The Dubious Monk

writing, 中国

36 the long march home

I woke up early. As usual. Just in case my alarm decided not to go off my body (or is it my brain?) gets me ready to check it an hour beforehand. I made coffee and waited for Holly. We then waited for Xiao Meng to finish washing her face before leaving so I could say goodbye. I said the same kind of “Nice to’ve met you” sort of polite insincere thing you say to someone whose place you haven’t been living in for a month. There was too much of a lineup for he good baozi for me to feel comfortable waiting.

In the subway I bought my ticket (the little blue RFID poker chip) and hugged Holly goodbye. “See you soon,” I said, and it’s possible. Sooner than this was at least. 20 months? Easily doable. If I don’t go to Japan that could be spring. If I do go it’s on her way back to China and she does really want to visit. So yeah. Not so long at all.

I made the train to Shanghai in plenty of time, but not enough to make me wish I’d waited for baozi. I took a window seat and my seatmate was unconcerned (she and her blaring cell phone). On the ride I slept a little. Near Suzhou or Kunshan there was a rabbit strung up by its ears next to the tracks. Brownish with a bit of ginger colouring. So yeah, it still had its fur which is odd for a strung up Chinese rabbit. There were a couple of young men climbing over the wall to the tracks. Did they have anything to do with that rabbit? Wo buzhidao. Reminding me of it was a beggar in Shanghai who looked like a skinned rabbit. He was horribly burned, hairless, eyelids over black pool of eyeball, mottled skin, no lips, stumps of digits beckoning from his cardboard mat next to the church on Renmin Guangchang.

Coming out of the Shanghai train station to the Line 1 entrance was horrible in its own way. The two ticket machines were out of service and hundreds of people were stuck between the train station gate and the subway turnstiles with the only possible escape being through a couple of harried clerks behind plexiglass. I’m glad I wasn’t overly paranoid about pickpockets because then I could abandon myself to the crush of people. I was in no particular hurry but could use my elbows enough to maintain my relative position.

I rode to the People’s Square and sat for a few minutes before eating delicious ice cream in a waffle bowl. Then off through the unterwelt to the MagLev station which cost 50RMB but went 431kmh. Which was pretty awesome even if I was in a backwards facing car. It felt like being in a plane that just wouldn’t take off. Sort of sad really. Like it was held down by magnets instead of levitating on them. At the airport I checked in quickly (showing my hand luggage to the suspicious Air Canada woman), chugged my 1984 and proceeded to wait for the plane to arrive to take me back to Canada.

Planes are very sad machines. Or maybe the sadness is just in sitting in the middle so there’s no sense of distance. Not being able to see the ground you’re covering slip away, just sitting alone in a room with a bunch of chairs and video screens. From Shanghai we were on one of Austin’s planes which meant I spent a lot more time watching movies than I would have if it was on only one screen. But this way I could watch the movies I wanted to see (Michael Clayton, The Assassination fo Jesse James… and I’m not There) and stay awake so I’d be able to sleep on arrival in Winnipeg. There was a massive high school group on the plane filled with noisily happy sounding people. I sat next to a tiny, no not tiny, big fat infant. She was cute enough though. Didn’t scream too much.

And eventually we touched down safely with a few clouds on the mountains. I changed my HK dollars from three years ago into Canadian to supplement my cash on hand for the month. And yeah here I am back in Canada. Still a few hours till my flight to Peg City. I don’t know if I have any better a handle on China than I did when I left, but I do have a few more experiences and things I’ve seen. I think these notes will be useful as a good base for the book (which may be titled something like The Hangman’s Harmony), at least in combination with the other sources, the blog, the travel notebooks primarily but the chapter structure may go back to the Wittgenstein disc. A couple of months to finish it [Ha!]. That’s the plan at least.

I hope all this will be useful to someone. No, not useful. This is no practical document, merely a recording of stories that may not be entirely true or accurate. What else is there to say while I’m falling asleep on an airport chair?

Tagged baozi, beggar, holly, maglev, rabbit, renmin guangchang, scars, shanghai, subway, suzhou, the hangman, train, xiao meng

food, 中国

34 end times

The wind feigned apocalypse, knocking down rows of bikes so if your field of vision was exceedingly narrow it would look like the city had been long abandoned. We needed a good thick layer of that Gobi Desert dust that covers this part of the world every once in a while swirling across to Korea to age everything that’s outside immensely.

