thanksgiving 2008

Two weeks left in Nanjing, it is cold here and I just caught one from my roommate so I am sitting in pajama bottoms I long-term borrowed from Shawna and my recently-bought zip-up sweater that looks a little gay reading about the varying inadequacies of health coverage in rural China. I have to do this for a presentation on Wednesday with a few other classmates. Everyone in my program practically just started working on this project. Our topic is street vendors, and for my own research paper and part I am focusing on health care and using street vendors as a case study. We've interviewed a few here and there, but street vendors are getting more and more sparse as the city tries to clean itself up in the name of civilized manners (as the countless red banners throughout the city proclaim: 让南京更美好).
Generally speaking, many of the stories are quite similar: there was no work to be found in Xinjiang or wherever rural place, working hours go from 6am to 10pm, there is no health insurance for them since they come from the countryside. And then there's the "rugged adventurer" kid from Aspen, CO in my group who asks in broken Mandarin: "你喜欢你的工作吗？ Do you like your job?" There's a pretty obvious answer to that, especially when someone spends every day burning their arm to move coals around at the bottom of a stove to bake bread. But I am pretty surprised at how open some of these vendors will be. One fruit seller said he wished the Taiwanese government would take over. When someone asked the Uyghur people who sell skewers how much money they make in a weekend, they looked confused: “周末？ 周末是什么意思? Weekend? What it is the meaning of that?"
Anyway, I came back from Hunan last weekend feeling a bit lonely. Spending time with my relatives there reminded me of that warm feeling togetherness of family brings. It felt like a holiday, it was my surrogate Thanksgiving a week before. So I had a taste of family warmth I hadn't experienced in a while. I miss eating dinner with them, and then sitting on the couch watching Chinese soap operas while entertaining little Ziyi 子依. When I said goodbye to Ziyi and tried to press my forehead against hers, she slapped me across the face and laughed at me. Later on I was inspired with an idea to make a children's book in Chinese, but I'm gonna keep that idea secret since this blog is public ;)
This last picture I've posted is one of my favorites from last weekend...

长沙 day 3

RenZhi and I at our grandfather's middle school
me and the brothers
RenGuang and his daughter GuZiYi (谷子依）
On the eve of my departure I'm looking back on this weekend with a lot of joy. Although I didn't know what to expect before coming to Changsha, I've had such a wonderful time these past few days with my cousins, and never really felt distant from them after the moment we met. Today I ate breakfast consisting of doujiang and youtiao (豆浆跟油条) with RenZhi and afterward, with he and his girlfriend strolled around the city's center which is essentially the same as all other Chinese city's commercial districts. We played pool in a cold dark pool hall for a while and then met with RenGuang and ate so much Hunanese dishes (湘菜), including the specialty and a personal favorite of mine 臭豆腐. It was so delicious: not too foul, nor too salty, just the right amount of spiciness, and black as a beetle's back.
After eating I took a long walk around with RenGuang. We ended up at 天心阁, a part of Changsha's old city walls. It's been turned into a public park, and is actually where RenGuang and his wife took their wedding photos back in 2005. RenGuang is the most talkative of these cousins I have met, and I understand his Mandarin the most. As we stood up on the tall pavilion in the park, he was telling me a bit about the city's history and eventually we talked more about family history. He described to me his father's situation in China when the rest of the family left and he said it certainly isn't anyone's fault, but ultimately a matter of how history shaped the family's various constituents. He told me his dad once tried to go to America to visit his family, went all the way to GuangDong to get a visa, but his visa was denied bc the Chinese gov't saw that all his siblings lived in the U.S, and they thought if he were to go there he would not want to return. So for this reason my uncle never had the chance to go to America at all. RenGuang furthermore told me that because of their family circumstances they did not have connections in high places when the time came for he and his siblings to find work. He said they had to rely on their own resourcefulness and abilities, much like us in the US (since familial connections aren't as important there as they are in China). As we leaned over the railing of the pavilion and talked, looking over the bustling city I felt really happy. It had been a long time since I'd felt this inspired and awakened. I told RenGuang how happy I was for all of us to have this chance to meet.
We then strolled around a bit more, sat down to have our shoes shined while I told him about my career option specifics and what my family has been up to. RenGuang told me about his job more in full. He started as a Chinese major, but switched into things like sales and then ended up where he is now working in an office for Changsha city government. He writes various documents and speeches for government officials, helps with the organization of various meetings. He said his job is very high-pressure, but he seems content.
I've felt very at home here, even since I arrived and that feeling increased over these short days. I am so glad to have had this opportunity, certainly is among the most meaningful in my abroad experience.

