lately
My 21st fell on a Wednesday, and was unfortunately rendered meaningless by geography as much as by years of travel and legality. However, it does present an interesting opportunity: introduce the Chinese to the American concept of a party to which they have little bearing any resemblance. So next Friday we're hoping to have a ridiculous party with people from the university. We'll have to have tons of people sleep here because they can't go back to their school (at which they are required to live) after 11. BS. But yeah, tons of alcohol, tons of people, GOOD MUSIC (AKA NOT CHINESE MUSIC WHICH CONSISTS ENTIRELY OF BALLADS), etc. etc.
China is intriguingly exasperating. I’m starting to get the hang of the dialect here which is completely and frustratingly different from the Chinese I studied. I have zero problem communicating in Beijing or Xi’an, but when I first arrived I couldn’t even ask for a cup of tea in a way they understood. But so many things I just don’t get. Why is it OK to shove people? Why do the Chinese of all people have zero concept of a line?
Our greatest, funniest and surprisingly most consistently accurate theory is that China is autistic. China does not understand the way the rest of the world works and completely lives in its own little world (read: atms that don’t work with international cards, a messaging system that only works in China, etc.), but tries its best to imitate the way the world actually works, with only superficial success. It doesn’t understand why it’s doing what it’s doing (like English education: they don’t give a SHIT if their kids speak English, they just see the rest of the world doing it and figure if their kids can pass a test then it’s ok)., but it does it because it sees other people doing it. Anything out of its daily routine is a FUCKING STRUGGLE like whoa (i.e. anything people don’t do every single day [using a hotel, traveling, getting visas, being white] is insanely amazingly difficult, and even Chinese people don’t understand why it takes 15 minutes of arguing to get someone to make the tortilla-like things they use for Beijing duck just a little bigger, and their eventual answer is “OK sure” - why couldn’t you just say that to begin with???). Even down to stupid little funny details like needing a picture schedule (their stupid writing!) and having a complicated system of rules that only it understands and can’t explain to anyone else.
Here are the more specific things that have been on my mind lately.
Alice. The girl from Beijing. She lives in Wuhan and recently when I had five days off I went to visit her. To my almost complete lack of surprise, it turns out she’s pretty much everything I want in a girl (I could have told you that after one night of talking through Beijing with her). She’s hilarious, she loves culture and language, she’s mature and independent, she knows what she wants and goes for it and to top it off is beautiful. Of course the problem is that it couldn’t work because we’re too far apart. I’m sort of wrecked by the fact that I came so close to something to have it be impossible.
Roots. I’m somewhat jealous of scott’s roots back home. Like, I’ve moved so much and stayed so little in one place that I scarcely have anyone back home of whose life I’m really a part, of whose life I will ever be a part again. Yet Scott seems to have tons of people back home who hang on his every word, who are constantly in contact with him It’s the same feeling I had in South America - that I’m fun to be around and people like me but I’m never really a lasting part of anyone’s life - I just sort of disappear once I’m not in the room.
The other thing I guess is best described as the “Ann and Macy effect.” Ever since that girl I’ve been wary of my friends meeting Scott, especially girls, as I’m for some reason afraid they’re going to suddenly like him more and he becomes their primary friend, and I their secondary. Two recent examples. On my birthday I had two friends over - two girls one of whom I was sort of starting to like a little in my attempt to get over Alice (or did I only have sort-of feelings for her because I thought she might like me? I'm afraid that maybe my brain does that some times). That night, despite it being my birthday, I felt like they both just paid attention to Scott for most of the night. They sat around taking pictures of eachother and shit. I just felt like Ass, sitting there watching them have a good time even though I was sitting right there. Then today a girl with whom both Scott and I were friends just started messaging Scott making plans to do shit tomorrow night, and as an afterthought I was invited along, then Scott pulled a takeback. As such I'll probably just be home tomorrow by myself. Grah. I’m tired of this shit. Ten points if you actually read all of this, but you didn’t.
China is intriguingly exasperating. I’m starting to get the hang of the dialect here which is completely and frustratingly different from the Chinese I studied. I have zero problem communicating in Beijing or Xi’an, but when I first arrived I couldn’t even ask for a cup of tea in a way they understood. But so many things I just don’t get. Why is it OK to shove people? Why do the Chinese of all people have zero concept of a line?
Our greatest, funniest and surprisingly most consistently accurate theory is that China is autistic. China does not understand the way the rest of the world works and completely lives in its own little world (read: atms that don’t work with international cards, a messaging system that only works in China, etc.), but tries its best to imitate the way the world actually works, with only superficial success. It doesn’t understand why it’s doing what it’s doing (like English education: they don’t give a SHIT if their kids speak English, they just see the rest of the world doing it and figure if their kids can pass a test then it’s ok)., but it does it because it sees other people doing it. Anything out of its daily routine is a FUCKING STRUGGLE like whoa (i.e. anything people don’t do every single day [using a hotel, traveling, getting visas, being white] is insanely amazingly difficult, and even Chinese people don’t understand why it takes 15 minutes of arguing to get someone to make the tortilla-like things they use for Beijing duck just a little bigger, and their eventual answer is “OK sure” - why couldn’t you just say that to begin with???). Even down to stupid little funny details like needing a picture schedule (their stupid writing!) and having a complicated system of rules that only it understands and can’t explain to anyone else.
Here are the more specific things that have been on my mind lately.
Alice. The girl from Beijing. She lives in Wuhan and recently when I had five days off I went to visit her. To my almost complete lack of surprise, it turns out she’s pretty much everything I want in a girl (I could have told you that after one night of talking through Beijing with her). She’s hilarious, she loves culture and language, she’s mature and independent, she knows what she wants and goes for it and to top it off is beautiful. Of course the problem is that it couldn’t work because we’re too far apart. I’m sort of wrecked by the fact that I came so close to something to have it be impossible.
Roots. I’m somewhat jealous of scott’s roots back home. Like, I’ve moved so much and stayed so little in one place that I scarcely have anyone back home of whose life I’m really a part, of whose life I will ever be a part again. Yet Scott seems to have tons of people back home who hang on his every word, who are constantly in contact with him It’s the same feeling I had in South America - that I’m fun to be around and people like me but I’m never really a lasting part of anyone’s life - I just sort of disappear once I’m not in the room.
The other thing I guess is best described as the “Ann and Macy effect.” Ever since that girl I’ve been wary of my friends meeting Scott, especially girls, as I’m for some reason afraid they’re going to suddenly like him more and he becomes their primary friend, and I their secondary. Two recent examples. On my birthday I had two friends over - two girls one of whom I was sort of starting to like a little in my attempt to get over Alice (or did I only have sort-of feelings for her because I thought she might like me? I'm afraid that maybe my brain does that some times). That night, despite it being my birthday, I felt like they both just paid attention to Scott for most of the night. They sat around taking pictures of eachother and shit. I just felt like Ass, sitting there watching them have a good time even though I was sitting right there. Then today a girl with whom both Scott and I were friends just started messaging Scott making plans to do shit tomorrow night, and as an afterthought I was invited along, then Scott pulled a takeback. As such I'll probably just be home tomorrow by myself. Grah. I’m tired of this shit. Ten points if you actually read all of this, but you didn’t.