Transgressions

Pam treated me to lunch today at Woodranch as a sort of "thank you" meal for having picked her up from LAX (she just returned from her post-Bar Exam vacation in Thailand). The restaurant speakers were playing Aerosmith's "Dude Looks like a Lady," not the typical muzak lunchtime fare you'd expect to hear at most restaurants.

So the song got me thinking again of this reality show I want to create. Actually, the idea came to me while listening to Britney Spears's "I'm Not a Girl, Not yet a Woman." "Mmm," I thought to myself, "this song is so catchy. It'd make the perfect theme song to a reality show, but which one?" Then, the epiphany! Spears's ballad would make the perfect accompaniment to a reality show that tracks the transformation of three or four transexuals as they undergo the various hormone therapies, sessions of psychological counseling, and finally the surgeries to reverse their gender. Besides being very emotional, dramatic, and intriguing programming, it would be absolutely phenominally hilarious as we move to commerical saying "coming up after the break," and show a little tease of the next segment while playing "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman...all I need is time, a moment that is mine, while I'm in between," in the background. Hilarious: I laugh aloud each time I think of it—and I have thought of it often. The name of the show will be "Transgressions."

Of course I know it's not enough to have a whole show revolve around the joke of one theme song...so I had to think of other theme songs that would be somehow appropriate. So far, we have:

"Dude Looks like a Lady," by Aerosmith;
"You Make Me Feel like a Natural Woman," by Aretha Franklin; [I've never really understood this song; what kind of woman did she feel like before meeting the person whom the song addresses? An unnatural woman? I think by the end of the season, "unnatural woman" would be the perfect term to describe the show's contestants.]
"Man, I Feel like a Woman," by Shanya Twain.

"Reflections," the theme song to Mulan, also has really appropriate lyrics: "Look at me,/I will never pass for a perfect bride,/Or a perfect daughter. Can it be,/I'm not meant to play the part?/Now I see/That I were truly to be myself/I would break my family's heart...Must there be a secret me I'm forced to hide?/I won't pretend that I'm/Someone else for all time..." Danny also suggested Mulan's "I'll Make a Man out of You."

Six songs are significantly better than just one; still though, I thought it'd be good to have a larger arsenal of music from which to draw, so I went googled a few keywords to see what goodies the information highway could supply.

Bob Dylan has a song called "Ugliest Girl in the World." A second Dylan song I found entitled "Just like a Woman" goes, "She takes just like a woman/Yes, she makes love just like a woman/Yes, she does/And she aches just like a woman/But she breaks just like a little girl."

Sinead O'Connor's "No Man's Woman" seemed like a good choice, as did Carly Simon's "One Man-Woman." Think of the emphasis on the hyphenation in "man-woman" in the lines, "Feeling like a one man-woman/Acting like a one man-woman/I guess I'm just a one man-woman." ["Man-woman" also seems an appelation befitting the show's stars after the culmination of their alterations.] My search of the net also turned up this little nugget which I had forgotten about until now, Billy Joel's "She's Always a Woman to Me": "And she'll promise you more than the Garden of Eden/Then she'll carelessly cut you, and laugh while you're bleedin'/But she'll bring out the best, and the worst you can be/Blame it all on yourself, 'cause she's always a woman to me."

One find that filled me with utter delight at its sheer germaness was Boy George's "She was never He." First of all, it would be difficult to begrudge a place on a show like this to any song by Boy George; secondly, the lyrics: "She was never he/For as long as I remember/She was never of her gender categorically/She was never he/Though the boys at school were cruel/You would have to be a fool not to see." I'm not sure how the melody of this one goes, but I envisioned it playing softly in the background of a Real World-style confessional scene as one of the transexuals sobs while retelling how he-she was merilessly teased as a child, and never really fit in at school.

But the crowning jewel of my search was by a band previously unknown to me, Urge Overkill. The piece, entitled "Girl, You'll be A Woman Soon," would provide the perfect musical accompaniment to the climax of show, the final surgery that indelibly transforms the contestant from the sex assigned to him/her at birth, to the sex he/she feels best expresses his/her gender. "I've been misunderstood for all of my life,/But what they're saying, girl, it cuts like a knife." I guess the song would be most suitable for a man-to-woman surgery, since its entitled, "Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon." As for the use of direct address "girl," I thought it isn't so much "girl" as in "little girl's room," Girl Scouts or Boys and Girl's Club; it's more of the way some cross-dressers refer to each other as in "Giiiiiirl, you look good in that dress!" or "Giiiiiirl, I know you didn't take my mascara without permission!"

