Reflections: Why I shouldn't give a damn (but still do)

In China no matter what I did, how I primped or what I said, I stood out, a lot.  Like an ugly duckling.  It was simultaneously freeing and infuriating.  I was stared at without pretense, and for the first year it drove me nuts. Men, women and babies would stare at me, mouths open, totally un-perturbed by my churlish glare.  I sometimes lashed out at them- screaming at them in English, knowing they couldn't understand, furious that they looked at me like I was some misshapen Frankenstein (or so it felt).

Visit to the Hanging Temple in the remote, moonscaped Shanxi Province

But at the same time, it was freeing to be so different.  It was so obvious that I was an outsider, that I didn't need to make any effort to fit in.  As a student Prague, where I studied abroad, I was mistaken for a Czech several times, which flattered my pride, and made me hesitant to come across as an American, if I could avoid it.   In China, despite the perfunctory compliments on my hair, it was obvious that I was a weirdo, and because there was nothing I could do about it, I was freed from any expectation of how I should act, what I should wear, what I should say, or how well I said it (it's also common for any foreigner speaking a word of Chinese to be deliciously and excessively praised for their masterful- true or not- grasp of the "foreign-proof" language).

Amazing self-massage exercise machines all over China

Over time, my striking strangeness released me in a way I had never experienced from the heavy expectations that I had for years unconsciously felt.  It's a self-consciousness that everyone feels at some point, the feeling that one must look or act a certain way, have certain desirable characteristics or possessions. Yet here I had no desire to look like the hip Chinese students around me, and even if I wanted to, I couldn't pull off their hair styles, or fit into their tiny clothes. So what was the point in trying to be something I wasn't? I was so clearly different, that I felt free to be 100% myself, to a degree I had never felt before.  I stopped wearing makeup, my sense of style went to hell (partly influenced by the lack of decent clothes).  I was influenced by the Chinese lack of political correctness, and I said whatever I felt, without worrying that it might offend someone.

Being a dinosaur with JR

There are people who have no self-consciousness about standing out from the crowd, and I have always admired those individuals.  Growing up I had a friend and a boyfriend who had strong, independent personalities, not afraid to be who they were in the face of a judging public, and I admired and wished to emulate their extroversion. But I am naturally shy and overly sensitive to the perceived thoughts and judgements of others. In China I was freed from that.


It was in this state of utter unpretension that I met JR.   I've always been against public displays of affection, but as our romance blossomed in this strange foreign country we were all over each other-- always with arms around each other, kissing in public constantly, even (almost) buying those hilarious matching t-shirts, "This is my girlfriend and I'm in love with her" that Chinese couples love to wear. We did not, however, ever consider wearing matching outfits, another popular style choice among young love-birds in China.

For several years, this socially-unconscious mindset stuck with me, until I started working full time at an institution where external impressions and appearances- physical and intellectual- matter a great deal.

Shielding our delicate pollution-ravaged skin from the Thai sun

  I'm building up my wardrobe of nice, professional clothing, I've started wearing makeup again, I even did my hair the other day! And on top of that I have to be conscious of what I say to whom, and how.  There are incredibly opaque rules regarding this in Chinese business, which I dabbled in at Media Soda (a small Chinese PR and consulting company), but I could always count on my foreignness giving me a free pass in case of a gaffe.  Now I have to build a professional image in a way I haven't had to before, and I feel my old self-consciousness creeping back.  Add to that the stresses of planning a wedding ..... I had a few minor meltdowns over that... and I find myself wishing I could run away again to China.

I got an email today from Angelina's ESL Cafe, the website that I originally used to find my teaching position in Yanjiao, and I was half-serious when I suggested to JR that we go back. Sometimes I want to run away from the expectations and pressures of our life at home.  That's when I get that traveler's itch.

But then I remind myself that these imperious expectations I judge myself by, whether they are internal or external, don't matter.

No one really judges us as much as we imagine they do, and if do they happen to judge us for who we are, because we don't wear fashionable clothes, or say the right things, or throw a certain kind of wedding, or like to spend our Friday night doing something like sleeping, or to get political, if we don't have the "right" religious convictions or sexual preferences-- then we would all do better to remember these wise words:

"It's better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for what you are not"

Apples, In a Silent Way

With only three weeks left before the wedding, the amount of time we have to adventure continues to fall as each wedding detail we finalize seems to beget yet another issue that needs to be dealt with.  After a dispiriting trip to the mall last Saturday, we were craving some country air, so we headed out to Phil's Apples, a family-run orchard in Harvard, Massachusetts.

Phil's won the State Cider Championship, and the video below doesn't do justice to the thick, sweet cider at this place.  I plan to make the 90 minute round trip to Phil's for the sole purpose of purchasing cider at least one more time this fall.

