Hello Again

Update: I now live in East Harlem in New York City. I work as a housekeeper on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I vacuum a lot and run a lot of errands and I enjoy my job very much!

Tania (my fiancee) and I are in the process of petitioning for her K-1 visa which will allow her to come to the States, where we will get married civilly (not violently... bahaha... i.e. we will get our civil marriage done here in the States), after which we will petition for her "permanent conditional residence" etc etc etc so on and so forth happily ever after blah blah blah.

My family is doing well. We just went to a Kyle family reunion in celebration of my grandparents turning 90 years old, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Mike, Dixie, and Tania couldn't go, but the "pre-Troxell, pre-Castro" Kyle's were all present.

I am preparing for life with a wife here in East Harlem, buying furniture (there's a first time for everything) and trying to be patient for Tania's arrival. I ride my BMX bicycle to work and my commute is less than 15 minutes, which is absurdly short, relatively speaking. On rainy days, the subway is an option but I normally just walk.

I have very little to complain about and much to be thankful for. Put another way, I've definitely been in much worse places (physical and emotional) than I am right now. There is an undercurrent of joyful peace that is characterizing my life right now, and it hasn't always been so.

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I've realized that my pride does two things (among many others):

-My pride makes me think that I'm smarter and better (and more ______ (fill in the blank, according to the circumstance)) than I actually am. This is the more obvious manifestation of pride.

-My pride blinds me to how difficult it is to put up with me, live with me, listen to me, like me... love me... This is a slice of pride I hadn't seen before.

In other words, with one swift action, the results are two-fold. I'm fooled and blinded simultaneously.
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What is happening when a culture or a society plays dance music but scorns dancing? It feels like it is missing the entire point, like an ancient society that might re-purpose an iPad as a plate or a cell phone as nothing more than a reflective device.

Blasting dance music but everyone is just standing around with their hands in their pockets? This isn't what this was made for.
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This is so funny... 
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This is a story I'd like to call:

Two Men and the Dove Baby

Where I work, there is a room on the fifth floor that is for staff. It is a small room with a desk and a chair, a TV, and typical housekeeping materials like a washing machine and a dryer, an ironing board and a coat rack, etc.

There are two windows in that room. Every spring and on into the summer, apparently, a pair of doves comes and makes their nest on the small landing outside of a window on either the 5th floor or 4th floor. There, the female lays an egg, and the pair of birds cares for it until it hatches and it can survive on its own. This sometimes happens twice a year, even.

There is also a door leading out to a small balcony outside of the room on the fifth floor. This balcony leads to roof access, the emergency fire escape, a view of the surrounding buildings, etc.

I arrive to work at 7am. My co-worker, the maintenance man, arrives at 8am. The maintenance man, Gerald, is a 50+ year old Jamaican man with a fun-loving yet feisty and somewhat argumentative disposition. He doesn't like to let on that he cares about things, but he cares about things, a lot. Gerald and I check on the birds routinely to make sure they are doing well. We close the blinds to give them their privacy and not scare them away.

This story begins on a pleasant Monday morning in April.

Gerald and I were in the fifth floor staff room. None of the other staff had arrived yet. We decided to check on the birds. We opened the door to the balcony to find the mother outside of the nest, and the baby dove sitting inside of the nest, its head dug down into its body such that its neck was not visible. The head could have been resting on the body, for all we knew. And, given that the bird was motionless, absolutely motionless despite the arrival of two humans on the scene, well...

Many people are familiar with the expression "a picture is worth a thousand words". Gerald stood at my side. Observing a sort of ancient rule that prohibits grown men from looking at each other when they find themselves in potentially emotional, tear-inducing situations, we didn't look at each other. I didn't need to look at Gerald to know the words that were racing through his mind and his heart, because they were the same words that were in my mind and heart. "Move...move...do something...move...please...anything...just move...". Please.

I felt the muscles of my eyebrows start to tense up in the way that renders one with a look of pity on ones face. Time slowed. Only the adult dove moved, looking at us, looking at its baby, looking at us, looking at its baby again. I felt a knot in my throat. I felt my tear ducts swelling. In the corner of my eyes, Gerald remained motionless.

"Move, dammit...please..." 

And finally... the baby dove blinked.

"Hoooooooohooooooooo!!!!" Gerald and I hooted and hollered, we laughed and punched the air with our fists. Our voices echoed off of the walls of the skyscrapers and buildings that line our block. Curtains shifted to the side and I've no doubt that multiple people, residents and house staff, were filled with curiosity at the joyful yet distinctly odd scene which was taking place on that fifth floor balcony.

Gerald and I composed ourselves and walked back inside with smiles on our face, the adrenaline and rush of relief still fighting to reach our fingertips and toes.

The baby dove was okay.

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My experience has me agreeing with everything in this...

"Once, a gentleman in a business suit, standing on a country lane, wondered if morality was more important than wisdom."

"China is the next superpower? Wake me when urban tap water is drinkable, when an ambulance will come when called and can make it through traffic, and when there's transparency in government, law, and the finance sector, to say nothing of a civil society, environmental protections, freedom of speech, and-- but usually by now, the questioner's eyes have glazed over."