If there are any MTV producers out there interested in this idea, you can leave a comment for this entry with your contact information, and I'll respond as soon as possible; I am ready to negotiate selling my idea at a very reasonable fee.

As this entry comes to a close, I'd like to end with the song that started it all.

(I'm not a girl) I'm not a girl, don't tell me what to believe! (Not yet a woman) I'm just trying to find the woman in me! Yeah (All I need is time) Oh, all I need is time, (A moment that is mine) That's mine while I'm in between. [Still laughing.]

* * * * *
For those who are interested, there is a segment from This American Life that is both informative and entertaining about a woman who takes massive amounts of testosterone to become a man. I offer a complete money-back guarentee that you will enjoy it and laugh regularly while listening. Click on the link, and listen to Act II.

Lifetime Original Movie

Just a little conversation I had with Eddie. As usual, it was funnier in the moment than it might appear after-the-fact.

[Context: a mutual friend of ours got married recently (hey, who hasn't?). Not prior to, but during, her engagement, she found out that her fiance has a son, making her a step-mom, at the age of 26. Wowzers!]

Tomato JT: did you get all my IMS?
Tomato JT: about craziness?
etimus: no, not about crazinesss
Tomato JT: oh. sigh
etimus: sorry
Tomato JT: i said "what is wrong with these people? step kids are somthing i associate with people in their FOURTIES. they are a decade and a half premature. it's like a 10 year old having kids. why can't our peers be happy living normal, normal lives. (normal according to me, b/c i antipicated your asking that.)"
Tomato JT: it's not your fault...my aol was bad
etimus: acutally, i got that.
etimus: haha
etimus: i just didn't know you referred to it as your crazy talk.
Tomato JT: and you made me reytpe???
etimus: i didn't know!
TTomato JT: ok ok
etimus: i thought you wrote something more after i responded.
Tomato JT: what did you write?
etimus: oh, that i think she might be happy.
Tomato JT: i don't disagree. it all just seems so"lifetime original movie," and not so much like "saved by the bell"
etimus: well, it's the real world.
etimus: not saying lifetime truly reflects the real world.
Tomato JT: HAHAHAHA. are you implying "saved by the bell" does not reflect the real world?
Tomato JT: you're funny
Tomato JT: may i post this on my blog?
etimus: sure.

So, in conclusion: Lifetime original movies may not necessarilly reflect the real world, but they do a better job of it than did Saved by the Bell (no offense to Mario López or Tiffany Amber Thiessen).

To Marry, or Not Too Merry

[Ok, I will shamelessly congratulate myself just this once on the clever title of this blog. Please take a moment to consider and appreciate the multiple entendre that are at work within it.]

This seems a very appropriate place for my reiteration of the disclaimer I made in the "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" entry [another title of which I am justifiably proud]:
"Before I continue any further, two facts need to be established to indemnify myself against potentially erronious accusations. These points are: a) I believe that marriage is highly esteemed in the Bible, and so I, too, esteem it; and b) I am very glad to celebrate the joinings in matrimony of all of my friends, and will joyfully participate (or already have participated) in their wedding ceremonies."

So I have finally finished running through the gauntlet of the SIX (6) weddings of 2006, and I have to say, I am growing a little weary of these newly married couples pushing their values onto me. (And I guess by "values" I mean weddings, or the idea of marriage in general.) Sure, it's fine for them to be happy: happy to be "joined together in holy matrimony", happy to have found "that special someone" with whom to spend the rest of their lives, happy to "embark on their new journey together," etc. (Notice all the quotation marks; maybe it's not so much the weddings that have engendered my petulance as it is the repetition of platitudes I keep hearing at the ceremonies.)

Anyway, why do they have to drag me into all their happiness? Isn't it enough for me to be happy for them from afar? Sure, I want to celebrate "that special day" with my friends, but does celebrating with them necessitate celebrating within their immediate vicinity? (Maybe the weddings of the future will be telecast, so that guests can enjoy the ceremony in the comfort of their family rooms...and in pajamas...without having showered that day...while eating potato chips and swigging back a cold one. It would be like the Super Bowl! Maybe I could even just catch the highlights footage for weddings that I'm not super interested in.)

