Ni Hao!
I hope this email finds you all well and
enjoying the glory of this spring season.
If your spring is anything as colorful and dramatic as that of Japan
then I’m sure this finds you in high spirits.
I feel like so much has happened since my last email and yet it has only
been 1 month. Most notably, I took a fantastic
trip to China with my friend Laura. We
visited Beijing, Pingyao, Xi’an, and Shanghai.
It was amazing! I was spoiled with foot massages and
afternoons passed drinking jasmine tea …by children yelling “hello” in the
streets and by million-dollar views of the Bund and the Shanghai skyline …by
two English teachers who showed us out to fantastic night in Shanghai and two
English students who spent an entire afternoon guiding us through amazing
markets in the back alleys of Beijing.
We filled our bellies with copious amounts of savory food, passed our
evenings swapping tales with amazing friends met along the way, and satiated
our thirst for all things beautiful, grand, and exotic.
China was
really different from what I expected.
I don't exactly know what I expected, but whatever it was, China wasn't
it. The complexities and paradoxes were
intriguing, even overwhelming: China
was filthy as sin and yet there was a striking power and beauty about it. It was incredibly historical and yet really
moving and changing and modernizing. It
was poor, but not poor like Honduras or Cuba...a different kind of poor...a
poor I'm still trying to wrap my mind around.
It was probably the most frustrating place I've ever traveled and also
the most rewarding all at once. There
are so many funny stories...and so many disgusting ones...so many moments when
I wanted to cry...and so many others when I was totally glowing from all the
sights and sounds and amazing people that I met. And, I was only there for 14 days - I barely skimmed the
surface! To tell you all the anecdotes
from even one day would take pages so I’ll try to give you a taste of my time
there with a brief retelling of the best and worst days. Here goes:
We left our hostel on a small bus at the
absolutely heinous hour of 7am bound for the Great Wall of China. It would be an easy 2 or 3-hour drive from
Beijing, or so we were told. Two hours
later, we were still stuck in traffic IN BEIJING. Four hours into the trip Laura and I begged the bus to stop for a
“potty break.” Wish granted! We were given the privilege of popping a
squat in a small, dark, unventilated room that sheltered a row of holes with no
divisions to demark “stalls.” This
place had not been cleaned since, I don’t know, the stone ages! Personally I was looking pretty longingly at
the nearby tree and wishing I was one of the Chinese children that had slits
and their pants and the liberty to pee or poo in any spot of their
choosing. But, figuring that it was
only my second day in China, I decided that maybe I wasn’t quite
Chinese-looking enough – yet. Anyway,
after 4 hours on the bus and a potty break that could only be described as “an
experience,” we heard it – clank clank grrrrrr donk grrrr pop eek – BAM! I pretty much think the entire engine fell
out of our bus. So there we were in the
backside of beyond with no one on our bus who spoke Chinese, but the driver,
and a driver who spoke no English – and worst of all – no engine!!! Luckily, we broke down very near a little restaurant
– which I thought was a bit dodgy, this being China and all, but whatever. We all piled out to eat and drink and make
light of our small set back. Two hours
later, a new bus came by and drove us the remaining hour to the Wall.
The Wall itself was incredible! With one arm in Mongolia and one in China I
walked a 10km section, wondering the whole time, how many footsteps had preceded
mine…and what those people were thinking when they first laid eyes upon it...or,
for that matter, what those people thought (or would have thought) when they
first laid eyes upon a red head on the Wall.
For as far as I could see, the wall hugged the crests of the mountains…at
times gently undulating…at others, steeply shooting into the sky with sheer
drops on either side that sent my fear of heights into overdrive. There was a boldness about it that inspired
a sense of significance, even possibility, simply owing to the fact that I am
one of a race of dreamers and builders capable of creating such a wonder. At the same time, just as the wall boldly
instilled a sense of pride, it’s grandeur and history declared, with equal
persuasiveness, my frailty and triviality.
The wall had a way of beckoning me forward – much in the same way that a
pier visible in the distance always makes me want to run to it. The weather was perfect …the company of my
fellow tour participants was perfect.
And, for the entire 4 hours, we never saw another tourist outside of the
15 of us that made up our busload.
At the end, we all bought a beer and
exhaustedly piled into a new bus. It
wasn’t one hour before we heard it again - clank clank grrrrrr donk grrrr pop
eek – BAM! I pretty much think the
entire engine fell out of our NEW BUS!
So there we were - even deeper into the backside of beyond with no
engine - AGAIN!!! A public Chinese bus
pulled up and offered to take us on board.
