Chengdu and Kangding Chistmases

I just had my first Christmas away from Home. As a child and throughout all of high school we generally would have Christmas at our house; the first sibling to wake up would then wake up everybody else and we would have a nice time of ripping wrapping paper, taking pictures, and finding, or not finding, what we were looking for. Being from a family of five children, there was generally at least one child who had very high and unmet expectations each Christmas. Sometimes it was me, sometimes it was Jim or John or Kate or Joe. This child would want a present which is great, sometimes something ineffable in its greatness, and would think "Under all of that wrapping there has got to be what I am looking for." And, despite the best motivations and Santa's best efforts, this child would not find their expectations under the tree.

This hopeful child would open his or her first present and their heart would sink a little bit. An Etch a Sketch? Really? No matter, that was a small present. There are plenty of other, bigger, nicer, shinier presents tagged with my name under that tree. I'm sure I'll find it by the end of the morning! After all wrappers had been unwrapped and all ties untied, this wretched child would sit there with a small hole in the heart. Different people react differently to this feeling; the more childish would turn sour, make a scene, and end up in their room shortly afterward. The slightly more mature would bury the feeling, smile, and say thank you for all of the presents. Very seldom would the disappointed child seek the source of their disappointment.

It is interesting to reflect on such experiences now that I have had one of my first Christmases missing such sentiments. Jen went back to the States for the Holidays but, before she left, we had a small celebration and I got to see her students put on a cute Christmas performance. There were dances and songs from other classes and Jen's students put on a radio-play adaptation of O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi. The night before Jen left we wrapped some presents for each other, placed them in a circle around some flowers, and topped the night off by going out to Wuhouci, the Tibetan part of the city, and having some Christmas tukpa (Tibetan noodles). Regardless of the fact that it was December 19th, it truly was a Chengdu Christmas.

I spent Christmas Day with new friends out here in Kangding. Two of these new friends own and run a small hostel slightly up one of the mountains. At their hostel they have a fully equipped kitchen, bar, and refrigerator and know how to use them. They threw an excellent Christmas party on Christmas Eve where I, the hostel-owning couple, a Londoner teaching English at a small college just outside the city, a Dutch woman learning traditional Chinese medicine in Nanjing, another Dutch woman who has really traveled the world, an American expatriate studying Tibetan in Chengdu, another expat married to a Tibetan nomad, as well as many local Chinese and Tibetan friends had a wonderful time. We drank hot chocolate, coffee (with or without Bailey's), chai tea, juice, liquor, wine, and a variety of beers. We ate small dishes like potato dumplings, two varieties of hummus, pita bread, and Hooter's-style chicken wings, to name a few. The language of conversation ranged from English to Chinese to Tibetan to, as was the case for many conversations, an interesting mix of the three.

Nearly all of the guests left relatively early, leaving me, the Londoner, the Dutch woman, and the owners of the house drinking and playing a funny Chinese version of hearts until the early morning. We played and conversed merrily; in the manner which all activities of Christmas should be conducted. After a few games and a few stories we began to have an intimate conversation about the nature of gender relations, of life and culture in Tibet, and of our deepest interests. I had been feeling relatively queasy all day due to a giant lunch that I ate too quickly, so I went to get my jacket and went home around one in the morning.

I woke up the next day feeling awful. My guts were bubbling, my extremities continually had chills running through them, and my body just kind of hurt. But it was Christmas Day! I had to go up and join the fun at the hostel. I walked up listening to The Tourist by Radiohead on my new, white headphones and the lyrics of "In the end, slow down" were echoing in my mind. It is a bit of a long and steep walk up to the hostel, so by the time I had made it to the first curve my head was bobbing a bit more than usual. The queasiness from the morning was only growing and I thought that maybe it would be a good idea to take the song's advice. I slowed down.

I eventually made it up to the hostel and found my friends there. They were eating a delicious breakfast of fruit and cereal and baked goods. Even though I usually love a good baked good in the morning, I could not stomach looking at them. I ate a banana and hoped for the best.

I put on a small, red-and-white, Chinese Santa hat, sat next to the Christmas tree, and spoke with a few loved ones on skype. It was good to talk to them. The hostel owners' two-year-old daughter was not feeling well that morning either, so we decided to withhold the opening of presents until a little bit later. When I was just sitting there, talking and having fun my guts did not feel so poorly. It was after that, during the Christmas dinner, when I started having some problems.

Many people, but primarily the female owner of the hostel, had been working hard all morning to prepare a grand Christmas feast. There was salad, vegetables, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, exquisite gravy, chicken breast fresh from the hostel's coop, and a great turkey purchased in and brought up from Chengdu. Great quantities of time and love had been put into this meal. I sat down and the various aromas managed to arouse hunger in my rotten innards. Failing to be totally mindful of my suffering abdomen, I filled my plate with small quantities of everything and dug in.

