August 2003 Journal
August 20th, 2003
The 20th has often been a pivotal day in my life. This time the dice tumbled and I landed in Lanzhou, China. How of course the question is how to keep my journal both interesting and informative. Sometimes I get bogged down in little details¡¦ that¡¯s no fun. Other times I forget to mention things that are fairly important to understanding what¡¯s going on. If I give too much detail, I¡¯ll burn out on writing and you¡¯ll Zone out. Too little and you don¡¯t get the feeling of being here.
It was sad to leave Korea. Really sad. I woke up early, taking care of this and that- mostly cleaning. I did a last run to the post office and I ate a last meet with Sook-ja the Flower Shop Lady and her husband. It was delicious. My last real Korean meal for how long? Jin-hoeng picked me up and we drove through the city to the airport. Everything was all festive and exciting because of the Summer Universiade. Wish I could have seen some Taekwondo or Judo matches. I sent Psycho Gwun his ¡°I¡¯m leaving because of you¡± email from the airport and that felt too rushed. I¡¯d written and saved a draft a few days ago, but I didn¡¯t even have time to check it. Just added on a couple references about where he could find some stuff (the dry cleaners) and the fact I¡¯d transferred money for my July and August Internet and phone bill (in his name) to his sister¡¯s bank account.
My bags (checked) were 55 kg, which a 20 kg limit. The manager decided to only charge me fro 20 not 35 kg.s of overweight and that would¡¯ve been 104,000 won. I gave it to him and he wrote a receipt while he was talking on the phone. He made a mistake in the writing, gave me my money back and sent me on my way! Happy Day! Then in Beijing I was a little confused as to where to check in for my Lanzhou flight (everyone appears to just line up at any counter regardless of destination or airline), so I asked some foreigners. Turned out they were teachers in Chengdu. They told me to tell the ticketing agent I¡¯d paid overweight charges in Korea. And it worked! I didn¡¯t have to pay! Wow!
I walked all around the Beijing Terminal¡¯s 1st, 2nd and 3rd floor looking for a shoeshine, but there wasn¡¯t a single one (weird!). I was wearing my huge black knee high high-heeled boots to prevent them from taking up room in my bags and they desperately needed a shine but no such luck. At last I went to my gate. As I passed different gates there were lots of foreigners. But not Lanzhou. Even though the Airbus was almost full the only other two were a Danish engineer and his wife just going to Lanzhou for four days.
Ms. Bu Mina met me at the airport with a driver. I¡¯ve been emailing with her almost everyday and was very surprised to find she is young, probably on the underside of 25. I liked her immediately as she made eye contact as I was wheeling up my baggage- she just grinned right at me over the sign she had with my name on it. It¡¯s great she¡¯s so sweet, cause she is the liaison between the foreign staff and the school. Her English is superb; she is short, shorthaired and smiles a lot. She laughs out-loud, too. And she doesn¡¯t hide her mouth when doing so. We filled the 70 km drive from the airport with pleasant conversation. Then she insisted I eat dinner before coming to my new apartment but I was really starting to shut down from exhaustion by the time we were sitting in a typical little restaurant near the back gate of campus.
My apartment. Last night I didn¡¯t notice the worst thing, only the bedroom has windows. I enter into a living room, there is a bathroom (with a bathtub and nice high pressure water) and a kitchen (with absolutely no appliances) and a bedroom with three single beds, so I guess I can have a slumber party. There is a mystery second bedroom only accessible from my apartment, but it¡¯s locked. I¡¯m the far end of the top (fourth) floor and there is a little balcony connecting all the rooms on my side of the building. Out the windows I see treetops and a few buildings in the middle distance, with the very tall mountain on one side of Lanzhou as the border of my world. It dwarfs the city. In fact the city is at 1,600 above sea level, and the mountain tops out at 2,100. That¡¯s like higher than anything at all in Australia!
8/21/2003
I met Bu Mina in the morning and went to her office. But her boss wasn¡¯t around. So two days in a row I have dressed up very nicely just for Mina¡¯s benefit.
I went to the huge supermarket across from the college gate- Home World. I spent 90 Yuan (also known as kuai also known as Renminbi or RMB) on ten clothes hangars, a spatula, a ceramic mug, a small silver bowl to contain my earrings, dish detergent (it has dishes on the side so I bought this brand), two rolls of toilet paper, a small thing of peanut butter, sinful mint Oreo cookies, 1.5 liters of water, a peach flavored drink, four soft sesame buns, 400 grams of walnuts, a huge mango, and best of all for only 11.8 Yuan (less than a can of Pringles) a twenty pack of medium absorbency OB tampons (not available in Korea). The most expensive thing was the spatula.
When I tried to go in the supermarket the guy pointed at my dripping umbrella and said something and pointed me back out. I stood around in confusion near the door feeling a bit persecuted (wasn¡¯t I supposed to use an umbrella on a rainy day?) when finally he came back over and said ¡°You don¡¯t know the method?¡± which fortunately was Chinese I could understand, so I agreed and he led me outside and around the corner to an umbrella check place. I got tag number 204 and headed in. The supermarket was unbelievably large. I was there with Karjam in 2001 but they must of remodeled. And definitely last time the food was near the door, so if it was three stories, I never knew it. The first floor has appliances and Wall-Mart-esque clothes. I looked at irons and fans. The irons were cheaper than the fans, which seems wrong somehow. The second floor has stuff like pots and pans and dry goods and detergent and soccer balls and blankets. The third floor had food; the funniest thing was the meat. Every time I thought, ¡°I¡¯ve seen the last of it¡± I¡¯d run into more. The fish section was a tiny area of depressing very dead half thawed creatures on crushed ice. But the meat, though. The only kind of meat missing was the meat still on a live animal. There was a section for jerked meat, for other meaty snacks, for fresh cuts, for frozen, for canned meats, for use the butcher¡¯s help to get meats, for sausages, for frozen sausages, for meaty flavored things for in your soup¡¦ it was unbelievable. All that meat and I couldn¡¯t find soy milk (I only saw soy milk powder).
I ate some of my Oreos and after a short time had a post sugar crash- two hours later I woke up and emailed at the email ¡°caf顱 (two computers only one works) on the first floor. Two Yuan an hour, building residents use only, no games or chatting. Then I took a walk out the back gate to see what was there, and then to the railway station, which wasn¡¯t very adventurous of me since I¡¯ve done the same walk before. But I did it with the eyes of ¡°this is my city now¡±. It appears to be peddle walnuts (in the shell) season. About 75% of the street food for offer was walnuts. I bought two whole steamed potatoes and a bag of popcorn and three pears. Now I am washing clothes. My boxes haven¡¯t arrived yet and what I brought with me was heavily weighted towards professional wear. My only casual clothes are the ones I was sweating in right up until the morning of departure. So I am washing those. I put the hose in the washer and let it run until the water level looked right.
This morning I got the second bedroom unlocked- but the told me I might have to move to 208. I went and looked and even though the layout is better (entry room lets onto the kitchen on one side, the bathroom on the other, bedroom straight ahead, sitting room to the left of the bedroom, the two big rooms have windows) I didn¡¯t want to lose my high perch. The second floor gets little light because of the trees. 408, next to me is certainly the best, but it is occupied by a returning Japanese prof. I haven¡¯t met him or her, but I have met a new Russian prof Natalia. She is 18 years older than me (I saw her check in info) and looks younger- I swear anyone could believe she was 30. Trim body, too.
Later in the day I met Rob, an American who has property in Costa Rica. It¡¯s his second year in China, last year he was in Yunnan. He and I talked and also had dinner and a long walkabout.
I moved into 308, which is dark, but at least it¡¯s private, whereas 208 is under most of the trees and visible from the driveway. The lights are very weak, so I need to buy some lamps, but overall it¡¯s nice. At the end of the day I smudged my room with sage and cedar while singing. Some were songs like ¡°People of the Earth Tribe, Rise!¡± and ¡°Shiva¡± and ¡°The Voice of my Grandmother¡± but I also sang ¡°this is my own home now, and into it will come only good feelings, loving hearts and open minds¡± and other made up on the spot stuff and finished with a prayer to the Creator.
