A Back-Post

10-19-2008



9:35am. Getting squashed in a bus has its strange pleasures. I watch as a whisper of a grin lingers on a man’s face as he savors the guilty anonymity from being next to (and awfully close to!) that pretty girl with brown eyes, even if she is quite short… Together, we share incredulity for the thirty other people outside the bus who want to make it in. For all your discomfort, you smile (sheepishly, but nonetheless evilly) knowing that others have it worse.

北京社么都没有，就只有一大堆人！One passenger, her forehead glistening with sheen of sweat and light makeup, exclaims to her curly-haired friend. A middle-aged, balding man leaves the bus and relinquishes his coveted seat, now empty before me. I feel particularly masochistic (macho?) today and let another girl take it. In rapid 山东-accent Chinese she thanks me and chatters to her friend to take the seat instead. The bus driver’s assistant (ticketmaster...) screams himself hoarse commanding people to get on the bus through the back door. Back to back, arm against arm, head bumping into head (or armpits… or backs… or worse), the bus is a bumper car arena gone insane, jolting forward in incremental outbursts whenever the 西三环 inches forward. The driver, with clip-on sunglasses over his glasses, stoically looks forward.

…Grandmothers and grandfathers stroll through the park, their grandchildren waddling steps ahead of them. A tantalizing zephyr skims gracefully across the lake, mischievously ringing the willow windchimes along the water. Its cool, fresh touch runs with the warm smile of the 9:50am sunshine…

It seems that all the passengers are headed toward 香山. Her eyes tiny, gleaming orbs, a girl climbs onto a raised portion of the bus. The 山东girl helps her up and smiles to the girl, a radiant burst of exhilaration almost antithetical to the cramped breathlessness that permeates this bus. The mother passes a small plastic bag to her daughter to place next to her, and gently tells her to simply sit close to it—“你就不用一直拿着！”

…Kayaking on the Catalina ocean and being burnt idyllically in open seas… now I imagine skimming over a lake in tiny pedalboats in the middle of the city, the splop of fish rippling over the waters around me.

The elderly couple reclines on the stones along the lake now tentatively walk away. Her back to the stone, and her eyes barely shut, the woman rubbed her forehead with a rolling motion of her hands. As she leaves, she grabs a newspaper and says nobody in particular, “我们不该污染…”

Honking horns hoarsely upbraid each other, a contest of fury and cacophonous insanity. Jostling past each other in devoted fervor, one traveler apologies as she squeezes between two others. The bus halts, and the driver flips up his sunglasses. He extinguishes the engine as the passengers in the bus begin to complain, wondering why nothing is moving. Ahead, a vehicle has sputtered its last and rests in a chaotic mess in the middle of the street. Every vehicle behind is locked in endless limbo. Drivers come out, stretch, and smoke cigarettes. It’s the Chinese way… ‘任命了!’

“…Hehehahaha!” one man giggles, its pitch squeaky high and punctuated with punches of enthused mirth. His laugh is the sound of opened 青岛beer, of rowdy froth and golden, sunburnt bliss. Bracing his blue fold-up chair over his shoulder, he chuckles some more as he says goodbye to his two old friends, then saunters along the lakeside.

One a wheelchair, a bald man and his family glide across the same lakeside, moving in the opposite direction.

In a glorious glow, an innocent smile flashes across the mouth of a white-haired man and betrays his infinite joy. I imagine his mind is engaged in the mystery of generations as he holds the hand of his grandchild and strolls along with his elderly wife. He holds a cream-yellow cloth bag and wears a denim blue vest. As he passes underneath these willow trees, he turns to point at a group of young professional-looking women chatting on a picnic cloth.

“Married women are always too busy!” one of the women declares, rebelliously popping a cracker into her mouth as she finishes. “对对对!” the others follow. “就是吗!”

Relieved, I unzip my jacket and feel the fresh breeze as I leave the bus, still jammed in the traffic. The entrance to the park is directly in front, and although it isn’t 香山, I imagine it—like the bus ride—has stories to tell.

Even at Home...

Need to leave soon, so I'll have to keep this blog post focused on the minimals... I find it difficult to stay updated... there are so many blog posts that are still half done sitting here.

Data analysis doesn't tend to sound like drudgery, but when you're dealing with transcribing interviews, it does tend to get on your nerves. I have a bunch of interviews that need to be written out, and after having to spend over five hours writing one of them out, I am dreading the ridiculousness of the four or five more interviews I need to transcribe *groan*

To add to my ever-increasing blase for this project (who would've known), the next two weeks will be a long and arduous process to obtain all the necessary consent forms from *parents,* and that's going to be drudgery as well. There are always doldrums when it comes down to projects... and I much prefer the actual interviewing, interacting, and the intensive data collection that occurs on the front. I also love the data analysis portion sans the arduous processing bit.

This past week has basically been rest, recuperate, restock, and re-research. With a better idea of what the school looks like, I've been hiding in the library reading up on theoretical frameworks that fit a little better... I still need to return to touch up the pilot interview and make it 'shipworthy,' so to speak.

After this frustratingly long process of transcribing interviews, I've also decided giving diaries to my subjects to write in will also be a good move... A researcher (that I admire greatly!) working with students in London was pursuing a similar to project to mine and gave the students little diaries that they wrote it. No need to transcribe diaries... which is gauze on my wounds :p.

