Things don't always go according to plan
I've always considered that saying to have a negative connotation. In mundane and dramatic situations alike, I imagine when things don't go according to plan, bad stuff happens: you miss your bus, the hotel misspells your name and you don't get your reservation, you get eaten by sharks, you spontaneously combust. The plan is safe and fate is cruel. I'm learning more and more on this trip through China - which, as it happens, is nearing the two month marker - that the plan already drawn up isn't all that great compared to the world of possibilities.
My first lesson in Fate 101 was when the owners of Sunshine Hostel in Sanya offered us the opportunity to live free of charge in exchange for English lessons. We took up the offer and have had an incredibly relaxing and fun several weeks, during which we've gotten to know many of the guests as well as the staff and owners. Eunice and I have gotten the opportunity to interview some of the workers here about their lives and passions (which you can check out at her blog) which has been pretty fascinating and has helped us get to closer to them. It's quite funny actually: I told many people that, aside from working in China, I wanted to develop relationships so I could find some work more professional than the oh-so-common English teaching job. I have been developing relationships, but they have hardly been professional ones. I have a really great network of friends from many different areas of China now, which would never have happened had I not rolled the dice and gave my original plan the back seat.
Today, Eunice and I decided to roll the dice yet again, but this time the stakes are a bit higher. The original plan (may she rest in peace), for those who don't know, was to go to Guilin to teach English for a paltry 4000RMB per month (the equivalent of about $660). As Eunice and I began to pay more attention to our budgets, it became clear to me that even if the price of living in Guilin was lower than other cities, we would certainly want some more money than that. Also at play was the way Chinese characterized Guilin: a great place to travel, not a great place to live. An underdeveloped city like Guilin has certain appeals which I no doubt romanticized to the point of complete distortion, but the past two months of traveling have made me more aware of the kind of comforts I'm used to, and the kind I'll need to maintain my happiness for a year in China. I began to fear Guilin might not sustain me. I also considered Eunice's needs: she can deal with any type of living environment, but I know she would not be happy living in a city with an ex-pat population near nil. At the same time as these doubts about Guilin popped up, I kept hearing great things about the capital of Sichuan Province: Chengdu.
We first heard about Chengdu from Terry, the target of our first staff interview (you can read Eunice's adaptation of the interview here). When asked what his favorite city he traveled to during his 2 month, 6000km biking trip from Beijing to Sanya was, he did not hesitate: Chengdu. The food, the atmosphere, the people - pretty much everything about Chengdu was praised. Terry broke off from the question-answer format of the interview to start telling us that Guilin didn't hold a candle to Chengdu; that we could find a job in Chengdu that'd pay twice as much; that he could get in touch with the friends he'd made there to make us feel at home, help us get apartments, jobs... basically whatever we wanted. What he said got me thinking, but it wasn't until a week later that Eunice and I actually decided to put all our chips on Chengdu. Today, I sent an e-mail informing our contact in Guilin that we decided to pick a more developed city, severing that tie and the absolute promise of a work visa. Now Eunice and I have until the second week of September, I believe, to secure a job and work visa.
Terry talked about fate when we interviewed him. He believed it was in control of most everything. If he didn't come to Sanya, he wouldn't have become friends with the owners here and returned to work as a volunteer and, in turn, would not have met Eunice and me. I'm starting to see things a bit like Terry now. If we hadn't stayed in Sanya to teach English here, we wouldn't have interviewed Terry; if we didn't interview Terry, we'd never know about Chengdu; if we didn't know about Chengdu, we'd still be heading for Guilin. I can't wait to see what Chengdu has in store for us.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Echo Chambers
That idealism.
It took a while for me to warm up to it at first. I certainly haven't adopted it myself - not even close. But it it was long before I was even be able to entertain her sort of complete disregard for the persistance of the status quo without getting a little pissed off myself. I nearly consider it law, that persistance. To her, it's just a problem that needs fixing. To challenge it so readily seemed ignorant of unquestionable truths and a waste of time and a whole lot of other shit to me, none of which I thought was worth anyone's time. Well, at least not worth mine.
If you've read Eunice's blog (and I hesitate to refer to it as my "sister blog", for fear of drawing incest-related remarks, and also because of the massive gulf that lies between my philosophies and hers) or talked to her, then you know about her idealism. I don't know when it became her M.O. to care so much or to believe in the possibility of, well, anything, but at this point it's just about permeated every fiber of her being. She wants to change things for the better - leave a positive imprint. She is not deterred by issues of extreme magnitude - the bigger the problems are, the more drawn she seems to be.
