被禁止的

I like the sound of a place called "The Forbidden City."  It evokes mystery, wonder, excitement...frustration.  I'm beginning to think the whole city of Beijing is forbidden.  I'm never to go there.  Never to walk the stones of Tiananmen Square, or the halls of the imperial palace.  Beijing was to be the grand finale of year one in China last June.  I had spent weeks planning out every minute of our trip, from the steps of the Great Wall, to the Peking Duck at the end.  We were scheduled to leave June 21st.  Instead June 21st turned into a day of agonizingly packing up my belongings, searching for plane tickets home, and trying not to lose my sanity all at once.

I hesitated to try again.  Thoughts of Beijing inevitably provoke thoughts about why I didn't go the first time.  While not wanting to face those, I also don't see how I can live in China for two years and fail to see what most people place at the top of their travel lists in this country.  Since going at the end of my time in China seemed like too high of a risk for failure I resolved to add it to my winter vacation plans.  We're currently scheduled to leave in three days.

First we bought plane tickets.  Thanks to qunar.com we found plane tickets for 320 yuan, which is 11 yuan more than the 22 hour train for only a three-hour flight.  That seemed too good to be true and we snatched them up.  It turns out they were indeed too good to be true.  What you may not know is that it's illegal to go anywhere in China without your passport.  Not a problem right?  If you know me very well you probably know that I'm not very good at meeting deadlines.  So naturally I waited until the last minute to send our passports to the Indian Embassy in Beijing, to apply for our visas for that trip.  Our passports are somewhere either in India or on their way back from there right now.  We aren't sure yet.  If you aren't allowed to go anywhere without a passport, you certainly cannot board a plane sans that particular document.

Last week was mostly spent trying to solve that problem.  I called a friend, who called the airport, who told us to go downtown to the PSB's Foreign Affairs Office and we could obtain a document that would serve as a substitute.  We called the office several times throughout the week and got no answer.  So I met her early one afternoon and together we faced the first of many obstacles.  When we finally arrived at the station we were struck by the lack of life.  Nobody stirred.  Cautiously approaching the building I noticed a white sign on the wall, notifying us that the office had moved.  Where?  Right next to the South gate of our school.  At a gleaming new office building I'd admired from the bus window many times.  I complained loudly about the absence of answering machines in China that would have made this problem so much easier to solve by simply warning us on the phone that they had changed buildings.  So off we went again.  To the 6th floor to wait in line.  (That's right, people actually stood in a line!)  The lady at the counter was polite but adamant that in absolutely no circumstances were we to be given documents that could serve as a passport replacement unless we lost our passports.  We asked again.  Again we were refused.  Dejectedly I left, to call my friend and see if we could get a refund on our plane tickets.  We got 100 yuan back so it wasn't a total loss.

So I went to the train station last week and bought train tickets instead.  They still had sleeping tickets so I knew immediately it wouldn't be as bad as the last time I took that train.

For a few weeks now I've been calling the hostel I'd previously booked in Beijing to ask them if it would be possible to check in with only a copy of our passports.  I already knew the answer to that question, because if the rules are going to be enforced anywhere it is certainly Beijing.  But I couldn't give up without trying.  But every time I'd called the hostel I'd gotten this recording: "Nin hao, nin cuo bo ta de hao ma shi kong hao..."  Which basically means, "You idiot, the number you're calling doesn't exist.  Try again and this time get it right."  Or something a little nicer but equally frustrating.  But how could the number not exist?  I called it a few weeks ago to book our rooms!  I looked it up a hundred times on the internet to make sure I had it right.  I was complaining to Jessica about it when she decided to help me out.  So she looked up Wangfujing International Youth Hostel.  And found this review: "I arrived on January 13th only to find out that they were closing the next day."

Our hostel closed without warning.  That explains why I couldn't get reach anyone on the phone.  I'm just glad we discovered it before we arrived in Beijing with no place to stay.  So we quickly got out the trusty Lonely Planet and started trying to find a new hostel.  All of them, it turns out, were twice the price of the one we had booked before, naturally.  So I settled on the one I'd planned to stay in last year, called them, and found out that our Chinese friend James will not be allowed to stay in the 10-12 bed dorm room with other foreigners.  He has to get a private room, which are roughly 4 times the price.  Then I asked the all-important question:  What if we don't have our passports?  The lady declared rather forcefully that we'd better have them ore else we wouldn't get a bed.

