Adventures of 22nd Century Chinese-Like Boy

Baseball Reflexes on Beijing Streets

2009-04-24T22:21:00.003+08:00

Today, as I was walking on the streets of Beijing, I made two saves.

As I was walking near Ditan Park this afternoon, two boy were driving in their motorized cart when I bottle of water (one of many) came tumbling down. They stopped their cart and one of them got off. As the water was rolling toward me, I grabbed it and then I tossed it across the street into the arms of the boy. It was just like making a doubleplay in little league. The bottle looked like it bounced off of the boys chest and that he wasn't going to catch it, but he made his own save. He smiled and said thanks.

Then, later in the day, a women is playing with a golf ball in front of her shop when it gets away. I step forward to catch it and then walk up to her and give it back. She tell me in English: "Thanks!"

Spring in Beijing

2009-04-12T22:53:00.005+08:00

Two weeks ago, suddenly, it started snowing lightly in Beijing and I dug up my wool hat. Spring has been teasing us, as it surely has since humans began experiencing it (before that, who was Spring without her admirers?).

Returning from Israel last week, the last of those snowflakes have melted and I can walk around in a short-sleeves shirt (except for that wind). Spring, as Chinese people say, is like a stepmother. Sometimes oh so nice, and sometimes evil. This of course fits with the view of it in traditional Chinese Medicine. Both the wind and Spring are manifestations of the wood element, always growing and coursing nervously like the new branches, erratic).

Today, I am in Northeastern Beijing, Wangjing, and it's snowing again! Except this time it's pollen that is snowing. I've never seen anything like it. I'm not talking about a few dandelions shedding their seeds in the wind. It's like millions of dandelion seeds in the air. Honestly, Hollywood could come here and film a few heartwarming Christmas films (It's a Wonderful Life with Chinese Characteristics and Kaoya Roasting on an Open Fire).

This is poplar pollen. I'm in a Sichuan restaurant eating a bowl of chicken noodle soup and people walk in with specks of poplar pollen covering their hair. A girl walks by with her hand covering her face. It's particularly bad in this neighborhood.

Taking a cab back to the subway, I point to some floating in his car and the driver tells me it will all be gone in a few weeks.

The Stumbling Son

2009-04-12T22:42:00.005+08:00

I'm in a taxi and we stop at the light. I see a thin old man with grey-white hair and his taller thirty-something son walk arm in arm slowly across the street.

I'm always amazed at how integral xiaoshun (孝順, filial piety) is to Chinese people, that a grown man would be walking his father across the street. I remember returning to the States and walking with my grandmother across a parking lot to go into a shopping mall. I instinctively held her arm. In that way, perhaps China has changed me.

I watch them cross and then upon closer examination, I realize the young man isn't walking his father across the street at all. I see that the young man has difficulty walking and his face is slightly distorted, tilted, and has a haze as if he has some musculoskeletal disease.

The father, however, walks upright with clear eyes, guiding his son as they slowly make the trek. As they approach the curve at the other side, the son stumbles a little over his own two feet and his father supports him, as he surely has been for a very long time.

Taiji Corrections

2009-04-11T10:13:00.004+08:00

I'm doing taiji "cloud hands" near my building and a neighbor walks by me. I say good morning to her, a short woman with white hair, probably in her seventies. She smiles back at me and says something in Chinese. I don't catch it and ask again. "手跟着眼睛走," she says. ("Your eyes should follow your hands.")

I thank her for reminding me and practice the technique over again, the correct way.

The New Leaves of Spring

2009-04-11T09:50:00.005+08:00

I get a text message from my friend Michael who lives in Beijing: "It's nice to see the trees are getting leaves!" I reply: "My English is getting pretty bad, too!"

Despite my joke-making, I wake up this morning (after the first spring rain) and notice that all the trees do have leaves on them, and it brings a sense of relief (yeah!), a burst of joy (yeah!), and hope (yeah!) to my heart.

I wake up and after my cup of tea and bowl of oatmeal, go outside to do my daily set of taiji. People walking in my neighborhood walk by and stare with perplexed looks and they sometimes smile.

Surrounding me is a yard full of trees and I notice their tiny leaves are just beginning to sprout. As I am doing doing taiji, I notice an old man behind me walk into the yard with a plastic bag. The yard is usually messy, filled with trash, and I am happy because it looks like he wants to clean up a little. But as I continue my set, I notice he's not cleaning up at all.

He walks up to a small tree with small greenish-purplish leaves and starts picking them and putting them into his bag. I assume he is just going to pick a few leaves, but he keeps picking.

I am curious and instinctively, want to stop him. I want to "protect" those young leaves. I stop my taiji. I wonder what he wants to do, maybe take the pickings home and grow them in glasses of water or something.

I decide to continue doing my taiji, but then I notice that he keeps picking those leaves. All those new young leaves are almost gone!

I stop my taiji and turn around to him. "Good morning!" I say. He is short, in his 70s, with white hair and thick-rimmed black glasses. He looks over to me. I ask him politely what he is doing and he tells me that you can eat these leaves. "Fried eggs," he tells me. They are good with fried eggs!

I ask him what that name of the plant is. He tells me and I thank him and go back to taiji.

He's finished picking leaves. I turn back again and look at the tree. It's bare and only the top most bunch of small leaves are left.

I guess someone will have some tasty eggs for the next few days.

Turkish Flavor

2009-04-06T06:50:00.008+08:00

I flew Turkish Airlines to Israel and enjoyed getting a taste of the Mediterranean even before I got there. I have to say the food was excellent. Salads with cucumbers, olives, feta cheese, yogurt, spiced beef, dolmas. Please allow me to stop or else I might fall on the floor as I might not be able to deal with the ecstasy of it all...

I loved that when we landed in Istanbul, people started applauding! I remember as a kid, flying El Al to Israel, people would clap when we landed after our long transatlantic flight. But since then, have never heard anyone doing this. Landing safely after sitting on your butt for ten hours is definitely applause-worthy.

There was also another taste of the Mediterranean--the plane left Istanbul about an hour late.
Of course, living in China and having at least 78% of my "American-ness" forced out of me (and fortunately for me, it never really has been strongly rooted there anyway), it wasn't such a big deal.

Waiting for my flight to Israel from Istanbul, I got a chance to see hundreds of Turkish people on the way to their flights. This was my first time in a Muslim country and it seemed like everyone was dressed in traditional costume. Walking around the airport to find a water fountain (I never did find one), I remember seeing men (who could have easily been transported from one thousand years ago) sitting in their white dresses that were made from patterned towels, reading what certainly must have been holy books. All the women's heads were covered and some had their face covered.

On the way back to China, my flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul was also delayed an hour. This meant that soon after landing, I unofficially broke the Olympic record for the 500 meter dash (with carry-on luggage) to gate 212 at the Istanbul airport.

I arrived panting at the gate not sure how late I was. I was curious to know what was happening, so I asked the Turkish woman from security if we were boarding. Her English was like my Turkish and as soon as I figured this out, I grabbed my carry-on and turned around to a Chinese guy and asked him in Chinese if we had already started the boarding process and he told me we hadn't.

I made my way into the small waiting area which was full of Chinese and Turkish people. It was good to hear Chinese again, and soon, I realized, I would be back in Beijing, far away from the flavor of Turkey and that good feta cheese.

The Old Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv

2009-04-03T07:19:00.000+08:00

It's my second-to-last day in Israel and since I have been so (happily) busy visiting with family, I haven't had time to buy gifts for my Chinese friends. This is part of Chinese culture and I am more than happy to give my friends here a taste of Israel. Funny, once I bought gifts for friends and family in the States and most of them told me lovingly, "You don't need to get us gifts!" Ah, cultural differences.

I've been hanging out with my mother, sister, and grandmother and we've just arrived in Tel Aviv. We have plans to visit with more family in the afternoon and I'm afraid that since the shops close on Friday afternoon until Saturday evening for the sabbath (in Hebrew, "Shabbat") that I won't be able to buy any gifts. At about six, after we say goodbye to our family who lives in Tel Aviv, I start my search for a place to buy some typical Israeli gifts.

Everything is closed. When I ask a shopkeeper of a convenience store if there are any places where I can buy these gifts, he smiles with a look that says "you are basically screwed" and says I'll have to wait until shabbat is over. He does suggest though, that I head to where the old bus station is, about a twenty-minute walk away.

I take a cab there and it is packed. There is a main pedestrian walkway filled with shops selling used cellphones, small restaurants, and vendors lining the streets. Unfortunately, I find that there are no places selling gifts. I realize that I might need to just buy my gifts at the airport tomorrow and I decide to just enjoy this promenade.

The area, I notice, is full of immigrants. Lots of Ethiopians, Russians, Filipinos, and Chinese. I stop a Chinese man in his thirties and start talking to him in Chinese. I ask him how life is for him in Israel. He says it's hard, that right now jobs are hard to find. He's from Fujian and works in construction. As we are talking several other Chinese guys start watching us, amazed that I am speaking Chinese. I start "interviewing" them, too.

They're from small villages from Fujian and Jiangsu and they're doing the same thing their friends are doing in Shanghai and Beijing--here for a few years saving up money for their families. To them, Israel is just Western culture--very different from what they know. They miss home.

I continue walking on the crowded street. Russians are sitting at plastic tables in front of small restaurants drinking and talking loudly.

There is a guy who has set up a small table with three cups and a foam ball. He is playing a cup game and people are crowded around, placing money on top of cups after he shuffles them around. He's got a strong Russian accent he's a born performer. You do what you gotta do to survive.

I know what he's doing. He gets people hooked and confident and then takes all their money. He's a pro.

I continue walking to the end of the street and notice that someone has called my cellphone, a missed call alert. It is my cousin Shlomi, who I am supposed to see tomorrow because he has to work late this evening. I call him back and he asks me where I am. I tell him I am near the old Tahana Mercazit, the old Central Bus Station. He starts laughing. "You're in the worst and most dangerous place in Tel Aviv, full of poor immigrants!"

As we talk I turn around and suddenly it hits me. I am standing in the old bus station! It has mostly been demolished, but you can see most of the concrete structures, the islands where people would wait for buses, perhaps ten lanes. I think it used to be covered, but that is gone and it is all exposed and deteriorated.

I am suddenly taken to the past. Twenty years ago. I was just a teenager. I never really knew Tel Aviv, except for the bus station. I was working in the south, in Kiryat Gat, and I would transfer here on my way to see my family in Haifa. Or, I was younger and was traveling around Israel to see the sights, perhaps to go to Masada or Eilat.

I can see the old bus station clearly, how alive it was with all the people, all the buses. And I remember the small shops facing the bus station where I could buy cassette tapes. I remember looking for a Shlomo Artzi double cassette (Hom Yuli August) and when I told the young shopkeeper it was too expensive and walked away, he called me back. He affectionately slapped me on my face, like a cousin, and said, "Okay, okay, hamud, it's yours!"

Standing here, I am in shock, like I am visiting an old holy place, and I mention this to Shlomi. We were both teenagers then, and the best part of visiting Haifa was seeing him and hanging out with his friends. Shlomi was like my older brother. I was a "good" kid, the smart kid in class. I won the big spelling bee. Shlomi was the daredevil. Surfer. Into fast cars and going to discos. Living life on the edge. I learned a lot from him.

Now, he's a trader and works for one of the largest banks in Tel Aviv. He tells me to look up and look for the tallest building. I look up and read the words on the tallest building I can find. He says that's it, that's where his office is. He wants me to come over and see his office and then join him for dinner.

So, I do. I walk about ten minutes and go to the 22nd floor, where my cousin Shlomi and I are reunited.

His office is full of computers showing stock quites and showing the business news in English. We take a walk to a nearby sushi restaurant and I admire how beautiful Tel Aviv is. It's a warm spring evening and people sit on benches and cafes chatting as their weekends begin. Shlomi tells me more about his new life in Tel Aviv and I tell him about my life in China.

The evening winds down and we go and get my things from the hotel and he takes me back where I'll get my things. I'll stay with him and his family during my last hours in Israel.

I haven't gotten my gifts yet for my Chinese friends (I'll have to wait for tomorrow, when we visit the namal, the port of Tel Aviv), but now I know why I was magically brought to the old bus station, where I found some other kinds of gifts...

The Crying Girl at the Bus Stop

2009-04-02T22:23:00.005+08:00

I walk past a bus stop. It's a beautiful spring day and to my left is the Mediterranean sea.

A pudgy, dark-skinned Israeli girl in her twenties is taking out a pack of cigarettes and as I walk by her, I see tears streaming down her face.

Her heart must be broken in one of the thousand and one ways our fragile human hearts can be broken. I hope she has gone home and talked to her mom or her best friend, and that soon, she can smile again.

Visiting My Homeland

2009-04-02T22:02:00.006+08:00

I'm walking on the Carmel, Haifa. Israel. It's good to be back here, the land of my ancestors, the land where my parents spent their childhoods.

I used to come here as a kid during the summers, sort of like the way those Taiwanese ABCs come back to Taiwan every summer (and my Hebrew is like their Mandarin). I went to the beach with my cousins, ate a lot of good middle eastern food, slept in my grandmother's house, not too far from the famous Bahai temple.

Walking along the streets I once walked as a teenager brings back a lot of memories. Who would have guessed that I would be living in China?

Drinking tea with family I haven't seen in twenty years, I tell them that in China, I have magically "become" Israeli. This is because I used to tell the cab drivers of China that I'm American, but they all would take so long to respond, trying to figure out a polite way to cover up their dislike of the States. I saw right through their hesitation, and so decided to tell them I'm Israeli and now they are always so friendly, complimenting me and my homeland.

I get on an elevator at the hotel where I am staying and say hello to a middle-aged Israeli man. He looks like he likes sports and the outdoors. He suddenly says to me, "You look Israeli, but then when you said hi, I realized that you aren't."

"Thanks for the compliment," I tell him, after explaining to him that my parents are from Israel.

Talking to my Israeli family, it saddens me to realize how difficult the situation is for them here. They just want to live in peace in their land. Others don't see it that way. And of course, there are fanatics to blame on both sides.

As I walk around Haifa, especially because I live in China now, a waiguoren (foreigner), I look at these people and I realize that I am home.

A New Friend

2009-03-16T13:01:00.003+08:00

Lately, I've been having very positive interactions with random people I meet during the course of my day. I guess this shows you that if you are happy inside, you will attract the right people into your life. China (or perhaps anywhere) is a good training ground.

I get on the train and I see a man in his mid-forties reading a book on shufa (Chinese calligraphy). As everyone knows, I am a shufa fan! I can't help but walk over to him and tell him that I love shufa. Actually, I always like meeting Chinese people who are into shufa.

He responds very warmly and we begin talking about Chinese characters. We both have to change trains and walk together to line 13. He sometimes uses English, and it's pretty good. It's good to make a new friend. We exchange cards and say goodbye. "Keep in touch!" we both say. Perhaps we can get together for tea and talk more about shufa.

I am waiting for the door of the subway car to open and as it does, I hear him call my name. "Kaiyuan," he says.

I turn around, and he's holding out the book of shufa to me. "Here," he says, and puts it in my hands.

I am totally suprised and I tell him "Buyong, buyong! You don't have to, you don't have to!" But the doors are about to close and he won't take it back.

I am touched by the warmth and kindness of this Chinese man I just met fifteen minutes ago. A new friend.

The Lonely Wife and Bottle of Wine

2009-03-16T12:37:00.004+08:00

I'm sitting in a cafe where I like to study here in the suburbs of Beijing. It's as close as you're going to get to a cafe in California. Cafe culture is pretty new to China, but they do a pretty good job of it here.

I order an omelette and get ready to study more poetry. While I'm eating it, I notice at the table next to me is a young couple in their early thirties. The woman is quite beautiful and looks educated--she looks like she's still in graduate school working on her dissertation.

Her husband is on the plump side, short, with glasses. He feeds the girl some food and she smiles and eats it. Then, the server brings a bottle of wine. He inspects it and nods his head and then the server opens it and pours it into very wide wine glasses. He shows her how to swirl the wine in the glass to open it up and give it some air.

The same thing most people do in the U.S. when we don't know much about wine!

Suddenly, of course, I get it. They are married and are on an afternoon date. He must be a rich businessman and she his exquisite trophy wife.

(I know what you are thinking, "Damn, Ron, you are like a modern day American-Israeli Moroccan-Ashkenazi-Jewish Daoist Sherlock Holmes!" Thanks!)

I return to my omelette, which is pretty good. The owner of the cafe is a Westerner, I think, and I can just picture the omelette training seminar he had for the cooks. ("Guys, try to add only a few teaspoons of oil to the pan and use low heat....")

I look up and the pudgy businessman is putting on his jacket and then gets up to kiss his wife goodbye. He goes to pay and leaves.

He must have just received a phone call requesting him to attend an urgent meeting in which they will talk about the new factory they are building in Shandong. In fact, he probably has to get on a plane to go there now and will be drinking lots of baijiu tonight.

His wife is left at the table with a bottle of wine, almost full. She takes small sips and reads the textbook in front of her, hiding her sadness.

Practical Joke in Taxi

2009-03-15T22:43:00.001+08:00

I flag a cab on Xue Yuan Road after getting off the subway, and upon opening the door I find there's a 10 RMB bill hiding on the right side of the passenger seat. I pick it up and give it to the driver. He is thankful.

I make conversation with him and we have a good time talking. It's time for me to get off and he says the fare is 13 RMB. I pull 3 one-RMB bills out of my wallet and hand them to him. His face turns to a slight frown as I say to him, "Didn't I just give you 10 RMB before?" Of course, I immediately tell him that I am just playing with him and he lets out a big laugh, realizing he's been had.

"Chinese people like joking, and so do I!" I say. I pat him on the shoulder and wish him good luck.

Ecstatic Chinese Poetry

2009-03-11T08:49:00.003+08:00

Lately, I've been studying Tang poetry. I'm reading well-known poem by Meng Jiao called Deng Ke Hou (登科後，孟郊). Here's the poem in Chinese:

登科後

昔日齷齪不足誇
今朝放蕩思無涯
春風得意馬蹄疾
一日看儘長安花

I like it so much, I decide to translate it into English:

After Passing the Imperial Exam

My life before this (just think "destitute) isn't worth a mention.
Today, though, I'm wild and my thoughts soar.
Filled with delight, I gallop around town, furiously.
In one day, I've just seen all the flowers in Chang An.

A little background. Meng Jiao was 42 when he first took the Imperial Exam, but failed it. He took it again, but failed again. Finally, when he was 45, he passed it.

I like Meng Jiao and his poem, as it reminds me of Rumi's poetry. Meng Jiao is definitely the "lame goat" that Rumi mentions, and he's got the ecstatic joy that is so central to most Sufi poetry.

Of course, after he passed his exam, he gets assigned to a low-level post and "goes back" to being poor!

More ecstatic poetry!

Reading Children's Books on the Subway

2009-03-11T08:13:00.004+08:00

Lately, I have been studying childrens' books on the subway. They're useful because: 1) they're easy to read (all have pinyin) and I can practice my pronunciation, 2) they use characters I haven't learned in my textbooks that I probably should know, and 3) they allow me to go through the same process of learning that every Chinese person goes through, ensuring I have a better grasp of the culture.

I get on the train at Wudaokou, and since it is rush hour, the car is full. I have just enough room to pull out a book I found called "Study Good Character" (学习好品德). I'm interested in learning more about basic Chinese values taught to children. I know they are different from what we learn in the West. I know that if I can understand them, I'll understand more of the situations I encounter in China every day.

I read the book, which talks about the importance of having a happy family ("mom, dad, dad's parents, and me"), getting good grades, being humble, not focusing on material possessions, etc. All along, a young guy is observing.

Do you speak Chinese?" he asks curiously.

"Yes," I say. And so we begin chatting.

He tells me he is a freshman at a university studying computer science. He compliments me on my Chinese and tells me his English is bad. He is a sincere young man and he probably hasn't met many foreigners before. We have a very warm interaction and get off at the terminal station together. I wish him good luck.

I am moved by his sincerity and his reaching out to speak to me. Perhaps because lately I just have been annoyed by the way some people stare at me in public. It doesn't seem very friendly. In fact, sometimes, I can see people grimace as their mind starts along it's train of thought! It's uncomfortable sometimes, although my Chinese friend says people are just curious.

Well, instead of just staring at me, this brave kid reaches out and talks to me and that made a big difference.

A few days later, I am reading my book of Tang poetry on line 10. I pull out the green children's book, full of colorful watercolor paintings accompanying each poem (along with explanations in simple, modern Chinese, and the hanyu pinyin for each character).

There's one line that I'm stuck on, so I decided to ask the woman standing next to me, as she looks like she is smart and would be willing to help (and also looks a little bored). She is happy to help and explains the line (遙看瀑布掛前川), which although is a line from a children's poem, is still considered formal classical Chinese.

We get to talking and once again, it is a very friendly interaction. She asks me where I learned my Chinese and I tell her in Taiwan. She says that foreigners who learn Chinese in Taiwan usually have very standard pronunciation. There are people who have told me this before here, but usually most people say the standard: "Taiwanese people's putonghua isn't good" (at which point I usually roll my eyes).

I guess China is all about maintaing a positive attitude. When you fall down (or are shoved), you just get up and keep going, because there are kind and good people everywhere.

Review of Escalator Rules in China

2009-03-09T22:59:00.004+08:00

I'm walking with my Chinese friend in the subway station and we get to an escalator. I stand to her left, which is something I would never do in the States. But in China, they must not have that rule, because there doesn't seem to be another way to use an escalator in China besides just standing on it. I've been in China for about a year and a half now and have given up on trying to pass anyone on it.

This is part of living abroad--you don't know "the rules" and so you just have to "go with the flow" and surrender to a different culture. I usually find I grow in the process, maybe become a little less impatient.

Of course, sometimes I just feel like bashing something.

So, you can imagine my surprise when my friend--using the tone of a kindergarten teacher--says to me "stand on the right, pass on the left."

I am speechless for what seems like a few minutes as my mind reels (perhaps trying to search for a chengyu, or Chinese proverb, that can accurately express that most subtle and sublime of American chengyu: "Uh, what the FUCK????").

At first, I try to tell her that I wasn't aware that this rule existed in China. I try to tell her that I never see Chinese people standing on the right and passing on the left on escalators. I tell her that in subway stations (and most other places) in the States, that's what most everyone is doing. Pretty much everyone.

But whatever I say, I still feel like I was just busted by a Communist kindergarten teacher, so I decide to let it go and shut up.

A few weeks go by, and I still haven't forgotten this story. It really sums up what it feels like to live in China sometimes. The mixture of idealism and clunkiness, authoritarianism and denial, a superiority complex and an inferiority complex, good intentions and more clunkiness.

And of course, as I always have to say, there's always that character-building element for me. (As my friend Michael F. says, "I don't buy that character-building shit!" God bless good friends!)

Today, I'm at the same subway station going up the same escalator and not one tongbao (comrade) is moving. They are all just standing there in an orderly double-file line on the escalator. I surrender to it, as usual. What choice do I have?

Fifteen minutes later, I arrive at Wudaokou Station and swipe my card to exit the system. I see the security guy sitting looking at the x-ray screen.

"Can I ask you a question?" I ask him.

"Yes," he says, looking up from the screen. He's a big guy, about 25, and his skin is rosy and still looks fresh like that of a child.

"Well, in my country, on the escalator you stand on the right and pass on the left...." I say.

He starts to smile as he realizes what my question is about.

I continue, telling him about my experience just a few minutes ago. As I talk to him, it appears as if his smile gets bigger.

He interrupts me, telling me, in his thick Beijing accent, that in China they have the same rule.

"Really?" I say.

Still smiling, he says, "We have the same rule, it's just that people's suzhi (caliber, quality of their character) is low. 只是人的素质太低."

This is not the first time I have heard a Chinese person criticizing his compatriots about their suzhi.

I imagine myself yelling out the rules to Chinese people the next time I ride an escalator, giving them a bit of education. Being an "escalator activist" of sorts.

On the other hand, I realize that if I can simply just accept Chinese people for who they are, life will get a whole lot simpler.

Passing a Shufa Master

2009-03-09T22:31:00.003+08:00

I teach a 15 year-old Chinese boy on Sundays, Peter. He's a very smart kid and his English isn't bad either. He's really into science.

Actually, Peter is lucky. He's what they call "Balinghou" or a "Nineties Child" in China. He's grown up with more, in terms of material wealth than most Chinese kids have in all of history. Except for the emperors' kids.

Speaking of emperors, since China adopted its one child policy, they call these only children "Little Emperors" and "Little Princesses", as their parents and families doting and spoiling and hopes all go to them and no other siblings.

Peter is definitely a little Emperor and while his parents are strict with him at times, he gets a lot of attention, as would befit royalty. He also gets an expensive English teacher.

After our lessons, his parents always ask him to walk me out and today as we walk to the corner and chat in English, I spot an old man walking toward us. I notice in his hand a large shufa (calligraphy) brush, the kind that is dipped in water and used in parks by shufa masters.

In most large parks in China on Sunday mornings, you can see many of them writing Chinese characters with their brushes. People, old and young, walk by and admire and comment on their style. Such is the importance of the Chinese character and calligraphy in Chinese culture. (And as everyone knows, I love shufa.)

Peter, as always, is happy-go-lucky, skipping a little to the left or the right, smiling goofily. Perhaps he is happy that English class is over or that both his parents are home and that it's dinner time on a Sunday evening. Do you remember that giddiness you had as a kid? I do.

The shufa master notices Peter's animated way and a slight, slow motion smile comes to his face as he watches Peter go by.

I notice the old shufa master and I must have a similar smile on mine.

Something Strange in the Gymnasium

2009-03-09T21:54:00.003+08:00

This morning, I go to the wide stone walkway in front of my university's gymnasium to do taiji, as I sometimes do. There are lots of parents waiting outside. There are more people here than normal and it looks like they are waiting around for something. A guy in front of me has a tool box. Something's strange. There are numbers stuck to the walkway.

Since it's the late morning, I assume that they are waiting to pick up kids inside--maybe the university has opened up an experimental kindergarten.

I do my taiji anyway, until a few guys near me light up. The smoke will definitely affect my qi, so I move closer to the soccer field to the left side of the building and continue my set.

After I'm done, I go inside the gym to work out some more. As I pass one of the entrances to the upper stands of the gymnasium, I see a wondrous site. There are hundreds of students on the basketball court... all drawing and painting.

There are groups of about 50 or 60 students, and in the center of each group are either a few white busts of European-looking guys from the 1700s (they look like Beethoven), or a still-life scene of a pineapple, a vase, and some other objects, all laid out on a patterned olive drape.

There are about nine groups of students, half of them are painting the still-life scene with oils or acrylic paints, and half of them are drawing busts of the old stern European guys in pencil.

I take a seat in the empty stands and watch. Every painting or drawing I am able to see is accurate and beautiful. They are all superb artists. The intensity of focus and passion in that room is palpable and I sit there in awe of them all.

How the world needs more of this.

After my workout, I use the bathroom in the basement of the gym, and see some boys cleaning their palettes. There's black water in the sinks. I ask them what's going on? Is there some sort of competition going on?

