Thursday, April 8, 2010, 4:38 PM
We just realized that we have, like, a solid 3 [Update: now 2. Further Update: now negative 3 or so] more school days over here, so we walked around town as much as we could.
I bought a donut on a stick. It's everything I wanted and more.
I can now sort of carry on purchasing conversation pretty excellently, sorta. "How much is it? Do you have a new one? Can I have a discount? I want to buy a bunch, so I should get a discount. How many (insert item) are in the package?" What's more, I can understand what they're saying, and respond in real time. That's pretty snazzy, if you ask me.
I dropped off a couple CDs of awesome music to give to Xun Gang, the guitar store dude. He wasn't there, but his friend was, so I was like, "you know Xun Gang, right? Can you give this to him?" And he was like, "yeah sure." I tend to be able to communicate.
I'm getting H+M (Hannah and Malia, not to be confused with the clothing store of the same name) into They Might Be Giants. I'm proud. Violin, I am a Grocery Bag, I am not your Broom. Start them off with them the kids stuff.
Sprite has this awesome new flavor over here: Sprite + Iced Green Tea. It's great.
I wonder how many security cameras there are in China. Everyone makes jokes about London having all those security cameras, but over here there seems to be a camera pointed at every camera pointed at everybody.
Aunt Missy section:
I'm actually going through my pictures and boiling them down to the very best. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe I'll sort of forget some other very good, second-place sort of pictures. What may be uninteresting and normal to me can be wonderful and enlightening to another. Who knows.
Also, Chinese Uncle Jeff. I meant to write more about him, but I sort of forget to, somehow. I met him at this family party dinner thing that I talked about briefly. There were 4 families represented there, and the dads of the group had grown up together in High School, I think. They talked about their first words in english class: "Monkey, Banana." Anyway, he was one of the dads.
For the first 10 or 15 minutes or so, I sort of kept looking back at him, to figure out why he looked so familiar. The way he sort of titled his head down and looked at his drink and then looked up to say something tipped me off. And yeah, he didn't just look like you, (cuz I guess I'm mostly addressing this to Uncle Jeff at this point), he sort of and the same mannerisms and things. He liked his Heineken, and sort of approached it in the same way, if that makes any sense. I guess he was quieter than you, Uncle Jeff, (which isn't meant to imply anything, yeah know), but was lively and smiley and sort of tall and gangly-ish, and had glasses and long hair by Chinese-standards. Not quite mini-ponytail-able hair, but close. And he gave me a big, Uncle Jeff-y hug at the end, which was rather a lot of icing on the cake. I don't know what else to say about him, except I'm awed by what seems to be the fact that I will never get to see him again.
I saw an amazing kung-fu movie clip in a store today, (P.S., End of Aunt Missy section) and I asked the guy what movie it was, but he didn't know and sort of screwed up the dvd player it was saved on in the process of figuring out. I think I recognized one of the actors in it, (the early bad dude, the older master guy, from Fearless), so now I'm on a mission to use my internet/mandarin skills to get myself that movie. Wish me luck. [Update: Found it! It's called Ip Man, and it has Donnie Yen in it, and I found the movie online. I win at interdisciplinary movie bounty hunting.)
Good news! I'm about to make $700,000!
We have been waiting for you to contact us for your registered package(Bank Draft) of $688,000.00. Please send us your complete Name, Addressand Phone Number for confirmation purposes. Customer Care officer: Mr.Anderson Cole. Email Address: fedex.customer.care-ng@msn.com PhoneNumber: +2347052102158
Is there someone I'm supposed to send this to? Spam police?
Saturday, April 10, 2010, 10:34 PM
Just had another good conversation with Jason about governments again, sort of about one-party vs. multi-party, like I wrote about earlier. We have some good conversations. It's cool because I'm a sort of (sort of) worldly American, and he's a sort of worldly Chinese dude. So we meet on the same level, a lot of the time, but in very [Chinese/American] ways, which is interesting. I'm trying to give an example to explain exactly what I mean, but it's a more subtle thing, I think. I dunno, maybe I'm just making stuff up.
Two kids talking political theory. We essentially know nothing, and our conversations represent more who we are as people and as products of our respective societies rather than anything original we can add to the discussion of Politics. But it's satisfying and interesting nonetheless.