8/22/03
In the morning I rushed off to meet Mina after a breakfast of mango and sesame roll. She took Gavin, a new Australian arrival and I to a hospital where we had a complete physical. I¡¯m sure my blood work will be funny, cause I had eaten. I had an EKG or whatever the call it, where they check out your heart. I had suction cups allover my chest. It was weird, especially cause I had no idea what he was going to do, and I was thinking, ¡°he better not electric shock me to see my reflexes or I am going to hit him!¡± My heart made little bumpies, like kind of steep hills, and Gavin¡¯s made huge spires. The doctor says I need to exercise more¡¦ uhhh? Say what? I prefer to think that my heart didn¡¯t see a reason to exert itself when I was lying on my back on a table. Also apparently there is some difference between men and women, but I didn¡¯t see anyone else¡¯s except Gavin, so I don¡¯t know how big it usually is. They gave us ultrasounds¡¦ huh? I thought that was only for pregnant women. Anyway, I am not pregnant and neither is Gavin, fortunately. Chest x-ray, urine test (pH 5.5) etc etc. And of course getting blood drawn. I had to pay 278 for the favor, too. (In the region of forty dollars). The physical is a requirement to get a visa.
After that, back at campus, I found out that my packages had arrived. But at the central Lanzhou post office, got forbid they do the work instead of the customers. So I had to go there to pick them up. In the meantime Mina introduced me to her boss, a dapper mid 40s man, thin and very smooth in speaking and manner. His name is Liu Zhiyu and we¡¯d actually talked on the phone already twice when I was in Korea. He convinced me I could buy a plug adapter (Korean round to Chinese American-style prongs) at Home World. But I couldn¡¯t even though I got like twenty clerks trying to help me. They wrote down the name of a big electronics store, and rough directions. I asked someone at the store entrance which way to go, then a cop, then a newspaper seller. The newspaper seller was so cute. She said ¡°Can you understand me if I speak in Chinese?¡± (I guess I had perhaps mumbled and showed her the paper with the store name written down.) She was worried; she wanted to help but didn¡¯t think I¡¯d understand her directions. I said I can understand a little, and she looked surprised and then her whole face lit up that I¡¯d made it past her first sentence. But when I got there, it wasn¡¯t a big store; it was a trillion different electronics stores with one parking lot. I couldn¡¯t find anything I thought would work. Back at campus Mina called the office I¡¯ll be working out of (Graduate School of Foreign Languages) and office worker/gopher ¡°Isabelle¡± and fourth year student ¡°Tony¡± came over and we took a taxi to the PO together and brought home four of my boxes (one more to go, but I sent it only a day before I left.)
It appears that classes won¡¯t start on the 25th, as several foreign teachers still haven¡¯t arrived, including both of the ones who¡¯ll be at the same campus with me. In the evening Rob, Gavin and other new arrival Dave went to dinner with me. Gavin is young, less than 25 anyway, but Dave is younger at only 20. Neither have a degree but due to China¡¯s current SARS fear zone status and general low pay they appear to be taking anyone with something that approximates a pulse. Theoretically they made sure the grad school is the most experienced three- but then they pay us less (3,000 a month versus 4,500 at the satellite campus in Yuzhong where these guys will be working). Anyway, I am glad it¡¯s their reputation on the line, not mine, because taking on a bunch of ¡°teachers¡± with no experience and not even a lot of time on the learning end of the classroom process¡¦ well, I think they are taking a big risk that someone will bail or commit dastardly acts, not to mention just plain be a shitty teacher. Not that having a four year degree from a Canadian University would mean someone would be more likely to teach well than if they hadn¡¯t graduated from university yet¡¦ but at least it would add maturity and awareness of different teaching styles to the equation. Anyway both Gavin and Dave seem like nice guys, who sincerely want to do their job well. Dave is 6¡¯4¡± (195 cm.) and not fat, but very solidly built with big Polish bones and pale, limp, exceedingly fine and straight blond hair and a full beard and mustache. The facial hair helps him look older (I suggested he tell his students he is 25). Gavin has all these character lines in his expressive face, and these great arching eyebrows¡¦ he has a lot of theater in his background.
After a leisurely dinner everyone came back to my apartment, Rob had a beer, Gavin nothing and Dave had some of my precious organic peppermint tea (thanks mom!).
Saturday- August 23rd
I woke up and went into the middle of the track next to my building (which takes some getting to, there is only one gate, and it¡¯s as far from my building as you can get). I did Taekkyon for only half an hour. Only cause the elevation (I presume) was making me pant and it was after nine and baking hot when I quit. I¡¯ll do more next time. Either get out there earlier or exercise at night.
(Taekkyon is a Korean traditional martial art, which looks a little bit like dancing. It is smooth and flowing, and focuses on knocking down the opponent by pushing and tripping. There are no striking snapping blows. It is more suited to solitary practice than Hapkido, my other martial art, as it has a large number of basic moves, and also sort of ¡°forms¡± where you move from one motion to the next in a memorized pattern. Both Hapkido and Taekkyon are much more interesting to practice with a partner, and without one, not everything is going to get reviewed.)
I ate a pear and a sesame bun and walnuts for breakfast and went back to the electronics market with my CD player charger and tested a strip- it worked fine (the clerk was disgusted with me, as he¡¯d offered to refund my money if I took it home and it didn¡¯t work the previous day- he was sure it¡¯d work). I bought two, for convenience. I thought he said one was 45 (si-wu kwai) but it was 15 (shi-wu kwai), so lucky he was honest and gave me all the change. Then I went to Home World. Now my refrigerator is working, and I have an electric hot plate and I may be able to cook. This time I bought peace juice drink (10% juice), two cans of almond milk and one of coconut (for drinking, not cooking), two sponges, rubber gloves, stick on your concrete wall hooks, glue, a silver bowl to hold my make-up, clothes, hangars, soy sauce, a dark chocolate bar, a can of tuna (I hope) and a jar of strawberry jam. The most expensive? The high quality rubber gloves! Total price? 73- that is over nine dollars.
There is a Chinese looking Korean guy, Jo Chang-geun in room 223 that I talked with briefly. He seems nice. I met Melody, another Yuzhong teacher (she has a degree and a little over a year experience living in Shanghai and teaching). She is skinny and short with an old style haircut and glasses of a style that make you think you¡¯re going to see a face of a woman in her 50s, but she¡¯s about my age. She¡¯s from Michigan. We walked to an area where Rob had seen pro-type camera equipment stores. It was a long walk. We stopped and ate a late lunch. Melody knows some Chinese, but seems very shy with it. We had spicy tofu (with a bit of ground meat thrown in for ¡°value¡± and ¡°flavor¡±, eggplant in tomato sauce, and tomatoes and eggs. That was 16 for the two of us. There were four camera stores; they had only E100VS for sale in each (refrigerated in only two). One store had a single roll of Velvia, and one store had EPP and Elite Chrome. I don¡¯t like any of those films much except Velvia. The E100VS makes skin tones generally look orange/yellow. And it¡¯s just plain too saturated (VS= Vivid Saturated). The store with the largest selection of films was also actively repairing some cameras when I was there. They seemed the most professional, but had less equipment for sale than the other place that had had refrigerated film. The largest place had their E100VS for sale for a much higher price and no refrigeration, but tons of equipment and bored looking pretty women in uniforms to sell the stuff to you. I think I¡¯ll pass. I didn¡¯t have a dictionary with me, and don¡¯t know in Chinese, so I couldn¡¯t ask where to get good slide developing. I also need scanning services. I¡¯ll go back with prepared phrases and my dictionary. Now Karjam is supposed to come in one hour, and I¡¯m soaking my feet (too much walking in the wrong shoes) but I need to make myself look pretty and go to the gate (in case he¡¯s early).
