Foreign Devil in China #12
Dated 29 Nov, 2006.
way up north I took my day
all in all was a pretty nice
day and I put the hood
right back where
you could taste heaven
perfectly
Ni hao,
And the cannon again goes bang! And the 5th Symphony starts up through the microphones. The world can be strange and sudden, when you look at it right.
I wish I could give you a coherent picture of my life for the past week or so. But I can’t. I have twists, but no ties.
Friday night, I was debating whether to go out or stay in. It was decided for me when I got a phone call from my boss inviting me out for huoguo he pijiu (hotpot and beer). Fond memories of Chengdu , of Casey and I being two laowai on the loose with loose morals, came flooding back. So I next found myself dismounting the 716 in Xiaozhai, asking all and sundry the direction of huoguo, Sichuan huoguo. I finally found it, and found company in the Company. The hotpot was spiced so thick, I could taste the numbing pepper as it hit my tongue, then taste the hot pepper through the numbing pepper. The room practically frothed with the sweat, spice, and steam of huddled masses yearning to breathe prosperity. It tasted like Chengdu .
One fellow was keen to know all about America . We got to debating the philosophies and peoples of China and America . He said, “I hear all Americans have a dream?”
I replied, “Yes, it’s true, all Americans have a dream. But many of them have forgotten what they are.”
Later that night, after the taxi had dropped me off a block from home, I stopped by the ice cream shop as it was just about closing. I’ve been eating an ice cream cone a day to help with my voice, which due to pollution and shouting is now almost constantly sore. I stepped out and watched my breath qi crystallize around the cone in my gloved hand. Suddenly and strangely, I saw something white dance in the sodium light. I looked up, and it was snowing.
I stood there, licking my ice cream cone and watching my first snowfall, meditating quietly on what I’d said in the din and furnace of the hotpot restaurant. I could taste heaven perfectly.
I’ve been bumming around Xiaozhai a lot, really. Street level is just for cars, footfalls only touch the four-span bridges across the flows of traffic. They’re lighted with neon cash, old-style cash from the Dynasties. I spent my last, crumpled, dirty, Mao-faced hundred yuan bill there, buying the workbook and accoutrements that go with my Chinese language textbook.
Every time I go there, I have to stop at this one little stand. Three friends from Ankong have come from their tiny hometown to Xi’an , and camped out in an old ice cream booth. Their stated and unabashed intention is “money!” their one English word. The second night I was here, I went to Xiaozhai for the first time, and smelled this wonderful smell like home at the Lighted Boat Parade. I followed it to the crowd, and met them. I struck up a conversation and peeked at what they were making.
Xi’an food is heavily Muslim and almost Western…there’s plenty of bread products around, even things that look a little like calzones. What the Ankongese serve is a slice of home, for them and for me, a salty pancake cooked on site and slathered with mayonnaise (which, inexplicably, they call “salad”), ketchup, meat and/or eggs. I ordered one with the works, and ate it out of a paper bag. The night, the cold, the lights, the people…it tasted like home.
The course of true work never does run smooth. After cooking myself some dinner improperly, I was laid up with the dreaded Traveler’s Curse all day Thursday. I could hardly pick up after myself on Friday, having lost my schedule…even going to the wrong classroom. Finally, someone found a new one, and I only woke late the once, yesterday, when my alarm stopped. But I have next week’s lesson plans done now, Wednesday, and I mean to leave lesson plans for the incoming teachers to use, as well as a detailed note on how to survive China . They’re…fresh from school. I owe it to them.
I’ve discovered a little something about leadership. When I do it well, I can hear the 1812 Overture in my head, and I feel like a conductor for a great symphony. This happened to the one class that the vice-principal was sitting in on, my second class of Monday morning after the first class (and my proposed lesson plan) had turned out disastrously. The second class could not have been more perfect. I asked around later, as is the way in Chinese offices, and the word is that the administration finds me honest, earnest, and effective. They respect me.
I just hope I can make lightning strike twice tomorrow. And I have Daily English to worry about, as well. The other teacher keeps asking me, “why are you nervous?” I always say, “If I weren’t nervous, it would mean I wouldn’t care.”
But, I never complain my life is boring…only that, sometimes, I can’t think of things to do.
