Purple Croissants

I think my brain exploded.

I was walking back from lunch at Beida Fujeng (the school where I teach) and I think my brain exploded.

I walked to class, but the pain melted away when I saw 88 thirsty admiring eyes glued to me. It really is a blast to teach these kids - out of the 440 students that Matt and I teach every week, only 8 are behavior issues, but thanks to St. Marcus, it's nothing a little love and logic can't handle. I don't know if I told you this, but right now Matt and I are team-teaching 10 classes a week. It's the gravy-est schedule this side of the Yangtze ... but I'm not going to argue. On our first week of teaching, two of the classes applauded as we walked in. As if being white, tall, and blond elicits an applause - kind of reverse racism. Kids still are taking videos with their phones of us after classes, snapping pictures, I even signed an autograph the other day. Teaching celebrities I guess.

Anyway, I made it through class. But on the bike ride home I couldn't tell my legs to move. I was pedaling slower than a weary corpse. I think I either blinked too long or blacked out momentarily because I may or may not have crashed / skimmed into a van. But I just flashed him a gringo smile and a due bu chi (I'm sorry), and he waved me away like an annoying mosquito. Well, after a two hour nap I wondered around like a zombie with a big schnoz, then proceeded to sleep from 9:50pm to 11:47am. I believe that's a Ricke record. I woke up walked to the bathroom, looked into the mirror and gazed into myself. I looked old. I looked weary. Purple croissants were underneath my eyes. It seemed as though my mammoth sleep has healed yet aged me.

But I think my brain has picked up the shrapnel and I'm glued together again. I just got done watching Gladiator with Tony and Tommy - two basketball friends. Hopefully Russell Crowe can be the fullback for the Word.

- m -

The Stone Snake

It began with basketball...

I was playing ball on the courts of the University just across the street, marveling at China: the country infatuated with basketball, the NBA, and Kobe. There are 30 hoops at this court in Beijing and there are always 8 or more guys to a hoop, everyday. China is a basketball factory. But thankfully for me, the average height is at my nipples, so I have a slight rebounding advantage. Anyway, I joined some guys and made friends. It is so easy to make friends here in China, it's almost like reverse racism - because I'm tall and white, therefore I'm cool - this theory is flawed however. But, I can use this reverse racism to make friends and offer them a little Water. (It is so much more fun and effective to do outreach hoop to hoop instead of door to door...) So I end up making friends with these two guys named Tony and Larry. We agree to meet the next day for ball then dinner. Needless to say, I'm rather pumped to have made my first Chinese friends. Finally doing what I've only imagined for countless hours.

So we meet the next day, hoop it up, then head to a restaurant in an aura of stink and sweat and smiles. We end up eating at a pretty schnazzy place where the specialty is hot pot: a traditional way of eating where there is a copper cauldron with boiling water within. One grabs veggies and thinly sliced pieces of lamb with chopsticks and drops the raw cargo into the boiling water. Wait till it is cooked, fetch your food and dip it into a glorious sesame paste and gobble with pleasure. It was fantastic; not only a culinary adventure but also a cultural experience. The hot pot, a community cooker where everyone eats from the common copper cauldron is the image of the Chinese mentality of we over me, community over individuality. I guess you can analyze people’s values by how they eat.

What I do know for certain is that I love to eat. I think I could eat for 24 hours straight – nothing fast, but a slow methodical motion of spooning Blueberry Morning bathed in 2% milk to my mouth. This is my idea of heaven…

Enough about food (I sound like Gaffigan).

