The town I named myself after in China just burned down.
(No casualties reported)
Boulder, CO
My feeling at present is something like: Someone is offering me five billion dollars. I have some reason I have to say no. The reason is good, and I am not changing my mind, but I am filled with spastic and surreal feelings of greed. It’s a little like pain. I’ve never felt anything like it before.
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I arrived in Boulder, CO for the first time ever yesterday. It’s like the city was designed for me. There are runners and yogis everywhere. Same goes for mindfulness practitioners. And visual artists. And writers. There are also Tajikistani cafes, universities, gorgeously unpolluted mountains, and organic energy bars sold in bulk at Target.
In other words, the place is chock-full of the people I connect most easily to and the things I feel most pleasure at. It’s also full of things I’ve severely missed in China because either they’re not there or I can’t take advantage of them because my language is too poor.
But I have to leave in two days. California, Alaska, and then back to China, where all the answers to the most pressing questions in my life live. And also where I get sick from pollution and waste hours a day on inconveniences.
So it’s a little painful being here. Because it literally has everything I want in a place… except for the answers to those questions.
Often, at the forefront of my mind are all the reasons I’m in China, and why I’m so thankful to be there. But I’m also worn down from my life there. Consequently, my mother has heard a lot of whining today.
…but the end to my questioning is in sight. And, maybe, once I’ve resolved those questions, I’ll get to live in a place like this.
December 11, 2014, a day on which…
…I hear Shaggy’s Wasn’t Me on the radio and realize I could learn his accent the same way I’ve learned a Mandarin one.
No, American Music is Good: or, Iggy Azalea sounds like Money
It’s 5:43AM, I’m on my way to a Bikram Yoga class, and Iggy Azalea’s Black Widow is playing on the radio.
And I think to myself: This song sounds like money.
And then: This sounds way better than any Chinese song I’ve ever heard.
And then: Sorry China.
It’s not that it’s a better song than anything I’ve heard in China. It’s not. And, it’s not that Iggy Azalea or Rita Ora is more talented than any Chinese artist I’ve listened to. They’re good, but they’re not.
But what’s suddenly clear from the way it sounds is that a ton of money and a ton of work has gone into the song.
90 minutes of sweating and a little driving later, I do a quick look up of the song on wikipedia:
The final version of “Black Widow” was co-written by Azalea, Perry, Sarah Hudson, Benny Blanco, and its producersStarGate. Tim Blacksmith and Danny D. were responsible for the song’s executive production and production co-ordination. StarGate provided the track’s instrumentation and programming. Azalea and Ora recorded their vocals for the song at Record Plant and Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, and Jungle City Studios in New York. Their vocals were engineered by Daniel Zaidenstadt and Eriksen, while Miles Walker was credited as the track’s assistant vocal engineer. Phil Tan completed the mixing process at Ninja Club Studios in Atlanta, with the assistance of Daniela Rivera.[8] The song was originally rumoured to be produced by both duo StarGate and Benny Blanco, though upon the release of the album, Blanco was only credited as a songwriter.[9]
That’s a lot of work and a lot of talent on one song. And I’m gonna keep an ear out (ha), but I don’t know of any Chinese song with similar work (and funds) put behind it.
So in other words, Iggy Azalea* sounds like money. And a ton of industry. And no Chinese music I’ve heard has that sound.
One last thought: When I was little, I heard that American music was listened to around the world. This always seemed mysterious to me. The entire world didn’t speak English, and, moreover, even though there is some pretty awesome American music, there’s a lot of awesome in the world. Why would this particular awesome go so many places?
And I think part of the answer that American music does in fact sound that great. English aside (and perhaps good taste aside…), the beat and those technologically created swells in Black Widow do something to a person’s heartstrings. And it’s hard to find sounds like that anywhere else.
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*Who is Australian, fine, but who came to America specifically to pursue music, and point still stands in general.
Presets
I’m back home in the US on a visit.
Two things:
1) A visit, rather than a homecoming, is really what it feels like this time. I’m seeing people I love, eating foods I’ve missed, and enjoying American spaces, but none of the spaces are mine. I have no work, habits, or life here.
It is still a happy visit, and it makes sense that after four years away it’s come to this, but it is somewhat jarring.
