Today, as I was walking on the streets of Beijing, I made two saves.
As I was walking near Ditan Park this afternoon, two boy were driving in their motorized cart when I bottle of water (one of many) came tumbling down. They stopped their cart and one of them got off. As the water was rolling toward me, I grabbed it and then I tossed it across the street into the arms of the boy. It was just like making a doubleplay in little league. The bottle looked like it bounced off of the boys chest and that he wasn't going to catch it, but he made his own save. He smiled and said thanks.
Then, later in the day, a women is playing with a golf ball in front of her shop when it gets away. I step forward to catch it and then walk up to her and give it back. She tell me in English: "Thanks!"
Friday, April 24, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Spring in Beijing
Two weeks ago, suddenly, it started snowing lightly in Beijing and I dug up my wool hat. Spring has been teasing us, as it surely has since humans began experiencing it (before that, who was Spring without her admirers?).
Returning from Israel last week, the last of those snowflakes have melted and I can walk around in a short-sleeves shirt (except for that wind). Spring, as Chinese people say, is like a stepmother. Sometimes oh so nice, and sometimes evil. This of course fits with the view of it in traditional Chinese Medicine. Both the wind and Spring are manifestations of the wood element, always growing and coursing nervously like the new branches, erratic).
Today, I am in Northeastern Beijing, Wangjing, and it's snowing again! Except this time it's pollen that is snowing. I've never seen anything like it. I'm not talking about a few dandelions shedding their seeds in the wind. It's like millions of dandelion seeds in the air. Honestly, Hollywood could come here and film a few heartwarming Christmas films (It's a Wonderful Life with Chinese Characteristics and Kaoya Roasting on an Open Fire).
This is poplar pollen. I'm in a Sichuan restaurant eating a bowl of chicken noodle soup and people walk in with specks of poplar pollen covering their hair. A girl walks by with her hand covering her face. It's particularly bad in this neighborhood.
Taking a cab back to the subway, I point to some floating in his car and the driver tells me it will all be gone in a few weeks.
The Stumbling Son
I'm in a taxi and we stop at the light. I see a thin old man with grey-white hair and his taller thirty-something son walk arm in arm slowly across the street.
I'm always amazed at how integral xiaoshun (孝順, filial piety) is to Chinese people, that a grown man would be walking his father across the street. I remember returning to the States and walking with my grandmother across a parking lot to go into a shopping mall. I instinctively held her arm. In that way, perhaps China has changed me.
I watch them cross and then upon closer examination, I realize the young man isn't walking his father across the street at all. I see that the young man has difficulty walking and his face is slightly distorted, tilted, and has a haze as if he has some musculoskeletal disease.
The father, however, walks upright with clear eyes, guiding his son as they slowly make the trek. As they approach the curve at the other side, the son stumbles a little over his own two feet and his father supports him, as he surely has been for a very long time.
I'm always amazed at how integral xiaoshun (孝順, filial piety) is to Chinese people, that a grown man would be walking his father across the street. I remember returning to the States and walking with my grandmother across a parking lot to go into a shopping mall. I instinctively held her arm. In that way, perhaps China has changed me.
I watch them cross and then upon closer examination, I realize the young man isn't walking his father across the street at all. I see that the young man has difficulty walking and his face is slightly distorted, tilted, and has a haze as if he has some musculoskeletal disease.
The father, however, walks upright with clear eyes, guiding his son as they slowly make the trek. As they approach the curve at the other side, the son stumbles a little over his own two feet and his father supports him, as he surely has been for a very long time.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Taiji Corrections
I'm doing taiji "cloud hands" near my building and a neighbor walks by me. I say good morning to her, a short woman with white hair, probably in her seventies. She smiles back at me and says something in Chinese. I don't catch it and ask again. "手跟着眼睛走," she says. ("Your eyes should follow your hands.")
I thank her for reminding me and practice the technique over again, the correct way.
I thank her for reminding me and practice the technique over again, the correct way.
The New Leaves of Spring
I get a text message from my friend Michael who lives in Beijing: "It's nice to see the trees are getting leaves!" I reply: "My English is getting pretty bad, too!"
Despite my joke-making, I wake up this morning (after the first spring rain) and notice that all the trees do have leaves on them, and it brings a sense of relief (yeah!), a burst of joy (yeah!), and hope (yeah!) to my heart.
