Hangin' with Neil

An entry about my meeting and hanging out with Neil Halstead of Slowdive one night in China. A definite highlight in my life.

http://www.douban.com/note/68471525/

Text Messaging in China

Over the course of the last year, text messaging has taken over my social life. In America, we have Facebook, email, IM, Twitter, and of course the good ol' telephone. In China text messaging is King.  I'd say I average around 10 text messages a day and maybe 1 actual voice call per day. Text message kills two birds with one stone: 1. they are cheap 2. they are culturally convenient ways to communicate indirectly.  In the course of 12 months I've received some very memorable, emotional, strange text messages over the year. I'll share some of them, leaving the context for you to figure out. All are from native Chinese people, in the original language unless otherwise noted. I wish my phone had more memory so I had saved more.

'i got a good news for you,apple says your are nice and she want to take to you more. come on my friend!'

'sweet!and then we can have a family diner'

'Hope u r fine uncle, u know Yuki is always by ur side :)'

'fuck it, she doesnt deserve u'

'you style,I like %-)'

'uncle,we both wil live life easier in 2010,trust me'

'that's ok my brother.just take it easy.remmber that i love you as my brother!'

'The sun came out for you again'- American friend

'UNCLE FIGHTING!!!!'

'wow! u r a fucking star! 牛逼‘ - the last chinese term pronounced 'niu3 bi1' literally means "cow pussy". It translates to 'fucking awesome!'

'when will u take me to see ladyboys! ;)'

'Eliot i am gone !see you in wintre you are my best teacher in my life!wish you have a wonderful life you said you dont like usa life so you came to china seeyou'

Silence.

Jesus. The grand Chinese firewall took me out for a few months there. It got good enough where the old methods of proxy server circumventing it just didn't work anymore...and the only way for reliable connection is to pay, and I'm too cheap for that. Luckily today I finally found a more code-y hack online that seems to work. Which leads me to today's topic.

For those of you not in the know, China has the most sophisticated Internet censoring system in the world. Social networking sites and any others deemed harmful to state security are blocked. But the Internet is just what we hear about in the West; the actual deletion and distortion of information is much more
pervasive and sinister than that. Local people tell me often that they don't watch TV at all. Real news is covered up, when it embarasses the government. A student of mine who happens to be a police officer told me about a local murder of a young girl by her step mother and was then stuffed in a refridgerator where her body was discovered. Sadly she said this would certainly never be reported. China's grand myth of the Harmonious Society would be called in question. And that doesn't include all the other even more damning news stories that point the finger at government itself. But this topic has been covered a million times before mostly by Western journalists to the point of cliche. I don't want to repeat.  I want to address the issue from a different angle: culturally.

In my view, the real issue is one of how Chinese people deal with uncomfortable topics and problems. In the West, the cultural grounding is to talk about them and try to be honest about the objective facts, and then through that to come to a decision on what is the correct way to handle this issue. Questioning of authority is encouraged. Everyone's voice is heard even if some shrill voices drown out the good of the masses (can any reasonable person still make the argument that the American government system is good at getting things done?). In China, the approach is the exact opposite. In my own personal family, authority was unquestionable. The elders were always right...we were taught to respect our past generations even when they were obviously wrong or just plain ignorant. Small lies made to cover up an uncomfortable truth become larger lies which become historical truth. This particular habit I see again and again everywhere in my life. To protect someone's "face" we must soften the truth or just plain not talk about it.  I see this habit in myself...one that both infuriates me but one that I am strangely not ready to do away completely with. This kind of habit of lies and silence leads to much larger tangible disconnects. My foreign colleagues will often comment that China is all about the surface...the presentation is valued more than the intent. For example, most of the white girls I know here have worked as spokesperson models at some point. Mostly they're asked to go to some shopping mall opening out in the boonies to give face to the local owners who can gain face by hiring white girls to smile while MCs shout into microphones, ribbons are cut. Juxtipose that with local farmers dressed in Mao suits gawking and smoking, deformed beggers begging just within sight. It's jarring.

This topic is too big and grand to really address and I'm saddened that I do not have the time nor words to explain it properly. I am not judging China. But I do want to describe a the web of links that I do see in China: where lies, censorship, complacency, unquestioning nationalism, materialism, history, party line, family dynamics all drink from the same cultural well. Finally I want to say that I come from this looking at my own life and own history being Chinese. We are taught to lie, to cover up, then gradually we start making our own and finally we start believing our own lies. This is the most insidious part of distorting truth.