One thing that has been quite interesting is Scholar’s Street, just behind nanmen (south gate) in Xi’an . Down one end, a refurbished but funky cobblestone street without any cars, full of Venus’ tourist-traps, art supplies, and artists. You can wander past Xi’an University, née the Confucian Academy of Xi’an. I shook my fist at them for daring to not hire me, all those months ago. You can also wander past tiny alleys, glimpses into the steamfogged clay past of old China , and past the Confucian temple-turned-museum. The name of every graduate of the Academy is written there, alongsides the heaviest collection of books I’ve ever seen…stone stele, in Classical Chinese, of every one of the fourteen Confucian classics and some of the other traditions as well. There’s even the stele commemorating the Christian town built near Xi’an in the 600s (they were Nestorian heretics, for those keeping count.).
And, if you’re very, very lucky, you might wander into Mr. Huang when he bumps you with his umbrella. Mr. Huang is the kind of man I thought China was scrupulously clean of: formerly an accountant, this affable, middle-aged gentleman gave up pursuing numbers in favor of perfecting the art of calligraphy. He rented a studio off Scholar Street , a real garret, and with some likeminded students and a master who survived the Down-Going into the Country, they formed an organization for teaching and learning. They sell their works as low as they can, cost if they can manage, and give any proceeds to the beggars of Xi’an .
I talked with him for hours. In exchange for teaching me discernment in calligraphy, I introduced him to the Western opera I carried in my coat pocket. If you want any calligraphy or paintings, or want to give some, let me know so he can get them to you. If you want to get in contact yourself, call 001-86-13892838034 and ask for Mr. Huang. Tell him Mr. Jiang sent you.
Down the other side of Scholar Street is a pailao, an old-fashioned street gate, that looks like an outgrowth of the monstrous and classical Xi’an Hotel off to one side, looking like Chinese gingerbread. You follow it a ways and you find the bars and teahouses and coffee shops, this is the hipside, it seems to cry out. And they’re all bunched up there against a triangle-shaped block of wall, hiding some miniature Forbidden City within. Down the other fork lay the family restaurants with the family living room inside the business, the laundries and barbers. Still backed up against the wall, now the Revolution’s long-gone.
I haven’t seen the north gate of old Chang’an yet. But I will.
I wonder what that experience will taste like.
Zai jian,
Roscoe Mathieu
HAT STATUS : Sitting on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, vol. IV.
All material © 2006 R. Jean Mathieu.
way up north I took my day
all in all was a pretty nice
day and I put the hood
right back where
you could taste heaven
perfectly
Ni hao,
And the cannon again goes bang! And the 5th Symphony starts up through the microphones. The world can be strange and sudden, when you look at it right.
I wish I could give you a coherent picture of my life for the past week or so. But I can’t. I have twists, but no ties.
Friday night, I was debating whether to go out or stay in. It was decided for me when I got a phone call from my boss inviting me out for huoguo he pijiu (hotpot and beer). Fond memories of Chengdu , of Casey and I being two laowai on the loose with loose morals, came flooding back. So I next found myself dismounting the 716 in Xiaozhai, asking all and sundry the direction of huoguo, Sichuan huoguo. I finally found it, and found company in the Company. The hotpot was spiced so thick, I could taste the numbing pepper as it hit my tongue, then taste the hot pepper through the numbing pepper. The room practically frothed with the sweat, spice, and steam of huddled masses yearning to breathe prosperity. It tasted like Chengdu .
One fellow was keen to know all about America . We got to debating the philosophies and peoples of China and America . He said, “I hear all Americans have a dream?”
I replied, “Yes, it’s true, all Americans have a dream. But many of them have forgotten what they are.”
Later that night, after the taxi had dropped me off a block from home, I stopped by the ice cream shop as it was just about closing. I’ve been eating an ice cream cone a day to help with my voice, which due to pollution and shouting is now almost constantly sore. I stepped out and watched my breath qi crystallize around the cone in my gloved hand. Suddenly and strangely, I saw something white dance in the sodium light. I looked up, and it was snowing.
I stood there, licking my ice cream cone and watching my first snowfall, meditating quietly on what I’d said in the din and furnace of the hotpot restaurant. I could taste heaven perfectly.
I’ve been bumming around Xiaozhai a lot, really. Street level is just for cars, footfalls only touch the four-span bridges across the flows of traffic. They’re lighted with neon cash, old-style cash from the Dynasties. I spent my last, crumpled, dirty, Mao-faced hundred yuan bill there, buying the workbook and accoutrements that go with my Chinese language textbook.