Well, I know you are waiting for the rundown on Karjam so I will write before going to sleep. Sometimes I worry that I am too cold and logical and practical. My mother can be practical-uber-alis. Of course moving to China primarily to avoid Gwun and determine whether or not I have a future with Karjam- that is NOT practical. But today when I met him and we¡¯re together and only a little bit of hanky-panky and then we start talking about serious ¡°future¡± stuff cause he¡¯s supposed to be on his way back to Beijing in a couple days so we¡¯re short on time.
Why did I come to Lanzhou when he¡¯s going back to Beijing? Very good question. The biggest reason is probably because Lanzhou University was hiring, and I didn¡¯t see any great jobs in Beijing. Just sort of that ¡°path that opened to me¡± thing. But there are a lot of other reasons. One is that Lanzhou and this area, especially Gannan, is very interesting to me. There are a lot of photographic opportunities and this part of China has not been Westernized and fast-tracked into the ¡°modern¡± era in the same drastic way. Less McDonald¡¯s and more people who are going to have no choice but to speak with me in Chinese (as they can¡¯t speak English). The other reason is that last time I talked to him on the phone, in mid July he said that he was staying in Gannan until the end of the year because of his mother¡¯s poor health. So, when I suddenly about a week after I¡¯d talked to him changed my plan from Seoul to China I couldn¡¯t get in touch (he was somewhere, but the only way I have of contacting him is email to him and his two best friends, and no one was responding). So I figured if I moved to Lanzhou, the odds were he¡¯d decide against going back to Beijing. I knew he had a place there, but sometimes he lies in order to make me feel more comfortable or whatever and when I visited him in April I went with him to get a refund from his English school. I waited outside with his best friend Tsephel, and he came out and said that he¡¯d gotten his money back. Apparently that was a lie, he paid for a year, and that includes another six months or so of study. Anyway, if I¡¯d seen some great 9,000 a month job in Beijing and they¡¯d wanted me, maybe I¡¯d be going there, even though frankly I don¡¯t think Beijing very interesting. But I wouldn¡¯t be taking such a drastic pay cut. I didn¡¯t see that, I saw Lanzhou University. This is the ONLY application I filed. I knew I¡¯d get the job, of course.
Anyway, back to how I felt about the reunion. I just felt so removed from it all. Perhaps I was afraid of fully engaging when he¡¯d be leaving so soon. That kind of thing makes me worry about myself. I am not at all head-over-heels unable-to-think-straight about this guy. Of course I could point out that the only place that ¡°love¡± like that got me was into a bad marriage with a former environmentalist who is a chain-smoking pot-bellied bar owner. I don¡¯t trust that kind of intensity. I like Karjam. He doesn¡¯t irritate me. I respect him; I am reasonably attracted to him physically (even though he¡¯s about 5 cm. shorter than I am and possessed of a penis that is neither exactly ¡°filling¡± nor always cooperative with the mood of the moment). On the other hand, he understands me in most ways. He tries hard to converse with me. Even though he¡¯s made no headway, he is trying hard to learn English to speak with me. Then again, he¡¯s almost completely a carnivore, he sees our cultural differences as being some huge deal (like he would want me to learn Tibetan before he¡¯d get married to me!) and though we haven¡¯t discussed it recently, I think he still wants to have children. Last of all, he doesn¡¯t want to move out of China.
Anyway, everything was good. We talked. I advised him (again) to stop studying English and concentrate on singing. He suggested he could move to Lanzhou, attend English classes, rent a cheap room with a group of folks (but stay with me a lot of the time) and I¡¯d get his English up to fluency fast (personally I consider him a hopeless case as a language learner and would not enjoy teaching him). He hasn¡¯t been performing since about last November and I think that if he doesn¡¯t start again a lot of people are going to forget who he is, and he¡¯s going to start finding it hard to get singing work. Not to mention practice is important. He can sing in Beijing, but in Lanzhou he would just be hanging out and studying. I¡¯d rather see him go back to his old troupe in Hezuo (five hours away) but he¡¯s pissed at the director and I don¡¯t think he¡¯d consider it. We went out to dinner and now it¡¯s time to sleep.
8/24/03
My lazy body resisted getting out of bed for a good forty minutes after the alarm rang though my diligent mind wouldn¡¯t allow me to completely fall asleep again. Finally at 7:30 I got up and headed out for the soccer field in the middle of the track. That soccer field looks a lot like the Lopez soccer field did when I was in school. Lumps and tufts and bare spots are plentiful. It¡¯s a little strange to practice on such a lumpy surface. The track is oiled dirt. Oil makes it look black and the dirt doesn¡¯t get dusty and fly up on the people running around it.
I did Taekkyon for forty minutes. It¡¯s overcast now and I was out earlier so even though I worked up a good sweat (I¡¯d say it¡¯s 25 degrees) it wasn¡¯t as hard as yesterday. If they aren¡¯t too expensive I want to buy some running shoes and run (maybe working into more distance) just a little as part of my exercise routine. Not only would it increase my total exercise time, but it also works muscles in different ways.
Forgot to mention- yesterday Ms. Song called me, she¡¯s the big boss of the foreign language department here. She said I¡¯d be teaching doctorate students, not master¡¯s students. I didn¡¯t mishear, and she didn¡¯t misspeak because she said, ¡°Some of them are highly respected professionals, even professors, but they want a doctoral degree.¡± She also said we may not start class until the 15th. Now maybe that¡¯s good, but maybe it means I¡¯ll have less vacation in January.
If Karjam was Korean after we walked back from the store he would¡¯ve washed his hands and his feet (the latter are very smelly) before falling asleep on the couch (I had to escape to my bedroom). This morning after calling to announce he was on his way (he didn¡¯t sleep here last night) I waited an hour and a half! That was darn boring; no matter how chummy I¡¯m getting with Liu Wu (that second is pronounced closer to Wee) the receptionist. She¡¯s 22 and super sweet. If I can I¡¯ll get her to model for me- very pretty, with delicate futures and long straight hair and great collar bones (one of her two uniforms really shows those off). After Karjam arrived we talked then went out for deep-fried.
There is a cart with a trillion things on skewers. I chose cubes of tofu, thin slices of potato, triangles of mushroom, strips of green pepper and Karjam threw in an odd bean sprouts in wrapper thing. These are each on separate skewers, not mixed. After 45 seconds or so in the grease they hand them over to the customers so you can coat them with sauces (at least one being an easily recognizable chili sauce and another was maybe really thick oyster sauce (oyster sauce I believe is made from oyster shelf mushrooms not from oysters). One lady had hers put between two halves of a roll. The ones I ate were good, but you guessed it- oily!
At one Karjam, Robert and Sarra (Sar-ra)(a couple just arrived from Toronto), Dave, Gavin, Rob and I went to the banks of the Yellow River. Rob had been there before on a Sunday and described it as a concert. But I would describe it as old people having fun in the park. You see the same thing in Korea. They sit in circular-ish groups and get up and entertain as they please. One old guy sang me an epic. It told the story of a young man from the first time he sees his true love until her death. Some props helped him convey the woo-ing (gave her a bracelet) and there was a part with a crab apple and a lump of sugar and when they got their photo taken and her sewing his clothes and him crying when she was gone. The old guy singing was more shouting in tune than making a beautiful noise. He was missing most of his teeth and there wasn¡¯t an unlined part of his face. He used a big pink fan and a hanky for emphasis through the whole act- his delivery was marvelous and I totally followed along even though I could only understand a few of the words coming through his scratchy shout. Other old people were singing with a squeezebox, playing cards or Chinese chess, playing a Hae-gum-esque single string fiddle and of course many were drinking. Karjam and I left the rest there and we came back to this area, having a bigger lunch around four and shopping before heading home.