As we’re eating Werner comments, “I think we’re going to the Great Wall tomorrow.” (We have a really gravy teaching schedule right now – only 10 hours a week and no class on Thursdays. Gravy indeed.) Not 1.36 seconds after Werner says this when Larry responds, “I can take you there. I’ll borrow my mom’s car. I don’t have anything to do tomorrow. Let’s go.” I’m speechless. We’ve bonded as friends for maybe a total of 4.7 hours and he’s offering to borrow his mom’s car and take two gringos to a place he’s been twice before. That is mind-boggling friendship right there. (What Larry didn’t tell us is that he lied to his mom. She made him promise that he wouldn’t drive on the highways, so he told her we were just driving around Beijing.) So Werner and I make sure this is no fluke, but Larry is no fluke-er. So we climbed into his mom’s car the next morning at 10:49 with his friend Ted in the passenger seat (we’ve never met, but he’s wearing a sweet Abraham Lincoln shirt – which is a proven way to make a great first impression) and Larry behind the wheel. And off we go to explore the Great Wall.

Before we can glimpse at greatness we must first eat it. Larry has been raving about this fish found northeast of Beijing, so we stop for lunch and gorge ourselves on the most delicious vittles this side of the Mississippi: trout (spicy enough to make you respect it, but not to the point of tears), chicken feet, and other fascinating dishes that sound like a stifled sneeze. Larry and Ted paid despite our protests. Eastern hospitality…

As the climb out of the car and begin our ascent to the wall I realize, “I’m in China. I’m about to see something I’ve only read about or seen in a book or on a screen.” This is where legendry is unveiled before mortal eyes. So as we climb these stairs I spot a stony snake along the teeth of the mountain; an ancient stone vertebrae lining the ridge – there is no beginning and no end. It is.

We reach the Wall.

No more pictures or postcards. This is it. The most famous structure built by a thousand nameless men a thousand years ago who are now dust, ordered by a majestically proud Emperor now dust, conquered my Mongol warriors now dust, and here we stand – 21^st century men inhaling greatness that is quickly becoming dust now shrouded in smog.

The Larry tells us that this section of the Wall was restored in 1998ish, so it’s not original. It was one of those countless times in this earthly trek when you realize that the truth is merely a lie with makeup on; but it’s still kind of cool to experience the lie. This is the human experience: exploring the lies until the Truth is revealed.

We hiked for about two hours, Ted and Larry being as patient as can be as the gringos are snapping pictures and gawking like … gringos.

The crumbling stone snake – ruler of these hills is being reclaimed by these hills. The original wall was in the distance, I could see it overgrown by trees and bushes – being conquered not my Mongol invaders but Nature’s green warriors. It was kind of a cool sight: man, try as you will, but nothing lasts. Not even this legendary masterpiece, the green army is on the move.

We slid down from the Wall. There is a silver slide that twists and turns downhill in ear-popping fashion. It was a blast. Definitely the most fun I ever had descending from the Great Wall.

True Story.

- m -

Chopstick Tutorial

Here is a chopstick tutorial - coming to you from the whitest dude this side of the Yangtze.

Faces...

Faces

They’re all different.

The ones I thought all looked the same.

How wrong I was.

Faces

They all tell a story.

A story I want to read.

A story they can’t help but tell.

Faces

There’s hurt in that face.

There’s joy in that one.

There’s loneliness in that hollow smile.

There’s love in those glittering eyes.

Faces

I can tell your craving something more.

Maybe, just maybe I could tell you a story.

It begins like this, “It is finished.”

A Tale of Two Turtles

Hear now a tale of triumph, tragedy, and one man’s quest for redemption.

It was a smoggy day in early September. Two shaggy-haired teachers were biking home from a day of speaking slowly to students in red and white uniforms when they suddenly hit the brakes simultaneously. Both men were staring at a turtle vendor – whose shelled vendees were the size of golf balls. Their eyes locked. The pet-owning fire was lit and not easily doused. The two foreigners shelled out 16 qui ($2.13) for these two turtles – quite a steal for two miniature domestic dinosaurs and not to mention to join the elite circle of pet owners.

The two shaggy-haired men mounted their rusty bikes, giddy as Scandanavian school girls to be freshly minted pet owners. One with a nose exclaimed, “We own turtles.” The other replied in a high-pitched squeak, “Yeah…” And so the two pedaled home with all due haste. Their hamstrings and quads and calves had a conference and decided they were in pain, but the boys kept motoring home – weaving in and out of traffic, skimming by taxis and grandmas, riding like rebels (such weaving hasn’t been seen since Betsy Ross held a thimble). But then it came…

Pssssssshhhhhhhhh.