I wake up and after my cup of tea and bowl of oatmeal, go outside to do my daily set of taiji. People walking in my neighborhood walk by and stare with perplexed looks and they sometimes smile.
Surrounding me is a yard full of trees and I notice their tiny leaves are just beginning to sprout. As I am doing doing taiji, I notice an old man behind me walk into the yard with a plastic bag. The yard is usually messy, filled with trash, and I am happy because it looks like he wants to clean up a little. But as I continue my set, I notice he's not cleaning up at all.
He walks up to a small tree with small greenish-purplish leaves and starts picking them and putting them into his bag. I assume he is just going to pick a few leaves, but he keeps picking.
I am curious and instinctively, want to stop him. I want to "protect" those young leaves. I stop my taiji. I wonder what he wants to do, maybe take the pickings home and grow them in glasses of water or something.
I decide to continue doing my taiji, but then I notice that he keeps picking those leaves. All those new young leaves are almost gone!
I stop my taiji and turn around to him. "Good morning!" I say. He is short, in his 70s, with white hair and thick-rimmed black glasses. He looks over to me. I ask him politely what he is doing and he tells me that you can eat these leaves. "Fried eggs," he tells me. They are good with fried eggs!
I ask him what that name of the plant is. He tells me and I thank him and go back to taiji.
He's finished picking leaves. I turn back again and look at the tree. It's bare and only the top most bunch of small leaves are left.
I guess someone will have some tasty eggs for the next few days.
Despite my joke-making, I wake up this morning (after the first spring rain) and notice that all the trees do have leaves on them, and it brings a sense of relief (yeah!), a burst of joy (yeah!), and hope (yeah!) to my heart.
I wake up and after my cup of tea and bowl of oatmeal, go outside to do my daily set of taiji. People walking in my neighborhood walk by and stare with perplexed looks and they sometimes smile.
Surrounding me is a yard full of trees and I notice their tiny leaves are just beginning to sprout. As I am doing doing taiji, I notice an old man behind me walk into the yard with a plastic bag. The yard is usually messy, filled with trash, and I am happy because it looks like he wants to clean up a little. But as I continue my set, I notice he's not cleaning up at all.
He walks up to a small tree with small greenish-purplish leaves and starts picking them and putting them into his bag. I assume he is just going to pick a few leaves, but he keeps picking.
I am curious and instinctively, want to stop him. I want to "protect" those young leaves. I stop my taiji. I wonder what he wants to do, maybe take the pickings home and grow them in glasses of water or something.
I decide to continue doing my taiji, but then I notice that he keeps picking those leaves. All those new young leaves are almost gone!
I stop my taiji and turn around to him. "Good morning!" I say. He is short, in his 70s, with white hair and thick-rimmed black glasses. He looks over to me. I ask him politely what he is doing and he tells me that you can eat these leaves. "Fried eggs," he tells me. They are good with fried eggs!
I ask him what that name of the plant is. He tells me and I thank him and go back to taiji.
He's finished picking leaves. I turn back again and look at the tree. It's bare and only the top most bunch of small leaves are left.
I guess someone will have some tasty eggs for the next few days.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Turkish Flavor
I flew Turkish Airlines to Israel and enjoyed getting a taste of the Mediterranean even before I got there. I have to say the food was excellent. Salads with cucumbers, olives, feta cheese, yogurt, spiced beef, dolmas. Please allow me to stop or else I might fall on the floor as I might not be able to deal with the ecstasy of it all...
I loved that when we landed in Istanbul, people started applauding! I remember as a kid, flying El Al to Israel, people would clap when we landed after our long transatlantic flight. But since then, have never heard anyone doing this. Landing safely after sitting on your butt for ten hours is definitely applause-worthy.
There was also another taste of the Mediterranean--the plane left Istanbul about an hour late.
Of course, living in China and having at least 78% of my "American-ness" forced out of me (and fortunately for me, it never really has been strongly rooted there anyway), it wasn't such a big deal.
Waiting for my flight to Israel from Istanbul, I got a chance to see hundreds of Turkish people on the way to their flights. This was my first time in a Muslim country and it seemed like everyone was dressed in traditional costume. Walking around the airport to find a water fountain (I never did find one), I remember seeing men (who could have easily been transported from one thousand years ago) sitting in their white dresses that were made from patterned towels, reading what certainly must have been holy books. All the women's heads were covered and some had their face covered.
