Counting Down Time

I know it's been a while since I rapped at'cha....

Amazing how free I feel without the computer. Not writing as much and not watching as many movies. Sorry I don't have any pics for y'all, 'cause there are a lot of things I'm going to miss now that I know I'm leaving.

I now live in a room on the 8th floor of a concrete box that has probably never had a white person in its bowels. There is no air conditioning and it's very close to the Dongzhimen subway stop, which is under full blown construction. At night, they use flood lights to keep working. The best thing about my new living situation (besides my roomate Fiona's poodle that is soft and crazy) is that there is a lot of street food for the workers. Eggs and chicken fetuses on skewers abound. I'm more inclined towards the yogurt in jars, but hey.

I've been having a great time in Beijing recently, now that I'm out of the living nightmare of the past few months. I'm far enough away that I can laugh at the ridiculousness now. Whew.....I stumbled onto the Beijing Ultimate scene and disc folk are good folk. Crazy loud drunks with great verticles. Yessss. Sorry I don't have the address, but on Kevin's page (above) you can also visit Tao's blog (just look for the link.) He's a great writer and has some well informed opinions on China. Frisbee is literally translated at flying plate. Cool.

My income consists of the cash I get for doing voiceovers; reading the same 200 conversations over and over for recordings to accompany English learning text books. I find myself either a.) correcting the chinglish grammar, or b.)using it in my every day conversation. "No, I go bed now."

Going to Sichuan with Hua-Dan on Saturday to volunteer with quake relief. Check out their website and please donate if you're so inclined. Be advised it's done in Hong Kong dollars. We do need money. :)

It's amazing the way China (and the world) has rallied to help people in Sichuan. Sadness and hope strong side by side.

It's been so thickly nasty polluted these days that I have an amphibian the size of Texas squatting in my throat. Heard about the storms in Iowa and hope every one there is alright.

Some recent T-shirts:

That's is a angel.
The whole of life on earth is one.
My heart is full of Joy Discovery, Franny.

Love!

Computer Down!

Yes, it is. Hopefully I'll be able to retrieve some of the hard drive (photos and writings, music and projects) and be able to get online again soon.

Until then, infrequent posts. I am now living by dongzhimen with a 21 year old girl from Sichuan and her puppy. Tomorrow is my last day teaching and after that I don't have too much of a plan other than experiencing Beijing and coming stateside in June, hooray!

Today my new roommate and I went shopping and while eating some street noodles in someone's house, the proprieter came in and said, hey, the officials are here, could you all just be really quiet and stay here for like 5 minutes? I'll come back and get you out the back in a little bit. OK!

The Earth is Quaking

The death toll is rising. Every day higher estimates come in. Cities I've never even heard of with hundreds of thousands of people have been destroyed, with no way for help to get in.

How can I write about anything else, how can I stop to think of families who lost their only child, who have worked their entire lives for this one being of their love, crushed? Mercy.

I felt the earthquake here in Beijing. Eating lunch, I thought I was dizzy, about to pass out and then realized no one else was talking either, and the buildings next to ours was swaying. So far away from the epicenter and I was still scared.

I once sent a friend an email, asking why I hadn't gotten an update in a while and the reply said something like, Well, I do the best I can and then I forget how to live. Sometimes, I feel this way too.

A prayer for those suffering.

I suppose it's time to split it all open. I am almost done with this "job" and "apartment," though really the combination of these two things is exactly how I'd imagine being under house arrest must feel like. Not really allowed to go anywhere or have anyone visit, but also without any thing to do, and no one to talk to. I could say more, but I won't.

The best thing to come out of my living / working here is the relationship I've developed with my Aiyi, the woman who cooks and cleans every day. Yesterday I went home with her, to her little place an hour and half by bus outside the city. Her rent is 100 yuan per month; this place is 17,000. ( $US 14 and 2,472 respectively.) I'm not saying that money is the only factor in shaping character, but Aiyi is certainly more kind, patient, and good hearted than some of the folk living here. Again, being outside the city, with common people spitting on the ground, cooking in a room much like the tree house I spent most of my time in as a child, my heart again felt full. I had a fantasy of living in that place, making compost and gardens, not speaking English or using a computer at all. With Aiyi's next door neighbor and best friend we bought vegetables, made jiaozi, (dumplings,) and talked our hearts out. (Literal translation.) After living for months in this cold apartment, I suddenly realized why I've been depressed.

Going to use the toilet (public, squat, no doors) this morning, we heard that one of the neighbor's younger sister's husbands had died from a cerebral hemorrhage. "Who knows?" said my Aiyi as we walked back to her shack next to a canal full of green water littered with garbage. Who knows? Who knows when this life will end?

I am coming back to the states sometime in June, with intentions of returning to China in the fall.

Forbidden Wall

This past weekend was a holiday, Labor day. A lot of people left the city, similar to the spring festival, which made my trips to the forbidden city and the great wall much more enjoyable. (There have been horror stories on long lines.) It also POURED rain, the heaviest I've seen here in this arid city, which I'm sure kept some people away.



Quick notes: The forbidden city is located in the very center of Beijing and was first constructed in 1407, though it's gone through a *few renovations since then. It's really a city within the city as the palace included the living quarters for the emperor, his concubines and children, and the eunuchs who ran the place. Many of the treasures that were once stored here got carted off by Chiang Kai-shek when he fled to Taiwan in 1949, but there are some small museum halls opening now with neat past palace pieces. Currently undergoing a 16 year restoration project, the Forbidden city is only partially open to the public. The last time I visited, there was a Starbucks by the north gate. It closed in 2007.



Rain is acid rain, and you can imagine what it must be doing to all the marble here. The above water spout really looks to be crying, though I'm not sure what's going on chemically to produce the black streaks. Anyone?



This marble slab is very famous, it depicts the heavens with nine dragons (?). I thought it was really cool, because to bring the HUGE slab to the city, they waiting until winter, covered a road with water and slid the stone along the newly created ice road all the way from the quarry. Cool.

Getting out of Beijing the following day to visit the great wall at Simatai was really excellent. The green and the mountains was so refreshing, though I'm surprised at how quickly I've gotten used to the pollution. I really hardly even notice it anymore. Hiking again was also great, as I haven't been getting a whole lot of exercise here in the city. I did buy a bike earlier this week, which was improved my outlook on life about ten-fold and makes getting around a lot more fun. Some people say they don't dare to bike in Beijing traffic, but to me, it's really wonderful. My eyes, clothes, and hair feel a bit nasty afterwards, but it just feels so good to be on a bike again! And yes, my bike has a basket and a back rack and was much cheaper than anything I'd find in the states.

Though I'm still up in the air about what my future holds (in particular the next few months,) I have to admit that the ability to live comfortably in Beijing is a perk.