Nostalgia...Revisited

‘Men grow old, the end draws near, each moment becomes more and more valuable, and there is not time to waste over recollections. It is important to understand the mathematical paradox in nostalgia: that it is most powerful in early youth, when the volume of the life gone by is quite small.

’~ Milan Kundera ~ ‘Ignorance'

There is much associated with the term 'goodbye'; its significance holds a different weight depending on the emotional associations of the speaker or listener. The stages of existence can be broken down into a series of 'hellos' and 'goodbyes', forming, from millions of different moments, the colourful tapestry of life. This is not always, or even often, the  vocal act of 'hello' and 'goodbye' but instead is a certain feeling: watching the sun rise over the Great Wall of China for the first and last time; winning a race; selling your first car; moving countries; helping your grown up child move out of the family home. In the recent lead up to my departure from China, a good friend asked me,  'do you feel nostalgic yet?' I answered honestly, 'no, and I am working so that I never do'. 

The term nostalgia comes from the Greek word nostos meaning ‘return’ and algos meaning ‘suffering’: Nostalgia is therefore the suffering caused by the longing to return. This is perhaps the biggest lesson that my three years as a nomad has taught me - there will always be people, places, experiences to leave behind, say goodbye to and consequentially, miss. However, if you are aware that moments are fleeting and that the human penchant towards nostalgia may soon set in, it encourages you to appreciate each moment all the more. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had moments and met extraordinary people who have threaded vivid flashes of colour through my unique pattern: the tapestry continues.   

This is my final China blog, written from a farmhouse kitchen in the middle of the English countryside. To my right is a group of middle aged women engrossed in their painting club, behind them the mid-morning sun spreads a certain kind of light, unique to an English summer, across a field of golden corn (actually, it's just sun bleached, under-watered grass but this sounds only half as romantic). This is my chance to remember, not for the last time, all of the amazing moments of my year in China. Here, regardless of if anyone reads them, they will be immortalized; the internet forming a comprehensive record of existence in the 21st century. I will be brief.

This past year I have: rolled down sand dunes in the Gobi desert; Slept in a two hundred year old monastery in the mountains; Slept in a yurt on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia;

 Got lost in the jungle; Made a fool of myself on Chinese television; kayaked down the Li river, flanked on both sides by the famous pointy hills of Guilin; 

listened to the rain fall on the roof of an ancient pagoda; seen Chinese Jesus...TWICE; Watched the Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet performed actually on the Westlake of Hangzhou; seen the sun rise over the Great Wall of China; Huffed and puffed and 'Hiked' up that same incredible example of Human endurance and fortitude; 

Seen a child pee on a washing machine; Nearly been arrested; Rode a motorbike around around the coast; discovered a hidden beach in El Nido;

Canoed into the underground river (one of the natural wonders of the world); Seen a blue star fish; Eaten a scorpion; Walked through the forbidden City; Experienced being virtually disabled in Shanghai; been wined and dined by The Waldorf Astoria; entered 2012 overlooking the lights of Pu Dong; 

Said hello and goodbye to a talking mouse about 10,000 times; Been published, quite a few times; Got drunk on fake alcohol, and again, and again; Met some of the most amazing people; Learned how to make my lazy arse run; had about 200 massage experiences, half of them being pretty dodgy; experienced the true wonder of Chinese hospitals (injections in the middle of a room filled with people, cigarette smoke, dogs, dirt); Read at a Chinese-style Jewish Sedar; had the most unconventional Christmas; laughed and loved...a lot!

It has been a fantastic year. Now it is time for the next chapter, which I have a sneaky feeling will be equally so. A different kind of wonderful. Serious work mode.

Urm...

We'll see. 

Kayaking Down the Li River

On a sunny Shanghai Sunday, life took a deviation from the monotony of insanity and entered the realm of fabulousity. The D.E. chapter of my life was finally finished, left alone for a period to be later evaluated and used for material for future creative endevours. Over to Nina to sum up the tone of that particular breed of goodbye:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfJRX-8SXOs

We joined the butterflies in the sky and stamped sooty footprints across The Orient to Yangshuo in China's southern Guangxi province. Cue blue skies, visible stars and air that doesn't sizzle the cilia.