Every time I go there, I have to stop at this one little stand. Three friends from Ankong have come from their tiny hometown to Xi’an , and camped out in an old ice cream booth. Their stated and unabashed intention is “money!” their one English word. The second night I was here, I went to Xiaozhai for the first time, and smelled this wonderful smell like home at the Lighted Boat Parade. I followed it to the crowd, and met them. I struck up a conversation and peeked at what they were making.
Xi’an food is heavily Muslim and almost Western…there’s plenty of bread products around, even things that look a little like calzones. What the Ankongese serve is a slice of home, for them and for me, a salty pancake cooked on site and slathered with mayonnaise (which, inexplicably, they call “salad”), ketchup, meat and/or eggs. I ordered one with the works, and ate it out of a paper bag. The night, the cold, the lights, the people…it tasted like home.
The course of true work never does run smooth. After cooking myself some dinner improperly, I was laid up with the dreaded Traveler’s Curse all day Thursday. I could hardly pick up after myself on Friday, having lost my schedule…even going to the wrong classroom. Finally, someone found a new one, and I only woke late the once, yesterday, when my alarm stopped. But I have next week’s lesson plans done now, Wednesday, and I mean to leave lesson plans for the incoming teachers to use, as well as a detailed note on how to survive China . They’re…fresh from school. I owe it to them.
I’ve discovered a little something about leadership. When I do it well, I can hear the 1812 Overture in my head, and I feel like a conductor for a great symphony. This happened to the one class that the vice-principal was sitting in on, my second class of Monday morning after the first class (and my proposed lesson plan) had turned out disastrously. The second class could not have been more perfect. I asked around later, as is the way in Chinese offices, and the word is that the administration finds me honest, earnest, and effective. They respect me.
I just hope I can make lightning strike twice tomorrow. And I have Daily English to worry about, as well. The other teacher keeps asking me, “why are you nervous?” I always say, “If I weren’t nervous, it would mean I wouldn’t care.”
But, I never complain my life is boring…only that, sometimes, I can’t think of things to do.
One thing that has been quite interesting is Scholar’s Street, just behind nanmen (south gate) in Xi’an . Down one end, a refurbished but funky cobblestone street without any cars, full of Venus’ tourist-traps, art supplies, and artists. You can wander past Xi’an University, née the Confucian Academy of Xi’an. I shook my fist at them for daring to not hire me, all those months ago. You can also wander past tiny alleys, glimpses into the steamfogged clay past of old China , and past the Confucian temple-turned-museum. The name of every graduate of the Academy is written there, alongsides the heaviest collection of books I’ve ever seen…stone stele, in Classical Chinese, of every one of the fourteen Confucian classics and some of the other traditions as well. There’s even the stele commemorating the Christian town built near Xi’an in the 600s (they were Nestorian heretics, for those keeping count.).
And, if you’re very, very lucky, you might wander into Mr. Huang when he bumps you with his umbrella. Mr. Huang is the kind of man I thought China was scrupulously clean of: formerly an accountant, this affable, middle-aged gentleman gave up pursuing numbers in favor of perfecting the art of calligraphy. He rented a studio off Scholar Street , a real garret, and with some likeminded students and a master who survived the Down-Going into the Country, they formed an organization for teaching and learning. They sell their works as low as they can, cost if they can manage, and give any proceeds to the beggars of Xi’an .
I talked with him for hours. In exchange for teaching me discernment in calligraphy, I introduced him to the Western opera I carried in my coat pocket. If you want any calligraphy or paintings, or want to give some, let me know so he can get them to you. If you want to get in contact yourself, call 001-86-13892838034 and ask for Mr. Huang. Tell him Mr. Jiang sent you.
Down the other side of Scholar Street is a pailao, an old-fashioned street gate, that looks like an outgrowth of the monstrous and classical Xi’an Hotel off to one side, looking like Chinese gingerbread. You follow it a ways and you find the bars and teahouses and coffee shops, this is the hipside, it seems to cry out. And they’re all bunched up there against a triangle-shaped block of wall, hiding some miniature Forbidden City within. Down the other fork lay the family restaurants with the family living room inside the business, the laundries and barbers. Still backed up against the wall, now the Revolution’s long-gone.
I haven’t seen the north gate of old Chang’an yet. But I will.
I wonder what that experience will taste like.
Zai jian,
Roscoe Mathieu
HAT STATUS : Sitting on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, vol. IV.
All material © 2006 R. Jean Mathieu.