Asian Birthdays

OR HOW I'VE FORGOTTEN HOW TO CELEBRATE BIRTHDAYS LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE

I hope that one day I will have a normal birthday. You know...the kind celebrated with friends, family, delicious cake, some presents, some cards, in your own community. Well in the last 5 years, I've had my birthday in the States twice. Sure, traveling on one's birthday is excellent. Glamorous and privileged. But often, when I travel, I travel alone. For every birthday since high school, in America and abroad, I've had to rely on people I barely know to help me make the moment special.

I blame it on the day. January 10th, what an awkward day. Right after New Year's, a little farther after Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, Winter Solstice, and Kwanzaa. People are just tired and gifted-out by the time the 10th rolls around. In Maryland, it is always cold, usually sunny, and perpetually brown. When I was little, I would always wish for snow as my birthday present.

That wish was granted on my first birthday away from Maryland -- Oberlin winter term 2007, my freshman year. I was one of the brave, and perhaps stupid, few who stayed for a Dascomb WT. It was cold, snowy, and lonely without most of my new friends around. With our cooking, we all set off the fire alarm at least once a day. (The day before my birthday, we set it off twice.) I had no plans for the day. I was just going to attend my TIMARA class, which was my WT project. Suddenly there is a knock. Old Mr. Gibson himself was outside my door! He wished me happy birthday and handed me the worst chocolate cake I've ever eaten. The surprise cake delivery was my mom's idea; what a memorable one at that.

2008 found me in north-western Germany. I was staying with my now-grown-up-with-a-family former au pair and her husband and sweet child. The couple works for the British military: he as a military police officer, her as a former military police officer, now as a military-families-only child welfare counselor. Britain maintains bases in Germany, which was why they were stationed there. I lived with them for 5 weeks -- chilling in their house working on personal projects, watching their baby and dog, and occasionally traveling to major cities in or around Germany on a Eurail pass. I had wanted Indian food -- so we splurged and went out to what looked like a nice restaurant. The meal was pretty bad, and we strongly suspected that they were microwaving our food in the back. But it was so lovely being around them, and having a family when I was so far away from home.

I turned the big 2-1 during 2009 in Mexico, a country where no one checks your age while drinking, as long as you pay for your drinks. I was studying Spanish for 3 weeks in Guadalajara. We had epic field trips every weekend; luckily, my birthday fell on one of them. We spent the day driving through the mountains surrounding the city, visiting a picturesque lake,and a chilled-out hot springs. I decided to go on this program without knowing a soul, and we, as a group, had only had about a week to get to know one another. So I announced it was my birthday and hoped for the best. I gathered a few new friends together and we made a crazy trek through the city to find this Cuban restaurant. The restaurant was urban chic -- writing and graffiti purposely covered the walls -- and the food was to die for. The food was so good we came back a few times in our 3.5 week stint in Guadalajara, included the night of Obama's inauguration. After food and a few mojitos, we ended the night at a discotheque. This club, like many we went to in the city, had a dance floor but no dancers. So it was us, the awkward Obies, who started the dance party. The festive birthday tequila shots helped. Epic, indeed.

My senior year (2010) birthday found me in Oberlin again. I was participating in the Shansi WT, learning to teach English by reading lots of pedagogy, getting teaching tips from Kim Faber, and trying our lesson planning skills out on a few willing foreign Oberlin Conservatory students. A few of my friends were also learning to be teachers, one of whom I had met during my stay in Guadalajara. My apartment was lonely without all four housemates. So I spent many nights inviting people over for games, Elyria-bought Indian food, and good times. My birthday was no different. I held it in my living room. I made a tasty pineapple and sprite special punch that we drank out of Sesame Street waxy paper cups. As presents, my friends brought over cakes, cookies, and candy. We all nearly passed out from the extreme amount of sugar! And after lighting candles on a pile of cookies and singing "Happy Birthday", we played Apples to Apples. Four hours of Apples to Apples. My friends, new and old, shuffled into the apartment for four hours straight, and to entertain them, I just kept on playing. And playing. And playing. It was an exhausting and fun time.