谷家

I've really been enjoying my stay in Changsha quite a bit. I was nervous as hell on the flight over here from Nanjing; although it was only an hour flight it felt substantially longer. Then I wandered around the arrivals gate looking for people who would recognize me as the only foreign person in there and eventually up walked three people all with eyes set on me and I knew. It was RenZhi (任芝） and his girlfriend and RenXiang (任祥), we introduced ourselves and quickly went out to the car that my other cousin RenGuang （任光）was driving. I quickly got over my nervousness in the car as we drove back to their apartment, driving over the big Xiang Jiang river with a nice view of the city on both sides. Since I have arrived they have been very hospitable towards me, eager to provide me with food, sight-seeing opportunities, and even a hotel room since their apartment is too small to fit everyone. RenGuang lives with his wife, 2-yr old daughter, and his mother (late uncle's wife) in that apartment and he works in an office involved with Changsha city governent. The other two cousins who showed up came from Shenzhen where they work in 外贸 foreign trade involving a product that helps people to quit smoking. They took an 8-hr train ride to get here. Two other cousins live in Leiyang, my father's own hometown, but were too busy to make it to Changsha this weekend.
They've busted out tons of photos of when my grandfather, aunt WenLing (She pulled the trigger?!) and WenQi (UNCLE JIM!) came to visit them many years ago. They have pictures our grandfather sent them over the years and they seem to hold him in high regard. Ironically enough, he even sent my cousins here in China those family reunion t-shirts from 1995 that has every single Ku family member's signature except for theirs. And my cousins had pictures of themselves wearing those shirts on a different occasions in China. Tonight I was given a copy of the family tree book our grandfather had had bound way back when. I saw it once before when I was younger bc my dad has a copy, but now I have my own.
Yesterday I went with a few of them to Hunan University (our grandfather's 母校) as well as the small mountain that hugs it. We hiked up the mountain and came back after dark. It was such a peaceful and relaxing place, with nice autumn colors and not too many people. It's been interesting spending time with them. Sometimes there are long moments of silence bc I can't really think of things to say when my language capabilities are so limited and I barely know them to begin with. When they speak with each other it is almost entirely conducted in the Leiyang dialect of which I understand essentially nothing. The brothers translate their mother's words into Mandarin for me since she does not speak standard Mandarin. Sometimes I don't understand their standard Mandarin either and I either make a guess as to what they are saying based on context or I just pretend I understand and later probably ask a question that they've already explained the answer to. In this sense, my lack of listening comprehension ability as well as proper grammar when I try to speak sometimes makes me feel really embarrassed, but they know I've only been studying a little over a year. Sometimes I have an easier time than others... I think my language capabilities are actually quite dependent on things like the weather, the time of day, how hungry/full I am, how tired/awake I am... so my ability seems to fluctuate.
All in all though, I've had a great time here so far. My cousins have been incredibly warm and welcoming. RenZhi is very friendly and amiable, RenXiang quiet and sweet, and RenGuang talkative and buddy-like. As for mistakes or other discrepencies in my Mandarin oral-audio skills, I can only really learn from those. Our family here seems quite happy in spite of the unfortunate circumstances their father (my uncle) was left in during the Cultural Revolution when the rest of the family went to Taiwan. But I mean, they are Ku's after all, of course they're going to prevail in the face of hardships.

