Life now in China is taking a turn for the surreal. I think now that I have settled in life seems more normal to me though I know it's not. I spend an enormous amount of time digging though the dictionary looking for words to string together to try and communicate my wants and needs. I always seem to come up a bit short. People look at me as if to say what? Did you say you want to sleep with fish? Or, this is a bowl of rice not a yaks hooves...But... I am determined to speak. That's the fun of it all. I do end up meeting wonderful people who are very kind and patient. They are more than gracious to try and get me to pronounce whatever I am saying correctly. So on one hand life has a normalcy to it if I keep to myself. Allow myself to delve into the world and anything could happen. The other day I was on the bus on my way downtown. I chose to plug into my little I pod and zone out the madness of bus 105 on a Sunday afternoon. Blues, Jazz, mixed with a touch of old Rock and Roll, normal. Having everyone stare at me and giggle or sneer is surreal. Expats say, get used to it, it happens all the time. I am here now what, six weeks and it still unnerves me. Though I am getting used to public transportation here. Cheap and always on time. The only indignity is more often than not you must share your space with about 200 other people packed into this rolling sardine can. They are also looking for some normalcy as they stare at me to kill time. In some kind of strange way it is one of life's little pleasures. Those of us who drive everywhere miss this moment of humanity. It is grounding. There is a serenity about how everyone allows everyone to be. In a car you don't even know if anyone is alive. Not that you would care. Isolation has it's perks too. But you end up missing little moments like the nurse that gives up her seat to help an elderly woman sit there. Or as the rain is coming down a woman paralyzed from the waist down is piggy backed on her husband as they try to board the bus crammed with people. Rushing to the back door of the bus, the doors shut on them denying them refuge from the rain. He turns away from the bus with his wife still clinging to him with a puzzled look on his face streamed with rain.
China is a puzzle. It is not all it seems to be. Underneath all the wealth and affluence there is the grit and the grind that most people experience day to day. Little kindnesses mean everything. That's just the way it is tonight, December 15th 2009.