Thanks to Ben Boyd.
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Looking back on my Mandarin language education in both China and the United States, I realize how sterile my Mandarin vocabulary was and is. I can't remember lessons devoted expressing myself clearly regarding abstract concepts. I can't remember lessons devoted to discussing feelings. I remember millions of lessons that involved the words like "Technology", "Development", "Progress", and other China-central words.

Meanwhile, in learning Spanish, an entire slice of the larger umbrella of the language is saturated with discussion of abstract concepts, soft nuances among tenses that indicate possibilities and hopes, theoretical events and what I feel about them. And Sure, Spanish has it's clockwork, nitty-gritty robotic, mathematical, "play by the rules" aspect, just like any language. But still...

If Spanish is an emotive heart, unknowingly articulating emotional nuances and feeling in nearly every sentence, modern Mandarin Chinese is... your microwave.

Nothing Good Gets Away.

It's fun to suddenly be able to communicate with elders here in Honduras in Spanish as it was very challenging to do so in Mandarin in Chengdu. Most of my Chinese friends' or students' grandparents were born long before the Open Door Policy was initiated in 1978 and speak very little Mandarin. I can understand enough of the local dialect in Chengdu (haha aka language) to get by, but it's always a challenge with the elderly.

Here, though, my brain tricks me into thinking that I will not be able to understand elderly people, when, surprise, surprise, I actually can! It's a pleasant surprise.
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Here's a sunrise

And another one

And trying to be a decent uncle

And the dog named Tessi

And us

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"Once you find something good, Max, you have to take care of it. You have to let it grow." 

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I used to believe that Chengdu was a small world and I got stuck in it. I would reference the white wall of clouds that seems to follow one everywhere, even into the well-lit, innermost rooms of an apartment, overbearing clouds that encourage claustrophobia. I would reference cultural differences and challenges that can make someone feel isolated and alone. I would reference the time that I spent there, how I didn't leave and get away from Chengdu enough to have a good opinion of it, looking from the outside in. I would mention other factors like my job or some other burden that I perceived to have plagued me during those years during which I lived there.

Those factors may all have been valid. I am not disposing of those ideas. I am, however, finding that I think the small world was my own. I built it up around me, caulked up the holes, shut the windows, and locked the door. I'd come out when I pleased, and that wasn't often. This leads me to the idea that, maybe, any place can become a small world unless one continues to push it's boundaries.

I couldn't get my heart or my brain outside of the perceived "small world" in which I felt I existed. It may be true that some places in the world possess certain traits that make that location more conducive to making people think OUT, but I think the place (Chengdu, in my case) can't be blamed for my own decisions, and my own decisions had a significant role to play.

Solutions? I don't know. Get geographically outside of the place regularly. Alternatively, explore more deeply within the place. Newness can be found without and within. And for the heart? I don't know. Relationships. Community. Friends.
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I've recently been reflecting on the illusion of missing out on something big or important that's happening somewhere else. It doesn't matter where "somewhere else" is. For many, myself included, it was always New York City. Surely there was something that was happening there that I was missing out on. Something immense, something grand yet profound, some secret that only me and the unique friends I would make there would discover. 

New York City is an amazing place, no one argues with that. I spent time in New York City over the past couple of years, though. I walked home in the middle of the night. I worked, I had fun. I went to bars and walked the streets, I got rained on and snowed on and sunned on and yelled at by policemen and ate pizza and it was fun. 

What I found, though, is that it was an illusion. The first year that I lived in China, in 2008, an urgent and immediate desire to travel and live overseas was fulfilled for and in me. I felt better. No, it didn't exterminate the traveling bug and likely never will, but the immediate desire calmed down in a healthy way. 

I interpret that this is not the case with New York City. I expected something that did not exist. It was an illusion that I had created for myself. It's not New York City's fault. I possessed the belief that I was missing out on something happening somewhere in the world. In New York City. Recently, I did what I wanted to do there, I drove the streets and saw the things and experienced the things that I wanted to experience, but I did not feel that some need had been met in doing so. 

In other words, "wherever you go, there you are." What's happening is where you are. You might be staring at a screen as you read this (in fact I think you have to be, unless you print out my blog... weird), but you very likely aren't missing anything, because "where it's happening", or, sometimes, where it could be happening, is where you are. Exactly where you are. 

I can still imagine "it" happening in other large cities that I'd like to visit like London, but now I know. I know the reasons that big cities can make someone feel like that, like every other place in the world is a dump and "nothing ever happens here." I get that. But now I know. 

It also helps that New York City is huge and gross just like every other huge and gross city in the world. Sometimes I like huge and gross cities but for the time being... 

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Everyone loves a disco siren.

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I enjoyed this.

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I've been listening to Two Door Cinema Club.

idiomas y música... again

I usually put music last, but not today. Ignore or listen, and remember, if you don't feel alive, maybe you aren't. (Watch the language, eh?)

Verbal Jint (ft. Tablo and Mithra Jin)- 내리막
Ester Dean and Carlinhos Brown- Let Me Take You to Rio (Thanks Ashley T.!)
Epik High- Born Hater
Paramore ft. Joy Williams- Hate to See Your Heart Break (An old favorite from two old favorites!)
Corinne Bailey Rae- Call Me When You Get This
EDX- Cool You Off
Daddy Yankee- La Rompe Carro
Lady Antebellum- One Great Mystery
Red Astaire- No Mo'
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Why do I do the things I don't want to?