In complete honesty, I had been a very self-centered person until my long-distance relationship with Eunice became a close-distance one, so I'm guessing her activist streak began some time sophomore year (2009)... come to think of it, I've never known for certain what got it rolling. I mean, I'm sure every college student's political consciousness coming-of-age story is pretty similar - you know, the one where they realize there's a world outside themselves and they start to feel more important themselves because they can finally comprehend that and talking about them more makes them feel more important still- so I won't go into the details of my own. When Eunice talked about issues of poverty and injustice and so on, I could only agree insofar as they were bad, bad things and really a shame that they existed. But, I would say, what can we do? The system has failed some people, worked for others. I took this stance and gave myself the self-important-sounding role of "realist" in all of these conversations, and I made her don the appropriate though patronizing-sounding role of "idealist."
Anyways, Eunice's idealism always seemed like a hopeless venture: a great way to get worked up and emotional about issues, but what would our discourse do to actually help solve the problems (having no actual experience "solving" such problems, solving - in the context of our conversations - meant coming up with hypothetical institutional or programmatic solutions painted in such broad strokes that they would be sound in theory but probably immensely complicated in practice. This, though, was satisfying enough, if such solutions were ever reached at all.). It got me angry and kind of confused that she could be so passionate about so many issues, and I basically saw it as a waste of emotional energy for the most part. Who wanted to get worked up about coming up with hypothetical solutions to the entrenched culture of factory farming in America? Why not just give in and ignore the ugly truths like the rest of us? It is unquestionably much easier to take that route. As such, it was much easier for me to hold my "realist" stance. She chipped away at it, though, and after a while it didn't seem totally nuts to me.
I still have issues with the amount of emotion she invests in the world's problems sometimes. However I don't find her idealism foolish or misguided or inferior in any way, something I'm ashamed to admit I once thought of it as. Instead, I think about what the opposite would have done for me: I picture myself talking about issues similar to the ones I've discussed with Eunice, but instead of Eunice I'm talking to another "realist." Well, if I'm going to be real, then let's call this person what he really is: a cynic. In this situation, I'd basically be sitting in an echo chamber, talking about the futility of some situation, while my cynic buddy agrees about the futility of said situation, until we confirm for each other that the situation is hopeless and our energy would be better spent caring less about it. Now this situation, to me, is clearly far worse than being exposed to (perhaps) radical and (maybe) unorthodox brainstorms on how to fix society's myriad issues. In fact, it makes clear as day the benefits to such un-like philosophies collaborating: if all we ever got were people confirming one another's ideas and points of view, then everybody's philosophies would only grow in one direction. In my case, I would only believe in the futility of an effort to change well-cemented institutions, and I'd probably be much more self-interested than I am today. I can't speak for Eunice as to what my dose of cynicism has done to change her philosophy. I know she ain't giving up on the world anytime soon.
The truth is, it's easier to swallow ideas similar to your own. It's easier to adhere to a philosophy that already resonates with parts of you. To entertain other and different ideas is to challenge oneself. People don't make an effort to understand their opposites, and will resist them pretty violently and dogmatically. I experienced it in my conversations with Eunice, defending things I didn't necessarily believe in, but that I had come to think of as constants. I ended up surprising myself a lot in these conversations, mainly because my ideas had rarely been challenged before; indeed, I hardly every vocalized them to begin with. Actually being challenged exposed some of my "beliefs" as mere propaganda or hear-say swallowed whole and then repeated without a second thought. It sort of constituted a spring cleaning of bullshit. Either way, it was a wake-up call of sorts.
It isn't easy, though, to find someone to challenge you. First of all, like I said earlier, no one goes and looks for that refutation of their beliefs. People want their ideas reaffirmed. Second of all, from high school on, we all undergo a homogenization process of sorts. I'm not calling us robots or anything, but it's undeniable that we gradually lose some of our idiosyncrasies, instead shedding them in order to sport a more acceptable and agreeable suit of likability or level-headedness, simultaneously heading for a like-minded social group in which to feel most at-home. Be this choice or natural phenomena? I cannot say. Blame it on pop culture, social values, the school system, trying to get a stable job, stable girl/boyfriend - who knows why it happens. Many of those aforementioned things/pursuits make being a challenger more of a liability than an asset. Either way, it seems the likelihood that you'll find someone to challenge you lessens with time.
