Ray & Shansi: A Chinese Love Story

Friday, June 17, 2011

What Are You Doing Tomorrow Morning?

OR HOW 6 AM IS QUICKLY BECOMING MY FAVORITE HOUR OF THE DAY

At 6:20 AM, my alarm goes off. For the first time. I roll out of bed, quickly use the bathroom, quickly put on some clothes, quickly stuff my pockets with keys and a few kwai (Chinese dollars), and quickly get out the door. By the time my alarm goes off the second time, five minutes after the first, I know it's time to pull the door behind me, and get my tired body onto the small track. It is time for Tai Ji practice.

I've kept up this routine 5 days a week, for the last month and a half. And truly, it gets me through the day. Doing Tai Ji has been the only thing that makes me feel connected to the community here in Taigu, and for better or worse, one of the only activity where people genuinely want me around, want to befriend me, and don't try to abuse my magical English teaching skills. Not getting harassed for impromptu English 101 conversations or English lesson requests (on principle, I always say no, but do invite them to sit in on my real English classes) can be a rare occurrence when I'm out and about. And squatting, with my arms rounded and graceful in a group of old Chinese people, surrounded by a handful of my favorite English students (us 8 are the only people under 50), I finally am left alone. And it feels great.

I stumbled upon Tai Ji completely by accident. I was trying to kill some time while walking to the small track with my students in order to play an in-class outdoor game. A few of my female students, who mostly keep to themselves in a small clique, mentioned that they were learning Tai Ji every morning. At 6:40. On a whim, I told them that, come next Monday, I would stop by and try it out.

I love sleep. So in true Ray fashion, I set my alarm as close to 6:40 as possible, with the idea that I would just throw myself together and leave in a flash. I show up "on time", and low and behold, I am completely late. And the entire practice is 10 minutes long, after which, 2 more advanced forms of Tai Ji (one includes swords!) I have not yet learned are practiced. (I'm still not sure what the real start time is. I now aim for 6:30. I believe the true start time is whenever the teacher feels like starting, which, somehow, irregardless of what time I arrive, is always slightly earlier than I expected.) "This is what I got up for?" I grumble to myself. I had just faked my way through what was left of the Tai Ji practice and was not yet won over to the sport. My students, all smiley and excited, come up to me, waving. "Ok. Now it's time to learn Tai Ji (or as one of my student says 'Touch')!" For the next 2 weeks we worked our way through the 24-position routine. You see, Tai Ji is a routine. The same routine. Every time. To music. The same music. Every time. Conceptually,

Tai Ji doesn't really appeal to the senses. But in practice, it is absolutely lovely. You get to flow, slowly, through a beautiful and ridiculously silly looking, slow-motion martial art pattern, complete with punches, blocks, and kicks, in synchronized columns and rows with 100 old Chinese strangers. Who are not telling you how white and wonderful your skin is. Or complimenting your Chinese after you have grunted something simple and short like "thank you" in their direction. They're busy. You're busy. And I love it.

And every day afterwards, me and my student-friends go out for breakfast. We have our favorite stall and we are utterly faithful. We each order a soup-thing (porridge, wonton soup, or egg soup) and a bread-thing (slightly sweet bread,

slightly salty bread, or an egg-y/chive-y/salty crepe/tortilla thing), and sit at folding tables on little stools chatting and watching the market stalls being set up for the day.

Now that I've gone so many times, the other people at the track don't stare anymore either -- the runners, the badminton players, the parents with their wild children, the students memorizing passages for class under their breath, and the amateur circus performer, an older gentleman who plays with devil sticks or a noisy diablo as he does laps around the track. We're a odd little community: a community I mostly can't communicate with without a translator, a community who has probably never lived far from their home province, let alone another country. We're different. But we have Tai Ji.

And, fingers crossed, that will be enough.

A Note on the Pictures: I normally wear jeans or loose slacks and a T-shirt to Tai Ji practice. But when I told my student-friends that I needed Tai Ji pictures for this blog, they brought me a special outfit. As if I needed another way to stick out. I hope you enjoy the outfit that I've only worn once, and plan on never wearing again.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Surviving India Only to Perish in China

OR WHY MALARIA IS SCARY, POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE

I think I have malaria. (Well, I thought I had malaria in early March, a few weeks after returning from malarial India.) I keep getting sick. I just had a cold, and three days after getting over it, I get a fever. Malarial symptoms are all symptoms of the common cold. And you get sick in waves – first feverish or chilly, then healthy for two or three days, then feverish or chilly again. This just keeps happening until you 1. get treated, 2. your body completely annihilates the parasite or 3. you die.

I didn’t take malaria medication while traveling. In my defense, taking malaria medication – while perfectly safe if taken for a few weeks – can make you sicker than just getting malaria. Two months is too long to be on it.