I ducked into a courtyard for shelter, grey brick, very neat, only to be accosted for money. “Ticket! Ticket! Ten kuai!” The man wasn’t young and when I nodded my consent he shufflingly beckoned me into the guardhouse. The sign listed the variety of prices one could pay for the privilege of this courtyard (and house, I learned) from Free for retired cadres to 10RMB for me. He tore the end off the ticket himself. It was a pretty, quiet place, very clean. Obviously I’d be hard to lose while the wind pushed through beyond the walls.

This was the restored former residence of John Rabe, the Good German of Nanjing. I liked how in one of the photos that was the title of his diaries or his biography or something, but in all the rest he was the Good Man of Nanjing. And really, he was quite a man. An “unremarkable businessman he turned to heroism” or something similar is how one card put it. There were phtos of his achievements, a case for his medal (the card said it was the medal but the box was closed – I assume it wasn’t actually inside) he received from the Nationalist government for his work saving people in the International Safety Zone during the city’s rape. The house/courtyard that made up this small museum held 600 refugees, some of whom needed personal defending from charges they were de-uniformed soldiers. It was a big Western style house but not 600 people big. There were pictures of him with his Nazi flag (carefully labelled as NDSP or whatever the acronym is) that kept them from being bombed by the Japanese.

He had a rough time after the war getting de-Nazified. The museum stressed he was only a member of the part to get funding for some school or something, he wasn’t a Jew-killer or anything. There was a poem in the airraid shelter about women and kids getting the centre seats while the men should stand around them. The poem called the listener Curly in a sort of affectionate way. I don’t know what the original language of the poem was, Chinese German or English. The English had a singsongy rhyme to it so maybe that was an international concession. Is Curly a Chinese nickname?

The second floor held a shrine to Siemens (the company Rabe had worked for) and all their fine products. A strange ghostly blown up picture of Mao and his buddies from 1950 when China and Germany began official relations sat on one wall. That room had no mention of the countries being enemies in WWI (or WWII). They’ve always been One World One Dream.

I ate well yesterday. Sweet meat sacks for lunch at the place where the employees (almost) all wear their green smocks. I sat in a row of people and gobbled them down quickly, dropping only one or two into my sauce bowl. Old ladies sat to my left and then a business man with a plate of rice and vegetables. They asked how much his food cost and seemed impressed with his six kuai answer.

Out in the lane just to the north as I’d approached the restaurant were four women with identical twin baskets on shoulder poles sitting on the ground (the baskets not the women – there was a guy in Chengdu wearing an excellent fedora who sat on the wheel well on the bus without any newspaper to keep the dirt off his ass. He was part of what seemed a family group. They all carried shopping bags filled with yoghurt). The baskets were filled with mangoes. When I left 20 minutes later they were gone and only a cop car remained.

I saw more mango ladies scattered through Xin Jie Kou in the evening when we went to satisfy Holly’s dream of eating Papa John’s pizza. Some of them were on the steps leading to the underground. We’d left the apartment early after an afternoon of sitting and talking about our various cousins. Holly was wrapped in blankets after a nap but still feeling a little sick. I perched in a huddle on a chair, as is my wont. We killed some time up in the Suning looking at the cutest computer in the world plus some Apple products. The MacBook they had was running Windows XP. Oh China.

Pizza was good though low on sauce compared to my preferences. I felt bad finishing it but Holly said her dream had a lot more to do with the first bite than the last piece. She felt the employees had a good working relationship compared to many restaurants she’d seen.

And then it was off to Zhi Mian where Myrrl’s friend was giving a talk that ended up lasting two and a half hours. He discussed psychology and family run businesses I think. Hong Tao did the translating and everyone asked good questions. I guess. I hung around outside that jam-packed room with James talking cameras cats and comedy. Holly said she could hear us laughing sometimes. James is a pretty cool guy. He wants to be doing work at Chuan Da in comparative literature dealing with Sichuanhua writers and those of the American south, talking about languages of exclusion instead of just local colour. But. Chuan Da doesn’t have anyone who knows American Southern literature. So new plans are being formulated. And as always he asked what I might be doing. I did tell him about maybe going to Japan, and my theory that I’ve got a good number of characters for learning and not too many to freeze out the Japanese sounds etcetera. He didn’t laugh in my face at my naivete, so that’s a plus.