A brief history lesson: The karst landscape which makes up a large part of the Guilin region is one of the most unique and beautiful vistas that this wonderful world has to offer. The subject of many classical Chinese paintings, the 100-kilometer stretch of the Li river is flanked on both sides by thousands and thousands of pointy hills of varying shape and size. So revered is this image that it has reached the Chinese financial wall of fame. It is proudly displayed on 20 yuan notes, further emphasizing that which makes China truly fascinating: the constant contrasts - nature meets consumerism, industrialism and a drive towards moderate prosperity.

  

During our four day jaunt in 'the nature', Hope and I did a considerable amount of r-shaped verbs: relaxing, reading, writing, recuperating, reclining, resting. If I was American I may say that it was 'rad' but as I am one of severe sophistication, I will say that it was all pretty great, really.




The highlight of the trip, ironically, is the part that I was initially most reluctant to. On the morning of our kayaking adventure, there was a massive storm and I was unable to run. Days, these days, seem split into the days when I run and the days when I sleep in. It seems strange to one such as me, physically lazy in the several past me's, to say that the days when I wake up early to run are far more palatable than those that I don't. Lazy me reared it's head this day and brought with it a colourful array of irrational fears regarding capsizing and a swimming related amnesia; a freak wave the size of China; white water rapids, unexpected, we're probably going to die.

Hope is, luckily, far braver than me and after a certain amount of serious agitation over some toast and tea, we were off rumpachumping into the hills to start our down stream meander. And meander it was: no waves, no rapids, no need to remember how to swim, just a beautiful smooth river running on and on between the hills. So quiet, it was, that even several feet from one another in our respective kayaks, we could whisper and still be heard.

The sound of silence

The river took us around many bends, displaying the irregular heart beat of nature, the limestone hills forming a kind of electrocardiograph which continued for miles and miles. We stopped halfway, pulling our kayaks up onto a tiny harbour where we sat in a bamboo cafe which was floating next to the shore. A little way up the slope stood the ruins of an ancient temple, completing a perfect example of why China remains one of the most mystical and fascinating of places.


In total, the trip took just under three hours. Once we reached our final destination, a tiny village in which we with our white skin were almost famous, I was completely soaked. Kayaking, as it turns out, requires a special kind of grace which I just don't have. Luckily, or so it would seem thus far, the Li River is not as potentially mutating as Huangpu (Yellow River) in Shanghai and it was therefore relatively ok to shower myself in it with every stroke of the paddle.

Some alarming instances

Everyone knows that I love this crazy Middle Kingdom, known by all but understood by few. However, sometimes things happen that just, well, shouldn't. As someone on the path to being a real live journalist and recorder of truths, I feel I must document a few of my favourite most eyebrow raising occurrences.
Before I commence on the road to self righteous 'In England we would never, I mean just NEVER do that', I would like to share my thought on truth. This is it: There is no such thing as complete truth (in the context of human comprehension). Something happens and the true facts (it's truth) gets lost immediately to the Universe. What exists then is a myriad of different truths, which come in the form of the perspectives of those who witnessed the event. Each will be somewhat different, every time, yet each will be the truth (unless you add a big old raging liar to the mix).

These are my truths and as such are alarming for my own individual reasons...

1. 'Give blood, not Hepatitis': Oh the blood bus has come to town. With it's centimeter thick grime coating the windows, plastic cups to store the blood and refrigerator on the blink, who can possibly refuse to impart their life blood upon the world? If these clearly visible implements aren't enough to tempt you into the bus' dimly lit , grimy innards, perhaps a trip to China's AIDs town will.

2. Buying cigarettes from a baby: This has been the point of much contention for me of late. One of my favourite dive bars, an underground bomb shelter aptly named 'The Shelter', has a cigarette man outside until the wee hours of the morning. This is not alarming. What is rather irksome and the cause of many arguments in broken Chinese is the baby who accompanies the man, still awake at 3am and shoved into drunken Laowai's faces: 'Ta hen ke ai...he is cute, buy more smokes.'

3. Poor lift logic: ATTENTION!!! If the lift is already full, how do you think you are going to fit in it? Take the extra two seconds to let the people out of the lift before you try and get into the lift!! Also, please refrain from smoking that disgusting cigarette in this impossibly enclosed space. It. Is. Gross. (These situations happen way more than they should do).

