It's come to this . . .

October 8, 2010

Writing in a blog about writing in a blog is, or at least should be, a criminal act; it’s reminiscent of those 70’s rockers who wrote all their big hits about writing all their big hits (I got an office, gold records on the wall . . .), or those rappers who bust all their rhymes about the money and b****es they get from busting all those rhymes. And yet, after just three weeks in China and just three blog entries, this is what I am reduced to -- metablogging. I can't keep up. I just do not have time to capture the extraordinary profusion of insanity, poignance, and insanity that seems to be flying at me daily. Did I mention the insanity? Here are a couple examples, chosen largely at random:

It’s common practice here to brazenly butt into the front of lines (“jump the queue” as my Dub cousins would say), and then pretend to be stone deaf if anyone protests. Queue-jumpers have no shame, and cannot be cluck-clucked into submission; I know this, after seeing them in action many times, and yet sometimes the astounding gall of it leads me to say something out loud, even though I know it’s nearly guaranteed to be incomprehensible, and a stone-cold lock to be ignored. I did this in the park yesterday, muttering, “Wow, you’ve got a lot of nerve” as a guy, his, wife, and three kids pulled aside a rope and jammed into the very front of a looong line for an animal show. To my surprise he turned and said in decent English, “We already wait long time in there,” gesturing with his shoulder to the cafeteria, then completing his shrug, and his excuse, with placid reserve as he pushed into the show. I wasted the next half a freaking hour of my life having an imaginary conversation with this weasel in which I brilliantly lambasted his rudeness, in a way that wouldn’t seem culturally ignorant on my part, or agro to my sons. In other words, I fantasized that I could do the impossible; I couldn’t. Don't ask me about the show; I missed it.

Allison and I don’t so much eat as we forage, attempting to retrieve edible nuts or berries in the forests of a grocery store or a restaurant. Even the simplest actions, like asking for a plate, or a bottle of water, are sometimes beyond our feeble powers of expression. We grunt, gesture, pick up objects and point, and frequently say what we think are words in Chinese, but these usually turn out to be amusing little animal noises or possibly rude farting sounds, judging from the array of smirks, guffaws, or blank stares they elicit. Is it any wonder that we prefer places with pictures of the food? Of course there’s not always much correlation between what we point at and what shows up at the table. Allison brought home some pho, which we love, from a Vietnamese takeout place near work; she ordered two of the same thing, as she thought, but when we sat down to eat it, hers had those yummy slices of rare beef on top of the noodles, while mine featured an assortment of animal parts that looked like the leftovers from a veterinary dissection class -- I’d try to describe it in more detail, but I actually like most of my readers. One night we went to the little restaurant at the villa compound we’ve just moved into (more on that in a forthcoming episode), because we figured they would speak a bit of English; we were mistaken about that, but the menu had English, and the meal was really good. The only problem -- it took them over an hour to start seving it, and by the time it came, the children were melting on the table. The man who cooked it showed up half an hour after we ordered, having obviously been roused from his bed at home when we arrived.

I’m afraid it sounds like I’m bitching, and that could be, maybe, possibly, because I’m bitching. I haven’t told you about the man who helped me pick up the double stroller and carry it over the bike racks blocking our path, or the neighbors who stop us to ask how we’re doing and coo over the boys every five minutes, or the amazingly juicy dumplings we got for nine cents each. I haven’t told you about Ikea, and I’m not going to, because my experience at Ikea was exactly, precisely identical to your experience at Ikea, right down to the little blue and yellow cake versions of the Swedish flag in the cafeteria, and it makes absolutely zero difference whether the Ikea is in Emeryville or Shanghai or, eventually, Neptune. That’s the whole point of Ikea. How strange that the Swedes have taken over the world -- but I digress. There is nothing, neither Ikea, nor China, nor anything else, that is either good or bad but thinking makes it so, as yet another Scandinavian guy once remarked. What China is like depends on my angle of vision, and while I know the same in true in San Bruno or Des Moines or New York City, the newness and strangeness of our life here at times makes me feel I’m looking through a kaleidoscope of shifting perspectives, one moment thrilled that I can understand three consecutive words, the next horrified by a wizened crone coughing up a knot of phlegm on my shoe. That’s the terror and pleasure of the life we've thrown ourselves into.

Here’s a link to a little montage of images from our first few weeks, mostly taken by Allison’s sister Elizabeth, now back home with Peter and the girls in Chevy Chase. We miss you, Liz.