Lists

So, my time left here in the People’s Lovely Republic is short. In these situations, I feel reflection is inevitable—an attempt to discern through the fog of time and emotion the moorings of fact and what will be memory. I’m also starting to think of the friends I know will be coming here themselves soon enough or even in the winter, to walk the same steps I have. I’ve found the best way to go about organizing things (for me at least) is lists. From lists, you can expand to points, and connecting points, you make arguments, manifestos, and revolution.

Things I will miss or have already started to miss about life in China:
-Chinese food, Chinese food, Chinese food
-music shows in Beijing (Jazz at D-22, seeing Iz, etc.)
-big group dinners in Beijing
-Laobian Jiaozi Restaurant—best Dongbei (Northeast-style cuisine, i.e. dumplings) restaurant ever…
-jidan Guan Bing (egg-pancakes sold by the old couple outside the gate of CET Beijing)
-the little convenience stores outside CET
-the Xinjiang food near CET
-group outings to Sanlitun’r (the bar street)
-warm bubble tea (zhenzhu naicha, ‘pearl milk tea’) in cold Hangzhou
-Lanzhou food: la mian (pulled noodles), potatoes and beef on rice, and jidan chaomian (egg with fried noodles)
-scotch and green tea (together)
-bottled green tea
-7 Club in Hangzhou—cozy little import beer bar
-the one Hangzhou Greentown soccer game I went to
-conversations on bus rides with classmates (usually about China or the people around us)
-times at the all-you-can-eat/drink Japanese restaurant in Hangzhou and our tours of West Lake afterwards
-nighttime jaunts around West Lake in general
-old people and their crazy dancing, exercising, and games
-exploring neighborhoods
-epic scenery/locations
-really smiley waitresses/store workers
-(usually) great service without having to tip
-my teachers
-a little village one mountain away from Tibet
-easy access to lots and lots of different kinds of tea
-being able to bend rules because I’m a foreigner
-the bit of unprostituted, undestroyed culture you might accidentally find somewhere
-making coffee with my French press
-75-cent DVDs
-drying my clothes on the line
-qiezi (Chinese eggplant in all its tender, gooey goodness)

Things I won’t miss:
-the staring, gawking, laowai-laowai-laowai-ing, walk-by Hello!s, and requested/unrequested photographs
-shop clerks hovering an inch behind me or trying to sell me everything I do and do not look at
-la duzi (“pulled stomach”—take a guess)
-being lectured to about my country/Chinese nationalism
-Chinese political/whatever slogans and other feihua (“nonsense”/"thief's talk")
-the ignorance—western and Chinese
-unrelenting and pervasive anti-Japanese mentality
-“cultural exchanges”—“Americans are all rich, right?”
-struggling with people who ignore my Chinese in order to speak their English—which no one understands, least of all me
-Hangzhou cabbies—may they rot in hell
-Chinese traffic/transportation impatience
-people of all shapes, sizes, and gender blowing snot-rockets and hocking their insides out everywhere
-everyone littering and the people whose job is to sweep the streets after them
-the prevalence chain-smokers
-being told my Chinese is great after I say Ni hao (Hello)
-never 100% understanding someone/never being 100% certain I spoke correctly
-seeing someone dead or dying with a group of people standing around them just watching
-people incapable of forming a line
-long fingernails
-women shielding themselves in any ridiculous way they can from the barest drop of sunlight that might touch (and darken) their skin
-Chinese train stations
-the Chinese tourism industry and its effect upon landmarks
-Chinese break-my-heart pop music
-Chinese "House" music
-white-tile buildings with blue windows
-squealing electric scooter brakes
-crossing streets

I guess that gives you an idea.

On a Theme

The track on the ‘soundtrack of my life’ for Summer ’07 would have to be the Rolling Stones’ “Beast of Burden.” I did not bring my music library with me to China, so my musical experience in China has been limited to what’s on my iPod. As you might imagine, the same old songs tend not to sustain 7 months’ listening. Thus sometime in the beginning weeks of my time in Kunming, I experimented with making a new playlist for my small musical companion. The theme of this new symphony of mine was intended to be a laid-back, feel-good background for a chill party perhaps, and I believe I’ve achieved this to some degree. And in the process of composing this playlist, I rediscovered “Beast of Burden,” which I can’t help but play to death.

And that laidback, feel-good, chill feeling I get when listening to “Beast of Burden” has really reflected the theme of my 9 weeks in Kunming. I read in the morning with my coffe; I pass the day in the office mixing work with breaks to read the New York Times; and I walk home through the cluttered streets, waving at the baozi-making family. Some days I ride a couple of buses to get some pulled-noodles and go climbing at the wall on the other side of town. Some days I hang around and watch DVDs like a lazy bum. I make peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches when I want a snack; I get ice cream for the walk back to the office or home after meals; and I drink little cans of coconut juice/milk. I’ll tell them not to put chili peppers (lazhao) in my food (because they put it in everything there; eating is no longer the great refuge it once was), and it’ll be bad or good. I’ll eat out with coworkers or I won’t. I’ll head to the university area and chill with a book, or I’ll go with a coworker and have a beer; or I’ll do all the above—and often enough, I’ll be bobbing my head to “Beast of Burden” or another song on that list.

This summer I’ve missed home, friends, and Midd more than ever before in China—but on the whole, I’m relaxed. It’s different here from other places in I’ve been in China. Maybe it’s summer; maybe it’s a different culture; maybe it’s just different music. But it’s different here. I don’t think China’s for me—the work’s unrewarding, the day-to-day uncertain and damned dangerous, and the people are just walking in a different direction—we just don’t get each other. And that’s alright I guess. I’m alright with that.

It’s over soon enough, and I got it done.