20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth

I'm digesting many different varieties of cigarette smoke and putting up with one of the worst keyboards in the world but I'll be damned if I don't make it through at least one blog. I need to. For the past two and half days I have hardly left my bed much less my apartment. The only times I did were to do some much needed grocery shopping at the local Walmart and to go and bother my guards who are the only signs of life that I feel obligated to interact with at this school because they also have to be here everyday and they have no life. Last night I sat with my friend Xiao Dong and made paper cranes with him while he refused to help me eat a lemon cake. In the middle of it we were interrupted by one of the teachers and his girlfriend who is an English teacher at another school. They gave us apples. They said we should go eat dumplings with them sometime. Then they made they're way to wherever it is they were headed, giggling into the night like school kids.

I just finished a book I picked up at the airport called “20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth” by Guo Xiaolu。 A book that would be frustrating for some foreign readers。Not only was it Chinese based， with some of the humor lost in translation，but it had really no plot or resolution for that matter。 It was just 20 fragments。 Of course those of you who frequent this blog will know why I liked it。Its just how I write。 So if you'll bear with me, here's my 20 fragments of the past few weeks vacation. They don't make sense, and they're not always in order but these are the things that happened and how I felt.

Fragment 1

An hour before I have to leave to catch my train I sat out on my school basketball courts watching the older boys play basketball. They still had class even though all the other grades were home for the break. Third years were supposed to keep studying for the exams that they would take at the end of the year so that they could be placed in ranked high schools. The bell rang and a small group of boys at one end of the courts refused to go back inside. They didn't have any look of rebelliousness. They just kept playing as if they hadn't heard the final bell, defying boredom and the trapped feeling of being in the classroom. They waved at me and went back to their pickup game ignoring my presence. I liked that they were used to me hanging around by now. I'd never know whether or not they got in trouble for not returning to class because my phone rang. It was mom calling to say bye before I headed off to Beijing.

Fragment 2

Sitting on the train while I was being taught how to play "Big Two" by the boys(a game that would occupy any moment of boredom for the rest of the trip) Justin was trying desperately to understand the lady who we were trying to book a hotel from. He gave up at some point and we decided there was nothing to be done but wait until we got to Beijing and go from there. At that point Xiao Dong called to check up on me. I was sitting up on the top bunk. I heard Justin grown in frustration from the bottom bunk and I got an idea. I asked my friend in quick bad Chinese if he could help us. He said yeah without asking what he was helping with and I handed the phone down to Justin who's Chinese is very good. The next hour was spent filled with the two of them calling back and forth on my phone. In the end Xiao Dong found all the details of a small hotel in the middle of Beijing. He booked us for 4 nights under his name and told us they would be waiting for us when we arrived. I tell you, I couldn't have been more pleased that he is my friend and my guard.

Fragment 3

The Silk Market was a new experience for Harry and I and an old friend for Justin. We spent the afternoon getting heckled by overeager Chinese people who wanted us to buy their cheap knockoffs that they were always selling for ridiculouly high prices. I managed to buy a Communist shirt, a present for Matt and a simple wall scroll with a painting on it that reminded me of the great painters of the Song Dynasty that I'd attempted to immitate for the sake of one of those Asian art courses. Justin bought a coat because he'd stupidly come to frigid Beijing without one. The lady demonstrated how durable it was by proceeding to empty a juice bottle on his arm. Angry and wet, he still bought it.

Fragment 4

I think I showered 20 times on that vacation. Sometimes for no reason. Sometimes twice in a row. Hot water is something that isn't really a priviledge to me, but I'm too lazy and don't want to bother anyone. In the cold of Beijing, the shower in that little hotel room was welcome. And used.

Fragment 5

Full of Peiking Duck one night we opted to go see a movie. There are a lot of factors that happened that night that affected the rest of our trip whereas if they had not happened we wouldn't have had the same trip. For instance, if we hadn't stayed in our room a little longer listening to Harry repeat the word "GRALSAW" as he read the first chapter of Eragon aloud, if we hadn't been taken to random dark and creepy alley by our taxi driver, if we hadn't not found a movie and then were forced to purchase time at the internet cafe that happened to be upstairs so that we could locate a theater that might be open somewhere in Beijing. If we hadn't stayed in the internet cafe a little longer because we had too many minutes and wanted to use some of them. If we had gone back to collect the rest of our money as suggested by that lady, but we didn't. If we hadn't headed right instead of left we wouldn't have past a group of three young men headed for the theater we'd just come out of. If one of them hadn't said "hey a movie theater" in plain English it wouldn't have prompted us to repsond "Yeah, but there are no movies showing." If none of these things had happened we would never have met the Canadians.

