Punishing the Flesh

I suppose I’ve left everyone hanging on a low note, and I have let more time slip between entries than usual. For this, I blame acclimation; I have fallen into routine, and because of that, everything seems oppressingly normal. Like water, I have for a week pursued the course of least resistance as far as academic matters are concerned, and a new found expectation of the…undesired results in a generally more cynical, though less volatile mood.

But don’t mistake me. Though recent entries have dwelled on the low points, there are plenty of high points that just don’t fit into the themes on which I write. Like I said before, this journal is not intended as a travel record, but rather a record of exposure, a record of contact. So for the sake of everyone’s peace of mind, here are some great things that have been happening in the last week or so (most of which occurs on the weekend): seeing a variety show at a fancy teahouse; getting my own suit tailored for a bit more than $100; seeing the Temple of Confucius; seeing the Yong He Gong Tibetan Buddhist temple; seeing the Temple of Heaven park; spending hours with a Midd teacher’s husband at an unbelievably ritzy karaoke club; being able to understand my roommate half of the time; and a personal favorite of mine—learning to haggle and knocking down the price of 200 kuai leather dress shoes for my suit to 60 kuai (not even $10).

During the week, however, I have invested my free time in a new found pursuit: exercise. This past summer was the last stretch of time I was really active; as a reaction to excessive mental pressure, I turned to the sun and soccer for relief at summer school. Fall semester, however, found me rather sedentary, making short bursts to the bathroom in the library rather than across a grassy field. But now, once again in a pressured situation, I have sought some relief through physical exertion.

This is not the only reason, though… There are certainly hints subtly tucked into my previous writing, but I will now give this topic the spotlight. Experiencing China is not just sights and smells, it is very, very much food as well. Maybe it’s the culture’s liberal use of MSG, maybe it’s the shared entrees instead of single-person servings, maybe it’s something more akin to a deer in the headlights—but I’m always eating, and I’m always hungry. Food is something special to Chinese culture, and varied in as many ways as you can imagine. It’s delicious, and more often than not, the quantity is abundant despite what any mother might tell their child.

I have discovered so many new tastes and foods, and there are many I have not discovered, but eaten nonetheless. Cabbage, eggplant, various fungi, nuts, noodles, fatty meat (the fat is often eaten for its texture and sweetness), long slimy strips I think are somehow related to beans, bean paste (in small rolls, very sweet), tofu, beef, pork, chicken (which is often rather gnarly), eggs, soups, stews, pineapple-laden dishes, lotus root, spicy dry beans, and many more that just don’t come to mind right now. The strangest thing I’ve eaten so far was a purple ball a bit smaller than a golfball that seems to be the centerpiece of a soup; it proved slimy and limp, the inside of which I’m told comes from sesame seeds, but tasted like peanut butter.

I have eaten food from almost all corners of this country, and even had some home-made Chicken and eggplant parmesan made by some classmates the other night. I’ve eaten Xinjiang food, from the most northwestern province, home of the Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking culture of central Asian descent. I’ve eaten Dai food from the most southwest corner of the country, filled with jungle fruit and spices from the border of Southeast Asia. I’ve tasted a hint of Sichuan’s spicy cuisine, and most recently I ate the food that holds the northeast through its long, long winter. That’s just some of it.

But as good as the food is, everyone I think is starting to notice a little added weight to their stride, and so I find myself in the small gym we have when I can find time in the afternoon, designing whatever workout I can in effort to spend the energy of my massive consumption, to punish the flesh for its gluttony. Cardiovascular exercise, however, is the tricky part.

While the pollution in Beijing is not quite what I feared it would be, it is nevertheless a caustic presence. While there have been windy days clear enough to see mountains to the west, most days there is at least a haze, pulled like veil over distant buildings. Some days, it is more like a curtain hiding the not-so-distant buildings. Some folks have taken the initiative to go running outside, but as I neither like running on pavement nor wish to tempt my lungs’ strength to direct exposure, I must find other means. And so, I’ve been struggling through the process of learning to jump rope a proper way. To my delight, every day is a bit less awkward. Also to my delight is the fact that witnesses have so far been few or unattractive.