On the way back to China, my flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul was also delayed an hour. This meant that soon after landing, I unofficially broke the Olympic record for the 500 meter dash (with carry-on luggage) to gate 212 at the Istanbul airport.
I arrived panting at the gate not sure how late I was. I was curious to know what was happening, so I asked the Turkish woman from security if we were boarding. Her English was like my Turkish and as soon as I figured this out, I grabbed my carry-on and turned around to a Chinese guy and asked him in Chinese if we had already started the boarding process and he told me we hadn't.
I made my way into the small waiting area which was full of Chinese and Turkish people. It was good to hear Chinese again, and soon, I realized, I would be back in Beijing, far away from the flavor of Turkey and that good feta cheese.
I loved that when we landed in Istanbul, people started applauding! I remember as a kid, flying El Al to Israel, people would clap when we landed after our long transatlantic flight. But since then, have never heard anyone doing this. Landing safely after sitting on your butt for ten hours is definitely applause-worthy.
There was also another taste of the Mediterranean--the plane left Istanbul about an hour late.
Of course, living in China and having at least 78% of my "American-ness" forced out of me (and fortunately for me, it never really has been strongly rooted there anyway), it wasn't such a big deal.
Waiting for my flight to Israel from Istanbul, I got a chance to see hundreds of Turkish people on the way to their flights. This was my first time in a Muslim country and it seemed like everyone was dressed in traditional costume. Walking around the airport to find a water fountain (I never did find one), I remember seeing men (who could have easily been transported from one thousand years ago) sitting in their white dresses that were made from patterned towels, reading what certainly must have been holy books. All the women's heads were covered and some had their face covered.
On the way back to China, my flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul was also delayed an hour. This meant that soon after landing, I unofficially broke the Olympic record for the 500 meter dash (with carry-on luggage) to gate 212 at the Istanbul airport.
I arrived panting at the gate not sure how late I was. I was curious to know what was happening, so I asked the Turkish woman from security if we were boarding. Her English was like my Turkish and as soon as I figured this out, I grabbed my carry-on and turned around to a Chinese guy and asked him in Chinese if we had already started the boarding process and he told me we hadn't.
I made my way into the small waiting area which was full of Chinese and Turkish people. It was good to hear Chinese again, and soon, I realized, I would be back in Beijing, far away from the flavor of Turkey and that good feta cheese.
Friday, April 03, 2009
The Old Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv
It's my second-to-last day in Israel and since I have been so (happily) busy visiting with family, I haven't had time to buy gifts for my Chinese friends. This is part of Chinese culture and I am more than happy to give my friends here a taste of Israel. Funny, once I bought gifts for friends and family in the States and most of them told me lovingly, "You don't need to get us gifts!" Ah, cultural differences.
I've been hanging out with my mother, sister, and grandmother and we've just arrived in Tel Aviv. We have plans to visit with more family in the afternoon and I'm afraid that since the shops close on Friday afternoon until Saturday evening for the sabbath (in Hebrew, "Shabbat") that I won't be able to buy any gifts. At about six, after we say goodbye to our family who lives in Tel Aviv, I start my search for a place to buy some typical Israeli gifts.
Everything is closed. When I ask a shopkeeper of a convenience store if there are any places where I can buy these gifts, he smiles with a look that says "you are basically screwed" and says I'll have to wait until shabbat is over. He does suggest though, that I head to where the old bus station is, about a twenty-minute walk away.
I take a cab there and it is packed. There is a main pedestrian walkway filled with shops selling used cellphones, small restaurants, and vendors lining the streets. Unfortunately, I find that there are no places selling gifts. I realize that I might need to just buy my gifts at the airport tomorrow and I decide to just enjoy this promenade.
The area, I notice, is full of immigrants. Lots of Ethiopians, Russians, Filipinos, and Chinese. I stop a Chinese man in his thirties and start talking to him in Chinese. I ask him how life is for him in Israel. He says it's hard, that right now jobs are hard to find. He's from Fujian and works in construction. As we are talking several other Chinese guys start watching us, amazed that I am speaking Chinese. I start "interviewing" them, too.