And it's not as though once one is invited to a wedding he can easilly decline the offer. So it can, at times, feel as though one's engaged friends have him over a barrel: once invited, one must attend; if attending, one must bring a gift. Isn't that just extortion? And now, with gift registries, one is expected to bring a desirable (often pricy) gift, nothing frivolous, or re-gifted. Gone are the days when one could wrap up something he hoped the bride and groom would find "humorous," or "light-hearted;" now, such gifts will label the giver as "tacky," "cheap," or "a former friend."

Then again, I have to concede that by and large, the food at this year's wedding banquets was very, very satisfying, and this owes mostly to the large number of couples who selected "Chinese Wedding Banquet" as their food of choice. Next to sharing the joy of my friends, the food is, of course, nothing, but there are few meals in which I take so much delight as the Chinese wedding banquet; the relative infrequency of my partaking in those multi-course feasts contributes significanly to my enjoyment. Since, by definition, one can only eat Chinese wedding banquet after a Chinese wedding, I have little to no control over when I will sit at the table of sea food-y goodness.

Speaking of sea food-y goodness, for those not acquainted with the menu, these meals usually consist of shark fin (and crab meat) soup (with the red vinegar), scallops, either crab or lobster (both if the hosts are particularly generous), fried chichek, steamed fish, fried rice, wedding cake, and red bean soup with rice balls. Sometimes there are variations: abalone, Peking duck, sections of roasted pig, jellyfish, sea cucumber, etc, but everything listed above is standard fare.

* * * * *

After some reflection, I can see that enduring the sermonizing, platitudes, and the happiness of my friends is worth it for the gustatory delight that awaits me afterward. I guess the banquet is like the lollipop one earns after "being brave" during the doctor's visit.

Below are some photos of my culinary adventures this summer:

Roast pig, jellyfish, chicken, and charsiu appetizers at Katie & Kevin's wedding.

Me & the lobster (Katie & Kevin's wedding)





Me & the lobster (Andrew & Tiff's wedding)

Taking Sexy Back

To all the voluptuous, sexy people out there, be warned: the mall is not a safe place for you any more. As I voluptuous, sexy individual myself, I am giving you my first-hand testimony; this is not merely a regurgitation of something I heard from my local eye-witness news fear segment. This summer, put away those shorts and tank tops for a nice turtleneck and full length jeans. Think fashion à la Queen Victoria, not fashion à la Paris Hilton. I know, you've got a good body and you want to show it off (I too am the proud owner of a gym membership), but safety first, people! It's time to take sexy back...take it back home, and leave it there!

Needing (ironically enough) to restock my supply of protein powder (a supplement I take after my workouts), I headed to the GNC® at the Cerritos Mall. Traveling through the food court, I passed by Hot Dog on a Stick®, and a cosmic struggle ensued upon my shoulders.

Demon on left shoulder: It's 90F outside!
[Demon's European cousin: That's 32C!]
Angel on right shoulder: Empty calories, empty calories.
Demon: Hot Dog on a Stick® makes the best lemonade, and you know it.
Angel: Do you want people calling you "lard-O"? You're going to blow up like a balloon, and you'll need to buy new pants. Think of how much it will cost you to replace all your pants!
[For an Angel, he really seemed to rely on shame and greed as motivators.]
Demon: One lemonade never hurt anyone.
Angel: You're on the road to Type II Adult onset diabetes, my friend.
Demon: Cherry lemonade. They sell cherry.
Angel: Whose advice can you trust more? I've got the harp and halo, he's going back to fire and brimstone.
JT: I'm sorry, but he sold me on the cherry lemonade.

So I queued up behind what I assumed were a middle aged man and his two children. Then the "father" noticed the two kids—and me behind them—and in his most avuncular tone said, "you two in line? Go ahead of me." Then he turned to me and with a smile remarked, "Gotta let the kids have their hotdogs." I returned the smile and nodded my head.

How rare for a person to show altruism, even in such a small way, I observed.

The stranger proceeded to make small talk, commenting on my biceps, which were plainly visible in my tank top. "You've also got a nice chest," he continued, "do you do sports?" I replied in the negative, explaining that I am rather lumbering, and so prefer exercise that relies less heavily on physical coordination (things like swimming, running, weight lifting).