One of the boys says that they are all high school students testing for university art programs. Now it all comes together--why all the parents are nervously waiting outside, some with "toolboxes". I tell them that I wish them all good luck!

I leave the building and go to unlock my bike, parked in front of the gym. A girl and her father have found a little niche where they sit and chat. The girl is curiously watching the laowai as he gets his bike ready.

"Wish you good luck!" I say to both of them.

"Thanks," the girl says.

"His Chinese isn't bad," the father says.

To all of you dear high school students, full of your passion, your dedication, your focus: Good luck to ALL of you!

Olympic Spirit Lives On... and On and On

2009-03-06T07:13:00.000+08:00

Lately, I have noticed that the video monitors in the subway in Beijing are still showing the same videos they've been showing for the past seven months. They show athletes in training, perhaps preparing for the Olympics, and a music video of all the famous singers of China singing the theme songs of the Olympics, "Beijing Welcomes You".

If you are reading this and have any connections in the Beijing government, please send the following message to highly placed government officials:

"Dudes, the Olympics are over. Let's move on."

Staring at a Dragon

2009-03-02T08:56:00.004+08:00

I walk into the subway car at Xitucheng station and find a place to stand toward the center of the car. In front of me sits a tough looking kid in his early 20s, his hair closely shaven, wearing hip young clothing. He looks like he's a rock star, actually. He's staring at me, as so many people do throughout my days in China.

I sometimes get tired of these stares because, frankly, they don't look friendly to me. Indeed, I think because Chinese society is so homogeneous that, sometimes, they aren't that friendly and are more like the way someone might look at a miniature dragon as it walks into a subway car. But I know this is only fear of the unknown, and I also know that many times it is only simple curiosity. Perhaps someone wants to look at the bridge of my nose or the shape of my face. I have hazel eyes, maybe they want to look at them.

I've talked to some of my Russian classmates about this and we all agree--it happens too much and we get tired of it. (Perhaps this explains the t-shirt I saw on one foreigner here saying: 你看什么看！("What are you looking at?!")). One day in class, we shared our experiences with our Chinese teacher, who was surprised to hear our stories.

Having lived in China for a little while, though, I've learned not to get upset. I'll usually break the stare with a smile and the person will usually respond with a smile. I suppose it is good "PR" for us laowai.

Today, I give the tough rock star a smile and he smiles back. Ten minutes later, he gets up and walks to get off the train and looks back again. I give him another smile and he smiles again at his new foreign friend. There's a certain innocence and friendliness about many Chinese people that I see often, and I like it.

Perhaps next time, it'll be no big deal the next time he sees a dragon on the subway.

Flying Fingernails

2009-03-01T23:48:00.006+08:00

I'm standing in one of the sleek new cars of Beijing's subway line 10. It's clean and new. There's a map of the line about the door with little LED lights that tell you where we are now and videos showing game shows.

As usual, I'm reviewing Chinese vocabulary, reading my mini-dictionary. If you don't review your characters, you will forget what they look like, and you will definitely forget the tones. The simple pleasures of life.

Suddenly, something drops into my little pocket book. I look more closely. It's a fingernail. No way!

I look around to see if someone is cutting his fingernails on the train. Sure enough, about a meter away from me, standing up with his back to me, is a 30 year-old guy clipping his nails.

I guess I should retitle this blog, "A Spoiled American in China" because I am not particularly happy about this guy's nail in my book. And I am pretty sure that less that 0.0015% of the Chinese population would actually mind that he is doing it.

There's nothing I can do except what I have to do all the time in China: "adjust my attitude."

For fun, I send a text message to my American friend Michael who live in Beijing, telling him what just happened. "You're lucky you weren't yawning," he tells me.

I guess I should look on the bright side.

On my way back to my apartment, I still haven't stopped thinking about this. I happen to see my American neighbor, a hip 22-year old guy from Manhattan. I tell him about the fingernail in my book.

"That just shouldn't happen on the subway. That's gross!" he remarks. My heart leaps for joy knowing that I am not the only one who thinks that it's just not sanitary for people to cut their nails on the subway. Especially on the nice and shiny line 10. Just imagine if everybody were cutting their nails at once! Now that would be really gross. You would definitely not want to yawn and when you got home, you'd have to wipe all those fingernails out of your hair.

As I walk into the building, I decide to consult with one of the drivers of the illegal taxis (黑车) in front of my building. He's an old, weathered, friendly, guy who I've met before.

I tell him I need to consult with him about Chinese social etiquette and he says fine. I tell him about what happened. "In your country, that's not okay?" he asks.

I tell him it's not, not indoors in a subway car or other public place. He explains that for Chinese people, it's just a way to efficiently use your public transportation time. I remember that I've seen this more than once in Beijing and Shanghai. I thank him for this bit of education.

As I walk away he adds one more thing: "You just can't spit in the subway car."

Cool, I think, maybe I won't have to adjust my attitude the next time I see someone spitting on the subway.

For a taste of another Westerner (a Brit) reacting to nailclipping on subways (in the States), check this link out: http://pdberger.com/subway-etiquette/.

Yappy the Dog

2009-03-01T22:57:00.004+08:00

It's Saturday morning. Around 5:30 a.m. The little dog in the apartment directly below me is yapping like crazy. He normally yaps only a few times in the evening and then I never hear from him again. But right now he won't stop.

I get up and fix myself a cup of spring water and get back in bed. I see the morning is starting to light up. It means that although I have just been awakened prematurely by a little two pound dog, things could be worse--it could be three a.m. or something like that.

I get back in bad hoping his owners will do something, like take him out for a pee or something, but it doesn't stop. I have a sense that there are no owners downstairs. Just that poor dog yapping away. I'm not only upset that my beauty sleep has been disturbed, but you can't help but feel for the poor dog.

I put on my sweatpant over my boxers, a light sweater, and my sneakers, and I walk out of my apartment. The building administrative office is theoretically open 24 hours a day. I decide to talk to them and have them call the landlord.

I arrive at the basement where the office is, but it looks locked. I walk a few doors down and ask a building employee if they are open. She walks me to the door and as we approach it, it opens.

A skinny middle-aged guy who needs a shave and a shower appears. He looks like he just woke up about 17 seconds ago. He asks me what's up and I walk into his office with him.

"The dog in the apartment below me won't stop barking. Call the landlord," I say. I tell him the apartment number.

"Oh, they are leaving today," he says, as if that is going to help me or the poor dog. "And I can't call the landlord, he's not going to come," he says very grouchily.

"Well, the dog is not going to stop," I say. "Call the landlord!"

He repeats what he just said, except this time he loses his temper. It's not worth it for me to get upset at him. He makes $250 a month to sleep in this dungeon and probably has to deal with all the drunk Korean kids in the building. I'm not going to waste my energy fighting with him.

As I leave I tell him that if I hear the dog tonight, I'm coming back.

Then, suddenly, I turn around, grab him by the neck, slam him against the wall. As he whimpers, I say in perfect Beijing dialect, "If I hear that little dog tonight, your ass is going to roast like a local delicacy, got it?"

Well, just kidding about that last paragraph, but it felt good to write it.

I get back to my apartment and the dog is still yapping away. I've no choice but to begin my day. I get dressed for my taiji practice and then go outside to do my stretches and a few sets.

As I exercise, I remember that a friend of mine was looking at the apartment below me in the last few days and was using the real estate agency on the first floor of my building. By now, I have figured out what is going with little Yappy. His owners moved out of the apartment early this morning and have abandoned him. They're not coming back.

After my taiji, I walk over to the real estate office (believe it or not, its a Century 21 office like we have in the States), full of pimply 25 year-old boys in yellow Century 21 sportcoats who like to smoke. I ask them if they know apartment 1409. They say yes. I tell them that the tenants moved out this morning and abandoned their pet.

(I tell them that when I moved into my apartment, I found an abandoned pet--a turtle--behind my TV, after about my third day in the apartment.)

They are apparently moved by my story and one of them says he'll call the landlord. As he is speaking to the landlord on his cell, one of the guys turns to me and says, "I really respect you--you care for that dog." His colleague chimes in, "No, he just is upset about the dog making too much noise!"

I laugh with them, "My first priority is the dog, second is my sleep! Of course!"

One of the boys seems excited and says to the other, "I'll take the dog and raise him!"

Their colleague gets off the phone with the landlord and tells me that the landlord's going to send someone with a key over to get the dog. I'm really appreciative and thank them all.

I come back to the apartment and make some tea and breakfast. The dog keeps at it. I decide I better leave because I can't bear to hear that poor dog and his cries for help.

I return to my building in the afternoon, open the door to my apartment, walk in and wait a few seconds. Fortunately, it's quiet.

Too Long

2009-01-14T09:13:00.004+08:00

I'm eating dinner on campus with my young friend Qing Yan and since the school restaurant is full, we sit at a table already occupied by a young couple. They're far enough away so we can pretend that we have our own table and start catching up, but of course, after a while we start talking with our dinnermates.

The woman across from me asks my friend if she's Taiwanese, since it's obvious she has a southern accent. I respond saying that she's in fact "one of your compatriots" (she's from Guangxi). Uh oh, I'm getting political. Bad Roni.

Of course, my new mainland friend across the table doesn't waste a second to inform me that "Taiwanese people are our compatriots." I have many Taiwanese friends I know that that's not true and I tell her that. She disagrees, saying young people might say that, but not old people. I decide not to argue with her.

After she and her boyfriend leave, I tell my friend that you're not going to find old or young people in Taiwan who would agree that they are this woman's compatriots. I don't know, either I'm wrong, or people on the mainland are brainwashed. Hmm, which one is it? If I am wrong, can you do me a favor, please humble me and let me know.

Later in the evening, I am on the phone with my Taiwanese friend Jennie. I tell Jennie about my interaction at dinner, and about my semester studying Chinese in Beijing. In literature class, we read a story by the famous Lu Xun. Lu Xun lived in the early 20th century and was a revolutionary, advocating that Chinese people modernize their ways. He believed that Confucius was that worst enemy of the Chinese people. For these reasons, after his death, Lu Xun was beloved by Mao and (therefore) the people of the new communist state.

I am curious, I ask Jennie if in Taiwan they even know about Lu Xun, since Lu Xun seems to be so identified with Mao and the communists. I figure the government of Taiwan would not want his works read.

Jennie kindly tells me that Taiwan is a democratic society and that what they read has nothing to do with what the government thinks, and that people can read Lu Xun there.

We start cracking up together. I have definitely been on the mainland too long.

Feedback? Please send me your thoughts. My mind is open...

No Rush

2009-01-04T02:01:00.005+08:00

Beijing is big, so this evening, after hanging out with Michael at the tea market in the city center, it will take me a while to get home. I'll have to switch trains twice, including taking the fifteen minute walk through the Xizhimen station, which is usually an annoyance, probably because my life in Beijing has been too busy with school and work.

But this evening, I'm in no rush to get home. No tests. No students to teach. I don't even have to go to the gym to work out. I can totally take my time.

I walk slowly through the stations, watching the multitudes. I watch them as they get ready for their Saturday nights with friends. Some young girls next to me are all done up and it looks like they're on their way to a bar or a restaurant. I notice the train station employees, scattered throughout the stations, trying to make a living. I have a little book of Chinese vocabulary in my pocket and read it on the train.

After I get off line two and on the way to line thirteen, there's a guy in front of me who is walking slowly. But this evening, it doesn't bother me one bit.

From the train station, I take a taxi home. I finally get to my building and have to wait some more for the elevator. A youngish Chinese woman and I get in.

Perhaps she's been at the office all day putting in overtime. Her floor approaches and the doors open. She breathes an obvious sigh of relief to finally be home and walks out of the elevator.

Frank the Peasant Scholar

2009-01-03T22:54:00.006+08:00

Living in China, I have already met a certain type of Chinese man several times. He is proud of Chinese culture, knowledgeable of Chinese history, literature, philosophy, arts, and politics. He assumes he understands much about Western culture, but in actuality, he knows little. As a matter of fact, he is quite wary of Western culture and to tell you the truth, he feels Chinese culture is vastly superior to anything the West has to offer.

I call this man the "Peasant Scholar".

Stuck in the back of a Mercedes with Frank on my recent business trip to Shandong, I figured I should make small-talk with him. We were introduced and he began speaking English to me (he did not at the time know that I speak Chinese). Within several minutes, I could tell several things. First, being an English teacher, it was obvious that like most Chinese people, his spoken English was poor. Second, Frank was a condescending asshole.

Frank is about my age, has a degree in civil engineering, an MBA, and is now working on a doctorate in project management. He dresses in the standard dress of the Chinese peasant scholar--mismatching suit jacket and pants, no tie, cheap sweater, and soiled, cheap shoes.

After listening to Frank's shitty English for several minutes, I decided to start talking Chinese to him. After all, I'm not getting paid to teach him English here.

I figure I'm going to have to sit in the back seat of this car for the next four hours with him, so I figure I should make the most of it. I start calling him 老師 ("laoshi", teacher) and tell him that I would like him to help me with my Chinese. He tells me he has a deep understanding of Chinese culture and that he is willing to teach me.

As we all talk in Chinese, I ask Frank to teach me the meaning of some words I don't understand. He explains them to me. Although I feel I am being gracious and allowing Frank to be my teacher, relieving him of the need to speak his shitty English, he nevertheless is still quite condescending.

Frank waxes philosophical about the wonders of the Chinese language. He then begins to dis the English language saying that Chinese has so many subtle ways to describe certain things, but that the English language doesn't.

I think back to my Chinese Literature teacher at the university where I am studying, Professor He (pronounced Huh) . Professor He studied Chinese in college (including classical Chinese) and has written books. Recently, his greatest passion is reading English literature, and during our class breaks he shows me passages (in English) in the Virginia Woolf book he is reading that he needs me to help him understand. I look at the passages and they bowl me over with their beauty, their complexity. I tell He Laoshi that even most college students would have difficulty interpreting these passages, but I do my best explaining to him what they mean. In Chinese. The English language is indeed beautiful.

So, when Frank tells me, in his way, that Chinese is so beautiful and subtle and complex, and English isn't, I quickly retort, "Frank, maybe your English level isn't quite advanced." For the time being, Frank shuts up.

Later in our journey, I tell Frank about the story we just read in Professor He's class, about a man who gives up his dream of music so that he can have a stable marriage to a woman he's not in love with. I ask him why most Chinese people would support the man's decision. Of course, I know why most Chinese people would, but I want to hear Frank's opinion.

Frank remarks about my Western lack of understanding of Chinese culture to his coworkers in the front of the car. His tone is mocking and once again condescending. Our car is going about 80 MPH. I think to myself that it's not a good time to push him out of the car and so I restrain myself.

The conversation lulls and then Frank turns to his coworkers and makes a remark about my Chinese name. "Do you know whose name Kaiyuan's name sounds like? It's a person in Chinese history."

David and Candy are too young to know, but I know, because I've lived in Chinese culture for a little while and some others have made the same remark. My name, Yao Kaiyuan, sounds like one of the members of the Gang of Four, Yao Wenyuan. Frank asks again, but David and Candy still don't know.

With no response from the front, I tell Frank I know and he seems astounded. "Really?", he asks, "Who?"

I tell him Yao Wenyuan and he is flabbergasted (I mean how could a Western guy know this stuff?). He is truly dumbfounded and can't believe I know. He asks me how the heck I know this.

I tell him, "You know, Frank, you're not the first smart Chinese guy I've ever met."

David looks at me in the rearview mirror and gives me a big smile. I'm not even good with clever lines in English. I can't believe I was able to pull that one off in Chinese.

The car grows silent, and thankfully, Frank shuts the fuck up for the rest of the afternoon.

The next morning, Frank and I head back to Beijing by plane. We are driven to the airport in the client's van and when the driver drops us off at the airport, he pulls out two small flashlights. He gives them to Frank, and in Chinese he says, "This is a small gift to you and the foreigner guy. It uses our company's technology."

Frank smiles and puts both of the flashlights into his purse and we continue to check-in. I am curious if Frank is going to give me one of the flashlights, but I don't say anything yet.

We line up to check in and I get out my passport, which I am now holding in my hand. Frank turns to me and says "Get out your passport."

"I have it in my hand," I say, and show it to him. I really want to say, "I have it in my hand, fuckhead!" but I know his listening ability isn't up to the task.

I then say to him in Chinese, "Hey, can I see that gift the client just gave you?" Frank gives me a half smile and a slightly nervous laugh that says, "Hey, I wasn't going to give that to you, but you are a clever laowai, so here you go", as he pulls out a flashlight and gives it to me.

Of course, I don't really give a shit about the flashlight, I just want to bust Frank.

We get on the plane, and I think I perhaps should ignore Frank. After all, he just tried to steal a flashlight from me. But, I let it go and read my Chinese book. Of course, Frank is curious and tries to help me with my Chinese. I let him do this and of course he tries to explain very basic words to me, as if I am an idiot.

I find it ironic that Frank, who has devoted years of schooling to studying subjects that were invented in the West, has little respect for a Westerner. There are so many ways that living in China tests my patience. Unfortunately, I feel I've probably failed the Frank test.

But fortunately for me, I haven't lost it and for the rest of the flight, I continue with the "Frank Laoshi" game and the Peasant Scholar teaches me some more Chinese.

Roni's Chinese Mafia Story

2009-01-03T21:00:00.010+08:00

David calls me on a Tuesday. "I got your name from Rebecca. We need someone to do some proofreading for us. We'll go to Shandong and we need you to come with us. But first we need to interview you."

I don't know David, and to be honest, I don't know Rebecca, but I tell him sure, let's set up an interview. He says he'll come to my campus tomorrow at two. Later in the day, I remember that I did interview for a teaching job with a woman named Rebecca. I call her and ask her if she knows this David guy and if she sent him to me. She has no idea about this guy.

The next day, while in the library studying, I get a call from David. He says he's at the west gate of the university waiting for me in a black Mercedes. I ride my bike over to the west gate and find his car. It's a new, black Mercedes, and there's a twenty-five year-old Chinese kid sitting in the seat talking on his cellphone inside. "David?" I say. He tells me to come in.

David speaks English well and says he has a master's degree from Oxford. His English isn't bad, and it's possible that he is actually telling me the truth (any Chinese person who knows about "A-levels", i.e., the university entrance exams in the UK, must have done his homework).

He tells me he works at an investment company and that they have a new client located in Shandong, which is about a four hour drive from Beijing. Since they'll need to do some Powerpoint presentations in English related to the client in the future, he explains, he'd like to take me along so I can get familiar with this project. He tells me that we'll stay in a five-star hotel and all meals will be covered. We negotiate a rate and he gives me a business card, telling me that he'll send more information to me by email. We depart on Thursday morning.

"You know," he say, "there are many bad guys in China, but don't worry, we're not going to kidnap you or anything."

I feel reassured and on my way back to the library I call up a couple of good friends and tell them about the interview, joking that I think I was just hired to be an English teacher for the Chinese mafia. One friend is completely worried, telling me to not be so naive.

I come home that evening and look up the website on David's card. Nothing comes up. I try google the name of his company (which has "offices in Beijing and London"). Again, nothing. The whole theory about becoming English teacher to the Chinese mafia is looking more probable.

The next day, I call David and tell him that his website doesn't exist. He tells me that sometimes the Chinese government blocks it, not to worry. I tell him that he should have a contract ready for me in the morning. With any new project, especially with a Chinese company, I always get a contract to make sure they pay me and that the terms of the job are clear. He says there's no time for a contract, that he'll just pay me in full, in cash, at the beginning of our trip. See you tomorrow morning at 8:30, he says.

I call up a few friends. "Listen, if you don't hear from me by Friday afternoon, call the police," I tell them. The friend who told me I'm naive still thinks I'm taking a big risk. One of my friends doesn't understand what's the big deal. I make some money, get to visit another province, and get to stay in a five-star hotel. Not a bad deal, she says, right?

That evening, I go out to the local department store and buy a killer blue-striped tie. I come home and get out my fake Armani suit that I bought in Shanghai for $86. I swear, I am ready for GQ. I am ready for an adventure. At best, I get a high-paying job with the Chinese mafia. At worst, I have to defend myself against a couple of skinny Chinese thugs using all those aikido moves I've practiced maybe thousands of times. I have been lifting weights recently and doing taiji, so I figure I am up for it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, you know?

I wake up early the next morning, get dressed, and walk out of my shitty apartment building in the suburbs of Beijing, looking like a half-Moroccan Ashkenazi Jewish-American-Israeli James Bond.

David arrives in his Mercedes at the agreed-upon location with two of his coworkers, Candy and Frank. I sit in the back with Frank and David makes introductions. We're going to be in the car together for the next four hours, so we try to get to know each other. David senses I'm a little nervous, so he tries to reassure me again that he's not going to try to kidnap me. I am once again reassured.

Candy's English isn't bad, but I'm sitting in the back with Frank, and his English sucks, so I start speaking with them in my passable Chinese. David tells me that when we get to Shandong and meet with the client I should not speak any Chinese at all. He doesn't want them asking me all kinds of questions. He tells me to especially avoid the Taiwanese guys that work for the client because their English is better than the mainlanders. He tells me that if they ask about my background, I should tell them that I have a background in investment banking and have worked for several firms in the States. No problem, I say.

He further explains that the client is a tech company looking for investors and so not only will we be investigating their operation, but they will also be trying to ascertain whether we are a legitimate investment company. I ask him a few questions about the field of investment banking and figure I should be okay.

We finally arrive in Shandong, where the client meets us for lunch. About six people meet us at a hotel and we have a short but elegant lunch there. The director of the client's operation, a young man with an authoritarian demeanor in his mid-thirties, makes toasts with wine and smokes a cigar, inviting Frank to smoke with him. For some reason, Frank suddenly becomes a big shot.

Sitting next to me is one of the Taiwanese guys. I know I am not supposed to talk too much to him, but I tell him that I "visited" Taiwan before. Of course, I am dying to tell him I lived there, to tell him how much I love Taiwan, how much I miss it. But, I hold my tongue.

Lunch is short so that we can begin the afternoon meeting with the client. We go to the factory, which has been recently built and is not yet in operation, and after a brief tour, the games begin. We sit, about fifteen of us, in a conference room, with David presenting the terms of the contract. I sit at David's left, listening to them talk in Chinese. A lot of the Chinese that they use, of course, is legalese and is related to finance and investments, so I only understand about 70%. Nevertheless, it's an excellent exercise in my Chinese listening skills.

The factory director smokes several cigars and speaks with the forcefulness of someone with a military background. Besides the two Taiwanese engineers with PhDs from the U.S., I have no clue who the rest of the people are.

David introduces me as the guy in charge of client relations for his company and tells them I don't speak Chinese. We sit there for about four hours and since the talks are exclusively in Chinese I wonder what everyone is thinking I am doing at this meeting.

When they say, "Everyone turn to page four, paragraph three" (in Chinese), I turn to page four, paragraph three and try to practice my Chinese reading skills. I wonder if any of the guys around the table notice.

At one point, one of the Taiwanese engineers introduces their technology to us, a metal tube that conducts heat very quickly. He puts it in a cup of boiling water and asks me to touch it. It's very hot and without thinking, in Chinese I burst out saying, "很快就熱了!" ("It gets hot really fast!"). Too late, I realize I've blurted out Chinese when I am not supposed to know any Chinese. The hyper cigar-smoking factory chief's jaw is on the table. Fortunately, it's not a big deal. For us foreigners, it takes two years to learn to respond like that spontaneously in Chinese, but to a Chinese person, you couldn't convince him that I've studied for more than a month or two.

Finally, the big meeting is over and it's time for the time-honored custom of the business banquet. We all head back to the hotel for a big dinner, which includes, of course, lots of alcohol.

The food is traditional cuisine from Shandong. I figure I haven't gotten kidnapped yet, and as an extra bonus I get this incredible food, so I am quite delighted. The waitress pours me a small cup of expensive baijiu ("white alcohol", Chinese vodka) and during our meal, everyone makes toasts. I think the baijiu is about 58% alcohol, so each sip is like drinking a beer to me. While I like drinking, I'm not a professional drinker. A couple of beers are enough for me.

I notice to my right that the guy two seats over just poured his water into his baijiu glass, and so after I finish by baijiu, I follow suit. Throughout the evening, people are making toasts and somehow I get by with just drinking water.

At one point, a member of the client's delegation tells the waiter something quickly in Chinese and she comes out with a small glass of baijiu. It looks like I've been found out, and I have no choice but to drink it down with him. It's okay, given all the water I've been drinking, I think I should be fine.

What I like about drinking in China is that you don't do it alone and that you do it with dinner. In China, if you want to drink, you raise your glass, look at the person (or people) you are toasting, and then drink with them. This continues throughout the night as people toast each other. David's face is very red. As the head of our operation, he is getting heavily toasted.

I think I'm a bit tipsy by now and I know I'm not supposed to speak any Chinese, but I can't resist turning to one of the Taiwanese engineers and saying (in Taiwanese), "Hodala!" ("Bottoms up!"). He is surprised and looks pleased. Later in the evening, he says, perhaps half-jokingly, that he knows I know Chinese.

The banquet wraps up and a young member of the client's team pays me a compliment, "You can really drink that baijiu!"

"Thanks," I respond, as humbly as possible.

After dinner, David and his team finish up the negotiations with the client and we meet back in his hotel room. It turns out it has all been successful. He asks for my passport number so he can book an airline ticket for me and Frank back to Beijing in the morning. He and Candy will stay in Shandong for another day to get a tour or the area.

David gives me details about tomorrow's flight and says I did a good job. The next morning, I wake up and a car is waiting for me and Frank and we fly back to Beijing. I arrive back in Beijing and send text messages to my friends letting them know I haven't been harmed or kidnapped.

I realize that not once did David or his team talk about any Powerpoint presentations. And I realize that I have just performed an essential function in the negotiations with David's client--I was just paid to be a Western "flower vase" (花瓶), as they say in Chinese. In other words, David hired me to be a white guy in a suit sitting next to him during negotiations.

I arrive back home at about lunch time with a good story for my friends. And a hope that the Chinese mafia might need my services again.

Chinese Police

2009-01-03T20:36:00.005+08:00

At the start of the semester at Beijing Language University, the head of the local police station station comes to our orientation and speaks to us for an hour and a half. Actually, the whole orientation is just him talking.

He is an animated kind of guy in his fifties. He tells us what you would expect--try to be on good behavior, don't drink too much, don't ride gas-powered motorcycles with large motors, don't overstay your visa, don't visit brothels--common sense kind of stuff. He is very down-to-earth and his stories of former students getting drunk and doing stupid things are funny.

You can't help but like him.

At one point during his talk he mentions that although he'd like students to drink responsibly, he enjoys drinking. After the talk, I am outside unlocking my bike and see him pass by, lighting up a cigarette (as most middle-aged men in China do). I almost introduce myself to him and tell him I'd like to have a beer with him, but I let him go on his way, surrounded by a group of what look like fans.

Fast forward about four months later. I come home from Christmas Eve out with friends and before going to bed, I get a text message. In Chinese it says: "You want a girl?" I have no idea who would send me this kind of message. I get several more and I finally send back a message asking them who they are. They tell me that they are a "massage center".

