Monday, November 26, 2007

Surfing in Shanghai


I am walking home from the subway this evening. The way to my apartment in quiet, considering it's the downtown shopping district in Shanghai. There are three large department stores near the subway station, probably several more within a two block radius that I am not aware of. I'm not really big on shopping in big department stores.

A block away from the subway station, the street is quiet, lined with small boutiques selling custom-made Chinese dresses for women, custom-made ("bespoke") suits for men, and modern women's clothing. My first week here, I notice a shop with a cool Hindu name, and then a few days later, I walk by it at night and see several workmen inside bashing the walls down.

Within a week, the Hindu sign is gone. I can faintly hear the voice of an old Hindu guru echoing in the distance as I walk by, his Indian accent rising and falling playfully in staccato tones, saying "This is the nature of maya, the illusory world, one day Hindu women's fashion boutique is here, one day, it is gone. Accept this fact and do not cling, my son."

So, they're bashing the walls down, and a week later, there's a funky new boutique there.

Today, I walk by and notice there's an English quote written on the front door of the new, hip boutique, and so I stop in front of the store. The women who is standing at the door wonders why I have stopped there, maybe to buy a scarf for a friend? However, I tell her I would like to read the English quote on the door. I am sure she has no idea what it says, and I'm curious if it actually makes sense. Who knows, maybe I have happened upon a bit of wisdom for the day.

The quote talks about finding that wave, paddling into it, standing up, and savoring the sweetness of the ride. It's proper English, and I like it. I have several friends who surf, and to them, there's nothing like it. An experience of "flow" that sounds closer to God than any morning in church reciting three hundred year-old hymns.

She asks me what it's about, and unbelieveably, I remember how to say surfing (衝浪; chong1 lang4) in Chinese. I tell her I like it and then head home, surfing this wave that is my life in Shanghai.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

My Kitchen in Shanghai

Tonight, I did something amazing. I cooked dinner. I know, I know. You are saying, cooking your own dinner, what's the big deal?

Oh, maybe because it's because I'm a guy, right? No, wrong!

It's just that I haven't had my own kitchen in the past three years. And now, living in the French Concession in Shanghai in my own apartment, I do!

I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to go to the grocery store and buy ginger, garlic, a bottle of tea oil, fresh vegetables, some meat... and then to come home and start preparing dinner. I get out my cutting board and chop garlic while the water is boiling. The pot, it's shiny and new, and almost in slow motion, I throw in the garlic and ginger, adding some soy sauce and tea oil. At the appropriate time, I throw in the mushrooms, and then later the greens, with the thinly sliced beef.

I know, I know, you are getting hungry just reading this!

And voila, dinner is ready. I even bought a small table for my kitchen so I can eat like a mensch (that's Yiddish for a real human being).

After dinner, I clean up. Rinse the cutting board and wash my bowl, my spoon, chopsticks. The countertop is littered with garlic skin, and so I grab a sponge a wash it all clean. All my dishes are drying on my new metal dish rack (from IKEA, of course).

I check my email, and when I return to the kitchen to get a drink, I stop and look with pride at my kitchen in Shanghai.

These are the simple pleasures of life.

To Richard Moon, My Old Aikido Teacher With Love and Respect

When I was back in California recently, I had the honor to take an aikido class with my old teacher, Richard Moon. I was only 23 when I started studying with him. I would take the BART train to Civic Center after working at the law firm where I worked in San Francisco's Financial district, and on Thursday nights, I was his disciple.

Richard always had a way of putting things in perspective, so however shitty a day you were having, you always felt good, revived, and back to your old self after practice.

That's why I kept practicing aikido.

"Stress is a good way to find your center," he used to say. Just like when we stand, we rock back and forth, side t0 side to feel exactly where center is.

Over a decade later, I suddenly appear in practice. It's so strange to be back. Richard looks about the same. He tells me I look younger! This is probably because I used to meet with him at Pete's Coffee and tell him how much I wanted to change careers. And I finally did.

Richard leads us in stretching exercises. He asks us to stretch and then he tells us that after we stretch, it's very important to relax and feel the effect on the body. He tells us that some people who practice yoga move from one pose to the next, never stopping to feel how each pose affects the body.

It's like yin (陰) and yang (陽).

I think about this because I'm now in a very yin phase. I spent the past few months working hard, getting ready for Shanghai. And now, because of my recent injury (it's getting better), I'm forced to relax and rest.

Well, Richard, here's to you. Thanks for all your many gifts.

Censorship in China

哎呀, I am missing YouTube and Wikipedia. They are censored in China. Oh, and I am missing seeing my own blog entries. Blogger is censored, too.

I told my sister, a high-powered Manhattan girl about this, and she couldn't believe it. "They all must think it sucks." Well, I don't know, I think most Chinese are so patriotic, they probably are happy their government is "protecting" them.

From Wikipedia and YouTube?

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The Whisky Drinker

I'm coming home on the subway here in Shanghai at about 10 p.m. and walk out the turnstile toward exit 4. That's the Maoming Lu exit at the Shanxi Nan Lu subway station. In other words, home.

A guy in his early 20s, wearing nice pants and a suit jacket walks past me with a bare bottle of whisky in hand (half empty), his face completely flushed. He's not swaying, so it looks like his ability to hold his alcohol is pretty strong. He is walking ahead of me, and when he approaches exit 4, he looks around and turns back to walk to the other side of the station, as if searching for someone and not finding her.

