Saying goodbye to my co-workers at the outdoor shop

It seems, sitting in my house, that the last year may not have happened. It probably didn't happen at all, because nothing else has changed. My grandparents eat hamburgers on Tuesdays, my family goes to church on Sundays, and my sister watches Friends DVDs at night.

Have I lived inside a Chinese University for 9 months? Gone from crying on the floor to clubbing in Hong Kong? Is it really possible that I've taken 31 airline flights in twelve months or gone by train across more than half of China? Have I made my best friends with Chinese workers and been to Beijing for the national baseball tournament? Been ill for weeks with diarrhea? Rented an apartment with an art student and worked at an outdoor shop? Has all that and more really happened?

Yes. But it doesn't feel like that.

On August 8th I returned to the U.S. I had spent the previous three days saying goodbye to my friends, in some sort of strange fog. Slowly shrinking my acquaintances, when all I had ever tried was to grow them. Chinese goodbyes. Wet eyes, no tears but tight throats. Thank you's and well wishes, but knowledge that this was the end. Unspoken understanding that we would not see each other again, that we would not communicate much once I left. And then we would turn, and walk our on way, and when I would turn around, my friend would be gone.

I am glad to be home, though I'm concerned Americans are going extinct. I go to the store and it's deserted. I go to the mall and it's empty. I walk outside and see strange green grass everywhere. And I can feel that I am an American and this is most comfortable. I don't wear pants to try and blend in, I can watch baseball on TV. But at the same time, I find that Chinese life became so normal. I miss the swarms of people, going out late at night for a meal, bartering with people on stuff.

It seems that life in America has advantages and yet so does life in Hangzhou. And that is extremely difficult to deal with, as I feel split between two cultures. And America is ironically a very defined place. White people are white, Black people are black, and Asian people are asian. We're all cool, just don't mix up what race you are.

In China, "How old are you?" is an extremely common question, sometimes even before your name. Except that I have no exact age. In America I'm 21. In China I am somewhere between 21 and 24, though most people say I'm 23. As a result, I just give my birth year and let the asker decide. For a long time I thought that question was funny, that a country couldn't calculate my age. But gradually I actually became unclear about my age. Am I 21? Or 23? Perhaps somewhere in the middle? I realized that I had assumed the factors that go into counting my age only have one answer. But they don't. And the resulting fuzzy range is reality. Sort of.

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This blog seems to have reached the end of its lifespan. I am, after all, no longer in China nor do I know when I will return. Thank you to all the people and friends that have read this blog, I am thankful to have an audience. Hopefully you enjoyed most of this blog. I'm not sure if I will continue this blog or not. If you have any thoughts, I'd love your input.

A lot can change in a year. For example this bridge in Minneapolis fell down yesterday randomly. That's a big change. Or you can move a cross the world. That's a change too.

Chinese College Baseball Tournament

Yours truly is the "coach" of the Zhejiang University Baseball team. We went to Beijing, and it was bloody. Combined scores of the four games we played 81 - 9. Put that one in your hopper. But it was beautiful weather, baseball players goofing around, bilingual PA announcements. It felt like baseball. And if I had to pick one high to my year in China, it's this trip. Particularly the first inning of the third game--we won it 7 to 5. The second inning never ended because we only got two outs when time expired (they had scored 28 runs...).

Goodbye my friend

I have started saying goodbye to people, some go easier than others. By far my two hardest will be Shuan Shuan and Ge Qian. On my birthday each year I try to guess what might happen in the year to come. I would have never listed two migrant workers from He Nan becoming my best friends in China. But really it's more about getting by in China, more than anything else, and the three of us certainly make each others' lives brighter. I am taking Ge Qian to the train station on Monday, she's going home for the first time in more than two years. I estimate 1 in 3 I'll ever see her again.

I hate US Airlines

American Airline companies are rotten. For your benefit I have recorded a possible real life encounter with a Chinese airline and then with an American.

me: I'm sorry, I made a mistake and booked my ticket wrong

China: I am soooo sorry! In fact, I'm sure it was our mistake! Please, what could I do to help you in the least bit?

me: do you have a flight I can take today?

China: would it be okay if you went first class with a beautiful woman to accompany you? perhaps we could have a famous baseball player come? I am ashamed!

And American Style

me: There was a mix up. Can I changed my ticket?

US: hold on! Can't you see I'm busy?

me: You're chewing gum

US: yeah well stuff it. No, can't help you. NEXT!

Above: the mining town my friend took me too... and insisted on playing catch in.

