed away a few nights ago due to complications from stroke. I believe she had been looking forward to this day since her husband died twenty-six years earlier. She entered the world the year WWI started in Europe--1914-- and she passed away at the respectable age of 93. She was a caring old lady, and probably the most stubborn woman I ever met. She lived in the same house in green hills for over sixty years, attended the Granny White CofC (I believe as long as she lived at the house, but I can't remember), and made her signature Coca-cola cake every time a pot luck was held, someone passed away, or a holiday was quickly approaching on the calendar.

I will not, despite the temptation, dilute Mrs. Franklin's memory with a load of cliches that we bestow on those who have passed away. As I said earlier, Mrs. Franklin had a stubborn streak a mile long: she would never ever hear of someone turning down her breakfast (believe me I know), and nothing, absolutely nothing, ever changed in her house on Francis avenue. Her life seemed ruled by the fear that somewhere, in the slum that is Green Hills, somebody wanted to break into her house and kill her. I don't know why, I guess she saw too many reports of an elderly African American woman being murdered in East Nashville and thought that might be her one day. I sometimes fantasized her fear derived from secret ties she had with the mafia in the late 1920's and that she did something so egregious it justified paying a mob hitman, eighty years later, to search out and kill an elderly woman. Or, and this is probably more realistic, she never trusted the banks and had a suitcase stuffed with thousands of dollars hidden somewhere in the house, and if anyone ever did find out its location, they just might break in and try to steal it (I think that happened in my hometown like twenty years ago, I digress).

I will never know what made Mrs. Franklin live the way she did, but I do know this fear lead to my spending a year of my life in her house on Francis avenue. She always wanted a young man to be there after dark so she could feel safe, and for one year that young man was me. If you know me, I largely abhorred this experience for many reasons.

First of all, nothing good comes from a nineteen-year old male living with a torturous nine o'clock curfew. Every day for a whole year, save five or six nights, I would ring the doorbell of her house before 9:30, wait for her to unlock from the inside, and walk into her house with a somewhat doleful "Hello Mrs. Franklin. How are you?" Let me tell you, nothing kills a social life like coming home at nine every night, even on the weekends. Kids my age were partying, going to movies, clubbing, etc. and I, as it seemed, was the only teenager in America who stopped my day at nine every night so an elderly woman could sleep in peace. Living with her couldn't have come at a worst time. When I began the service, I had just finished a disastrous freshman year and had the intentions of starting college over. I would do things, I would leave my dorm room, I would go to basketball games, I would join clubs. It was going to be my Renaissance; the world would not hold Jonathan Harrison down any longer! And then I moved into her house. Of course, I saw myself as a some sort of Saint for doing the thing that I was doing--sacrificing myself for the sake of an 91 year old lady--until I discovered few people actually care, and practically no one is there to help you out even when you need it.

Secondly, I found her house, the spoiled kid that I was, almost inhabitable. Her house had not changed in sixty years; it had no central air and only an old furnace in the winter time. The house also had a spider infestation of biblical proportions. Do you remember the spider photo from the beginning of the year? One of those spiders climbed up the curtains during breakfast one day. One day a spider zoomed across the floor of my room while I said on the phone "I think I just saw a chipmunk crawl across the carpet." In that year I found hundreds of decent size spiders lounging in a corner, sitting in the sink when I woke up to get a glass of water (every time, without fail), hanging out in my closet, or chilling in the bathroom sink. In addition (I love typing that), the bathroom had a camel cricket infestation. Yes camel crickets. Google that, and then imagine a Camel Cricket being the first thing you see when you walk into the bathroom in the morning. If karma does exist, I'll be paying for all the insects I killed for the next three lifetimes (really I killed about one a day).