I was telling Holly my fear that going to Japan to teach in a place I’d have to shave and wear a suit and possibly even a tie might be giving up the freedom of my expectationless life in Winnipeg at the library. That somehow not wearing whatever I feel like would compromise me deeply. She doesn’t think I should worry about that. But wouldn’t she say the same thing if I were saying I was getting a PR job for some company in Canada? I hate how I feel like everyone is always lying to me, telling me only what I want to hear. This is why, I think, I hate telling anyone what I want. As soon as you make that known there’s no way you can possibly achieve/acquire it. To go back to an overused and misunderstood analogy, the cat’s both alive and dead until you check. Until you say something and let everything sort itself out into truths and lies.

I learned yesterday that Xiao Meng’s brother was really expecting me and her to hook up the other evening. He bought fancy 15RMB cigarettes because of it, which his sister made fun of him for. When Holly first got here she and Zhao Xing weren’t together and her other roommate tried to fix Holly up with a cousin in Beijing who “makes lots of money and speaks really good English.” Holly had to explain how things didn’t work like that.

Tagged food, holly, james stabler-havener, japan, john rabe, nanjing massacre, nazi, papa john's, pizza, sichuan university, sichuanhua, sweet meat bags, the hangman, wind, xiao meng, zhao xing

中国

33 memories

Myrrl and his friend David are here. It’s funny to see Myrrl with someone so clueless about China. You feel sort of bad for him talking about his views of Chinese culture. He’s got a PhD in Psychology and wanted to talk about diagnosis and stuff like you’d find in the DSMIV. But he also runs an Amish restaurant. So family-owned business is a good topic too. Holly really hopes he hits some sort of too-close-for-comfort issue about Zhi Mian.

Myrrl’s telling stories of back in the day when the Jin Ling Hotel was the only skyscraper in the city, and only foreigners were allowed in. People would gather outside and just stare up at it. There was a piano bar inside with air conditioning that CEEers would retreat to during the six week SLPs when it was 42 degrees dropping to 37 at night. It was a hellish summer and no good food anywhere. Ruthie had a miscarriage. They’d drape themselves in soaked towels to try sleeping.

And Myrrl talked about Sebastian and how much money he makes playing poker. Thousands. It’s hard to motivate him to go get a job. I wouldn’t want one either. Holly talked a bit about her dream for this organic farm/guesthouse and Myrrl was dismissive, as expected. He wants Zhao Xing to learn to cook and then start a Sichuan restaurant/teahouse/massage place in Harrisonburg. “Now there’s a man with a dream,” I said. I think when he dismisses things it’s sort of an implicit challenge to show him the goods. He’s heard too much talk to put a lot of faith in it till it’s done. That’s my impression at least. Holly gets so insecure with him, even though she doesn’t want to work for MPC anymore. She’d still like to work with them but to be her own person outside that “mission field” (which is a word they use so much he laughed).

The idea of existing outside all the guanxi is so attractive to her and to loads of young people she thinks. Myrrl was saying the simplicity of life is why so many Chinese people end up going to the States. They just don’t have to play all those games. Myrrl says he intentionally subverts a lot of that with the visiting scholars, so much so they’re surprised he knows how to toast and do all that Chinese stuff when they have their farewell banquet.

He has fun trying to figure out the relationships though. If you treat it like a game it’s interesting. Peter Yuan is supposedly a really smooth political operator, as Holly saw in Kunming’s PIC this year. That was surprising but not, as he is the president of the Sichuan CCC or something. And he has the support of MPC and that gives them their connections. And Fuller wants Xuefu to go back grovelling to the seminary before he can study in America. Oh politics!