I am a little dumbfounded and I still have absolutely no idea how they could even get my cellphone number. Now I am curious. I call them up. A guy answers the phone. It's quite loud in the background. I ask the guy where he got my name from. Surprisingly, he is not shy about telling me the answer. He tells me very matter-of-factly, "from the police station."

Only after I talk to him do I remember the police chief's orientation speech. He tells us not to "visit brothels" but at the same time, someone in his office is selling the names of foreigners to "massage centers".

I send the guy back a text message telling him to stop with his promotional text messages and I can only laugh and shake my head.

Welcome to China, folks.

Tea at Maliandao

2009-01-03T19:41:00.009+08:00

I teach this morning and then feel some excitement as the class ends. My friend Michael has invited me to Maliandao, the home to Beijing's tea markets, where we'll sample some tea. Malindao is blocks and blocks of tea markets and if you are looking for tea, teapots or tea paraphernalia, this is your heaven.

Michael and I both love zhongguocha (Chinese tea) and so as you can imagine, we are both in heaven.

We first walk around a large indoor tea market. It's the New Year's vacation and everyone must be out of town or at home watching TV, because this place is empty. Seriously, walking around we don't see any other customers--we're the only kids in the candy store.

First, we check out teapots. If it's a good teapot, looking at a teapot is like looking at a whole universe. There's all the time and effort that was put into crafting it. You feel it in your hand when you pick it up and see it in the finish of the clay. And then there are all your future pours.

There are the standard red ones, brown ones, the odd ivory or black ones. I love the teapots with small Chinese characters etched on them. Sometimes it's the whole Heart Sutra. But mostly, I like the simple pots with flowing, classic lines, nothing too avant garde.

As we walk by one shop, we see that the sign is for heicha ("black tea") from Hunan. We've never seen this before and soon Michael, who is very curious, is leading us into the shop to sample some.

Keep in mind, what we know as "black tea" in the West is called "red tea" in China, so this tea seems special. We find out that it is an aged tea similar to pu-er, with fungi introduced into it to give it a special fungi taste. The young girl gives a magnifying glass so we can look at the fungi, and then she pours us some.

The truth--it's nothing special, but it is fun to try something new and practice our Chinese. We both decide it's time to get some real tea. Michael loves Taiwan Tie Guan Yin, a roasted wulong tea, and he's in search of a tea on the mainland that comes close to what he's tasted in Taiwan, and so we find a shop that sells the famous Da Hong Pao (Large Red Robe) wulong tea from Fujian with hopes that it'll come close.

The owner of the shops and her mother, who are from Fujian, pour tea for us and ask us personal questions. The tea is great stuff and I think Michael is in heaven. I love it too, but I'll always be in love with Alishan Gaoshan (High Mountain) wulong from Taiwan.

Having lived in Beijing for about four months now, it is a breath of fresh air to hear their southern accent and their southern sense of humor. Northerners and southerners are quite different in China, and being that my laojia (my "hometown", my first home in this part of the world) is in Taiwan, I am quite enchanted.

It's not always easy living here in China, living your life in another language, in another culture. But there are times that are clear, sublime. Laughing in Chinese and drinking tea, I forget about all my cares. As we leave, the owner's mother tells us to come back soon, that there are lots more teas to try.

We tell her we surely will.

The Kind Taxi Driver and the Israeli

2008-12-10T13:58:00.003+08:00

I get in a taxi to head back home. The ride will take about 25 minutes, so I pull out a book that I can study on the way there. The driver is in early 50s and says to me, "Is it okay if I chat with you?" (可以聊天吗?) I put down my book and I say, "Of course!" with a smile.

The first question that any taxi driver (or most anybody) in China will ask you is where you are from. These days, I tell them all I am Israeli (that's where my parents are from). I'm just tired of the typical response I get from people when I say I am from the States that goes like this:

Chinese Man: Where are you from?
Me: I'm from the States.
Chinese Man: [Pauses. Rubs his chin. Looks to the left.] Oh, the U.S. is a good country.

You know, if I ask you if you love your boyfriend and you start rubbing your chin and looking away before you answer, I think the answer is clear.

Of course, who can blame them? The behavior and actions of the United States in the last eight years have been those of a drunken frat boy. Relations with the rest of the world have gone down the drain.

So, I'm Israeli.

Taxi drivers (and most other Chinese people) always then respond in the same way. "Oh, Jewish people. The world's smartest people!"

Today, this driver responds this way and asks if I can tell him more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He says ever since he was a kid, he's always read news about the conflict, and it seems never-ending. He'd like me to help him understand why it's so difficult for both sides to work it out.

I, of course, have been thinking about this question for the last twenty years of my life, so I give him my hit on it. We talk for a while about my take on the conflict and he is very thankful.

I tell him that I think every country has their difficult problems. Take you guys here in China. You have Tibet and Taiwan. I tell him that he can now be my teacher and help me understand.

He is a very humble and respectful man. He says he wouldn't dare call himself anyone's teacher. He is wise and doesn't want to get too deep into those difficult issues. But he asks me another question.

"Do you think that democracy, like they have in Thailand and Taiwan, are really good for the people? I mean look at what is happening in the news," he says.

I tell him that although it may look messy to a Chinese person, I sincerely believe that it's a necessary process. If you look at the modern, free countries of the world you see that they've all gone through this messy process.

However, I want him to know that understand where he and all the other bajillion Chinese people are coming from.

I tell him that I am different from most foreigners. Whereas many foreigners just write off China's government as an evil authoritarian dictatorship that ignores human rights, I understand that they are trying to keep China stable. And above all, above freedom and democracy, Chinese people want stability. I tell him that I would like to communicate this to more foreigners, so they understand where Chinese people are coming from. He is very moved and he thanks me in a very sincere way.

I tell him that I hope one day, maybe not tomorrow, but maybe in fifty years, China will become a democracy. He says it might take longer and says a hundred years aren't enough.

We reach my apartment and he wishes his new Israeli friend well and says that he hopes to give me a ride home again some day. I hope so, too, and warmly say goodbye to him.

The Old Man with the Cal Hat

2008-10-16T23:18:00.007+08:00

The weather has been beautiful in Beijing lately. As I ride my bike down Qinghua Street, I see an old guy. Face wrinkled, looks like he has a lot of stories to tell.

He's got a Cal (University of California) hat on. I'm sure he has no idea what those letters mean. But it makes me think of Berkeley, of walking around campus, on Telegraph, and up near Strawberry Canyon, near the football stadium.

I want to stop and tell him what his hat means to me. Even for me to stop and talk to him, much less about the University of California at Berkeley, would be strange in China.

So, I keep on going, enjoying the sunshine and those memories.

The Two Jiao Heist

2008-10-16T22:47:00.008+08:00

Back in Shanghai, for change, they use coins (like in the States). But here in Beijing, they prefer paper. Even for tiny amounts.

Today, someone gave me a tattered 2 jiao bill (there are 100 maos in a yuan) that would be like a 2 cent bill in the States). You can't buy a small piece of candy with it.

Later on in the day, I was paying for some things in the campus grocery store. It cost 5 yuan and 2 jiao (let's say 78 cents). So, I say to her, I think I have 2 jiao. I reach into my wallet and grab the 2 jiao bill. I am excited to get rid of it.

The cashier, a young Chinese girl of about 20 says I can't use it. I tell her someone just gave it to me earlier today. She starts to get on the defensive and says that she didn't give it to me earlier in the day. It's torn and wrinkled, no one will accept it, she says.

I think she is making a big deal, so I laugh and say, "I'm not trying to cheat you, I'm just an innocent foreigner trying to buy something at your store. Here, take this other bill."

Her friend laughs, and so does she. And I'm off to go study at the library.

The Turtle of Longevity

2008-09-27T20:55:00.005+08:00

I bump into my real estate agent on the street the other day and we start chatting. I tell him a "secret": a few days after moving into my apartment, I hear something rustling near my TV, and see that there's a turtle, about eight inches long, walking around. I don't freak out, I just buy him some vegetables and put him in a plastic basin in some water. I now understand why there is a big plastic basin under my bed.

My real estate agent thinks for a minute: "Oh yeah, in Chinese culture, turtles mean longevity."

I knew it was a good sign.

Dropping It

2008-09-27T20:46:00.005+08:00

To get an apartment in Beijing, as most people do, I used the services of a real estate agent. The good ones don't charge a commission, as the landlord pays them a fee.

And so, I got an apartment not far from the university and a few days later needed my agent to help me with a tricky problem. I'll spare you the details, but I was hoping that he could talk to my landlord and work it out. But, he was too busy cashing in on the rush of foreign students moving to Wudaokou and, like a genius, I interpreted his slow responses to mean, "I couldn't care less about your problems, bud, I already made your money and there's a lot more to be made before the end of September."

I got a little upset about this, but I figured this was a very natural way for him to respond. He is a forty year old Chinese guy with a wife and a kid. He needs to make as much money as possible in the next month or too before the student market dries up. If I taught English full-time, I might make three times as much as he does in a month.

So I decided to completely drop my American expectations of how he should have responded.

A few days later, a few foreign friends were looking for an apartment and I connected them with my agent. A few hours later, my friends had found a nice, modern two-bedroom apartment near the university and my agent made a lot of money.

He called me up and told me he had a present for me and that he wanted to take me to dinner. I told him that was fine, I didn't need a present.

I'm glad he could make some more money and I hope that kid of his grows up to be a smart, wealthy CEO.

Shanghainese Couple in Beijing

2008-09-27T20:17:00.008+08:00

I've been in Beijing for a month and I like it. Since I am in China to learn Mandarin, Beijing, despite the pollution, is a breath of fresh air because everyone speaks Mandarin here. You see, in Shanghai, everywhere you go, everyone, young and old, is speaking Shanghainese.

Of course, I miss all my friends in Shanghai, and I miss my apartment in Puxi. But I don't miss people always trying to sell my "watches and bags" on the street. For that matter, I got tired, really fast, of all the "wheeling and dealing" on the street and in the stores, in Shanghai.

I once tried to make small talk with a Shanghainese woman who I had just started to work with. Using typical Shanghainese logic, after about one sentence, she stops me and say, "Oh, you are practicing your Mandarin with me." "No," I responded, "I am saying hello to you, just like I do to all my other friends and coworkers." I tried to never speak to her again.

Life in Beijing is a little slower, and people are friendlier. Nobody is trying to sell me things on the street. The Shanghainese people are famous for their arguing prowess. Every week, as you walk around Shanghai, you can hear many people yelling at each other in Shanghainese, which to put it nicely, is not the most beautiful language invented. It's hard to describe, but if you go three nights without sleep and drink lots of coffee (and to make it authentic, have your landlord or someone else do something to really piss you off) and then try to speak Chinese. It will probably sound almost like Shanghainese.

I haven't seen anyone here in Beijing argue on the street.

Of course, after a while, you get used to whatever place you are living in, and nothing really phased me anymore in Shanghai--the arguing, the hawking, the attitude.

Tonight, I was waiting in line at the supermarket with my groceries and, I'll be darned, I hear an old couple speaking Shanghainese, or more accurately, arguing in Shanghainese. The old man grumbles something to his wife and then stamps off to another part of the store. Then he comes back and they start arguing again in Shanghai. Or then again, maybe they are discussing dinner (or maybe he is reciting a love poem to her). In Shanghainese, it all sounds like arguing.

I couldn't stop laughing. It's like a caricature of what I saw in Shanghai every day.

As I collect my bag of groceries and leave the store, I see them walk toward the exit of the store, and I say to them, "You are from Shanghai!"

The man gets a big smile on his face and he tells his wife, "He heard us speak Shanghainese!" I tell them I used to live in Shanghai and they light up. They ask me if I know Shanghainese and I say no, but I say a few words. They tell me that they are both professors at Beijing Aerospace University around the corner and have been living in Beijing for a long time.

The interaction is very warm and they are very kind people.

It makes me think of my friend Bruce in Taiwan who once said to me, "It just personality." In other words, those characteristics we inherit from the city we live in, or country we live in, aren't who we really are.

With a smile on my face, I get my bike, load my groceries in it, head home to cook some of my famous soup and continue my Beijing life.

Alpha Male

2008-09-27T12:44:00.006+08:00

My new life in Beijing is mostly occupied by studying Mandarin, but you still gotta eat sometimes.

I notice it's a little late to eat in the school cafeteria, so I decide to stop at the cheap Chinese restaurant near my place. It's a Friday night and it's packed. In addition to all the other full tables, there are two tables full of young guys surrounded by lots of green glass bottles of Qing Dao.

Luckily, they have a seat for one, so I sit down and look at the menu while the waiter waits for me to make my decision. Different from Western waiters who give you the menu and then leave (although Chinese waiters do this, too). In most restaurants, I have to say: "Could you give me a few minutes?"

Actually, I don't give her a few minutes and just order a Gong Bao Ji Ding. You can tell I didn't really thoughtfully look at the menu. You know this because whenever I don't feel like reading through a Chinese menu, I order Gong Bao Ji Ding. In the United States, this dish is known as Kung Pao chicken. I seem to have permanent amnesia that the dish is too spicy and way too sweet for my taste, but I guess I really want to eat and then go study.

While I am waiting, the host seats a girl at my table and says, "Here's a new friend for you." On this Friday night, when all the tables are packed, the two people who are eating alone cannot take up their own tables. So I being the friendly guy that I am, begin talking to her. I find out she's a year out of university, majored in English, and works as an editor of English texts at a publishing company in Beijing. We talk in Chinese the whole time because even the English majors in China, not to mention most everyone else, is shy about their spoken English. This is good for me because it means I can always easily find a little English teaching gig or two (or three) on the side to support myself.

We are trying to communicate but we can barely hear each other. The two table of young guys next to us are getting rowdier and rowdier. They're making toasts and one guy in particular seems to be the leader of the rowdiness.

Alpha male is thin, has the face and skin of a boy of sixteen, but my friend tells me he is most certainly a university student. He grabs the bottle of baijiu (Chinese hard liquor) and pours glassfuls (not shotfuls) for himself and all his friends. They all make a toast and drink. Suddenly, there's the sound of a loud crash as the young Alpha Male slams his glass on the table after downing it. It hits the table and breaks. This is when I start thinking, "Okay, there is something wrong here, get ready for anything to happen. Use aikido moves if necessary."

I continue talking with my friend, who is probably still ecstatic that I am not making her talk in English. But as we talk, I am distracted. Alpha male is about two feet from me, just over the railing that divides the restaurant. His skin is flushed and his arm is around his nerdy pimply friend who's wearing glasses and who is totally wasted. Nerdy talks to his friend and at times sounds like he is going to cry.

The boys pop up again like a flock of birds rushing toward the sky for another toast. This time Alpha Male and another friend end up chugging large beer bottles. While his friend quits after chugging for about thirty seconds, Alpha Male keeps going. That's a lot of beer to chug at once, and it seems like two minutes have passed and he hasn't even finished half the bottle. This boy's going to be in big trouble soon if he keeps drinking like this.

Fortunately, one of his friends grabs the bottle out of his mouth. I go back to talking to my English major friend some more. The boys are still rowdy and now they are going up for another toast of baijiu. I can't believe it. And then Alpha Male starts yelling for another round of beers.

I look at him. I think, people only drink like this when they hate life, when they are not brave enough to just kill themselves. I mean, this is a form of death what he's doing. The phrase "the folly of youth" comes to my mind.This kid is going to paying all weekend for his few hours in the restaurant.

I begin to wonder about this boy. I was a teenage boy once and I can understand his impulse. Most of us guys have memories like this. For me, it was speeding my car in the rain on the Balitmore beltway at age seventeen or eighteen. I was upset about something, and fortunately I didn't kill myself or anyone else. So, I can understand this kid.

I wish I had someone to talk to at that time so many years ago about whatever was going on, and I pray that this kid doesn't hurt himself. Tonight's drinking isn't child's play. This kid is in trouble.

Suddenly, they all get up and Alpha Male stumbles out, supported by a friend. I think about how he's going to be tomorrow. I wonder if he's going to alive in five years. I pray for him and hope he makes it.

Soymilk

2008-09-12T19:21:00.006+08:00

I'm getting used to my new neighborhood in Beijing. Finding a small market where I can buy some dou jiang (soy milk, 豆漿) every day for my breakfast has been talking up more of my consciousness than I am willing to admit (hey, breakfast is important).

On the way home today, I find a market about a block away from my home that sells little plastic bags of it. In the back, there is a little stall where they sell chicken eggs, tofu, and soymilk. It's run by a kid who must be about 16. I like his Beijing accent and I like how he's not afraid to talk to me in Chinese. He's a working class straightforward kind of kid, and I really appreciate that he talks to me like he talks to everyone. He even understands what I am saying.

I pay him and walk home. It's Friday evening and I'm in no rush. You gotta love that feeling.

Next door, there's a fruit stand, and so I buy some big fragrant peaches, some soft purple plums, and a few apples. Some fruit stands in China are better than others (I suppose like any other country), and I hope this one is a keeper.

The fifteen year-old girl who works there is rushing, helping customers and tells me to hold on. I tell her to take her time. I'm still not in a rush.

I pay her and thank her. She replies as everyone in China does, and with feeling, bu yong xie (不用謝), there's no need to thank me.

As I walk home, the small bag of soymilk drops from my hand. I turn around to pick it up and behind me there is a grandmother and her three year-old granddaughter. I slowly pick up the soymilk and of course, she is looking at me, curious. Her mother moves her aside so I can go about picking up my little plastic bags.

I give her a big smile and she gives me a big smile back. It is unfettered joy, our natural state, as only children are in touch with.

I pick up my soymilk and say bye to her. She is still smiling, and I'm almost home.

The Temple of Heaven

2008-09-02T19:38:00.003+08:00

I have just arrived in Beijing. I am downtown with nothing to do. There's a station where Olympic volunteers are hanging out in their blue and white shirts. They're all patriotic Chinese twenty-somethings who have been practicing their English intensively in the past few weeks. Thankfully, I just missed the Olympics and the city is quieting down.

I approach them and can see their faces get excited ("Get ready to talk English, here comes a foreigner!") I approach them slowly because I want to savor the moment. I want them to savor the moment, too.

And of course, I want to surprise them. So, I ask them in Chinese, "So, what can I do around here?"

I think the guy talking to me is relieved that he can talk to me in Chinese. In this way, he can speak with authority. As we talk, I notice another volunteer is photographing us with her high-tech super-expensive Nikon digital SLR. Maybe I will be in the newspaper tomorrow: "Chinese Volunteers Help Foreigner Enjoy Beijing".

They tell me the Temple of Heaven (天壇) is nearby, and so I start walking.

About twenty minutes later, I get there. You pay a fee to enter, but before you enter the actual temple grounds, you need to walk through the adjacent park. It is full of Chinese retirees doing what they do best: singing, dancing, playing cards, drinking tea. I sit down and watch two women in their 50s do some traditional Chinese dances.

If you want to see real life in action in China, you can always hang out with kids, dogs, or old people.

I figure I should continue to see the famous temple.

I walk through the grounds, picturing the old emperors doing their prayers for the land. It seems a little superstitious. The emperor would come here every year and go through all kinds of ritual so that the coming harvest would be good. But I think, it's good to have a reverent attitude toward nature, so I think, "Yeah, you go Emperor!"

After walking around for over an hour, I want to sit down, and I find there's a park on the grounds. There are many older Chinese people and a few of them look at me while I pull out my guide to Beijing and read it.

Across from me, there is another bench with an old couple. The man is lying down and his wife is sitting next to him, combing his hair. I just watch.

And now I know why I was supposed to come to see the Temple of Heaven today. When you are old (or young), and someone can comb your hair like that, isn't that heaven?

A "Chance" Meeting

2008-08-28T20:04:00.006+08:00

In a few days, I'll be leaving Shanghai. The old mystics say that at the threshold, when the water meets the land, magical things happen.

I'm in Pudong and I walk down into the Dongchang subway station to go home to Puxi. On the train platform I see a guy who looks like my friend CJ from Taiwan. He's sitting on the bench waiting for a train to Puxi. As I walk closer to him, I think, this really is CJ. I have forgotten his name, but I walk up to him and say, "Taiwan."

CJ turns to me and we are both a little 不知所錯 ("like, no way, dude!"). The train is coming and we both get on. CJ is just visiting Shanghai for a few days. He wants to know what I am doing here. The last time we saw each other was at the 市政府捷運站 subway station in Taipei.

He tells me he doesn't like 大陸 at all, and that every time he gets back to Taiwan, he kisses the ground. I have to admit, I understand the feeling.

But for now, I like the grit of China. There are good people everywhere, and the good thing about life is that if you want to grow, life is always giving you good lessons, especially here in the People's Republic.

Taiwan will always have a place deep in my heart, and it's nice to have this reminder from my Soul (in the form of CJ), right here on line 1 of the Shanghai subway.

My New Taiji Teacher

2008-07-27T18:48:00.005+08:00

I've been studying Wu style taiji for about six months now. I'm slowly loosening up my upper body and strengthening my lower body, both essential to good form. I'm unlearning some of the hardness I picked up in aikido (and in life) and learning how to soften and relax. I sometimes do miss the aikido samurai spirit, but taiji has its gifts, too.

On Friday, I had lunch with my Israeli friend Oren, who is a long-time practitioner of taiji. He told me that sometimes when he practices in parks, Chinese people (who usually have a lot less experience than he does) like to come up to him and correct his movements. We both wondered why Chinese people like to do this. I've seen Oren do taiji. He's quite advanced. For instance, when he and my teacher do push-hands, Oren wins every time.

We both laughed. Chinese people, upon seeing his caucasian face, perhaps, feel like it's a good opportunity to be cultural teachers. Chinese people are proud of their culture and they would like to share it with Westerners.

I practice taiji every day, and sometimes in parks, but I haven't been "corrected" by a stranger--until today.

This evening, while practicing outside of my apartment, I notice a slightly overweight, bald Chinese guy in his thirties watching me. He was out walking his little dog, which looked like Lassy, but was tiny and long.

I kept practicing my set, but after closing it, he began to present his evaluation.

"Taiji is supposed to be round, and soft. You need to be softer. Also, you should squat lower," he said.

Uh-oh, I thought. I guess this was what Oren was talking about.

"What kind of taiji do you practice?" I ask him.

"I don't practice. I mean I learned a little a long time ago. But my mother is an expert and has been practicing for a long time," he explains.

He suggested that I buy a video and study the movements to get the feel of taiji.

"But I have a teacher," I told him.

"You can still learn from watching the video," he says. "You can study how Chinese people move differently from Western people."

It sounds like he has a lot to express this evening, and I decide to be receptive and listen. After all, I am still just a beginner and I need all the help I can get. At this point, I think Oren would have wrestled him to the ground and thrown his miniature dog onto the roof of the building next to me.

"One thing you can do is do a standing meditation for a half an hour and feel a round ball in front of you. Your hands will also start to get hot," he explains. "And you can pretend like you are holding balloons in your hands, too."

"I see," I respond as I nod my head.

"You see," he continues, "taijiquan is based on the Doctrine of the Mean, everything is balanced. So you shouldn't be so tight. You need to be soft."

"You must live according to this Doctrine of the Mean," I say. "which is why, even though you don't practice taiji, you can still me taiji."

"Yes," he replies.

Actually, I appreciate the feedback and it inspires me to ask my teacher to soften my movements. I know I still have a long way to go.

"Thanks for your help," I tell him.

I ask him one more question: "Do you do Chinese calligraphy (shufa,書法) ?" I figure he's probably not really into exercise, but wonder if he practices a more sedentary art. And I figure even if he doesn't practice shufa, he'll probably still offer to teach me and who knows, he could probably teach me something.

"No, I don't," he response, "but I could probably find you someone who does."

"That's okay," I say. "It was nice to meet you." I thank him and he walks off.

Understanding the Chinese Mind

2008-07-04T20:52:00.006+08:00

I have a new student on Tuesdays. He's around thirty, overweight, a Chinese manager at a German company. His boss has sent him to me to improve his English. Good thing, because he's got a heavy accent and has forgotton most of the grammar that he memorized in grade school.

During our first meeting, I ask him what topics he wants us to focus on and he tells me he wants to be able to explain to his manager, who is a foreigner, the fundamental differences between Western and Chinese culture.

He feels frustrated that sometimes his boss just doesn’t "get" the Chinese mentality. For instance, he tells me, his boss doesn’t understand that Chinese people will always choose the familiar and the stable over the risky, even if it’s fun, creative, and has been successful in the West.

In class lately, we have been talking about the youth of China and their views of their country. My student by now knows that I’m not a typical foreigner, that I’m interested in Chinese culture and that I’m probably almost as smart and sophisticated, intellectually, as he is.

First, he tells me how optimistic the youth of China are about the growth of their country, and how proud they are of China’s resilience. I listen and correct his English mistakes, but I can’t resist asking him a question. I suspect that he will like this, that it will enliven our class together.

I draw a line and on one end write “1949” and toward the other end write “1979”. I say to him that I understand that after Deng Xiaoping opened up China to the West in 1979, its economy has been developing. I draw a line from “1949” to “1979” and asked him, “What do young people think about this time period? If China had been developing during this time, don’t you think China could have become a developed country, like Japan? Was this period of time a waste?”

My student tells me that, in fact, he believes it was. But he says it was a “process.” I think that this means that China needed to go through this period to get to where it is today. He likes to emphasize that Chinese people focus on process.

I ask him what he thinks of Mao. “Winston Churchill, who led England during wartime, when asked to continue leading the country after the war, said that while he was good at leading England during wartime, he wouldn’t be a good leader during peacetime, as he didn’t especially understand economics. So, Churchill was better than Mao. Mao didn’t step down after the revolution. In fact, he wanted to be another emperor of China,” my student responds.

I have to say, it is refreshing to hear a young Chinese person criticizing Mao.

My student is making a lot of English errors, which I correct from time to time, but our conversation is getting juicy.

He knows Western people always criticize China for its handling of the Tiananmen Square protestors in 1989 and he wants to explain his governments actions to me, a Westerner. The governments actions, he says, were understandable for several reason, and he enumerates them:

First, at that time, the government didn’t have a police force capable of dealing with the protesters, so they had to send in tanks. Second, army men aren’t used to dealing with civilians, so they used their war strategies with the protesters, which explains why they killed them. Third, he explains that at that time, the army didn’t have tear gas, and so they had to use guns and bullets against the protesters.

I am incredulous and I can't quite believe what I am hearing. For some reason, the word "BRAINWASH" starts flashing in my brain.

I ask him, “In 1989, did the Chinese government have nuclear weapons (of course, I know they did)?” And of course, he responds affirmatively. “So, you are saying the government had nuclear weapons, but didn’t have teargas?”

“Yes,” he responds. He honestly believes that the government didn’t have teargas. I suppose at this point I should have asked if the government had water and hoses.

I laugh and I tell him, “Honestly, you are not going to find a foreigner that is going to believe that the Chinese government didn’t have teargas or didn’t know that you can use teargas against protesters instead of killing them.”