One last intricacy of the process drove me batty. I loved Mrs. Franklin's cooking, but the woman believed a man should eat his weight in biscuits, gravy, bacon, country ham, jelly, eggs, orange juice, and toast every morning. I had never eaten so much food; It never stopped. You need to imagine Thanksgiving every morning to have an idea. She would wake up at six-thirty, start cooking, and not stop until about seven fifteen. I ate a pound of food before eight Anni meridian, and she would not have me eating any less but every crumb of her breakfast. Oh I pleaded; I begged. I would lay prostrate on the kitchen floor crying "All I want is a bowl of cereal, all I want is a bowl of cereal Mrs. Franklin. Please Mrs. Franklin, that's all I want to eat! Please have mercy!" But no convincing could change her mind. She knew what was best for me and my health. It got to the point where I had to choose between yelling at her to stop cooking or eat her breakfast. You know which one I choose. I gained about eight pounds in the first month before I took a up running program that lasted the rest of the year. Man what a woman.

You may wonder why I did it (and I've had to explain it hundreds of times). Something inside of me couldn't live knowing I had a chance to make a 91 year old woman's life peaceful and I passed it up. Of course all that altruistic hokus-pokus vanished in the first week, and I truly believe it's possible to do something with one hundred percent unselfish motives and hate every single minute of it. Although I guess free rent may sound like a selfish motive, I would give ten times the amount of money I saved to go back in time I say "No actually, I think I would like to live in the dorm this year."

But, while altruism moved me into her house, guilt and pride kept me there 370 days. When it came to October, and everyone was begging me to move back into the dorm, I would have absolutely none of it. I could not bear to look an elderly woman in the eyes and say "I just can't stand living in your house." How would that make her feel? Would anyone want to do that? No I wasn't going to do it. I was going to stay a whole year at least. And plus I, Jonathan Harrison, had to persevere. I had to show people that I would overcome the situation that I was in. Living with Mrs. Franklin would not beat me. Moving into the dorm would be a cop-out; it would be running away from a challenge. No I would do a whole year at least, and no one, not even my own parents, would convince me. Two years later, I regret that decision. I would bear her dissapointment and have an entire semester back to myself if I could do it over. I am a little wiser now than I was then, and it applies directly to the situation I am in today.

Yes, without Mrs. Franklin I would not be coming home January. No one should throw away ten months of their life in order to avoid the disappointment of others and prove something to themselves. Life is too short to do something you absolutely hate. Yes, without Mrs. Franklin's house I would have contemplated coming home early, thought about how it would disappoint my students, realize I had a contract to fulfill and then thrown myself off the top floor of the teaching building sometime in mid-February. Whether she knew it or not, she gave me the wisdom and gumption to get out. Yes, yes she did. I would like to thank her for that one day.

I have to admit when I heard she had a stroke last week I almost cried. The old woman encompassed an entire year of my life, good or bad. She talked to me an hour every night for 370 days; I once joked I knew her better than my own grandparents. And despite all the bad, there was still some good. Mrs. Franklin cared more for others than she ever cared for herself; I have never seen a woman love her family more. She may have never been wrong about anything in her entire life, but she channeled most of that strong energy into a maternal affection that she used to mother anyone that would give her the time. She was ruled by worry, but most of the worry in her life originated from what others loved ones were doing, and not her self. She wanted the absolute best for everyone she knew.

I look back with some irony on the last time I spoke with her. When I called her to congratulate her on her 93 birthday, I had just finalized my plans to go to China. She asked me what was new in my life, and I had told her. Her response went something like this:
"Well why in the sam-hill would you want to go to China to teach English for?" She thought it a terrible idea, and thought I shouldn't go. I never got to tell her, and I had full plans of doing so, that she had been right about the whole thing. Of course she didn't need my validation to know that she was right, but I think she would have gotten some pleasure out of hearing me say that.

But like I said in the beginning, she half expected death to come at any moment. I remember distinctly the first time I heard her say it. I thought to myself "I got to call somebody. I think she plans on dying on me tonight! She can't die, I just started doing this!" Little did I know, she said the same thing every night, the same ominous mantra that sounded her way to bed. But the shock from hearing it the first time I will never forget. She had just walked to the foot of the stairs, in preparation to climb up to her bed-room on the second floor. She stopped, let out a long-sigh, looked at me with those glaucoma-stricken eyes and murmured the phrase I will never forget:

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

Is this the same?