They're from small villages from Fujian and Jiangsu and they're doing the same thing their friends are doing in Shanghai and Beijing--here for a few years saving up money for their families. To them, Israel is just Western culture--very different from what they know. They miss home.
I continue walking on the crowded street. Russians are sitting at plastic tables in front of small restaurants drinking and talking loudly.
There is a guy who has set up a small table with three cups and a foam ball. He is playing a cup game and people are crowded around, placing money on top of cups after he shuffles them around. He's got a strong Russian accent he's a born performer. You do what you gotta do to survive.
I know what he's doing. He gets people hooked and confident and then takes all their money. He's a pro.
I continue walking to the end of the street and notice that someone has called my cellphone, a missed call alert. It is my cousin Shlomi, who I am supposed to see tomorrow because he has to work late this evening. I call him back and he asks me where I am. I tell him I am near the old Tahana Mercazit, the old Central Bus Station. He starts laughing. "You're in the worst and most dangerous place in Tel Aviv, full of poor immigrants!"
As we talk I turn around and suddenly it hits me. I am standing in the old bus station! It has mostly been demolished, but you can see most of the concrete structures, the islands where people would wait for buses, perhaps ten lanes. I think it used to be covered, but that is gone and it is all exposed and deteriorated.
I am suddenly taken to the past. Twenty years ago. I was just a teenager. I never really knew Tel Aviv, except for the bus station. I was working in the south, in Kiryat Gat, and I would transfer here on my way to see my family in Haifa. Or, I was younger and was traveling around Israel to see the sights, perhaps to go to Masada or Eilat.
I can see the old bus station clearly, how alive it was with all the people, all the buses. And I remember the small shops facing the bus station where I could buy cassette tapes. I remember looking for a Shlomo Artzi double cassette (Hom Yuli August) and when I told the young shopkeeper it was too expensive and walked away, he called me back. He affectionately slapped me on my face, like a cousin, and said, "Okay, okay, hamud, it's yours!"
Standing here, I am in shock, like I am visiting an old holy place, and I mention this to Shlomi. We were both teenagers then, and the best part of visiting Haifa was seeing him and hanging out with his friends. Shlomi was like my older brother. I was a "good" kid, the smart kid in class. I won the big spelling bee. Shlomi was the daredevil. Surfer. Into fast cars and going to discos. Living life on the edge. I learned a lot from him.
Now, he's a trader and works for one of the largest banks in Tel Aviv. He tells me to look up and look for the tallest building. I look up and read the words on the tallest building I can find. He says that's it, that's where his office is. He wants me to come over and see his office and then join him for dinner.
So, I do. I walk about ten minutes and go to the 22nd floor, where my cousin Shlomi and I are reunited.
His office is full of computers showing stock quites and showing the business news in English. We take a walk to a nearby sushi restaurant and I admire how beautiful Tel Aviv is. It's a warm spring evening and people sit on benches and cafes chatting as their weekends begin. Shlomi tells me more about his new life in Tel Aviv and I tell him about my life in China.
The evening winds down and we go and get my things from the hotel and he takes me back where I'll get my things. I'll stay with him and his family during my last hours in Israel.
I haven't gotten my gifts yet for my Chinese friends (I'll have to wait for tomorrow, when we visit the namal, the port of Tel Aviv), but now I know why I was magically brought to the old bus station, where I found some other kinds of gifts...
I've been hanging out with my mother, sister, and grandmother and we've just arrived in Tel Aviv. We have plans to visit with more family in the afternoon and I'm afraid that since the shops close on Friday afternoon until Saturday evening for the sabbath (in Hebrew, "Shabbat") that I won't be able to buy any gifts. At about six, after we say goodbye to our family who lives in Tel Aviv, I start my search for a place to buy some typical Israeli gifts.
Everything is closed. When I ask a shopkeeper of a convenience store if there are any places where I can buy these gifts, he smiles with a look that says "you are basically screwed" and says I'll have to wait until shabbat is over. He does suggest though, that I head to where the old bus station is, about a twenty-minute walk away.
I take a cab there and it is packed. There is a main pedestrian walkway filled with shops selling used cellphones, small restaurants, and vendors lining the streets. Unfortunately, I find that there are no places selling gifts. I realize that I might need to just buy my gifts at the airport tomorrow and I decide to just enjoy this promenade.