"Really? You should put that muscle to use. You really should try a sport," he retorted. The stranger continued to get stranger and stranger with each word the emanated from his mouth.
What have I gotten myself into? I wondered as the apprehension set in. Is this the way that homosexuals pick up on one another, or is this just a very garrulous man? Why can't that Hot Dog on a Stick® girl pour lemonade and mete out change a little faster? How long am I going to be in this line? Should I try to avoid talking to him? If he's just a friendly guy, I don't want to offend, but if he's coming on to me, I definitely don't want to encourage him...

Thus was the state of affairs in my teeming brain during the eternities that passed as the Hot Dog on a Stick® girl filled orders. Because I was preoccupied trying to listen to the man's questions and generate answers, I didn't really have enough spare mental capacity to contrive a way of escape from that tortuous conversation. Maybe that was his plan: engross me in his web of creepy interlocution just enough to prevent me from figuring a way out.

"Hey! I know just the sport for you! You should take up body building. It doesn't require alot of coordination, and you could continue working out like you do now. How much do you weigh? 135? No! Really? Ida guessed 160. You look 25 pounds lighter; you must just have that kind of frame. Now, imagine if you bulked up a bit, to say, 180. You'd look like 205. That can be a real psychological advantage, do you get me? You'd go in there in a lower weight division, and all the guys would be like, 'hey, weigh him again, he looks too big to be competing in our weight class.' That would psych those other guys out."

On and on he droned, as if it were a stroke of genius that body building is an appropriate sport for someone who works out. Despite my best protestations that I had no inclination to gain any more weight, and that I was very happy at 135, he continued. By this point, he had gotten his lemonade; and I, mine, so I felt the urge to just run away. Yet part of me feared that he could have simply been a genuinely friendly guy, and part of me was totally eating up the compliments. In addition to noticing my arms and pecs, he said that I had good calves (another advantage for me, should I decide to pursue a career in the illustrious world of competitive body building); but the coup de grace was that he mistook me for a high schooler. It's hard to resist conversations with even the creepiest of the creepy when they subtract eight or nine years off your actual age.

When he mentioned a high school body builder that he knew and asked which gym I work out at, even my ego couldn't keep me there. What is he doing hanging around with high schoolers—and worse, why was he being so chatty with me if he thought I was a minor?!? Pedophile alert! I said I really had to get going [for my own safety], and I scurried away to GNC.

It looks like my domestic partner beaters will have to remain underwear (not outerwear) for the rest of the summer (except maybe to the gym). That, and I need to buy some creep-O repellent.

Friends, you have got to be careful out there this summer. There are alot of weirdos among us who don't know how to behave properly, or in the words of Justin Timberlake himself, "them other f**ckers dunno how to act."

Roadside Hazard

Things today started as they do on any normal day, until I got in my car to go to the gym and run a few errands. As I started to make a U-turn to go down the hill and exit my neighborhood, I couldn't help but notice that my car was tilted unnaturally toward the right and front, and a strange, gravel-ly sound was emanating the right side. My fears were confirmed when I exited and inspected my vehicle: flat tire!

The tire was completely deflated between the rim and the ground, so there was no way I could have driven it to a tire place; I would have to change it myself. For those unfamiliar with my knowledge/skill set with cars, my automotive aptitude is probably on par with that of most four-year-olds. So I enlisted the help of my younger sister, who claimed to have tire-changing experience. [Untoward, sexist comments stemming from the ridiculous stereotype that men should be better at mechanical matters than women are completely uncalled for and unappreciated for this entry.]

As mentioned earlier, we live on a hill, which complicated the matter of tiring changing significantly. My all-knowing sister insisted that I move my car to a completely flat stretch of road, but the nearest patch of very flat road is some distance down hill, and I feared that driving my car that far risked doing some damage to the wheel (since it had no tire to support it). I compromised, and moved it to a close section of the street that was relatively flat. Next came the matter of jacking up the Prius. We removed the jack and spare tire from my trunk. My sister eyed the directions, and proceeded to place the jack under the proper portion of my car, all the while insisting that it was a bad idea on the incline.

After taking turns with the little manual, hand-crank jack, we finally had it high enough to remove the flat. Those bolts were screwed on fast! Fortunately for us, my substantial upper body strength came in handy, and I was able to wrest them off. With the tire off, we found that the Prius still wasn't jacked up high enough to allow us to put the fully inflated spare on, so we continued taking turns turning the little crank. The midday sun was making our labor unpleasant, so during one of my sister's shifts, I went inside to get us each a glass of ice water. As I was cheerfully pouring the water from an Arrowhead jug over the ice cubes, my sister came running into the kitchen. "Come quick," she said, "your car fell!"