Maybe the best way to put it is: I’m in my childhood home. I’m in this place where I had a life for 23 years. But now I feel like I’m vacationing somewhere out of town, albeit with people I love.
My life is in China now.
2)
I don’t know how to talk to strangers here.
When I was last here, I was twenty-three, and all my American presets with strangers are still that of a twenty-three year old. There’s been no reason to update them.
In the last three days, I’ve been around mostly strangers. This Saturday at a half marathon, and then today at a yoga class. At the half marathon things were strange in that
…and I’ve run out of time. More on this next time.
Over a Billion
I’m often told that China has problem “x” because it has “so many people.”
Today, when I arrived in HK, which has a much denser population than much of Mainland China but in many ways a very different culture, I realized the phrase gained a great deal of explanatory power with the addition: “who are competing for very limited resources”
Really?
I’ve just started listening to the audible.com audio book of Peter Hessler’s River Town. In it, he includes several excerpts from his students’ writing assignments.
The narrator reads the student essays as if he has a speech impediment. Occasionally, he speaks with a stereotyped vaguely East Asian accent.
–
This evening, I cracked open a Chinese textbook published in 2009 on American culture. While much of what it said was true, the truths it selected were presented such that they made America sound rather more terrible than it is.
–
I don’t know if in either case people were aware of what they were doing.
But I think I will write a letter to Peter Hessler.
A Chivalrous Lady (侠女 Xiá Nǚ) and Reverence for the Natural (崇尚自然 Chóngshàng zìrán)
I recently watched A Chivalrous Lady (侠女), a 1969 Taiwanese Kung Fu movie, with one of my language partners here.
//Warning: Spoilers below//
One of the things I loved most about the movie was how true to life it felt. After people fought, they were out of breath. After killing someone for the first time, they were upset. When someone was ordered to do something he didn’t want to, but had no other choice about, he did it without a dramatic speech or pause. People picked up deadly but everyday objects to defend themselves (e.g., a metal spatula), but not in a humorous way. People were afraid of the dark not all that far from their homes. Many things happened slowly – like walking from one place to another – as they might in real life.
When I mentioned all this to my language partner, he said this is something that Chinese movies often strive for, in keeping with “Reverence for the Natural” (崇尚自然 Chóngshàng zìrán).
I’m excited. For the most part, every time I like something in a movie like this, they say they’ve found it boring. Now, it turns out, I was just in the wrong country.
Asceticism & Reserves
At this point I’ve come across a few stories about holy people who grow up in wealthy families, leave them for the desert or a cave or whatnot for a few years, and then return to the general world and live in a spartan but livable monastery.
Obviously, most of these holy men have done things other than be ascetic, but I used to be impressed by that in itself. Now, I’m less impressed, at least by those who lived an ascetic lifestyle for only a few months or years.
I say this because when I first left my comfy home in America, being uncomfortable was so easy. I weathered a much longer and colder spell in India than I ever meet here; I went on long runs in temperatures than now send me seeking shade; I was disdainful towards shopping whereas now I get excited to go to Hong Kong expressly because it means good shopping.
My thought is that I had reserves – reserves of warmth, coolness, and material. I’m not sure if anything has actually changed in my body with regards to hot and cold, but I my mind now clearly knows what it is to go through coldness or heat so intense I can’t think or function well. And I know I’d like to avoid it.
I guess I am possibly now beginning to be able to test my will to a greater extent than I ever was before…
—–
*Ok, still not really a shopper.
Assumptions
One of my female Chinese friends learns that one of her colleagues is the head of a pretty intense hiking group. She knows I like hiking, and enquires as to whether I can join the group. She mentions I’m a foreigner.
“Of course she can join,” the head of the hiking group says, “She’s a foreigner. She’ll be able to keep up. You though, I’m sorry, I’m not so sure.”
As she relayed this to me, my language partner good-naturedly agreed with the man’s estimation of her. She did not find his comment about foreigners at all remarkable.
And I, despite being from America’s rather unhealthy heartland, did not for a moment either. We live in a particularly outdoorsy town. Many of the foreigners here were attracted specifically by the hiking, climbing, biking, and high altitude training it offers. Others found it an added plus. If all the foreigners I knew were the ones here and in the movies, I’d assume we were all pretty athletic too.
I wonder what assumptions about China I have because of where I live within it. More reason to travel…
Here, Abroad 