A few nights ago all of the foreigners, save one, ate at Mecca Home, Enshi's token Western restaurant. As I have said earlier, there are eight of us: five Americans, one Peruvian, one English and one Japanese. We were all sitting around in our own private dinning room, speaking in English, when Kazusan began talking about the differences between Enshi and the rest of China. Apparently, as Kazusan explained and John and Lila agreed, Enshi isn't China, it's something totally different. They began to list the differences: it's noisier here, the people are friendlier, it's dirtier, etc. They said if you compare Enshi to all the other places in this nation (and these are people who have traveled China extensively) this city, and I believe these were Kazusan's words exactly, "Is a different country."

With that being said, I believe everyone, except the foreigners living in Enshi, will forever be ignorant as to the experience living in this city, and that includes my other friends who live in the bigger cities of China. Now I don't mean the politically correct, subjective mumbo-jumbo of "Every city is different and is beautiful in its unique differences,” which I abhor. No, I mean ya'll have no IDEA what it's like to live here. Granted, I was in Yichang for a total of 24 hours, but I saw more differences in those 24 hours than I cared to articulate to my friends, lest I sound like the guy who has a superiority complex about a situation that's identical to the situation of the people to whom he is speaking (you know, nobody likes that guy). I've been trying to convince myself since Sunday that the experiences in this city are similar to the experiences in the bigger towns, because I know that's the correct way to think. However, I can't shake the belief that mindset is wrong. I saw Yichang as a world away from Enshi, and if nothing else, my going to Yichang has made me wonder that if I had lived in a bigger city China might have beeen tolerable and, if the stars were right, possibly, could you believe it?, maybe even *gasp* enjoyable.

We walked around the Yichang for three hours last Saturday night. I can recall one taunting "Hello!" from a near drunk Chinese official who was trying to impress his friends. I just returned from getting some dumplings and a cup of tea at the local Coffee shop. I answered or ignored six people yelling "Hello" and one person asking, "What is your name,” in that short time frame. And these are just the hellos! This isn't considering, if I had to guess, the fifty or sixty glances, stares, and ogles (is that a word) I also received that did not exist in Yichang. I've typed about them before, but if anyone feels like there isn't much difference between Enshi and the rest of this country, I challenge you (yes I am throwing down the gauntlet) to hop a van, endure uncountable hours on winding mountain roads, and spend one weekend in the next month in this town. But you know what? Nobody will do it, and I would feel kind of bad if someone actually did arrive; because I would hate for someone to spend a good deal of money so Jonathan could have self-gratification. You just have to take my word for it.

As evidence, I told one of my classes that some American friends might one-day show up in Enshi to visit, and the entire class lit up like a Christmas tree (most of my students ooed at the prospect of seeing other foreigners). The class then inquired as to their age, gender, marital status, astrological sign, etc. I realized then that if my friends came to this town I would spend the entire weekend doing one of two things: constantly exhibiting them like a group of state-champion Jersey cows or hiding them in my apartment from the Beatlemania roaring outside in the city. I can just see it now "No you don't want to leave my apartment. There is really not much out there to see, I'll go get some food. No it's on me. I'll be a few minutes, just don't go too close to the windows." That doesn't sound too fun now does it?

It's a shame my Yichang experience didn't happen earlier in the year, because I might be spending my second semester in a different city instead of coming home five months early. Of course, at the point that I decided to jump ship I was deep in the belief that my Enshi experience is universal to the China experience and nothing, including a change of scenery, could make my time here enjoyable. Now that I know things are different, I'm way too close to coming home to change my mind (38 days!). But it still makes me a little melancholy to think that, with a few things changed, I could have been placed in a different city and the last five months of my life could have been a hoot-and-a-half instead of mind-numbing, soul-searching weariness. Really it does.