"My car what?" I asked (I could feel my eyes widening in disbelief).

"It fell! Didn't you hear the crash? What're you, deaf? I was turning the crank, and I could feel it slowly start to roll backwards because of the incline; then it fell of the jack! I told you to move it to a flat area, did you listen? You're so stupid!" she chided with a laugh mixed with not a little satisfaction on her countenance at having been proved right.

Here's a photo of the Prius with one corner completely on the ground (along with my Edvard Munchian response):

When I saw the result of the great tragedy, I was deeply troubled; it seemed that the enormous weight of the car having fallen on the axle must have caused some damage; after all, doesn't that part of the car need to be perfectly circular in order to reduce friction and maintain a smooth ride? (Well, doesn't it? Again, I'm about as far from an automotive expert as one can be, but dropping one's car on an important instrument just seemed undesirable.)

Now that the front part of the car was completely prostrate, it was impossible to get the jack underneath it in the proper position. After a few futile attempts, I capitulated and got out my triple A card.

The triple A man had a special, much more efficient type of jack, and he was able to slide it under the car and lift it up, then re-position it properly while he put on the spare. (Incidentally, he did ask what had happened, and I felt great shame that my complete tire-changing ignorance and incompetence shone so saliently and incontrovertibly in the presence of such an expert. Fortunately, he avoided condescension and simply suggested that next time if I didn't want to move the car all the way to a flatter part of land, I position the tires perpendicular, instead of parallel, to the incline, so that it wouldn't roll backwards. After receiving this pearl of wisdom, it seemed so obvious, yet had somehow theretofore eluded me.)

Moral of the story: Just save yourself the trouble, and call AAA in the beginning.
If you want a better look at the devestation my complete ineptitude wrought, click on the photo at right for a close-up.

Such Sweet Sorrow

As a child, I was inculcated with this mantra: “Study hard, go to a good school, and get a good job; then you’ll be able to afford nice things.” Whenever my parents took me to the toy store, the ice cream shop, or the mall, my wide-eyed entreaties were sure to meet this ready reply. Sometimes it seemed as though such excursions served more as exercises in indoctrination than as trips for the purpose of purchasing anything. Although my parents intended me to view education as a stepping stone on the path toward financial prosperity, I came to see it as a valuable end in itself. This attitude persisted and burgeoned throughout high school, where my interest in literature and its role in society began.

Notwithstanding my interest in the English arts, I tentatively decided (read: my parents forced me) to pursue a degree that would prepare me for a career as a health care professional (read: doctor). Despite the earnestness with which I approached the life sciences, classes like organic chemistry and behavioral neuroscience failed to arouse my interest, and by my junior year I could suffer the thought of a career in medicine no longer. Interest in English literature led me to enroll in a few classes; my intent to study English was solidified after being nominated for the English department writing award for my work in the undergraduate survey courses. After completing the survey series and sampling each literary era, I found myself drawn to one particular period in British literature: Romanticism.

So began the first draft to my personal statement for English literature graduate school. (Subsequent drafts had to omit the first paragraph and all its humorous glory in order to bow to the draconian page limits of the graduate programs.) More than just an attempt to ingratiate myself with the Illuminati of British literature, those two paragraphs express a very real (and substantial) truth about my childhood and adolescent years.

But this essay isn't about my going to graduate school, nor is it purely about the seductive power that the world of academia has on me; this essay is about my struggle to choose between pursuing my scholastic goals and following Christ. [Aside: I considered those two gerund phrases, "pursuing..." and "following...," very carefully, because I in no way wanted to intimate a mutual exclusivity between them. On the contrary, I know plenty of dedicated Christians who have also received higher degrees. In my particular case, between the particular choices that were laid before me, I felt as though the two were incompatible.]