People say "opposites attract"but I don't think it's that simple. To a degree, we want to have our beliefs confirmed in the form of other people also believing in them. Actually defending your beliefs is a revealing experience: you may get defensive, upset, or indignant. If you give your "opposite" enough time, though, you might find that your own philosophy is changing a little bit.
It took a while for me to warm up to it at first. I certainly haven't adopted it myself - not even close. But it it was long before I was even be able to entertain her sort of complete disregard for the persistance of the status quo without getting a little pissed off myself. I nearly consider it law, that persistance. To her, it's just a problem that needs fixing. To challenge it so readily seemed ignorant of unquestionable truths and a waste of time and a whole lot of other shit to me, none of which I thought was worth anyone's time. Well, at least not worth mine.
If you've read Eunice's blog (and I hesitate to refer to it as my "sister blog", for fear of drawing incest-related remarks, and also because of the massive gulf that lies between my philosophies and hers) or talked to her, then you know about her idealism. I don't know when it became her M.O. to care so much or to believe in the possibility of, well, anything, but at this point it's just about permeated every fiber of her being. She wants to change things for the better - leave a positive imprint. She is not deterred by issues of extreme magnitude - the bigger the problems are, the more drawn she seems to be.
In complete honesty, I had been a very self-centered person until my long-distance relationship with Eunice became a close-distance one, so I'm guessing her activist streak began some time sophomore year (2009)... come to think of it, I've never known for certain what got it rolling. I mean, I'm sure every college student's political consciousness coming-of-age story is pretty similar - you know, the one where they realize there's a world outside themselves and they start to feel more important themselves because they can finally comprehend that and talking about them more makes them feel more important still- so I won't go into the details of my own. When Eunice talked about issues of poverty and injustice and so on, I could only agree insofar as they were bad, bad things and really a shame that they existed. But, I would say, what can we do? The system has failed some people, worked for others. I took this stance and gave myself the self-important-sounding role of "realist" in all of these conversations, and I made her don the appropriate though patronizing-sounding role of "idealist."
Anyways, Eunice's idealism always seemed like a hopeless venture: a great way to get worked up and emotional about issues, but what would our discourse do to actually help solve the problems (having no actual experience "solving" such problems, solving - in the context of our conversations - meant coming up with hypothetical institutional or programmatic solutions painted in such broad strokes that they would be sound in theory but probably immensely complicated in practice. This, though, was satisfying enough, if such solutions were ever reached at all.). It got me angry and kind of confused that she could be so passionate about so many issues, and I basically saw it as a waste of emotional energy for the most part. Who wanted to get worked up about coming up with hypothetical solutions to the entrenched culture of factory farming in America? Why not just give in and ignore the ugly truths like the rest of us? It is unquestionably much easier to take that route. As such, it was much easier for me to hold my "realist" stance. She chipped away at it, though, and after a while it didn't seem totally nuts to me.
I still have issues with the amount of emotion she invests in the world's problems sometimes. However I don't find her idealism foolish or misguided or inferior in any way, something I'm ashamed to admit I once thought of it as. Instead, I think about what the opposite would have done for me: I picture myself talking about issues similar to the ones I've discussed with Eunice, but instead of Eunice I'm talking to another "realist." Well, if I'm going to be real, then let's call this person what he really is: a cynic. In this situation, I'd basically be sitting in an echo chamber, talking about the futility of some situation, while my cynic buddy agrees about the futility of said situation, until we confirm for each other that the situation is hopeless and our energy would be better spent caring less about it. Now this situation, to me, is clearly far worse than being exposed to (perhaps) radical and (maybe) unorthodox brainstorms on how to fix society's myriad issues. In fact, it makes clear as day the benefits to such un-like philosophies collaborating: if all we ever got were people confirming one another's ideas and points of view, then everybody's philosophies would only grow in one direction. In my case, I would only believe in the futility of an effort to change well-cemented institutions, and I'd probably be much more self-interested than I am today. I can't speak for Eunice as to what my dose of cynicism has done to change her philosophy. I know she ain't giving up on the world anytime soon.