The area, I notice, is full of immigrants. Lots of Ethiopians, Russians, Filipinos, and Chinese. I stop a Chinese man in his thirties and start talking to him in Chinese. I ask him how life is for him in Israel. He says it's hard, that right now jobs are hard to find. He's from Fujian and works in construction. As we are talking several other Chinese guys start watching us, amazed that I am speaking Chinese. I start "interviewing" them, too.
They're from small villages from Fujian and Jiangsu and they're doing the same thing their friends are doing in Shanghai and Beijing--here for a few years saving up money for their families. To them, Israel is just Western culture--very different from what they know. They miss home.
I continue walking on the crowded street. Russians are sitting at plastic tables in front of small restaurants drinking and talking loudly.
There is a guy who has set up a small table with three cups and a foam ball. He is playing a cup game and people are crowded around, placing money on top of cups after he shuffles them around. He's got a strong Russian accent he's a born performer. You do what you gotta do to survive.
I know what he's doing. He gets people hooked and confident and then takes all their money. He's a pro.
I continue walking to the end of the street and notice that someone has called my cellphone, a missed call alert. It is my cousin Shlomi, who I am supposed to see tomorrow because he has to work late this evening. I call him back and he asks me where I am. I tell him I am near the old Tahana Mercazit, the old Central Bus Station. He starts laughing. "You're in the worst and most dangerous place in Tel Aviv, full of poor immigrants!"
As we talk I turn around and suddenly it hits me. I am standing in the old bus station! It has mostly been demolished, but you can see most of the concrete structures, the islands where people would wait for buses, perhaps ten lanes. I think it used to be covered, but that is gone and it is all exposed and deteriorated.
I am suddenly taken to the past. Twenty years ago. I was just a teenager. I never really knew Tel Aviv, except for the bus station. I was working in the south, in Kiryat Gat, and I would transfer here on my way to see my family in Haifa. Or, I was younger and was traveling around Israel to see the sights, perhaps to go to Masada or Eilat.
I can see the old bus station clearly, how alive it was with all the people, all the buses. And I remember the small shops facing the bus station where I could buy cassette tapes. I remember looking for a Shlomo Artzi double cassette (Hom Yuli August) and when I told the young shopkeeper it was too expensive and walked away, he called me back. He affectionately slapped me on my face, like a cousin, and said, "Okay, okay, hamud, it's yours!"
Standing here, I am in shock, like I am visiting an old holy place, and I mention this to Shlomi. We were both teenagers then, and the best part of visiting Haifa was seeing him and hanging out with his friends. Shlomi was like my older brother. I was a "good" kid, the smart kid in class. I won the big spelling bee. Shlomi was the daredevil. Surfer. Into fast cars and going to discos. Living life on the edge. I learned a lot from him.
Now, he's a trader and works for one of the largest banks in Tel Aviv. He tells me to look up and look for the tallest building. I look up and read the words on the tallest building I can find. He says that's it, that's where his office is. He wants me to come over and see his office and then join him for dinner.
So, I do. I walk about ten minutes and go to the 22nd floor, where my cousin Shlomi and I are reunited.
His office is full of computers showing stock quites and showing the business news in English. We take a walk to a nearby sushi restaurant and I admire how beautiful Tel Aviv is. It's a warm spring evening and people sit on benches and cafes chatting as their weekends begin. Shlomi tells me more about his new life in Tel Aviv and I tell him about my life in China.
The evening winds down and we go and get my things from the hotel and he takes me back where I'll get my things. I'll stay with him and his family during my last hours in Israel.
I haven't gotten my gifts yet for my Chinese friends (I'll have to wait for tomorrow, when we visit the namal, the port of Tel Aviv), but now I know why I was magically brought to the old bus station, where I found some other kinds of gifts...
Thursday, April 02, 2009
The Crying Girl at the Bus Stop
I walk past a bus stop. It's a beautiful spring day and to my left is the Mediterranean sea.
A pudgy, dark-skinned Israeli girl in her twenties is taking out a pack of cigarettes and as I walk by her, I see tears streaming down her face.
Her heart must be broken in one of the thousand and one ways our fragile human hearts can be broken. I hope she has gone home and talked to her mom or her best friend, and that soon, she can smile again.