Perhaps this is a good place for a recapituation of the recent developments in my life for those unfortunate enough to be out of the loop:

Feb 12: UCLA rejection. (ouch, my own alma mater.)
Feb 16: Cornell rejection.
Feb 23: Princeton rejection.
Feb 23: Yale rejection.
Feb 25: Stanford rejection. (ouch, my dream school.)
Feb 27: Berkeley rejection.
Mar 1: Columbia rejection. (ouch, my other dream school.)
Mar 3: Chicago rejection.
Mar 9: USCB March 9 rejection. (triple ouch, my backup school.)
Mar 16 Virginia WINNER! WINNER!*
Apr 7: NYU WINNER AGAIN!*
Apr 9: UPenn rejection. (but who cares, I had gotten into two other schools at this point.)

*I was accepted into the University of Virginia (U.Va), a great institution of higher learning, which was founded by none other than Thomas Jefferson himself. Accordingly, the architecture of the school is Jeffersonian, and from every account I have heard, the campus is absolutely spectacular, with a beautiful view of the Appalachian Mountains. Even more elating than my admission into U.Va, however, was the letter of acceptance to NYU, which has two major advantages over Virginia: a) prestige/name recognition; and b) location. Since beginning the Best American Essays series, I've noticed that many, many essays are written with a consummate familiarity of New York City; this has led me to believe that every great American essayist should live in New York at some time in his lifetime.

I replied in the affirmtive to the invitations from both UVa and NYU, and resolved to decide later which school I would attend. Some time in May, my undergraduate professors unanimously affirmed the superiority of the NYU English department, and I made my choice accordingly. Then, I began to reconsider grad school altogether, which brings us back to the present narrative.

And after consultation with many friends, serious deliberation, and considerable prayer, I felt my options were "pursuing my scholastic goals" and "following Christ." I could have broken the choice down into any number of other dichotomies: getting a masters/not getting a masters; living in New York (the Mecca of modern American writers)/forgoing New York; going $100,000 in debt for two years of schooling/staying debt free; rejoining university life and preparing for a future in acadmia/staying in Cerritos and considering other career opportunities.

The allure of pursuing a masters degree, living in the writers' Mecca, immersing myself in a world of scholarship, and being 100K in debt notwithstanding, the thought of leaving my Christian community here in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan/Orange County area proved a large obstacle on the road to graduate school. As I continued to pray about it, and weighed my options carefully, I came to see that for me, graduate school was exclusively "for me," a dream that I wanted to pursue because of my early childhood socialization; whereas staying would be "for God and His people," a sacrifice (of sorts) that would serve purposes other than just my own.

New York is seductive because it's metropolitan, fast-paced and 热热闹闹 (a Chinese term that most nearly translates into "bustling.") It's seductive because not having lived there and not being part of the New York illuminati is so odious; quite often I've read essays mentioning "Mad Avenue" or "5th and such-and-such" so casually that I felt ashamed of my ignorance of New York geography. Yet the appeal of New York is the very thing which has repelled me: I was bent on going only to relish the city and the ego boost I would enjoy from another degree, and these, to me, seem like illegitimate reasons to attend NYU.

Eventually, I turned to Scripture. Luke 18:28-30 says, " Then Peter said, 'Lo, we have left all, and followed thee.' And He said unto them, 'Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.'"

Before my ordeal with the grad school decision, I had assumed "leaving" houses, parents, brethren, and children entailed a physical departure: going to China to teach English for the summer, traveling to Africa to tend children orphaned by AIDS, walking down the street to share the gospel with a neighbor. But through my current plight (if I may use that term to describe this situation), I have seen that "leaving" something can simply mean forsaking it, and "following" Christ can mean "staying put." And in my case, I think "leaving" grad school by remaining here is harder than a physical removal from a place or person. Yet through prayer, I am finding that the Spirit is asking whether I will sacrifice graduate school and higher education to play an active role in my church community.

So, after having made the aforementioned deliberations, and having cautiously adumbrated the ends of the two roads diverging in the yellow wood before me, I decided to put off my romatic views of Romanticm (at least for now), and abide a while longer here.

Eating Crow in Hong Kong

Tonight is our final night in Hong Kong, a place to which I vowed never to return during my first visit back in 2002...and yet, here I am. Rather than recounting the exploits of my last few days in Hong Kong (which though enjoyable, have not been particularly eventful), let's take this opportunity to travel into the past—deep, deep into the past of four years ago, a time so far untouched by my blog, which dates back only to September 25, 2005...