Why don't I do the things that I know I should do?
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If there is anything frustrating about my Spanish studies right now it's that my speaking level is that of a pre-toddler. I'm still listening and absorbing what I hear and trying to replicate it and produce my own version of it, all while my curiosity and previous language study experiences leave me asking technical questions that would, admittedly, generally be considered too advanced for me right now. This is not at all a bad thing and I imagine it's very common for adult language learners to find themselves feeling this way. It's a waiting game, and I'm fairly patient. I'm all too aware that I need to go through this portion of the foundation-building process and I am so glad to have a tutor who only has the responsibility of one student (i.e. we can move through language and specifically grammar set pieces exclusively according to my learning pace). This being said, the curiosity kills me sometimes, and I believe it's the same curiosity that attracts me to figuring out languages in the first place.

I haven't forgotten my Mandarin (yet).
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It would be much easier to not know Mandarin right now as I try to learn Spanish... I translate my grammatical structures through a Mandarin filter before speaking in Spanish which slows everythiiiiinnnnnngggggggg ddddddooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.
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"In a good way, I've matured. I hope after listening to this song, you realize that this too shall pass, when you feel like nothing makes sense or ask yourself 'what am I going to do?' The day will come when you will laugh about it with your friends and think, "How did I ever overcome it?"

-Tablo
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This shed some light...

My sense is that all of this hargwarsh is just better encouragement than ever for everyone to love whatever the hell kind of music they want to love, and to love it with all of their hearts.

What greater immediate purpose does music have than to move us... to dance, to move, to laugh, to cry, to emote, to feel something?
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My High is Epik
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Thank goodness it is not possible to OD on music. Lights' Little Machines would have done me in.
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After traveling from the US to China, back to the US, then to Honduras within a reasonably short period of time, I admit my current bias toward airlines based in (and domestic flights run by them in) the United States. The stewardesses on the domestic flight were less intrusive than the ones on all of the other flights, and the pilots "let" us use our electronic devices much, much earlier and turn them off much, much later. The woman sitting beside me during the flight from Chengdu to Guangzhou got a good talking to by a stewardess for having her phone out. I was embarrassed for her- that kind of talking to.
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Beau is ready for winter: 

The sky is beautiful:

The airplane has a wing:

Tessy is a puppy:

And this still happens sometimes:

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Talking with someone who is on the other side of the planet at morning and night is comforting in a way that I never thought about- you fall asleep and close your eyes and leave the world and drift into unconsciousness, but your recently-awoken friend carries on with consciousness, like a torch of life has been passed on and, because of that, a more fullness of life is attained for all.
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Dixi walked into my room a few days ago:

D: "You are gonna be embarrassed on Friday."
C: "Whaa... Why... am I gonna be embarrassed... on Friday?"
D: "Cuz it's gonna be a beautiful day but you're still gonna be ugly."
C and D: HAhAHAHahahaha

She's a sweet girl, really.
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The (or "An") age of innocence might be lost when the desire to look cool to others becomes more important than the desire to do and be whatever someone is. It may follow that the earlier a culture begins the process of actively (though subliminally?) encouraging (young) individuals to be "cool" and recognized as "cool", the sooner the age of innocence ends.
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Part 1

and

Part 2

Thanks Taylor M.!
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I was learning the names of some professions in Spanish with my Spanish teacher. Casually and in an effort to give me a chance to talk, she asked me what my profession is. I laughed and said I don't have one. She, in turn, gave me the profession, "Hombre de idiomas".

The Chengdu Wedding Post aka Is There Anything So Beautiful as Sacrificial Love?

Visual and Aural entertainment from my trip to China! 

Most people know that some Chinese people don't queue like some other people in the world do, if at all. I'd add that many Chinese people are out of touch with queue logic and reasoning. I arrived to my gate at JFK to discover a huge line beginning at a seemingly arbitrary point in front of the gate area. I stood in this line for about thirty seconds before my critical thinking and the ever burning "Why?" got the best of me. I glanced down at my ticket and, despite the absence of a boarding group number or letter, decided to wing it and hope they'd be letting us on board in groups. I stepped out of line and took this photo. Sure enough, I boarded before the majority of people in that huge line (by chance) and got to stand there with my false sense of superiority the whole time, to boot. 

Lesson: No matter where you are in the world, it pays to ask "Why am I/are we doing this?" 

Lesson: The sun still shines above the clouds... even above the clouds of Chengdu. 

Chinese weddings are different. I was a groomsman in my friends Rock and Vivian's wedding. This is how their particular day went.

7am: Groomsmen and groom congregate at groom's home, bridesmaids and bride congregate at bride's (parents') home. Everyone changes clothes and gets ready. Photographers start photographing. Dogs start barking. Family starts familying.

7:45am: Groom and groomsmen hop in their caravan of cars and make their way toward the bride's home. I rode with Rock in the Mercedes he was borrowing for the day. 

8:10am: Groom and groomsmen arrive at bride's home. Photographers get all up in everyone's grill and start taking pictures of our nose hairs. Get used to it, they are here all day! 