So this year, in 2011, I was in India. I was staying at a yoga ashram in Rishikesh. My birthday fell on the night we normally did kirtans -- a form of meditation where you bang on noisy stuff while chanting in call-and-response style. Every one would take their turn at the mic, if they dared. The yoga teachers always went first, leading chants in sanskrit. Then it was our turn. We could sing whatever we wanted, in whatever language. While many of the ashram students chickened out (I blame it on us being all Western), I never did. I always look them up on their offer, singing everything from "Wade in the Water" to "Over the Rainbow" (Israel Kamakawiwo'ole style). After we we all sang, my favorite yoga teacher took the mic again. He started singing me happy birthday. The drums started pounding. The shakers started rattling. He threw in Hindi and English phrases of good fortune. He then gave me a box of barfi, which I handed out, piece by piece, as the group of teachers and ashram students sang a more familiar version of "Happy Birthday", sans drums. Along with the desserts, I got a card, bought by this sweet American couple, former peace corps volunteers in Jamaica, that everyone had signed earlier, none too discreetly, while the kritans were being performed. A third of the box of barfi was left after firsts and a quite few seconds were passed out. "It's your birthday. You have to finish the box. Otherwise it's bad luck," said my favorite yoga teacher. I stuffed my face with the sugary, chalky barfi until the box was empty. Yummy! I had diarrhea the next morning.

Why have one Asian birthday when you can have two? On March 10th, two month late, the foreigners threw me a party. We met at my house, where my Chinese friends gave me hair clips (my hair was too short of them), a puzzle (I hate puzzles), bananas (2 dozen bananas), and an unripe pineapple (which they put salt on). We snacked on the fruit before leaving for the restaurant. We ate at my favorite restaurant in town: shrimp and squid dry hot pot. Alexandra and a Chinese friend were missing from most of the dinner, and when they returned, they had a huge box! That evening my China-induced dreams were fulfilled...they had bought me a cake with a huge dragon on it! I am born during the year of the dragon, and come on who doesn't want a cake that is half cake and half icing (all cakes in China are like this) in the form of a mystical beast? The foreigners toasted my health and happiness over SNOW beer and baijiu. Following Chinese tradition, a paper tiara was put on my head and all my friends started decorating my face with icing. Alexandra got so into it that she put the entire dragon's head on my face. James started calling me "Queen" (we both get two birthdays) and sang a drunken rendition of "Rule, Britannia!" in my honor. These lovely people even paid for my share of the expensive cake and meal. We then leaded back to the house to watch a favorite movie of mine, Shawn of the Dead. A delightful night. Though I got the icing off eventually, my face was stained blotchy red for the next day or two.



I wonder what next year's birthday will look like. What country will it be in? And with which friends?

Man, I Hate Tourists

OR WHY I GROAN AT THE SIGHT OF NON-ASIAN TOURISTS

Lately I've been having a hard time relating to other tourists. Tourists mainly from Europe, a handful from Asia, and a scant few from America. Here I am, having my first face-to-face conversations with proficient English speakers in four months (not counting my 5-person expat community in Taigu) and I'm realizing that I don't have much in common with these people. Not with fellow Americans, "my" people. Not with Europeans, even though I've lived in Europe. Maybe it's that there's been a much shorter period of time between the last time they had good ice cream and the last time I did. I don't know. But even with regaining linguistic competency in my current community (which is now English), I just cannot seem to communicate. Not only that, but I'm even embarrassed to be associated with them.

Maybe a story will explain my feelings better...

So I was at a dance concert tonight. It was full traditional Indian dances and lots of rich, white, Europeans tourists. How do I know they're rich? Well, they're traveling in large groups, are all over the age of 50, are all Caucasian, all wear outfits that look put together based on style (not lack-of-cleanliness desperation), and all have high-end digital cameras in their hands. And, they smell nice.