When you carefully look at something small, it grows until you have a universe.

The Guitar

Sleepless in Hong Kong, but I don’t want to write about my troubles. I’m always thinking about my problems, today I want to write about something that brings my joy in my life.

Th Guitar.

Ever since I’ve been 18, the guitar has become an obsession for me, albeit a secret one. I don’t know why exactly, but I never felt totally comfortable letting people know I love playing guitar until just the last few years. But that’s not really the point. The point is guitars are my best friends. Better than people most times. I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing them, sleeping with them, obsessing over them, buying stuff for them, selling them, thinking about the various personalities of each, thinking about fingers on strings, amp tones, on and on.  There’s a fucking universe in there.

Guitarists are a moody, pompous lot as I heard a guitar hero of mine Johnny Marr say yesterday. Yes, we think we are god’s gifts and everyone else are idiots in the band. We are the superego of the band, the director and visionary. The singer is merely the lead actor. The bass player and drummer are the lighting guy and boom guy respectively. But guitars are wonderful creations that even the most musically uneducated can really appreciate. The power, the emotion, the release, the god like power to create. And we as guitar players have masted the magical ways to not only tame but also direct this power on others. I have a picture in my head of me as Gandolf holding an electric guitar swaying hordes of orcs and hot women with the reverb drenched notes from my fingers. No body ever cries during a bass solo.

As with any art form, after the initial techniques are mastered, the artists personality eventually reveals itself. I’ve never been a fast, skilled player - you won’t find me shredding 16th notes to Swedish guitar prodigies or comping Jazz standards. But in my simple way I can make that guitar sound like other worlds by painting shades of colors and mood. Guitar is easy to play at a basic level, and even gain some flashy techniques but hard to become expressive at beyond copying other’s styles. That’s why there are so many guitarists skilled guitarists that all sound alike. Most players end up getting stuck sounding like Hendrix, Van Halen, etc. and never move beyond that. All I know, is sometimes when the mood is right, God feels like he is in me playing the notes themselves. And so it’s really cool to see how far I’ve come. Guitar playing is a constant companion in my life that reveals itself deeper and deeper each year and I learn more about myself as I deepen on the instrument. 

In China, I’ve only had an acoustic guitar so I’ve been forced to play only non-amplified guitar which I wasn’t too fond of all these years. But I started to enjoy it more. The simplicity of only having one sound and also the richness that can come from that. I’ve also started to sing more, because no one ever knows the words to fucking songs that THEY themselves ask you to sing. Most people are musically unsavvy. They like what they like and don’t understand why you can’t play their favorite sugary R&B Chinese pop song without the benefit of the rest of the band and electronics on that beat up acoustic guitar at their house. And they only want to hear songs they already know. Particularly in China, my top 3 English language requests are:

Hotel California - The Eagles
Take Me Country Road - John Denver
Yesterday Once More - The Carpenters

This validates my theory that Chinese music al taste is stuck in the 70s. The bad sapply ballad seventies. Not the gods of rock Led Zeppelin stadium rock version. Anyway, I’ve been forced to swallow my pride and play some cheesy songs in order to make friends and be a nice at social get togethers. Nobody here has heard of ‘the Smiths’ or ‘the Cure’. They just want to hear Yesterday Once More dammit. And how about that cool Jay Chou song? “Fucking twats!” I say behind a clenched smile before launching into some middle of the road ballad.

One bright side is that my guitar playing is really opening doors in China. It’s an hugely pleasurable experience to be at a party talking to a hot girl who thinks she’s out of your league, then pick up the guitar and sing a few songs with the folks, and next thing her eyes and body language say it all - asking for you to teach her with doey eyes. What does this say about women? I dunno. Now I haven’t gotten lucky from playing guitar quite yet, that girl at the party quickly dismissed me after one date, but still the guitar opens doors like magic. I even sang live at a folk music concert a few weeks ago. My friend Xixi invited me to see her friends play and during an intermission she prodded me to go up. I ended up playing three songs and not forgetting the lyrics. I thought singing ‘The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Under the Bridge was a good song, considering there are dozens of bridges in Chengdu and about loneliness and love of a city which was very fitting and clever of me. I even replaced lyrics to directly say Chengdu. Nobody got it. Polite applause. I got drunk after with the other musicians who were super friendly and supportive. My first gig in China. Free beer as payment.