I made what may be the best playlist I've ever made for the guitar guy. That was a bad sentence. I cover absolutely all of the bases. Tortoise, Streetlight Manifesto, Cake, Tim Armstrong, Charles Mingus, Zach Hill, Steely Dan, Captain Beefheart, Rancid, Hella, The Cardigans. Battles, Bad Religion, me, Blur, Ghosts and Vodka, Melt-Banana and Ahleuchatistas. And it works, somehow. (If you know half of those bands, you're officially my favorite person ever.) (also that last band is spelled right. Ah Loo Cha Tees Tas). I want him to know everything ever. I found I had to explain psychedelia to him. It's weird how people here just don't have access to culture. I mean, period. They simply have no chance to be exposed to basically everything that has shaped me into the person I am today. If I were identical biologically, but raised in China, I feel like I'd be a totally different person, simply because I couldn't find my own cultural likes and dislikes, and things. Find what inspires me. I guarantee the vast majority of guitarists how would've heard of, been devotees of, Steely Dan, have not heard of them at all. Same goes for any other bit of culture you want to look at under a magnifying glass. Artists wouldn't have heard of Pollock. Authors wouldn't have heard of Vonnegut. The list goes on.
It's easiest to find examples with movies and things. Jason said he liked Denzel Washington, and I was like, "Wasn't American Gangster awesome?" and he'd never heard of it. "Inside Man? Malcolm X?" Nope, nope. The list goes on. Half the shows on TV in America. (Not that, ya know... they're worth watching.) They just get this odd, not very inspiring mix of so-called "American" things. Linkin' Park, 'Prison Break' and Basketball. It doesn't really add up to much. I dunno. I wish everyone had access to everything, so everyone could think whatever they want, etc. etc., but it doesn't work like that, and it won't for quite some time. I want to get these guys' addresses so I send out music I think they need from time to time. "Remember me from 6 years ago? I think you should listen to this album. P.S. Don't let the bastards grind you down." (by then I hope to be able to say that in Mandarin.)
Which isn't to say that I'm not enjoying myself.
Monday, April 12, 2010, 7:21 AM
So I guess this is it. I'd mistakenly assumed that my ramblings would sort of find their own natural structure; would make sense of themselves. They haven't, though, I don't think. So if you've been reading along (and some reports say there are a rather lot of you guys out there,) I thank you, but it's a little too late to warn you that this doesn't have a story arch. I showed up in China, I was a little lost for a bit, and then I got progressively less lost. And now, before I can legitimately say "I have a handle on the workings of Shanghai," I'm getting out of here. Just a story that I really want to be continued.
I do have the one last observation, which may sums things up nicely.
I've said before that we're all basically the same, and I've said before that our (i.e. me and all of the people I met in China) only basic differences are the language we speak and they many fine distinctions between our cultures. We're all human, and we all exhibit humanity in basically the same way. Now my goal is to be able to truly communicate, eventually. Having said that, I don't want to sound all Pocahontas-y. (The white man is a-comin' to save you, savages!). I'm just realizing that it's crazy presumptuous and ignorant to be content with living in America and speaking English all my life. (Not to insult all you guys who do. I'm not sure how to bail myself out of this one... I don't want to insult you guys, but it seems a little unavoidable.) In order to be good and honest with myself, to develop into what I could consider "fully realized," I'll need to spend some solid time outside of suburbia, outside of America. (This is where you collectively say: No sh*t!) And then there's the whole Emersonian "why travel, you should be able to take full advantage of yourself wherever you are," thing, which should basically hold true. But isn't that not the case when you can't access any non-homogenized culture hub? When you'll be exposed to the same things, over and over again? Maybe I'm just pretending to have a legitimate philosophical argument for "get me out of Needham, please," but I've at least got context for whatever follows in the next few years of my life.
Monday, April 12, 2010, 9:27 PM
Kae-por and I agree that Needham is a good place to raise kids. It's an equally good place to shelter them.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 10:35 PM
China officially broke my mind today. We watched TV in the hotel room, and that was odd. We watched the part of True Lies where Arnold makes the alligators eat those guys. Then we watched Future X-Cops, the script of which contains, "this time the hitmen are cyborgs," "Have a good hug now... I am afraid this will be your last hug," "Dad... why am I a robot?" and "Sorry I didn't tell you that you are a robot." I'm not sure if I need to say anything else, except that I'm going to make all of you watch it when I get back. Everyone.