Hott Stuff

Zong Ke is hot. Just ask the ladies in the club. On Friday I made good on a promise and went out dancing with some friends, who told me I might have to "find my own partner" to dance with. So we're there, and I'm glancing around. One person is staring back. I mean dead drill nail me to the wall staring. She even gives a come hither look. She's not 20. Nor is she 30. Not 40 or even 50 years old.

The woman was at least 65. There is a white haired hand bag carrying grandma bobbing to JZ along with the crowd. And she was hitting on me.

Only in my life.

Chefs

I make a mean dish of garlic-spicy potato strips (suan la tu dou si), but that's about it. Rae is attempting to teach me to cook a couple dishes a week. I generally butcher them, but my fourth try on potato things was pretty good. Good thing Americans won't know the difference.

Re-Entry

In slightly more than two weeks I return to the United States for the fore seeable future. Meaning at least until I graduate from Northwestern. It seems beyond impossible that I've been here almost a year, but I have. I don't expect my re-entry to go particularly smoothly at all, but I'll be fine. That's really the truth: aside from something happening to my family, anything else I'll just push through. Because you know way?

It's a good day if you make it that way.

Striking resemblences.

That's what I've started noticing. And I am not sure why Shuan Shuan's boyfriend is Luke Liang or how a four year old girl I teach looks as much like a little Alice Zhao as I can imagine, but they do. What I find more interesting is my friends here have started reminding me of non-Chinese acquiantences back home. But at the same time I can never quite place them. Does Ge Qian remind me of Marina, or just some other face that I can't quite dredge up? Tough to say.

Neither cute nor cuddly!

"I'm not cute!" I finally lost it on my roommate as she told me that "I'm so cute" for the 10,000 time. "Where!" I sputtered, "Do I look like a 6 year old girl! And why is it," I continued on, "that every girl I meet tells me I'm cute! Ahhh!" My outbreak (imagine my vioce raised slightly) subsided, Rae proceded to tell me that, "Cute is a good thing," sending me off again.

Turns out we simply suffered from miscommunication. In Chinese calling a boy cute means something like he's not a mean bastard, or that he doesn't treat girls poorly. Basically that he's a Mr. Nice Guy. And so while Rae kept telling me that I'm a "nice guy," all I heard was that, "You're like a 6 year old girl."

Rae then told me I am nothing like a girl. "Good," I said, "why?"

"You don't wash your clothes enough."

Case solved.

Above: I told you airline stewardess can't resist me! :)

Zong Ke Learns to Teach

Zong Ke (me, for the record) is now an English teacher. Bring your nearest 4 to 12 year old to my school and I will teach him or go hoarse trying. I'm not sure that I am really meant to teach little kids, but I really enjoy teaching the 12 year olds. I teach things like, "hot day, hot weather, hot girl!" or "what's up?" Very practical knowledge! If I ever open my own school, it will be called, "The School for Precocious and Sensitive Young Ladies that Want to Learn English Good." Of all my problem kids, not one is a girl. One little boy in particular I wouldn't mind turning him into a slurpee, but that's probably illegal.

Bad bad Baseball

Having completed intensive and extensive daily training for two weeks (no, I'm not kidding) the Zhe Da baseball team is off to Beijing. I will join them for a few days next week, but my four year olds are crimping my style. Despite all the hard work, we are still really bad so I am hoping some sort of mercy rule exists because to be honest, we only have 3 pitchers. And so the pitcher of the day automatically gets a complete game. Besides, we'd have to make a call to the bullpen cell phone because there's sure to be no real phones!

MB Phone Foreigners!

I would, if I could. Except that my cellphone has 70 numbers and only 1 is a foreigner who lives in Hangzhou. And he's a 50 year old man. At first I got pretty lonely when I realized that all the Americans were gone, even though I wasn't close to them I guess their presence was a normalizing factor on me. But I suppose I'm fine now. Give me two weeks and I'll adapt to most things in China anymore. And my friends like to point out, usually while singing karaoke, "you've got us! and we won't leave."

MB Sing Songs!

I do. I even have a repoitoire that I can rock it out too. My specialities: It's my life by Bon Jovi and Everybody by (none else) the Backstreet Boys. In my defense, English song selection is limited and I can only sing about 2 Chinese songs. I ought to be more diligent! Everyone go download (band) S.H.E. (song name) Superstar

4th of July. Left to right: Wu Jian Guang, a student a Zhejiang University of Technology (ZUT) that I met during my first semester in China. Gao Rui Xia, a senior in college in Beijing whom I met in January. She wants to be a psychologist. Chen Shuan Shuan, one of my migrant worker friends, she is from Henan and has mad badminton skills. Huang Lei, my current roommate and a student at China Art Institute. Majors in sculpture. And on the right, Wang Guo Jiang, my first roommate. He probably got the worst end of the deal, as he had to live with me when I hated everything in the universe.