I don¡¯t want you to think badly of Karjam, despite his smelly feet, I had a great time with him today. Down there next to the river walking with his arm around my waist (over my shoulders would be impossible) and chatting away. We have more to say to each other than Gwun and I ever did, and Gwun and I at least were fluent in the same language. He really helps me on my Chinese and he taught me a new Tibetan word/phrase. It is ¡°Jo Dae Mu¡± or you can say ¡°Jo Tzang¡±. I can¡¯t tell you what it is cause I¡¯d be too embarrassed to say I didn¡¯t know it yet. After all I know how to say ¡°good-bye¡± (hint). He also helped me at the store. I finally bought soybean powder. Most of it is mixed with milk powder. He helped me find the only good stuff. I already mixed it up, it¡¯s cooling now. (I used tea water). (In China everyone always keeps a huge thermos of water around for tea and instant noodles). It tastes all right.
In the evening again suddenly it was late and past time I should¡¯ve started dinner. I said ¡°let¡¯s go buy hwa-juan and eat it with my first cooking in my new home.¡± Hwa-juan is a kind of bread, a steamed roll that was formed from a long strip of dough pressed into a circle and with dusting of curry powder so it doesn¡¯t become one big lump, but is rather is sort of unwinding ball of dough. It looks a bit like a flower (hwa). But then Karjam saw a noodle seller making Maqu noodles, so he had to have them. I bought fruit and we came back and I ate hwa-juan and a nice pear and he had his noodles.
I exercised for a full 50 minutes, which is a minimal amount. All Taekkyon. No one looks at me for more than a minute or two. Chinese are curious about foreigners, of course, but public exercise in any wide space, be it park, parking lot or athletic field is the norm in China. They just see it, see me, and keep on with their own program. Most of them are running around the track. Some are doing martial arts or working out on the bars planted in one corner. Some just walk around the track with a partner or a group talking the whole time. My ¡°yetnal 18 su¡± looks really good. I think so, anyway. I don¡¯t know why, but it feels the best, the most natural that it¡¯s ever been.
I came back and just about banged my head against the wall in frustration (Karjam was no, help, nomad stock that he is) trying to figure out how to use my ¡°induction heater¡± hot plate type thing. Too high tech for us, and I can¡¯t read the directions on the buttons. The first floor cleaning girl couldn¡¯t figure it out either, but the second knew the way to use it. And I figured out on my own that it keeps infernally beeping only when there isn¡¯t a pan on top of it. I made a not too delicious but fully edible sautéed broccoli and squash with garlic dish. Still can¡¯t find any black pepper of all things! Whole cloves, cumin, turmeric, no problem! But only white pepper, which I don¡¯t like. Today they say they¡¯ll give me a rice cooker. I guess one burner; a rice cooker and a microwave I don¡¯t know how to use will see me through.
After breakfast I met the Dean of the Graduate School of Foreign Languages, Ms. Song. She was very nice and interesting. Short hair like most of the women in powerful jobs, a smiling face, and a lot of energy. She seemed very business-like and to the point, but without being impatient or hurried. I will teach eight two-hour classes of PhD students in their first terms. The classes will be 8-12 Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I will be teaching technical writing- they can¡¯t get their degree without publishing in international journals. They only have English their first term- that means next term I will be teaching the graduate students, different classes. This term I¡¯ll have sixteen hours, but next probably less. Classes won¡¯t start until at least the 15th; all the new entering students will be late because the admissions procedure was delayed by SARS. After we talked about classes I tried to establish a personal connection by asking her how long she¡¯d been teaching English. She gave a really long and interesting answer.
She never went to high school. When she was 16 the Cultural Revolution struck. Her dad was a Poli-Sci professor and her mom also a professor (mom is still working at Northwestern University, also in Lanzhou as a Chinese Language and Literature professor, I¡¯m not sure what mom was doing then). So they were singled out for needing reeducation and were sent to the countryside to learn from the peasants while doing backbreaking manual labor. Eventually Dean Song was assigned to a factory, and later she did the first part of a course in heavy equipment maintenance. Then she was told to go to Beijing to receive education in English. Which up until then she¡¯d never studied. After a couple years she was sent back to educate the people at her factory. But at that time there was a popular slogan ¡°The revolution can succeed without ABC¡± and so she didn¡¯t teach English. Eventually when Deng Xiaoping allowed people to start going to university again she studied hard for admittance, but having no high school education left her very weak in some subjects. Her entrance exam reflected that and eventually after graduation from a Master¡¯s program she was assigned to teach English at Lanzhou University and she¡¯s still there, twenty years later. She feels that her life was wasted as she neither enjoys English nor teaching, but thinks she¡¯s too old to switch careers again now and plans to work at Landa until she retires. Her age would be roughly just over fifty by my calculations.
After meeting her I went to Bu Mina¡¯s office. I had to wait around through her dealing with like a hundred different things before I could talk to her. She¡¯s got everyone coming at her from all sides. It turns out some of the other contracted profs have not showed up and she¡¯s practically still hiring, or hoping for people to show up. I¡¯ll theoretically be working with a guy, Howie, who has a really interesting resume. (Well, I was waiting at her desk!) I¡¯ll tell you more about ex-Persian Interpreter Howie if he shows up. Finally I got to ask her about getting my monitor. She made a date with me for 3 to get that set up. While I was waiting till three I went vegetable shopping and I bought ¡°mu¡± or big white radishes to make a kind of radish kimchi, even though Chang-geun says the chili powder here makes it taste a little strange. I did laundry and neatened up. I got Karjam to rinse the dishes, but he didn¡¯t know how. I came back and they were all stacked up, facing upwards so they¡¯d never drain. I also had to teach him how to use the washing machine and spinner. I only know how to cause my first year in Korea I had a machine like that when I was with Gregory.
Unfortunately Mina had misunderstood about the monitor, even though we¡¯d talked about it several times. She took me to register as a user on campus and I had to pay my Internet charges in advance (not too steep!) if I use normal amount of bytes then it¡¯s like 1.50 a month on the school system. I think I am going to go broke. It can be more if I use it some ways, though¡¦ not sure exactly what they mean by that yet. I¡¯ll find out though, I bet. Anyway, it¡¯ll be over my phone line, so that¡¯ll keep me from using the Internet and doing another fifteen computer things at the same time. And I guess I should stay offline about the time mom might someday call me (no phone call yet!). Anyway, so then, after I paid I asked ¡°So what about my monitor?¡± and to fully understand the situation Mina had to visit and see. So I introduced her to Karjam. After she left (promising a monitor tomorrow) I made radish kimchi, which is super spicy since I couldn¡¯t blend the ginger or crush the garlic more than with the side of the knife. But I think it¡¯ll be edible after it has a little time to settle into its flavor.
Karjam is studying English hard. Everyday he seriously stares at his books, makes notes, reviews vocab¡¦ and apparently retains almost nothing. He has hit me with this- he doesn¡¯t want to be a singer, he wants to teach in Gannan Tibetan Prefecture, preferably in Ahwencang (the village where his oldest brother is, nearby his entire family). On the other hand, he sounded like he was seriously going to try to start singing again at this Tibetan bar/restaurant in Beijing (which I¡¯d like to see him do, personally). I mean, if he is going to be away from me, I¡¯d like him to be singing rather than studying. Obviously no one has helped him study effectively so far, he¡¯s just wasted his money. He can¡¯t write down the letters of the alphabet reliably when you spell a word, even very slowly and I spent about 40 minutes working on getting him to form his lips and tongue correctly to produce the sounds of the alphabet.
We went for dinner at a restaurant almost thirty minutes walk away, but they seem to have the most delicious food of any place I¡¯ve gone so far in Lanzhou. Besides, thirty minutes walk is fun when you have your sweethearts arm around your waist while you lean together under an umbrella. That was my second time to that restaurant.