4. Patience and chivalry: I recently went on a few dates with a guy who, when he waited with me to get a taxi., I actually told, 'chivalry is dead'. What the hell ignoramus arse is wrong with me? If it's dead, can we please reserect it soon, please! I'm not asking for you to pay for everything, fellas. I don't even need you to rub my rather unsavory feet but please, if you can't wait an extra second to hold the door for me, at least don't slam it ON me. When on the metro, step aside valiant sir and allow the ladies to depart from the train BEFORE you barge, I am not made of air. And old man in the supermarket, it is not acceptable to mow your trolley into me and then shout at me for being so cumbersome with my really rather modest space occupation. But most of all, oh yes you evil man of yesterday, I will not forget you in a hurry, nay! If you don't quite feel like assisting me with my five massively heavy bags in this 40 degree July heat, fair enough. But DON'T TAKE MY FUCKING TAXI YOU ARSE!!

That is all.

Totally unrelated but pretty damn hilarious

How to (not) Get Arrested in China 101

It was gone 4am and I was sitting with my friend, half naked Nelly (an aspiring lawyer so his identity must remain anom.) enjoying the multi-falvourations of the local street food. We had ordered bbq skewers from one stall and some mi fan from another. We were not drunk. We got up to leave, paid for the rice and went on our jolly way.


We managed to get as far as the top of our street before a whole army of Chinese street food vendors accosted us from all angles; luckily we were not drunk. Had we been drunk, a whole different kind of scene would have unfurled. As we were not drunk, we quickly realized our mistake (we had accidentally forgotten to pay for the kebabs and owed the rather butch and incredibly strong Chinese woman 5 Yuan), paid up and went home to a none-alcohol marred sleep.


Had we been drunk, this is what may have happened...



H.N.N: We paid!


Chinese street vendor gang: %%)#@&!()!{#_%(%_^(_%$^(_$%(^%_^@!! All in disgusted unison.


Me: WE PAID!!!


The police turn up within minutes. There is a side note worth making on this particular theme and this is it: Where the bloody arse hell are the po po when you're getting raped or murdered? Accidentally forget to pay for some street food or do a wee in an alley after one too many cups of tea of an eve and you can bet your bottom that they'll be there, fingers a waggin'. Anyway, H.N.N and myself are now cornered by several police men and the street food vendor army and beginning to think, 'shit, maybe, just maybe, we really did forget to pay.'


ME: Ok, ok it's ok, we'll give you the money just get off of us. Do you realise who we are? (we are, in actual fact, no really much of anybody at all, really).


At this point a big strong butch Chinese woman has both my arms in a death grip while one of the police officers is doing his best impression of a 14 year old girl with a crush, batting away with a pathetic display of muscle power at H.N.N's chest.



H.N.N: He tore my god damn shirt the bastard.


There is no way that we are going to get away, this female Chinese vice is enough to take us both down, even if the police are somewhat lacking. They start to shove us into the car as we dramatically scream "nooooooooooo", practicing for the end of the world when we will all eventually get sucked into the sun or some shit.



Luckily H.N.N has a brain wave: his gay lover lives in the apartment building which just happens to be next to where this scene is unfurling. H.N.N does a kind of under arm roll, manages to get his phone out of his pocket and begs Special K to come down and save us.



Down Special-K strides, pays the street vendors off, bribes the police with a smile and we're once again rumpachumping down the street.



H.N.N: They tore my shirt, the bastards!

One Chinese Evening in China

“You stick to your side, I’ll stick to mine! A strange denial of the common pulse of humanity.”

Lady Chatterly’s Lover

I love China. There you go, I’ve said it. I’ve been here for one year, am no longer ‘fresh off the boat’. I’ve worked with Chinese people of all ages; I’ve written about Chinese culture and had first-hand experience of media control and social rhetoric. I’ve been spit on, crashed into and almost certainly decreased my life span by a good few years. Yet, I love China; not in spite of but because of these strange, very cultural, very different experiences. 

In Shanghai there are many glittering, glowing towers where one can hide from the Chinese-ness of China. However, in my last couple of months living in the pearl of the Orient, I choose China..the real China. For it is China that has opened my eyes and changed my perspective. Shanghai that has given me the opportunity for professional and emotional growth; I will return home with China on my mind.