I tell him his reasons are “interesting”, but I ask him, ultimately, do people think that what the government did was wrong? I make an analogy to Germany, saying that although there are probably some Germans who understood the intellectual reasons why the majority of Germans behaved the way they did during the war, still, most of them are ashamed of what happened and their government apologized for the atrocities.

He tells me no, we Chinese people don't believe the government was wrong. He tells me that Chinese people are different from Western people. Chinese people have an obligation to love and take care of their parents, and they also have an obligation to love their country. He tells me that if his boss, for instance, tells him to cheat or lie, he'll do that, because he also has an obligation to his boss.

I explain to him that in the West, if your boss tells you to do something unethical, you are expected to refuse, and if he threatens you with your job, you say, "Okay, bahbah-yi!"

He just continues to smile and says that in Chinese culture, there is no "right" and "wrong", that Chinese culture believes that everything is relative. "Our cultures are very different."

He says that Chinese people don't understand how anyone in the United States could criticize China. Is the United States a perfect society? And he brings up the Iraq War. He says that Chinese people know why Bush invaded Iraq—oil.

Perhaps he thinks that all of us in the United States are like the Chinese, that we unthinkingly support our government. Does he have any idea how many people in the United States would agree with him about Iraq?

I tell him, in fact, I agree with him. I am critical of my government, and I know a lot of Americans who are also very critical of the US. At this point in our conversation, I think it’s a good time to talk about freedom, specifically freedom of speech and freedom of information.

I bring up Tibet and he smiles.

I tell him how my Chinese teacher didn't even know Tibet was an issue until a foreign student of hers mentioned it to her last year. And as I mentioned in a previous post, she concluded that "there are two sides to every story."

I tell my student the conclusion I came to after hearing my Chinese teacher's story, which is that while there are two sides to every story, that you've got to let people have access to both sides so they can make up their own minds. I tell him that in the West, we have access to both sides and we can make up our own minds. Yes, we know how the Tibetans are better off economically than they were a hundred years ago, how they have better infrastructure and universities, but most of us still are opposed to China's policy on Tibet.

My student responds by saying that you can't give the Chinese people full access to all information because it will cause chaos. In fact, restricting this access if an important way of keeping China stable.

I am beginning to understand the Chinese mentality better. China has been through so much upheaval through the ages that this stability is of utmost importance. This perceived need for stability means that most Chinese people are willing to forego a lot of freedom and democracy so that they don't have to go through another period of chaos again.

I imagine that if Chinese magically became a democratic country overnight, it might collapse. I tell my student that I understand this, but I hope that China can move gradually to more freedom. I tell him if young people in China also want to move in this direction, then perhaps there is hope.

He tells me that they do want China to move forward, slowly, in this area.

I am happy we can talk freely about these things and I would like to learn more about what Chinese people think. My student is also happy and says that he believes he can learn more from our conversations.

I think there might be hope for China.

The Trashman Gets Busted

2008-06-24T09:52:00.015+08:00

Today the Trashman got busted. Let me explain.

The Trashman is the eighty year-old guy who lives next door to me. Every time I see him on the stairs or in front of the building I say, "There goes the Trashman" or in Chinese "你好，垃圾人”.

The Trashman's day consists of dozens, if not hundreds, of short trips to the collection of trash bins in the center of our apartment complex. As a matter of fact, I can always be sure that if I am taking out my trash, he is either there fishing for trash or on his way back (with his arms full of trash) to his apartment.

In the beginning, I thought this was strange. The front door of the Trashman's apartment is usually open. When I have friends over, they get a look at the Trashman's kitchen. It is packed with--you guessed it--trash. They ask me, "How can he live like that?" and say "He must be a little crazy."

I am used to the Trashman. Despite his habit, you could say he is a sweet old man. Every morning, I do taiji in front of our building, and almost every morning, the Trashman walks by, his hands full of his catch for the morning, and he smiles at me, like the Buddha of Trash.

The Trashman's operation is multifaceted. He uses a corner of the garden in front of our building as a station where he dumps trash and sorts through it. At least he doesn't want to dump those rotting fish innards and papaya rinds on his kitchen floor. The other day, I was doing taiji and suddenly smelled something terrible. Sure enough, the Trashman was in his corner, cracking open a new shipment. It definitely affected my qi.

The Trashman has always had an operation on the bottom landing of our building. He has a small stool and he sorts through all his wares there. A little pile of plastic bottles, paper, all kinds of shit. Usually, it is hard to walk out of the building. But, he politely steps aside so I can get through.

In the mornings, when I am cooking my breakfast, I look through the window and see him bringing his haul in. I realize that everyone has their routine, their work, their livelihood--something that keeps them going everyday. Some might say that the work of the advertising executive is unnecessary, that it is "Vanity, all vanity" as one famous dude in the Ecclesiastes once said.

Yet, perhaps in whatever we find that keeps our interest, maybe there is something holy. Maybe it keeps us going, looking forward to the next day. It keeps us curious, young, keeps that spark in our eyes. Michael Jordan would spend hours and hours on layups and jumpshots. The Trashman has his own practice.

Sometimes I find myself wondering, "What kind of stories does the Trashman have?"

Up until last month, there hasn't been much of a smell. Only a little inconvenience because the Trashman's annex at the bottom of our building has gradually gotten larger. And if he wants to keep his kitchen knee deep in trash, what business is that of mine?

But recently, there has been a smell. And I have wondered why no one has said anything.

I thought, well, this is China. The rules are different here. I figure no one has said anything because, perhaps, people think this is normal. You know, all that suffering for the past sixty years and that Cultural Revolution--peoples' thresholds are different here.

It's true, China is opening up. But while you can build skyscrapers and shopping centers like Xintiandi, it takes a little more time for peoples' thinking to change. Think, "another generation."

Any foreigner living here knows what I am talking about. In the beginning, it's a bit apalling, but you get used to it. People spitting. Parents holding their kids while they pee in a corner of the subway station. A guy sitting across from me in the school cafeteria from me shoveling down his food with chopsticks, directly from his plate into his mouth.

It doesn't really phase me anymore, especially since I have made friends here and see the good that exists here, the humanity.

So, the smell isn't that bad, this sorting through the trash is probably keeping this sweet old guy alive, and besides, I think, he is doing a hell of a recycling job. Save the earth!

This morning, though, while doing taiji, two official-looking dudes and a lady descend on the Trashman and start lightly scolding him in Shanghainese (actually, to tell you the truth, I can't honestly tell you if they were scolding him, because everything said in Shanghainese sounds like a scolding). But I think they are telling him, "Look, guy, you can't do this."

Suddenly a woman yells from her window high in the building across from us. In a few minutes, she's down talking to the dudes and the lady, telling them something obviously related to the Trashman. They all look at the rags that the Trashman has hung on the tree across from our apartment (I forgot to tell you about the trash-hanging operation). A bamboo pole with about fifteen small white rages hanging from balances on two trees. Sometimes, the Trashman dries newspapers.

People walk by and linger. I want to put in my word, so I grab one of the dudes and tell him, "I am his neighbor. I just want to tell you that if I leave, no foreigner seeing all that trash in the front of our building will want to rent my apartment, and my landlord will be very upset."

The dude is very nice and says they are trying to take care of the problem. He tells me that someone else in the building complained of the smell and the trash on the landing. I go back to doing my taiji, away from the group of people who have assembled in front of my apartment. It looks cathartic.

The nice old lady who doesn't speak Mandarin (only Shanghainese) in the next building over sees me doing my taiji and she starts talking to me in what sounds like very heavily accented Mandarin, only some of which I can understand. She says, "He is crazy, he is crazy!" (“病了病了！”） and "I always see you doing taiji every morning--good job!".

There's an older man, let's call him Da Ye, about sixty, in our building who is always talking to the Trashman. He comes back and see the ruckus and starts arguing (again, it's Shanghainese, so for all I know, he was reciting Tang love poetry). I know that he is the Trashman's friend. I assume that in a very Confucian way, he is doing his best to honor the elderly and honor his neighbor. He helps the old man clean up.

Later today, I return home and see Da Ye and the Trashman doing more cleanup. I feel relieved and hope there won't be so much trashing lying around and I won't have to smell some of those smells. I see them bring back an old, battered suitcase from the trash bins. I go out to get dinner and see the big suitcase in the Trashman's kitchen.

Somehow, I don't think that Buddha smile has left the Trashman's face. He hasn't really said a word today, as usual. He just smiles at people. I figure tomorrow morning, he will be at it again, running a tighter, leaner operation, but nevertheless, still in business.

You got to keep on going.

A Walk in the Park

2008-06-20T11:41:00.007+08:00

My Chinese reading class at the university has been cancelled this morning, so instead of practicing taiji in my little xiao qu (neighborhood) in front of my apartment, I go to Fu Xing Park. I ride my bike there and find a spot to do taiji.

In the background, I can hear retired people singing in a chorus, and in every direction there are people practicing taiji. Next to me there is a young Chinese man in his late 20s practicing taiji. As soon as I see his movements, I know he is practicing the same style as I do, wu shi, as I do. Shanghai is a center for Wu style taiji, so this is not uncommon.

I start doing my stretches and watch this guy practice. He looks like a beginner just like me. Behind me, there's an older man, probably in his late 60s. He looks at the young man and it looks like he is imitating his movements. He doesn't look like he's been practicing very long, but I figure, better late than never.

After my stretches, I go up to the young man and ask him if he wants to practice the basic form together. He asks me "Which form?" I say Wu style and tell him who my teacher is. He tells me that he practices Wu style and that his teacher is right behind us! It's the old man. In fact, his teacher is probably the most senior Wu style teacher of southern style Wu taiji in Shanghai!

We practice together and his teacher, seeing me practice, asks his student where this laowai studied. I'm sure he can tell that I am only a beginner. My new young friend tells him who my teacher is. In his lineage my teacher would be considered a "nephew." We are essential "family."

After we practice, I ask my friend to introduce me to his teacher, Zhou Laoshi, and we begin talking. A few old men join in our conversation. Zhou Laoshi asks me if I have done some other martial arts, and I tell him I studied aikido for a few years. He asks me to do push-hands, tuishou, with him so he can feel my level, but I have never done tuishou. He say, "Just do aikido." And so, I practice aikido with him.

He is what you would expect a taiji master to be. My big samurai moves are nothing for him. You expect him to fall back, but instead you find yourself falling back. There is no resistance, but at the same time he is strong. I've never explored this martial aspect of taiji, and I'm inspired.

As usual, the old guys think it's cool that I'm a laowai who does taiji. We talk about martial arts, Chinese medicine, calligraphy (shufa), and more. They tell me to come back and practice some more with them.

I get back on my bike and return home. On the way, I realize that there's no use in seeking any kind of peak experiences, of planning a "glorious life" in the conventional way. Maybe that's the way I was when I was when I was a young punk living in Upper Haight in San Francisco, but thankfully, life has its way of wearing down your rough edges (and I think I've got a hell of lot more to go!).

This morning, my Chinese class was cancelled. All I had to do was to take a walk in the park, and life naturally presented me with aliveness, warmth, and some new friends.

The Precious Korean Boy

2008-06-14T16:24:00.006+08:00

A company has hired me to teach business English to one of their up-and-coming managers. From Korea, he and his family have just relocated to Shanghai. Like most Asian managers, he's got his bad speaking habits. He doesn't know when to use the present perfect and when to use the present continuous. He gets lazy and drops things like the "s" on the end of words and those annoying prepositions. He needs my help.

I go to his house in a wealthy section of Shanghai once a week and his wife gives us tea and I teach him. His young son, about three years-old, always greets me--he's shy but he always has a big smile. I've been teaching at their house a few times, so he is used to me. This time, he gives me "five" and I pat him on the head and smile back. He is supercute and his smile gets bigger every time I see him.

At the end of our lesson today, my student, who is in his early thirties and is exhausted from his recent business trip to Europe, tells me of something that happened in his son's nursery school class this week. Since it's almost Father's Day, the teacher asked the children to talk about what Daddy does at home. Some kids said their dad fixes things, helps clean up, reads me stories, plays with me, etc. But when the teacher asked my student's boy this question, he started crying.

My student said that his son was sad because he didn't know what his daddy does at home. The fact is, his daddy comes home late and often goes on business trips. I imagine that this is quite common in Asia (as it is everywhere in the world).

To imagine this precious boy crying in class was a little heartbreaking. I know his dad works really hard to be successful so he can be a good husband and father. The pressure is incredible. I know, because every week I hear stories of his corporate battles (in English).

But, somehow, I hope he will be able to spend some more time with that beautiful boy of his.

First Taste of Yangmei Berries

2008-06-09T00:17:00.009+08:00

It's early June in Shanghai, and you know what that means. It means that the short, bronzed waidi ren from the provinces who live in Shanghai start selling cherries and yangmei. They carry them on their shoulders on a bamboo pole, two baskets swinging beneath, one with cherries and one with yangmei. You can find them on street corners or on the sidewalk your way to take the subway.

What is yangmei, you ask? Well, in my opinion, yangmei (also called red bayberry in English) is the most beautiful of fruits (although you have to admit, most fruits are beautiful, aren't they?). They're deep wine red-purple, a berry, a little larger than a cherry, with a textured surface like some exotic sea creature.

For a few weeks after they appeared on the streets of Shanghai in late May, I got curious about them, and then one day, while walking on Yan An Road, I saw one of those hardy waidiren selling them. "How much?" I ask. "Ten kuai for a jin (about a dollar and change for a pound)," he says. "I'll take a jin," I say.

He pours a basket into a bag and hands it to me, charging me for two jin. I can't tell you how Shanghai this is, but I am used to it, so I just say to him, calmly, "I'll take a jin." He's obviously disappointed, and he pours out half the bag. I put my yangmei in the basket of my bike. It's a beautiful summer day in Shanghai and I get to ride through the tree-lined streets of the French Concession, anticipating my first bite of yangmei.

I finally get home twenty minutes later, wash them, and taste. They are wonderful. Sweet, juicy, and just a little tart. For the next day, I eat my yangmei. I give one to a friend and she says, "You got some good yangmei."

A few days pass and I want to get more before the season passes and they're no longer available. So, while shopping in the upscale grocery store near my house, I pick up some more. Once again, I take them home, wash them, and then take a bite of the new batch.

They're all too sour and not sweet at all. I eat a few, hoping that there will be a sweet one in there, but they're all disappointing. I throw them away.

Today, while waiting for the light to turn green on Huang Pi Road, I notice another yangmei/cherry vendor. "How much is a jin?" I ask. I can see him thinking for a second, wondering how much his markup should be because I am a foreigner. "Thirteen kuai," he finally spits out. This is at least seven kuai more than I would pay in a typical fruit stand. In a generous mood, I tell him ten and he gives them to me.

I lovingly take the bag of yangmei with me on the subway, get off at my stop, and walk them home. I wash them and take a bite. They're better than those sour berries from the frufru supermarket, but they still aren't close to my first bite.

I'm thankful for those first berries and I figure, with any luck, perhaps next year, I'll taste them again. In the meantime, I still have a few more to eat of this last bag of yangmei.

Watchers

2008-05-25T08:35:00.004+08:00

I am doing taiji with my taiji teacher in the park. People stare at us. One man walks up to us. He stands about two or three feet about from us and watches. I feel like someone from Chinese intelligence is checking up on me, making sure I am not saying anything illegal to my Chinese friend.

After five minutes, our intelligence officer walks away, lights a cigarette, and heads back to his office to type up a report on the foreigner learning Wu style taiji.

I imagine that my government file has just gotten longer by one line: "RE: Laowai studying Wu style taiji in park. COMMENTS: Movements--slow and precise. Shoulders are a little tight. Nose--big."

Today, I am in a KFC studying Chinese. It's a convenient place to study, although I rarely go there because it is too loud. I find that it is quite a community gathering place. Behind me, a group of Filipina woman are yapping about, teasing each other. In front of me, there is a little play area where kids are laughing out loud.

The oldest girl, probably about nine, is really sweet with the other kids. She always has a smile on her face. There is a little boy of about four who is not a happy kid. He either tries to hit other kids or frowning, moans. The big girl protects the others and she holds little troublemaker's hand.

I try not to focus on the kids and focus on writing characters. I love writing them in my elementary school notebook, which has many little squares where I can write the same characters over and over again, just like elementary school students do every day.

As I am writing, I feel someone is looking at me. I look up and see a fifty year-old guy watching me write. His face is red, like he drank too much bai jiu last night. I'm not going to say anything to him. I'm already used to this. I keep writing, and he keeps staring.

It's a little uncomfortable. I look up at him. I extend my hand, turn my palm up to invite him to sit down. I smile and say to him in Chinese, please sit down, qing zuo. He smiles back at me and politely declines my offer.

His family walks by and they are leaving, their fried chicken gently digesting in their stomachs. Now they all look at me. The bai jiu drinking dad says to his family: "He's using his left hand to write characters." They all look curiously.

One day, I won't be so alien to so many people here in China. In the meantime, I continue to practice my characters and do my taiji, seemingly unperturbed.

The Sichuan Earthquake

2008-05-22T19:27:00.009+08:00

I've always wanted a pair of green jeans. And so recently, when I was visiting Nanjing, I couldn't help myself when I saw a pair at the local Baleno, which is a store like the Gap here in China.

In China, when you buy pants, you only have to worry about width. I don't think I have bought a pair of pants here that is the correct length. It's easy enough--after buying your pants, you take them over to the tailor in the Xijiahui district of Shanghai, across the street from the used cell phone repair shops, and he cuts them to the right size. All for 5 yuan (I think that is 75 cents US). What a deal.

He likes me because I always try to crack jokes in Chinese with him. A few times, I asked him to make the waist smaller because "I just gave birth to a baby". I didn't have change last time and he just said, pay me the extra kuai (quarter) next time. Today, I give it to him. "I forgot all about it," he says, laughing.

As he is altering my green jeans, I stand inside his shop (well, actually, it's his house--his "shop" is in the alley just outside his front door). His wife is getting dinner ready inside and I stand in front of the kitchen, where he has a small digital TV with the news on.

While she is soaking her slab of meat, she talks to me about the quake. I tell her that I feel for everyone, that I have been sad, too. I tell her my friends in the States who watch the news have been moved to tears, too.

We watch together and talk. Lately, I am interested in the news, am interested in TV. Since the age of 18, I have probably watched a total of 6 hours of TV (okay, maybe 10; and this definitely does not include movies rented at 5 Star Video in Berkeley).

One time, when my uncle was visiting my place in Berkeley with my cousin Oren, we came back to my apartment after dinner, where my uncle expected to sit on the sofa and watch TV. Unfortunately, I had neither a sofa or a TV. This threw him into an unexpected, momentary existential crisis, which resolved itself when he said, "Hey, Oren, go out and get me a New York Times."

Of course, the reason why I am watching TV these days is because of the earthquake. For the first few days after it happened, I felt out of the loop until I started watching the news. To see the images of rescuers, of victims, of the military and doctors at work--it's been quite important, and quite moving. There was a show with people from Sichuan, mostly young people, and each got up to talk. They all cried, and I cried, too.

Every channel is reporting on the Wenchuan earthquake. There are no commercials, no soap operas. Just the government news station, CCTV reporting on every channel with a few programs.

The rescue efforts look efficient and impressive. Everyone's impressed with the premier and president, as they are both out there in the field holding peoples' hands and kissing babies. "Don't worry, the government will take care of you," the president says to a child orphaned by the quake.

A broadcaster reports on the latest rescue efforts and then pauses to say, "We will overcome this, we are strong." Every day there are poems about the situation shown on TV, with a moving reading by someone in the background, someone who knows how to read poems in a moving way.

On Monday morning, my Chinese teacher announces to the class that the government has announced that at 2:28 in the afternoon, for three minutes, there will be a moment of silence to remember those dead in the quake. The next three days will be official days of mourning. All karaoke joints, bars, movie theatres, and the like will be closed.

This has never before happened in the history of modern China. My teacher says she is impressed--these days of mourning in the past have been used to mourn heads of State like Deng Xiaoping and Mao. But these three days are for ordinary, common people, more than 30,000 of them (update: as of May 26th, the death toll is 63,ooo with 24,ooo missing).

On the subway, some kids are wearing red stickers with the flag of China in a heart. I'm finding people here are super-patriotic. It is common for people these days to say, "What a bad year it has been--first the snow storms in winter, second the Tibet protests around the world, and now this." They feel they are terribly unlucky. They know that many in the world don't support them, and they are sensitive to this.

At this point, some might say it's time to talk politics. However, what I'd like to do instead is to just pray for everyone here--the people in Sichuan who have lost loved ones and friends, and for the people of China, who are desperately trying to turn their developing country into a modern society.

The Kindness of Strangers

2008-05-19T09:02:00.006+08:00

While in Beijing, because I didn't bring the right clothes (and no jacket), I "caught a wind", as we say in Chinese medicine. A couple days after I get back from Beijing, my voice suddenly becomes low and scratchy. One of my students says it sounds sexy.

I'm on the subway, and am coughing a little. Even though I know which Chinese medicine I can take, for colds, I rarely take anything. All you need to do, rest, drink enough water, and wait it out. A healthy body knows what to do and I try not to interfere.

Next to me is a young girl, maybe 22. She takes out a shiny orange flyer and start writing on it. Three stops later, she turns to me, point to the piece of paper, and asks in Chinese "Can you read this?" as if she knows me, knows that I speak Chinese, knows that I am intersted in Chinese medicine.

I look at it and say yes. I can make out most characters. "Drink more water. Drink ginger ale. Rest. Take Yin Qiao San. Take Yu Xing Cao."

That's good advice, I say, but I prefer to boil up fresh ginger instead of drinking ginger ale.

She tells me her mother is a doctor. A "Chinese doctor?", I ask. "No, a Western one, but we like Chinese medicine," she replies.

I tell her I know a little about Chinese medicine. I am curious to hear about her thoughts about traditional medicine. It is rare to run into young people who know much about Chinese medicine, and I find that she is a "fan." She tells me she doesn't like Western medicine much, that it ends up doing more harm than good.

I ask her what she does. She tells me she's an accountant. I tell her she should be in the health profession, but she tells me she'll probably stick with accounting.

"Very stable," I say.

We've come to the end of the line. We get off together. She's got a rolling carry-on suitcase, and I offer to take it down the stairs of the station for her.

I thank her for her advice and we say goodbye.

Worried About Internal Heat?

2008-05-03T21:45:00.005+08:00

Chinese medicine pervades Chinese culture, because it is Chinese culture. Some of its concepts are just basic--everyone here understands them. The West has its way of integrating this medical tradition, and it is slowly becoming an accepted part of what is called "alternative medicine".

But right now, I don't really care about that. I just like the fact that this toothpick holder in the restaurant where I am eating beef noodle soup (and it is very good, I must add) says, "Worried about internal heat? Drink Wang Lao Ji!"

In Memoriam: The Rape of Nanjing

2008-05-03T21:12:00.005+08:00

Today, I went to visit the Memorial to the Rape of Nanjing. If you have never heard about it, you can learn more by going here or by reading Iris Chang's book, The Rape of Nanking. In short, during World War II, in December 1937, the Japanese invaded Nanjing, the capital of the Republic, and in the course of six weeks, brutally killed 300,000 people. The massacre is called the Rape of Nanking because so many women of all ages were raped by Japanese soldiers during the massacre.

Perhaps some don't want to think about such terrible events. I understand. We all want to be comfortable and avoid suffering. But perhaps being able to face this fact of life can make us better people, more compassionate, more awake and alive. Maybe you want to flinch, but you try to face the brutality. Sure, you could keep watching reality shows and going to the gym and reading low-carb diet books. But perhaps this accumulated ignorance is what led to such an event.

And perhaps if we can listen to the cruel stories, see those terrible pictures, we can see how precious our freedom is, how insignificant our dramas really are.

Visiting the Tomb of Sun Yat Sen in Nanjing

2008-05-01T20:24:00.005+08:00

I am visiting Sun Yat Sen's tomb today. If you don't already know, Sun Yat Sen (孫中山) is the founder of modern China. He wished to be buried in Nanjing, and his tomb is located about a five minute drive from that of the first Ming Emperor. This, of course, is no coincidence. Sun Yat Sen is as important as any Chinese emperor.

As a matter of fact, his tomb is about three or four times as crowded as the Emperor's. I would estimate that on this national holiday, about two or three thousand people, every hour, are entering the grounds to climb up to his mausoleum.

Since I lived in Taiwan and saw his image often (on money, mostly, but in parks in the form of statues as well), I feel at home.

To tell you the truth, I don't feel "at home" when I see communist statues. I see Mao's image all over the place, and I definitely don't feel at home looking at the image of a man whose rule brought the death of millions upon millions, whose whims caused not only the loss of lives but also of pieces of Chinese culture which can never return.

I am starting to get close to my Chinese friends on the mainland, and I want them to forget Mao. A Chinese person I met (who will of course remain nameless) tells me, in fact, he doesn't like Mao, and that about half of the Chinese people don't like him either. This makes me hopeful. I don't like seeing his face everywhere.

But I am happy to see Sun Yat Sen again. As I approach the memorial, I hear a Chinese person trying to make out the old seal script characters above the hall where the founder. In fact, the characters are the three principles of the revolution of 1911: Nationalism, Democracy, and Livelihood. It's funny (or sad?) that he can't quite make out the characters and isn't sure what the third principle is.

Unfortunately, Sun Yat Sen died too early. The Chinese people were left with a choice between Chiang Kai-Shek (Sun's successor) and Mao. In the words of my ABC (American-born Chinese) friend (who will definitely remain nameless), it was a choice between a pr&ck and a d%ckh$d, and the Chinese people chose the d%ckh$d.

Having lived in Taiwan, and now living on the mainland, I can't help but feel I am witnessing an old, deep family feud that hasn't gone away, even after almost 60 years.

You want dear old Sun to come back and set things straight.

But, it's too late, and all you can do is hope and pray.

A Sudden Realization on the Bus in Nanjing

2008-05-01T20:15:00.007+08:00

I'm on a bus from the outskirts of Nanjing to the center of town and the bus is jam packed. It's a national holiday and everyone wants to go shopping or see the sights. People can't get on in the front and are packing in through the back door. This prompts the driver to get up and start yelling at people who haven't paid their fare.

I often see people in China arguing on the streets. People store up frustration and arguing gives you a way to vent it. So I always watch with unattached amusement, like a marriage counselor.

The driver continues to yell and somehow they figure it out. I suddenly figure something out myself. When I first started using buses in Shanghai, I couldn't figure out why there was always a lady collecting your fare seated toward the back of the bus. Isn't this a waste of money when you can just put a little electronic box up at the front? I concluded it was just a remnant of over 50 years of communism. There are lots of Chinese people--you gotta give them all jobs, somehow, even if they don't make sense, even if they only make the equivalent of $250 a month.

But today, I get it. If there were a lady at the back of the bus today, she could be arguing with the people trying to get on the bus, allowing the bus driver to drive....

We Are Ready!

2008-04-30T19:44:00.008+08:00

It's May Day (Labor Day; 勞動節) in China. The trains and buses are packed with people going home to see their families, people going to scenic spots like Hangzhou, and those on vacation to see important historical sites. I'm headed to Nanjing to see the former capital of China.