After picking our fill, we headed to Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge, which Phil's wife described as "a beautiful place for a hike where you'll be completely alone."  Unfortunately, we live in America, which means that one of the primary reasons we have Wildlife Refuges is to give people an opportunity to shoot and kill defenseless creatures.  The second we stepped onto the trail we heard the rapid fire of semi-automatics that continued throughout our hike.  Although there are few places more beautiful than New England in the fall, it's hard to connect with nature -- let alone spot birds -- when the crackle of gunfire penetrates everything.  Firearms shough have no place in Wildlife Refuges.  

Half-Marathon Mayhem!

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
-Gandhi


 October 16, 2011, 10:15 AM---M&G guest star Naomi finishes her FIRST HALF-MARATHON, along with Mumpus finishing her second!!

(Grumpus ran it too, but he does half-ironmans, so it's not such a big deal for him.)

It's odd, I've never considered myself a runner (eg. someone who enjoys running), but ever since my first 13.1 miler in May, I've got to admit that I've become a little enthused.  Now finishing my second race I am thoroughly addicted, and I can't wait for my next one.  This opens up a whole new world of exciting possibilities, from beer-marathons, to themed, costumed-marathons, to adventure marathons!

For this race, we met up with one of our most favorite people, Naomi, aka Long-legs McGee, who had forgotten to really train since she signed up 6 months ago.  Let me also say that it was McGee's idea to sign up for the Newport Half-Marathon in the first place after she was that inspired by Mumpus's great finish in May.  Maybe she was also inspired by M's lack of training in May.  In addition, Mumpus had a serious surgery a month earlier, so she had lost a lot of her strength and confidence before this race.

Yet despite the challenges, they entered the race with strength and determination, with their tough yet tender coach, Grumpus, to lead them to victory.

We started out slow, and had an emergency pee-break 4 miles in, but as we rounded the half-way point, Grumpus pulled ahead to finish in time to capture Long-Legs and Mumpus on video.

We had lost our coach, but we showed an indomitable will to persevere, and managed to come through with a negative split time (second half faster than our first)..... M was so excited at the approach of the finish line (which came up much faster than I expected) that she tried to sprint and nearly tripped over the girl in front of her.... an embarrassing gaffe made worse by the fact that she and MaGee were supposed to raise their hands in victory together as they crossed the finish line. Oops.

Now for the real drama.....

Reflections: How I ended up in a Chinese Hospital

I spent two weeks in August, 2007 backpacking around Xinjiang, the far western Chinese province that covers the same landmass as Western Europe.  Xinjiang is home to the Uighur people, who are Muslim, speak a Turkic language, have more in common with Central Asians than Han Chinese and happen to make really delicious food.   Although they are persecuted much like the Tibetans, their plight -- including that of several fruit sellers who are still detained at Gitmo as part of the "War on Terrorism" -- receives only a fraction of the attention that the Tibetans do, which is a shame (I've written about this here for those of you who are interested.)

The Market in Turpan

Playing Uighur Music

Although this story takes place in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjaing, it does not concern the Uighurs or their plight.  Much like St. Petersburg, which is said to be the most European of cities (even though it is, arguably, not in Europe), Urumqi is the most Chinese of cities even though it's in the homeland of another people -- nondescript off-white apartment buildings and office towers dominate the city.  With the exception of the incredibly imposing internal security building downtown, the city could be plopped down in Hunan, Hubei or Hebei Province and no one would notice.

On one particularly hot day in Urumqi, I decided to head to a small, hole-in-the-wall dumpling house near the center of the city for lunch.  I order noodle soup and baozi (steamed buns that were stuffed with pork and some veggies).  As my food came, an old, half-drunk Han Chinese man sitting at the table next to me struck up a conversation.  As he peered out from over his soup, he began recounting his struggles during the Great Leap Forward.

Kanas Lake, Near Russian and Kazakh Border

"When I was young, we didn't have any meat to eat.  People would literally take the bone out of my bowl as I tried to eat it.  It was a struggle to survive."  As he was talking, he noticed that two young Chinese nearby were snickering at him.  They seemed to be more interested in the most recent fashion craze -- both had crazy, "you-could-only-see-that-hair-in-China" dos, as well as jeans with all sorts of bling on them -- than learning from their elders.  "You see these kids," he said, "they don't give a damn about the past.  They don't understand what Mao did, nor do they really care.  They are only focused on the making money." Throughout our conversation, I continued to eat the baozi, even though they tasted a little off to me.  Sure enough, by the time night fell, I was violently ill.  Instead of finishing my trip off with a few days in Kashgar, I went to the Urumqi hospital, where I was forced to sit in one of 250 recliners pointed towards a tv showing a ridiculously corny sitcom about how smart Mao was as an IV slowly replaced my fluids.  It was not the way I had envisioned my three month odyssey ending, but so it goes.