So really, though, we left Shanghai today. The place I'd been pretty comfortable calling home. I woke up early after a long night of packing, and the family and I all rode together in the car to the school. And then we piled into the school van, and that was it. The ride to the airport is just a little longer than you expect to be. It was this long, drawn out buzzing sound. When we stopped at the airport, I realized I'd curled up into the ride, hoping it'd never end. The sounds and constant Shanghai-highway fear and the unending apartment complexes looming and stabbing out had become my comfort zone.
We went into the airport with the ceiling that gave you vertigo, and rushed through security checks, getting busted for little cartons of milk, but not for bottles of liquor. We ran the length of the terminal to catch the plane, and that was it.
We've been telling ourselves we'll surely return to Shanghai someday, to go back to this or that store to check in with our favorite shopkeepers (who we tend to dub in relation to their trade, i.e. "baozi lady" or "dvd lady," or "awesome guitar store dude,") but we all wonder a little, (rather a lot), if we're fooling ourselves.
That I'll see Jason again, that we'll see Ms. Gao again, that we'll come back and pick up from whence we left.
I gave Naiyi a bunch of the pictures I took, which he appreciated a lot.
Now I'm in a hotel that's perhaps far too spacious just me, and far too swanky for anyone, really. Modern art hangs on the wall and the decor is themed and the plants aren't fake but certainly low-maintenance. Toilets: western. It's hard to say anyone belongs anywhere, and it's hard to say anyone will learn anything from anywhere. I really want to play guitar. I'm getting Jason to say a proper-er goodbye to my guitar store friend than what I gave him.
We all agreed that it felt like we were leaving for home, rather than just leaving for somewhere else in China. All there is is the fact that we are no longer in Shanghai.
Xi'an is actually pretty great, and I'm glad that I'm here. But I won't be able to play volleyball with the kids from Shanghai No. 2 anymore. That girl named Encore won't play me in ping-pong, and I won't walk home with the kid who really wants to build robots. We can't take Jason to new places in his home city, and DVD lady won't wave to us from down the street.
It's much quieter here. For some reason no one honks their horns. I got used to this wonderful soundscape pouring into my room at night. I should've recorded it. Now there's all this silence, but for the mini-fridge and air conditioning. There's a touch-screen button I can press in my wall to turn on the reading light on my bed, which shines from the ceiling down to exactly where you'd want to read a book. The beds are soft, which generally isn't the case in China. I feel like I'm in a cocoon. We'll be whisked around in a tour bus for the next few days, and then go to Beijing, and be whisked around some more. I'd been living life before, right? Being a city kid, spending my time how I like, jammed into buses and taxis and restaurants and being loud and silly and self-reliant and learning so much more than I thought was out there. I think I'm going to wind up writing some more on this topic, sort of in the abstract, but it always amazes me how people seek out inauthenticity. How that is comforting. The streets of Shanghai are authentic. There are beggars who have cut off their own hands to make more money off foreigners, who are smiling every day. Immigrants from far off in the country side peddling bicycles filled with fruit, trying to make it in the city. Kids studying until they convince themselves they're idiots, and their peers who skip school and know they're on to something. A government that seems like it's selling something, at all times. It's all very jumbled and grey and authentic, and no one really knows what to make of it or themselves. And that's where we should spend our time. In that grey zone. But now I'm here, propped up between to incredibly comfy, identical chairs, contemplating which of my incredibly comfy, identical beds I should sleep in, and whether or not my wake-up call will be automated or not. Here there is a system, a tangible structure, that is sold to me, and it says that I am on top. Back home, (America, this time), I'm also told that I'm part of system. Of schooling and civic duty and citizenship, and it says that I am on the bottom. None of it's true. I knew that before, but now I know what being in the middle can feel like.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010, 10:38 PM
Today was pretty great, actually. Started off not so great, because I couldn't get to sleep last night, because the impossibly spicy food we ate (just a bit of, the rest of the food was splendid. Up in the more northern part of china, they eat a lot more noodles, because you can grow wheat up here, whereas down in the south [Shanghai is considered southern, but it's all relative] they eat a bunch of rice. So now I'm eating crappy rice but delicious noodles, and before [even though I didn't realize it] I was eating crappy noodles but delicious rice. Nothings better, all in all. Just different.) made me whip out the Alka-Seltzer, and I had some residual Xi'an cuisine hangover or something in the morning, so that wasn't that great. But then we went to our pretty excellent buffet, and I knew how to order coffee. Coco Crispies. Ahh yeah. Which makes me think of the home made egg/Chinese-pancake concoction I'd probably be having back "home," so it's still a pretty thoroughly mixed bag.