We're celebrating the 4th of July on the 5th because 1) I had the day off and 2)I used the time difference as an excuse. They all piled into my apartment and I whipped up some burgers with steak sauce, chips, fruit and of course pot stickers (饺子). It was a really nice celebration. We even sang America happy birthday.

People often e-mail me and ask, "Michael, when it's 102 every day, what underwear do you like?" I reply that while I have done exclusive testing under multiple conditions, the results seem inconclusive. I present the following scientifically gathered data:

Boxers: while cool and hip, in extreme heat less than ideal. vanderwalls bonding in the boxers will cause them to shear, slowly ascending the corpus rearus and creating a wedgie maximus. Best worn under reasonable conditions.

Stretchy underwear (with cool insignia): while insignia attempts to make them cool and hip, intense cross polyhesional bonding creates an impermeable layer of material, or greenhouse fabric, around critical areas. Also best worn under reasonable conditions.

Conclusion: while no underwear is suitable for Hangzhou in the summer, it still must be worn. Effects can be minimized by replacing jeans with light pants. Shorts aren't the solution.

Despite how much suffering goes into underwear in general, at least underwear shopping can be a real morale booster. Observe:

*Excuse me, what size is this?

*Medium, but that's way too small for you

*Oh? What should I wear?

*I'm thinking at least extra-extra-large, let me look in the back

I apologize for any and all inappropriate imagery that was generated by this entry!

The Travel Gods decided that I was not sufficiently accommodating to my family on their China vacation. And so they arranged for my friend to invite to visit his home in the countryside this weekend. My karma has been balanced.

Perhaps it was the personality disconnect between my friend and me. Dressing in US military fatigues didn't help when he showed me his voyageur home made video of his girlfriend's cleavage. He's likes to pretend he's a gangster, except he has a snoopy backpack.

Or maybe the fact that he mostly brought me along to practice his English on irritated me. His parents speak dialect and Mandarin, he speaks dialect, Mandarin and sort of English, and I speak Mandarin and English. So why the hell did we have to converse in either dialect or English?

More than likely it was the environment. His own house was interesting. Three stories, bigger than my house in the states, and modern. Except floors two and three are devoid of anything. Far more stressful was the mining town his relatives work in. We visited. Might as well have had aliens land.

They mine rocks and then crush them. That's their life. When I walked in the house, the early twenties husband was asleep on the bed, an IV in his arm. A cold, my friend explained. His young wife, several months pregnant, alternated between laying on the bed next to her husband and wandering, comatose, around the house. Flies buzzed everywhere, dust layered. The moment I stepped in, I wanted to leave. I think they felt the same.

Instead, my friend insisted on playing baseball catch in the street. Miners stared. I felt like a moron. My friend showed off and threw the ball out of controll over my head. The ball hit the dirt, rolled lazily past a miner's foot, and into a puddle. The miner blinked. I retrieved the ball. Finally we left.

The food pushed me too. I hate surrending control of my diet because it usually ends like this: octupus tentacles and frogs for lunch, expensive fatty beef for dinner. I managed to dissuade thm from cooking the live eel in a bucket behind the house. It was from the nearby crick.

Unbelievably, we stumbled into the only foreign teachers in this remote town on Friday night. My friend was delighted--English he couldn't understand to listen to and foreign girls to ogle--and I was happy. I really know any foreigners in Hangzhou now. I wonder what my life would have been like if I had if I had somehow ended up in a town like that.

But what you must understand, and probably can't, is that the town was fine. A beautiful park. A huge modern high school with an artificial turf soccer field. A KFC and a department store selling Oil of Olay products. This is the contrast that foreigners can never completely wrap around, myself included. A modern city. Ten minutes outside, it's as if fragments of technology had invaded 100 years ago. Old men on electric bicycles bouncing past cattle.

And I understand ever so much more why working 60 hours a week at a tea shop is a good job in a lot of my peasant friends' eyes.


In other news, I lost my super cool umbrella, which was a crushing blow. Not only did it collapese on its own, but I was also rather fond of it. Other news soon.

Long time, no write. Aside from being true, it's also the result of a family vacation to China. But it's certainly not for a lack of material to select from in my dusty innards. I have thoughts on everything from West meets East (and Easternized West) to why Christian dating books are all garbage to why my mind goes blank when I sit down in front of this thing. So perhaps we'll just go Rumble and Grumble (ala ESPN, but perhaps less interesting).