We had merry conversation about when we're sick whether we like to be cared for or left alone. There were responses of both varieties. Although I did not voice it, I thought that I was probably the kind that liked to be left alone. I was then asked what style of food I would eat if I could only eat one style for the rest of my life. I initially thought Mexican food because I like beans and rice and tortillas quite a bit. I began to think, though, that maybe beans and rice would get repetitive after a while, so I answered that I would eat Indian food. Indian food not only would cater to my taste for beans and rice, but also offers many other dishes which I have never even eaten before, allowing for at least a few surprises down the line.

Toward the end of dinner, I could not keep up the pace with which I had started. Most people at the table had cleared their plates and eaten their fill, but I still had half of a plate of food. I looked at it distastefully and, very slowly, took small bites out of politeness. So much time and love had been put into this food! I could not leave so much unreceived and uneaten.

Such were my thoughts when my guts grumbled and I felt a few distasteful pockets of digestive gasses come up into my mouth. I had to excuse myself. I went downstairs and tried to relax. I tried to slow down. I just needed to be alone for a moment, to take a few breaths. I just needed to be left alone. I heard some rustling upstairs and someone said that now would be a good time to open presents! Even though I was not totally ready for the task, I mustered up some strength and tried to rejoin the party unnoticed. Everybody was so busy cleaning the table, putting out presents, and gathering around the tree I was able to slip in relatively furtively.

I had brought a few gifts with me. My friend, who is a young Tibetan social entrepreneur, had made a calendar for the year 2009. He had taken many wonderful pictures of Tibet, compiled a small collection, and then printed a batch of calendars in Chengdu. He gave me four or five and I passed one along to my new friends. There was a small gift exchange too. I got a small white grenade-shaped thermos. I thought that there was something very handsome and useful about it. Finally, I got a nice bottle of wine from the foreign section of a Chengdu grocery store (the foreigner cor(i)ner, as I like to call it) and gave it to our gracious hosts.

The gift exchange ultimately took the form of Yankee Swap, reminiscent of an episode of The Office which I had seen recently. The premise of the exchange was that we would go around the circle, opening gifts one at a time. If you like your gift you can keep it and the opening would continue. If you do not like your gift, you can exchange it for one that had been previously opened. Thus went the swap.

The white thermos grenade had been traded once and ended up in the hands of a new Tibetan friend of mine. He is a nomad from Tagong, so I think it may serve him the better than it would have served the others. I got some cookies and a small hand-woven pouch filled with juniper needles. It's scent is now one of the more pleasant elements of my room in Kangding. After much opening, a few exchanges, and many laughs, we adults had finished with our presents.

Meanwhile two small children (each about two years old) had been opening presents as well. They found many prizes ranging from plastic tea sets to play dough to stuffed kitties and doggies. It was very cute to see them neatly open some presents and then tear some of the other wrappings apart. The cutest of all, though, was to see their little faces and squeals of delight.

It was about this time that we all dispersed and there was talk of baking pies for the evening. I cringed at the thought of eating and decided that it was time to go home. I told the householders that I was not feeling well, got my jacket, and was about to leave when the studier of Chinese medicine offered me some help for my ailing stomach. They were five small black pieces of chalk that she called charcoal. She said that I ought to chew and eat them all. I conceded.

Perhaps it was because of the charcoal, perhaps it was because of my final polite bites at dinner, perhaps it was just because it was time, but after my first few bites of charcoal I began to lose control. I stared at a nearly full trashcan, thinking about whether I ought to puke in it or run somewhere else. After a few mouthfuls of saliva I eventually decided to make my way into the kitchen, just in time to make it to the sink.

I was embarrassed, but the householder was calm and kind. I feebly tried to gather my senses and help clean up the mess which I had created, but I was assured that it was no problem and that I ought to just rest. Even though it meant missing out on the rest of the night's activities, I walked back down the steep hill and made it back to bed without occurrence. The rest of Christmas was very unpleasant, rolling in my bed, trying to find a position of comfort, finding one, having to get up for the bathroom, and repeating. My thoughts went back and forth between "I will feel better tomorrow," and "I should take some antibiotics."

After a few more hours of digestive movements of all varieties, I remembered back to my time in Lhasa. I had had a couple similar experiences then. At that time I was quite stoic in my approach to life, even to the point of stubbornness. I thought that I was a strong and healthy young lad and that I could bounce back from my disease with only a little time. A few gut-wrenching days later, one of my jolly Eastern-European classmates approached me. He said that I looked pale and sickly. That my cheekbones were showing and that I ought to take some medicine. I conceded, took the antibiotics, and felt better. It was a vividly potent experience for me. I learned that, although time may heal many wounds, even the young and strong ought to be careful about bowel disease.

The story Mr Jagainu s tall

This is from a piece of furniture in my room. You never know where you might find such things.