The five of us, now accompanied by photographers and girlfriends of the groomsmen, make our way into the bride's house, where we find the door to her bedroom locked with the bride and bridesmaids inside. We push on the door, trying to break in and retrieve our hero's bride for him, but alas! one of the bridesmaid's boyfriends has made his way into the room and is aiding the effort from inside. We are repulsed and must resort to different tactics. 

We present an offering of 红包, red envelopes containing money. We pry the door open once again and introduce a red deluge into the small room, threatening to drown the dear occupants in a sea of... paper envelopes containing money. Our sacrifice is met with delight, but the door shuts once again, it's tumult resounding throughout the room, mirroring the echoing pains of our failure.

Then! What is this? Eureka! Huzzah! Excelsior! The door creaks upon! Were it only that we had sensed the danger which awaited us, the terror we were soon to behold. Our hero was presented with a challenge, a conundrum, if you will. The maid of honor showed him a tissue, the lipsticked lips of all the bridesmaids having made contact with said tissue. Our hero had to determine which, if any, of these outlines belonged to his bride. I don't need to complete this particular tale... I feel we would not have been granted the elation of victory even if the groom had guessed correctly. 

In return? Punishment. Cruel and unusual. A test of character... a test of will. The hero was given a glass of liquid, contents indeterminable. The liquid must be consumed, we were told. How could we, knights and brothers, allow our fighter to complete such a task? We apprehended the glass and, toasting our hero, made it vanish. The poison? Soy sauce, vinegar, and some chili pepper. Ahem, *cough*, ahem yeahittastesgoodnoworries!

Surely this would be enough to appease the she-devils holding the bride hostage! But no... not yet. We had first to perform a feat of strength. To lift a motor vehicle? To transport a heavy object? Run a mile? No! Ten push-ups! Gasp! The challenge, we were to discover, was that our hero had to call out a different name for his bride before every push-up. This proved to be somewhat of a burden. The first five or six names came quite easily, but we were soon slowed by a lack of creativity. "WIFE OF MY FUTURE CHILD!" Everyone laughs. Sweat drips from the hero's nose as the seconds turn into minutes, minutes into hours. A groomsman whispers something, our hero repeats, "GRANDMOTHER OF MY FUTURE GRANDCHILD!"

Upon completion of this task, we are finally allowed respite from the turmoil of humiliation, only to find that the door has closed, once again. When will this end? "This ends now", I hear Rock mumble as he reaches for his sword guitar. We all pick up our pre-assigned instruments and the serenading begins. We felt our hearts shake within us as the intro and first verse passed with no hint of change. Dread filled our lungs as the sounds of untuned guitars seemed to fall on cold, steel ears, hearts made of stone. The chorus passed. "Forget it", I thought. "We'll starve them out." 

But then... Crrrrrrreeeeeeeeaaaak? The door opened with an inquisitive tone, and we all knew what that meant! Time to walk inside the room and try to fit ten grown people plus three photographers and whoever else wants to try to squeeze in into the tiniest space known to mankind! Just kidding, kind of. 

We finished our song and then had a few other tasks to complete. The bridesmaids had hidden Vivian's shoes in her room for Rock to find, so we helped him locate those, then we went out into the living room and barricaded the bridesmaids and groom and photographers inside, requiring the return of the 红包we had provided in the first place in return for their freedom. It worked.

9:15am: I leave my phone in the Mercedes and Vivian takes selfies with it. The caravan, now 2-3 times it's original size, travels to the location of the photo shoot, wedding ceremony, and reception, all in one. 

Meanwhile, I sit in a jeep within the huge line of cars, accompanied by two groomsmen who are helping me with the pronunciation of a few of my lines that are in the local Sichuan dialect. "Lines?", you ask. Just wait... 

9:30am: The photo shoot begins. We shot at an old factory compound that has been turned into an entertainment complex with shops and bars and wedding facilities which was and is really pretty cool. The factory was in use during the Chinese Civil War. It gave the shoot an industrial feel that somehow retained it's romantic essence, and I mean romantic in pretty much all three senses of the word.

Hopefully I'll have more photos of that in the future. I should have more photos of all of this stuff...

11am: Guests start arriving. Rock, Vivian, the maid of honor, and I stand in front of the entrance. I stand beside Rock with a platter of cigarettes in hand. The maid of honor stands beside Vivian with a platter of individually wrapped candies. Rock hands the men cigarettes and Vivian lights them, the women and children are offered candy, then everyone is escorted upstairs by one of the other groomsmen to play cards or majiang upstairs and wait for the ceremony to begin.

12:30pm: The ceremony begins. Lights go out and I welcome everyone to the wedding while the hero-turned-Rockstar takes the stage to surprise everyone with his secret piano skills (he took piano lessons for three months without telling anyone, all so that he could surprise Vivian!) He sang and played "The Rose". What a pro.

She walks down the aisle, he grabs the mic and continues singing to her as they walk down the aisle. They climb onto the stage and off we go! 

I was the "host" for the wedding. I'd call myself the MC, but there's no real equivalent in American culture, I don't think. Rock and Vivian were officially married a month before this ceremony. I kind of just read the lines and kept the train on the tracks is all. It was a privilege and an honor.