And having said that, I probably owe you guys a tangent on my final impressions of Shanghai, now that I'm some sort of cultural ambassador, or something.
Kae-por asked me, on my last day there, what I thought of China's future, now that I've gotten to know the kids so well. It was a really good question, and one that I hadn't given any thought to, before. But the answer is basically that it's really muddled. It's all murky and odd, and saying anything definitively (tends to be, but especially in this case), is ill-advised. But I'm not all that hopeful. There's all these directions I want to go in with this.
First. Jason captured this well, I think, when he said "the students are looking for the answer key, not the answer." In the Chinese school system, there is always an answer key. In a written test, where they ask you to respond to something, or give "your reaction," there is a "correct" view point to take. He said there was this famous poet or author or something, who got an excerpt of his published in a popular text book or something - as part of a test, maybe. And no one could get it right, the answers where so hard. So they called up the guy, and had him take the test about himself. And he got it wrong. "What do you think the author intended to convey by writing this passage?"
It's so easy to point out the flaws of the American school system, as I go about being flung about within it, but now that I see the idiotic pressure-cooker schools that they have over here, I'm beginning to realize the strengths of our American schools as well. No one is asked what they think. No one writes what they believe. Like that Onion headline, "Decency Accidentally Bred Out of Human Race," it seems like a by-product of the school system is the breeding out of creativity.
I saw my very first street musician (who wasn't selling something) on the subway the other day, and I immediately emptied my pocket change on him. I couldn't believe it. I was in a rush, so I couldn't stop and listen, but I totally would've chatted and things. I thanked him and ran off.
And the state of music in China. Don't even get me started. I talked earlier about the financial conundrum any potential musicians find themselves in, as told by Xun Gang, the awesome guitar store dude, so I won't really go into that. But all of the music that people listen to in China sort of scares me. Absolutely every band you can hear on the radio is selling something. It's surprising to find a sugary juice fruit drink that doesn't have a popular band on it. And the American music is just the very top few bands of the past decade. Lady Gaga, Backstreet Boys, Michael Jackson (who is huge over here, but, even so, no one can recognize "Thriller." I think his popularity is limited to "Beat It," but it could just be his dancing, or what he represents that captures the imagination."), Jonas Brothers, etc. It's frighteningly uninspired and corporate, just like back home, but to the nth degree. There is nothing original to take in, even if the population wanted to. Which I want to say is an exaggeration, but I'm really not sure if it is.
Which is to say, while the country seems to be "on the rise," their population seems to be pretty stagnant. There's hope, sure. I meet a bunch of kids who are really talented and have legitimate thoughts in their heads, but have no idea how to go about it, or how to get recognized, and before they can give it any thought, they get told to do their homework, while being forced to listen to audible money. The system can't grow with their kids in this situation. Everyone talks about "the workforce," and how awesome China's future is, in terms of sheer numbers. But what if no one can problem solve? Or think creatively? Then what? I feel like I read somewhere that the American worker is the most productive individual worker in the world, which I originally discarded as bollocks. But I may be beginning to see why. We're pretty well trained to figure things out, and be flexible and creative and things. The way China is structured right now, they're going to get a gigantic workforce of second and third-tier workers. I'm afraid all of this smatters of racism, and I really don't mean it like that at all, and it pains me to say all of this, but it certainly seems true and the people I've talked to seem to agree, and it's all very sad and stupid and one big waste.
Xi'an is awesome; it really is. But I'm really not in the mindset to talk about how cool this stuff is. I'm enjoying it all, but I wind up juxtaposing it against what I learned in Shanghai, and all that makes for these sorts of thoughts. So I'm sorry, I guess, but you'll get some good, juicy Xi'an updates soon. This is where I cop out to Briggs' blog, because there are good pictures and things of the awesome artifacts and things I should bring myself to write about soon. And things.
(Also it was hard to work out the internet for the past few days, so sorry all you guys who have been trying to get in touch. Internet is back now, but my time tends to be short. I'll be doin' my best. Don't you worry, kids.)
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