It just started pouring. I'm going to miss this weather.
Moments like these, when I feel truly aware of what's going on around me, are really the only souvenirs I take from places, times, and people. It's become a matter of some concern for me - memories fade, and in my crusade against sentimentalism I may not be holding onto enough important things in my life. These moments pass, and I fear I don't carve enough nicks and crevices into my life to really get my hands around it and hold on. Everything I hold dear is so insubstantial, my connection with my own life and experience so tenuous. Ideas and perceptions, every moment just passing through. A contemplative life like this, with few attachments, can have its uses, I suppose. Sometimes I think shedding as much human artifice as possible and completely immersing oneself in the sensation of being is as sincere and noble a life as anyone could possibly hope for - an experience closest to the truth of our human condition. Life is an exercise in being, but we can easily forget this and have our lives, our existence, be a means to some other end. It's all a means of comfort I suppose, since dwelling on the abyss too long is dangerous. But too often I have to ask myself "How did I get here? Where did the time go", and sometimes simple recollection isn't enough to make it feel substantial, like it had actually happened.
It's really raining now, and the thunder's started.
I'd like someone to hold on to.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
China, Part 1
Hey friends, I want to write something. Probably should be sleeping, but what the hell - can't always do the smart thing. Shouldn't always do the smart thing. That's strangely reassuring.
I've once again run into the problem of having a lot to say and not knowing where to start. It's too bad my last post was so hastily written and posted, despite how genuine it was at the time. The truth is that there are glaring similarities between this big city and the other big cities I've been to in the West. I think we can chalk that one up to globalization and "modernity". But the truth is that there are a multitude of differences, and I've found many of them to be extremely endearing. There's a kind of energy here I don't come across often in other places, the willingness to simply be out in the street and bustling around without necessarily having a place to go. Even more than New York or especially Los Angeles, there are always people out on the street. Morning, noon, and night I hear voices coming up from the street, and, every once in a while, music played by a passing vendor. Of course, the sounds of car horns reach me just as easily, and from what I can tell Beijingers all love their car horns. I suppose it goes in tandem with the fact that cars, bikes, and pedestrians do whatever they want on the road whenenever they feel like it, damn the torpedos. It's a kind of sincere self interest which has been at times both endearing and irritating: people generally handle their business with not a whole lot of concern for what else is going on, possibly as a result of having to constantly contend with many many other people. It could be taken as impolite, but even since I've been here I've come to appreciate the necessity of being able to drown other people out for a while. And their car horns. Seriously, at least in the case of traffic everyone simultaneously tries to go where they want to go - only to find everyone else doing the same thing. Cue the horns. I'm not sure if they are surprised to be constantly confronted by this situation, or if they just like honking the horns.
Anyways.
Every few days there are thunderstorms. I'm writing this in the dark, and about once every minute a flash lights up the room. Sometimes it rains too, and I can hear it blown against the windows of my tenth floor room.
Last week was vacation week. The few plans I started to make up in my head were all unsatisfactory - nothing short of completely unscheduled travel alone would suffice, and as a result I ended up staying in Beijing for lack of train tickets and a nod toward my safety. It certainly wasn't a waste, since I got to see many different parts of the city on my own, which I find to be the most fulfilling part of traveling anyways. I would much rather try to experience some approximation of ordinary life in a place rather than seeing all the famous sites. Maybe I simply lack the imagination, but I'm hard pressed to find a lot of meaning from monuments or ruins, or at least not when I can't see them for all the teeming crowds in the way. I hear the Summer Palace is gorgeous, but I wouldn't really know for all the tour groups between me and the scenery. Made Disneyland look empty. But another interesting aspect of the break was that everyone else who I've been spending my time with here had left to travel, either to other parts of China or to other countries, leaving me absolutely alone for about 6 days. In that time, I did not see or speak to a single person who's name I knew, at least not in the flesh. I've never really known what that was like.
I wrote this on the tail end of it:
--
Why do I write? And what do I write? And, while I’m thinking about it, who’s even writing? Who’s the author here? Who’s the me inside all the flesh and appendages, wiggly fingers in the wind? I can’t see with bad eyes, but my mind seems so clear. My. Me. Reduce reduce reduce, looks like reproduce. How clever.
So where is the me? Oh please don’t say we’re one and the same, I would hate to agree with you, this time. You can be so obtuse.
--
Well, it's getting late. I've got more to say, so I'll write it out tomorrow.
I've once again run into the problem of having a lot to say and not knowing where to start. It's too bad my last post was so hastily written and posted, despite how genuine it was at the time. The truth is that there are glaring similarities between this big city and the other big cities I've been to in the West. I think we can chalk that one up to globalization and "modernity". But the truth is that there are a multitude of differences, and I've found many of them to be extremely endearing. There's a kind of energy here I don't come across often in other places, the willingness to simply be out in the street and bustling around without necessarily having a place to go. Even more than New York or especially Los Angeles, there are always people out on the street. Morning, noon, and night I hear voices coming up from the street, and, every once in a while, music played by a passing vendor. Of course, the sounds of car horns reach me just as easily, and from what I can tell Beijingers all love their car horns. I suppose it goes in tandem with the fact that cars, bikes, and pedestrians do whatever they want on the road whenenever they feel like it, damn the torpedos. It's a kind of sincere self interest which has been at times both endearing and irritating: people generally handle their business with not a whole lot of concern for what else is going on, possibly as a result of having to constantly contend with many many other people. It could be taken as impolite, but even since I've been here I've come to appreciate the necessity of being able to drown other people out for a while. And their car horns. Seriously, at least in the case of traffic everyone simultaneously tries to go where they want to go - only to find everyone else doing the same thing. Cue the horns. I'm not sure if they are surprised to be constantly confronted by this situation, or if they just like honking the horns.