Fragment 6

Sitting around in a smoky pool hall, drinking warm beer and exchanging stories of teaching Chinese junior high school students with a pair of over-eager Canadian kids from Toronto who hadn't seen foriengers in months. We learned that they were the ONLY foreigners in the small village where they taught and that they were literally bartered for between school. Sold into teaching. I revelled in their happiness in meeting us. Their names were Cameron and Oscar. They said that they were planning to go to the Great Wall the next day and did we want to go with them and please would we because it was so nice to talk to other white people and if we didn't they would be stuck with only each other and their guide Gavin all day whom they loved but his English was only so so, so what did we think? At 7:30 the next morning we were shivering in their hotel lobby waiting for a tour bus to take us all to the Great Wall.

Fragment 7

Don't ask how we got up the Great Wall. You don't want to know. It involved what at one time may have been a rollar coaster that time had turned into metal cage on wheels somehow attached to a line that dragged the whole thing up the side of a moutain and back down again.

Fragment 8

Yes we went to the side that gets all the tourists. Yes it was the part that has been rebuilt because it was torn down and burnt down. Yes there were tons of people climbing all over it besides us and yes even here in this place filled with foriegners we still got stared at and I got pulled aside to get my photo taken with a young girl by her mom. I don't care. I saw the Great Wall. I saw something that no one in my family has ever seen before and may never see, something that many of the people in my own program may never see. Something that tons of Chinese people have never seen in fact. Gavin, the Canadians' friend, had never seen the Great Wall and had been born and raised in China. It's not something that can be desribed in words or even in pictures really because we've all seen the photos in books, we all have a general idea of what it looks like. I don't care. I was there and it was one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen. It's something I will never forget.

Fragment 9

Most Americans know more about Tian'an men and all that went down there than most Chinese people. Either through censorship or just plain ignorance it's one of those things in history that they just don't get to learn about. Walking through the square where hardly 18 years ago so many people my age were gunned down fighting for what they believed in, a fight that still isn't over to some respect in China today. Nowadays it's more of a tourist attraction as are so many other historic places in China. I always expected that Tian'an men would be a place of solemnity and grievance but wherever I looked I saw happy families on vacation, boyfriends taking photos of their girlfriends in front of Communist propaganda statues, and little kids running around with kites on strings. The atmosphere was much changed.

Fragment 10

They wanted to go ice skating so we went ice skating. Canadians are born on skates. Harry, being from Boston wasn't any different. Justin's from North Carolina and has never seen a lake frozen over before. I for whatever reason missed that whole part of being a kid where you learn to ice skate. No matter the bad skates and the bumpy lake and the over priced ice chairs and the dark. We had fun. I flagged chair races and tried my best not to fall and my Bambi legs while watching the boys glide around the ice. Harry and Oscar took turns pulling me around, attempting to teach me to skate and telling me in the end that it was a fruitless endevor on those terrible skates. My favorite part was when we were taking off our skates and Cameron did something to make the ice go WOOOMM and we all froze. No we didn't fall in the ice, but it was funny to watch their faces.

Fragment 11

Do you ever get that feeling? I worry all the time. I worry that people aren't having a good time, that they're stuck in a corner, that they're by themselves. A lot of times I don't have a good time myself because I'm too busy worries about somebody else. I always worry when I go out dancing because I guarantee that in a group of people, at least on of them doesn't want to be there. People don't dance anymore, especially boys. I've had more than one boyfriend who's wanted to sit out from all the fun and pout because he's afraid of making an ass out of himself. You know what? I don't care how badly you can't dance. Trying is sexy. On our last night we went out dancing. Me, Cameron, Oscar and Harry. They wanted to dance more than anything and while I was up for it as always, I wasn't so sure about Harry, but I'll say the boy surprised me. Not only did he dance, he didn't sit down once the whole night. I still worried a little however, worried because there really weren't a lot of girls. But even with all my worrying there was a moment. There was a moment that doesn't come around very often. I was dancing with Oscar, the person I wanted to dance with the whole night but restrained because I didn't want to leave the other two by themselves, but when I looked over at Harry and Cameron to tell them to go I happily saw that they were both dancing with two very pretty, very drunk Chinese girls. I smiled. I bubbled. I shouted into the music. I was overflowing with happy. I had to find some way to deal with the overflow. So I screamed. Luckily the music was so loud that you couldn't hear it. I screamed for the past week. For all the good things that had happened to us. For meeting new friends. For good food and for warm showers. For playing cards and drinking in jazz clubs. For laughing until your belly hurt over Justin's hair when he took his hat off. For the prospects of my brother coming to visit the next week. For squeezing five people in a cab which should never be allowed. For dancing with a boy who liked me. For doing it, for living in China. For all those things and more.

Fragment 12

The trainride back was sort of a blur for me seeing as I had a fever of 112 and was dying of the plague. I spent the duration curled up in a ball on the top bunk with my Beijing coat and my dying cell phone for company. The boys tried to engage me in cards and every once in a while I took them up on it, handing down my tricks or sometimes just dropping them somewhat successfully onto the table below. Sometime around 2 in the morning my fever broke and dropped from112 to 104. As far as I know I never gave my death plague to the other boys and how I got it still remains a mystery of Beijing.