Immediately after the curtains open, a flash goes off from one of their cameras. As soon as this flash occurs without complaint, everyone begins to think that using their flash would be a good idea. You would have thought we were at these people's children's first kindergarten play. People would stand up, flash, sit down, pause...and then repeat the whole process again. Way to ruin the stage lighting for the rest of us. And so much for ambiance. The kicker is that the flash didn't help out any of pictures they were taking, because they were too far away from the stage for it to light the dancers. Instead, their pictures with flash probably made the stage look dark and the stuff near them (i.e. the backs of heads and seats) would show up very clearly. As I sat there, grinning and bearing it through the flash-fest, I just imagined this internal conversation going on in each one of their heads:

"I'll take a picture."
"But it's dark in this auditorium. Let's use flash."
(takes picture)
"Humph. Not the best picture in the world."
"Let's take another (with flash)."

Wow. Am I proud to be a Westerner. Insensitive, selfish, overflowing with money (have I mentioned that even people in Asia, some of who could get dinner for a USA $1.50 if they tried hard enough, think my salary is low), and stupid. Wow.

When it comes right down to it, the only tourists I've gravitated towards while traveling in India are Asian (or Asian-descended) ones. Why? Because they are the only people I've met that can actually handle India, and enjoy it for all that it offers: relaxation and chaos.

Let me pause right here and say that all the Shansi fellows I've had the pleasure of meeting -- all of whom are American or have spent much of their lives in America -- have been GREAT to travel with. Let me repeat: SHANSI FELLOWS ARE NOT STUPID ABOUT LIVING IN ASIA. Good to know our fellowship is paying off, right?

So back to the problem at hand: Westerners sucking at an Asian lifestyle. I'm defining an "Asian lifestyle" for the purposes of this post as the negative parts of this continent that do not exist, or we Westerners just ignore, hide, or cover up in the West, such as pollution, trash, human waste disposal, homeless animals, "unordered" traffic, unsanitary eating conditions, undrinkable water, obvious poverty, etc, all of which I have found somewhere in China and India. Maybe I didn't convince you with my first example. Maybe you thought, hey, rich people everywhere can be insensitive. Why do you have to hate on my countrymen over one group of rich tourists, Ray?

Well let me give another incident I've witnessed here.

I met a guy at my ashram in Rishikesh. A know-it-all American, the kind that could only be produced in a highly individual-centered society. He gets "hit" by a rickshaw. As in, he was grazed by the mirror of a rickshaw as it drove past him. He used this incident to generalize negatively about all Indian rickshaw drivers. Other Westerners (two nice people from different parts the of British Commonwealth) staying at the ashram used this incident as a reason to not leave the ashram because it was "too stressful to take a walk outside". Now here's what I bet actually happened. I wasn't there, so this is all speculative, but it seems more probable than the conclusion that "rickshaw drivers try to run over their clients". I bet this American was walking in the middle of the road, not playing attention to traffic, saw this moving vehicle getting too close to him, flinched trying to get out of the way, and flinched into this rickshaw. (I've seen this guy walk around, and this seems like a good, probable description.) Yes, I blame the whole accident on him. I've been living in Asia for 5 months now and dealing with traffic is scary. Luckily Chinese traffic is similar to India. Here is what I've learned.

1. Cars will enter your personal space bubble. They will get within inches of you most of the time you share space with them. Relax, this is normal.

2. Traffic will look like it is a constant series of near-misses and cars that do not follow "standard" driving rules, like lines on the road or traffic lights. Don't worry, people don't tend to get into accidents, even though it always looks like they will (except when they do get into accidents).

3. Moving traffic can be thought of as a partner dance, with leaders and followers. To lead, slowly indicate in some way what you plan on doing next (like turning right, driving in the wrong lane, stoping randomly, narrowly passing other cars). To follow, pay attention to these signals.

4. NEVER flinch, act quickly, or dash anywhere around traffic. You will get hit...basically by trying to save yourself. You get hit because of rule # 1 and # 3. Cars are very close and they need a moment to react to you, so give it to them.

In America we have rules. Pedestrians can do almost anything they want, as long as they know what the rules are and expect drivers to follow them. Pedestrians are also respected in the US. In India and China I walk as far off to the side as possible. I try to never stop, even when rickshaws and motorbikes get close, so my movement will be predictable to them. I walk slow and steady. Sometimes I hold people's hands to cross the road, and I've never, ever been hit.