Vows and rings in Chinese and English, and they responded in both languages. It was pretty straightforward. I had offered beforehand to add some other stuff in, but they requested that we keep it simple and short, and I kind of understand why- there were guests standing and taking photos with their phones the entire time, the band was playing music in the background, kids were running around playing, all the lights were off and the spotlight was in our eyes, and photographers were lurking in every corner. 

There is one part of all of the actual Chinese ceremonies that I've attended that's different from a typical Western ceremony, and I really like it. I've seen it take two forms. In one, it was just a section during which the bride and groom walked over to each other's parents and sincerely said "Thank you, mom", and "Thank you, dad". This was the modern manifestation of the more traditional practice, which is as follows, as I saw it: the bride and groom offer one another's parents 改口茶, which pretty much means "Changing Mouth Tea", or tea that changes the mouth, in reference to the fact that the bride and groom will no longer call each other's parents the familiar but distant "uncle" or aunt", but rather "father" and "mother". The children present the tea to their parents-in-law and say the words "Mother, drink tea" and "Father, drink tea". Cool, right? I got emotional during that part. At the risk of reading pretentious, I think it's a lovely picture of both family within the context of marriage, and marriage within the context of family. 

Just like that, the ceremony was over. Flowers were thrown, and I read the words everyone wanted to hear: "吃好！喝好！耍好！" (Eat well! Drink well! Play well (Enjoy yourself!)!)

Photos were taken and the long afternoon began. The bridesmaids and groomsmen lazed around as guests ate and drank and played more majiang. Another huge meal came at dinner time, and the night slowly came to an end. It was a good day.

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I attended a second wedding a week later with some notable differences that might shed some light on a few things. 

This is where the second wedding took place. It's a much more traditional setting with seated dining instead of the more modern setting and buffet that Rock and Vivian had. 

The ceremony was somewhat similar, though, complete with shining lights and people standing and taking video with their phones.

-It was Rock's idea to serenade the bride and get the bridesmaids to open the door. At the other wedding I went to, the groom had to rely on the efficacy of his 红包, his charismatic personality, and the mercy of the girls to get the job done. It worked just as well!

-Rock and Vivian had to put their foot down to get what they wanted. Their parents had other ideas about how the ceremony should have gone, so Rock and Vivian had to do some compromising and battle-picking. Everyone was happy in the end, but it all sounds familiar, right?

-My friend Charlie explained the Western wedding mindset well when he compared Western brides and grooms to prize boxers with trainers (bridesmaids and groomsman) around all day long to make sure they can stay relaxed and calm and focus on the task at hand and have someone else take care of "less important" things for them, if need be. At both of these weddings, the grooms were pretty much responsible for pulling the whole thing off, calling shots and making decisions throughout the day.

-Parents traditionally have a lot of say in Chinese weddings, and they usually get there way. Usually.

-Chinese weddings are different, and I like them. 

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The night before the wedding, Rock picked up the Mercedes and we did something I'd never even seen done in China but have always wanted to do there. 

To be clear- it's the convertible top down and blasting loud music that is unheard of. Nobody does that.

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The rest of my time in Chengdu was spent hanging out with Rock and Vivian and their friends, or visiting other ones. 

I used to live on the third floor of that building. 

We went to the east campus of the school I used to attend... 

...and ate at the biggest (and best) night market (read: cheapest, least healthy, best tasting food) in Chengdu...

Wedding #2 Photo Shoot Location (one of them)

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Sounds of a Chinese Bar (a quiet one)

Ladies and Germs, Rock and Vivian: 

Again, this sort of thing may seem commonplace to Western eyes ("Big deal, Chinese people playing Just Dance), but, in my experience, it's pretty unique. 

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Is there anything so beautiful as sacrificial love?

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This is good.

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If you live in the same town or city from your birth day to your day of death, you'll see some crazy stuff. You might be waiting for it to come to you, but you'll still see it. Move to another city or state or province, and you'll see some things that you consider to be even crazier. Move to another country, and you might see things that blow your mind. By nature of the degrees of cultural and social separation, it's very likely that, the more geographical distance that lies between you and your home culture, the more likely you are to encounter unfamiliar situations and instances. 

Or, as Bilbo so famously states: "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

Here's a story that blew my mind. Keep in mind, it took place in a country that I've lived in for 2.5+ years and thought I could only see "category 2" level "crazier" things, as opposed to ones that blow my mind. Also, well... I'll just tell you. 

16 hours. JFK to CAN takes 16 hours. We had the wind at our backs so I guess it was 15.5, but who cares? Anything over 13 and you are numb, anyway. For the record, I love flying in airplanes, even for 17 hours. Did I say 16 earlier? 15.6. 

So, I was tired, and a little bit miserable. The stewardess on the plane had stubbornly explained in Chinese that, because I was traveling domestically after arriving in Guangzhou, I didn't need to fill out an Arrival Card to get through customs. She was stubborn and beautiful and wrong. 

I walked over and grabbed an Arrival Card and rejoined the sea of people entering the snaking queue that empties into the tributaries of people waiting to enter the Middle Kingdom. Gates of freedom. I had never thought of them like that. 