At a friend's house on the eve of May Day, I catch the holiday program produced by CCTV, the goverment's main TV channel. I am surprised to see Jackie Chan singing to a crowd of thousands. He can really sing, and my friend tells me that he has cut a few albums in his time. The refrain of the song is in English and it goes like this: "WE ARE READY!" And as you would expect, Chan is singing it with panache.

So, this is the flavor of China right now. This evening marks 100 days until the Olympics. Everyone is extremely proud and wants their country to show the world that not only are they ready for the Olympics, but they are ready to become a modern country, the New China.

From my perspective, living in an authoritarian country that limits the freedom of it's citizens (speech, press, assembly, mostly), I feel that China has a long way to go. But I am hopeful that the Olympics will give them a push into modernity.

I say that giving China the opportunity to host the Olympics is a good thing, despite this country's human rights record. For one thing, China people can actually read my blog as of a few weeks ago!

As I walk down Shiziqiao (獅子橋), one of the main drags of Nanjing, with a friend, I look at the throngs of people, mostly kids, and I start my Jackie Chan impression, singing, "WE ARE READY!"

Get ready guys, sincerely hoping you can join the free world.

Chinese Version of "Dialogue"

2008-04-26T23:23:00.005+08:00

People in China know that the West is protesting their country's human rights abuses, but they feel Western people just don't get it. They feel Western people are being unreasonable.

A student of mine, a young Chinese woman, hearing the recent news (at least the Chinese version of it) asks me about Tibet. She asks me why Westerners have such a problem with Tibet. She tells me that until a few weeks ago, she had no idea that there was any problem in Tibet at all. To her, and most Chinese people, Tibet is just another province, the Tibetan people are just another minority.

I am happy to give her an "alternative view." I explain that Tibetans in the West tell of their culture being wiped out, their religion being restricted, their temples, their holy places, their books destroyed. Communism doesn't really value religion, does it?

But my friend believes that there are always two sides to every story. People in the West have their story. We in China have our story.

I don't say anything to my friend (I try not to talk about politics when I teach English), but I think to myself, "There are always two sides to every story. Does your government allow you to have access to both sides so you can make up your own mind?" The answer, of course, is no.

I'm hanging out with an American friend who likes to watch the government-run English channel on TV (CCTV). I've never seen it. My friend says she likes like channel, as it has helped her understand a lot about Chinese culture. Today, they have a program called "Dialogue."

The host of the show says we're going to talk about Tibet today, and to his right are three Tibetan scholars. Before beginning his "dialogue" with the scholars, they show a short historical summary of the plight of the Tibetan people before and after the revolution. In sum, a few wealthy Tibetans enslaved the majority of poor Tibetans, that is until Mao's men came onto the scene and made things right.

After the historical short, the host begins discussing the plight of the Tibetan peasants, emphasizing how they had been exploited. The three Tibetan scholars all confirm what we just saw in the short historical film.

I have a hunch that not only is the host on the government payroll, but our three Tibetan professors also get extra cartons of cigarettes in their mail several times a month, courtesy of party-central.

I wonder, if Chinese people saw this show, would they look at me with pride and say, "You see, China has only helped the Tibetan people!"

And then I would ask them, "Is this show the Chinese version of a dialogue?"

The Cat is Still in the Bag

2008-04-26T22:57:00.005+08:00

The spring weather in Shanghai--makes you want to take long walks and ride your bike with no destination at all. I particularly like my neighborhood. There are the cool boutiques which I never go into, little teashops, trees lining the streets, and old buildings. It's what they call the French Concession.

I walk around the corner on Fuxing Rd. and see an old, dark-skinned Chinese man with ragged clothes and a wrinkled face (he looks like what people here would call a "waidi ren", one who is not from Shanghai). He is carrying what looks like is a heavy bag.

As he passes me, I hear a loud cry from his bag--I realize it's a cat. She sounds like she is in pain, like she wants to escape. A little shocked from hearing the sound of this prisoner-cat, I stop and I turn to look back at the man and his bag. He must see me, so he turns to look at me and stops.

He makes a gesture to his bag, and his facial expression looks like he wants to ask me a question. What is the question? Does he want to sell me his kidnapped cat? This is Shanghai, after all. Every single frigging interaction (even the "hello" on the street from the smiling young man dressed in the 400RMB cheap, dusty, stained suit) has to do with money. Well, almost every one.

I stand and we look at each other, and it feels like this is all happening in slow motion. I am looking at the pitiful look on the man's face. That sad cat cry is still ringing in my head.

The slow motion sequence ends and we both turn around to continue along our ways. It's just another day in romantic Shanghai.

Tibet Censorship

2008-03-17T22:10:00.003+08:00

I have a friend who is in Dharamsala, India right now, the location of the Tibetan government in exile. He's gone there to do some spiritual searching, but just mentioned in an email that the current situation is "not exactly conducive to engaging with young monks about the origin of the universe." I suppose that right now, the spiritual wisdom can be found in what is happening in the current turmoil in Tibet.

On Sunday morning, I got a text message from a Canadian friend. "Is CNN blocked, or is it just me?" I tried to log on and couldn't. I assumed Chinese censors were blocking the site. However, later on in the day, I was able to read the news on CNN. Youtube, though, was blocked. Just for fun, I decided to read Xinhuanet, the State news presence on the net, and wasn't surprised by the party line.

It's reminding us foreigners that we're living in an authoritarian dictatorship.

Bjork was here in concert a few weeks ago, and after her last song started yelling, "Tibet, Tibet." Most people, I heard, didn't understand what she was talking about because the word for "Tibet "in Chinese is different. Afterwards, the government condemned her action as illegal, and apparently has its eyes open for similar "stunts" by foreign performers.

Toys in Front of IKEA

2008-03-07T13:46:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I take the subway to IKEA. I walk underground for a while until I emerge at exit 5, and walk a block to the big, big store. It's more like a church, and I when I need to go their to pray to the gods of domestic consumption, I try to go on a weekday. In some way, it's very nourishing, which is why I suspect that this church is much more attended than most churches around the world.

I return the pillows with Swedish names that I bought last week and then return to the subway. Just in front of IKEA are people with small carts and goods spread on the sideway, selling things that they think IKEA shoppers might like, like plates and foldup laundry hampers with colorful, modern designs.

As I cross the street, there is a young, dark-skinned man, probably in his late 20s, squatting on the grass beside the sidewalk. He is wearing a suit, which is pretty much the standard uniform of most adult men in Shanghai, even if they are from the countryside. These suits are usually a little dingy and the coat and pants sometimes don't match. They are best worn with sweaters and beat-up shoes.

On the sidewalk in front of him is a flat piece of brown cardboard, and on it are about eight or ten small wind-up toys. They are all about the size of a ping-ping ball, in different colors. You wind them up and they walk. He is tending to his wind-up toys, making sure they are all doing their assigned exercise for the evening. I bet you they each sell for 3 kuai (50 cents) a piece, and if he sells a few of them, he could eat a good bowl of noodle soup tonight.

The Ice Cream-Eating Girl

2008-03-07T13:45:00.000+08:00

I am walking one of the long underground passageways near People's Square station and I notice several girls eating ice cream as the walk toward the subway entrance. There's a mall food court that connects to the passageway, and there is certainly an ice cream shop there. Even on the coldest Shanghai nights, I always see them eating their ice cream. They are always young girls. I have never seen a boy eating ice cream in this passageway.

Tonight's featured ice-cream eating girl, in her early twenties, is holding her cone in one hand, her cell phone in another. She's not fat, but you can tell that she likes ice cream.

She stops and holds the cell phone in front of her, and she holds her ice cream cone in front of her mouth, like she is about to eat some. She is taking a picture of herself. Before she snaps her ice cream picture, she sticks out her tongue slightly. Curiously, she doesn't smile. Perhaps she is embarrassed to smile like this in public, or this is for her boyfriend and she thinks not smiling would make her look a little sexier. As I pass her, she clicks her cell-phone camera and continues on her way.

Neighbors

2008-03-07T09:03:00.005+08:00

I wake in the morning, and while I am pouring my tea, and hear the clop, clop, clop of the woman running down the stairs of my apartment building as she does every morning at around 8:30, rushing to work. I look at the window in my kitchen, waiting for her to appear out of the front door to our building. She is always carrying something, a department store bag filled with something, and always leans forward the same way as she sprints out the door, like she's got a lot to do today. I never see her face.

For the first time, looking up from my kitchen window, I notice an older man on his balcony three or floors up in the building across from me. He is standing, leaning on the railing, taking his morning drags of his cigarette. I am far away from him, looking through screen mesh, so I don't worry about being spotted. He is lost in thought, or perhaps worry, or maybe at peace, or maybe inspired. I think that cigarette is his friend, his meditation, and this moment perhaps nourishes him in some way, making the time until his next cigarette a little more bearable, maybe even enjoyable.

Yesterday, I am walking one of the long underground passageways near People's Square station and I notice several girls eating ice cream as the walk toward the subway entrance. There's a mall food court that connects to the passageway, and there is certainly an ice cream shop there. Even on the coldest Shanghai nights, I always see them eating their ice cream. They are always young girls. I have never seen a boy eating ice cream in this passageway.

Tonight's featured ice-cream eating girl, in her early twenties, is holding her cone in one hand, her cell phone in another. She's not fat, but you can tell that she likes ice cream.

She stops and holds the cell phone in front of her, and she holds her ice cream cone in front of her mouth, like she is about to eat some. She is taking a picture of herself. Before she snaps her ice cream picture, she sticks out her tongue slightly. Curiously, she doesn't smile. Perhaps she is embarrassed to smile like this in public, or this is for her boyfriend and she thinks not smiling would make her look a little sexier. As I pass her, she clicks her cell-phone camera and continues on her way.

Yesterday, I take the subway to IKEA. I walk underground for a while until I emerge at exit 5, and walk a block to the big, big store. It's more like a church, and I when I need to go their to pray to the gods of domestic consumption, I try to go on a weekday. In some way, it's very nourishing, which is why I suspect that this church is much more attended than most churches around the world.

I return the pillows with Swedish names that I bought last week and then return to the subway. Just in front of IKEA are people with small carts and goods spread on the sideway, selling things that they think IKEA shoppers might like, like plates and foldup laundry hampers with colorful, modern designs.

As I cross the street, there is a young, dark-skinned man, probably in his late 20s, squatting on the grass beside the sidewalk. He is wearing a suit, which is pretty much the standard uniform of most adult men in Shanghai, even if they are from the countryside. These suits are usually a little dingy and the coat and pants sometimes don't match. They are best worn with sweaters and beat-up shoes.

On the sidewalk in front of him is a flat piece of brown cardboard, and on it are about eight or ten small wind-up toys. They are all about the size of a ping-ping ball, in different colors. You wind them up and they walk. He is tending to his wind-up toys, making sure they are all doing their assigned exercise for the evening. I bet you they each sell for 3 kuai (50 cents) a piece, and if he sells a few of them, he could eat a good bowl of noodle soup tonight.

The Market Near Dongbaoxing Station

2008-02-24T22:32:00.005+08:00

I am walking to taiji class today and I am on a quest to find cashews (腰果; yaoguo). When you are hungry but can't have a big meal, what hits the spot more than a bag of cashews?

I decide to take some side streets (actually, I have no choice--I can't find any convenience stores anywhere) on my quest. I thought it would be a quick affair and that I would have time to go to a cafe to study Chinese before my class, but it was not meant to be. No, I was meant to walk around the side streets near where I practice taiji. Suddenly, I stumble upon an outdoor market.

There are many fish vendors. They keep their fish (which are still alive, floating in water) in clear plastic boxes, all of which have plastic hoses going into them to aerate the water so the fish don't die. There are all kinds of fish, and I stand in front of a fish vendor, just staring at all the different kinds. They look like they are dead, but then I see their gills are still moving. They're very cramped and can't swim around. They've resigned to their fate, what else can they do? Try to escape?

I still feel sad for them, although I know the tasty fish dish I ate a few weeks ago, well, contained fish. We live in a world of limits and I know the poor fish lady can't buy big aquariums with toys in them for the fish.

I notice there are some frogs a couple boxes over. They're big and deep, dark green. I say to the lady, "Hey, you have frogs, too." She says they aren't regular frogs, but niu wa (牛蛙). I think "cow frogs?" Then I realize that they are bullfrogs.

I continue through the market and notice all the other things for sale, mostly vegetables. There's a burly sugarcane woman and her knife, which looks like a butcher's knife. She's shaving the rind off and cuts off two pieces for her customer. Then I see the two water chestnut vendors and I notice the skill of one them as he deftly uses his small knife to peel the skin off the brown vegetables, leaving white buttons.

The market it pretty packed. There aren't any foreigners there and so people examine me, the only laowai, as I walk by them. I try to smile at people, and one guy, another vendor, gives me a big smile back. I like being away from the city center, where people aren't used to seeing so many foreigners, and no one is trying to scam me or sell me a fake Rolex.

There's a young girl of about 18 selling something up ahead. Her skin is darker than most girls in Shanghai, and I think if you saw her, you would describe her as pretty. She's squatting down, focused on whatever she's doing. She's got something in one hand and scissors in the other. I notice her hands are bloody. If you are squeamish, I suggest you stop reading here and go check your email or something.

As I get closer, I realize that she is selling small chicks the size of your fist. They are all brown-colored, and they are alive. She's got a bag of them and customers come by and tell her how many they want. She pulls them out one at a time, and, using her scissors, first pulls off the skin and feather. The bird is squirming in her hand. Then, she cuts off the birds feet and wings.

She's a pro, and it's like watching that guy process those water chestnuts, excepts that what she's holding in her hands is alive.

I am looking at this with astonishment. I wonder what does this do to your soul if you do this kind of thing every day. I know that the girl probably has no choice, and that if she could get a job working in an office, she probably would. Maybe this is what her family does to make a living, and she is helping out. I feel compassion for that chick, and I feel compassion for the girl, too.

I see a nut vendor, but he doesn't have any cashews. After I leave the market, I chance upon a convenience store, where I am finally able to find my cashews.

As I get closer,

My Taiwanese Mandarin

2008-02-24T22:08:00.006+08:00

I visit Yufo Si (玉佛寺; Jade Buddha Temple) again today and go to the second floor above the main gift shop, where there are beautiful things like Buddhas and dragons made of jade and wood. The man who paints landscapes with the side of his hand is there and he recognizes me from last week and gives me a smile.

There's a beautiful wooden low table for tea behind him, and he invites me to sit and join him. He compliments me profusely on my Chinese, although I know I am still just a beginner. I am humbled every day by this dragon of a language. But he isn't used to seeing laowai who speak Chinese. His coworkers join us, and as we talk, hen kaixin (很開心; very warmly), tourists who don't speak Chinese walk in to browse.

The girl who works there gives me an English blurb about Pixiu (貔貅) the big-bellied dragon that they display in the store, and I am happy to translate it from Chinglish to English. So, we continue our exchange, and I work on editing the paragraph in between drinking tea and speaking with them. I learn that it is good luck to rub the dragon's belly.

A middle-aged man wearing a motorcycle helmet walks in with his kid, a boy of around eight, who is also wearing a helmet. He watches as we all talk. Then he looks at my friends and says, "His Chinese, he learned it in Taiwan."

I turn to him and tell him he is right. We all talk for a while longer, but after I leave the temple, I am still tickled by the guy's observation and I call my Taiwanese friend Chi up and we laugh.

The Temples of Shanghai

2008-02-17T21:16:00.009+08:00

Today, I had the urge to visit a Buddhist temple, and so I went to Yufo Si, which means "Jade Buddha temple". There are two main temples in Shanghai--Jing An Si and Yufo Si.

I visited Jing An temple a few weeks ago during the New Year and found it to be touristy. Of course, Chinese New Year is the time when the masses throng to the temples. Kids and adults were playing a game of throwing money in ceremonial pots, and everyone (including me) had a camera.

My initial impression of China, from my quite narrow view of it from here in Shanghai has been that it is quite un-spiritual. As everyone knows, Shanghai is all about money and bling. As my Chinese friend (who's not from Shanghai) says, everyone is in a rush to achieve success and get rich quick (急功近利).

And for those of you who need a short lesson on Chinese history, 60 years of communism and a cultural revolution haven't been kind to Buddhism, or any religion for that matter.

Nevertheless, I was happy, nay, amazed, to see Chinese people praying, lighting incense, and bowing at the temple. It reminded me of my old home, Taiwan, which is full of temples and people bowing in them.

Yesterday, I was reading a book about Buddhism in present-day Chinese, and the author said that when he went to see the large Buddha on Leshan Mountain in Sichuan, his impression was that it might as well have been a statue of Mickey Mouse--the Chinese tourists with their cameras didn't come to worship, only to take pictures and say that they had visited this famous sight.

Just as I did at Jing An Si a few weeks ago, I paid the 20RMB (which is steep for China) fee to enter Yufo Si. Upon entering, I was again moved to see Chinese people devoutly bowing with incense. Yufo Si is smaller than Jing An Si, but it actually is a monastery (Jing An isn't). I could feel something special there. Maybe it's not just a tourist trap, I thought.

I walked around to the different parts of the temple, seeing the many different Buddhas, but mostly paying attention to the people, old and young, who were there. I didn't really pay attention to the foreign tourists there. I want to know who comes to temples in Shanghai to pray. I was curious.

As I was walking, I came to a small shop within the temple where they were selling statues and other Buddhist supplies. Lest I forget that I am in Shanghai and not Taipei, as soon as I walked in, I was accosted by a professional calligrapher, a performer and salesman, who offered to do calligraphy for me. When I told him I was American, he started talking about America (in English). When I mentioned France, he started saying a few word in French. I walked away to continue exploring the temple and a few seconds later could hear him continuing his spiel in English to the group of tourists just behind me.

After finally seeing the Jade Buddha, I ended up going to another of the shops that are part of the temple complex. I spoke to the girl who worked there in Chinese and began to look around. There was an incredibly intricate carving from a large slab of a tree trunk showing a whole village, probably a whole myth. There were jade marble bracelets. More Buddhas. And at the other side of the room, a bunch of Chinese men sitting around drinking tea.

One of them, upon seeing me, got up and started painting mountain scenes in ink using the meaty part of his hand. He tried speaking English to me until he was interrupted by the girl, who said I can speak Chinese. So, we started talking, and all the guys at the tea table behind us started listening, surprised that a laowai like me can speak Chinese.

His friend joined the conversation and asked me where I learned my Chinese. I said in Taiwan. I mentioned that in Taiwan, there are quite a lot of temples. He nodded his head. He asked if I am here on business, and I told him that I am here to study Chinese.

We had a fun conversation and I even cracked some jokes that made everyone laugh. They told me to come back, and I think I just might do that.

The Future of China

2008-02-03T00:26:00.002+08:00

I get in the crowded subway this morning. A young mother is holding her four year-old daughter's hand and the little girl looks up at me. I give her a big smile. She is precious and keeps looking at me. I smile at her and keep eye contact with her. We're all about to get off the train at People's Square, and I wave goodbye to the little girl. I see her little pink and white knitted gloves starting to move. As her mother's leading her out of the train, she is waving to me.

There is hope for China, perhaps a long time from now.

China is a Nightmare

2008-02-02T23:08:00.002+08:00

I haven't written in my blog for a while for the simple reason that I know that if I write about my experiences in China, they'll inevitably be negative. Why do I want to share that with you, my dear fans? You want me to inspire you, to help you see the beauty and magic of life. Right?

My friend Michael in Seattle, who is also an acupuncturist, wrote me an email recently. He noticed that my blog entries in China haven't been as full of magic as those I wrote while living in Taiwan.

Well, I'm sure you will all be happy to know that I finally have an answer. "There ain't no magic here, that's why!"

Ahh, that feels good to get off my chest. Oh, I'm tingling.

Yeah, after living in Taiwan, if you are interested in Chinese culture, living on the mainland is almost a practical joke. It's almost as if your girlfriend's tatooed, phlegm-spitting, asshole twin sister suddenly takes the place of your soulmate, the woman you've waited your whole life to be with.

I'm sitting in Starbucks studying last week and having a good conversation with a middle-aged guy. He tells me his car was just in an accident, and he's admiring the Chinese characters I'm writing in my notebook.

"Your Chinese is pretty good," he says.

Recently, I've made a resolution to see the good in China, to not be so negative. I feel that if I can change my attitude, that somehow people will suddenly be "good", that I will find the "magic". And so I engage this guy in Starbucks in a conversation.

After my study session, I go downstairs and walk out to my bike. Suddenly, the guy is calling me. "Excuse me, my friend," he says. He's got a whole little act for me, but I'll spare you. To cut to the chase, he asks me for 20RMB, about $2.50.

I am incredulous. All that conversation, for this? In China, you better believe that, yes, all that conversation was, in fact, for the purpose of this punchline.

I'm not going to give him money, and I tell him "no way" (不行) in Chinese.

"You're so cheap," (那麼小氣啊!) he says, and walks away.

I am even more incredulous now. I immediately ride my bike home and call my Taiwanese friend Chi on Skype to ask for her help.

"What do you need?" she asks curiously.

"I need to learn how to say 'Get the fuck out of my face, you asshole' in Chinese."

Chi is cracking up. As you may or may not know, Taiwanese people are experts in the ways of people on the mainland.

In Taiwan, I never needed to learn such profanities, but I feel that I might need to use such sentences here in the mainland. Lest you think I am on a downward spiral here in the PRC, I also think of funny responses (in Chinese) to such requests.

Perhaps I'm still getting used to China. Perhaps I need to just get settled here, get in a groove, and slowly, things will come together.

Don't get me wrong. There are good people here. They'll be embarrassed about the guy in Starbucks. They'll shake their heads and tell you you need to protect yourself a little more from the bad people who are just part of society. And if you are lucky, they'll tell you China needs to evolve.

In a way, China is my teacher. I see this impatient part of me that I've never seen before, and I get to examine it, witness it, maybe even grow. And every day, I get a chance to practice compassion, to be good instead of reacting in a normal, conditioned way.

This afternoon, I go to a bookstore, which is pretty much my favorite thing to do in the world. I get stuck reading a book by some Westerners on how to do business in China.

They mention how Taiwan is one to two generations ahead of China in terms of mentality. Tell me about it. They also say how the failure of communism here, although it led to the deaths of millions, also had an upside, which was to point out to the world quite clearly the flaws of communism and preventing us from repeating them. Living here, I agree.

I come home and do a YouTube search on Taiwan. I watch a video made by the government to promote tourism there. I am practically in tears.

Okay, okay, I'll admit it. There are a few tears.

I eat dinner in my apartment, and then it's time to study. Fortunately, while I am enduring "China", there is the Chinese language, which I love, which keeps me going. It's creative, it's poetic, it's beautiful. I figure I'll go to Starbucks again to study more. Who knows, maybe I'll make another friend, maybe even one who won't ask me for any of my renminbi.

On the way there, while thinking of what I'll write in my blog tonight, I am disturbed by one of the hawkers on the corner near my house. He wants to sell me a fake Rolex or LV bag. I always tell these guys that I am a student and that I need their help to help me practice my Chinese. And so they usually run in the opposite direction. Fortunately, most of them know me already, and so they don't usually even bother me.

But I've never seen this guy. He is persistent, and I don't get upset at all. I just tell him that I need him to help me with my Chinese. He suggests we go to his shop to look at fake merchandise. I ask if he can help me practice my Chinese and teach me a cheng yu, a Chinese proverb, for the day.

After thinking for a second, he says. "Would you like a little maiden?" (姑娘,你要不要?), which I guess, because he uses the word for "maiden" is supposed to sound profound and educated.

I want to learn some advanced Chinese, and this guy is most probably trying to find me a massage parlor.

I think back to my many experiences in Taipei, sipping wulong tea in the mountains and having civilized and warm, friendly conversation with new Taiwanese friends about Chinese culture. I even learned a few cheng yu.

Instead of wanting to leave China on the next plane to Taipei (via Hong Kong), I am curious to see how my journey here will unfold. Will the magic finally appear?

I remember an old Zen teacher of mine. He would say that the magic has already begun.

I say goodbye to my new teacher (the one with the fake Rolexes), and head to Starbucks to write more characters.

Ron Mardigian: In Memoriam

2008-01-21T22:10:00.002+08:00

My friend Caroline is in China for a business trip and she emails me to say hi, to tell me she's in Beijing. "I forgot you are in Shanghai!" she writes. It would have been nice to see her, but at least it's good to hear from her.

Caroline and I used to work together at Bio-Rad, a company that makes research equipment for researchers in biology and medicine and where Caroline still works (and where I used to be a high-powered HR professional). We are both of Sephardic Jewish background, and even have the some of the same friends, which we discover after we hang out for a while.

Caroline tells me why she's in China, where she's staying and then she tells me that a coworker of ours, Ron Mardigian, has died.

I am in shock. Ron was in his forties. Forty-nine to be exact. He was older than me, but he always felt and looked around my age, not "old" by any stretch of the imagination.

I don't get it. I email Caroline again. She tells me that Ron went to Tahoe, went to sleep one night, and didn't wake up the next morning. They don't know what happened.

I am still in shock. Ron was not an old man. Actually, he was a very young, and alive, man. Just to give you a little taste of Ron, when he started working for Bio-Rad, which is right on the San Francisco Bay, he would go windsurfing during lunch (that is, until someone told him that he couldn't).

Ron and I would hang out at in between cubicles, chatting about backpacking. Ron was Armenian, I am half-Moroccan Jewish, and I felt we also had this connection somewhere way back in the East. Ron taught me some bad words in Armenian, but I forgot.

Whenever I saw Ron, we would talk, crack jokes together, and laugh. Ron made the corporate world at least 28% more bearable. Little did I know, but in less than two years, I would be leaving it to start my journey as a Chinese doctor, something that Ron thought was cool.

Despite the fact that I would be abandoning the world of computers, reports, email, office politics, and performance reviews, I found that there were many really good people at Bio-Rad. People who were human. And then there was Ron. I would say he was a Boddhisattva, which just means someone with a deep, kind heart who cares a lot about others.

After working for Bio-Rad for a while, Ron had an idea to bring biology to classrooms, and asked the president of Bio-Rad if he could help biology teachers teach kids biology by using kits the company would produce, kits that schools would never otherwise have access to.

Fortunately, the president said yes, and Ron's job changed.

Here is what one teacher said about the program that Ron helped create:

After completing my biology course, featuring your Explorer Kits, a student asked me what she needed to do to go to college. Up to the point of seeing and doing genetic engineering, she had no reason to pursue her education beyond high school. There wasn't a single person in her family that had ever attended college and she had no idea where to start. What she did have was a passion to learn more and a sense of purpose for her life. Over the next two years, we worked together to get the necessary perquisites completed, including an independent research project using one of the Bio-Rad kits. I am writing you today, because I just attended her graduation from UC Berkeley, where she earned a degree in Neurobiology. This fall she will start a graduate program at Johns Hopkins where she plans to pursue a PhD. It is these students that make my job worth while, but having the Bio-Rad curriculum and the wonderful kits to awaken the passion for exploration makes my job a lot easier.

