October 19th: apathy and theologies

32nd day

Woke for Chinese breakfast. The ladies loaded me up with four bean paste rolls and two sausage rolls (which I’m actually starting to prefer more). Today’s lesson went fine except for the last class, the one with dude who wrote his name as Mary for his pen friend letter. No one really said the words with me, nor answered questions. A couple students just perused their textbooks the whole time. This class is now known as the “apathy crew.” I’m afraid I’m beginning to dread them.

After lunch I dropped off the Rose-issued cupcakes to Erin’s desk, she was once again napping. Her candy bowl was empty. The note she left, “Please help yourself to some candy” had the response “Ok, thank you” at the bottom. I bet 100 yuen Apple was the culprit. She’s batty. I told Erin she seems like the type of girl who would go out on a date with you and the next morning you’d wake up in a tub of ice with a kidney missing and a note reading: “Please to call hospital. I had fun last evening. Ok, thank you.”

I left Erin a note saying: “Here’s your ration of cupcakes. You’re out of candy. –A.”

I stopped by the arts building to play piano but Feng Jao Li was doing some slightly military exercise with a quad of primary kids.

feng jao li's special ops neckerchief battalion

I snapped a pic, then retreated to my room, watched the “Masters of Lebowski” video for the 20th time, laughed, then felt depressed and loagy.

My email box was empty as usual. After the one month watershed (today being the 32nd day) I’ve begun to feel cut off from everybody. I wondered why my parents haven’t called or how they’re keeping up with my progress with no computer.

I decided to get a caffeine injection and pedaled to UBC for an iced mocha and some “hiding from the world” time.

hiding from the world in UBC

I miss anonymity. I don’t want to be watched all the time, but I don’t want to stay in my room either. I wrote some lyrics down for the new song, satisfied with them. I tested them out after dinner (again we were joined by Pete and Jimmy and their less-than-loquacious cohorts. Pete has gotten used to calling me MR. Willis. Before he would just say, “Willis, do you know Feng Tung park?”)

While I played, Feng Jao Li stopped in only to grab something off the top of the piano, then beat a hasty retreat. I can’t figure that girl out. I didn’t have time to ask her the new phrase.

Sean had emailed me and it could not have come at a better time. I was able to sigh. Every tidbit of news he gave, every thought, every nuance made me feel connected via some technological umbilical to that concept of “home.” He’s working on music again, he’s doing well at the new restaurant, he heard from L.A, who is done with chemo, enjoys reading my journals and says hi. The Sundays of Debauchery are on hiatus due to Al and Gio’s financial wherewithal, so in a sense, I haven’t really missed any. I haven’t decided if I’m gladdened or greyed by that thought. Did I get out while things were on top, or did my leaving somehow facilitate the removal of some universal linchpin? Or do things change without the influence of a speck of dust like me? Yes.

Erin and I went to the Kedu grocery store, then to a backpack/bag store by UBC. She was determined to buy something for herself to cheer up the fact that Matt didn’t get the job at the middle school. Nevertheless, he is still coming on the 17th of November.

Erin haggled with the lady at the store, but she wouldn’t budge the price, so we walked. We went to another bag store that had very odd bags, one called “A Big Pig: I become large rapidly. I want to eat delicious foods a lot.”

odd odd bag

Erin didn’t buy it.

We headed to the grocery by KFC and I showed her the peanut butter / jelly / tomato paste / puree / mayonnaise endcap. Little taste of home. I bought bread, she bought wine, and we pedaled on to Ming Tien Coffee Language for some reading and imbibing. I ordered a “Beer Flies” out of adventure’s sake and Erin got strawberry toast, which turned out to be a big cake brick. My beverage was dark and I’m still not sure if it was coffee or a stout beer-mixer.

I finished the second section of “The Sound and the Fury,” floored by it. I wrote a couple passages down and had to close the book and just reflect on the power of a simple 19 worded phrase. The book is equally challenging, revolutionary, poetic, slight stream-of-consciousness postmodern-theaterish genius. I began to beat myself up for having not read it earlier in life, but then again, I’m at the perfect mindset to fully appreciate every aspect of the book. Could a half-budded flower fully embrace the rays of the sun? No, nor could my mind, even a few months earlier embrace Faulkner’s text with such untethered joy. Being in a strange land, I’m not given much book options besides the ones Erin brought. Had I picked up “The Sound and the Fury” in Cincinnati, with its noise, kinetic metropolitanism, dark cloud of cynicism framed by the 275 loop; could my mind have staved off the torrent of distraction? Could it have risen to the challenge of the text? Was the change of scenery, my renewed love affair with writing (thanks to this journal) and the limited choice of books the right combination to unlock this visceral elation? I suppose so. Whatever the cause, I hope it doesn’t let up. This book is rapidly shooting up my all-time best list.

My head still reeling, Erin and I pedaled home, discussing pressures of age set by prior generations. I turn 30 next year and I’m just now feeling sorted enough about myself to fully understand myself. My parents on the other hand, married when they were 20. I was completely lost at age 20. No wisdom, no self-concept, no bigger-picture perspective whatsoever, and this is the age where my parents decided to make one of the biggest decisions of their life? That seems insane to me. Then again, things were different back then. Certainly with each new generation, a different set of standards emerges, but the principles and timeline of the former emerge as a paradigm because they know no other way. The education system has declined through the years, perhaps fostering an extended “childhood” or “pre-adulthood” in our generation. College grads of the 1920s were ready to start their own law firm, grads of today are basically high school kids with sex and drugs under their belt, and no hope of the American Dream unless they’re willing to forego the workforce for grad school. Regurgitation and facts without a threaded “cause and effect” overview is not an education.

Couple this with the ever-increasing lifespan: more time to play, middle age is an extra ten to fifteen years later than in 1950. The prevalence of divorce; is this a case of sociological population control? Single parents, scores of step-parents; we’ve moved from a nuclear family to a quasi-tribe society.

In China, the “bare branches” (males with no hope for coupling due to the shortage of females) will certainly take its toll on the population, but perhaps it will also usher in a new age of woman veneration. The “ladies first” norm is non-existent here, but I’m introducing it slowly via the dining hall queue.

Valid discussions to be had on a new comfortable bike seat.

We weaved in and out of students once in the school, oblivious to Erin’s bell and my reports of “On your left.”

I practiced poi for a bit, nearly mastering the reverse weave. A teacher whose English name is “Dozen” (yeah, no shit) introduced me to a young woman named “Jilly Jen” or “Jennifer” as her English name. She wants me to teach her “oral English” and I said “Ok.”

Dozen asked, “Kung Fu?”

I held out the chains. “No. New Zealand poi. The maori. They light on fire, but I don’t use fire. I don’t like getting burned.”

He laughed, waved, then left with the rest of his group.

I practiced some more, clobbered myself a good one in the eye. I went in and blogged, drank my last beer and hoped none of the classes tomorrow would be like the “apathy crew.”