Tagged cee, fuller, guanxi, harrisonburg, holly, jinling hotel, mpc, myrrl, nanjing, peter yuan, poker, seminary, the hangman, wang xuefu, zhao xing

religion, 中国

31 seminary

Holly went to the seminary to hear Mark ? speak and to bring him to the Zhi Mian office. He’s part of this visiting delegation from Fuller Theological School’s psychology program, and was excited to hear that Holly’s thinking about their program. As he said it, they want someone who has some language and would be in China. Holly would fit in well on both counts. We talked about what it means to be part of an organization working in China and how MPC is built on the guanxi of the teachers towing the line so the higher ups have the ability to do cool stuff. Of course, the teachers get no access to the privileges, just bear responsibility. Being here completely independently would give people like Holly more freedom to make relationships with whoever she wanted than fitting into the MPC “here’s who we deal with” structure.

Especially about Zhi Mian and the seminary. Last year around this time is when all the shit went down that got Dr. Wang all disliked over there, and things are only slowly returning to normal. But Holly has to keep a low profile as a Zhi Mian employee so as to keep the peace, which is frustrating. She lives three doors down from it and yesterday was the first time she’d gone on the grounds. “If we’re trying to make connections why do I have to be invisible?” is the question.

Yesterday her plan was to be an English teacher at the seminary and work at Zhi Mian part time. That way it would be even and open. Who knows if that would actually work. But the bouncing between school and business, work and study is a big issue for Holly these days.

We ate with Wang Jing and Zhang Guo Xian again at the porridge place last night. But we also had Guo Tie, the big fried jiaozi. So good. The porridge guy is round and sort of friendly. I got all confused with the ordering which made Holly realize I don’t understand nearly as much as she thinks I do.

At the seminary in the evening Al Dueck from Fuller was doing a pastoral counselling session with a bunch of pastors. The topic was grieving and how a pastor counsels people through the process. He sounded like such an NPR voice with the languid pace and innumerable pauses. “Lake Wobegone” Holly said. His translator seemed to be a seminary student who was quick but after an hour and a half his attention was flagging and he had more trouble. Especially on the “wife withholding sexual relations” and the technical genetic talk about Dueck’s daughter’s baby who she brought to term so it could live for three hours instead of aborting it. “This is a life,” she said. “It’s sacred.”

He also talked about a counselling survey done last year about what the biggest issues were. I was so happy that when he asked for stories the pastors gave him nothing. They could have been in Chinese even, what with the translator, but they behaved like my students always did. Not a peep. He was good at waiting for them though. They talked about loss and grief and made a loss line for Jesus. I realized that that was the Christ I liked, the one who God had forsaken, who no one understood.

There were a couple of pastors who as the session went on got involved in their cell phones, one beeping really loudly. And Holly got pulled out to take calls from Sun Wen and Xiao Meng about something Sun Wen hadn’t been listening to her about earlier. I’m so glad I don’t have to work for those people. Holly goes on about Xuefu’s genius but since I don’t see that part, they just seem like a couple of jerks. Not very fair of me I know but them’s the breaks. After the thing at the seminary we watched Little Miss Sunshine down at Zhi Mian with Xiao Meng and a couple of counsellors. I do like that movie.

Tagged al dueck, counselling, fuller, holly, little miss sunshine, mpc, nanjing, npr, seminary, sun wen, the hangman, wang jing, wang xuefu, xiao meng, zhang guo xian, zhi mian

travel, 中国

30b templar

I love Buddhist nuns. Maybe it’s not the nunnishness, maybe it’s just their shaved heads and simple gray clothes that put everything to notice in their faces. I suppose if you watched with care there’d be body language, expressive gestures and the like but for me everything rests in those faces. The Ji Ming Si was filled with nuns. Most of them young. One with big eyebrows who reminded me of my cousin Corina was taking donations and giving out small pins or other trinkets. She was very deliberate, sucking her lower lip back in concentration before smiling.

There were a couple of nuns in the expensive Buddhist trinket shop. Both were young and they were examining prayer bead bracelets and the like. Working in the shop were dozens of young Chinese girls who did not seem to be nuns what with their red uniforms and long hair. Right next to each other each in service to inscrutable ends. I doubt many friendships are made across those professional lines.