Near Kanas Lake

As I sat in that hospital and reflected on my conversation in the dumpling house, I thought about how quickly China was changing -- how it was a society hellbent on developing, carving a new future, and forgetting the recent past (the ancient, 5,000 years or "glorious history" were something that people seemed to hold on to).  I instinctively wanted to compare this to the US, where we confront the dark episodes in our history like slavery, Jim Crowism, Japanese internment during the war, etc. Yet I now realize that drawing this kind of distinction between the two countries was far too simplistic.

Because, in reality, the US is a country with an incredible short attention span that doesn't like to look its problems in the eye.  We brush things under the rug.  We dissemble.  We don't make eye contact with homeless people on the street.

For me, the problem with this is that it undermines our ability to be honest with  ourselves.  The old man in the dumpling house was trying to teach his young countrymen a lesson, and they ignored him -- maybe it's because he was old, or wearing peasant garbs, or because he was half-drunk.  Whatever the reason, they ignored him.  And it's hard to gain a real education, and wisdom, if we ignore the people around us who have something valuable to share.

-Grumpus

In Search of Food: From Topsfield to Burma

This weekend, we headed to the Topsfield Fair, which is the oldest agricultural fair in the country -- and completely and ridiculously awesome!   One of the adventures we took BMG (before Mumpus and Grumpus) was the fair last year, and G has been thinking about getting another turkey leg ever since.  We've included a video montage of pictures from the fair and the Burmese food festival at the very bottom of this post.

Non-food Reason #1 why the Topsfield Fair is awesome: Poultry Throwing

Get the Chicken

Throw the Chicken

That's right, poultry throwing.  First, split the birds up into a variety of divisions based on their size and weight (bantam, heavy weight, etc.). Second, have an old man take a bird out of its cage and throw it.  Third, see how far it flies before it lands.  Fourth, have girl in chicken hat retrieve the bird. Repeat.

Most of the chickens went anywhere from 7 to 15 feet -- not too far, but a good showing nonetheless.  But one of the chickens in the bantam class wanted more.  It wanted to fly.  And it did -- around in circles, through the trees and then out of the fair!  It was hilarious.

Non-food Reason #2 why the Topsfield Fair is awesome: Crazy Arts and Crafts
Single-hoop rugs. Quilts.  Amateur Photographs.  Demos on how to make a rug.  Diaramas made by adults.  This area was full of unexpected surprises -- including a first-place single loop rug from M's professor and mentor, the multi-talented Amy Lishko.

Boo!

Amy's is the big red one!

Non-food Reason #3 why the Topsfield Fair is awesome: a 1,660 pound pumpkin!

What a Pumpkin!

Non-food Reason #4 why the Topsfield Fair is awesome: Poultry with Bouffant Hair




Non-food Reason #5 why the Topsfield Fair is awesome: Flower Displays
People from all over the state bring their finest flowers to the fair.  While they might be beautiful when the fair begins, but the time we got there a week later, most of them were dead.

These used to be beautiful

What are you looking at?

There are many other reasons why the Fair is great, but before we bore all of you to tears, we'll turn out attention to the food.  Enjoy!

Reflections: A New Kind of Post

Both M & G have been fortunate enough to travel all over the world.  From time to time, we are going to look back and reflect on some of the trips we've had and what they mean to us now.  We hope that you enjoy these diversions. 

A Red-Tailed Hawk in Medford!

Red-Tailed Hawk Atop Grace Church

Close Up

You can see the red tail

We got a great surprise returning from our run this morning: two large and puffy Red-Tailed Hawks perched on the pinnacle of Grace Church next to our apartment!

We made great use of our new binoculars and our new Massachusetts Bird Guide to confirm the species, although G called it first.

This was especially exciting for G, who flipped out and scared the last red-tailed hawk we saw by running towards it.

What a great reminder that that slowing down and observing the world around us can yield unexpected and wonderful surprises!- 

Making Music: Honk Parade 2011

This weekend we went to the Honk Parade, which we've documented in the video below.  Since the video does a pretty good job of explaining what Honk is all about, we've decided to use this post as an opportunity to reflect on what Honk meant to us.

What struck me (Grumpus) the most about Honk was the welcoming atmosphere that surrounded the day.  It didn't matter if someone was dressed as a praying mantis, pushing for a Free Tibet or advocating for a Free Bradley Manning, everyone was comfortable with letting their quirky sides show.  I fear that, as people become increasingly concerned with the image their project through their online avatars, they will shy away from taking risks and letting their hair down in public.   It's ironic, but the reason that we keep this blog is to make sure that we continue to try new things, to go on adventures, to report on our interest in birds even if those things don't make us cool or hip.  We use a medium dedicated to projecting our carefully crafted image to the world in order to keep ourselves from living a boring, scripted life.