长沙远方堂兄

from left to right: 谷任之, me, 谷任光
任光，他老婆跟女儿，伯母，任之跟他女朋友，任祥 RenGuang and his wife and daughter, Aunt, RenZhi and his girlfriend, RenXiang

我跟谷任祥，谷任之 在湖南大学 RenXiang, RenZhi and me at Hunan University

彩虹里

Played a drinking game with a few friends while watching a ridiculous Japanese zombie movie called "Wild Zero." The days are flowing by like a river, each one the same yet totally different. A month left in China, a period of time that once seemed relatively long to me, but I know how these weeks go. And on Thursday I am taking off for Changsha 长沙... nervous, excited, not knowing what to expect.
I finally bought a pair of pants I like at a local Walmart-like super market. My other pants are far too baggy and ratty looking. The weather is quite cold these days, something I haven't really experienced in China before. Every late morning we open the window to a view of the haziest smog and a bleak set of tall buildings. Certainly there are prettier parts of Nanjing. I still have not gotten around to walking around the old city walls, what's left of them anyway.
I do like the 3-day weekends, sleeping in is so nice especially with the curtains drawn and the room is cast in that certain light, perfect for sleeping when you are simply so exhausted. I am needing to take advantage of opportunities for naps from time to time. Naps can just be the best thing in the world as long as they dont exceed 2.5 hours, for me anyways. I took a nap last week at one point and in two hours had a plethora of dreams I actually remembered. I haven't remembered a single dream practically in the longest time.
Of these dreams, most remarkable was one in which I was in 青岛 and I heard on the news that Bill Gates had commited suicide.. the news was saying 盖茨自杀了 and I felt like a dope for not knowing about it until exaclty 24 hours later. Then another dream included me noticing that another program member Tim had a copy of the Tribune's TV guide with a picture of Marv from Sin City on the cover and I was like, "Tim, why do you still have a copy of that TV guide, that is so old." Perhaps the most eerie and visually stimulating dream I had involved Shawna and I together again in some strange town. In this small village everyone was playing some sort of games. There was a lake that kids were hovering and flying over with kites using the wind's force. This was in the distance, then further off to my right was a small castle where a long line of couples in wedding attire. Couple by couple would take their turn to race up the castle wall which was like a climbing wall as fast as they could and had to be holding hands the whole time. The men wore top hats and the women white veils. I had to pee so I found an abandoned bathroom, the interior dark and dank with squatter toilets just as in China, and they were very reminiscent of the more rural toilets where you have to pay 1元 to use. I looked out a crack in the bathroom wall and saw a woman in the distance whose back was turned and she was facing a big opaque lake. I left the bathroom and heard whispers with the wind and I thought maybe it would be Shawna, but no one was around. The sky became so gloomy and dark like one day when I was working for the Forest Preserve and we were collecting seed as an epic storm rolled in. I went around the other side of the bathroom looking for Shawna and said aloud that we hadn't made love in a long time. In the distance there still stood the woman facing the vast lake and I felt afraid. It reminded me of a ghost story my dad told me when I was little about a woman without a face in a rice field. So I went back to the area where I could see the lawn games taking place and I felt comforted again, but I was still searching for Shawna.
What do I do in lonelier moments? Watching clips of Across the Universe, the renditions of Beatles songs often calms me and brings me to a place.

5 weeks

The weekend is quiet, of which only 5 remain before my return to the States. And that fifth weekend I still need to make it to Beijing to fly out to Vancouver then Toronto and at last Chi'town. It will be a long day of travel. These days are lazily sliding by, inclement weather turned me indoors this weekend watching "Goodfellas" and "Heathers" and trying to cram a bunch of useful Chinese vocab in my head that will be necessary to employ when I meet my cousin(s) in a few weeks. It's becoming more and more apparent that my time here is quickly drawing to a close and so now I'm shuffling to learn with a restored motivation, so to speak.
Tonight I went out with Masatoshi looking for 米酒 at any local Korean restaurant but they were all closed so we settled on beer and skewers at the regular place I typically go to. It's notably cold out so we more or less jogged to the restaurant, until the big red neon sign appeared at the slight curve in the road. For me, eating skewers is only really palatable any more with a nice cold 雪花 beer. We sat and talked about the program and how it's end is near. I also thought about an afternoon in Beijing with Shawna back in late August when we met up with this kid named Gavin who is a friend of my Cantonese friend Simon. After meandering thru that network of insane modern art galleries called 798 in far NE Beijing, the three of us went to a roadside hole-in-the-wall skewer place where we ate a ridiculous amount of skewers and drank a good amount of 雪花. That was a good afternoon, passing the time by talking and eating for like 3 hours. That's the way an afternoon should be.
Anyway I like hanging out with Masa; for one thing, he prefers to speak Mandarin in most cases since he doesn't always understand my English (I talk too fast and I mumble a lot). I'm not sure what we talk about come to think of it, and I guess I still really don't feel like I know him well even though he's one of my only friends here.
I feel a little frustrated thinking about how I'm building up a stronger basis for both spoken and written Mandarin only to have it inevitably degrade to a substantial degree when I once again drown myself in the science books. No matter what anyone says it is difficult to maintain the pursuit of a language once you are removed from the host country, removed from opportunities to speak (Eugene is not the place to learn Chinese), and removed from the subject altogether. Soon I will be transplanted to a molecular evolution class, among a hoard of other ridiculous ones. When I return I will be a biology major without a single connection in the department, which is scary. I will graduate 6 months after I return to Oregon. I feel it would be a strategic move for me to simply strengthen my relations in other depts like human physiology by being a TA again, or chemistry by getting hired in the lab again. I can just build on these relations, no one says I absolutely have to have biology dept references when I'm looking for jobs and whatnot. Maybe someone will, but if they think I am not good enough it is their loss. My loss of course until I do find a reasonable job...