Then when we were back home I ran up to the 4th floor and found tall Dave, Gavin, Rob and Tom (a new British arrival) having a beer crowded into Dave¡¯s room (three on the bed, one on the only chair). So I invited them down and suggested Rob bring his guitar. Which he did, and then when he was playing Misa (a Japanese exchange student) and Marie (likewise, but French) heard the sound from Misa¡¯s room and came over to join us. I¡¯d met them before briefly They¡¯d introduced me to Chang-geun. So I went and invited Chang-geun, who had his Chinese tutor Jjing in his room. Finally we had ten people and nine countries- Australia (Gavin), England (Tom), Canada (Dave), France (Marie), China (Jjing), Tibet (Karjam), Japan (Misa), Korea (Chang-geun) and America (Rob and I). Rob¡¯s playing was sometimes a bit loud (and a barrier for others who wanted to sing) and he was a bit too drunk to completely pick up on that, and Jjing was conservative and argumentative but I think that everyone had a lot of fun. Karjam and I didn¡¯t drink but everyone else had at least one beer and almost everyone tried my kimchi. In fact, Chang-geun liked it so much he had an entire meal of kimchi, kim (nori seaweed), and hwa-juan. Not everyone could speak English- Misa, Chang-geun and Karjam couldn¡¯t. And not everyone could speak enough Chinese- Tom, Dave and Gavin couldn¡¯t. Chang-geun and I spoke in Korean, and Marie and Rob were chattering in Spanish (Rob has lived in Argentina for several years, Dominican Republic (an entire Peace Corps term) and Costa Rica (which was where he was before he came to China). Marie also tried to speak French with Tom, whose mother is a French teacher, but that didn¡¯t work out well. Karjam didn¡¯t speak too much, but I sat next to him and explained sometimes and he really enjoyed himself. He liked seeing so many different people and the international atmosphere and he kept declaring he was very happy, even at one a.m. when I was more than ready for everyone to leave (which they shortly did). Chang-geun is going to Korea and promises to bring me back black pepper.
August 26th
Karjam had a long talk with me yesterday about his family. He has seven siblings and is worried about three of them. One has no children, even though she¡¯s been married for nine years. She and her husband have had check-ups and theoretically nothing is wrong with either of them. Sister wants to adopt, husband doesn¡¯t want to. But she and her husband are quite prosperous with a large herd. Then two of his sisters have very few sheep and yaks. One has only two yaks and the other only three. One of the two has an alcoholic husband. His second brother is the most prosperous, since his first brother sort of bowed out of the whole yak and sheep thing, the second brother is with grandmother and the parents and they have lots of sheep and yaks and he has lots of children. (Four last time I was there and Karjam says none have come since). Karjam also says that second brother loves his kids too much and won¡¯t give one to childless sister. Mother¡¯s health is bad, she¡¯s 11 years older than father. She had Karjam when she was either 41 or 42 and he has a younger sister. Can you imagine? These are births attended by women with birthing experience (no medical care), and she works hard physical labor all the days of her life. Grandmother (father¡¯s mother) is in fairly good health, though cataract blind and riddled by arthritis. Incidentally youngest sister (no kids yet, married in spring 2002) is doing very well. I suggested that because she was so pretty she snagged a good husband and Karjam agreed. But I meant good in terms on having a lot of animals, cause last time I was there when I met her husband he was just sitting around smoking leafy marijuana.
In the afternoon they finally delivered me a monitor, which I met with joy, sitting down and typing continuously for over an hour. Even though I paid my sign up fees the Internet still isn¡¯t working, but it¡¯s nice to be able to type in the journals I had handwritten and type the new entries directly into the computer. After that Karjam and I went out, which was really the first time all day that I had gone out (aside from when I exercised and got kicked off the track cause it was the middle of the day and they wanted to lock up). Karjam and I walked around and I bought tomatoes and mushrooms and he bought pears and we finally had dinner before coming home. We ate at the same place as the day before. Their food is really good, but Karjam doesn¡¯t like the meat selections¡¦ we usually order three dishes, two vegetarian and one meat, so he can eat from three and I from two. But¡¦ oh well. I¡¯ll go there without him, then. I was a bit frustrated with him by the end of the day, I was having a day where it felt like he wasn¡¯t listening to me or trying to understand me. Then I just gave up on talking and after we came back when I was doing my laundry I saw that Chang-geun was still here (he said that he was going to Korea today) so we talked (no airplane tickets available either). We talked for close to two hours. He¡¯s very interesting and I told him the whole stupid Gwun story and he was shocked the police hadn¡¯t been of more assistance. (Direct quote from a policeman ¡°If he loves you that much, why don¡¯t you just marry him?¡±). Chang-geun is amazed that Karjam and I have a relationship at all cause he said, ¡°Well you aren¡¯t exactly good at Chinese.¡± Heck, he should have seen me when I first met Karjam and all I knew how to say was ¡°I love you.¡± ¡°Hello.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± and ¡°You¡¯re good looking.¡± Actually I¡¯ve been feeling pretty good about my Chinese, since the other foreign teachers ask me to speak for them and translate to them. Gavin uses me like a dictionary, I swear! (Gavin studied Chinese for half a year about a year ago.) Anyway, I way like Chang-geun. He is a really nice, sincere guy. His contract here is for two years and he¡¯s just starting. His girlfriend broke up with him over it. Six years together, she even waited through his military service, but she didn¡¯t want to wait through another two years with him in China. Amazingly while I was talking with Chang-geun, Karjam finished the laundry!
August 27th
I woke up significantly after my alarm and foggily headed out to exercise. The interesting thing today was that a girl came over who is probably an English vampire, but I told her if she wants to practice Taekkyon she can come tomorrow at 7. So that should help me get out there earlier. She did say she thought the Taekkyon was beautiful!
When I got back the hot water was already turned off, so I took a cold shower. I had to shower though, cause my hair was looking pretty dirty. Around here cold water is really really cold, I¡¯ll have you know! When I was drying my hair they delivered me a rice cooker. Yay! Now, time to get on breakfast. Not that I have any rice, yet.
After making some breakfast food and generally lounging around I headed to the office where I gave my Internet fee to ask why I didn¡¯t have it yet. They decided that Mina should come over with someone who really knew computers to check out the problem. In the meantime they tried to say it was because I have a Korean system. I went to Home World and bought rice and rice vinegar and sesame oil and tofu and other miscellaneous things all thinking about how to make Korean food, of course. They have everything. I mean, asparagus! I haven¡¯t even seen asparagus since I was in America last in the summer time. I bought another mango. They really are out of my budget though. More than the price of a cheap restaurant meal for a (large) mango! But oooo delicious.
I made a rice and veggie salad for lunch with lemon dressing. Karjam bought himself some noodles though he consented to eat a small portion of salad, too. After eating Chang-geun stopped by to tell me an alternative way to have Internet better than the school¡¯s service. Because Misa knew I was getting it, but my Chinese wasn¡¯t good enough for her to explain the other system. Gavin stopped by to say we have a dinner with the director of the Foreign Affairs Office tonight, which means no dinner and movies with Marie and Misa¡¦ which I was looking forward to. Then at 3:30 Mina came with her friend. The problem was WAY to ¡°Duh!¡± for words. Uh, I don¡¯t have a modem. So I have to go buy one on Thursday, tomorrow. Then we can find out if it works with the Korean system and the Chinese modem and this monitor which is Dell and that means American. International computer.
Then somehow Karjam and I managed to fill the rest of the time until I had to go to dinner. Oh, right, I emailed downstairs briefly and tried to work more on setting up this page on the Internet.