The phrase "All dressed up and no place to go" comes to my mind. I start wondering what happened to him.

It's getting late and I need to get home. I stop wondering and just chalk it up to "another human being looking for truth", take the escalator to street level, and call it a day.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You...

I am negotiating my contract for my new apartment and I bring along an Israeli friend. During the negotiation process, I get a lower monthly rent, and some other bonuses. I speak Chinese to my new landlord, who is a lovely middle-aged Shanghainese woman. I want her to know that I am a down-to-earth person, not another faceless, incomprehensible waiguoren. And so throughout the process, I try to keep it friendly and light, and when she says something kind or offers something to me in the negotiation process, I thank her profusely. It's a habit I picked up from people in Taiwan, and it's pretty aligned with my own nature.

It goes like this in Chinese: "謝,謝,謝,謝,謝謝謝謝..." You say "thanks" very quickly about eight times in a row, so it sounds like this: "shyeh, shyeh, shyeh, shyeh, shyeh, shyeh, shyeh, shyeh..."

My Israeli friend, who's lived in a Shanghai for several years pulls me aside after and says, "Look, you've got to stop the profuse 'thank you's'! One is enough!" Shanghai is indeed a city of deals, and I think I might have to unlearn a few "bad" habits.

Or maybe not. "謝,謝,謝,謝,謝謝謝謝..."

China is Gritty

I know that many of my dear friends have been wondering how I'm doing here in China. It's been over month, and all you've gotten is a couple excited blog entries and some words from a monk in Thailand. You've probably figured that I am busy getting settled, and you would be right.

China is gritty. People like to spit. And honk their horns. People are just starting to enter the modern world. Sure, some people have some money (I saw a nice Ferrari the other day, and a Porsche SUV today), but you need time to evolve. It's like they've all been busy catching up after a long nightmare.

And my first month here has been gritty as well. I didn't come here with an especially detailed plan. I knew that I needed to study Chinese. I knew I needed to study medicine. And I knew I somehow needed to support my studies. And so I figured, as usual, I would get here and the "plan" would become clear. And so it has. The Chinese call it "yuan fen".

Within a day (I'm being serious), I had an apartment and a job lined up. I even found an authentic aikido dojo with a real live Japanese sensei straight from Hombu dojo in Tokyo and a room full of enthusiastic aikidoka who I would be able to practice with. I was expansive, excited for the coming journey.

And then, of course, everything went wrong. That's just the way it goes sometimes, isn't it?

My apartment didn't work out--I found out that landlord is a terrible man, greedy, to be exact. I would have had to wait until my Israeli friend moved out at the end of the month, and I felt like I needed a home soon, anyway.

That job, well, I soon found out the rate they were offering me was well below market. If I'm here to study Chinese and medicine (and not to work as an English teacher), I figured I should get paid enough money. And the job search continued. One day looking at a new apartment, one day interviewing, and sometimes both.

And then, on my second day practicing aikido, sensei asked us to dive head-first over a kneeling white belt. No problem. Then two white belts. Really, no problem. Finally, we ended up having to jump over four people. I figured I am a blue belt, one of the senior students. I better do this. And so I did. And I did just fine. I jumped head first over four people and rolled out of it, just like a good aikidoka should.

But after practice, my back was really sore. And so, for the last few weeks, I've been humbled. Looking for apartments, looking for work, and experiencing the worst aikido injury I've ever had.

I remember the expansiveness and excitement of coming to Shanghai, and it's as if someone said, "Okay, Roniboy, we're goin' get you a little closer to your roots in the deep ground."

Humility. Humiliation. As the poet David Whyte once explained, they both come from the latin root "humus", or soil. And so, in the past month, I have been brought back to my own roots, to my own ground, far removed from that expansiveness.

The good thing about being a healer is that when you experience any kind of pain or illness, you know you can "use" it to become a better practitioner. So many times, I've needled patients with back pain, but I have never experienced it myself. I like to think that the soreness in my back is making me a more compassionate healer.

I also think about Jacky Chan and Steven Seagal. It is unbelieveable to think that these two guys haven't taken hard falls and had to pay for it for a month afterwards. So, at least the soreness in my back is coming from doing a stunt jump, and not, say, from slipping on a wet floor in a McDonalds bathroom.

People in China can't read my posts, because their most gracious of governments won't let them read any blogger blogs. Perhaps if the people here learn about what is happening outside of China, they might get some ideas into their heads that they wouldn't be able to shake. Ideas about freedom of expression, democracy, creativity. Dangerous ideas indeed.

Perhaps they've lived under such an oppressive system for so long that now is too early for all this "freedom". My Chinese friend says she knows her country is "behind" in the "freedom" department. And so I said, well, maybe it takes time, evolution, maybe now is too early. Maybe it will take 30 or 50 years until the people here can actually handle it all. I hope that one day, people in China can read my blog on blogger.

Since I would like all people, people living under repressive communist regimes that are opening up their markets, as well as people living under capitalist regimes ruled by large multinationals, to read my blog, I will soon move this blog to a site that can be viewed by all.

I'll let you know the new URL as soon as its ready. In the meantime, keep living your dreams. Yes, there are obstacles that get in the way, but keep going. How else do you think Steven Seagal got so frigging big?