I promise I wore mosquito repellent. But the mosquitoes in Madurai (in Tamil Nadu, India) got me bad. They are the most aggressive mosquitoes I have ever had a run-in with. I covered my arms, legs, and midsection with industrial-hazard-level deet bug spray. So they bit my face. And in-between my fingers. I started putting mosquito repellent on my hands, but every time I used the bathroom, the repellent would wash off. And soon thereafter I would get a fresh bite on my hands again. It was a losing battle. By the time I left Madurai, I looked like a chicken pox victim. It was terrible.

So you can understand why, when I magically picked up cold symptoms two weeks after leaving Madurai, I was worried. You’d be worried too.

Unfortunately, northern China is not a malarial zone. No one knows how to diagnosis it. Most clinics don’t have tests for it. If you have malaria (or any tropical disease), it can be much safer to stay in the malarial (tropical) area to get treated. Doctors know the symptoms, and can quickly get you tested and medicated. Even in my non-malarial hometown of Kensington, MD (a suburb of Washington, DC), you would have a hard time finding a malaria test.

So, in a way, I was screwed.

I do, however, have lovely bosses who treasure their relationship with Shansi and Oberlin greatly. They would not, could not, let one of their Oberlin Shansi teachers get sick. So they listened to my pleas about getting a blood test, though I think they thought I was crazy for being so anxious and stubborn about the whole thing.

People from the Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) took me to Taigu’s hospital. “They don’t have the test here,” they explained “but the doctor will take a look and can tell if you’re positive.” I was fuming. Malaria has all the symptoms of a cold. How in the world could a doctor tell if I had it? Just as I suspected, the doctor thought I was crazy for thinking I had malaria. His nurse took my temperature, which was normal. He listened to my heart. “You don’t have malaria. You just have a cold. I’ve seen malaria patients. I would know,” the man from the FAO translated for me. Really? Can you tell just by looking at me? I wondered all this and more to myself. On the way out, they people from the FAO handed me three different medications, told me that I must take them, and only vaguely told me what they were for. Alexandra finally translated them for me. One was an antibiotic (obviously, I didn’t take this), one was to cure sore throats and was a mix of western and eastern medication (took this), and the last one she couldn’t translate (I didn’t take this one either).

Upon my insistence, and my insistence alone, the next day we went to the province capital hospital (Taiyuan People’s Hospital). At this point, I was so worried that I was prepared to take an overnight train to Beijing to get tested at some expensive ex-patriot clinic. But luckily, Taiyuan had what we were looking for. After meeting with another doctor, who once again told me I had a cold yet wrote a script for the test anyway, and wandering through many hallways of the hospital, we found the testing room. It was just a laboratory. I wondered if the equipment would be properly sterilized. I wondered if I’d get sicker by visiting all these hospital than by just staying in bed, dealing with my malaria/cold. “Can I prick your ear?” the man from FAO translated. What?!? Prick my ear? The ungloved lab technician had started coming at my face with a sharp bit of metal (that seemed to have come from a new plastic pointy-bits-of-metal packet and was hopefully sterilized). Like any normal American, I freaked out. “What is he doing!?!?!” I say to my translator. “He needs to get blood. He could poke your finger, but it would hurt more,” he said. After explaining how – trying to regain some face – “we” don’t prick ears for blood in America, I went with the ear prick anyway. I now know how babies feel when they get their first shots. If someone wants to prick my finger or poke my arm, I just relax. But when someone pricks the bottom of my earlobe, it feels strange, unnatural, and a bit sadistic. You want to do WHAT…WHERE?!?! My ears are pierced; it’s not like I haven’t had pointy things near them. But this new medical experience felt so wrong, was so culturally different that I was tense the whole time. (By the way, both the lab technician and the translator think Americans are crazy for not using the painless earlobe method in American blood work.)

Did I mention it was the scariest experience I have had in a long time?

Guess what? I’m negative. Isn’t that great? We don’t have sick leave here in Taigu, so even though I was in and out of hospitals for 2 days, I had to make up all four of the classes I missed. (I made them up over the weekend.) And did not have time to stay in bed getting better from my cold. It was a frustrating few days to say the least.

This story, I’m sure, illustrates some interesting cultural points about China and America, the East and the West, but I have yet to figure out what those enlightening points are. All I know is that getting sick abroad is terrifying, and something everyone should avoid at all costs. But perhaps, we can learn the most from our new environments when we are the most stressed, the most vulnerable, and the most in need of friends, family, and a community.

The translator and I have become good friends. And now I know where the nearest malaria test is. Splendid.

The Map of Malarial Areas is from http://www.smeds.org/7th%20Malaria/Peterson/default.html.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Chinese Tourism (Pictures)

OR WHERE IS MY TOUR GUIDE?!?!