A pudgy, dark-skinned Israeli girl in her twenties is taking out a pack of cigarettes and as I walk by her, I see tears streaming down her face.
Her heart must be broken in one of the thousand and one ways our fragile human hearts can be broken. I hope she has gone home and talked to her mom or her best friend, and that soon, she can smile again.
Visiting My Homeland
I'm walking on the Carmel, Haifa. Israel. It's good to be back here, the land of my ancestors, the land where my parents spent their childhoods.
I used to come here as a kid during the summers, sort of like the way those Taiwanese ABCs come back to Taiwan every summer (and my Hebrew is like their Mandarin). I went to the beach with my cousins, ate a lot of good middle eastern food, slept in my grandmother's house, not too far from the famous Bahai temple.
Walking along the streets I once walked as a teenager brings back a lot of memories. Who would have guessed that I would be living in China?
Drinking tea with family I haven't seen in twenty years, I tell them that in China, I have magically "become" Israeli. This is because I used to tell the cab drivers of China that I'm American, but they all would take so long to respond, trying to figure out a polite way to cover up their dislike of the States. I saw right through their hesitation, and so decided to tell them I'm Israeli and now they are always so friendly, complimenting me and my homeland.
I get on an elevator at the hotel where I am staying and say hello to a middle-aged Israeli man. He looks like he likes sports and the outdoors. He suddenly says to me, "You look Israeli, but then when you said hi, I realized that you aren't."
"Thanks for the compliment," I tell him, after explaining to him that my parents are from Israel.
Talking to my Israeli family, it saddens me to realize how difficult the situation is for them here. They just want to live in peace in their land. Others don't see it that way. And of course, there are fanatics to blame on both sides.
As I walk around Haifa, especially because I live in China now, a waiguoren (foreigner), I look at these people and I realize that I am home.
I used to come here as a kid during the summers, sort of like the way those Taiwanese ABCs come back to Taiwan every summer (and my Hebrew is like their Mandarin). I went to the beach with my cousins, ate a lot of good middle eastern food, slept in my grandmother's house, not too far from the famous Bahai temple.
Walking along the streets I once walked as a teenager brings back a lot of memories. Who would have guessed that I would be living in China?
Drinking tea with family I haven't seen in twenty years, I tell them that in China, I have magically "become" Israeli. This is because I used to tell the cab drivers of China that I'm American, but they all would take so long to respond, trying to figure out a polite way to cover up their dislike of the States. I saw right through their hesitation, and so decided to tell them I'm Israeli and now they are always so friendly, complimenting me and my homeland.
I get on an elevator at the hotel where I am staying and say hello to a middle-aged Israeli man. He looks like he likes sports and the outdoors. He suddenly says to me, "You look Israeli, but then when you said hi, I realized that you aren't."
"Thanks for the compliment," I tell him, after explaining to him that my parents are from Israel.
Talking to my Israeli family, it saddens me to realize how difficult the situation is for them here. They just want to live in peace in their land. Others don't see it that way. And of course, there are fanatics to blame on both sides.
As I walk around Haifa, especially because I live in China now, a waiguoren (foreigner), I look at these people and I realize that I am home.
Monday, March 16, 2009
A New Friend
Lately, I've been having very positive interactions with random people I meet during the course of my day. I guess this shows you that if you are happy inside, you will attract the right people into your life. China (or perhaps anywhere) is a good training ground.
I get on the train and I see a man in his mid-forties reading a book on shufa (Chinese calligraphy). As everyone knows, I am a shufa fan! I can't help but walk over to him and tell him that I love shufa. Actually, I always like meeting Chinese people who are into shufa.
He responds very warmly and we begin talking about Chinese characters. We both have to change trains and walk together to line 13. He sometimes uses English, and it's pretty good. It's good to make a new friend. We exchange cards and say goodbye. "Keep in touch!" we both say. Perhaps we can get together for tea and talk more about shufa.
I am waiting for the door of the subway car to open and as it does, I hear him call my name. "Kaiyuan," he says.
I turn around, and he's holding out the book of shufa to me. "Here," he says, and puts it in my hands.
I am totally suprised and I tell him "Buyong, buyong! You don't have to, you don't have to!" But the doors are about to close and he won't take it back.
