Category Archives: Thoughts

Révéler.

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It’s that time of year again.

It’s cold. Where these things come from, and why at a time when you least expect them – I’ll never know. Once again you have found yourself atop of a pile of pain and doubt. Overwhelmed and tempted to self-reflect. Hearts have been broken. People hurt and cast aside.

It starts out like any other argument only it ends differently. This time you wake up and you know whatever good you saw in the person is no longer enough to justify the relationship. One phrase shifts the balance and you’ve lost your faith in them. You wish you could get back to where it was still repairable, but the ship has sailed. It’s like that block at the very bottom of a Jenga tower – once it’s taken out, the whole tower collapses. There’s just some things you can’t forgive.

For as long as you like, you can pick up the pieces and look at them, one at a time, closely. You may or may not find which of you was in the wrong, most likely both, that’s usually the way it goes. Be that as it may, your only option is to move on. Moving on is hard. It’s not impossible, but it’s painful and it takes time.

And it doesn’t help if on the day of your birthday you see the body of a dead kitty on the side of the road, right outside your compound. Doesn’t help at all… God really should not have let me look that way, not with my psyche. Too bad we can’t unsee things.

So it’s that time of year again. Like those people from Mel Gibson’s ‘Apocalypto’ I need a new beginning.

And it’s not like I haven’t been here before. In fact, I lost count of how many lives I’ve tried on over the past five years. But this time it’s different. This time I am really wondering whether I have overstayed my welcome in Chinatown. Because if this is right and it is my life I am living – how come all the wrong people are in it? Not bad people, just… not the right ones…

I am still very much in love with this, I am…:

I just don’t know if only this is enough for much longer.

Like everybody else, I am made up of the good and the bad. Whether the good dominates the bad, or the other way around, somebody up there will decide. I’ve always maintained not a soul down here will be the judge of that. I was apparently born with (or possibly developed over the years) this ungodly emotional stamina. I don’t collapse, not at least that other people know of. I pull myself together and look ahead, because I just know it will all work out in the end.

So long as I don’t let others step on my truth…


Real Job… What’s THAT Supposed to Mean?

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A few months before I turned 24 I landed my first real job. Gee, God knows I’d wanted one of those for a while! Up until then I was convinced that, regardless of the fact that I’ve been making my own money since I was 17, I wasn’t really working.

The very first time I thought about job hunting was around the time when I was 15, I believe, when I told my mom I was gonna go wait on tables because she wasn’t buying me enough stuff and I was no longer comfortable asking her for money every time I wanted a skirt. Yeah, that had to have been amusing! She smiled, held me by my shoulders and said: “Fine. Only I need you to do one thing for me before you go around town knocking on bar doors – see if you can make some money using your head first. If you can’t, believe me, it’ll always be easy to go clean stuff up after others – you can do that if and when you know your brain is worthless…” For all she nurtured in me, I will never be able to thank her enough – I love my Mother more than words can tell, my respect and admiration for her are infinite, she is my best friend, my most trusted advisor and ally. Needless to say, back then I thought it was a lousy answer – for one, by that time, I knew the woman well enough – this definitely meant I was so not allowed to go wait on tables! That was just her fancy way of saying: “Ha! Yeah, right, little one! Go do your homework, silly.” But, of course, I never got to do anything with my hands for a living, and, I’m pretty sure I never will as it turns out, now that I’m all grown up and independent (like, for real, I’m telling you), I can buy all the skirts I want using just the grey matter inside this head of mine.

Having failed this first attempt at getting a job, I quietly continued to resent my parents for the lack of skirts, however, decided to wait another year, because at 16 I was finally supposed to go to university! That’s when they will sure see me as an adult and freedom to do as I please will be granted at last… Didn’t happen. It is only now, 10 years later, that I think I begin to understand how in our parents’ eyes we always remain children, slightly bigger in size – but kids nonetheless. My make-my-own-cash problem soon resolved itself when people began asking me to teach them English – for money! Boy, was I excited! Finally, my very own source of income, and I didn’t even have to hunt! I continued doing that all the way through college and the thought of looking elsewhere never occurred to me again. I can’t say I gave it much thought back in those days, but somehow I knew this doesn’t count, it’s not a job. Having people come to your house and pay you for, let’s face it, talking to them — hang on, that sounds more like therapy — for teaching them how to talk — better — it’s so easy! Well, for me it was - I knew the language inside out and helping others understand the why’s and the how’s came naturally to me.

And then I came to China.

