Anenome or My Enemy?

Going with flow. It's what we Californians do. I find myself passively arriving at parties I didn't plan, eating restaurants I didn't choose, and chatting to people I didn't seek out. This has usually worked out well for me, because then I get to try new things and meet people I might not have met otherwise. This also makes me a sea anenome waving with the current.

On the other hand, there is something to be said about agency and that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you know you made a certain decision and life was better because of it. For lack of taking a more active approach to my life here, I've also experienced being ensnared at less than exciting parties, spending more than I wanted on food, and talking to assholes.

Not planning enough and planning too much can both backfire however. To throw in a baseball analogy for Wilson, you overanticipate and expect a fast ball when in fact life throws you a curve ball (to be honest, I'm not sure I can tell the difference. Pro-baseball pitches all look pretty damn fast to me.) Not planning enough: you show up to the game and realize the reason everyonen's laughing is because you're not wearing pants.

Perhaps a marginally better analogy might be sanda. I just started taking a sanda class in Beijing. My new teacher, Zhang Laoshi, teaches a loose stance and encourages throwing more of your balance into a punch, always believing that a good offense is the best defense. He plays a looser game. I'm trying to adapt. Back in California, Wong Laoshi always taught us to keep everything tight and play a balanced game. Let your opponent try to come in and use up his energy. Don't leave your punches out there for any longer than lightening, just in case you can't get them back. Keep your balance over both legs as much as you can. Above all, stay in control.

Both teachers advocate speed and technique over brute force. Wong Laoshi is twice Zhang Laoshi's age, however, and I'm tempted to take Wong Laoshi's advice: Know when to be on the offense and know when to be on the defense. You cannot afford to only be good at one and not the other.

While life is not a fight, sanda can teach us lessons about leveraging adaptation and agency. Sometimes, we need to be sympathetic. Other times, we have to be self-righteous. Maybe it's not really about always choosing the ultimate attitude towards life, but pursuing the appropriate attitude for the moment.

Oil field in Xinjiang 

106 Year Old Soul Searching

A fog of uneasiness decended upon me this afternoon as I realized that I haven't accomplished any of my goals in the last month. While I have a vague notion of what I want to do here, all I have going for me right now is a role in a dinner theater role as a stereotypical 106 year old chinese great grandmother. This is disturbing because the role requires a Chinese accent and acting skills. I possess neither. The character development process has left me making funny faces at my reflection in the subway and muttering "velly velly goo-de". Also, I've been doing a little soul searching for grandma. What is a 106 old woman who's seen the fall of the Qin Dynasty, the May Fourth movement, the rise of Republican era, the ups and downs of the Mao era, and the super-development phase of the last 25 years like? Not that she needs be so believable as mere slapstick comedy relief, but I can't help it.

I realized I wasn't sure about my motivation as me, the 24 year old. I know where I've been and I have a sense of where I'm going but somehow it has become so selfishly about me, myself, and I. I found myself wading dangerously close to the deep end last night, as I unconsciously revealed some paternalistic attitudes toward the public health system in China. How did I suddenly decide what was right and what was wrong? In a wee morning conversation about my current favorite saying about good intentions, "Wicked" the musical, and corrupting young minds, Kemin reminded me that we live in a world of perceptions and perspectives. Who's right and who's wrong can often depend on where (even when) you are standing. We live in this binary world of 1's and 0's, yes and no, day and night, female and male, black and white, yin and yang, and right and wrong. I always know that theoretically my universe is that of spectrums, periods, orbits, pendulums, full circles, black holes, and that undefinable range of time that we always label twilight, but it takes effort to remain in the shadowy infinite plane of grays. Regretfully, when I get tired, I find myself retreating back into the cave of simple light and shadow. Rather than bemoaning them, I need to face my fears and embrace the complexities in my life.

As for Kerry, people say he doesn't take a position, but perhaps he actually faces the reality of our complex world. Bush's good vs evil world exists only on paper and in his incomprehensible speeches. While people feel better with simple conviction, we do ourselves a diservice by denying that the world is a complicated place with complicated problems that usually require complicated solutions.

Back online

Change of plans, my friends. Documenting my experiences in Gansu got be less than cathartic, considering my silly coding system. Besides, at some level, I hope that someone other than myself can come to understand my ramblings. A quick recap of where I've been since July. Max and I traveled in Xinjiang and to Dunhuang for two weeks. I went to Qinghai with Wei, Jackie, Baoming, and Zhanglei. My advice? Don't rent a Hongqi car in Xining; it's not worth the heartache. I also went on a weekend trip to Hebei with four gay men. Yes, it was a blast.

After a short stint in Alaska with my relatives and California with Wilson, I'm back in Beijing. There are a lot of things I love about China, but any "china person" (defined as expats or people who study China) will tell you that there will always be "china days" (defined as a day or any period of time during which you flip out about the red tape, bureaucracy, and inanity of getting anything done here. Usually entails asking oneself "Why am I in China!?"). This is my "china week". A lesson in patience to be sure.