Anyhow, I’m trying to get a band together in China now. That’s my next big project here. Watch out Chengdu.

English Teacher

When I first decided to arrive to China I vowed I would never be an English Teacher. Those two words came to symbolize everything I was cliche about a Foreigner in China; virtually every foreigner I met on my travels here had done it. Most for the easy money, plying the one huge advantage they have over the locals. I met a Polish girl in Qingdao who taught English to young children at a private school. I asked her whether the kids know she is not an American, as her strong accent was clearly not of the English speaking world. She sheepishly replied that the school told the kids and their parents that she was an American..hey just look at her white face and blue eyes! Then she proceeded to ask me an English grammar point. Jesus. I wanted none of that.

A few weeks later, at a near bottom low emotional point I decided to become an English teacher, going against all my previous dogged preconception because I knew I needed to do something in China to give me a sense of purpose and routine. Drifting from city to city, friends come and go, lack of family, it was causing my brain to cave on itself. My girlfriend Parisa at the time, was growing more concerned at my mood swings and depressive episodes. I didn't know what I would do, but I knew I had to do something or spiral down. On second thought, I concluded, being a English teacher would allow me to meet many many Chinese people, and thereby understand China on a different level. I would get paid to talk, something that I'm terribly good at naturally, and it was a perfect opportunity to work on that. Moreover the money and flexibility are quite excellent by Chinese standards. It really was a no lose proposition. I left for Chengdu to have it a go.

I quickly called local schools. Most were friendly and excited over the phone. However most never called me back. Why? Perhaps because I had made it a point to tell them up front that I was an American Born Chinese, and not surprise them at the interview them with my big yellow Chinese looking face. I knew that a lot of these schools prefer Aryan, young, blond looking candidates, and I didn't want to waste my time showing up to interviews where my being Chinese was going to be a problem. One hiring manager who was eager to meet me initially until I told him my ethnicity, apologetically told me over the phone "I'm so sorry. We are only looking for 外教. （Foreign Teachers)" Go fuck yourself I thought. But underneath the resentment I understand. Pretend you are a 45 year old Chinese parent who doesn't speak any English and is shelling out $2000 for your kid. If you see the Polish blond girl in one corner, and me in the other you're going to think her white skin grants her a level of credibility that you can see.

But rationale be damned, I came all the way to China to be discriminated for being Chinese by Chinese people.

Luckily, I met some nice folks at Meten School who overlooked the color of my skin and hired me anyway as a part time teacher: $15 an hour, no training, wear a tie, see you tomorrow!

After some initial bumps, I quickly realized I had an aptitude for teaching English. My brain is always working and teaching English is a good outlet for my mind on speed. I resolved to be the best English teacher at the school to prove that a Chinese American can teach better than all the white guys at the school (btw the preponderance of white guys in China makes me believe that China is some sex playland for them, but that's a whole other post).

The students come in all ages and personalities, but are all generally respectful as teachers are given an automatic high level of respect here. I've taught 10 year old girls so sweet and innocent, that I felt truly angered that they should even be sitting in class talking about the topic of globalization. Shouldn't they be at the park or playing with their friends on a nice Summer day?! Childhoods are short in China. The machine will grind you up no matter if you are rich or poor. The only way to succeed is to study harder, to score higher they are taught. The gas pedal doesn't ease up. Ever. Mostly in my conversations, I sense a resignation and sadness amongst the young people. The more introverted thoughtful ones know what lies ahead, hope for something different, but hope is painful if cannot be realized, so they trudge along and forget about it.

My favorite student is Marayan, a 18 year old Hui (Muslim) ethnic student who is from a rich background, but despite that he rails against the Chinese government and the Sheep he calls Chinese people. One time, we were talking about Japan, a topic I often bring up to gauge my students, and he asked me a question.

"Do you know why Chinese people hate the Japanese?

I fidgeted, calculating the exact correct answer I should give as a teacher, and the reasons I knew to be the truth. "History." I answered. I wasn't lying, but I wanted to see what he wanted to say.

"No teacher. Because we need someone to hate."

I let out a huge laugh before I could stop myself. "Now, there is a student I like!" I thought to myself.