I am touched by the warmth and kindness of this Chinese man I just met fifteen minutes ago. A new friend.
I get on the train and I see a man in his mid-forties reading a book on shufa (Chinese calligraphy). As everyone knows, I am a shufa fan! I can't help but walk over to him and tell him that I love shufa. Actually, I always like meeting Chinese people who are into shufa.
He responds very warmly and we begin talking about Chinese characters. We both have to change trains and walk together to line 13. He sometimes uses English, and it's pretty good. It's good to make a new friend. We exchange cards and say goodbye. "Keep in touch!" we both say. Perhaps we can get together for tea and talk more about shufa.
I am waiting for the door of the subway car to open and as it does, I hear him call my name. "Kaiyuan," he says.
I turn around, and he's holding out the book of shufa to me. "Here," he says, and puts it in my hands.
I am totally suprised and I tell him "Buyong, buyong! You don't have to, you don't have to!" But the doors are about to close and he won't take it back.
I am touched by the warmth and kindness of this Chinese man I just met fifteen minutes ago. A new friend.
The Lonely Wife and Bottle of Wine
I'm sitting in a cafe where I like to study here in the suburbs of Beijing. It's as close as you're going to get to a cafe in California. Cafe culture is pretty new to China, but they do a pretty good job of it here.
I order an omelette and get ready to study more poetry. While I'm eating it, I notice at the table next to me is a young couple in their early thirties. The woman is quite beautiful and looks educated--she looks like she's still in graduate school working on her dissertation.
Her husband is on the plump side, short, with glasses. He feeds the girl some food and she smiles and eats it. Then, the server brings a bottle of wine. He inspects it and nods his head and then the server opens it and pours it into very wide wine glasses. He shows her how to swirl the wine in the glass to open it up and give it some air.
The same thing most people do in the U.S. when we don't know much about wine!
Suddenly, of course, I get it. They are married and are on an afternoon date. He must be a rich businessman and she his exquisite trophy wife.
(I know what you are thinking, "Damn, Ron, you are like a modern day American-Israeli Moroccan-Ashkenazi-Jewish Daoist Sherlock Holmes!" Thanks!)
I return to my omelette, which is pretty good. The owner of the cafe is a Westerner, I think, and I can just picture the omelette training seminar he had for the cooks. ("Guys, try to add only a few teaspoons of oil to the pan and use low heat....")
I look up and the pudgy businessman is putting on his jacket and then gets up to kiss his wife goodbye. He goes to pay and leaves.
He must have just received a phone call requesting him to attend an urgent meeting in which they will talk about the new factory they are building in Shandong. In fact, he probably has to get on a plane to go there now and will be drinking lots of baijiu tonight.
His wife is left at the table with a bottle of wine, almost full. She takes small sips and reads the textbook in front of her, hiding her sadness.
I order an omelette and get ready to study more poetry. While I'm eating it, I notice at the table next to me is a young couple in their early thirties. The woman is quite beautiful and looks educated--she looks like she's still in graduate school working on her dissertation.
Her husband is on the plump side, short, with glasses. He feeds the girl some food and she smiles and eats it. Then, the server brings a bottle of wine. He inspects it and nods his head and then the server opens it and pours it into very wide wine glasses. He shows her how to swirl the wine in the glass to open it up and give it some air.
The same thing most people do in the U.S. when we don't know much about wine!
Suddenly, of course, I get it. They are married and are on an afternoon date. He must be a rich businessman and she his exquisite trophy wife.
(I know what you are thinking, "Damn, Ron, you are like a modern day American-Israeli Moroccan-Ashkenazi-Jewish Daoist Sherlock Holmes!" Thanks!)
I return to my omelette, which is pretty good. The owner of the cafe is a Westerner, I think, and I can just picture the omelette training seminar he had for the cooks. ("Guys, try to add only a few teaspoons of oil to the pan and use low heat....")
I look up and the pudgy businessman is putting on his jacket and then gets up to kiss his wife goodbye. He goes to pay and leaves.
He must have just received a phone call requesting him to attend an urgent meeting in which they will talk about the new factory they are building in Shandong. In fact, he probably has to get on a plane to go there now and will be drinking lots of baijiu tonight.
His wife is left at the table with a bottle of wine, almost full. She takes small sips and reads the textbook in front of her, hiding her sadness.
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