It all started during my first trip to China. Our team had just left the slow-paced life of Liping (see the preceding six entries), and many of us were bound for Hong Kong. With our 30-day-double-entry visas set to expire, we needed to leave the country and re-enter to activate our second stay. [How it makes sense that leaving mainland China for Hong Kong, then returning to the mainland constitutes re-entry if they really are "one country, with two systems" is anyone's guess. But, of course, there are many things about Communism that defy the understanding of those of us born under the banner of the free market. I guess in this situation, this conundrum really is preferable to the added cost of flying to a more distant country and returning in order to use our second 30-day visa.]

So there we were, leaving the poorest province of China for what, if it were counted as an independent country, would be 8th richest nation based on per capita GDP, adjusted by purchasing power parity. [Wikipedia cites Hong Kong as the 11th largest trading entity, with the 13th largest banking center. It also has the most liberal economony in the world, and has a per capita GDP higher than those of the the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy.] To adapt a line from Virginia Woolfe, naturally, all one's sympathies were on the side of Liping.

Against the backdrop of rural poverty and warm country hospitality, the lights and glitz of Hong Kong struck me as perversely shallow and, unlimately, nothing more than affectation. It did not help matters that in response to the question, "What is there to do in Hong Kong?" two answers—and only two answers—were proffered: "shop and eat." (Though the answers did not vary, the order in which they were listed changed depending on whom I asked.)

So here was a great city—really, a great city-state—extremely prosperous by any standard, yet without the appearance of anything I would associate with "culture." One can tolerate a great deal of materialism and superficiality, especially if he is from the greater Los Angeles metropolitan region, but at some point one needs balance, a feeling of culture and art. No one with whom I spoke mentioned nice parks or bibliophilistic libraries, so it seemed I could forget about museums, opera houses, art galleries, ballet companies, or the symphony. All the wealth amassed from being the "Pearl of the Orient" and the economic hub for southeast Asia seemed to have been diverted into restaurants and shopping malls, without any consideration for a decent theatre.

I think the straw that broke this camel's back was a description of the HK paradigm from a friend who had grown up there . "Women won't leave the house without dressing up and putting on their make—not even to go to the grocery store," I was told. "When Hong Kong people see a fat person walking down the street, they say to themselves, 'disgusting! That person shouldn't even leave their [sic] house. It's embarrassing to be seen on the street looking like that.'" Whether this characterization is accurate or not is debatable, but this was the information given me, and I saw little if anything that contradicted it.

After that, I vowed never to return to a place that made Los Angeles look like an 18th century Puritan settlement. One tasty, almost poetic, fact I gleaned from my first visit to Hong Kong was that due to limited availability of land, the city has expanded on "reclaimed" land, which is actually garbage that's been dumped into the ocean. I was really quite pleased at what an apt metaphor this seemed: a city, an entire way of life, built upon nothing more than trash.

* * * * *

Yet, here I am, back in Hong Kong, this city of shopping and eating, eating and shopping. In a place renowned for its gustatory delights, I am eating crow.

Here's a photo from this trip (2006) of me, overlooking Victoria Peak (named for Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom):

Beautiful Goodbye

[For those not in the know, the title is an allusion to a "billy rock" song by Jennifer Hanson that gained alot of popularity early in 2003. Click on the link to hear a clip.] Below is a photo taken by Katie from the bus as we departed Liping, (you can compare it to my photo at the bottom of this post):

We rose EARLY in the morning to have a quick breakfast and catch the bus that would take us to Guiyang, the capital city of Guizhou province.

As is the custom every year, the multitudes came out to see us on our way, and wish us a safe trip out of the town. And I, as usual, resolved not to cry because such effusive, sentimental displays are un-British, and unseemly. During my first exodus out of Liping, I did have a small breakdown--a bizarre quick burst of tears, accompanied by squawking noises...I don't have a real good explanation for it, but maybe I was sleep deprived (a condition that tends to make me more emotional for some reason). In any event, my apologies to Her Majesty, the Queen. This year, however, I was considerably more successful, and not a tear absconded from my tear ducts.

This is not to say that I am heartless, or that I felt no sorrow in leaving behind my 宝贝 and the other friends I made during the summer trip. On the contrary, I was saddened to depart the quaint, peaceful life of this small town, and considerably saddened to depart from my students and friends.