Dinner was a banquet with a big round spinning thing in the middle of the table. First we had really snacky things, like sugared almonds. Then we got into more serious stuff and last we had Lanzhou¡¯s famous sour noodle soup. Which was vegetarian, so I had it, too. The dinner was with Mr. Liu Zhiyu and Ms. Yoo who is the director of the office, and Mina, and Vahid, who teaches physics and has been in China since 1990 (he started in Lanzhou at Landa, left here, has lived in Xining twice, spent six years in Shandong (the province with Qingdao) and this is his third time working here. He is Iranian by birth, but his family is Ba¡¯hai and to escape persecution the emigrated to Canada. He¡¯s also lived in Hawaii. Pretty interesting guy. Great English. Mr. Liu asked him if he¡¯d ¡°met a Lama¡± (near Xining is the other of the six most famous yellow hat Tibetan pilgrimage temples which is outside of the TAR). Vahid responded, ¡°Do you mean a one L lama or a two L llama?¡± Natalia, the Russian teacher also came to dinner. Mostly the conversation was dominated by Rob and Tim and you guessed it, me! The food was okay. The other teachers had marvelous things to say about it, but I really only enjoyed two dishes.
After dinner I invited everyone back to my room, but Vahid was busy, and so was Natalia. So only the English teachers came. Karjam was perhaps a bit bored, since Melody, Rob and I all speak about the same amount of Chinese (I¡¯d say Rob is in the lead) but we were busy talking in English most of the time. Rob played music on his guitar, most of it quite different in tone than what he played last time. This time he even played a love song. I kicked them all out around 11:30.
August 28th, 2003
This morning it was raining pretty hard so I didn¡¯t go out to exercise. However, I did venture out to meet Mina and her friend. We bought a modem and installed it in my computer. Now I have Internet! I have slow Internet through the school that costs very little and fast that costs 3 Yuan an hour. The modem was 75 Yuan, less than ten dollars. I guess I can live with that!
Karjam got a train ticket, at last. He will leave on the 31st for Beijing. He¡¯s been at the train station almost everyday, in line for more than an hour and unable to get a seat. He did a great series of impersonations of all the people at my house last night. He had everyone down pretty well. I was rolling around when he imitated the way Rob strains his neck muscles when he sings. Karjam likes Rob a lot. Rob has long curly hair, which he keeps back in a ponytail. He¡¯s clean-shaven with well-formed features. His mouth is a bit small, but otherwise the man is physically what almost any woman would call ¡°handsome¡±. He has big arm muscles, nice shoulders, his pants (which he makes himself) are mostly too loose to see if he has a nice ass, but he probably does, he has nice calves when he¡¯s in shorts, and he¡¯s probably nearly six feet tall. He can look very serious and direct, but he has some nice laugh lines around his mouth, too. Karjam picked up pretty well on the biggest thing that starts to show when Rob lets down his guard, is that the guy is really sad not to be with his brother. His little brother is a drunk and Rob can¡¯t say a thing about him without mentioning the fact that he¡¯s an alcoholic. Rob apparently feels his brother is too dependent on him, but he feels a lot of responsibility, towards him, too. This (enforced by Rob) separation is something that it¡¯s hard to know if it¡¯s the right thing to be doing or not.
Today after some frustrating attempts to take this page from the MsWord document to the Namo Web Editor to posting on Angelfire I finally stopped beating my head against the wall and made some kimchi fried rice. After lunch Karjam and I went and said goodbye to the Yuzhong teachers who have all moved out to Yuzhong now. That means only Vahid and I are here until another teacher or maybe two show up to work with me. I made Karjam a couple new word lists, one of vocab specific to talking about his childhood, and one more of A-Z (minus X) useful words for each letter with an example sentence. This list is ¡°aunt, best, color, different¡¦¡±. He lacks really basic vocab like that.
In the evening we headed to the one place I¡¯d seen that looks like a martial arts school, but the door was just as locked as it was on Sunday¡¦ at about 6:45 on a Thursday. If someone was teaching martial arts there, it would have been open. Chinese start work early, at 8, not 9. So I doubt that they are paying to do martial arts at 6 a.m. or whatever. Anyway, then we walked from there. Lanzhou is so thin. It appears to be about four blocks wide. There is the road that ends at the Landa main gate, then the road over from that, then one more, then the road that runs along the riverfront. I hadn¡¯t realized it was so extremely narrow; we started looking for a restaurant when that martial arts place wasn¡¯t open and just one block and I realize we are on the street with the camera places. They were all shut up, but we I did buy some more tea (non-stop tea drinking, you understand). Karjam ended up saying we weren¡¯t likely to find a restaurant in that area that wasn¡¯t really expensive (he lived in Lanzhou for two years, I think 96-97). So we took a bus and ate in a place we¡¯d been to before. Not the best place, but I like it cause they have a live tree growing through their floor and roof, and it¡¯s green and leafy if you look at it from outside.
I guess I just want to point out that this is the most ¡°normal¡± and longest uninterrupted time Karjam and I have ever had together. It¡¯s the 28th; he got here on the 23rd. That means already we¡¯ve been hanging out for six days, and he¡¯s not leaving for another two and a half. There is so much growth that has happened in this relationship. I mean, the other teachers are out exploring the city, and all I¡¯ve done is go out to eat about once a day and bought essential things. We¡¯ve been spending less than two hours apart each day. Like today I was buying that modem at the same time he was off at the train station. When I went to Beijing in the spring we were together for four days straight, and that was almost uninterrupted, too. But this is longer. And much more comfortable, since we have a fridge and a bathroom and we aren¡¯t both sick and staying in a half-basement. When I was in Gannan last summer he was very busy, and we slept together in a room with both Lama Tserang and Lumbu- not exactly sexy. Before that, in 2001 we had only a few nights alone, and our days were mostly really busy and a bit frustrating with a lack of common language. Then in Korea? We slept together one night (Lama Tserang went and slept in a different room), and he was quite busy all the time, he was always supposed to stay with his group, which meant I was with them, too.
This time has seen so much growth in how we are with each other. Or I guess, mostly I see growth in how he is with me. First of all, he¡¯s stopped being so body conscious. He doesn¡¯t freak out if he thinks I am going to look down at his genitals. In fact, after the first couple of days he has just been naked most of the time when we are in my house. (Me, too! It¡¯s so freaking hot and stuffy!). He has become (that started in Beijing) really comfortable with holding my hand or putting an arm around me. No one who sees us walking around wouldn¡¯t know we are a couple. He¡¯s dealing with my cooking and my vegetarianism really well. Even though I prompt him to go out and buy himself so meat and bring it back (prompting him about the time I start preparing some food), he has been eating a heck of a lot of vegetables. He keeps talking about how much he is ¡°changing¡±. I mean, he learned how to use a vacuum today, and he can wash and rinse the dishes and do the laundry. He¡¯s learned some things about me that really make him happy- I brought my whole music collection with me. It¡¯s not as much as people who download off the Internet- I think tall Dave has about 300 MP3s with him (not sure how big they are). But he is really excited with listening to it, and hadn¡¯t realized I had that much interest in music. Obviously music is very important to him.
The sex thing is definitely working out well, too. So the guy is pretty darn small. But sex is really enjoyable cause he doesn¡¯t try to be ¡°cool¡±. Korean guys make like –no- sound. It¡¯s so annoying. Karjam is so into it, and he doesn¡¯t care what it sounds like. It¡¯s a total turn on to listen to him, like as if I please him –more- or like as if the sex is –more- important to him than to men I¡¯ve been with in the past. He used to go limp fairly often. My Chinese is limited, and I¡¯ve never been able to figure out why. But it hasn¡¯t happened the last three days at all. Remembering he was a virgin when he met me and that he¡¯s never slept with another woman (and how many times have we actually had sex, anyway?) I guess it makes sense to see huge improvements in performance. Today he mostly went soft cause I looked pissed off. However, I was able to clarify it was cause of his arm under my lower back, which was making me really uncomfortable. Yet again, communication has benefits!