And so we rumpachuump on a China-finding mission, discovering the real Shanghai, un-marred by the sheen of opulence...

Dinner is a mix of different vegetables selected from a stand, which has been erected at the side of the road; we avoid the massive aubergine and fish heads. There is a long, narrow grill holding a selection of unidentifiable meats which are brushed not-so-sporadically (far too often for my taste) by a combination of oil and spices. We are surrounded by street vendors, each cooking up their own variation of classic Chinese ‘street food’ dishes: Vegetables, meat, rice, noodles and oil, each with its own composition. There is a jumble of plastic chairs and tables and although the time is 9.30pm, the side of the road is heaving with people. There is no pavement, so really the side of the road is the road, and precarious tut-tuts occasionally weave through the crowd. We share our dinner, embracing the Chinese ‘family-style’ dining experience. The evening is warm, the mosquitoes vicious.

After dinner we head to the massage, urm…I want to say parlor but it’s really more of a succession of living rooms adjoined to a busy kitchen, which seemingly houses a large Chinese family. On route, we try to find a toilet and stumble into the local health care centre. Enter the third floor and a whole lot of awkward shuffling, accented by desperate attempts not to stare in at the small, somewhat grimy rooms housing patients of all ages. Many are hooked up to ancient-looking equipment and catheters, lying under duvets sporting an array of designs and variations of Mickey Mouse’s face (really?! Is there no escape!??)

Laura: Urm, maybe we shouldn’t have come here.

We find a office, suspiciously clean and swanky pants and creating an even more drastic contrast to the outer surroundings. Quick ad-lib, hand gesture (how do you say 'I need to pee' without looking like a demented water-melon?) and we're back shuffling awkwardly up the corridor, escorts in tow. 

The toilet is a massive trough and my first experience of such an urination station. I look over the door (it reaches my shoulders), wave at Laura and casually inquire as to the logistics of such a design. She suggests I go shoulder to wall and door and kind of straddle the trough, while at the same time holding the top of the pretend door with one hand and my trousers with the other. Our guides, there is now four, stare at us from the doorway. In the stall next door, there is an antique wooden chair which is perched over the trough. It immediately reminds me of Karl Pilkington’s make-shift loo in the Amazon jungle. Useful. We chat a bit with the women, who clearly have no idea why these two gargantuous foreigners are using their bathroom. So it goes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCd2CuTIlpE

The beds in the massage (???) are comfortable enough but there are three of them, shoved into a tiny alcove which adjoins the main living-type room which is used for foot massages. I’m in the middle; it’s my turn to be the attraction. Laura is to my right and random Chinese man, we’ll call him Bob, is to my left. Bob and I become more and more intimate as the massage progresses. Due to the lack of room in the alcove, each bed is turned constantly, as the three masseuses maneuver themselves around. At one point Bob and I are practically holding hands. The whole time, the three masseuses, and Bob (who turns out to be a very in-gracious boyfriend), laugh at Laura and I. Even if I didn’t understand a fair amount of what they were saying, which I do, it would still have been pretty obvious that their incessant laughter is aimed at us. I am particularly tickled by a quivering, jelly sort of feeling as my behind is thoroughly ruffled…and laughed at…for a considerably large length of time. So it goes. 

China is amazing and everyday is an adventure. Anyone who says otherwise is probably looking the wrong way...possibly up their own anus. More to come...

Things We Do When We THINK Nobody is Watching Us

I have recently had a revelation of self. I am incredibly awkward, extraordinarily so and yet this affliction of the membrane appears to manifest itself in the strangest of ways. I find normal things too awkward, like saying hello to someone you know rather than pretending to be a tree (this makes dating in a City like Shanghai an interesting experience). Yet posing questions such as: 'So, what do you think is the most selfish shellfish?' to relative strangers, is no issue for me. This past week I have observed the habits of others in the fashion of a slightly pervy sleuth and am delighted to find that I am not alone in my ridiculous ways! Here follows the top three most random, awkward moments…when strangers think that no one is watching them:

3^rd prize - The Ear Cleaner: Cleaning your ears in public is pretty much a no no; this fellow was particularly resourceful in his methods. No cotton buds to hand? No worries…get your car key in there, son!!