...my students and friends, who came out in droves to see us off. Which, in a rather awkward way, made them appear less like students and friends, and more like groupies, or stalkers. Of course, students and friends can come see one off, especially when he is leaving them for an extended period of time (as we were in this instance). Nonetheless, when students and friends come to see one off in numbers sufficient to constitute a mob or numbers that approach the populations of very small, obscure African nations, that can create an effect markedly different than that produced by 5-10 friends waving 'bye' at the airport.

Truth be told, leaving (or often, coming to) Liping makes me feel like a weird sort of celebrity: there are multitudes waiting for you outside of your bus; some people are crying; some people are down-right sobbing; everyone is waving; many of them have brought you 'good-bye' (or in some cases 'welcome') gifts; things are being shouted; there is a general feeling of chaos. All we're really missing are some electric guitars, a few kilos of cocaine, and a pair of gianormous lips and we'd be the Rolling Stones!

And it feels like celebrity, because all these people love you, as if you'd done something great, when all you've really done is something you love doing.

But really, it's better than being a celebrity, because all these people actually know me personally, and I know them. They have come to wish me off neither out of obsession with my 'celebrity,' nor out of some fallacious belief that I embody an ideal, movement or type of music that they enjoy. They do not idolize me, nor do I depend on their patronage to bankroll my prodigal lifestyle. [Apologies to those of my A-list celebrity readers who take offense at my stereotypical treatment of the celebrity-fan relationship.] My connection with them has much more egalitarian roots than all that. And egalitarianism is the basis of friendship. And having friends is better than having fans--hands down.

So you will notice that while my photo lacks the clarity of Katie's, the former has several advantages of its own over the latter: a) Sam is in my photo and not in hers; b) many of the people in her photo look stoned and/or dejected, whereas my photo captures a happier mood; c) kids in my photo are wearing cool headbands; d)I think the fuzziness in my picture captures the fogginess of the weather as we were leaving; and e) Sam is in my photo and not in hers.

The Little Things

So today is our last full day in Liping. After class, we decided to have lunch with the kids--this time, the outing was pre-approved! Here's a photo Katie took of my walking around town with my boys (can you guess which one I am?):

(click on photo for enlarged view.)

(Just as their Chinese counterparts in Orange County after Sunday service, our students in this small town in the Chinese hinterland have inordinant difficulties deciding where to eat for lunch. Finally, however, we decided on a place--incidentally, it turns out to be another hotpot restaurant...Upon reaching the place, we find that it's too small to accommodate both Katie & my, and Alvin & Brian's classes; we resolve that since Alvin & Brian hadn't experienced the joy of being steamed alive on the outside from humidity, while simultaneously being boiled alive in their innards from hotpot, their class would eat at the restaurant, while Katie & my class found a different dive.

Another 20 minutes of deliberation ensued, during which time one person suggested a special type of noodle. Another student, Angela, with sheer derision in her countenance, began a long tirade in Chinese, apparently in opposition to this latest suggestion. The volume of her voice raised by several decibels; her arms gesticulated frenziedly; I think I recall another student's turning to stone when she glared at him. After all this, Lily, the student with by far the most advanced English in the entire summer program, turned to Katie and me and translated Angela's sentiments as simply, "Angela does not think this food is good for lunch."

By this time, I was ravenous, and told the students they needed to pick something fast. In traditional Asian fashion, they tried to demure to Katie and me, but we explained that we had no idea where the good eats in Liping are, and that we had complete confidence in their gustatory judgements.

Angela, despite her strong opposition to noodles not fit for lunchtime fare, had no real alternatives to offer, and so further conferencing ensued. While most of the students formed a sort of huddle to gain consensus, Sam poked the back of my hand lightly with his index finger. "哥," ("ge") he said quietly, in a voice almost inaudible. Then, once more I felt the gentle tapping against the back of my left hand and the same monosyllable, "哥," or "older brother." He whispered something to me in Chinglish, probably a question about what kind of food I wanted to eat; I can't recall what exactly he said, because I wasn't paying attention. I was too absorbed in my new designation as Sam's 哥. I have no real experience with which to compare it, but I imagine this sensation is not unlike the first time a father hears his toddler son call him "da" or "pa", albeit on a smaller scale. That little tap and that single monosyllabic word produced the highest elation I have felt on this trip, hands down. Maybe it really is the little things in life that give it meaning.

Eventually, we ended up at a place that served claypot specialty dishes. Yum! Here's another photo of my 宝贝 with a crayfish; Aaron is on the left. They were being sold on the street right outside the restaurant.