It was a tall temple, loads of vertical and attached to the city wall. Many halls were built in the ’80s and ’90s. There were loads of security guards in the temple’s upper levels where the crowds were burning their incense everyone received upon entry. I never spend a lot of time inside Buddhist temples. Unless it’s raining. There are only so many Buddhas and bodhisattvas and arhats and dancing black bearded man statues one can take in without real knowledge of the details to make them interesting.

For me, in China at least) temples are all about the pilgrims and the monks/nuns/functionaries. Loads of red armbanded people inthis temple, keeping an eye on things? And all the sweeping was done by middle aged women in sweaters of maroon. Parishioners maybe? Dedicated volunteers? I would think keeping the temple clean would be the work of the nuns/monks who lived there. Sweeping meditation and such. There were nuns helping people fill out their prayer notes in the sun. My pictures of them didn’t really turn out which is too bad so sad.

Before Ji Ming Si I took the subway out to the Kong Zi temple. There I didn’t go in because it was so expensive and gaudied up (for the Olympics it seemed, oddly) with pink and yellow streamers and dragons and such. The whole area was a huge shopping pavilion filled with the touristy junk shops you find in Beijing and Shanghai. You could tell this was a major stop for tourbuses. Why they’d need to go shopping at a Metersbowne here instead of one the outlets on every major street in every town in China beats me.

There’s a canal with bridges over it and you could rent boats to drink tea in by the hour. On the dragon screen wall facing the temple from across the canal the two yellow dragons were bright plastic. I’m sure at night they’d light up very festively but it all seemed a cartoonish parody of an old city, even down to the rickshaw men in their yellow silk suits. I took pictures of them at work or at least waiting for work. One saw me and came over to drag me around the district “very cheap.” He wore a fedora-ish hat and spoke no English. He drew out the looping route we’d take on his palm and grabbed my wrist, but I shook him off.

Soon after, I left that part of the square and found a place to read in the Examination School garden (where the schools were demolished to make way for shops). Out in front there were bronze statues of what I assume were famous students who passed their exams there. The early ones wore the boxy little hats, then robes and hair in long queues. The last one wore glasses and a western suit. One guy was getting his girlfriend to take a picture of him between two of them. I wonder if he hoped some of the studiousness would rub off on him. In the shops around, there was tiny octopus on a stick. I didn’t feel like eating any but it was somehow comforting that tourist trap food is the same across China.

Tagged buddhist, ji ming si, kong zi temple, nanjing, nuns, rickshaw, temple, the hangman, tourist trap

writing, 中国

30a of the line

Happily, loads of people were confused by the lack of Shanghai Lu stop on the airport bus. We walked from Hanzhong Men even though we were both almost falling asleep standing. Got home and fell into beds. I had a lot of catching up to do in my writing so the Monday day was uneventful. That’s not true. I got the best baozi ever for lunch. The middle aged woman with the matronly hair smiled in recognition when I got my Cai Bao and my San Ding Bao. I’ve been there a bunch of times now. Feels good to be recognized.

I went to help Holly eat her snacks at the Paulaner Brauhaus where Sprite costs 35 RMB and coffee with two snacks cost 36. The pretzel was good. Very eggy and soft. The crumble cake had a bit of a petroleumish taste around the edges though maybe it was just a touch of freezerburn. Holly thought the top was cheeselike but I got none of that feeling.

And we were up on the roof and Holly was writing and so was I. Holly feels good when she’s writing. “I don’t want to be a writer, but I feel complete or something when I’m doing it.” That’s not at all how I feel about it. I like the finished product I made (sometimes) not the getting there. I need to do these quota kinds of things to keep going. Holly keeps on describing me as a very good writer which simply isn’t true. Not yet at least. This book was supposed to be more of a finished product than it’s become. Now it’s just notes on a trip. Which is fine. I realize that the book this turns into will be ditching the Tome stuff [which hasn't been posted here -JJU] which can find its way into the Place novel. It doesn’t feel right in here. I’ll take all these notes and reorder them. Maybe back into the Wittgenstein order. Leave the blog entries raw and shape the stuff from the notebooks. I think my memory’s up to that now. I might be ready.