On Accomplishments

The other day I was running around with one of my good friends and we stopped by his old office. There were half-assembled tables, saw dust, and wood chips everywhere. The office would soon be turned into a "coffee bar," as they call it around here. I looked up on the wall and, written in cursive Tibetan script (ü mé; dbu med) was this phrase (rendered here in print Tibetan script (ü chen; dbu chen)):

སྒྲུབ་མ་སྒྲུབ་རང་ཡིན། འགྲུབ་མི་འགྲུབ་ལས་ཡིན།

I cannot read ü mé very well, so I had to ask my friend how to read it. He said to me "drup madrup rang yin, drup mindrup lé yin" (sgrub ma sgrub rang yin/ 'grub mi 'grub las yin/), which roughly means "whether or not you accomplish something is up to you, whether or not something is accomplished is up to karma." The concept of volition is very important in the Tibetan language. I tried to capture this nuance in the active/passive voice of my translation. It kind of reminds me of what my Dad would always say (quoting a priest named Father Quigley): "Do your best and then don't worry about it."

Although I could not conceive quite what these words mean, they did stay with me. They felt strangely appropriate in describing how I felt those days. As you may have notice from my last post, I have been trying to make a space for myself in this distant land. I've been staying with my girlfriend, at various hostels, but each time there was a sense of impermanence. I was always reluctant to unpack my bags because I knew that I would have to pack them again very soon. It is a hard feeling, or lack of feeling; to never really be at home. The closest it got was in Chengdu, when Jen and I were staying at our new place. Yet, I still had to leave.

This friend and I were both trying to accomplish somewhat complicated tasks which involved many people and many variables. He was trying to set up his new office (the one that the coffee bar had displaced) and I was trying to find a home here in Kangding. For the entire week that I have been here, whenever I would meet someone I would some how intimate that I need a place to stay. "If you know anybody with a room for rent, let me know." "Do you have time to help me find a room?" "How did he find his room?" I really was trying, but was not meeting much success on my own.

I eventually enlisted the help of the aforementioned friend. He took me to an information center, helped me talk to the portly woman who sat behind the desk, and looked at houses with me. Because I cannot speak Chinese very well, I really did need his help very much. The first attempt didn't go incredibly well. The houses were too big and too expensive. I considered renting one but then realized that I was really broke and could not come close to paying for the initial six months rent plus deposit which is standard in China. Back to the drawing board.

I then talked to another friend. He arranged for a meeting with a man who he called "the Big Boss." The Big Boss is a very successful Tibetan business man who owns a lot of property in Kangding, ranging from museums to restaurants to temples. We went to eat the restaurant which he owns and had a very nice evening. It was me, my friend, the Big Boss, and a Chinese woman who could not speak Tibetan. Thus, we were in a bit of an interesting linguistic situation. Here were two Tibetan men who could speak English decently, and Tibetan and Chinese fluently. Then there was me, a young American who can speak English fluently, Tibetan decently, and Chinese poorly. Finally, there was a young Chinese woman who could speak Chinese fluently, English poorly, and could not speak Tibetan at all.

As the night progressed, we switched languages, switched conversations, and switched rooms. We started in a comfortable meeting room, drank tea, and spoke mostly Tibetan (thus excluding the Chinese woman). We then moved to a dining room with an elaborate feast laid out for us. We turned the clear glass wheel in the center of the table and spoke mostly in Chinese (thus excluding/embarrassing me). Finally, after we had eaten our fill, we moved to the central restaurant and spoke mostly English (very slowly and clearly). The Big Boss related how lucky he is; he likes his work and can actualize his dreams. He said all of this came about due to wisdom and compassion. Buddhism is not just for monks, he said, but for everyone. He said that he used what he learned from Buddhism and treated all of his associates well and was able to succeed as a result. Other people are important, he said. I think of them as similar to my parents.

I then related how in the big city of Chengdu, I was kind of afraid to go out and meet people. I could not speak Chinese very well, and I didn't really know how to approach people. It was this ironic situation where I was living in the biggest city of my life but feeling relatively alone. I then related how important it was for me to be brave enough to approach people. How it is hard to survive without others, without society.

The evening ended pleasantly, but I was still without a house. I made subtle, but clear, hint that I needed housing, but the Big Boss did not respond. Thus, although the evening held great conversation and camaraderie, I was still a little stressed out about my housing situation. I was really doing my best to find a place, but could not find one anywhere.

A few days later my friend, the one who was setting up his new office, called me and said he wanted to look at the information center one more time. It was in the morning, I had just taken a hot bath, put on some brand new long underwear, and was feeling fresh. I went down to meet with him and the portly information center manager and we were on our way. She showed me a small, but well located and inexpensive room. I looked around and I knew it was the one. I was elated. We went back to the office to discuss monetary matters and I was told that, instead of the initial 6-months rent, I would need to pay one whole year for this place. My heart sank a little bit. I had just paid for my new visa and was essentially broke. I couldn't pay that much right now!

We left the situation open, with my interest clear, but payment ambiguous. I met with another friend for lunch, the one who had introduced me to the Big Boss, and he said somewhat out of the blue that he could lend me some money if I needed it. I was very happy to hear this. Today I met with both friends, the portly information center manager, the new landlord, and we worked everything out. I now have a place to live in this distant land.

I did my best to accomplish what I wanted; to find a place to stay. I talked to as many people as I could and thought about it quite a bit. Ultimately, however, it was not I that found the place, nor was it I that even paid for it (yet). I could not have found this sanctuary in a land of difficulties without the help of the portly information center manager, the landlord, and especially my two good friends.