Anyway, this was different. I'd been in customs lines in China literally 30-40 times before (I had to go to Hong Kong regularly the last time I lived in China). This was different. I carried the only American passport that I could see. Not only that, I carried the only Western passport that I could see. Everyone was from the Middle East or Africa, based on the passports I got an eye on. See what I'm doing here? I'm being politically correct by talking about passports and trying to not talk about skin color or appearance. I didn't do very well...

...but I digest... We entered the tunnel, the funnel, the maze of elastic bands and posts that would keep us in line, in order, civil and secure. Like this: 

"All good, right? It'll just take some time and I'll be out of here and on to my next flight. Jeez, I'm glad I carried on instead of checking or I'd definitely miss my flight." La di da, I'm hanging in there. I make it half way through the maze and I'm hanging in there. I'm doing my time. I'm surviving. Everyone else seems to be fed up with the gig but being patient is the price we pay for order and peace, right? 

The ladies behind me start tisk-tisking me when I decide that, no, our alien overlords have intentionally narrowed our path to make sure we file through one at a time and I start boxing them out. They get over it soon enough, though. 

Siiiiiigh. Alright. I'm getting there. 

And then it happens. Never in my nightmares did I think it could happen. I'm in the middle of my lane, 30 feet from either of the turns, when, from my left, somebody has had enough, and they've barreled through. They did it. The dam has burst. Elastic bands come off of posts, chaos ensues. Men laugh and surge forward, women start yelling. 15.6 hours and this? Really?

What a mess. A real, real mess. My monologue gets more and more bitter. How disgraceful. We just lost so much face. I am so embarrassed. What a joke. Unbelievable. 

The bitterness and frustration start to ebb as we reform lines. Grown men continue to cut in front of me. I haven't been intentionally cut in front of since elementary school. I adopt the habit of practically touching my nose to the back of the person's head in front of my own. How could this have happened? Oh shut up, it happened, and you'll survive. But why? But why what? Oh forget it... 

The fact is, it was a unique situation. I'd never heard of anything like this happening before. I have my suspicions about why it would never have happened in the USA. 

So why? It is my belief that some of my fellow foreign entrants didn't respect the Chinese customs officers. Why not? Well, one reason was right in front of my eyes: Chinese customs assistants were walking around as we walked through the maze, randomly asking to look at people's passports and visas. Black people's passports and visas. From what I personally saw, only black people's passports and visas. 

Any other reasons? I only know what I have heard regarding race tensions between the particular race and continent groups that were present that day... the tensions on all sides are high, the prejudices on all sides are strong.  

I do not believe the breaking of the queue and upheaval of order that day was a direct result of the Chinese assistants going around and only checking certain people's passports, and I cannot be certain that the Chinese assistants were only checking black people's passports. Regardless, I saw multiple instances of what I interpret to be profound, widespread, unchecked, deep-seated disrespect for "the other" that day. It was sobering, to say the least.

On the personal level, I survived. I wanted to ask the Chinese roaming random passport checkers why they didn't even consider asking to check my passport and then force them to look at it (this wasn't the first time I'd had roaming passport checkers ignore me and focus on other race groups as we wait in line for customs), and I wanted to apologize to the customs officers on behalf of the foreign community for breaking their system and replacing it with our own, even temporarily.

Lesson: I have my own cultural biases and value judgments. They are not perfect and some of them are really terrible. That being said, I like some of them and will stick with them. For example, I like the way Americans/Westerners tend to stand in line and wait, even when we are afraid we will miss our flights. We adhere to a social norm-why? Because we believe (consciously or otherwise, that) our adherence to that cultural norm has meaning and contributes to something greater than ourselves. I decide to stand in line and risk missing my flight because I realize that doing otherwise may result in an unhealthy breakdown of order, that my patience is a personal expenditure that allows all to profit, even if it's only pennies. That's my spin I put on it to rationalize it and make it feel "right". 

While I am absorbed and consumed with myself, the individual, (note that I had a hard time not taking the whole thing pretty personally) I like that we are asked/forced to share sometimes, and that we do. 

Lastly, my main sentiment that day was that I just wish we could all get along. I wish that honestly and seriously. I know and believe that tension can be beautiful and productive, but not the kind that I saw that day. I saw the opposite of redemption and reconciliation that day, and I hated it. I do not hate the players who were involved, but I hate what I believe to be the emotional and physical manifestations of disrespect, disregard, and selfishness. 

Note also that no group is exempt. There are some USAmericans that are responsible for overseas (and domestic) atrocities that are far worse than whatever it was that I saw on that day in China. 

There is no earthly promised land, no utopia, which is why I end this section by advocating for adherence to the norms and mores of a currently intangible culture, a Kingdom culture with redemption as it's banner and sacrificial, unconditional love as its foundation. This isn't to say that the earthly members of that Kingdom always rightly or appropriately wave that banner or stand on that foundation (we rarely do), but therein lies the struggle, and that brand of tension, I can handle. 

Comment on this, especially if you have experience with it. I'm still analyzing and processing what happened and welcome input. Really. 

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Along the same lines, I had a realization recently: 

I think that doing ministry is more integrally about cultural redemption and transformation than I had imagined. 

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I really missed being out of the USA and sense that I may be there a lot more... for the rest of my life. 

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I'm off to Honduras in less than a week.