(With that being said, I need to say that no one is to blame for my being in a small, isolated town. This city hired us at the last second after plan A capsized in mid-June. I have also been told that our leader only placed us here because some leaders assured him the superhighway through the city would be completed in August; they lied. The highway looks almost done in the city, but after driving through the countryside I can assure you that if the superhighway is finished by the time I have my first child, I will name him or her Enshi. They have that much work to do.)

Of course, "there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow." As a good friend said this morning, I'm in Enshi for a reason. I really don't know what that reason is, and I may never know, but I won't fret over small details when this whole China thing is slowly coming to an end. There is no telling how this experience has changed me, but I will rest assured that forty years from now I might log back into blogger for one last blog post in which I proclaim "I GOT IT! I KNOW THE ENTIRE REASON I WENT TO CHINA!" No one will be there to read it, but at least I'll finally have peace of mind.

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

Reflections on Hamlet

Today one of my students asked me "Have you ever heard of the work Pride and Prodigious? It's very famours."

It's good to know the influence of Jane Austen has transcended cultural barriers and the Pacific ocean to make its way to China. If one thing infuriates me more than Jane Austen, it's the recent head-ache inducing infatuation for her. I don't mind someone liking good literature, and I consider Jane Austen good literature, but it's one thing to tolerate the money=happiness theme that permeates all of her works and it's totally another to embrace it with uncomparable affection. I guess I have to be filthy stinking rich before an American woman will ever find me attractive. Ok, so I know that's not true, but being rich wouldn't hurt right? And that's what really scares me.

So I've been reading Hamlet in the past week, and, hopefully some of the Shakespearen experts that are known fans of my blog can clear up some things. I'm fine with everything in the play until the last scene. Does anything make less sense than the sword fight at the end? Let's start from the beginning.

For one, Hamlet discovers, the second he returns from a pirate-ridden journey England, that his one and only love Ophelia has killed herself. Naturally, he does what every normal man would do and jumps into her grave, with her brother, to prove that he loved her more than Laertes ever could. They fight in the grave, blah blah blah. You know the story.

What transpires after the fight is something I will never understand. It seems, shortly after the grave sight brawl, that one of the king's courtiers shows up and says to Hamlet "You know the guy who sent you to England to be killed, murdered your father, and married your mom thinks you can win a fencing-match against the guy whose father you killed and just fought in the grave only a few moments ago." Really? Sounds like a swell idea to me! Hamlet is suicidal and mad, I'll give you that (even though I seriously doubt his madness) and a death-wish swordfight would makes sense, but Hamlet has spent the entire play contemplating when to kill Claudius. It seems to me he's passing on any chance of doing this by agreeing to fight Laertes. Hamlet knows that Laertes wants to kill him, he has to. I guess Hamlet could kill Claudius while fighting Laertes, but I would find it difficult to kill someone with a sword while another person is chasing me around the room trying to kill me with their sword. I don't know, I'm no Hamlet.

And while all this tomfoolery is going on, Fortinbras and his entire army are sipping coffee at the Starbucks just outside the palace walls. The entire reason Francisco and Bernardo are on guard at the beginning of the play is because this same guy Fortinbras wanted to invade Denmark and take it for his own. So no one in the castle is thinking "Wait a sec, maybe we should postpone the swordfight, the guy that wanted to invade us a couple of months ago is at the Starbucks across the street with his entire army. "

Nothing has happend here in the last few days. Some of the other foreigners introduced us to a swanky quasi-western restaurant; I have eaten there two nights in a row. I forced myself to write this blogpost, out of commtiment to posting on a regular basis. A little over 39 days until I step off the plane in America. These posts should get more interesting some day soon. I'm currently reading Macbeth. I think someone should perform a Harry Potter version of it where the weird sisters are muggles and everyone else in the play is a witch/wizard. It wouldn't really work, but it would be fun to watch.

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