smog and roommate

我同屋，樊星 My roommate Fanxing "Funstar"
窗外：污染很厉害

Obama wins! Off to 长沙 !

Today is legendary, but for me it is November 5th that I found out America elected its first black (biracial technically) President. I woke up from a nap and my roommate Funstar said, "did you know Obama won?" and that's the memory I will recall when people ask me far down the line, "What were you doing when America elected its first black President?" I'll say Funstar just came back to the room dressed fancy from an important interview and asked me if I knew. Well I was really happy to hear that, you know, because now I have another reason to come back to the United States. Just now watched his acceptance speech on Youtube from Grant Park in my beloved Chicago, IL. On Facebook a lot of 'friends'' status reads: "Yes We Did!" And I am sad I missed out on the whole thing, all the time leading up to the election and especially today now that I know Obama for sure won and I don't have to worry anymore. The acceptance speech was very moving. I heard Sen. McCain had a very good concession speech which I will try to catch as well. Although I am completely late, I may well go back and watch all the VP and Presidential debates (all of which I am embarrassed to admit) I did not watch here in China.
I went to dinner last night with my Chinese friend 炫霖 and he told me he loves Obama, not only because he is good-looking and black, but also because he knows how to fight for his cause. He also told me Sichuanese girls are of spicey temperament like their food around the time I was relaying my brief travel experiences in that area. I thought that was hilarious, especially because he was very wide-eyed as he said that.
The most exciting thing to happen these last few days was finally tracking down my long-lost cousins with the help of my dad. We had been trying for quite awhile but had turned up no luck. Then randomly the other night I was talking to Ba on Google Chat when suddenly he said: "Good news, I got through to Changsha!" And it all sort of fell into place there. The following evening I placed a call given the new cell number for my cousin living in Changsha. I was really nervous about making the cal actually, not only because I wasn't sure how well I'd conduct a conversation in Chinese over the phone, but also because even though it was a blood relative he was essentially a perfect stranger. But I found him quite amiable over the phone, and he welcomed me to come to Changsha in a few weeeks, saying he would contact his siblings now living in Leiyang (Ba's hometown) and Shenzhen to try to bring them all together for my visit. When I thanked him for his hospitality he said there was no need because we are brothers. That was an interesting response... So I am really looking forward to this opportunity, I imagine it will be among the most valuable experiences of this whole study abroad trip. The plan is to fly there the weekend spanning the 20th-23rd. I will start planning this weekend.