Don¡¯t think I¡¯m talking about growth and I just mean sexual performance. Not at all. We are talking for a lot of the day, everyday. We are lying around studying next to each other, and helping each other, and learning how to move around each other at different times of the day and what colors each other like and what we dream and worry about. It¡¯s like everyday is a lesson in Karjam or for him, a lesson in me. Every time something new occurs we tell each other about all the things that makes us think of. So he goes off this evening on a soliloquy about this set of yak horns he has in Maqu, the biggest ones in the whole county. It¡¯s fun to know these things. His precious set of yak horns (attached to a skull) that a friend gave him. I am daily, even hourly, seeing a confirmation of the fact that his guy is the biggest and sweetest hearted man I¡¯ve ever had the luck to be involved with. As all my friends know I can irritable and bitchy. I am about a day late for my moon to start- I get even more irritable before that. He deals with it just fine. Today we had a talk about sibling order and personality. He¡¯s the second to the youngest of eight, I am the oldest. So, he¡¯s sweet and patient and I am bossy and demanding. Well, not all the time. It¡¯s funny he said that his friends or family could say anything to him and he¡¯d never get angry and yet a stranger can send him into a rage. My friends or family can injure me with one sentence of button pushing words. Some person on the street can say anything about me or to me, and I don¡¯t give a rat¡¯s ass. I accomplished that ¡°dance as though no one is watching¡± thing about two years after I arrived in Korea. Someone is always going to be watching, who cares? So, the first day I felt a bit cold (towards Karjam), but now I worry that I am going to be just bummed, as could be when he heads off to Beijing. He¡¯s so sweet. I can¡¯t wait for mom, dad and Irene S. to visit so they can meet him. Even if I don¡¯t spend the rest of my life with him, I know my parents will enjoy meeting him.
Friday the 29th.
I exercised a full
hour this morning. That girl didn¡¯t
show up, though. When I came back
Karjam was still asleep. We¡¯ve been
sleeping on the floor cause neither of us likes the bed. But I won¡¯t be able to in the winter, cause
it will mean giving up one of my precious blankets to have under me and over
the grungy, stained, fraying and dotted with cigarette burns brown carpet. We had a long talk this morning. His parents are pressuring him pretty heavy
to get married because of mom¡¯s uncertain health. He¡¯s the only unmarried child in the family. His father got married to his mother when he
was only 16 (can you imagine being a 27 year old and wanting to marry at 16
year old guy? Karjam says he¡¯d be too embarrassed
to ask the story behind it). When he
was younger, back in about 97 he says they kept setting him up with girls. ¡°This one is really pretty.¡± ¡°This one has a good heart.¡± ¡°This one is really good with the yaks.¡± Karjam would meet them one time and tell
them he wanted to study, not settle down.
His parents finally gave up. The
sucky thing is that I know Karjam would be better off marrying a nice Tibetan
girl than me. I¡¯m difficult as all get
out, my heart belongs to Korea not China/Tibet, I¡¯m not willing to breed and I¡¯d
be likely to bolt if the marriage thing got too tough. Sad to say, but I am from the divorce
society. I just can¡¯t trust myself
that I would be there for him, forever.
I know he wants that, and wouldn¡¯t get married without thinking
that.
I made
dwenjangchigae for breakfast. It was
fabulous. We ate it with rice and
kimchi and kim. Ummmm!
Around lunchtime we
ventured out in the rain to the vegetable sellers, and I bought 11 yuan worth
of vegetables. 11 yuan of vegetables is
as much as most of you could eat in a week if you were cooking at home
everyday. We are talking a seriously
big bag of potatoes, zucchini, red and green bell peppers, button mushrooms,
leeks, carrots, and I can¡¯t remember what all else. I heated up the rest of the dwenjangchigae and made a potato dish
and a marvelous mixed vegetable dish.
We had that with hwa-juan. Then
in the late afternoon we went and picked up my last box from Korea. On the way back I started feeling really
sort of odd, and getting all bitchy, when we arrived home I crashed face down
on the couch and would have kept sleeping except I got a phone call. Then I tried to apologize to Karjam for
being so bitchy, but it was like I could barely get my brain to function.
We had planned to go
to a showing of Jackie Chan¡¯s ¡°Medallion¡± on campus (3 yuan ticket) and that¡¯s
Karjam¡¯s favorite actor, so we left for the movie. It was shortened a lot, a lot of really obvious cuts were made in
the story. As far as I could figure the
cuts were to get rid of the ¡°boring¡± parts and shorten it. It was dubbed in Chinese everywhere there
would have been English otherwise.
(Some of it was originally in Chinese, though). It obviously was using wires for a lot of
the stunts, sort of Matrix influenced¡¦
Then as soon as it ended a Chinese movie started. I didn¡¯t know that was going to happen and
for some reason I just assumed it would be a short. It wasn¡¯t. Both movies
were 5 minutes shorter than 3 hours together.
The Chinese movie was –fantastic- and it was subtitled in English! It was called ¡°My Dog, Cala¡±. Briefly in Beijing I guess you need a dog
permit- which is 5,000 yuan. So most
people don¡¯t get one. But then the cops
raid and take away people¡¯s pets. The
housewife is walking the dog and only a few minutes before she¡¯s been
complaining that she doesn¡¯t want to have a dog, but when the cops come she
runs like the dickens. She gets caught
anyway, and Cala is taken. It becomes
apparent by the end of the movie that the wife, husband and son all love the
dog (which isn¡¯t even a pure-bred and was a gift) more than each other. The movie obviously has a strong message
about ridiculous cops woven into it.
They spend the entire next day until the 4 p.m. deadline trying to get
the dog back, each in their own way.
They fail.
By the time I got
home, I was shivering and shaking with a fever. I brewed up ginger tea, and went to bed.
I woke up and felt
like crap, but didn¡¯t know if it was still being sick or just the fact that
last night we didn¡¯t set up the bedding on the floor and the bed hurts my back
so much. I went out and exercised, but
I was really spaced out and achy, so I cut it short and took it easy.
When I came back in the electricity was out in my apartment. Karjam wasn¡¯t anywhere I could see, and I
had to go to the bathroom really bad.
So I sat down and started my business and he goes ¡°Wah!¡± from the
bathtub which startled me so bad I almost lost my seat at a crucial juncture. He¡¯s always joking around like that.
I felt so chilled
and achy I climbed back in bed and slept until Marie called to confirm tonight¡¯s
invitation to come to her house. The electricity
finally came back on around 10:30, so not everything in the frig got screwed
up.
I went to sleep again after she called, and again and again. I think I slept four times. Each time an hour or an hour and a half. I really was light-headed, and when I'd stand up, my head would hurt and I'd black out. It was terrible! Also my back was just killing from that damn bed. I didn't have any appetite. I finally had a sort of Korean mixed grain drink and then around 4:30 I made a salad (Karjam kept offering to go out and buy something, but the thought of greasy Chinese food made me think about throwing up). I ate my salad really slowly for almost two hours. During that time we watched some athletic competition (track and field) in France. The Americans, predictably were doing well, and the Chinese that we saw (not many) also did well. Of course with the Americans it's partially a numbers thing... there are so darn many of them in the competitions, so even if one gets 8th, they still look good if their fellow got first.
At 7:45 we met Misa and another girl at the front gate and took a taxi to Marie's house. Her house is SOOOO awesome. She's on the 20th (top) floor. She has two big bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen with two gas burners- oh I was so jealous. Worse, she pays 750 a month for it with very very minimal utility charges and apparently Misa's room (three doors down from me, and missing a kitchen and living room) is 1,800 a month. So that means, my room is even more expensive. Marie leaves in January and I am seriously thinking of taking her place, and arguing the school into paying that rent instead of this rent. Best of all, she has windows in every room except the bathroom and she doesn't have a carpet! Anyway, I will see how I am feeling later, but the reality is that if I decide to marry Karjam, working here one more year or so might not be a bad idea, and this place, I either have to move out in the summer and get my salary, or keep my stuff in my house and not get my salary. Huh? That sucks! The party was subdued and almost all in Chinese, only Misa, Marie and I weren't Chinese. Marie's friends seemed nice, but I was just barely upright, huddled in one of Marie's blankets.