Most of my native English speaking colleagues are nice with their own reasons for being in China. There's Jacob, the 23 year old from Virginia who fell in love with a Sichuanese girl and followed her home. There's Jayden, a 20 year old Aussie, who's good looking enough to be a model in China and the heart-throb at school. There's Melo, a Botswanian woman who likes hang out at the local reggae bar on her off hours and smoke the regular spliff. Mostly we sit around the foreigner teacher office bitching as a sort of way of social bonding. "Man whoever the hell came up with 'the History of Jewelry' as a lesson topic should be forced to sit through it for all eternity."

But mostly, I hang with my Chinese coworkers who are sweet interesting people. We eat dinner, go drinking, gossip. I feel a level of closeness that I didn't in my American work life. They are my windows into young Chinese people. I am one of them but not. That pretty much sums up my life in China actually. In the middle in the Middle Kingdom.

Chengdu

I haven't posted in 5 months due to the Chinese Gov's attempt to stifle blogging, social networking of any kind due to the recent events in Western China. Finally I found a way to bypass the firewall.

What has happened since?

I got the hell out of Qingdao. That place really got my down.
I moved to Shanghai, to be with my girlfriend, stayed there lost for a month and broke up with her, not knowing what I would do next.
I came to Chengdu to find a new city, a new job, new apartment, new friends, a new life...
I work as an English Teacher at a large English school. The best part are my coworkers and meeting the ocassional brilliant and open minded Chinese student who wants to talk politics and spar. I have taken to being subversive. I bring up topics such as Japan to my students to see how far I can push their molded-by-propaganda minds.
I climbed Emeishan with my friend Thinh. No more fucking Chinese mountains again. 2 days of hiking straight up, with rain, monkeys, stairs that would never end, thin air. That said, I'm glad I did it. Now let's never do it again.
What they say about Chengdu is true - a beautiful relaxed city with even more beautiful women. They say places near rivers breed beautiful women and mountains breed handsome men. I literally live next to a river. Bodes well.
The food here is way too oily and spicy. Actually the spice I can handle. It's ubiquitous and I barely notice it's presence. The oiliness is over the top though. If only we could convert cars to run on all the chili laced crimson oil from Sichuan. Then we would solve global warming.

Ok going to eat some Kung Pao Chicken for dinner now. Seriously.

Random Encounters

So far my experience in Qingdao has been mostly boredom, frustration, and loneliness punctuated by random but wonderful experiences that make it all worthwhile.

I started hanging around with David, a really nice German guy in my Chinese class who is known for being hit in the head with a beer bottle by a Russian guy in a bar. That's another story...David then asks me if I am interested in meeting his German friend Maren who wants to find a English speaking language partner for her coworker. I say, "Yeah, sure thing." without much interest to be honest. Next day we arrange to meet up and I hit it off with Maren and her Chinese friend Michelle. Michelle met Maren by chance on a bus a week before. Maren and Michelle become my weekend friends because they satisfy

Elliott's New Criteria for Friendship:

1. Smart.
2. Kind.
3. Not full of bullshit.

Next thing I know, Michelle invites us over to her hometown of Gaomi for dinner. I jump at the chance because it's one of the things I want to do most in China. We head out last weekend by train, and it's everything I hoped for: super kind parents, shy cousins, delicious food, wonderful hospitality, and incomprehensible dialect. I felt grateful and humbled to be given the chance.

But it all ends abruptly. Maren is going back to Germany next week and Michelle is going back to school in Qufu. I'm left in Qingdao now trying to see what random people will walk into my life next.

I have a feeling it will be more Germans. I seem to have good karma with them. Of all the nationalities here I get along best with them. They are smart, honest, and dark humored. I ask them about David Hasselhoff and they ask me whether all Americans are such dumbasses. It's really hard to justify electing Arnold Schwarzenegger as your Governor. Try it.

I get brownie points when I try to speak to them in German from the 4 years I took in high school. They seem very pleased that any American can speak their language. Interestingly there are very few Americans in Qingdao. I think it is because Americans are very uninteresed in China compared to the rest of the world. A shame considering the next century will be a Chinese/American one.

From my experience so far I think Chinese people understand America much better than Americans understand China. The Chinese I've met have been very candid in saying that they think America is trying to use Tibet and Taiwan as a tool to keep China divided and politically weak. At first I thought this was Chinese proproganda. But on second thought, I think they're right. Just as much as they are raised on Chinese proproganda, the West has been raised on it's own. Ok enough of my stump speech. I'm just saying, give the Tibet thing a rest. Are we giving back America to the Native Americans? I think not.