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?