Americans and Europeans are dumb here. They cannot help it. They don't really know what to do to stay safe, not get sick, not get bothered on the street. With their privileged, Western ways, they have no Asian street smarts. But me and people living in Asia...we know what's up. We know when to move, we know what to eat. We know how to look beyond burning trash and cow shit (not to mention the holy, roving cows themselves), to see the beauty and the awesomeness of India. Where Westerners say "STRESSFUL!", we say "oh, another day in the life...". Well, at least that's what I say.

And Asians miss the best things too. My Korean friend and I were sitting in a cafe, having a break from ashram and Indian life, from things like tea heavily spiced with milk and sugar and very cold drinking water. He orders a glass of piping hot, freshly boiled water. And I think "Hmmm, that reminds me China." I sigh and smile at the thought.

Having New Eyes

OR THE REAL VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY CONSISTS NOT IN SEEKING NEW LANDSCAPES BUT IN HAVING NEW EYES. --Marcel Proust

Hello from India. I was going to use this post to tell you about how I've grown in and with China. I would have pointed out that my painfully intimate relationship with the (tied-for-) third (-with-the-US) largest country in the world is starting to pan out in interesting ways. I was going to analyze the below pictures I saw in a gallery in 798, Beijing's contemporary art district. Take, I would have said, this first picture of a man. Maybe just a few months ago I would have gawked at this portrait of an Asian man and a rice cooker. How essentialist, I would have said. How orientalist. Now, after living in China, I see the picture two ways. First, I see my above description. Second, I see a real Chinese man painted truthfully by a Chinese painter. For when I look at the portrait, I see my rice cooker in my severly under heated Taigu kitchen, I see my water cooler from my cosy living room. I see my life and the lives of the people around me in these paintings. The American in me is disgusted by this painting; the Shansi fellow (or ex-pat, anthropologist, explorer, honorary Chinese) in me sees truthful familiarity. All my students have their favorite NBA star (ranging from Yao Ming to Kobe Bryant) and watch more American basketball than I ever have. Finding groups of adults playing cards in public places is common -- the rundown airplane is a common sight at kid's parks. This double view, or "craziness", is a concept I discovered in Bill Holm's Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of China Essays...and I'm a huge fan. After teaching English in China for a year, he could never see anything one way. Instead his whole life was seen in craziness because only he could see in double view. For example, his modest American home became both spartan (US view) and frivolous (China view). Multiply this example by every common, routine, usually trivial experience, and you can begin to understand how I see these paintings and how I will see America when I return. Now I can look at Chinese art and see both foreignness and familiarity, which excites me to no end.

I could have talked about my emerging connection to the community. I played in Nong Da's New Year's Party. A "party" here means nothing party-like whatsoever. Instead what they meant is somewhere along the lines of a high school talent show, with all the enthusiasm and talent that goes with it. Much as I tried to explain that this "party" was in fact a concert, I couldn't change the term. There seems to be a campuswide misunderstanding of the vocabulary term "party"; I eventually gave up and started using their definition too. At Oberlin, every job and most every extracurricular activity I did involved acting, improv, and tech theatre. Since May and graduation, this "party" has been my first gig. To represent myself, I decided to play a well-known song in the folk and queer communities, "Closer to Fine" by the Indigo Girls. At the "party", I played "The Closer to Fine" according to the hosts, gave a Happy New Years speech to a huge audience (in Chinese no less), and watched blue bubbles float on by while I sang a song 5 people in the audience could understand (apparently the English is too fast for our Chinese students to follow). It was epic.

I was going to say how this experiences gave me hope for the future. But instead I'll talk about the Taj Mahal and my first few days in my 2-month India trip. The Taj was epic, awe inspiring, and perfectly amazing. Yet getting to the Taj tested me in every way possible. I had to get on the tourist bus at 7am on 5 hours of sleep; sit through 6 hours of slow driving, cows blocking the road, and stops at gross eateries; shiver all day because I though India would be warm; be charged for every little thing I did all day long; be charged 750 Rs. to see the Taj, when Indias pay 20 Rs.; be given less than an hour to actually see the Taj; be left behind by my tourist bus when my friends and I decided 1 hour was not long enough; shiver the whole ride back (after we had finally caught up with the bus with our expensive taxi); hope I wouldn't get frostbite in India; get home to my hotel at 2am to a cold, cold room.