The truth is, it's easier to swallow ideas similar to your own. It's easier to adhere to a philosophy that already resonates with parts of you. To entertain other and different ideas is to challenge oneself. People don't make an effort to understand their opposites, and will resist them pretty violently and dogmatically. I experienced it in my conversations with Eunice, defending things I didn't necessarily believe in, but that I had come to think of as constants. I ended up surprising myself a lot in these conversations, mainly because my ideas had rarely been challenged before; indeed, I hardly every vocalized them to begin with. Actually being challenged exposed some of my "beliefs" as mere propaganda or hear-say swallowed whole and then repeated without a second thought. It sort of constituted a spring cleaning of bullshit. Either way, it was a wake-up call of sorts.
It isn't easy, though, to find someone to challenge you. First of all, like I said earlier, no one goes and looks for that refutation of their beliefs. People want their ideas reaffirmed. Second of all, from high school on, we all undergo a homogenization process of sorts. I'm not calling us robots or anything, but it's undeniable that we gradually lose some of our idiosyncrasies, instead shedding them in order to sport a more acceptable and agreeable suit of likability or level-headedness, simultaneously heading for a like-minded social group in which to feel most at-home. Be this choice or natural phenomena? I cannot say. Blame it on pop culture, social values, the school system, trying to get a stable job, stable girl/boyfriend - who knows why it happens. Many of those aforementioned things/pursuits make being a challenger more of a liability than an asset. Either way, it seems the likelihood that you'll find someone to challenge you lessens with time.
People say "opposites attract"but I don't think it's that simple. To a degree, we want to have our beliefs confirmed in the form of other people also believing in them. Actually defending your beliefs is a revealing experience: you may get defensive, upset, or indignant. If you give your "opposite" enough time, though, you might find that your own philosophy is changing a little bit.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Should I Stay or Should I Zou?
Today marks the 90th year of Chinese Communist Party. You wouldn't be able to tell, though, here at Sunny Sanya International Youth Hostel. Nothing here is different, apart from replacing the usual soundtrack of Death Cab, Feist, and other unoffensive (though smartly chosen, to my sensibilities) American pop with a couple of songs applauding the CCP and socialism; shehui zhuyi hao, shehui zhuyi hao! or socialism is good, socialism is good! exclaims one operatic track which apparently also received a rock remix which got play time later on in the evening. Soon enough, though, Nina Simone was back on the mic.
Life in Sanya has been good so far. Our hostel is clean and the staff is friendly, and the atmosphere at the hostel as well as the rest of the city is quite pleasant. The hostel sports a comfy common room, equipped with speaker system, full bar, several couches, and a pool table. In the several days we've been here, Eunice and I have already taken advantage of all our hostel has to offer. I am unfortunately burdened at the moment by a slight cold, most likely contracted from too many quick temperature changes: the average temperature here gets me sweating in seconds, while buses, restaurants, and our bedroom are all treated with frigid air-con. I expect, though, that it will pass soon.
The hostel's main proprietor, Ina (25/F/Beijing) has been treating me with Chinese medicine as well as giving me dietary tips in order to beat the cold (no fruit or cold water). Ina seems like she spends 24 hours a day tending to the hostel, though she has assured us she goes home at some point each night. Her boyfriend of 3 years, Jason (25/M/also from Beijing), is co-manager and takes the night shift, normally getting in around 6 and tending bar and drinking with guests for the rest of the night. Jason and Ina studied in Singapore together, and afterwards they decided to stay and Jason took up a bar-tending job at a 5-star hotel and Ina worked in accounting elsewhere, though they were both unsatisfied with the lack of personal contact their jobs afforded them, so they planned on opening a bar in Beijing when they returned. In the end, after receiving a helpful business tip from a former teacher that the hostel business in China was booming, they decided to open Sunny Sanya instead, which is certainly more compatible with their hopes to pass their business onto their children in the future.
Apart from one Russian man, the hostel has been surprisingly devoid of foreign vacationers. I should mention that Russian travelers are so prevalent in Sanya that Cyrillic is ubiquitous around the city, on storefronts, billboards, and so on. Eunice and I have inquired about the popularity of Sanya among Russians, but have not gotten a convincing answer. Some investigation will be done in the near future. So, since day 1, we've done quite a lot of mingling with the Chinese guests here... well, we haven't had too many conversations here that weren't assisted by alcohol and the exchange of drinking games. Dice, number, and card games - it seems we've already run the gamut of game-types, though it hasn't even been a week. Drinking has been instrumental, though, in getting to know other guests, and even though it brings us closer to breaking our daily budget, Eunice and I wouldn't have had nearly this much fun or interaction without it. Not only is it an easy way to break the ice, but it's a great way to get the Chinese folk practicing the little English they know, and Eunice practicing the little Mandarin she knows. Eunice's numbers wouldn't be half as good as they are if it weren't for playing "21" Chinese-style. Without drinking, we also wouldn't have gotten to see the elusive Auntie come around and sing Mao-era classics and play some Party praising songs on her harmonica (of which I had video, but due to a recent pick-pocket incident I will be unable to share with the world... perhaps the biggest tragedy of losing my iPhone).