Having spent the first year learning Chinese (read: falling in and out of love, partying way too much and traveling a bit), if I wanted to stay, I needed one of them job things. Equipped with my Linguistics Degree and all that experience – bam! I’m an official English teacher – undoubtedly, the easiest job to get in the Middle Kingdom. For a year-and-a-half that followed, that’s who I was. And once again, it didn’t count, not in my head. I was getting paid, sure, but persisted all along to indulge in my affairs of the heart, parties and generally just doing whatever it was my left toe desired. Looking back, I think there were several reasons why I wasn’t taking myself seriously still. It was yet again too easy. I worked for a school that only taught adult professionals, which meant they were the ones with real jobs and they could only take classes when office buildings were closed or they can sneak out early. The way it shaped my day? I slept till noon, got to school around 2pm, taught 6 classes and went back into the night to enjoy late dinners with friends and whatever those dinners turned into. Happy, happy, carefree times, if you ask me! But come on, that’s not a job. People with real jobs are always on the run, they go to bed late and wake up early, they have Blackberries and a couple more mobiles which ring incessantly, they are always stressed out and they can’t meet you for dinner because they are still at the office! Oh, and the reason they don’t answer your call is they are in meetings, all-the-freaking-time! Lord knows why, but I wanted a job like that…

Whether it was wishful thinking or a coincidence, or I just got plain lucky, I don’t know – but I was offered one! One of my former students is the GM at the company which I now work for. I no longer sleep till noon, I am sometimes on the run, I am occasionally late for dinners with my friends because I am still at the office and yes, every so often I won’t answer a call because I am in a meeting. I don’t, however, have a Blackberry and my mobiles don’t ring incessantly, but I do take conference calls at home late at night on a regular basis.

So, do I take myself more seriously now? I guess. I feel like I’ve matured a bit and maybe I am finally what you call an adult. It counts. It finally does. But here is the most crucial part – I am never stressed out, because I actually love what I do. I see opportunities for growth, I see a path for my professional development in the industry and it is exciting, it is promising. And there is something else I realized about this whole job thing – if it so happened that my real job made me a miserable being, I would not hesitate even for a second, I would go straight back to my not-so-real job, to happy, happy, carefree times, even if it again didn’t count. Because nothing you get paid to do is worth it if it brings you down.

So screw it, a real job is not what everybody tells you it is, it’s the one you are happy to wake up to in the morning.

 

 

 

Making It Solo. In a World You Don’t Get.

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I meet a lot of people.  Different people.  Often.  Friends of friends.  Passing acquaintances.  Clients.  More often than not they find my story interesting, ask questions, curious to know what it was that made a twenty-one-year-old come all the way to China alone at random.  I am always willing to share.  But then at some point in the conversation I am asked this question: natural, logical even – “So how do you like living here?”  Confuzzles me.  Each and every time with no exceptions.  I ‘Hmmmm‘ for a bit, then say something along the lines of ‘Well, you know, it’s hard to say really‘ and gently round it up with ‘It goes up and down‘.  How do you give a simple answer about something you yourself do not really have a full grasp of?

How do I like living here?  I figured I’d try for a longer answer here today…

Here is obnoxiously loud: at.all.times.  And although I’ve become remarkably skilled at tuning most of it out at will, it sometimes still feels like a bullet pierces through my temple and comes out the other side tearing my brain apart when they honk.  Their repulsive spitting habit still makes me want to jump out of my skin and I can’t help wondering how is it that bits of their lung tissue do not come out when they do that.  The open-mouth-chewing, the slurping, the nose picking…  Well, you get the idea…  I won’t go on, because these are, as I have come to realize, tiny inconveniences compared to some other realities which become yours by default once you’ve decided you are staying put:

the reality of your life falling apart – regularly, repetitively…

I never had to let anyone go before.  Never thought much of how it would affect me if this person or that one were suddenly plucked out of my life.  Because it never happened.  People had to let me go plenty.  I missed them, much, but each time it was me headed somewhere else, excited by the prospect of a new beginning.  Well, here, everybody goes.  Sooner or later.  And I stay.  Indefinitely.  In over four years half a dozen deep, meaningful relationships and friendships began and ended for me.  It is an excruciatingly exhausting routine – investing into creating a world, a circle around you – only to go to the airport a year or so later and waive it good bye.  You get back from the airport, look around your empty apartment, breathe in, breather out – you are back to square one.  Need a new world.  Need a new circle.  One of those days a thought will cross your mind: “why bother, none of it lasts anyway…”  I still don’t have a counter argument, can’t pinpoint why exactly, but you need to bother.  Perhaps because emptiness will swallow you whole if you don’t.  Or because there is a very good chance you will meet amazing people, worth holding onto long after they get on that flight, worth having in your life no matter where they are.

the reality of your very acute loneliness…

It is so much more tangible here, you can almost touch it.  They never really understand you.   If you think they do, think again.  You don’t belong here, you never will.  You are an outsider.  To them you are like a different species: maybe they find you interesting, maybe they find you odd, maybe amusing, annoying? arrogant?  And then there’s those who don’t really give a s**t.  But they don’t get you.  Likewise, you don’t get them.  And that’s really okay – if you are able to go it alone.  If, on the other hand, your psychological well being depends on existing among people you relate to – an endeavor like mine is not recommended.  You’ll end up leaving the country frustrated, angry and disappointed, if not clinically depressed.  Mind you, I am not talking about hanging out here for a few months.  I’m talking life, a full-time rather than a transitory gig, with a prospect of a future.