Yet I also had one of the best days possible. If any Shansi fellows are reading this...do you remember the day it was mentioned that traveling for one day would feel more rewarding and amazing than hanging out at our sites for months at a time? My Taj visit was that amazing day. I made the best of friends -- 2 ethnically Indian sisters from Tanzania and one of their husbands (who is originally from Germany). They stuck up for me and each other when we got ripped off, when the tour guide wouldn't speak English on the tour (he later came up to me and snottily remarked "Where are you from?" When I answered "America", he asked "Do you understand English?"), and most importantly, when the bus left us behind. They made sure I had a good time and that I got home safely. They were also really enjoyable people. We giggled the whole day, and made sure to share our negative (or rarely positive) opinions with the annoying bus drivers, salesmen, restaurant employees, and trinket sellers who bothered us. I learned many new things about Tanzania and my concept of an "Africa person" became more complex and friendly after meeting them (just as I hope I expanded their concept of an "American person"). I felt true comradery with these people who had never been to America: a successful go at cultural exchange and intercultural respect. We traded storied about America, China, and Tanzania. We giggled over real brownies and real lattes. We took photos of each other squeezing the top of the Taj into oblivion. Perhaps, needless to say, I was sad to get off that freezing tour bus and say goodbye to my new friends.

Now let's compare this to Taigu. I never realized how heartbreakingly, soul-crushingly, mind-bogglingly hard my decision to accept Shansi would be. To date I still don't have friends in Taigu that I feel that I have as much in common with as with these friends I met for one day. In fact, the depth of the conversations I had with my African friends I don't even have the luxury of having in Taigu: few to no people's English is that good. (My Chinese, being at food and light bulb ordering level, doesn't help yet.) Certainly Taigu is not as mesmerizing or as beautiful as the Taj. But where is, honestly?

So where does that leave me and Taigu?

I don't know. That is a question I hope to answer in the next coming months, during this trip and beyond.

At the least, I hope to come home to China with new eyes.

Da Tong (Pictures)

DO YOU LIKE THESE PICTURES?

This is just a small sampling of the pictures I took in Da Tong.

Please check out the rest of the photos...

...Here.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2077462&id=1230660239&l=0d8503d6a5

Eating My Way Through Asia

OR A LIST OF ALL THE TASTY, INTERESTING BITS I HAVE HAD IN CHINA

• fried scorpions


• donkey meat


• Bacon stuffed with red bean paste, then fried in batter and dusted with sugar


• Chicken feet*


• Pig ear*


• Chicken kidney


• Chicken heart


• Rabbit head
  
  
  
  • Brain
  
  
  • Tongue
  
  
  • Palate
  
  
  • Cheek
  
  
  • Eyeball


• Sheep stomach*


• Sheep intestine*


• Sheep congealed blood*


• Chicken "soft bone"


• Sheep feet


• Pig feet


• Shrimp head*


• Noodles that are the consistency of Jell-o

* I had this food at a Chinese wedding in Da Tong. Rarer parts of the animal (i.e. internal organs, eyeballs, etc) are considered more special, so they are the main attraction at special occasions, like weddings.

Christmas (Pictures)

RURAL CHINA STYLE

I'm a Christmas elf!

I bought a tree and wrapped me up some presents.

Here's a plastic wreath I decorated with bits and bobs I found at a Beijing IKEA.

My students gave me a Christmas cake.

And lots of Christmas apples, some of which were wrapped up like presents.

Nong Da establishments tried to decorate for the holiday season.

To celebrate Christmas Eve, we decided to all be Santa's helpers.

Elves hard at work.

Following family tradition, I watched The Santa Claus, with Tim Allen.

A Christmas miracle: our cats are getting along.

