home again

A single smile and 2.5 years vanished before my eyes: again I was poised before my sophomore year of college suffering the summer heat and humidity, the mosquitoes, the toxic herbicides, poison ivy, ticks, cat tails reaching far over my head working with John Johnson, an angry botanist and collector of antique furniture of a specific period in history. He smiled the way he did 2.5 years ago with his features all scrunched up and the glint of his small circular glasses. I was in a brewery in an old industrial park, very inconspicuous place, drinking with former coworkers from the natural resource crew of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County. I was most excited to see John Johnson with whom I worked in tandem for the majority of those muggy summer days. It was cold now, winter time and we both had a perspiring pint in our hands of locally-brewed. My face was warm from the alcohol, and my mind was heavy from jetlag... had it not been just a few days prior that I made my 30 hour trip home from Nanjing to Chicago, a trip that took 4 planes? And was it not just the beginning of that day of departure that I hugged my closest friends of 4 months or less goodbye on the messy and disordered street, got into the taxi cab headed for the airport and looked back at them as they all stood waving, figures growing dimmer with the early morning smog and the fogginess of the cab's rear window. And I missed these few individuals, but in a happy way and not at all in a longing way. My whole four months had already beginned to make sense in my mind, that is to say, how I appreciated it so. And in the taxi ride to the airport, through the time I was first home, standing in the bar with John Johnson, all of this appreciation was setting in quickly like the water you sprinkle in soil to grow the plants.

winter sun

These last waning days in Nanjing have been quite nice, mild winter days with clear skies and sun and that certain air in the afternoon that leaves you happy and content. Maybe it's the excitement of leaving and starting a new chapter that has roused my memory of all the good and interesting experiences I have had here, and allowed the duller moments to recede into the back. In the end Nanjing is not the greatest city, but it's not entirely bad except for the food. Nanjing is the kind of place someone would tell you "is a nice place to raise a family," and you would instantly think, that place must be pretty boring. One thing Nanjing has is history, and a long string of it to boot. Furthermore, for a city, people are much friendlier in Nanjing compared with Beijing and Shanghai. So many cities in China are more and more resembling each other as they develop and share each other's flavors. Nanjing will most probably turn progressively more modern and dull. Beijing is already doing the same. Shanghai just sucks all around.
I want to come back to China again in a few years simply to travel. I would really only want to go to the cities to visit friends, otherwise I am more interested in going to more rural areas in the west and southwest. My cousin Renzhi mentioned that he and his girlfriend may get married in a few years. It would be fun to return to Hunan for that, spend more time in the 故乡, see Leiyang and Hunan's holy mountain, and then skip around a few other places. For now, these are just idle thoughts that keep me entertained. The reality of starting a career will give fewer opportunities to return, so I will make a list of the places I want to go most, and think practically of how I can plan a trip sometime in the future.
China is a wonderful place to explore, though not always the greatest place to live. With a daily pollution index in the hundreds in these major cities, I am excited for the relatively fresh air that America, the northwest in particular, has to offer. Beats inhaling two packs of cigarettes each day.

a simple meditation

sometimes a feeling strikes me, and it's not often, but I instantly forget what it is, and it bothers me. It is a thought that is very saddening, it plagues me even after it is gone and it never stayed long enough for me to recognize.

want to go to qinghai someday

Good news came the other day in the form of part-time employment. Originally I was planning on trying to squeeze time into my winter schedule to be a TA in the anatomy labs again, but I think I've decided to trump that for a position working in the organic chemistry lab instead. I talked to my former boss Gary through e-mail; he hadn't forgotten about me, in fact he was expecting me to come back and work. I would get paid, whereas working in the cadaver lab wouldn't earn me any money. Furthermore, one of my coworkers happens to be one of my favorite people in Eugene, Mike Lyons, a former roommate of mine in the Mill St. 8.
I caught another cold right after I recovered from the last, so spent a couple hours today at my favorite teahouse around town called 一路思雨 which I guess can be translated into something like "thinking/longing for rain all along the way." Fitting for my life since I always end up back in the rain.
Last night I watched one of the coolest Chinese movies ever called "可可西里kekexili" concerning a true story spanning the mid-90's about a Beijing reporter who goes to Qinghai Province in order to cover a story about a vigilante band of Tibetans trying to enforce law on illegal poachers of an endangered Tibetan antelope. The cinematography is awesome and the movie is composed well... some crazy shit goes down. I recommend it.

selected photos

798 Galleries in Beijing
Me making 糖醋鱼... they gave me two fish
烧烤
798 in Beijing
Natan and me in Yunnan