To me, Ron is not gone. I can hear his voice. Even now, he is inspiring me. He is telling me to live my life with integrity, to be happy, to have fun, to be of service to others. And most importantly to laugh.

Ron, bro, you gave me and others many gifts, and even now, you've given us another. We wish you were still here with us to laugh and bring us your warm spirit, but we know that sometimes you just gotta accept reality and let it unfold in its way.

It's like an old Korean Zen teacher in Berkeley used to say. He used to teach the following mantra to his students: "Don't know!" In other words, we have to be okay with not knowing the reasons for everything.

Ron, I don't know why you've left us, but I can feel you smiling now. I can feel that big heart of yours. I know you loved all of us. I love you, and I know many, many others did, too.

From the bottom of my heart: Thanks. I'm going to do my best, bro!

You Must Pay Money for Things in China

2007-12-26T23:47:00.003+08:00

Today, after working out at the gym, I am dying to get something to drink, so I go to the Watson's (a chain drugstore) around the corner. As I am about to pay for my drink and a box of band-aids, which in total probably costs about four US dollars, the employee says to me in heavily accented English: "You must pay MONEY!"

He says this to me again. I think to myself, this is probably why I am able to make money as an English teacher in China.

I am thirsty and tired, living in a foreign country. It's late. I want to go home and write in my blog and eat dinner. And this guy is telling me I have to actually pay money.

I don't get it. Isn't that the deal? You go to a store to get something, and you give them money for it?

Has there been a rash of foreigners walking into their store, demanding merchandise without paying for it? Is this employee traumatized by that? It certainly sounds like it.

So, in a very un-Buddha-like way, I say to him in Chinese: "You want me to pay money? Do you think I am so dumb as to think I don't have to pay for these?"

He then tells me that he cannot accept credit cards at this register, and I realize that he meant to say that he can only accept "cash" (not "money") at his register. This realization does not exactly bring a wave of Buddha-like compassion in me. I think to myself, would he tell a Chinese person that he can't use a credit card for a $4 purchase?

I feel like I'm being discriminated against, and I probably am.

I realize, even though his English is bad, he is just trying to help me. I decide to give him some advice. "If you tell foreigners 'You must pay me MONEY!', they will not understand you because "money" is not the word for xianjin (cash)."

The people watching this interchange are not entertained. It's late and they want to get home, too. So, I cut my lesson short, and get on the subway home.

As I am getting on, a man starts pushing me, getting a little frustrated as the car is quite full and he wants a little room to stand. But then he looks at my face and notices that I'm a foreigner. "Sorry, sorry," he says apologetically.

"That's all right," I answer him, in English, happy that I'm almost home.

My New Zipper

2007-12-26T22:15:00.002+08:00

I have blue jeans and green jeans, so I go to the local discount department store and buy some brown jeans. I go up to the third floor and start looking at jeans when I encounter the woman in the men's clothing department who starts her many sales pitches.

I am starting to get used to this very Chinese phenomenon. Even in the local drugstores there are women in uniforms everywhere who, in addition to making sure you don't steal anything, will also give you the hard sell for things you are looking for, and for some things you're not. The other day, one of them tried to sell me "Essence of Kangaroo Meat", pouncing upon me in the vitamin section. As we say in the States, "Yeah, right."

After trying on a pair of jeans I like, I tell the department store woman I'll take them. I pay her my money, and then she kindly walks me to the tailor next door. My new brown jeans are too long and I need them shortened. I put them on in the old tailor's kitchen and he marks them. In about fifteen minutes, I walk out with my new brown jeans. As we also say in the States, I am a happy camper.

The next day, I notice that the zipper won't stay closed. You need to try a few times, and then it closes, but then if your movements are too vigorous, then it opens again. Shit, I think, they warned me about the lack of quality control in China.

So, instead of heading all the way back to the department store in Xujiahui, I just take the pants to the tailor five minutes from my house, and ask him to put in a new zipper. "Tomorrow," he says in Chinese. "No problem," I answer.

I pick up my pants the next day, give him some money for his time and materials, and can't wait to wear my newly improved brown jeans the next day.

Sure enough, the zipper fails again. "Ha, they probably didn't even put in a new zipper," my Chinese friend says.

Well, I take it back and tell the tailor that the new zipper doesn't work. He doesn't even blink. "Tomorrow," he says. "No, problem," I tell him.

I come back the next day to pick up my jeans and check the zipper to make sure it's new this time. With keen perception, similar to that of Sherlock Holmes (with a specialty in clothing), I notice the zipper's brand name, different from the previous zipper. He's actually sewn in a new zipper.

Not only do I get a new zipper, but the tailor graciously begins a lesson in zipping for me. "You see, make sure you zip it all the way up, okay..."

I stop him before he moves onto lesson two of Zipping 101. "Mister," I say, laughing, "you are teaching me how to zip my pants? You know, I have a lot of experience doing this, since I was a young boy!"

I get a smile out of him, and head home with my new pants and zipper. Just another normal day in China.

The Hard Sell at the Foreign Language Bookstore

2007-12-26T21:27:00.002+08:00

I'm meeting my friend Carrie from acupuncture school and her husband at the Foreign Languages Bookstore on Fuzhou St., and we're getting vegetarian food afterwards. But, after I find her, since it's my first time there, I tell her to give me ten minutes to look at the books in the section on learning Chinese. I don't think there's anything I love looking at more in a bookstore, besides, perhaps, the children's books (in Chinese).

As I am browsing, an employee, a peppy young Chinese girl in her early twenties, gives me the hard sell for some "learn Chinese" software. After having been spoiled by the independent bookstores of the Bay Area for so long, I can't tell you how annoying this is. But, instead of getting annoyed, in some aikido-like way, I turn the experience into an opportunity to practice my Chinese, with a passion.

"You know, I think this software is for wealthy foreigners who would like to learn Chinese but don't have time to," I say. "If they really wanted to learn Chinese, they would get a real teacher and start studying their books every day for a few hours instead of buying this expensive software that they'll never use."

The young salesgirl is astute. I think she knows I am not thrilled with her sales approach. So, she tries to one-up me with an even better approach.

"You know," she tells me, "when I started working at this bookstore, my spoken English wasn't so great. But then I discovered that the best way to learn a language is to use it everyday, and that's what I do. I practice my English with foreigners every day here in the bookstore. So, really, that is the best way to improve your Chinese, to practice speaking your Chinese every day with Chinese people," she tells me in her smart-alecky tone.

"Well, that's EXACTLY what I am doing with you RIGHT NOW!" I respond. I don't know, I still might be doing aikido with her.

I don't want to keep Carrie and her husband waiting, so I say goodbye to my unexpected language exchange partner, and get ready for some fake meat and tofu on Nanjing Dong Rd.

I return to the store in a few days when I know I won't be rushed, to look at the plethora of books for Chinese study. Suddenly, my language exchange partner finds me and tries once again to sell me that software. I level with her honestly: we foreigners can't walk six steps on some streets in Shanghai (especially Huaihai Rd., where I live, and Nanjing Dong Rd., not far from the store) without fourteen Chinese people trying to sell us "watch-bag" (meaning fake LV bags and Rolexes). I explain to her that for us, coming to a bookstore is supposed to be a relaxing experience (if I could say it, I would have told her it's a place we can explore new worlds, find new authors, be inspired, and let our imaginations run free, but my Chinese isn't good enough).

She responds by telling me that some foreigners have already told her this. In fact, she tells me that some foreigners, who don't speak Chinese, tell her directly to leave them alone and stop selling shit to them!

I give her a hint and a free English lesson. I tell her that when she sees foreigners, she should just walk up to them and say, "Let me know if I can help you with anything", and then walk away! I explain to her if she can just leave them alone, she'll be able to sell a lot more books. Conversely, the more she annoys them with her hard sell, the more they won't want to come back. They'll even tell their friends not to come because the employees are selling shit to them, I tell her.

I ask her if she has a book with the 3000 characters needed to test the standardized HSK exam. Within thirty seconds, she brings me exactly the book I am looking for, for about $5 US.

That a girl. I tell her that's exactly what we want, and leave to appreciate my find.

The Angry Customer

2007-12-13T19:43:00.002+08:00

It's getting cold in Shanghai, so I decide to go and buy long underwear. I go to a large Chinese hypermarket near Xujiahui that has food on one floor and clothes, electric appliances, and everything else on the other.

After selecting my underwear (I learn the word for "stretchy" when talking to the saleslady), I take the escalator downstairs to pay at the register. The cashier, a young guy, about 30, is scanning my underwear when an older man with dark skin, freckles, and thick-framed black glasses walks up and starts arguing with him in Shanghainese. They argue for the next minute, and as the seconds pass, so does the volume of their yelling increase. After about a minute or two, the front half of the store is watching eagerly. They look extremely entertained, and I am sure they are wondering what the outcome will be. The store manager walks up and takes the baton from his employee, and they start agruing in Shanghainese.

Everyone still seems very entertained. The old man sticks his finger in the face of the manager. The manager is trying to escort the old guy out. But, like the Energizer bunny, the guy justs keeps going and going.

The checker finally rings me up despite the commotion, and I pay. Instead of leaving the store, I walk up to another employee, a guy in his 20s who looks the most entertained out of all the employees watching, and ask him what they are fighting about. He tells me the old guy says that he didn't get the correct change. In the background, the old man is still yelling, starting to walk out accompanied by several other customers and a few employees. The manager has already finished with him, and as he passes me, returning to his office in the back no doubt, he graciously explains to me that the frustrated old man is just arguing over a few pennies.

So, by now, I understand the situation. In China, I've already seen people getting upset like this more than a few times. For example, two guys walk out of their cars in traffic and start yelling at each other near People's Square the other day. I figure that after almost 60 years of communism, including the Cultural Revolution, there is a lot of accumulated tension, and people need some way to let it loose. I would, too.

So, today, I decide I will do my part to help the Chinese people let go of this frustration, to help them move into a new, more laid-back, easy-going era. You could say I want to do a little activism.

As I walk toward the door, behind the old man (still yelling!), I reach into my backpack and find some change. There's a 1 jiao (penny) coin and I tap him on the shoulder and say, "Sir, here, I want to give you some change."

He looks at me and says, "It's not just the change, that guy back there was mocking me before."

"Just ignore him," I say. "Come on, let's go." I like to think that perhaps my listening to his side of the story defuses some of his anger. The locals watch and they are starting to smile as I talk to him. He doesn't take the penny, but I am still trying to get him out of the store, tugging him a little.

I decide to let him go, and I turn around and head for the door, holding my newly purchased long underwear in a bag. As I walk out, at the counter in front of me, there is a woman who is selling tea, and she gives me a smile.

Using the Library in China

2007-12-10T22:13:00.003+08:00

I am looking for a quiet place to study Chinese, and so I decide to go to the Shanghai Public Library. It is a huge structure on Gaoan Rd. near the Hengshan subway station.

I walk upstairs and the lady at the entrance gate to the stacks stops me. "You can't bring your bag in, you need to put it in a locker," she says.

"But, I have my textbook in there. I need to use it to study," I say.

"You can't take it in," she repeats.

"Why?" I ask.

"Because those are the rules," she responds.

Finally, I ask if I can take my notebook in with me, and she tells me that's okay. I sit down and ask the girl across from me why I can't take any books into the library.

"Well," she says, "you're supposed to read the books in the library."

"Yes, I know that," I say. "But why can't you bring in your own, like your school textbook?"

"Well," she says, "if everyone brings their own books, then it will be difficult to tell which books are the library's and which are peoples' own books."

I think for a second. "You mean, there are some bad people who would take books from the library and then claim that they are their books?" I ask. You see, four years of college really did help my analytical skills.

"That is correct," she says.

Oh, I get it. That makes sense. Of course, you can't bring your own books into a library here.

Welcome to China.

Looking for a Book of Cheng Yu

2007-12-10T20:51:00.003+08:00

I am always amazed by large stores in Shanghai. There are always twice as many employees working there as is necessary. They stand in their bright orange or green or whatever uniforms, chatting. I approach them with a question and they are always nervous. "I'm not paid for this shit!" they are probably saying to themselves, in Shanghainese.

They are usually not helpful, like they never actually went to the orientation after they were hired and have never really bothered to look over the merchandise in the store. "Soymilk, I don't think we have it," they say, and then a few minutes later I find it myself.

"You want a book on chengyu (traditional Chinese proverbs) for kids? Okay, follow me," says an employee in the largest bookstore in Shanghai, and he picks up one from a display table and hurries away. "There's one chengyu book for kids in this whole bookstore?" I think to myself.

(Unbelievable. Not to compare, but even in the smallest of bookstores in Taiwan, there are ten times that number. I check with another employee, and she confirms that there are actually only two in the store.)

I'm waiting in line in an upscale supermarket and suddenly I notice there's another checker who is sitting in front of a register, totally bored. I must have been waiting a few minutes, before I spot her, no doubt praying to her lucky angels that I don't see her.

China is busy catching up with the rest of the developed world after wasting sixty years of precious human life. If you're here for a few days, you wonder if this is actually a communist country, but after living here for a little while, you realize that old habits die hard.

Tea on Taikang Road

2007-12-10T20:15:00.003+08:00

I keep joking with my friends in Shanghai how Taiwan is my second home, my 老家 (laojia).

Today, I am walking with a friend at the Taikang Art Center in Shanghai, a lane full of the kind of art galleries that Westerners love. We enter the lane and ask an old Shanghainese lady who is working a stall there if this is the lane where the art galleries are. "It's a place where foreigners drink coffee," she answers in her thick Shanghainese accent. I laugh to think that she's probably been on the corner there longer than all the art galleries, and she doesn't even know what all the fuss is about.

French people sit around a table at cafes charming bystanders with the melodies and rhythm of their French, drinking wine or espresso. We walk around browsing the shops for a while and I think we've seen enough of the galleries and the French people, too and I want to check out the nice tea shop that we saw on the walk over here. My friend notices that I'm not thrilled by it all. "No, I am, I am," I protest, but she's right--it doesn't feel juicy.

We leave the artsy cafe quarter and turn around the corner to find the tea shop. A half-minute later, we are there. I look in and ask the laoban (owner) and his partner if we can join them for some tea. It looks like they already have a guest. "Of course," he says, and invites us to have a seat. This is the kind of place you would see in Taiwan that I miss. There are a lot of teas, all the implements needed to drink them, old Chinese furniture, and sentimental Chinese music in the background. It's cozy and aesthetically pleasing.

I ask the laoban if he has any gaoshan (High Mountain) tea, from Taiwan. He says he does and he goes to the back to get some. Gaoshan tea is my favorite wulong from Taiwan, fragrant and slightly roasted. It always gets me "drunk", which is what tea connoisseurs say is the effect of drinking a few rounds. They are definitely right.

He comes back with the tea, and then he lays on me the revelation that will make this night: He is from Taiwan. From Taipei. From the Xinyi district. My old stomping grounds.

Let the fun begin.

I don't speak Taiwanese, but I know enough to make Taiwanese people laugh, and so I tell him, "I am Taiwanese, I am not a foreigner! (wa shee daiwan leng, wa um shee adoa!"). We start having a conversation, although I don't really understand.

I tell him that I lived in Muzha (he explains to me that it's makza in Taiwanese) and that I know the Xinyi area well. Being a true Taiwanren, he starts making fun of me. "So you lived near the zoo? Did you live in the zoo?" Everyone is having a good laugh.

I forget the winding paths our conversation took in the next hour or two, the five of us, but like a good hike, it was beautiful and refreshed the soul. That gaoshan tea didn't hurt either.

I tell him I know a Taiwanese song and ask him if he wants to hear it. "Which one?" he asks."望春風," I reply. He asks me to sing it, and then we begin a duet for our friends.

It's time for us to leave and have our dinner. We all give each other hugs and he welcomes us to return anytime, and I finally realize why it is we visited the Taikang Art Center tonight.

An Encounter in the TCM Twilight Zone

2007-12-10T19:29:00.002+08:00

For those of us Chinese medicine practitioners from the West who come to Asia to deepen our understanding of Chinese culture and traditional medicine, we are always living with the knowledge that no matter how much Chinese we learn, we'll be lucky, extremely lucky, if our Chinese gets to the level of a middle-school punk (a Chinese one, that is). And of course, once our Chinese gets to a certain level, we also know that there's a hell of a lot of Chinese Medicine we'll never be able to learn, either.

Nevertheless, we continue. We don't get any real recognition (besides daily encouragement from locals, who, god bless them, are impressed with "nihao" and "xiexie"). We study hard, writing characters late at night, reading books of Chinese idioms. A whole new world opens up to us, and this is what keeps us going. You do it because it is a passion, for the intrinsic rewards.

I walk into a TCM clinic near my house and I notice there's a "Weight Reduction Clinic for Women". I ask a secretary about it and she points me to the woman standing near the entrance to the room where they do the actual weight reduction. She's in her early 30s, pretty, but looks bored and a little tired.

So, I tell her that I have a license in the States and ask her to tell me about the treatment principles involved in helping people lose weight. She tells me more, mostly that they are using needles to do this, not herbs so much. The acupuncture reduces appetite. I'm actually not that interested in helping people lose weight with acupuncture, in the same way that I'm not interested in giving them "acupuncture facials" or "acupuncture breast-lifts" (they do exist, just ask Jolin, the famous Taiwanese pop singer). Just curious.

The doctor has some questions for me. She asks me about the licensing process in the States, about people's perception of Chinese Medicine there. I tell her how I changed careers to study Chinese Medicine, that there is indeed a lot of interest in the States.

She tells me how she finds it curious how others switch from mainstream careers into Chinese Medicine. She tells me of some Japanese classmates of hers who were corporate types in the 20s and then, after burnout, decided to study Chinese Medicine.

"It's so strange. I've been a doctor for ten years and I find it so boring. I don't make much money. And I don't have any marketable skills--I could never work at a big company. It's hard to understand why people would want to do this. I wish I could do their office jobs," she says.

I do not miss the irony of this conversation. Here I am in China, after a four-year program in Chinese Medicine and a year and a half of formal Chinese study, still struggling to improve my Chinese so I can learn more medicine. If I study Chinese for the next years and then study traditional medicine for another five or ten years, who knows if I will approach this doctor's level of medical knowledge. I've given up (with joy, you might say) the six-figure income nice house I would have had by now if I had stayed in the corporate world, and am living like a student halfway across the world to do this.

"I guess I've had the benefit of actually living that life, and then making a conscious decision to let it go and follow my dream of studying Chinese Medicine," I tell her. So, I don't have any regrets. I guess what a friend told me a long time ago is true: "We've all got to kill our own snakes."

I like to think I inspire people. So, who knows, maybe I've inspired this young Chinese doctor here in Shanghai to go to business school so she can pursue her dream of working at an office in front of a computer to make the big bucks.

The Guitar Strummer at Renmin Gongyuan

2007-12-10T18:29:00.002+08:00

It's early in the morning (for me at least), and I am heading out of People's Park subway station to go teach, about to climb the stairs and emerge into the chilly Shanghai winter (yeah, according to traditional Chinese science, the solstice marks the middle of winter, not the beginning, which I think is pretty damn smart).

There are always a few old men standing at the foot of the stairs. One is always carrying a newspaper and a bag and looking expectingly, for what, I have no idea. He's not holding Christian fundamentalist magazines. Perhaps he is a middleman for the Shanghai mafia. I don't think I will find this out anytime soon, so I like to think every time I pass him, it's like a getting a whiff of the mystery of life.

This morning, before I see mafia man, I hear a kid in his early 20s strumming his guitar and singing. I wish I had time to stand there and listen to him. It makes me happy to see him here, bringing a bit of art into the crowds of Shanghai people walking out to start their day of money-making. Perhaps he'll never become the spokesman for Nokia phones like those other big Chinese popstars, but his music and song is heartfelt.

You know, you can't really walk out and protest the government in this country. And even in the States, that "freest" of countries, there are things that need to be said that only art can express fully, purely. What things are there in my heart today that I need to express fully and purely?

With thanks to that brave disheveled Chinese kid and his guitar, I move on, up the stairs into People's Park, to do a little moneymaking, just like everyone else.

Fun Things Lao Wai Can Do When They Know a Little Chinese

2007-12-09T18:49:00.002+08:00

I'm teaching a class at a large well-known international consulting firm. My students are all auditors in their 20s, representing the cream of the crop of the Chinese educational system. They all work ridiculous hours, travel all over Chinese for work, and now, their boss says they need to come in weekends to learn English in an intensive class (i.e., all day Saturday and Sunday) . As with most Chinese people, even highly educated ones, their spoken English is poor. However, they are sincere and like to laugh, too, and I thoroughly enjoy teaching them.

I arrive this Sunday to teach the afternoon session, and notice a joker has joined my class. Everyone, including him, obviously, is tired of taking classes all weekend. They haven't had much time to rest after their last week of deadlines, presentations, and general capitalistic competition. And Monday morning, when it starts all over again, is right around the corner.

Our class joker is slightly spoiling the spirit of the group. They are supportive of each other and sincerely interested in learning. Joker, a primadonna, prissy boy in his early 20s slouches, eats cupcakes obnoxiously in the middle of class, answers for others whose English level is not quite at his extremely advanced level (or, he wishes), and of course, answers questions with silly, prissy answers.

I ignore him and just do my best to engage the class, have fun, challenge them--help them learn better English. There is a small but persistent voice in my head that keeps rehearsing how I am going to throw him out of class, which goes something like this: "Okay, joker boy, we are all trying to learn here. You're outta here! See ya later!"

But, I realize that he's probably just tired from his consulting firm life (or perhaps he had a fight with his boyfriend?) and I understand what it feels like to be at a company training on a Sunday afternoon that you really don't want to be at. Besides, his coworkers, who are also his friends, would feel quite uncomfortable by this public scolding.

My inner Buddha, thankfully, takes precedence over my inner American cowboy. This made me look like a woos sometimes in the States ("Come on, yer going to let him just cut you off like that without giving him the finger?"), but it saves me today.

While I was hoping that my teaching style and my ignoring him would bring him into the spirit of the group, by the end of class, Joker has partipated honestly for a full two minutes, and unfortunately, just never quite joined us. I am not upset, really, just think it is too bad these young auditors are put through this grind.

I dismiss class and everyone is no doubt relieved and happy to have some downtime, finally. They all start talking in Chinese. I never tell my students that I speak some Chinese, because I don't want them to try to revert to Chinese while we're studying English, so no one knows.

Joker picks up his stuff, starting to leave, and says to his friends in Chinese: "Damn, this teacher is exhausting, always at a hundred percent, continuously correcting our mistakes!"

I turn to him as he is approaching the door, "Sorry!" I say in Chinese. The whole class cracks up!

"But, I thought you didn't speak any Chinese! Oh, I mean you are a very good teacher," he says, embarrassed.

I need a bit of a rest tonight as well, and I ride my bike home, smiling a Buddha smile.

Looking at Childrens' Books

2007-12-04T10:26:00.002+08:00

I am still looking for a good stationery shop to buy some flashcards, so wherever I go, I ask people if they know if there's a good stationery shop nearby. It seems that everywhere you go in Taiwan, there are these magnificent stationery shops everywhere. Perhaps on a certain level, I am not really looking for stationery, but just missing my laojia in Taiwan.

I get off the subway and see an older woman selling kids' books in a stall in the station. I figure she might know. She doesn't, but I start looking at the childrens' books (which are perfect for my level of Chinese). She asks me where I am from. I tell her from the States.

She tells me she has applied for a visa to the States five times already, and has been rejected every time. She tells me that her 80 year-old brother lives there. He is ill and she wants to see him before he dies. He lives in Maryland, which is where I am from. She tells me that before he dies, she wants to cook him food from his childhood that he loves and can't get in the States.

I tell her I know I am lucky. I am a U.S. citizen and can basically go wherever I want in the world. I haven't even been in China for two months, and I have already encountered lots of Chinese people who want to travel abroad but can't due to political reasons.

I tell her I am sorry that she isn't able to get permission to see her brother. "Did you tell the people at the consulate your story?" I ask. She replies that she has, but that obviously, it hasn't moved them to help her.

"Maybe you should meet him in Canada. It's not that far from Maryland," I suggest.

I look in her eyes and I sense her deep sadness. She has cried a lot about this. It's time for me to go. I tell her I live near here and will come back and look at her books again.

"Thank you, thank you," she says.

Meetings with Ordinary People

2007-12-04T10:01:00.002+08:00

I am riding my bike home at about nine in the evening on a chilly Shanghai night. My Israeli friend Yuval sold it to me. It has no gears, so I feel like a true urban biker. Shanghai has no hills, so you don't really need the gears, and besides, I don't feel like a spoiled Westerner.

I actually have no idea how to get home, so at the nearest intersection where there are some bikers waiting for the light to turn green. I ask a girl in her early 20s on her bike how to get Shanxi Rd. She looks at me in horror, as if I am about to mug her and immediately shakes her head to indicate that she either doesn't know, or ain't going to help me with this.

I would say about 10% of the time, I get this response from people in Shanghai, usually younger women who are working in shops. I ask them a question and they look like they might go into anaphylactic shock at any moment. Perhaps this is because of my dashing good looks (see Blogger profile photo), but I doubt it. I wonder if they can't possibly imagine that a foreigner speaks Chinese. That's why, after I ask them a question in reasonably correct Chinese, they still don't respond in Chinese. Sometimes, they talk really bad English with me. It's very entertaining.

Tip of the day to younger Chinese clerks of Shanghai: If a foreigner asks you in Chinese, "Excuse me, do you know if there is a stationery store near here?", there's a pretty good chance he probably speaks Chinese, and he probably won't mug you either. So, take a chill pill, okay?

Perhaps I should learn Shanghainese. They might finally give me a straight answer. On the other hand I am worried they might have a heart attack.

This girl on her bike isn't helping me and I don't have time for charades, so I ask the middle-aged guy on the bike behind me. The light is about to turn green. He says, "Follow me."

I am relieved, and we ride together toward Shanxi Rd. "Your Chinese is pretty good," he says, as we ride past a park.

"No, it's not. Chinese is really hard," I answer. He asks me where I am from and I ask him if he has just gotten off work, because it's pretty late. He sounds like he is educated and has the demeanor of a professor, so I ask him if he is a professor.

"No, I'm just an ordinary worker," he says self-deprecatingly. He tells me I'm going to have to make a left at the next intersection. I say goodbye and pull over to the intersection to wait for the light to turn green.

He continues on and looks back a couple times to make sure I'm heading in the right direction.

Surfing in Shanghai

2007-11-26T18:05:00.002+08:00

I am walking home from the subway this evening. The way to my apartment in quiet, considering it's the downtown shopping district in Shanghai. There are three large department stores near the subway station, probably several more within a two block radius that I am not aware of. I'm not really big on shopping in big department stores.

A block away from the subway station, the street is quiet, lined with small boutiques selling custom-made Chinese dresses for women, custom-made ("bespoke") suits for men, and modern women's clothing. My first week here, I notice a shop with a cool Hindu name, and then a few days later, I walk by it at night and see several workmen inside bashing the walls down.