Alexandra's student came over and created this calligraphy piece for us. It will say "Merry Christmas" in Chinese. It is now hanging on our wall, above the cat food bucket, ready to bring Christmas cheer during any time of year.

Just Rolling in It

OR ONE PERSON'S RESPONSE TO LIVING IN THE 9TH MOST POLLUTED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD

Almost a year ago, I was sitting in the Feve, tired from a long day of TESOL training, and having a drink or two with my Shansi co-fellows. Julia, one of the Indonesian fellows, hands me a book, entitled Coal.

You should read this.

Why? I ask.

Well, you province is mentioned at least 10 times in the index. See?

You know when an Environmental Studies minor hands you a book on pollution, and your new home is prominently featured, that you just may have a problem on your hands. Perhaps a respiratory problem. Or a trash problem. Or a sad, dying planet problem.

I never guessed that my biggest problem would be one of dust.

In Shanxi province, the province I now call home, coal is money. Our reputation is based on it, our wealthiest are involved in it. We heat our houses with it and we get electricity from it. We mine it and use it in abundance. And it certainly shows. The most polluted city in the world is in our province. Wearing white here has become dangerous. Owning things in it is dangerous. Expecting anything to stay that color is dangerous. White and all things clean are very ephemeral states in the 9th most polluted country in the world.

Cleaning is downright depressing. White on gray -- the coal dust coats all of the newly plastered walls. The walls color and crack every year or two, and soon a new coat of white will be forced upon these tired surfaces. So they shine when the new teachers arrive.

But forget about your floor, your clothing, and everything else. When we sweep, we rid ourselves of dust bunnies, but never of the ingrained dust that stains every crack in the fake wooden floorboards. When we do laundry here, the water turns black every time. If you leave something out for too long, the next time you pick it up, it will soil your fingers. Black spots at every connecting point: fingers to phone, fingers to guitar, fingers to everything.

The air has a near constant reek to it. The radiators have turned on, so the coal plants must work overtime. And then there's the fires -- burning leaves (little to no public leaf disposal systems), burning plastic (little to no public trash disposal systems), and burning trash. Once I thought my neighbor's house was on fire. Nope. It was just time to get rid of some trash. The noxious fumes and the white, billowy smoke scare me. Outside my classroom window, students come to light fires. They burn piles of leaves. As my students work, I watch the small flames and the huge clouds fill up all 100 meters of space between me and the fire: space between trees and the curves of the building. I always make the students close the windows on these days. But sometimes they strongly protest and there's a constant pattern of open and close, open and close.Did I mention that everyone smokes here? Could someone remind me what smoke-free restaurants are taste and smell like?

So how do I cope? Well, by becoming an ardent environmentalist, of course. As a suburban-MD-resident-by-birth and an Obie-by-degree, my surroundings have been relatively pollutant-free. It wasn't until Ghana that I witnessed blatant anti-environmentalism. In the rural parts, the dirt roads are paved with squashed water bottles. The trash disposal system is as simple as Use-and-Drop. The ground is a trash dump.

In China I because I can respond, I must. So, step 1, I changed all my light bulbs to florescent bulbs, warm ones. This was a more impressive task than you might imagine. Normal, blue-tinted florescent lighting is extremely common is China. Finding something that doesn't make your home look clinical is very hard. The installed lighting in my house is overhead florescent tubular bulbs, the kind you see at the doctor's office or average office place. Homey, right? So I bought some lamps, took trip after trip (3 trips into town with many language barriers and much help from Chinese friends), and somehow found a bunch of warm bulbs. Though I had to pay 10 times more for these bulbs than their incandescent counterparts cost, I made my side of the house incandescent-free. Since I cannot drive (and will not for safety and sanity reasons) in this country, I don't pollute with car exhaust. I compost my extra food in a compost pile started by another fellow. I buy my food from local vendors. I try to keep my electric heater off when I can. I bundle. I bike.

I never paid much mind until I lived somewhere that looks positively post-apocalyptic because of coal pollution. I don't know how much I can change but at least my hands are becoming more and more coal-free.



Next step...solar electricity?