14,15,16 in Monte Vista

The later summers I spent in Colorado got to be pretty lonely, now that I think back. I mean as an early teen, and not when the relatives from Oregon and Texas came booming in, but after they left and I was shipped back to Monte Vista. There it is beautiful, silent and rugged terrain, everything someone would need as a vacation from the noise in his/her head, and although it was great it didn't always suit me well. I spent my days painting shitty paintings and trying to tame the latest baby horse in the pasture, staying up late to watch chilling Discovery Channel programs about lesser-known serial killers in places just as random as Monte Vista and then I'd sleep in til well past sun-up.
I ate a lot of Ramen noodles and sometimes would gather a whole box of empty Shasta Cola cans and carry my little .22 rifle 5 minutes down the dusty road to the Sheriffs' range for target practice. I often sat in the gazebo and watched giant mosquitoes helplessly trying to get through the screen from the inside, so occupied with trying to escape they didn't smell me, and I would gaze out at the horse pasture and put my feet up and listen to CDs, write short stories that have long since been tossed (for the better anyway). I didn't put on a swimsuit and jump into the ice-cold water hole unless Dave or Seth or Brian was there for a visit. I used to go with Sammy to Alco which was just outside of downtown Monte Vista and buy notebooks that I could fill with my 14-15-16-yr old insights for real cheap, or random movies like "Dawn of the Dead." That one cost $8, I remember very vividly actually. It was fun riding in the passenger seat of Sammy's massive truck used to pull horsetrailers down Highway 160, my arm tanning against the window and the mirages on the road over and again appearing and going away.
Every week I would glean the San Luis Valley local paper to find out what big movie would be playing at the drive-in theatre 2 miles down the road. It would always be movies like "Doctor Doolittle 2," which Dave and I went to see when he came to visit once. There was also a very small theatre in the town that I enjoyed going to as often as possible. My mom took me there quite a bit, and it made some evenings so much more exciting. Otherwise, Monte Vista did not offer much, and even less so Del Norte, the closest down going the other direction. I spent several hours late into the night at the hospital in Del Norte suffering from some brief flu-like ailment. It was never quite defined and was so excruciating they injected my butt with such a powerful opiate I slept through a whole day of my life.
I have better stories to tell about Colorado of course since it is practically a second home for me, but these were the ones I was thinking of: many aimless days I spent living in my head and often wondering what my friends were doing all summer back in Illinois, missing Alexei whether he was helping the cause to prevent wildfires in Durango or hanging around Boulder, and Julian who was always elsewhere, the summer I'm thinking of he was living in Pilsen in the Southside of Chicago with Joe Hake in that seemingly ill-fated apartment. It wasn't all bad though, I got used to being alone, had time to read books and stuff... I had much opportunity to just think and reflect and that was probably more valuable than I'm willing to give credit.

动画。。。Halloween in 昆明

石卡雪山
云海
普达措国家公园
松赞林寺
虎跳峡

I am glad to be back to Nanjing, even though I've grown pretty sick of polluted cities. Spending time in Yunnan was very appreciated, especially when the weather turned fantastic in our last two days of travel. The landscape there, especially around Shangrila reminded me much of parts of Colorado and Oregon, in essence it is quite similar to the American West. I thought about how much my family would love it; aspects of it reminded me of being up at West Lost with Sammy, and others of tromping around eastern and western Oregon with Julian the year before last. So imagine the American West, but instead of cowboys there are Tibetans (西藏人). We were able to spend quite a bit of time outdoors those last two days which was nice after all the cold and rain.
Traveling back to Nanjing was a long process and I am glad to be back because now I am on less of a strict schedule and can enjoy a substantial amount of privacy. Halloween (yesterday) was spent partially on top of a mountain (石卡雪山), on a bus zipping through winding roads with ridiculous techno music playing, on a plane and in Kunming a bit offset from the city center. Suffice to say, it wasn't much of a Halloween at all with one exception, a Halloween-themed animation that Shawna had made for me. And that brought the feeling back. This morning I called Julian from Skype in my hotel lobby in Kunming and found out he was Cat in the Hat for Halloween, which made me really happy for some reason. En route back to Nanjing, my friend Jake (who is also a U of O student) and I were trying to describe how ridiculous the people in Oregon, specifically Eugene and Srpingfield, are and it struck me that I have literal handfuls of weird Oregon stories. I actually miss it, the everyday oddity you see there if you step off campus long enough. And I thought about Oregon Country Fair, how that is the epic pinnacle of Oregonian weirdness.
Today is Nov 1, giving me 1.5 months remaining in China. I know what I need to do and how I should utilize my time, no matter how much I get to missing the States at times and all of my loved ones there. I will be back soon.