Within a week, the Hindu sign is gone. I can faintly hear the voice of an old Hindu guru echoing in the distance as I walk by, his Indian accent rising and falling playfully in staccato tones, saying "This is the nature of maya, the illusory world, one day Hindu women's fashion boutique is here, one day, it is gone. Accept this fact and do not cling, my son."

So, they're bashing the walls down, and a week later, there's a funky new boutique there.

Today, I walk by and notice there's an English quote written on the front door of the new, hip boutique, and so I stop in front of the store. The women who is standing at the door wonders why I have stopped there, maybe to buy a scarf for a friend? However, I tell her I would like to read the English quote on the door. I am sure she has no idea what it says, and I'm curious if it actually makes sense. Who knows, maybe I have happened upon a bit of wisdom for the day.

The quote talks about finding that wave, paddling into it, standing up, and savoring the sweetness of the ride. It's proper English, and I like it. I have several friends who surf, and to them, there's nothing like it. An experience of "flow" that sounds closer to God than any morning in church reciting three hundred year-old hymns.

She asks me what it's about, and unbelieveably, I remember how to say surfing (衝浪; chong1 lang4) in Chinese. I tell her I like it and then head home, surfing this wave that is my life in Shanghai.

My Kitchen in Shanghai

2007-11-22T20:13:00.002+08:00

Tonight, I did something amazing. I cooked dinner. I know, I know. You are saying, cooking your own dinner, what's the big deal?

Oh, maybe because it's because I'm a guy, right? No, wrong!

It's just that I haven't had my own kitchen in the past three years. And now, living in the French Concession in Shanghai in my own apartment, I do!

I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to go to the grocery store and buy ginger, garlic, a bottle of tea oil, fresh vegetables, some meat... and then to come home and start preparing dinner. I get out my cutting board and chop garlic while the water is boiling. The pot, it's shiny and new, and almost in slow motion, I throw in the garlic and ginger, adding some soy sauce and tea oil. At the appropriate time, I throw in the mushrooms, and then later the greens, with the thinly sliced beef.

I know, I know, you are getting hungry just reading this!

And voila, dinner is ready. I even bought a small table for my kitchen so I can eat like a mensch (that's Yiddish for a real human being).

After dinner, I clean up. Rinse the cutting board and wash my bowl, my spoon, chopsticks. The countertop is littered with garlic skin, and so I grab a sponge a wash it all clean. All my dishes are drying on my new metal dish rack (from IKEA, of course).

I check my email, and when I return to the kitchen to get a drink, I stop and look with pride at my kitchen in Shanghai.

These are the simple pleasures of life.

The Whisky Drinker

2007-11-20T23:57:00.003+08:00

I'm coming home on the subway here in Shanghai at about 10 p.m. and walk out the turnstile toward exit 4. That's the Maoming Lu exit at the Shanxi Nan Lu subway station. In other words, home.

A guy in his early 20s, wearing nice pants and a suit jacket walks past me with a bare bottle of whisky in hand (half empty), his face completely flushed. He's not swaying, so it looks like his ability to hold his alcohol is pretty strong. He is walking ahead of me, and when he approaches exit 4, he looks around and turns back to walk to the other side of the station, as if searching for someone and not finding her.

The phrase "All dressed up and no place to go" comes to my mind. I start wondering what happened to him.

It's getting late and I need to get home. I stop wondering and just chalk it up to "another human being looking for truth", take the escalator to street level, and call it a day.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You...

2007-11-18T22:54:00.002+08:00

I am negotiating my contract for my new apartment and I bring along an Israeli friend. During the negotiation process, I get a lower monthly rent, and some other bonuses. I speak Chinese to my new landlord, who is a lovely middle-aged Shanghainese woman. I want her to know that I am a down-to-earth person, not another faceless, incomprehensible waiguoren. And so throughout the process, I try to keep it friendly and light, and when she says something kind or offers something to me in the negotiation process, I thank her profusely. It's a habit I picked up from people in Taiwan, and it's pretty aligned with my own nature.

It goes like this in Chinese: "謝,謝,謝,謝,謝謝謝謝..." You say "thanks" very quickly about eight times in a row, so it sounds like this: "shyeh, shyeh, shyeh, shyeh, shyeh, shyeh, shyeh, shyeh..."

My Israeli friend, who's lived in a Shanghai for several years pulls me aside after and says, "Look, you've got to stop the profuse 'thank you's'! One is enough!" Shanghai is indeed a city of deals, and I think I might have to unlearn a few "bad" habits.

Or maybe not. "謝,謝,謝,謝,謝謝謝謝..."

China is Gritty

2007-11-18T21:43:00.002+08:00

I know that many of my dear friends have been wondering how I'm doing here in China. It's been over month, and all you've gotten is a couple excited blog entries and some words from a monk in Thailand. You've probably figured that I am busy getting settled, and you would be right.

China is gritty. People like to spit. And honk their horns. People are just starting to enter the modern world. Sure, some people have some money (I saw a nice Ferrari the other day, and a Porsche SUV today), but you need time to evolve. It's like they've all been busy catching up after a long nightmare.

And my first month here has been gritty as well. I didn't come here with an especially detailed plan. I knew that I needed to study Chinese. I knew I needed to study medicine. And I knew I somehow needed to support my studies. And so I figured, as usual, I would get here and the "plan" would become clear. And so it has. The Chinese call it "yuan fen".

Within a day (I'm being serious), I had an apartment and a job lined up. I even found an authentic aikido dojo with a real live Japanese sensei straight from Hombu dojo in Tokyo and a room full of enthusiastic aikidoka who I would be able to practice with. I was expansive, excited for the coming journey.

And then, of course, everything went wrong. That's just the way it goes sometimes, isn't it?

My apartment didn't work out--I found out that landlord is a terrible man, greedy, to be exact. I would have had to wait until my Israeli friend moved out at the end of the month, and I felt like I needed a home soon, anyway.

That job, well, I soon found out the rate they were offering me was well below market. If I'm here to study Chinese and medicine (and not to work as an English teacher), I figured I should get paid enough money. And the job search continued. One day looking at a new apartment, one day interviewing, and sometimes both.

And then, on my second day practicing aikido, sensei asked us to dive head-first over a kneeling white belt. No problem. Then two white belts. Really, no problem. Finally, we ended up having to jump over four people. I figured I am a blue belt, one of the senior students. I better do this. And so I did. And I did just fine. I jumped head first over four people and rolled out of it, just like a good aikidoka should.

But after practice, my back was really sore. And so, for the last few weeks, I've been humbled. Looking for apartments, looking for work, and experiencing the worst aikido injury I've ever had.

I remember the expansiveness and excitement of coming to Shanghai, and it's as if someone said, "Okay, Roniboy, we're goin' get you a little closer to your roots in the deep ground."

Humility. Humiliation. As the poet David Whyte once explained, they both come from the latin root "humus", or soil. And so, in the past month, I have been brought back to my own roots, to my own ground, far removed from that expansiveness.

The good thing about being a healer is that when you experience any kind of pain or illness, you know you can "use" it to become a better practitioner. So many times, I've needled patients with back pain, but I have never experienced it myself. I like to think that the soreness in my back is making me a more compassionate healer.

I also think about Jacky Chan and Steven Seagal. It is unbelieveable to think that these two guys haven't taken hard falls and had to pay for it for a month afterwards. So, at least the soreness in my back is coming from doing a stunt jump, and not, say, from slipping on a wet floor in a McDonalds bathroom.

People in China can't read my posts, because their most gracious of governments won't let them read any blogger blogs. Perhaps if the people here learn about what is happening outside of China, they might get some ideas into their heads that they wouldn't be able to shake. Ideas about freedom of expression, democracy, creativity. Dangerous ideas indeed.

Perhaps they've lived under such an oppressive system for so long that now is too early for all this "freedom". My Chinese friend says she knows her country is "behind" in the "freedom" department. And so I said, well, maybe it takes time, evolution, maybe now is too early. Maybe it will take 30 or 50 years until the people here can actually handle it all. I hope that one day, people in China can read my blog on blogger.

Since I would like all people, people living under repressive communist regimes that are opening up their markets, as well as people living under capitalist regimes ruled by large multinationals, to read my blog, I will soon move this blog to a site that can be viewed by all.

I'll let you know the new URL as soon as its ready. In the meantime, keep living your dreams. Yes, there are obstacles that get in the way, but keep going. How else do you think Steven Seagal got so frigging big?

My Chinese Eyes

2007-10-20T11:36:00.000+08:00

Before I go to sleep last night, I go to the corner store to buy a bottle of water. As usual, when Chinese people with poor English accents try to talk to me in English, I tell them in Chinese, "Excuse me, I don't understand English." The laoban (shop owner) is trying to tell me how much my water costs. We start talking in Chinese and he thinks my Chinese is pretty good. He guesses I like Chinese culture. "I do, I do," I respond.

"Are you Chinese?" he asks, making me think he must have had one too many Tsing Tao beers with dinner. "Well, look at my face," I say. He says, "Perhaps you are of mixed Chinese blood." Of course, I am smiling. "Yeah," he says, "I can see it in your eyes."

"Well, maybe in a past life," I say. "A hundred years ago, two hundred, three hundred?" he asks. "I don't know," I say.

"If you have time during your stay, come by and talk," he says as I leave.

I go back to my hotel, have a drink of my water, and get ready for bed, but not without checking out my Chinese eyes in the mirror.

Making Friends with China

2007-10-18T17:04:00.000+08:00

I'm in the south of China in Guilin in Guangxi province. If I were Vietnamese, I could hop on a train and cross the border to Hanoi in about ten hours. However, I'm not Vietnamese, so I have other dreams.

I've just gotten off the plane from Shanghai and am sitting not too far from the baggage claim area of the Guilin airport in an internet "business center" where you can check your email for about 75 cents an hour. There aren't any businessmen here, just a few high school students fooling around on the net. One girl is yapping away in her mainland Chinese accent with her tongxue (classmates) on an instant messenging program.

After working hard to save money for my trip in the past month, I feel like I am coming alive again as I begin to explore this new place. I was happy to be in the States--to see my family on the East coast, to see my friends in Berkeley. To feel how much my psyche is changing living in Chinese culture. To see the things about American culture that I am finding stranger and stranger the more I live here in Asia. But it's good to be on the road again here in Asia, speaking Chinese, working toward my dream, whatever that may be.

I am in the middle of something. Something that feels much larger than me. I am reminded of the words of Seung Sahn, the Korean Zen master. "Don't know, only don't know." Westerners (and I think most people) have a tough time with this. We always want to know what comes next. For now, I am okay with "don't know". It's fun to be curious, to live with mystery, to listen to the present as it unfolds. "Dancing with the moment as she flies," a famous poet once said.

This morning, I woke up in Shanghai in my friend's high-rise apartment which looks out directly on the modern Pudong skyline. Next to the famous Jinmao building (which sure looks like Taipei's 101 to me), they are building an even taller structure, the World Finance Building, which will be 90 storeys and 460m, in case you were wondering.

After showering and preparing my pack for my trip to Yangshuo, I head out for my first day in China. I go to the bank and while waiting for my number to be called, one of the managers asks whether everything is all right. I explain to her what I need and she kindly helps me at the bank teller's window. The bank teller is smiling as we walk away and talk more. I tell her that today is my first day in China and that she is my first friend. Our meeting is yuan fen, she says. Meant to be.

It's a good way to start the day.

Across the street from the bank is Yuyuan Gardens, where I will get some breakfast. This is a beautiful compound full of classical Chinese pavilions where you can buy all manner of Chinese gifts, from marble chops to calligraphy brushes and scarfs to knockoff watches and luggage. There are salespeople walking around hawking their wares. When they see me, a foreigner, they say "watchey, luggitch?" And I really appreciate how just as soon as I said "bu yao" they stop and smile. And most importantly, continue on in their search for another waiguoren.

I ask one of the hawkers where I can get some food and he points me around the corner with a smile. I get some carrot dumpings and a cup of wulong tea at a little stall and began to talk to the laobanniang (the owner). Fortunately, everyone here understands my Chinese and everyone is pretty complimentary. I guess they're all used to a lot of Danish retirees. (These compliments are good encouragement, but as my friend Michael says, if one day you are not complimented, you know you are getting really good.)

There's a McDonald's nearby and I tell her that I don't eat McDonald's, that I prefer more traditional, natural food. She admits that she doesn't like it either. She explains that it's mostly a place for foreigners and young kids.

I tell her it's my first day here and that she is my second friend in China. It's time for me to be on my way and I thank her for the good and authentic food.

Now, time to get a card for my cellphone. These are the things you do when you land in a new place. I go to the China Mobile shop around the corner and get a phone number here in China. I have to tell you that life is a lot easier (and much more fun) because I can speak basic Chinese. I get my card and phone number, noticing that mobile phone numbers in China are eleven digits long. It's a big country.

I need some tea and I need to charge my phone, so I go to one of the many tea shops in Yuyuan Gardens. The shopkeeper is friendly and asks me to sit down for some wulong tea. I tell him a little about my story, that I've studied Chinese, and that I want to study more Chinese Medicine here. He is happy to let me charge my phone while we chat.

He brings out his wife, who tells me she was a rash that itches and won't go away. She is not more than thirty, and very friendly. As if I am her doctor, she starts pulling up her pantslegs to show me the red marks near her knees. I look at her tongue and feel her pulse and tell her what I think is going on. But then I tell her that I'm not such an experienced doctor and that she should find one nearby who specializes in dermatology.

The laoban gives me his card and says that I will be a good doctor in a few years and that he would like to visit me in my clinic. He's got some good tea and some fine-looking teapots, and so I make a note to go back there when I return to Shanghai in about a week.

After an overpriced lunch in Yuyuan gardens, I get on a taxi to Hongqiao airport, check in, and all of us passengers board a bus which takes us to our plane. Behind me is a young couple. The husband is on the phone and I start talking to his wife. In the next fifteen minutes, I discover some more of that yuan fen as I find my fifth and sixth friends here in China.

I am lucky. And hopefully, I'll be lucky enough to lose count of my friends in China in the next few days.

Taiwanese Buddhists at the Airport

2007-10-17T11:24:00.000+08:00

I arrive at the San Francisco Airport about to embark on my journey to China. For the past six weeks, I have been working, saving up some extra money for my trip, connecting with my family on both coasts, talking lots of English, and eating as much Middle Eastern food as possible. I almost can't believe it. The time has come to get on a plane to China.

The line at United check-in is long, mostly Chinese people. I assume they are all going to Shanghai like me. But in front of me is a group of people and they're all speaking Chinese with a Taiwanese accent (then they speak Taiwanese). It feels comfortable, reminds me of my time in Taiwan. So, I start talking to them.

They are from Banqiao, a suburb of Taipei which I have been to several times, and they are going home. They are disciples of the Chinese Zen master Sheng Yen and have come to the States to teach meditation for a few weeks to stressed-out American Buddhists (or perhaps Taiwanese/Chinese American Buddhists).

I tell them that I studied at National Cheng Chi University for the past year, and of course they are very warm. Of course, I tell them I miss Taiwan and all my friends there.

It's a good way to start my trip. More good yuan fen.

Hardware Store Meditation

2007-09-30T02:53:00.002+08:00

My friend Ted is not only a certified enlightened Tibetan Buddhist, but also makes a good casserole. He is also letting me crash at his place while I'm in Berkeley. May the Karmapa bless you, Ted Rinpoche.

Ted's place is in the Berkeley Hills. It's beautiful. Raspberries and plums grow in the garden. Mice scurry in the wooden rafters at night while I crash on the couch. The dogs howl and every morning, a persian cats strolls through the garden on his way home after a night of partying. The other morning, there was a flock of wild turkeys in his driveway.

The only thing that needs fixing at Ted's cottage is his shower. You see, after you shower, the floor gets all soggy--the flimsy shower curtain isn't enough. Since I like doing handyman kinds of things, and I like helping out my friends, I decided to pick up a few pieces of plastic that you can install on the edges of the tub so that water doesn't spill over and make a mess.

So, I go to the hardware store yesterday to pick up the supplies. I walk in and ask an employee in a red company vest which aisle. She doesn't know, so she asks another employee in a red vest and he sends me downstairs. I go downstairs. I see another guy in a red vest and ask him.

I smell alcohol on his breath immediately and describe what I need. "Well, let me show you because you don't know what you are talking about."

"Okay," I think. This is going to be fun. I am amused and say to him, "Well, you are the expert, so show me what I need!" He takes me over and shows me the plastic pieces. I ask him if I need glue and he says, "upstairs."

I thank him, grab my shower shields, and go back upstairs. I ask someone to recommend a glue, but she doesn't know which one is best, so she asks another employee. He asks me what I need and I tell him I need glue for the plastic pieces I just bought.

"Downstairs," he tells me.

"Okay," I think. I go downstairs and look for the glue, but don't see it. I turn around to drunk employee number one, who is now talking to helpful but confused employee number two. "Where is the glue?" I ask.

Employee one says it is upstairs, just like he did before. Employee two says, "Oh, I thought you needed to know where to get those plastic shields." I say to him, "Why do I need these? I have them, in my hand." I'm not really mad, I just feel like I am on some hidden camera TV show.

So, I go upstairs, and someone recommends the right glue, and I pay and get out of there.

On my way out, I spot whiskey-breathed employee number one lighting up a cigarette on a break. I smile at him, "So how long should I let the glue dry before I can use my shower?" I ask.

"Oh, a day," he says.

"Don't get into any trouble today!" I say, laughing.

He smiles big. "Okay!" he says.

Taiwanese Ladies in Cafe Gratitude

2007-09-25T10:36:00.000+08:00

Today, I had lunch with my friend Ross at a very Bay Area establishment, Cafe Gratitude. It's a restaurant that serves vegan food (no animal products) with a new age flair. I ordered Pesto Pizza, which on the menu is called "You are Sensational." So when the waitress brought our food to the table, she says "You are Sensational?" and I said "Yes!"

Even though there are some organic restaurants in Taiwan, there's just nothing like Gratitude there. So, while I am here in the Bay Area, I figure I better get my fill of organic-hippie-granola culture.

Ross and I had a great time catching up. Although I answered his questions about what it was like in Taiwan, I couldn't quite convey to him what it was like to live there. I don't know if it is possible to explain it in words to anyone who hasn't been there.

As we were talking, I noticed that a group of older Taiwanese women sat down next to us and began speaking in Chinese. I recognized their accent.

When Ross and I got up to leave, I turned and asked them: "好不好吃?" ("How's the food?"). Ross saw my big smile (and their's) as we started to speak in Chinese. They asked me to sit down and we talked for five minutes.

Outside of the restaurant, Ross and I say goodbye, and for once, magically, one of my friends here gets a taste of my life in Taiwan.

Aikido Time Machine to the Past

2007-09-25T09:46:00.001+08:00

While living in Taiwan, a few months ago, I found out that my first two aikido teachers (both well-known in California) were teaching a workshop. Since I knew I would back in the States then, I signed up.

I found aikido just out of college, and I trained instensely with my teachers at least three times a week. I would finish my job in a law firm in San Francisco's Financial District and practice with my aikido buddies. About a year and a half later, I moved to Berkeley and never found a teacher near me with whom I connected as deeply as I had with my teachers in San Francisco, so I stopped practicing. But, aikido and my teachers had already touched me deeply.

For years, I always had the calligraphy of aikido's founder, Morihei Uyeshiba (O'Sensei) on my wall above a small altar I had in my living room. And on the altar I had a book of his sayings. Even though I wasn't practicing on the mat, I remember the lessons my teachers taught me and tried to embody them in everything I did.

I didn't know what it would feel like to practice with them again. Would I want to stay here in the Bay Area to continue my aikido practice with them? Would I feel deeply moved? Would it be an incredible experience, a high?

Fortunately, I have been practicing aikido for the past year in Taiwan, so I was confident that at least I would be able to do all the techniques. I figured my old teachers would remind me of the deeper principles of aikido: being one with your attacker, staying present in the technique instead of trying to "win", allowing ki/chi (energy) to flow through you during the technique. These were the things we practiced so hard in the old days.

My teachers looked a little older, but their words and teaching were the same as they were so many years ago. It has been over ten years since I trained with them, and it felt like I had entered a time machine and went back in time, like meeting an old girlfriend I was in love with a long time ago. My teacher even told me that I hadn't aged, in fact, that I looked younger. (As we say in English, flattery will get you everywhere.)

The workshop was fun, but it wasn't the peak experience that I thought it might be. After it ended, I felt incredible gratitude for both of my dear teachers, remembering what a large influence they had on me at a very important time in my life. At the same time, I realized how much I had changed and grown, how much had happened in my life since then.

I talked to them briefly to thank them, then quickly dressed and left.

On the way home, I went to get a haircut and it happened that the woman who cut my hair was from Taiwan. We spoke in Chinese and she was very friendly. I had visited the past today, and this haircut brought me back to my present, living in Asia, studying Chinese, studying aikido, getting ready to study more medicine.

For the first time that day, I had a big smile and was beaming.

Stop and Take the Time to Listen to the Guitar Music

2007-09-25T09:24:00.000+08:00

Today, I am riding my bike on College Avenue to the cafe where I'll check my email. It's getting close to dinner time, but still sunny and warm. I park and lock my bike in front of the produce store with the fruit and flowers in the front and notice there's a musician playing classical Spanish guitar on the sidewalk.

I stand there and listen to him play. I have always loved this kind of music and it hypnotizes me. The way children are always hypnotized by music. There's something essential about it for us human beings, sort of like how dogs are always transfixed by smells.

He is playing something familiar, sounds like a piece I know by a famous Spanish composer whose name I have forgotten. I stand there in the late afternoon sun while highly educated North Oakland professionals rush by, perhaps picking up takeout for their kids or going to a yoga class.

After he finishes the piece, I ask him who wrote it, and he tells me Albeniz. Yes, Albeniz, that's it! "What's his most famous piece?" I ask. He starts playing Leyenda, Albeniz's most famous piece adapted for guitar.

I will go in a few minutes, off to check my email, but not before I put a couple of dollars in his hat, and hopefully he'll continue to do this for a long time.

Practicing Taiwanese at the Supermarket

2007-09-12T12:33:00.000+08:00

I go with my mom to the supermarket. A store employee helps us bag our few items. His name tag says "Chen" and he's Chinese.

I can't help asking, "You speak Chinese?"

"Yes, I am from Taiwan."

I start speaking to him in Chinese. I insert the little Taiwanese I know. He starts talking to me in Taiwanese, but I tell him to that I don't speak Taiwanese, just a few words.

I am happy. I tell him I just lived in Taiwan for a year, that I am here visiting my mom.

"Welcome!" he says in Chinese.

I want to come back everyday and talk to him

The US Open

2007-09-12T12:17:00.000+08:00

My sister gets us tickets to the last day of the US Open, and on Sunday, we head out to Queens to catch the Men's Finals. When we arrive, the Women's doubles are just finishing.

Taiwan's Chan/Chuang are playing Dechy (France)/Safina (Russian). I see the Taiwanese players in red, and I am rooting for them. I feel like I know them. I feel that if we went out to dinner, we would have a good time, talking about Taiwan.

Every time they score, or every time they mess up, they come together and give each other a quick handslap. I want them to win.

They remind me that I miss Taiwan. Fortunately, I am wearing my sunglasses, so nobody can see my eyes, tearing up a little.

Chinatown New York

2007-09-12T06:46:00.000+08:00

In Taiwan, I spoke Chinese every day. Perhaps not the most articulate Chinese, but I was able to tell all my juicy secrets to several Taiwanese friends using the words contained in my textbook, Practical Audio-Visual Chinese, Volumes 1, 2, and the first eight chapters of Volume 3. Oh, I also threw in some slang for effect, taught to me by my hip Taiwanese friends.

However, having been in the States for two weeks so far, I'm afraid I haven't had the chance to practice my Chinese, except for my thirty minute conversation with my friend Michael, who is another Jewish acupuncturist who lives on the West Coast. If you are Taiwanese, you would have loved to listen to our conversation. Two laowai talking Chinese. Very entertaining.

You could say that I have been a little thirsty to speak Chinese. So, when my mother and I went to New York this past weekend, I thought I might have an opportunity to go to Chinatown and practice, quench that thirst a little, perhaps.

We stayed in Tribeca, where many famous, beautiful, and glamorous people live, including: Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep... oh, and let's not forget my sister, Alona.

On Saturday, my Mom and I took a walk from Tribeca to Chinatown, which is actually only about a ten minute walk, maybe fifteen minutes. I was so happy to see sign after sign in Chinese. Remember, I am still experiencing culture shock after having lived in Taiwan for a year. In the States, there are so many big white people, and so much correct English! I'm not used to it.

As I do in Taiwan, I look up and start trying to read the street signs, the billboards, the Chinese calligraphy on windows and above stores. I really do miss it all, even though it makes my head spin.

Our plan is to get some tea before we grab a cab to meet my sister in the East Village. We walk, and I keep my eyes open for a traditional teahouse.

My mom tells me to wait while she goes into a store that sells knick-knacks from Asia, like wooden reflexology sandals that have small raised wooden "fingers" which massage the soles of your feet while you walk.

The shop is a big stall--there is no door. The shopkeeper sits behind a table. He's in his 30's, Chinese, perhaps my age, and he's facing me. His expression is focused, and as I look at him, he looks straight ahead. He doesn't talk to me even though I am a customer looking right at him. I wonder if he is Chinese mafia and paid to look tough. But as I stand there, I realize there is a tape recorder next to him repeating sentences in Chinese and in English.

"I am studying English" the woman on the tape recorder says. "我在學英文" she repeats in Chinese. I realize that my opportunity to speak Chinese is here.

I smile and ask him in Chinese, "So, are you studying English?"

He is surprised to hear a laowai speak Chinese, and he goes from mafia-face to smile. He tells me he is studying English because he wants to get a green card and become a US citizen. He compliments me on my Chinese ("很表準"). As usual, I reply that my Chinese is actually not that good, but thanks for the compliment.

I ask him where there's a good place to get some tea. He tells me that around the corner there's a cheap place. We say goodbye, and I walk out with my mother. I am so happy to finally speak Chinese!

Later, I go to the tea place and I tell the kid I want some wulong tea. He tells me there are no tapioca pearls (珍珠; zhen zhu) in the kind of tea I have just ordered. I know this. I don't want zhen zhu in my cha. That's for kids. So I say, "不要,不要"("I don't want them!").

In Chinese, he responds, "You want it hot?(熱的嗎?)"

"Yes, 對," I reply, "Hot, 熱的."

My mother is waiting for me outside. We've got to get a cab and meet my sister in the Village, but I'm a little less parched, and am ready for our next adventure in the US of A.

The Food Essay

2007-09-05T10:34:00.001+08:00

One of my English students in Taiwan returns from a business trip in the Netherlands and tells me that she is so happy to be back. "Why?" I ask.

If you are Taiwanese, you know the anwer.

"The food. I had to eat hamburgers, sandwiches, and pasta every day" she says, whining a little bit.

If you are not Taiwanese, I will educate you a little now.