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I went back and forth between past and present tense a lot in this post. Forgive me, you grammar Nazis. Forgive all of the abominations. 

Tricks is for Kids

Here I am, writing exactly two years after my last blog post. Anyone who used to keep up with my blog writing will be thinking this, so I'll go ahead and just write it- "It's about time!" It is about time. I'll give you the update, but first I want to say "thanks". I've grown a lot and learned a lot over the past two years, but one of my most recent realizations boils down to this: my life is really exciting, and it's worth writing about and sharing with you. It really is. Whether I see you on a regular basis or I haven't seen you in years, I've realized that I take a lot of joy in writing this, and I've missed it. So, thank you for reading. Thank you for being interested in me. It translates into care.
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Update? I left my job teaching Mandarin and being an RA for Chinese high school students in Chicago in February of 2013. I went back to Philadelphia, where my parents and little brother live, to find another job.

I left Philly for St. Petersburg, Florida at the beginning of April, with the goal of finding a job on a yacht. Thus began an adventure that involved... a lot. I slept in the airport in Tampa, and I slept in the airport in Fort Lauderdale... for a week. I took a fire safety course and broke an immersion suit. I hit golf balls into a swamp at sunset. I couchsurfed. I made good friends and feared for my life. The highs were high and the lows were low. No joke, Jack Kerouac would be jealous.

All of the adventuring yielded, among other things, a job. I began working on an estate in the Hamptons on Long Island in May of 2013 as a "deckhand". I washed cars and windows, carried heavy things, and basically did anything I was asked to do. I loved it. At the end of the summer, the owners asked me to stay on and continue working for them, and I did. I continued with the family over the winter season and into this summer of 2014, my responsibilities increasing as time went on.

With the summer over and me sensing that it was time to move on again, I submitted my two weeks' notice in the middle of September and my last day was on Sunday, two days ago. So, once again, I write you as a free man. Jobless, but free.
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I fly to China in the middle of October to visit friends and be in the wedding of my friends, Rock and Vivian. I haven't seen many of these people in 2+ years, so I am excited.

After that, the plan is to return to the states and head back to Honduras, where my sister and brother-in-law live and work. The idea is that I'll do something similar to what I did when I visited in 2012- accompany them as they do ministry in the community they work in. I also intend to be a bit more proactive about seeking part-time employment and learning Spanish to potentially make my time there a bit more sustainable. 

All of that being said, anything could happen. I'm on the loose once again, and I could end up anywhere. I've missed this fluidity quite sincerely. 

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I just realized that I can gloss over the past two years quite easily with my words. Hindsight is like that- I can knock out a synopsis of that two year period pretty quickly and easily, and it's because it's in the past for me, I'm moving away from it. 

The reality is, though... it hasn't been easy. Especially the last six months... It's been really, really tough at times. I've felt clouds in my rib cage. I've felt near constant stress and perpetual anxiety. I've felt morally torn and morally compromised. I've felt forlorn and utterly defeated and lost. In fact, I'm being false by saying "it hasn't been easy". It's more truthful to say that it's been heart-breakingly dismal at times. I'm banking on the fact that most of you rarely hear my say things like this and you recognize what a state I've been in. 

I'm resisting the urge to balance this out by writing a paragraph about how great and high things have also been at times, and it's because of this- the best thing about the dreary time(s) I've passed through is the hope that exists despite all of the awfulness. I have no problem mentioning rather cliche sayings and ideas like "it's passing through the worst times that helps us realize how good things really are", and it's because I believe it. That hope is the only reason that "passing through" can even exist. Hope can set you apart. Hope doesn't make sense and, I believe, in it's truest form, it is often exceedingly illogical. But it works. The hope of change changes everything. 

So, hope. That's what I've learned over the past few years. I feel like I spent the first twenty-something years of my life learning theoretically about hope, and I finally started doing my practical training just a few years ago. The training's not easy, but it is good. 

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I know it's a bit corny, but I have some random lyrics from songs that I enjoy that have jumped out at me as being particularly descriptive of some of my feelings during that rough period. I'm rearranging them to read less like lyrics. 

"Here in a familiar place, we've got our heads down and we pretend it's because the night is dark and running out of space for us to run around, but it's a dead end, and money's tight, and it's been a long time of this. Something has got to give. Everyone here is ready to go, it's been a hard year with nothing to show, from down this road, it's only up we go. 

Nothing gives easy, easy gives nothing. Dawn is bound to break when the night is done, always darker days before brighter ones."

..........

"Have you got something to prove? This place will suck the life out of you. You seem to be confused. There’s nothing left to lose. The depths of your heart are sinking like an anchor. 

In the center of the mirror, you just watch where you fall. You’ve got a disconnection with yourself, and the emptiness fills until it all makes you crumble down, until you feel like there’s no way out. And you started to waste away, cause something led your heart astray, and inside it’s pulling you down. It's time to take a different view- there's no one looking out for you."

..........

These ones are always favorites: 

"Can love, even in times uncertain, be the thing that carries us through?
Can love open a heart that's frozen and be there when there's nothing left for you?
This is what it feels to be alive, even though we stumble our way through. 
One chance and then another one appears, and then again another comes to view."

I TOLD YOU these would be corny! I told you! 