We were looking at the bus and trying to figure out where exactly we were
meant to fit unless they were going to strap us to the roof. As it turned out, all of the Chinese people
double up and there was space for everyone but Laura and me. Luckily the driver had a few paint cans that
he flipped over and it was perched upon a paint can elbow to elbow with the
driver and nose to the windshield that we continued hurtling towards Beijing
…dodging traffic and brushing death every inch of the way.
Fast forward another two hours - clank
clank grrrrrr donk grrrr pop eek – BAM!
The THRID BUS broke down. Being
the amazing man that he was, the driver managed to mend the damage and we
continued on towards Beijing. A little
further down the bus driver pulled over, stood up, and said something that
sounded like – well - Chinese to me as he pointed at the door. After feigning idiocy for at least 10 min.
we had to accept that – yes – he was in fact kicking us off the bus on the side
of some highway near some city that we hoped might be Beijing. As we disembarked, all the foreigners – the
Israelis and the girls from Holland; the couple from Poland and the couple from
Thailand; Janet from London and the girl from Canada – we roared with laughter
and applause. What a day! Given all the experiences of the day, you’d
have thought we’d been friends for years.
Exhaustedly we waved each other off and reluctantly paired off to embrace
the vast non-English speaking expanse of chaos before us without the rest of
the group.
I suppose it was one of those days that
was so good precisely because it was such an experience – such a Chinese
experience.
Worst Day: Day-o-food poisoning
Food poisoning stinks. ‘nuff said!
There were so many more moments and
stories and crazy times … awful nights on trains, hilarious moments hiding on
buses, and fantastic evenings that renewed our faith in the male species …but
I’ll spare you for now. In short, China
was amazing! And even beyond all its
“amazingness,” the real benefit for me was
just in getting some time and space from Japan so that I could realize how much
I love it here and how much I'm really going to miss it ...I was beginning to
lose sight of that ...beginning to get bogged down in all the little
frustrations of daily living here. But,
now – after a little reprieve and only two months to go – I couldn’t be
happier. I stepped off the plane in
Kyoto and thought, “It's good to be home.”
As I was on the train back to Fukui I couldn't tear my eyes from the
windows. The tips of this year’s rice
crop were just beginning to peak out from the flooded paddies; the brilliant
green mountains were blanketed in clouds; and, the tiny villages were nestled
up against the steep slopes as if seeking protection from the coming
storm. It was stunning! I find most of Japan pretty ugly and
nondescript, but the parts near me – they take my breath away. I took a deep breath of the moist, clean air
and decided, that as much as I was sad that my holiday in China was over, it’s
good to be back. I went to aerobics on
Monday and saw the man in the gray spandex unitard being a total spaz and
giggled to myself; I went to taiko (drumming) where I had to teach everyone the
Macarena and giggled some more; then, I went to school where my students asked
me, "Are you play sex?" and fell over laughing. My students have made me laugh more and more
recently. On Friday my students asked
me if every American had blonde hair. I
told them, no, America is a big country and we all have different colors of
hair and skin (meanwhile, I was thinking – I don’t even have blonde hair you bloody
fools). Then on Tuesday I had four
students serenade me. Two of them
clapped their hands and the other two sung something that resembled the
following: “Burandon cute-o cute-o
cute-o…CUTE-O. Burandon Burandon
Burandon-sensei – We love love love love yoooooouuuu!!!” It was so cute. Moments like that make an entire year of boredom and frustration
at school worth it. And, on Thursday,
I had a demonstration class to teach before 8 visitors from the Board of
Education. My teacher and I were
teaching a series of classes on Australia.
So, as part of the class the kids were going to taste some
Vegemite. My teacher apparently thought
it was time for a little comedic relief because she slapped a huge hunk of
Vegemite on a little slice of bread and handed it my way. I’ve never had Vegemite and, figuring that
it is from Australia and thus how bad can it be relative to Japanese food, I
took an enormous bite. My face went
from its usual red to scarlet to purple and then to green. I nearly lost my cookies right there in
front of everyone. The entire room was
laughing so hard that tears were flowing from their eyes as from mine. Oh dear me – and I thought Japanese food was
bad! Oh well –it was good opportunity
to teach the word “yucky!”
Well, I
suppose it’s time to bid you adieu. As
always, my apologies for writing a novel.
I miss you dearly and can’t wait to see you all in August when I return
Stateside. Send me update from your
side of the world as you find time.
Love always,
Bran-chan
Ps. Oh, and the best news of all – my knee is
finally healing. Last week, for the
first time in nearly 3 months I was able to dance on it again. Hallelujah!
Pss. There are some more pictures up on the
website. Check them out!