Anyways.
Every few days there are thunderstorms. I'm writing this in the dark, and about once every minute a flash lights up the room. Sometimes it rains too, and I can hear it blown against the windows of my tenth floor room.
Last week was vacation week. The few plans I started to make up in my head were all unsatisfactory - nothing short of completely unscheduled travel alone would suffice, and as a result I ended up staying in Beijing for lack of train tickets and a nod toward my safety. It certainly wasn't a waste, since I got to see many different parts of the city on my own, which I find to be the most fulfilling part of traveling anyways. I would much rather try to experience some approximation of ordinary life in a place rather than seeing all the famous sites. Maybe I simply lack the imagination, but I'm hard pressed to find a lot of meaning from monuments or ruins, or at least not when I can't see them for all the teeming crowds in the way. I hear the Summer Palace is gorgeous, but I wouldn't really know for all the tour groups between me and the scenery. Made Disneyland look empty. But another interesting aspect of the break was that everyone else who I've been spending my time with here had left to travel, either to other parts of China or to other countries, leaving me absolutely alone for about 6 days. In that time, I did not see or speak to a single person who's name I knew, at least not in the flesh. I've never really known what that was like.
I wrote this on the tail end of it:
--
Why do I write? And what do I write? And, while I’m thinking about it, who’s even writing? Who’s the author here? Who’s the me inside all the flesh and appendages, wiggly fingers in the wind? I can’t see with bad eyes, but my mind seems so clear. My. Me. Reduce reduce reduce, looks like reproduce. How clever.
So where is the me? Oh please don’t say we’re one and the same, I would hate to agree with you, this time. You can be so obtuse.
--
Well, it's getting late. I've got more to say, so I'll write it out tomorrow.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Vitriol Breaks the Silence
I just want to be a fucking artist.
I mean, here I am, with all this raw feeling, pure stinging emotion, boiling up from every glance and thought, driving me day and night, moment to moment from comfort toward something...other, and I still can’t come up with a poetic, thought provoking quotable to save my life. Hell, I’ve crossed the whole fucking world, gone from big fish in little pond to tiny little hors d’oeuvre in the People’s Republic, and all I’ve got is this stupid money with Mao’s face on it to show for it. Not like it’s any different from the green backs I’m used to. IT BUYS BEER JUST AS WELL, LET ME TELL YOU. But GOD DAMN if these people aren’t trying their damndest to be just like us and every other western ORIFICE of youth culture. Ha. I’ve crossed half the world only to show up at another damn bar and club scene, imagine my surprise if you please. And it’s only those little girls, those three little girls who came to tell me wo de yanjing hen piaoliang that keeps me from condemning everything that’s ever touched the West, including this whole damn country. I guess people my age are idiots no matter where you go.
Edit: So this was written in about...a minute several nights ago after I'd come back from a rather lonely night drinking in a particularly Western oriented district of the city...so the vitriol might have been a bit over the top. While I stand by what I said, and it's certainly a perspective that's been troubling me since I've gotten here, it's not the whole story. That story would take much longer to tell, and now that I've got unimpeded access to my blog, I'll get around to telling it soon.
I mean, here I am, with all this raw feeling, pure stinging emotion, boiling up from every glance and thought, driving me day and night, moment to moment from comfort toward something...other, and I still can’t come up with a poetic, thought provoking quotable to save my life. Hell, I’ve crossed the whole fucking world, gone from big fish in little pond to tiny little hors d’oeuvre in the People’s Republic, and all I’ve got is this stupid money with Mao’s face on it to show for it. Not like it’s any different from the green backs I’m used to. IT BUYS BEER JUST AS WELL, LET ME TELL YOU. But GOD DAMN if these people aren’t trying their damndest to be just like us and every other western ORIFICE of youth culture. Ha. I’ve crossed half the world only to show up at another damn bar and club scene, imagine my surprise if you please. And it’s only those little girls, those three little girls who came to tell me wo de yanjing hen piaoliang that keeps me from condemning everything that’s ever touched the West, including this whole damn country. I guess people my age are idiots no matter where you go.
Edit: So this was written in about...a minute several nights ago after I'd come back from a rather lonely night drinking in a particularly Western oriented district of the city...so the vitriol might have been a bit over the top. While I stand by what I said, and it's certainly a perspective that's been troubling me since I've gotten here, it's not the whole story. That story would take much longer to tell, and now that I've got unimpeded access to my blog, I'll get around to telling it soon.
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