On my recent trip to Zhangjiajie National Park, in Hunan Province, I noticed something odd. Chinese tourist spots are not like their American counterparts. Being one with nature in China is not like being one with nature in America. And Chinese tourists do not behave like any tourists I've seen before. Which means that most things you'd take for granted while traveling just did not exist or happen. Like easy-to-understand maps. Or having a hotel in the park that did not require you to lug your luggage up a mountain to sleep at. However, if you wanted to stay seated while two men carried you around in a chair, you could do that. Let me show you some of the travel differences I noticed while visiting the karst peaks in Zhangjiajie. May my photos enlighten, inspire, and perhaps cause some culturally-insensitive giggles.

First off, everyone wants to travel with a tour guide and a group in tow.

They even have schools to train the guides, perhaps on how to keep to the Party line.

Since few travel without a guide, we couldn't find a useful map. These people all speak Chinese, and don't they look confused? When in China, not going to a major tourist attraction, either go with confusion and angst or go with a guide.

We wanted to go hiking, but there aren't any trails. Just paved walkways and stone steps.

If steps aren't your thing, you could take an elevator up one of the main mountains.

Or take a sightseeing trolley.

Or, for the right price, be carried.

We noticed that Chinese people love having their pictures taken at all of the famous scenic spots.

Especially for money by someone else.

They also love taking pictures with Caucasian strangers. This man just came up and posed next to me without asking first. Deciding to capitalize on the situation, I had someone take a photo of us on my camera, too.

And if beautiful karst mountains don't thrill you, visiting the inspiration for the Hallelujah Mountains from Avatar would, right?

Except that these are not the mountains that James Cameron based Avatar's floating mountains on. The Yellow Moutain (in Anhui Province, China) is.

But that doesn't stop Zhangjiajie from capitalizing on their apparent likeness.

What can I say folks? Culture makes us do some weird things. I'll admit this post makes me giggle a lot. But how funny am I when I'm just acting "normal"? How funny are you?

Sunday, April 17, 2011

My New Banner

OR AN EXPLANATION OF LOVE AND LOCKS

In many countries, lovers lock padlocks to railings or fences, usually over bridges, and then throw down the key, to show the eternal locking of their two souls together. I saw hundreds of these love locks, on the railings and trees on a natural bridge two karst mountains had created in Zhangjiajie (Hunan province). I saw love locks for eternal love, good fortune, long life, and good wishes for one's family.

I guess you can lock anything away, and somehow save it. Somehow. But I doubt it.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

On Pilgrimage in China (Pictures)

OR HOW MAO'S HOMETOWN MAY BE THE CLOSEST THING TO JERUSALEM/ MECCA FOR CHINESE PEOPLE

China is not a religious place. Yes, people here practice religion. And maybe, long ago, people embraced group spirituality openly. But in this self-proclaimed secular country, nothing is as religious as Mao Zedong. (At least, for predominantly Han party members.) The official party line says that he was 70% right, and 30% wrong. But that doesn't stop thousands of Chinese nationals from visiting Shaoshan, Mao's hometown.

We were already in the area, staying in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. With this pilgrimage site just 90 minutes away, we couldn't resist not going.

When we first arrived in Shaoshan, we were starving. So we found a kitschy Mao gift shop/restaurant combo to eat in.

Naturally, we ordered Mao's favorite dish: Hong Shao Rou (red braised pork). Or, as I like to think of it, insti-heart attack.

We found plenty of creepy Mao gift shops.

But decided not to buy anything.

First, we saw a big bronze Mao in a huge park. Wanting to fit in, we decided to take a group portrait in front.

Next, we went to the Mao Zedong Memorial Museum, where we learned lots of things.

For example, that Mao gets all the girls.

. . .

Here's a picture of what we were led to believe are Mao's chopsticks. DNA testing, anyone?

Finally, we went to see Mao's parents' house. It was free, along with the museum and the park. The transportation...was not.

Look! Mao is poor like us! This hole in the roof, covered by plastic, shows us how poor the Chairman was. But when I noticed that every room's roof had a hole in the same spot, we started to get skeptical.

Mao's bed. This is where he must have dreamt communist dreams, on pillows of a traditional bed.

The grounds near his house, the museum, and the square were immaculately taken care of...for rural China standards.

Me and David in a rapeseed field.

Dan, following my posing advice, in a field. Notice, Alexandra is not taking my tips to heart.

On the way back to Changsha, I made a friend. Yes, he is punching you.

So our trip was beautiful, idyllic, full of fatty food, and rather cheap (if you don't include the car we hired who, after we gave him hundreds of kwai to drive us to Shaoshan, drove us to the nearest bus depot, bought us each 15 kwai tickets, and left us to take the slow, local bus all the way there). But don't worry. It will take more than a pilgrimage to make me hail Chairman Mao.

Thank you to Alexandra Sterman for donating pictures to this post.