We played ping pong with Xiao Meng and her brother last night. They seem like a good happy brother and sister combo. Later at Behind the Wall we drank sangria and he complained about his lack of girlfriend and we learned Xiao Meng’s Shanghai boy is back in Nanjing. And her brother asked why I don’t date Xiao Meng. Holly laughed adding a “She’s so beautiful!” My easy answer was that I don’t date friends’ friends. That worked at the time though it is a lie. That would basically cut my dating pool down to zero. Which it might as well be but I don’t feel like getting drunk and crying about it.

At the airport I told Holly how I never called Joy back when she left that message on my phone a year and whatever ago. I just couldn’t stand the sound of her voice. It is weird how you can decide things in a fraction of a second. It builds, of course, but everything flips in one little moment. Holly told me how she doesn’t believe our loves are destined and she got mad at Jesse [an ex-boyfriend] when he wanted to leave it up to God if they’d stay together or not.

Tagged baozi, bar behind the wall, holly, joy, nanjing, shanghai lu, the hangman, xiao meng

travel, 中国

28c transportation

On the bus to Mianyang Jiaozi was climbing all over Catherine and whoever her seatmate happened to be. First it was Holly then when she came back to give the dog his own seat it ended up filled with a guy we picked up on the side of the road. The terror on his face that he had to share a seat with a dog was pretty priceless. Holly was embarrassed about the dog, but Catherine doesn’t seem to mind. When Jiaozi got extra antsy she tried opening the window a bit but had some trouble. The guy leapt to assistance. I’m sure he was hoping the dog would leap out. But it didn’t help that much. When we arrived the guy bolted so fast.

From Mianyang to Chengdu we took a cab instead of a bus and that driver liked Jiaozi. Petted him at least. Catherine was in shotgun for that trip so the dog couldn’t crawl all over the rest of us and Holly could chat with the fourth passenger, a 26-year-old designer of some product that gets exported. His girlfriend was a 21-year-old student which he was sort of sheepish about.

The cab ride was quite pleasant. We were going 130 as much as we could on our little natural gas powered cab (interesting side effect: the fuel gauge reads empty all the time), dodging big trucks and amateur drivers. Holly talked to the designer, Catherine slept and read Marriages that Work. There were fireworks and four planes in one region of the sky.

On the road between Jiangyou and Mianyang they’d painted all the buildings traditional black and white in honour of the Xth (1400th?) anniversary of Li Bai (Li Po in my collection of his poems). As we drove through both that in the afternoon and the night expressway I felt very in the present. We were driving through Sichuan. I don’t know why but that was very fulfilling to me. My biggest pet peeve about travelling is people talking about it being a “once in a lifetime experience.” No. Or at least no more than any other. I’ll go back to Sichuan (China is pretty much a given). There’s no anxiety over what I’ve missed. Life is long.

Tagged bus, cab, catherine mckinley, happy, holly, jiangyou, jiaozithedog, li bai, mianyang, sichuan, the hangman

religion, whining, 中国

28b mpc easter

And then there was church in the apartment, run by Michelle. She wanted us to respond to the message of the resurrection and there was a bit of dialogue which revealed how messed up Deb had been recently. And Holly revealed her tough train ride to everyone. And she cried a bit and I felt bad for being less than supportive. Selah.

Easter morning sitting around while the others are at church. With Catherine and Deb, which isn’t exactly who I’d normally end up hanging out with. Oh Deb, who needs to make everything about her and her jerk of a father. Last night in the van coming back from dinner there was a discussion about corporal punishment that turned into Deb talking about being switched when she was 15. Never about why things were happening, just “You broke the rules.” I realize things sucked for her but I have so little sympathy for a person who needs to go on and on and on about their problems. At dinner Catherine talked about how orderly her grandmother died and I mentioned how my grandparents were burned in their home, which made distributing their possessions easy. A clean break of a different sort.

I like Catherine a lot. She’s kind and considerate thoughtful etcetera. She’s had people say offensive things to her all the time. “I can tell by your dog that you won’t worry about having clean children someday.” Though really, the dog is filthy.

It’s funny how Dan and I are sort of ambassadors of the return from North America. When Deb was asked if she’d be back in China she said there was no way. Dan gave her two years. Maybe she’d consider it if she was married she said, but not as a single person. Dan still gave her two years. Karen Beiler’s coming back. I don’t know what it is about being single in China that bothered Deb so much. Maybe just the sense of being alone against a country. And it would be totally unhelpful for me to mention I can’t picture Deb getting married.