The man with the nose exclaimed, “She blew!” The front tire had enough of this biking nonsense, so it rebelled in an explosive way. The turtles were undoubtedly in shock after being jostled to and fro in the basket of the boy’s bike as if they were in some sort of washing machine with wheels. The man with the nose handed the green cargo to the man in khakis. The man with the nose said, “I’ll be at the house in a bit, just gonna get this tire fixed.” The man in khakis nodded.

[47 minutes later]

In a freshly plump tire the man with the nose biked back to the Cloister (the nickname for “the House”) in a flurry, wanting to reunite with his turtle who was depending on him for survival. The shaggy haired gringo jiggled the lock on the Cloister’s door, took off his shoes, slipped on his slippers, and slid to the Bridal Suite (nickname for his room) to find the man in khakis on his hands and knees searching for something under the bed. The man on the floor turns around and says, “Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that your turtle is right there. The bad news is that mine is somewhere.” The man with the nose prods, “What happened?” The man on the ground replies in defense, “Well, they had a bumpy ride and were in a coma so I thought they could use a little freedom. I put them on the floor then fell asleep.”

And so for the next hour and 47 minutes the two friends searched in every crevice within the Cloister but to no avail. The rogue turtle is still loose, savoring his freedom…

True Story.

P.S. – The loyal turtle’s name is Johnny Yuma.

P.P.S. – Shell Silverstein wrote the song, A Boy Named Sue. Johnny Cash sang that song as well as the ballad of Johnny Yuma. The loyal turtle has a shell.

A New Home...

Beijing.

The city of the colorless sky.

The city of talented nappers.

The city where there's a cube of water and nest too big for Big Bird.

The same city that has the same number of black Audies as little men on bikes with bulging calves hauling small houses of trash.

The city that sells eggs in a plastic bag.

The city famous for chuar dripping with deliciousness.

The city whose kung pau chicken would put hair on Nancy Pelosi’s chest.

The city quick to smile after the blonde foreigner belches, “ni hau?”

The city that doesn’t honk out of annoyance but care.

The city where biking was in before it was green.

The city that sells turtles for $1.13.

The city of 20 million faces, 20 million stories, 20 million souls.

Beijing, a new home.

Nintendo Boxers...

Howdy from Beijing!

What a place: biking that emits more adrenaline than Six Flags, food worth cutting off an appendage for, a sea of humanity thirsty for the Word. Only one week here, but I am already pretty calloused to people gawking at "the big gringo." It's starting to feel less exotic and more like "home."

Right now my stomach is trying to tame some kung pao chicken (actually more pao than kung), but I thought I would share the highlight of my day with you before I hit the proverbial sack.

Today, Matt (roommate / amazing friend) and I didn't have to teach (the school still doesn't know our schedule; on Wednesday we arrived and were told, "You're teaching in 10 minutes!" But that's China - expect the unexpected) so we meandered down to the Olympic acreage to be tourists and see the Bird's Nest and Water Cube. I still prefer the natural beauty of Yosemite, but these structures are truly awesome. Anyway, we are wandering around the Water Cube and spot on the sign: Swimming - 50 qui (divide by 7). Matt and I make eye contact, grin, and shout, "Giddiup." So we part with the cabbage and enter the Water Cube, giddy as Scandinavian schoolgirls at the thought of swimming in the same pool as Michael Phelps. We find out we won't be swimming in the grandiose pool, but the warm up pool.

Doesn't matter...

We find out we have to buy swim caps.

Doesn't matter...

We find out we didn't bring swimming suits.

Doesn't matter...

So we strip down to our boxers and enter the pool area with an air less than debonair. Then descend the ladder into the pool - two Midwestern, milk-drinking, Packer-loving, ripe-smelling kids in their boxers swimming in the Water Cube. True Story.

I love you all and think of you more often now that I'm a world away.

His Love. Your brother.
- m -