At this point I was starting to hate my phone, and anyone on the other end of it.  But I sighed and called James and told him the situation.  He wasn't worried, and said he'd find his own hotel no problem.  Then we tried to call the Indian Embassy to get the latest update on the location of our passports.  Unfortunately it was 3:30pm.  Their office closes at 3 Monday through Friday.  So now I'm impatiently waiting until Monday morning to call them and find out whether or not our passports will arrive in Beijing soon; and therefore whether it is worth even trying to go to Beijing on Tuesday.

"If we fail to reach the Great Wall we are not men."

-Chairman Mao

不曾哭泣的年轻人是野人；不愿欢笑的老人是愚人。

   "Where to?"
I got in the back of the taxi and hoped that would be the last question he would ask me.  "北正街"
   "You speak Chinese very well.  Where are you from?"
He wasn't going to give up easily.  I decided to play along.  "No, not really.  My Chinese is very bad.  I'm from America."
   "Really.  It's great. How long have you lived here?"
"Oh well I've been here for a year and a half."
   "Did you study Chinese in America before you came?"
"No, just when I got to China."
   "Did you study by yourself or in class?"
"By myself."
   "Are you a student?"
No, and please for the love of God stop asking me questions.
"No, I'm a teacher.  I teach English at the Three Gorges University."
    "Oh...how much money do you make?"
Not enough to make it worth hearing all these questions over and over again.
   "That's not enough!  Do you think America is better or China is better?"
How can I possibly answer this question?"Um...well I love it here."
   "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"
   "How old are you?"
   "Are you married?"
    "Do you have a boyfriend?"
   "Do you want to find a Chinese husband?"
   "Do you think Chinese is harder or English is harder?"
   "Why did you come to China?"
   "Do you like Chinese food?"

By the time I arrive at my destination there is the distinct feeling that this taxi driver knows me better than my own mother.  I'll go ahead and confess, I get annoyed.  Almost every time.  It's the same questions over and over again, with a different driver.  But along the way I started to question my reluctance to make small talk with a stranger.  Why does it annoy me that he is interested in my life?

If I had to choose one defining characteristic of Chinese culture, I'd be compelled to highlight their hospitality.  Guests are highly honored and respected here.  And that includes guests in their country.  We may be "lao wai", those pesky old foreigners who come to China, but we are guests in their land and therefore are treated with utmost kindness.  It's ironic to me that they seem to intuitively know that living in a strange land is difficult, without ever having tried it--so the people we meet seem to go out of their way to make us comfortable.  In China, where it's a lot harder for a college graduate to get a decent job than it is in the States, nobody accuses me of job stealing by coming over here.  They don't tell me to get back on the boat.  Nobody gets mad at me for not learning Chinese, in fact they act blown away by my ability to say two words in their language.  People everywhere are eager to help me in my native language instead of grouchily declaring that I ought to learn Chinese.  So taxi drivers ask me too many questions as a way of showing their friendliness.  Next time I start to get frustrated that he won't leave me alone, I'll try to remember the alternative.

"The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool."

-孔子(Confucius)

今天的下雪，漂亮的水

Beauty fell from the sky today.  It came in the form of ice, perfectly sculpted into millions of crystals.  Water, so cold it became solid, so thin it became soft.  Velvety art forms brushing my cheeks, each one as they made their descent.  One piled on top of the other, slowly covering the old, dirty earth and changing it into something new.  I watched it happen.  This world transformed before my eyes.  For a short time it hid all the impurities, making creation seem perfect once more.

I felt the renewal inside.  The snow was a physical embodiment of something deeper.  For too long now I've been feigning interest in the world.  Hoping that somehow all this pretending would fool even me, and I'd feel fire again, or passion, or excitement, something besides pain.  As the holidays fade into the past I'm starting to feel the possibility of that happening.  I've been able to focus on something besides my own hurt.  It may be short-lived or permanent, only time will tell but a change is here.  And I'm ready.

Snow covers over the filth, every contamination that shouldn't be there.  For a time, everything is new, like it was intended to be.  A friend of ours decided this week that he wanted his life to be that way.  So he went under the water, and washed away all of his dirt.  He's beginning again.  We've got a new family member.  And he's got a new life.  And now, my smile is real.

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes

Silver white winters that melt into springs

These are a few of my favorite things