The axes she was talking about judging personalities by were Needy and Real. I don’t know her exact definitions but the implication was that she was both. I introduced the Cartesian plane to the mix (with the Fuck Grapefruit comic) and foolishly she asked “Where do you think I fit? No no no don’t answer that.” There was something else she mentioned being written on her forehead in 72 point bold font. Maybe NEEDY maybe not. There was tactful silence by the rest of us around these obviously agreeable statements.

But being back felt exactly the same as never leaving. I didn’t feel bad about that, though I sometimes felt I was a cautionary tale about how useless this time in China was for helping a career. How many times did I explain what my back home process was and how “the world” doesn’t give a shit about my time out here? Which isn’t to say I don’t value it. And why bother with the standards of success anyway? At dinner Julie was saying something about those standards being bunk and I said sometimes I can console myself with that, though often it sounds like a loser’s justification. Which it is. I don’t want to leave Winnipeg to be successful. I want to leave because it’s cold in the winter. That’s all. I want a floating life, drifting and free. Dan talked about nomadism and that’s a dangerous word for me. So romantic. So ignoring of the filth and the stink of the road. I’m carrying a hobo cup with me that clanks along on its carabiner. Hobo at least implies a bit of the dirt I’m feeling coats my fingers and Catherine’s smelly little dog.

When church was done we followed the mob to the Mall Mart where we ate Muslim food again on Easter weekend. The bus to Nanchong was broken and so that crew had to go to Mianyang where William was sure there were hourly buses to Nanchong. There weren’t. Dan texted back saying they’d only be getting out of town at 6:35 so did we want to meet out there for dinner? Back in Jiangyou we were lollygagging the afternoon away watching videos made by Willy G and playing “Guess the ’90s rock band!” All the goodbyes had been said back at the bus stop after Todd lured us over to see what songs were being performed in the middle school English song competition. Only one “My Heart Will Go On.” There were hugs and waves and all that which wouldn’t quite get repeated when we met again at Grandma’s in Mianyang by the iron cow (Tie Niu). There we just let them walk away with a wave. I’ll be heading west and might see Todd soonish. These are hardly last goodbyes.

The secret Holly shared with us in William’s room after Catherine left to pack and nap was that she doesn’t like Jiaozi. A partial second passed when I thought she meant the food, but really, it’s Catherine’s dirty little dog. He’s very poorly behaved and his sitting on/next to Holly through the Saturday worship gave her the sense that she stunk of dog. Back in Canada I usually don’t think of little dogs being dirty. Dogs like my mom’s. So there’s not so much concern with the dog sitting on your lap or being on the couch or whatever. Jiaozi though is a filthy ambassador of the Chinese gutter who probably shouldn’t be touched by people with poor immune systems. William didn’t want him on his bed either and I lay no blame for that. But. There’s obviously a lot of love between Catherine and her mutt, so it’s not all bad. He was brought along so Holly would get a chance to meet him for the very first and last time, since he won’t be going back to New Zealand. With Johnny we joked that the dog should be named Mafan (trouble).

William songed us all the way down to the bus station which was nice. He’s considerate that way. On one morning, Sunday I suppose, when we were walking to the 3rd floor apartment he expressed regret our MPC terms didn’t overlap and I agreed. We would have had fun like we did with Phil. I miss the kind of structure that life had. Looking forward to SLP and PIC and Easter and Thanksgiving and heading places to see your friends because you had the money and could handle getting the time. It’s sad how much harder it is to create things to look forward to. I suppose that’s what event movies and music festivals are for. Though this year I’m not really looking forward to Folk Fest that much. Here we actually got together to sit around and talk about stuff. Like Sean and I often do on a Thursday night I suppose. But the idea of talking about life/god/meaning isn’t what we get down to in our Tuesday gaming sessions. Not that I’d really want it to. That’s what happens far from home, I guess?

Tagged catherine mckinley, dan tursack, deb brande, easter, holly, jiaozithedog, julie bender, mianyang, michelle stabler-havener, mpc, phil, sean, the hangman, todd hanson, willy g, winnipeg folk festival