… So what of it then?  I don’t like it?  You bet!  On a good day I am mildly annoyed, on a bad one… well, let’s just say, criminal thoughts do linger in my head.  Now, here is a natural question, logical even: “Why on Earth am I still here…”  ——

There is only one way to say this – because Shanghai is like my own personal brand of heroine – taking it all in feels like riding some inexplicable high…  This relationship is much like a cardiogram of a very violent heartbeat, and each next high is worth every second of each previous low, and I would know – I’ve been to the extreme ends of both sides of this equation.

Over drinks last night at Glamor on the Bund the confuzzling question was posed yet again – a good friend, relatively new in my life and quite new to China, asked me: “So after four years, what would you say it’s like, living here?”

Me, after a brief second: “Like being in an awful relationship.  When the make up sex is so good, you just can’t leave…”

There is this thing every white person here supposedly has, we call it China Expiry Date.  I’ve seen quite a few people reach theirs and it’s not always pretty.  I wonder if I ever reach mine…

How the Magic Gets Lost on Us

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So it is true what they say – man is just that kind of beast, gets used to anything.  Back in 2003/04 I was spending a year in the US attending college on a scholarship generously sponsored by the American government and I was invited to spend the spring vacation visiting a friend in Orange County, California.   I will never forget the moment I first walked into his house, a big gorgeous place set on top of a hill.  One of the living room walls was entirely made of glass – the most magic sight I could envision – as if the ocean was flowing right next to you, I felt like I could almost touch it…  You see, I spent the first 18,5 years of my life in a small provincial town just north of Moscow, which six months out of twelve is covered in snow.  The beauty of what I saw that  day literally paralyzed me, I was left breathless and speechless.  Up until then I had only seen pictures like that in magazines, and every time I looked at one I thought: “I can’t believe some people actually live in places like this one”, while others spend their childhood building igloos of giant ice cubes and playing hide-and-seek among Soviet concrete blocks.  How is that fair?!  This is not to complain – I love my country, madly.  I would not trade it in for anything, I was a happy kid – those igloos, after all, had a purpose, our gang of 6-year-olds would hold secret Members Only gatherings there.  And, on a side note, later on in life I got to meet quite a few people who happened to think the scenery I grew up in to be of amazing beauty.  Anyhow, after a few minutes of motionless staring at the ocean I managed to blink and resume human conversation, making sure my friend knows that I am pretty much convinced he lives in Paradise.  The ten days that followed were absolute bliss and I am forever grateful to this person for showing me how beautiful life can be.

However.  What struck me most was the fact that a lot of the people I met on the trip, who were living there full-time, did not seem to have that air of perpetual ecstasy about them, inspired by all this beauty they were surrounded with.  In fact, I recall one girl I met saying “It’s alright, nothing special, kinda boring”.  My brain cells went kaboom…  I grew up dreaming of wonderful far far away lands, sometimes just barely believing that one day it will become more real than a picture in a magazine or a travel program on TV.  Yet, I am not judging, nor am I implying that those people were taking what to them was a given for granted.  No.  If anything, I discovered that I myself am also at fault.

Yesterday I took my new colleagues on a stroll about town.  We headed to 陆家嘴, Lujiazui, the financial district in Pu Dong, home to Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai World Financial Center and, of course, Oriental Pearl.  My new friends just could not stop taking pictures while I was casually trying to keep an eye on both of them making sure we don’t  lose one another among hundreds of people on the pedestrian overpass.  And then I looked up and somebody suddenly muted the crowd as I was taking a minute to fall in love with the city all over again.  I find it unfathomable how fast it changes, how new buildings appear as if overnight, as if a giant invisible hand just puts them there while you are sleeping.  The scenery of Lujiazui today is not what it was, even as little as four years ago:  SWFC was not towering over Jin Mao when I got here, seems as though the IFC Mall towers’ ground was not even broken and there was definitely no talk of Shanghai Tower – the ultimate creation, one I simply can not wait to see.

These might just give you a taste of the scale of the changes:

 

Lujiazui in 1990 // Image via Archiculturefilm.com

Lujiazui in 2010 // Image via Archiculturefilm.com

And here is what’s to come:

Shanghai Tower to be finished in 2014

As all of these thoughts were floating about I realized that I’d forgotten.  I’d forgotten how mesmerizing Shanghai is.  I take it for granted – I have grown accustomed to its magic.  It is almost as if it’s “nothing special, kinda boring”…  You know what’s truly great about it though?  It only takes me a minute to remember.  Only takes me a minute to feel that perpetual ecstasy again, maybe that’s why this city has such a firm grip of my heart.