So despite some of the more unfortunate events that have occurred (sickness, loss of my electronic Swiss Army knife), I can't say life in Sanya has slipped into the red. Hardly - the city has a lot to offer, and it seems Eunice and I have barely started to scratch off the aluminum strip hiding the winning lottery numbers. And that's what makes it hard to turn down Ina's offer to live at her hostel for the next month, free of charge, in exchange for teaching the staff English. It is difficult for me to postpone existing plans for new ones, but it's also very tough for me to give up free room and board a mere two minutes walk from the beach. All I know for certain is that I should cherish the fact that this is the most difficult question I have to answer at the moment.
Life in Sanya has been good so far. Our hostel is clean and the staff is friendly, and the atmosphere at the hostel as well as the rest of the city is quite pleasant. The hostel sports a comfy common room, equipped with speaker system, full bar, several couches, and a pool table. In the several days we've been here, Eunice and I have already taken advantage of all our hostel has to offer. I am unfortunately burdened at the moment by a slight cold, most likely contracted from too many quick temperature changes: the average temperature here gets me sweating in seconds, while buses, restaurants, and our bedroom are all treated with frigid air-con. I expect, though, that it will pass soon.
The hostel's main proprietor, Ina (25/F/Beijing) has been treating me with Chinese medicine as well as giving me dietary tips in order to beat the cold (no fruit or cold water). Ina seems like she spends 24 hours a day tending to the hostel, though she has assured us she goes home at some point each night. Her boyfriend of 3 years, Jason (25/M/also from Beijing), is co-manager and takes the night shift, normally getting in around 6 and tending bar and drinking with guests for the rest of the night. Jason and Ina studied in Singapore together, and afterwards they decided to stay and Jason took up a bar-tending job at a 5-star hotel and Ina worked in accounting elsewhere, though they were both unsatisfied with the lack of personal contact their jobs afforded them, so they planned on opening a bar in Beijing when they returned. In the end, after receiving a helpful business tip from a former teacher that the hostel business in China was booming, they decided to open Sunny Sanya instead, which is certainly more compatible with their hopes to pass their business onto their children in the future.
Apart from one Russian man, the hostel has been surprisingly devoid of foreign vacationers. I should mention that Russian travelers are so prevalent in Sanya that Cyrillic is ubiquitous around the city, on storefronts, billboards, and so on. Eunice and I have inquired about the popularity of Sanya among Russians, but have not gotten a convincing answer. Some investigation will be done in the near future. So, since day 1, we've done quite a lot of mingling with the Chinese guests here... well, we haven't had too many conversations here that weren't assisted by alcohol and the exchange of drinking games. Dice, number, and card games - it seems we've already run the gamut of game-types, though it hasn't even been a week. Drinking has been instrumental, though, in getting to know other guests, and even though it brings us closer to breaking our daily budget, Eunice and I wouldn't have had nearly this much fun or interaction without it. Not only is it an easy way to break the ice, but it's a great way to get the Chinese folk practicing the little English they know, and Eunice practicing the little Mandarin she knows. Eunice's numbers wouldn't be half as good as they are if it weren't for playing "21" Chinese-style. Without drinking, we also wouldn't have gotten to see the elusive Auntie come around and sing Mao-era classics and play some Party praising songs on her harmonica (of which I had video, but due to a recent pick-pocket incident I will be unable to share with the world... perhaps the biggest tragedy of losing my iPhone).
So despite some of the more unfortunate events that have occurred (sickness, loss of my electronic Swiss Army knife), I can't say life in Sanya has slipped into the red. Hardly - the city has a lot to offer, and it seems Eunice and I have barely started to scratch off the aluminum strip hiding the winning lottery numbers. And that's what makes it hard to turn down Ina's offer to live at her hostel for the next month, free of charge, in exchange for teaching the staff English. It is difficult for me to postpone existing plans for new ones, but it's also very tough for me to give up free room and board a mere two minutes walk from the beach. All I know for certain is that I should cherish the fact that this is the most difficult question I have to answer at the moment.
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