Tomorrow I re-engage my field, jumping on a plane in the afternoon and returning to the school. Hopefully when I return, I will be rested... but at the least, I'll have layers of winter clothing, a much better grip on my data, and plenty of gifts and stationery to give. This week has literally just been sitting at home, working with interviews, shopping for stuff, visiting relatives, and being a hungry hermit (you tend to miss lunch when you get stuck in there) in the library.

My father, incidentally, is also leaving tonight to America, where he'll meet my brother (Eric... I had no idea you tore *two* ligaments but not your ACL... you ought to tell me things like this!)

Raymond

Outside of the golden light of this room, the raucous Chinese middle school bell joins in a cacophony of roaring vehicles. The white moonlight mixes with the metallic scent of burnt garbage, glowing wispy-white in the swirling fog. Here in the Beijing suburbs, I have been rudely awaken from the intoxicating rush of quotidian life, reminded again that lifetimes are but breath upon a winter window.

Grinding to a halt, the machinery that contrived to fuel my ambitions and continued fervor is repulsed by the fact that Raymond is no longer here in this world. But I am further appalled by my own callousness and the fact that it is over a month. I have missed his funeral as well as a chance to bequeath my own wishes. His phone number is still written on my list of contacts, since he asked me to attend a concert next to his home the last time we spoke. Like the scent of smoldering garbage, unfinished business is most unbearable in this transient world.

It reminds me of how little I know about the lives of those with whom I’ve crossed paths in life. Perhaps some of my other friends have passed away without my knowledge. Jammed within the economic machine, Marx’s workers were alienated from their humanity. But one can’t help but feel alienated by the machine of personal dreams and goals, as humanistic as that has been framed (hey, Maslow’s self-actualization, right?)

My exploration of education and perceptions of education in China is coming full circle to an exploration of oneself. The need to be judged as an accomplished figure maintains importance in my life, even if I know it flickers tenuously on a phantasmagoric scrim. Having lost a friend without even knowing it, I question the importance of my dreams and goals, a virtue taught in so many educational systems. An ignorance of humanity derives from imbibing too quickly the intoxicating brew of ambition, personal satisfaction, and productivity.

But if these accomplishments are Plato’s shadows on a wall, what should my true aim be in life? Some friends in my life have opted for the subaltern world, defying the “hegemonic” educational track and ambitions for an unknown life. Ought I consider joining their ranks? My interest in education, I suppose, is an intensely selfish one.

The school bell, declaring its presence with a boisterous shout, rings again. It heralds the end of evening self-study. One day ends and the other must go on. Meeting him for the last time at a Starbucks in Taiwan, Raymond was relating stories about who he wanted to date, but couldn’t manage to keep his voice down. He never knew how to whisper. I think I can hear him shout.

Dancing

Blog Post 10/6

As the teachers’ meeting on home visits also concludes with sombre tones, our ears still ringing with stories of impoverished households, broken families, and sick children, I follow other teachers out into the chilly autumn night for some sightseeing. A chilly evening wind creeps through my two layers of jacket. Concluding with an equally sombre, dusty blue hue, the daytime sky gives way to night, and a dark shroud falls over the town.

As a tourist location, Yanqing serves as the back garden for Beijing. Only a two hour drive, it boasts of cleaner air, mountain getaways, and among other things, ‘farmer fare:’ an assortment of fermented tofu and pork cooked in a large clay pot over a charcoal fire, eaten with a mind boggling sundry of small plates loaded with yams, pig liver, multicoloured vegetables, mushrooms, buns… At the centre of the city is a vast plaza, meticulously cleaned and newly built. Unlike Beijing, the town is not lit perpetually. Glowing from lights from nearby shops, the consummate-white tiles if the plaza are an eerie shade of gray.

I was surprised to hear the dull thud of drumbeats as we walked onto the plaza. With a tingling sensation, I caught the strained whine of Chinese bugles (I think that’s what I’d call them) meandering among the beats. The real surprise came as we continued through the plaza. A small stereo was playing a Chinese pop song remixed to follow a four count swing beat. Randomly matched in gender, height, and age, couples were dancing a simple version of the rock-step—step-step beat. To my amusement, two elderly men were dancing together, their wrinkled faces glowing with childlike smiles.

The drumming and bugles were further down the plaza, where two parallel lines of men, women, and children were copying the movements of two old men leading the line. Holding neon pink feather fans in each hand, the men were performing a folk dance native to the region. In another context I might have thought the dance was choreographed at Las Vegas. A black garbage bag next to the musicians was being raided by several middle-aged women, their hands reappearing with pink flashes. Bystanders would tap to the enticing rhythm (not quite one you find in Social Dance at Stanford) and join the line, fan or no fan. Again to my surprise, several of the dancers were middle aged men. The whole scene reminded me of a dark club room, with a ridiculously strong beat and hundreds of people moving in unison.

“The musicians come out here every day!” the man next to me responds. “They volunteer their time to come.”
“How does everyone learn how to dance?”
The man grins and turns to me. “You just follow the person next to you and hopefully somebody knows it.”

As bad as I am at dancing, I can understand the allure.