2^nd Prize – The Baby Bogey: We teach our kids ‘Be clean’ but we only see them two hours a week, it really is up to the parents to implement this rule, not encourage the opposite behaviour. Point and case: Grandfather and sprog on the metro – child get his digit dug into old man’s nose and then…eats it!! Old man sits docile, contemplating better days.

1^st Prize – When Two Become One: After sharing a plate of pasta, and feeding each other, a couple (Chinese girl, Western boy) settle back to enjoy the Blue Grass gig. After a couple of minutes of liberated independence, the girl leans over her boyfriend’s shoulders and starts picking the food out of his teeth. The couple continue in this fashion, enjoying the warbling melody of the Blue Grass Project. 

The Massage Chronicles Part One: Sri Lanka

For many, the idea of weekly massages seems an absurd luxury; the kind of opulence that footballer’s wives dripping in yellow gold and sovereigns mention to two-syllable magazines (Hello! Closer! Ok!) “Buuuuut, like, yaaa knaaaow, I’m really like just like an ordinary gurwl really.” In Asia, the land expanse of extremes, a weekly 60 minute massage can become as much a part of your weekly routine, and budget, as the occasionally necessary splurge on Doritos at the Western market; in fact, massages are often the cheaper option.

My first experience of the ‘real’ Asia provided extensive material for the first entry in the Massage Chronicles, a lifelong work to which I am more than dedicated. The date is August 2008, the setting a dusty corner of Kandy, Sri Lanka’s second largest city. Initially, an Ayurvedic massage experience seems like a great idea.

My mum and I are weathered massage veterans, not so much the kind dripping in diamonds, more the bitter, got the shit end of the DNA stick kind, leading to an un-kind kind of posture. To quickly add filler to this paint by numbers of the imagination, the beds have no covers but have recently been disinfected, which makes them rather slippery and provides many an ‘Oh shit’ moment as the rigorous massage almost sends one or the other of us slip sliding across the room. The walls of said room are caked in grime, the windows so dusty that only the most persistent of light beams can penetrate the room’s gloom.

Slip, slide, slip, slide, pound, ‘ouch’, slide, ‘shit’, slip, ‘please don’t massage my boobs’, slide and we are ushered away from each other (four year old separation anxiety revisited) and into a bath filled with dried roses and herbs. The bath tubs remind me of the one from my childhood, which is sweet, except this one is smaller and has a kind of off yellow tinge. In fact, it really looks nothing like the tub of yore, and is instead more of a reminder of being the third in the water after my two brothers had been thoroughly scrubbed. I sit in the bath tub, naked as my name day, and concentrate on not swallowing any of the water that the woman insists on pouring over my head, ‘relaxing, madam.’ Up and out, a quick rub down (I am not permitted to partake in this most private of human functions), several perplexed glances at my only ally (a rusted mirror hanging behind the woman’s head) and onto the wax treatment.

I don’t wish to bore you too much with the details of this. Simply imagine two beds, a kind of pendulum machine, a massive candle and some wax. Insert two victims and set the wax a drippin’. Those who know me know that I struggle to sit through a whole episode of my favourite TV show; my house mate calls it ADHD, I call it jumping beans of the spirit. After about ten minutes of having wax dripped over my forehead, along with the constant worry of ‘how bloody hot is this wax like to get?’ I sit up, thank the perplexed woman and trot over to the wooden coffin for the final in the Ayurvedic torture series. By this point I really have no idea where my mum is and my anxiety is rising.

Inside the wooden box, it is hot. I am lying on a kind of wooden grate heated from below by a genuine, state of the bloody art fire. It is hot. Everything but my noggin is entrapped in the wooden box and it is hot. I tell myself to relax, chastise myself for being such a tense, moody cow, think that my boyfriend may just have a point. It is hot. I last ten minutes, it feels like fifty. I shout for someone to come and open my coffin, only slightly concerned about my naked modesty as I am revealed, half cindered beneath the heavy lid. Upon later inspection, I have four perfect square third degree burns where my bum meat (be kind) has nestled nicely between the wooden slats, too close to the fire.

There are lessons in this experience, although, four years later, I have not learnt from them…China promises to provide many an interesting, potentially dangerous massage experience…