The 31st
I slept poorly but woke up feeling better than yesterday. At least I had an appetite. I had a pear. I sauteed a bit bunch of veggies with a soft tomato as the sauce. We had that with the scant bit of rice left in the rice cooker. We spent the morning in a pretty intense talk about getting married and how we'd live. Where. What sort of work. Then I realized I hadn't really had any protein in two days, which wouldn't help me with my health, and also my moon started around noon. So, we went out the sneak gate (smaller than the back gate and let's onto yet another road). It was my first time out there, I liked it. Right away we saw a "grilled" seller and even though I knew Karjam was bound on a good restaurant I made him stop so I could have a huge slice of grilled tofu covered with cumin, chili pepper and other things, some of which was oil and some of which was probably MSG. He had a little grilled chicken (who knows what part) thing. The restaurant he found looked pricier than most we go to, and he spent a long time (good thing I had the tofu!) picking out his "last Gansu meat" meal. I swear he called back the waitress at least four times to question her more and change his order. Finally he ordered a lamb dish. When it came it didn't look too bad, that's one thing I must say for Chinese food, their presentation is usually quite good. It was just cilantro on top of a huge pile of lamb with some sort of sauce and bit of leek. He ignored the greenery. I chowed down on my new favorite "Mushrooms and Bok Choy", and my other protein for the day, "Eggs and Tomatoes". But I didn't have much of an appetite, and we took home 2/3 of both of my dishes (and not a trace of his satisfying meat, or the desert he ordered which was with sweetened condensed milk- he said they hadn't prepared it well, anyway). That's another good thing about China, they don't look at you like you are a freakazoid starving peasant if you try to take something home. The only time I ever did that in Korea was a few seafood things for my cats- and I always made sure they knew who it was for.
Before coming back home we went to Home World where I insisted on dragging him to every conceivable kind of train food and then bought everything I could urge on him (despite his protestations). I also bought him a tea travel thing. It has a built in strainer at the top. You pour in the hot water they give you on the train, and voila, you have tea. I added enough tea leaves when we got home that with refreshes he can drink it all trip, no problem. Karjam has, the entire time we've been together always made every effort to pay for everything. I paid for two dinners and a few bus tickets while he was here, and that train food. He had the argument this time that our money is all one, anyway. But I still think he's crazy cause of the disparity in our incomes. Anyway, he says "I spend all my money when I have it, and then I wrap my arms around myself until I have some again."
It was good that we went out only once, yet again, because I felt so low energy we weren't holding hands just cause we like to. I felt like I had glass shards inside my head spearing me especially when I made sudden movements or stood up.
We had a long continuation of the marriage talk- including the expense of a traditional Tibetan wedding (which he obviously has his heart set on). He's talking 500 people and food which includes very few vegetables and fruit. But, guess what! That's not the expensive part. The expensive part is that the brides coral and turquoise in silver jewellery alone (earrings, ring, two necklaces, one bigger than the other, belt (very wide and studded) and two hangies down each hip to the knee) is about 30,000 RMB. When you figure I now earn about 30,000 a year... well, you get the picture. The brides clothes are an additional 8,000, the grooms are similarly expensive, but his jewellery is less- one necklace, bracelet, ring, and dagger (studded metal sheath). His little sister got married in early 2002, so that's how he knows so well. Also people in Tibetan culture seem not very uptight about talking about money. Whether that is a bad sort of bragging thing, or a good sort of "it's only money" thing, I'm not quite sure. We also got on the conversation (again) about how this guy (a few years older than him) from Maqu already married an English woman, and she speaks Maqu dialect perfectly and wears Tibetan married woman clothes only when she's in Maqu. (She's written a book about it, but I haven't been able to find it. It's called dang... can't remember. Have to ask Catherine S. She actually read it. It's not on amazon.com. Perhaps stupidly, but I do love this guy, I told him how much money I have (the little I'd saved for graduate school and the Korean Pension Fund money I can get back if I swear I am never coming back to work in Korea -friends have after getting their's, though). Not that it's that much money, even yet. Wouldn't go anywhere in America, that's for sure.
Predictably, I suppose, we had our worst moment so far on the eave of his departure. He told me (like as if I don't know) that I am prickly and pointed out several prickly moments over the past few days (again). All of which I had already acknowledged and apologized for. None of which included hurtful words. My prickly is like "I can take care of it myself!" When he wants to help. (Especially since I had already told him "I want to retrieve the box myself, don't stand next to me, okay?" before we went into the post office!) Anyway, so I finally looked up perfect in the dictionary and said "Are Tibetan women perfect?" and stalked off and took a hot bath (quick before the hot water got shut off). It's the first time I have had a bathtub since I lived in Seattle!
After my bath I reminded him that the light was better for studying in the bedroom and after a bit he joined me in there. We sort of studied and didn't talk for a bit, and then addressed the issue, which is that Karjam is afraid someday I am going to hurt him really bad. So I just said "Then don't love anyone, cause your mom is going to die and that's going to hurt bad, too!" And then the story came out that I am actually -not- Karjam's first love (silly me, I assumed since I took his virginity...). The previous girl was when he was 17 and 18. She was from a rich family, his family liked her, hers liked him, they were going to get married, and she hurt him really bad. How? He didn't say and asked me not to ask, and frankly, I better wait till my listening improves so I can understand without risking tactless questions. Anyway, everyone told him to take this girl back, and he loved her -very deeply- but he couldn't. He was hurt really bad, and that is the reason why I met this gorgeous man who was still unmarried, and not even dating. We talked a lot more before sleeping. He said if I loved him, I wouldn't get angry (he calls prickly or bitchy angry, but let me tell you it is -nothing- close to as strong as anger). I told him he was right, but I couldn't promise anything, and why didn't he just ask me "Do you love me?" next time he thought I was angry, to bring me back on track? He also relayed this long story again- it seems I understood it just the same as last time he told me, so he must have told me when I was in Beijing.
"The Story of Karjam's Scars"
Four years ago I was sometimes walking around Hezuo with this beautiful girl. She liked me, but I only thought of her like a friend. These other two guys (with no jobs) were really jealous. I was with the dance troupe, so I had a room, and nice clothes, a little money and this beautiful girl liked me. I stopped meeting her but then (in maybe March 2001) they suddenly called me, these two and their two taxi driver friends and they were like "Karjam you come out here." and everyone told me not to go, and even tried to come with me, but I knew either I'd have to be afraid of these guys everyday, who were bored and wanted to screw with someone they thought weaker than them, or I had to go out. So I went out, and the two guys threatened me with (Tibetan) knives (like daggers). I later learned it was their plan to get me all scared and have me give them all the money I had on me. All I had was this (a little fold up he keeps on his key-chain). So I took out my knife and went for them. They were waving their knives around like a martial arts movie and first they cut me here (top of his head) and blood was pouring down (it's a long scar) and then here (eyebrow) and here (shoulder muscle of his right arm) and then here (hand, a good three incher across the back of his hand at the first finger and down towards the wrist). But even though I was covered with blood and no longer able to use my right arm or hand I kept trying to get them and did inflict three wounds. (One in the top of the guys foot, so one can imagine how the fight was going). They finally quit and ran off. Then the newspaper had it all written up like the biggest thing that had ever happened in Hezuo and my mom heard about it before I could tell her myself and boy was she mad! Those two left Gannan, I think they were laughed out of town that two guys with knives ran away from a guy with a little pin-sticker.
When I came to Gannan in 2001 I spent a huge amount of time massaging his hand, cause he wasn't able to hold things very well, and he couldn't play Tibetan Banjo. Then I went home to Korea and sent him a little spring grip thing to use to exercise his hand. But he told me that he had fallen down (off a motorcycle). I believed him. I mean, it all depends on what you fall on, right?