Fragment 13

Who likes waiting for people to show up at airports? Not me! I got there to meet my brother flying into Hong Kong an hour before I actually met him. During that time I refused to blow my nose in fear of offending someone and I bit all my fingernails off. I think I had an ulcer by the time I finally saw him round the corner from baggage claim but it was a good ulcer. It was so nice to see family, someone I could relate to here, which I'd been lacking for months. Someone who sounds like me and gets all the jokes. He'd finally come, awkward suitcase in hand.

Fragment 14

Matt's first meal in China (ahem, Hong Kong) was at 12:00 at night at this random hotpot restaurant above a hotel. We dipped weird questionable meat and noodles into mouth-numblingly spice hot broth and sipped icy Chinese beer. Matt pointed out a guy sleeping at the next table. I preferred that state though because when he woke up he decided that the best course of action was to blatantly stare at the two foreigers seated next to him while I tried to teach Matt some phrases in Chinese which he would continue to have to be reminded of how to say for the rest of the trip.

Fragment 15

I think that my guards were more excited than I was that my brother was coming to visit. They kept asking "when is he coming?" "when is he going home?" "how long will he stay?" So when he met them it was kind of a big deal. It was also my first try at rapid translating and from Matt's opinion I did a pretty fair job. Chinese is piecey, a lot of the things one wants to say can often be said in just a few words. They already knew a lot about him based on what I told them but they still had their questions. One of my favorites was "are you looking for a Chinese girlfriend while you're here?" Matt took to them right away and while I would be up in bed and he would have to deal with Jet lag and getting up early he would go down and chat with them for awhile using gestures and loud noises. I imagine it got pretty amusing. After all I do it myself. I'm just glad someone else got a chance to experience what great guys they are.

Fragment 16

Matt explored Dongmen and the wonder that is buying pirated DVD's in China. I felt sick almost the entire time but stomached it through. Afterwards we went to Teppanyakki with my friend Justin and for those of you in the states it's a lot like going to Benny Honna.....only better cuz we're in China. We had sushi and steak and lamb and fried bananas for desert.

Fragment 17

Daniel Craig's face always looks like that.

Fragment 18

Watching Matt's face while we rode the bus to Sheko was possibly one of the funniest things I've ever seen. He did not enjoy it. It wasn't even as cramped as it normally was. But it was still a new experience for him considering we don't do the bus thing in Michigan. Ahh the feeling of a man's elbow in your side while you travel is the only way to travel. In Sheko Matt made friends with a girl who tried to sell him flowers for his "girlfriend"...me. Matt being Matt he tried to buy the flower and give it to her asking if she would be his girlfriend. But alas, she wanted 10 yuan and he wouldn't pay hirer than 1. It wasn't meant to be.

Fragment 19

Hard pressed for something to do on New Year's we asked the "Baby guard". I made the mistake of calling him that as a joke because he has a baby face, and he's 21! and the name stuck thanks to the other guards. Now they all call him "Wang Li Baby!" He always says "I'm not a baby! I'm 21!" but I think he likes it. Wang Li told us that there were fun things to do in the area of Brendon's school so we wandered. I don't know what I expected for New Year's but I was in no way dissappointed. As we wandered the streets we saw small kids lighting off firecrackers big and small. Babies with their first sparklers and gangs of children running around with fruit and throwing poppers on the ground so loud they hurt your ears. We got some looks and I got more than one "hey look foreign teacher!" from kids who's faces I couldn't register. We wandered over the bridge and into the park where all the dancing took place in the Summer. The fireworks were going on here as well only to a bigger scale. At one point a group of girls rushed us. One grabbed my arm and one grabbed Matt's. This would have been weird if there wasn't a camera being pointed at us. I take that back, it was still a little weird. They snapped some photos of us and shouted the obligatory "HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!" at us in English. It was the latest English phrase and all of China seemed to know it. We watched as a group surrounded this girl. She was writing characters on a paper balloon. Later they would light a small candle under this balloon and it would turn into a mini hot air balloon. I can assume that this is their version of New Year's Resolutions. They send them off to the Heavens and let the Gods take care of them in the next year. We silently sent ours up with them into the night.

Fragment 20

Last night sitting in the guard house I watched the guards play the game that I was taught on the train to Beijing. They threw down pairs and triples and laughed in their sing-songy languge, making jokes that I wouldn't be able to understand even if I wasn't fluent I have a feeling. My trip had come full circle. I don't think they believed that I knew how to play so they didn't ask but it was okay, I was happy where I was. I watched them smile and comment on each others' hands, cigarettes sticking out of their lips. At one point Xiao Dong put on some music using the nearby computer. He and Wang Li started singing in their young boyish voices. I always try to hear what each Chinese person would sound like if they spoke perfect English. Xiao Dong would have a gruff cocky voice sort of like Ranma in those anime movies I loved so much. Wang Li's would be softer like a kid's, high and light and full of laughter. Thinking about it all, I can take so many trips and I can experience so much in this country but one of my favorite things will be sitting in that little smoke filled house on a warm night in Winter listening to them sing songs that I don't understand.