If you are foreign, you think, "Taiwanese food, not bad, maybe a little oily sometimes, but sometimes pretty good." A burger or a sandwich every once in a while is necessary to ease the monotomy, but, you know, it's not terrible.

However, if you are Taiwanese, you love Taiwanese food. You could eat at Maxim's in Paris every day for a month, and you'd still be pining for some niu rou mian (牛肉麵, beef noodle soup) with a little manguo bing (芒果冰, mango on ice) for dessert. Such is the nature of human beings.

Food brings us home. We remember those meals our grandmother made us when we were kids. If you feel nostalgic for home, you can always make yourself some traditional dishes, right?

And so, I am home. I spend the weekend with my dear grandmother. She makes me the most incredible food. My food. Jewish food. Hummus, baba ghanoush, borscht, meatloaf, her homemade pie, a Middle Eastern lentil salad, all served with pita.

It's all fresh, simple. A world away from Taiwan. Grandma smiles as I eat all her food, as I thank her profusely.

"I'm going to get fat," I tell her.

"Nobody loses weight in my house," she quickly responds.

I am back home.

Good People Abound, Everywhere

2007-09-05T09:48:00.001+08:00

I'm back in the States, as all my fans (!) know. It's strange not to speak Chinese everyday. No old guys on their bin lang (穦榔) buzz talking Taiwanese. No Taiwanese ladies fixing oil-laden dan bing (蛋餅; egg crepes fried in about a gallon of oil) for breakfast, saying "Your Chinese is getting a lot better." And no 7-11s, where I can always pick up a cha ye dan (茶葉蛋; hard boiled tea eggs) or two. Taiwan, I miss you.

My friend Michael, another American acupuncturist on a mission, asks me about my experience of American people since I've been back. I think for a second and realize that I haven't really been spending much time with "American people"--I've been spending time with my dear family, and I am happy to see them. But I do notice that Americans are friendly and willing to talk and joke with you, even if they don't know you, like the flight attendant on the flight back from Tokyo, joking with the passengers ("Oh, you're one of those passengers--difficult!" she joked, with a big smile.)

I must be becoming Asian, as I think, "Wow, these Americans are a little guo fen (過分; too much)." On the other hand, as I told Michael, it's refreshing.

Since I am here in Virginia visiting my mother, I find a dojo (道館) nearby where I can practice aikido. We all know, without aikido, life is not worth living. Right? And so, this evening I set off to the local dojo to practice this noble art. On the way there, I think I have missed a turn, and so I stop at a gas station to ask.

I pull up to a pump and asked the lady in front of me directions, and she kindly tells me that I have one more block to go, in other words, I am on the right track. And so, thanking her much, I get back in my car (actually, my mother's car), and try to start it.

Uh-oh. I find I can't. The battery seemed to be dead. The only thing I can hink about is that I have aikido class nearby in fifteen minutes, and need to get there. And so I decide to just park the car in the gas station's parking lot for a few hours, run to class, and come back at 9 p.m. and deal with the battery issue later.

An Indian man sees me pushing my car into the parking space and offers to help. We get it there, and he asks if I have jumper cables. I tell him no. "Do you?" I ask hopefully. Alas, he doesn't. However, a guy walking by hears us, "Did you guys say jumper cables?"

I am happy. This guy has jumper cables in his truck, and he wants to do a good deed. "Do you have cables?" I ask. "Yes," he says. I'm in luck.

In Taiwan, I always have a lucky star overhead. I find out that she hasn't abandoned me. Thanks, lucky star.

After I get my mom's car's battery charged, I profusely thank this nice tatooed man who just helped me (and his wife, too, who is in the truck) and I am off. I need to get to aikido.

I know that after I park the car and turn it off at aikido, I will have a problem later, but I don't care. I need to get to aikido, and hopefully, my lucky star will still be there during and after practice.

Thank you lucky star.

Since we are near Washington D.C., I find there are a few military people practicing. The teacher asks me where I have been practicing and I tell him I have been in Taiwan for the past year.

"State Department?" he asks.

"No, Chinese Medicine Department," I respond.

We practice, all of us aikido brothers and sisters, and like an old friend, aikido says, "Welcome back, I am always here for you." I meet new friends. I learn some things. I exercise and sweat.

After practice, I know my mom's car will need a jump start. And so, I hang around and ask if anyone has jumper cables. Surprisingly, nobody does, even the military guys. I check in my mother's car. No jumper cables.

The retired Air Force pilot says he lives nearby and would be willing to stop by his house to pick up cables. I thank him, and we head to his place and then return with a flashlight and cables.

Within five minutes, I am back on the road, back to my mother's house. It's a good welcome back to America.

There are good people everywhere.

A Fish in Water

2007-08-28T22:56:00.000+08:00

After a long flight back from Taiwan, I am home. I arrived yesterday afternoon, and because I didn't sleep on the plane, was in a daze for most of the day. It's just too surreal to be living close to a big Daoist temple on a mountain south of Taipei one minute and then a few hours later find yourself in the progressive capital of the United States, where the buses run on hydrogen.

So, after four hours of sleep last night (believe me, I tried to get back to sleep after waking up at four in the morning, but I couldn't), I got up, dressed, got on my friend Jono's bike and rode to my old neighborhood.

It's autumn, the air is crisp and in my bones, I can feel the many autumns I've spent here. Climate itself can be like Proust's "madeleines", you know, you bite into a cookie you once ate a long time ago, and the memories start flowing.

It's quite a contrast to Taipei's heat and mugginess.

Walking around my old neighborhood on this cool autumn morning, I remember moving to Berkeley around this time of year (a long, long time ago!), I remember what it felt like to live in my old, beautiful apartment (I walk by it this morning and see the name of the person who lives in apartment 103, my old abode), I remember my community of friends way back when, walking with them on Shattuck Avenue. It's all more than I can communicate in words, but I think you understand.

A fish is back in the water.

At five this morning, I find a bakery (the famous Cheeseboard) in my old neighboorhood that has some benches in front. Even though it's not open yet, the lights are on and the bakers are bustling about. So, I open the book that my dear friend bought me before I left (A Fish the Smiled at Me, by Jimmie), and what else do I do but, of course, study Chinese!

A baker in an apron is pushing a cart of flour on the sidewalk and we start chatting. "You have enough light?" he asks as he smiles at me. "Yes, thanks." I say. I explain to him that I just got back from Asia and am jetlagged, and so am back in my old neighborhood, reminiscing.

"Want a muffin?" he asks. "They're just out of the oven," he says. "Bran, blueberry millet, and I can't remember the other one."

"I'd love a bran muffin," I reply. I've had many of them in my years here, and I might be about to have my own Proustian bakery experience.

So, he brings me my warm muffin, and I get to work on Jimmie's story. It is beautiful, about real love and letting go.

It feels like a few minutes have gone by, but I look at my watch, and it's almost six. That means I can go to my favorite cafe and get a cup of tea. It's on the next block. I pack up my book, and walk to Peet's Coffee and Tea, the original store on Walnut and Vine.

There, I get (what else?) and pot of Tie Guan Yin tea. "I'll give you a big mug in case you need room for cream and sugar," the dian yuan/woman at the register says.

I smile ("cream and sugar?") and say thank you.

I sit down at a table, pour myself a cup of tea (who knows, maybe it's from Maokong!), and get back to work on my story of the man and his fish.

I finish the story, feeling inspired (and happy to learn some new Chinese). The sun is starting to come up, and I need to get breakfast.

I am back home.

Rainy Night on Zhinan Mountain

2007-08-26T01:48:00.000+08:00

I've leaving Taiwan on Monday morning, early. This evening, I have focused on packing, and finally, I am done. It's a good feeling.

It's a beautiful night in Muzha. It's been lightly raining for the past few hours. I love when it rains on the mountain. It's a feeling of nourishment, strengthening, release.

I need to take a walk and move my body. I don't mind that it's raining, and besides, I won't be able to take a walk in my neighborhood on the mountain for a long time. So, I grab an umbrella and walk down Wanshou Rd.

It's always good to walk after being cramped up inside. After twenty or thirty minutes, I am done my short hike and am back at the stairs that lead up to my small apartment building. I walk up, slowly. There are big lamps along the path, and their light is reflected on the water as it tumbles over the stairs, which are all made of thousands of small pebbles.

I get to the top of the path where my apartment is. This is one of my last walks here, and I am glad I have slowed down tonight to appreciate this place.

It's still raining outside. A fine moment to finish my last blog entry in Taiwan.

Chinese Studying and Peoplewatching in Taipei 101

2007-08-26T00:54:00.001+08:00

I am often in Taipei 101, until last month, the tallest building in the world. Since I am a poor student, perhaps being there makes me feel, well, a little richer. I study on the fourth floor where there are several cafes and Taipei's best bookstore for English books, and in between memorizing new vocabulary and writing sentences in Chinese that are a mixture of both proper Chinese and English grammar (I get points off for the latter, though), I peoplewatch.

There are the grandmothers who knit and gossip at the table next to me every time I am there. They know me well (well, because they see me all the time), and hopefully, they've gossiped about me.

Then there are the business people who are on a coffee break, business people in meetings with their laptops, salespeople making big deals. Students who are on summer break who are either chilling together after a little shopping, or organizing some big activity, like a play. At least that's what it looks to me.

The boys are usually skinny, mostly with tan complexions and funky haircuts, and a few are more plump. There's usually one guy who's really loud, and the girls all pay attention to him. I am sure they go home together afterwards and tell each other how they think he is so cute. They secretly want to marry him.

Usually, there are a few retired couples drinking tea and eating dessert. There is a large TV above our heads on the fourth floor, mostly advertising expensive watches and other luxury products, including mutual funds. Skinny Versace models (mostly blonde) cross their legs in front of each other while they walk on the catwalk (why do they walk like that?; it looks like they are going to pull their anterior lateral cruciate ligament or something), but they don't look that pretty to me. They look forced and mechanical, unnatural. They look like they can't wait for the show to end so they can go out for another night of dancing, drinking, and perhaps taking expensive drugs. And they're not even twenty yet. Poor girls.

So the old men just look blankly at the screen while the wives talk and sip their tea. But sometimes, they look like they are having a good conversation, like they actually like each other after fifty years of marriage.

I notice that the elderly woman at the table next to me with her husband looking over at my table a few times, curious about what I am studying, and then when I got up to refill my cup of tea with hot water, she looks at me, interested. So, when I have a Chinese question, I walk over to her and say politely, "Excuse me, do you mind if I ask you a Chinese question?"

"Sure," the woman responds. She seems very happy to help, and I ask my question. She gives me a confident and clear explanation and I smile and thank her. Her husband smiles at me and says that his wife is a retired elementary school teacher. "Perfect for my level," I say. We all chat for a while.

Actually, the truth is that after you've studied a year and a half of solid Chinese and lived in Taiwan for that long, I am sorry to say, but the large majority of elementary school students are much more advanced than you. I'm talking about writing and reading. If we're talking about speaking, then I would think it would be appropriate to compare us to nursery school kids in Taiwan, all of whom are far more advanced in their Chinese speaking and listening abilities. For instance, most of my classmates (and me), have a hard time understanding most animated movies in Chinese.

The other day, I got up to go for a bathroom break, and as I was washing my hands, I see a little kid, maybe four years old, with his mom, at the door. She is trying to send him in to pee, but the little boy wants her to go in there with him and help. But she tells him she can't.

I walk over and smile at him and say, "Okay, come in, I'll help you, okay?" When I see that his mother hasn't freaked out and called the police (she is actually smiling and looks a little relieved), I take his hand. His mother tells him to go with me and I lead him to the low urinal where young boys can urinate hygienically and accurately. I walk away and wait for him to finish. As he is getting ready to pee, he looks over at me. I smile and make a face at him. During the process of peeing, he looks over at me several times. This might be the first time a foreigner is supervising his peeing process.

He is all zipped up and walks out toward his mother, but I remind him that he needs to wash his hands. So, I take the toy motorcycle in his hand and put his hands in front of the automatic faucet. He's done washing and I can tell he misses him mom a lot--he forgets all about his motorcycle. So, I remind him, hey, your motorcycle, dude.

I walk out with him, and his mom looks at me, thankful.

I am thankful, too. I sit back down, and am ready for some more Chinese studying and peoplewatching in Taipei 101.

A Car Full of Kids

2007-08-21T00:33:00.000+08:00

I am walking to class in the morning, and suddenly, I hear a kid call out to me, "Waiguoren (外國人; foreigner)!"

I look up, and I notice the kid in a car that's passing me. He's smiling at me, and I notice other kids in the car. When I give him a big smile back, all of them start smiling and waving at me.

They seem to be around seven or eight years-old. As they move away, I keep smiling and waving, and their smiles get farther and smaller, but I can tell they are still beaming.

A good way to start the day.

Portrait of Young Taiwanese Woman with Bike

2007-08-21T00:02:00.000+08:00

I am sitting in a modern, chic Taiwanese tea shop drinking a cup of wulong tea, studying for my final Chinese exam, my final final of the year, perhaps my final final of Taiwan.

This is a beautiful new tea shop that opened a few months ago, near Taipei City Hall MRT station. There are natural wood tables and beautiful, simple white teapots, Chinese teas and English teas, all tastefully displayed, as if we are in California.

I prefer the Chinese teas. Today, it's a Dong Ding wulong. They serve it to me with a bit of honey on the side. I've never heard of Chinese people putting honey in their wulong tea, so I scoop up the honey with the spoon and eat it like desert.

One of the young girls who works there must be done her shift, I see her walk out of the shop in her street clothes, carrying a small paper bag, one that they put bags of tea in for customers. The automatic door, an impressively finished wide wood door, closes behind her. Most doors to stores in Taiwan open and close like this, either with a light push of a button, or with the movement of your approaching body spotted by a motion detector.

Her bike is parked on the street just in front of the stores, in a space between countless scooters. The scooters of Taiwan.

It's drizzling. Most people are walking with umbrellas, but she doesn't seem to mind. She hangs her bag on one of the handlebars, slowly, and takes out a carefully folded handkerchief, which she carefully unfolds. Then she uses it to dry the seat methodically. First the top, then the sides, then a circle around to make sure she hasn't missed a spot.

As I watch her do this, I realize that this is a uniquely Taiwanese scene. There are no 19 year-old girls in the States who carry around handkerchiefs to wipe dry the seats of their bikes, and if they do, they probably do it really quickly and miss a lot of spots. But not this girl.

She slowly pulls her bike out of the narrow spot. She is moving very slowly. She's doesn't seem like the athletic type, but she is not a prissy lamei (辣妹; hottie). More like the studious type, with a bit of a creative streak. Something says she could make you a really creative and heartfelt birthday card.

By the time she pulls it out of its spot and straightens the bike so it is pointed in the direction of traffic, she notices the rain has gotten the seat wet again, and so she pulls out her handkerchief again.

I realize that I need to get back to studying, and so I continue writing my characters. At my current level, all the vocabulary consists of two-word concepts that are really easy to forget, but sometimes, you can figure out what they mean, words like laolei (勞累).

I look up, looking for her, and she's gone.

Say Yes

2007-08-06T23:26:00.000+08:00

A wise man once taught me that when you are meditating, you should have a slight smile on your face. This is the proper form in certain types of meditation, I think in the Hinayana tradition in Southeast Asia.

It's like you sit still and face whatever thoughts and feelings you might have--all with that smile of the Buddha. You say "yes" to life, whatever it brings you.

The Buddha had money, a stable family, a wife and son--but he left it all in his quest for enlightenment, to find something deeper. I admire the Buddha (maybe you do, too), and I'm glad he didn't stay at the palace getting massages and signing edicts. His parents would have loved that. I admire his bravery for letting go of the need for guaranteed future security.

I've been thinking about the Buddha lately because I, too, have let go of all that is considered "stable" to follow my dream. I perhaps am not the Buddha, but I know the Buddha would want me to follow my own path. "If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him!" were his words. He wanted us to find our own Buddha, something beyond the conditioning of our personal past and our culture.

The way I see it, we all have the same choice. We can live in fear, or we can move to a place of love. Fear means your little boat floating on the sea gets smashed by the big waves--which if you haven't experienced yet, trust me, you will--and you say, "Oh, shit, I've got to protect myself so this never happens again." Maybe you slowly sail back to shore, tie up your little boat, rent a room at the local motel, and watch cable for the rest of your life. A part of you dies. You never come out again.

The other path is love. The same big, bad wave smashes you to pieces and after a bit of time recuperating, you get back out there. You know that no matter how hard the waves come, you will still be okay. The big waves come back and your little boat gets soaked again, but this time, you know how to deal, you know you'll be okay. And maybe you meet other boats and other sailors, and you sail to some beautiful shores. Sure beats infomercials.

Well, I'll keep it short, if you want to see love in action, you can always watch a Free Hugs video, here's another one, in Chicago. And I'm also including a poem by Oriah, which I like, called The Invitation. Or better yet, give out some of your own free hugs or write your own inspiring poem.

This blog entry is dedicated to you--sending you my love and blessings. You can do it!

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

我對你的職業不感興趣。我想知道你的渴望，你是否能勇敢依循內心的憧憬，大膽的作夢。

我對你的年齡不感興趣。我想知道你是否會願意冒險，為愛，為夢想，為體驗生命，即使看起來像個傻子。

我對什麼影響你的情緒起伏不感趣。我想知道你是否曾觸及內心憂傷的核心，你是否已從生命中的背叛恢復，願意敞開心靈；或因此而蜷縮封閉，深怕再受傷害。

我想知道你是否可以正視痛苦，與它共處，我的或你自己的，而不需要躲藏、淡化、偽裝或修飾。

我想知道你是否能與喜悅共處，我的或你自己的。你是否能與狂野共舞，讓狂喜浸淫你全身，穿透每個指尖，不再心存戒慎恐懼，不再要求實際務實，忘記身為人類的限制。

我對你所告訴我的事是否真實不感興趣。我想知道，你是否能為忠於自己而讓他人失望；是否能背負他人對你背叛的指控，但求不背叛自己的靈魂；你是否能拋卻信仰，而仍值得信任。

我想知道每一天，你是否能在不美之處看見美麗，你是否能成為自己生命的源頭。

我想知道你是否與失敗共存，你的和我的，而且仍然願意站在湖邊，向天上銀色的圓月高喊，「是的，我絕不放棄。」

我對你住在哪裡，有多少錢並不感興趣。我想知道，在經過了整夜的哀傷沮喪，身心疲憊到了極點，你是否仍能起身，為了孩子，盡你該盡的養家活口的責任。

我對你認識誰，或你如何來到這裡不感興趣。我想知道，你是否會與我一起，站在火的中央而不退縮。

我對你在哪裡，學什麼，和誰學不感興趣。我想知道，當這一切都煙消霧散，是什麼在你內心支撐著你。

我想知道，你是否能與自己獨處，你是否真的喜歡在你空虛時陪伴的同伴。

Yogurt in the Face

2007-07-22T18:27:00.000+08:00

Everyone I see, I tell them I am studying shufa (書法, Chinese calligraphy). I am eating in the vegetarian restaurant above 7-11 across the street from the university, and I get into a conversation with the lady sitting next to me. I eventually ask her if she likes shufa, and she says that she had to take it as a kid, just like everyone else.

My friend Chin asks me how I am doing, and I tell her that I am really into shufa. She tells me there is an exhibit of modern Chinese calligraphy at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. So, last night, I meet her there.

I am like a kid in a candy shop. The beautify and variety of the shufa is overwhelming. We have two hours to view the exhibit and it doesn't feel like enough time, but I comfort myself, saying it just means I can come back and see it again next week with another friend. Each piece is like a new friend that I want to get to know better.

Besides the shufa exhibit, there is live jazz downstairs and a bookstore with lots of books on shufa. Oh my, shufa, books, and live jazz, all in one place. I am already in heaven, and possibly the only way they could make it better would be to fly in some friends from the US and some premium sake (清酒), and I think the beauty would just about overtake me.

Chin and I walk slowly through the exhibit. There are all the main styles, regular (楷書), clerical (隷書), running (行書), grass (草書), and seal script (篆書). Some are large, some very detailed, some which look like classical scrolls from two-hundred years ago, some looking like abstract expressionist paintings. I make a joke to my friend whenever we pass one I really like: "That one would sell for a lot of money in the States."

After we see the exhibit, we make our way to the exit, but we still have thirty minutes before the museum closes and Chin wants to check out the first floor exhibit of contemporary works. We take a stroll around the wide-open space filled with mostly abstract modern paintings and a few sculptures. There is a large cube near the entrance of the exhibit and people are going in, so we walk over to check it out. Inside, a few people are sitting a watching film shorts on a screen.

We watch a short film in which there's a little boy, maybe he's three or four, playing with his Mom. The boy is jumping on her, and she tries to kiss him, and he calls her a "lech" (色狼). It is very playful.

In the next short, the screen shows a close-up of the face of a young Taiwanese kid against a blank wall. She's probably in sixth grade. She is smiling slightly. Suddenly, something white, like paint, or most probably, yogurt, gets splashed in her face. She flinches a bit, but is still smiling, and doesn't move. One after another, Taiwanese kids are shown, waiting to get this white yogurt thrown in their faces.

We see about forty or fifty kids. I wonder, who is throwing yogurt in their faces? Don't kids get enough "thrown" in their faces already? But then, of course, I realize that it's a film. The director says, "I'm going to throw yogurt in your face. Here, wear this white shirt, and before we throw the yogurt at you, don't move too much, and after, don't move that much either. Just let us film you, okay?" At least that's what I imagine.

One after another I see the kids waiting for the yogurt, then getting it in the face, and then their reactions. You see a girl, completely serious, sad, staring at the camera. Suddenly, she get's it on the upper cheek and her eye. Her eye shuts for an instant, but, then she opens it and she is still staring at us, still sad and serious.

Another kid, a boy, is looking tough, his eyes defying, his lips a little pursed. His facial expression says, "Come on, I dare you." He gets it on his hair and forehead, and then after two seconds of recovery, he is back to being tough.

In contrast to tough boy, there is the scared girl. Before the yogurt even hits her cheeks, she is wincing, and after you can tell she is not very comfortable.

And then the kids who make me smile, the kids who are holding back laughter the whole time. I think there are many kids like this in the film. One boy can barely hold himself together. He hasn't lost it yet, but I turn to Chin and say, "He's going to crack up when he gets hit." Sure enough, he loses it and is laughing hard after the yogurt begins moisturizing his prepubescent skin.

I am very moved by all this yogurt throwing. By the kids who, at ten or twelve years old already have to fight the world, who wear a "tough" mask they learned from Dad. By the kids who are completely resigned, who make no movements before, during, or after the whole ordeal. And all those kids laughing, they move me, too.

I realize that by the time we're ten, or more accurately probably, five, we've developed a "stance" toward life. Do we embrace that "yogurt", laughing? Do we decide to be tough guy or victim, or stoic? I watch these kids faces and I can see their whole lives unfolding, I can see what they'll look like when they're fifty. Life is short.

A recorded announcement says the museum is closing and we need to leave, and I get up, still holding back my tears. Maybe for the kids in the film, maybe for all of us "kids".

Chinese Calligraphy

2007-07-22T00:50:00.000+08:00

I've been wanting to study Chinese calligraphy for a while, as I have long admired Chinese script, especially when it is handwritten with a brush. Many people in Taiwan, when they find out I am studying Chinese language (and especially when they see my messy handwriting), ask me if I have studied shufa (calligraphy, 書法). I always say that I would like to, but I know it takes devotion and time, and I don't want to rush it, since I am already busy with many other things, not least of which is studying Chinese.

At school, I saw a poster for a calligraphy class, just two sessions in the month of July, and I thought, "This might be my chance to finally study shufa." However, after my initial excitement, I realized that I'm already too busy. In Taipei, the direction everyone needs to move in is doing less. Everyone is trying to be a superachiever, raising kids, working hard, and getting their EMBA at NCCU on the side. And then when you ask them what their hobbies are, they say: "SLEEP!" The pace of life has rubbed off on me.

So, with the detachment of a Japanese Zen monk (or so I would like to think), I said, it's not the right time. It's like when you need to meet a friend later and the mind says, "We could still do laundry...." and, like a good parent, you say, "Sorry, kiddo, we can do that tomorrow. We still have two pairs of clean underwear to go, anyway...."

Then, one day after class a few weeks ago, I walked through the library, and there's the shufa teacher and her student, my friend Marcos, apparently the only one who signed up. I see the ink, the brushes, the kind, middle-aged teacher, and my eyes light up. She smiles at me and invites me to join. I am in a "rush"--I need to go work out, then I have to study and teach, but I know that this moment is the right moment to learn shufa. Again, yuan fen (緣分; synchronicity, resonance) strikes again, and I follow it.

There is probably a hexagram in the I Ching (易經) that says: "Drop What You are Doing" and it looks like it's the one I am getting in this moment. Time to learn shufa.

Like her elementary school students, we start the class with the task of filling a sheet of paper with black ink. Just getting the feel for the brush and the ink. I am left-handed and the teacher says, "You are now going to use your right hand." And so, I am learning shufa, really, from scratch, not even as advanced as those Taiwanese elementary students, who already know how to write.

From "painting" a sheet black, we move onto dots. And by the time I finish practicing my dots, class is over, and I'm looking forward to going home and practicing more dots.

A friend takes me to the office supply shop near school, and we buy a simple brush, or maobi (毛筆), ink, and some paper so I can practice at home. Conveniently, during this time, my laptop breaks down and while it is getting repaired, I use my evening time to practice my shufa. In case any of you haven't had your laptop break down, I highly recommend it. Especially if you usually find yourself emailing or using MSN most evenings, you'll find yourself not only going to sleep earlier (and sleeping more peacefully because you haven't been sitting motionlessly staring at a screen for two hours), but you might even find yourself doing beautiful things like practicing shufa, writing poems, or practicing your violin.

Last week, I take my second class, and we have moved onto straight lines. My teacher starts me on the famous character yong (永), which means "the amount of time it will take most foreigners to learn fluent Chinese".

Just kidding, you know me, I like to laugh, yong actually means "eternal" (so actually I am only half-joking this time), and the reason why it is special is because it is the one character that contains all eight essential strokes (畫筆; see cool diagram above).

When my Taiwanese friends ask me how its going, I tell them lately I've been taking a shufa class, and they all tell me that they took a shufa class as a kid (actually, most every kid in Taiwan does). They usually tell me that their shufa is terrible, but then there a few who tell me their shufa is awesome.

In Starbucks, I bring special "water paper" that allows me to practice shufa using water instead of ink. The water goes on "black" and disappears in about ten seconds. It's better than bringing ink and paper into Starbucks, and I don't have to clean the brush afterwards.

One of the employees walks up to me and stares at my supplies. She says that she took shufa when she was a kid. I can tell she wants to give it a go. "Can you show me?" I ask her. "Sure," she says, and her eyes light up. She sits down and writes her name. She is really good.

Unfortunately, her boss walks in and sees her writing, and fires her on the spot. Just kidding. It's time for her to get back to work, and she thanks me for giving her the opportunity to do shufa again.

And I need to go now, too. It's Sunday afternoon, and I still have some time to practice my brushstrokes.