Lights- Up We Go 
Kito and Reija Lee- Starting Line
Falling in Love with Brazil- Kaskade Mashup 
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I may not technically be an MK or a TCK, but this article sounds familiar. Thanks to whoever posted this on FB. 

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My friend Ryan said something a few years ago that I've never forgotten and I've found it to be true. He basically said, regarding music and music performance, "People want to be moved, whether it's to feel immense elation or depths of emotional sadness or anything in between, people want to be moved." I've addressed many creative genres and mediums with the same attitude, and I find it to be true. That's ultimately one manner of describing what we are looking for as audiences (and creators, for that matter) of almost any creative outlet, right? To feel our heart shake within us. 

It can also initiate grace and patience toward genres and mediums one does not naturally feel inclined toward, e.g. I may not particularly enjoy the musical genre of _____, but I can see that it makes some people feel the same way as I do about music from this other genre that I love, therefore it may be easier for me to be patient and more gracious toward that genre and it's followers. 

Hahahahahaha that's a joke by the way... what genre of music do I not like? 

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Another recent discovery is this: 

Our greatest move on this earth is to strive to live this life in such a manner that our "last check bounces", but in an economy of mercy, in which our gifts include all of our resources... all of them. When someone dies an untimely death, does a healthy soul mourn the loss of the man-hours that person could have contributed to the regional economy? Surely not. It's the loss of the potential positive change and influence the individual could have enacted that is mourned, the memory of the laughter they caused or the care they showed, the "sharing of their resources", one could say. To make that last check bounce, to completely expend our every resource... this idea has been in my mind. 

I never understood the desire to increase one's own influence or reach in this world until I understood it in that context- 

How do I increase my giving (of everything)? How can I give more of myself? How do I increase the number of people who truly benefit from my work, from my very presence? If I feel confident that I have something to contribute as an individual, how does that alter my worldview and my understanding of my role in my community and in this world? 

These questions don't need answers, but, for the first time ever, I am actually taking real delight in dwelling on them. I have no hesitation in admitting that these questions have arisen out of the fact that I have recently been earning a very reasonable amount of money for a single male a lot of money, the highest salary I've ever made, more than I "need", so to speak. Yes, I donated, and yes, I tipped a lot, and yes, I gave more freely than before, and yet I realized that it's not enough. In the realm of financial giving, I considered myself healthy and probably wouldn't have done things too differently if I did it all over again, but in the realm of my other resources, I was constipated. You laugh, but I'm serious. 

It's like having a brain surgeon apply band-aids to paper cuts all day. It's absolutely important to have someone to apply the band-aids with tenderness and loving care, and I've no doubt that a brain surgeon would be good at that, but I'd propose that the surgeon is going to feel broken and dead inside at some point, knowing that they've been equipped with other resources that are at their disposal, if only they had the opportunity to use them. My angle here is not about individual potential and achievement so much as it's about finding a place and a way for someone to give of their resources in a way that resonates within them and makes them "come alive". Could it be that we all have giving "wheelhouses", particular manners or situations in which we both achieve a major impact while also feeling a true "aliveness"? 

In my recent job, only a portion of my resources were being used (some of them were being abused), and all of them went to but a handful of people. No doubt, those people greatly appreciated me, but the brokenness and constipation and feeling of death and stagnation crept in ever so slowly. It's no one's fault, but it was a good thing for me to learn and now be aware of. 

Disclaimer: I'm not advocating for manipulation and the wrestling of emotional or other resources from any entity. There's a difference between giving of one's self willingly and being manipulated to the point of feeling guilty or otherwise obligated to give. 

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Something bad happened when I tried to grow up too quickly. I don't think it's a secret that males in my age group get chastised quite regularly for being immature, with examples like simultaneously sporting facial hair and a backward baseball cap depicting our desire to gain the best of both the child and adult worlds at the same time. Well, I only realize it now, but I made a semi-sub-conscious effort to expedite that maturing process over the past year and a half and I feel like it kind of backfired on me. I grew up faster than I ever have before. It was painful, but I also recognize a meaninglessness in it. 

Maybe some would say that it all needed to happen, maybe I "needed a dose of reality", maybe maybe maybe... I'll be quick to say that I don't rue the growth that I've undergone or the events that brought that growth about, but I also believe that it wasn't necessary for any of it to happen, so to speak. That could dwindle into a discussion about fate and destiny and will and predestination, but I'll let that go and say that, for me, it comes down to this: the people who are older than me that I most wish to emulate all tend to be ones who have never worried about making sure their maturity narrative is on schedule. Besides, I can agree with the idea that "Maturity simply means knowing when it's okay to be immature". I like that. 

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It may sound like "eat, drink, and be merry"ing, but understand when I write that I think some of the most underestimated powers in this world are the abilities to laugh and to evoke laughter. Think of a world without laughter! How wretched. 

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Maybe it's just me coming back from blog-hiatus, but this one has been especially lengthy and wordy. I won't apologize. In fact, I am going to make an effort to be a bit less censored with my writing. Why not? This is my blog, after all, and it's not like you can't challenge anything I've written! 

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竹塹國樂節- 花木蘭

-OH DARN I'm posting on October 1st, not September 30. Oh well!