Family Vacation
Some parts of China certainly shocked my family. Like the ones that weren't built for tourism or shopping malls. But I have to say that they did a good job of coming to a country where they can't communicate and dealing. I've never been somewhere that I couldn't speak, so I'm sure it must be frustrating. Highlights of the trip including my sister (the Panda nut) Emily getting her picture taken with a baby panda and eating a lot of pizza. Perhaps the pizza was my highlight.

It's bleepin hot here. I don't look at the actual temperature because I'd just be sad, but I can tell you that if I had an egg I'd cook it on the black top. If the humidity didn't disintegrate the whole thing first. Family did a pretty good job of dealing here too.

One of the better exchanges on the trip:

*Dad: I'm tired

*Me: Here's some paper, go to the bathroom

*Me to Chinese friends: My dad has to be excused. I send him off.

Mother and Sister: hysterical laughter

Reasons why Christian dating books are gaaar-bahge

1. Where is this author from? Last time I checked, me and any girlfriend I've ever had were from far away places. Prompting the question, how can I ask her father for his impression of me since I've been young?
2. What the heck happens before age 24? Waiting until you're graduated from grad school (seminary, of course), have a high paying job, a house, and a 50 year plan to date would be cool. If it wouldn't mean you're a freak. What should I tell my 13 year old son someday when he tells me he likes a girl? "Well hold on there, sonny, you've still got 12 more years before you ought to think about something like that! Now here's some legoes."
3. Why the pressure? You know what every Christian dating book in history has in common? Nothing on breaking up. Because for God's sake, if you're dating you're going to get married! It's not like you could learn about life and yourself and each other in a healthy way if you dated and, dear God, broke up. These books make Dating some sort of (scary) instant long term committment pact.

In summary, these authors seem to exist in some sort of non-real Christian vacuum universe and would like to apply their utopian physics (perhaps chemistry?) to real life. Here's an idea: write a book applicable to a normal person that emphasizes principles like accountability, openess, growth, and how to evaluate your relationship. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am on this segment.

Sexism in Chinese Airlines (and why it's wonderful)

Chinese airlines have one rule: If you're not beautiful, don't apply. And it has marvellous results: every airline stewardess, steward, bag checker and ticket taker are gorgeous. I choose to look past the gross injustice in forcing perfectly talented stewardess to retire, rejecting good applicants because they're too short and grossly cattering to Chinese businessman. If I wasn't so hot (like sweating writing this) perhaps I'd do something (but probably not).

I'm sure I have more in my thinker, I always do, but I'm done for the day. If you have a brilliant comment about anything, post it or e-mail me it.

Upon completing my final paper, rewriting it, giving my oral presentation, going to work, turning in my final paper and realizing that I had finished my year at Middlebury's China school, the moment I had waited for since September, I felt...

nothing.

Perhaps the thought, "oh" popped into my head, but it's doubtful. Later yesterday night I know realized that I am a senior at Northwestern University which temporarily shocked me, before I returned to a state of vacuousness.

I'm not really sure why things are this way, or why the last 9 months immediately collapsed into a blur and folded into a box, but they did. I feel strangely and utterly detached, almost as if the last 12 months starting in July never happened, and when I go home in August this last year won't have counted.

Interesting Musings

• I have now spent more time in China in the last 15 years than most of my Chinese-American friends... for some, more than all their family members' time combined
  
• I recognize 3000-4000 characters, yet newspapers still give me problems
• it's starting to inch towards 100 degree heat

Summer Plans

• Take my family for a two week tour de force around China, with stops including Beijing, Si Chuan Province, and Hangzhou
• Stay here until august, continuing to work at my internship. I am subletting a bedroom from an art student. She's a girl, but she has promised that I won't have to model for David-esque sculptures. Plus, I had no where else to live.
  
• Travel with the Zhe Da baseball team to Beijing to watch them participate in the whole country competition
  

We should be a movie. One of those fabulous sports movies, where the group of misfits comes together and composes the grittiest, most loveable baseball team ever and wins the Big Game. Except we'd lose, because no matter how gritty we are, sometimes there is no substitute for catching the ball. You can ask our shortstop who had a routine pop up careen into his eye (somehow missed his glove entirely). Or you could ask all of us, who collectively amassed one hit in two games this weekend (but multiple beanings!). Or our pitchers, who aquired an ERA that is almost an unreal number. But, just like in little league, we had fun anyway! Especially me because...

I got to pitch! And basically got to pretend for one day that I was a real starting pitcher, uniform and all. I amassed the following stats:

6 IP (complete game--150 minute time limit)
5-8 Ks (not really sure for a number of reasons)
13 Runs Allowed
4-7 of which were earned

Why such uncertainty? Well it's hard to calculate when about 75% of balls put in play result in fielding errors and maybe 1 of 3 strikeouts is dropped and the batter runs to first base. So when the other team gets 5 outs per inning, it's a bit harder game. But it was wonderful and I enjoyed it a lot, especially because I may never get another chance. Foreigners are not allowed to play, technically, and our only games left are in Beijing in July. And if anywhere follows the rules, it'd be Beijing. But perhaps other teams will be merciful and let me play, just for fun.

For my final piece, I present, with flair, My Biggest Flame Out with a Girl.

The scene is my university's back gate, night time, street vendors making "small eats." Across the way, there is a fancy restaurant, the sort where a pretty girl wearing a qi-pao (traditional Chinese dress) opens the door for you and smiles, cutely. The setting is Zong Ke (me), feeling blue as he recently went through a breakup. The thought process is this: this stinks... hey? why not get the phone number of a girl who wears a qi-pao for a living?" And action.

Zong Ke saunters past the restaurant on his way to the fruit store, and notices the girl smiling at him. Unfazed, he buys fruit and then walks back past her on his way home. Then the thought process strikes! Why not ask her for her phone number? Zong Ke starts pacing on the sidewalk, pondering how stupid this idea is on a scale of 1 to 1802. He finally decides to not ponder and heads for the restaurant, realizing that the girl has seen him pacing for the last 17 minutes. Slightly fazed, Zong Ke heads onward. Upon reaching the door, Qi-Pao girl is talking to someone and Zong Ke has to open his own door, fazing him slightly more. She turns around, smiles, and asks, "would you like a table?" Zongke completely fazed, "Um, not really a table, no." "What would you like then?" At this point my internal pressure overflows, my face turns red and I can no longer speak Chinese, "um, no, no, nothing at all, I gotta go! bye!" Qi-Pao Girl opens the door, and Zong Ke zooms out.

End scene.

Never again can Zong Ke eat at that restaurant!

As my last post was so sumptuous to even garner fan mail, I would like to continue my count down of superlatives with today's entry, Most Horrendous Work Moment.

I work at basically a small REI (outdoor sporting good store), which is to say that I work at an upscale yuppie shop in China. As a result most of our customers are newly rich Chinese, who think it's exciting to pay 3000 kuai for rain resistant pants when 70 would work at the clothes market down the street. Most customers are 30 to 40 years old.

On this ill fated day, a forty something woman came to our shop looking for, none the less, pants. Our other workers were occupied (amazing in itself), so I found a pair for this relatively big Chinese woman. Not fat, just fat by Chinese standards. She donned the pants, marched out of the changing room to the mirror and took a good look. Then she asked the dreaded question, "Does my butt look big??"

I panicked. Reply too fast and it means I've already looked at her butt. Take too long, it means I'm thinking. Say it doesn't and her husband is 10 feet away. Say it's big and her husband is still ten feet away. All of this blew through my mind before suavely saying,' Uhh, looks okay to me."

She didn't buy the pants.

As I approach then end of my second semester here at Zhe Jiang Unversity of Technology, I thought it might be interesting to count down some superlatives. Today: My Biggest Waste of Money.

We have a pool on campus, which is really quite remarkable. So my roommate and I decided to split the 300 kuai membership fee and go swimming together. My first experience went something like this: I enter the shower room, full of approximately 200 naked Chinese men and find a shower. I then over hear this conversation.

*I am showering next to our Foreign Country Friend!
*Cool... look at how white his skin is!
*I know!
*You should look at his "honorable second!" I've heard foreigners are big big!

At this point I cut my shower with naked Chinese men short, and if you don't know what an honorable second is, then you're own your own. I never had a second experience.

In Summary: 1 shower with naked Chinese men (and 8 laps in the pool), 150 kuai

Daily life is thrilling. Okay, perhaps not, but I have mine down to a science. And perhaps because I live in China, and for no other reason, you'd be interested in what I do daily.

7:50-- cell phone alarm goes off and I turn it off and shuffle to class
8:20 to 12:00--Chinese language class (read: grammar, vocab, repeat daily for 30 weeks)
12:30--mount bicycle and head to work
1:00 to 5:00--I'm a salesman at an outdoor clothes store. Sometimes we have customers.
6:00--dinner in campus cafeteria. I eat noodles, generally alone
7:00 to 12:00--a combination of homework and watching Desperate Housewives with my roommate
12:30am-- sleep and repeat.

For Scintilation I mix in the following activities

• visit friend who works at a tea shop
• play baseball on the weekend
• rubber neck at stuff
• call home
• peruse inexpensive movies
  

Pizza Hut delivers in China too. Via electric bike.