Work of Art

They say that fortune favors the bold.  Maybe I spent the better part of two months visiting the shrines of art's own Lady Luck, but at the end of the day, I'm a child of God, and God helps those who help themselves.  That means I had to start putting my money where my mouth wanted to be, and both make my art and put it out there.

Small Benzaiten shrine found on the corner up the street a few blocks from CLOUDS

Now it isn't like I'm starting all this from ground zero.  My class last fall produced some work that I wasn't totally ashamed of (and one piece that - now that I've resolved all its issues - I'm damned proud of), and my Nihonga paintings are coming along.  The problem is that since graduating with my pair of BA's, I haven't really tried.  Nearly the entirety of my involvement with art over the last 14 years has happened in my own classroom.  I really had no idea how to get to the other side - instead of looking at others' work, having people look at mine.  So I asked my good friend, Google.

He pointed me to Tokyo's pretty active art scene.  One of the things I enjoyed most about my course last fall was participating in critiques with my classmates, so I signed up for the Art Byte Critique group first.  Along with the actual critiques (in which I couldn't take part this month due to a conflict with my day job), they post open calls and other art events on their Facebook page.  While I couldn't win an artist residency if I tried, participating in contests seems manageable.

I say that now, but when I first started digging into their page I was in Mongolia, far away from all of my materials, and although I was able to lay down the groundwork for my entry in CLOUDS Art+Coffee's competition, I couldn't actually get started on it til I was back at home with my gouashi (yes, that's right, I've brangelina-ed my media of choice).  I spent the following week hurrying home from school so I could get started working ASAP, feverishly trying to finish in a week so I could deliver it to the gallery on my Sunday off.*  And then when I did, I discovered things work differently than I was expecting.  Apparently I should have emailed for all the details, so I would have known to deliver it a week later, and how much the entry fee was.  Oops.

(By the way, if you're reading this and you haven't voted for me yet, go vote now by clicking this link.  Consider it a way of paying me back for all the hours of free entertainment you receive from reading about my misadventures.  Unfortunately these days being successful relies on how involved your friends are willing to be as much if not more than on how good you are).

Speaking of which...one of the problems of going off on this venture is the super awkward part where I have to meet new people.  It's less that I hate people (this time), and more that I'm enough of an introvert that most of the time people are optional.  Nevertheless, the next thing I decided to try was PechaKucha.  This is an event that actually started here in Tokyo, and has branched out all over the world.  On a PechaKucha night, presenters show 20 slides for 20 seconds each while they talk about their work.  I think of this as the sorta-networking equivalent of going on a blind date to the movies - even if your date sucks, you won't actually have to talk to them for two hours. 

Photo courtesy of PechaKucha Tokyo

My first PechaKucha was actually the 156th since its inception.  From what I understand, normally it is artists and designers talking about what they do, but this was a special event - for this "PowWow" they had presenters from all over the world talking about PechaKucha in their city.  During the two hours I was there I talked to all of two people, but I figure that's a start.  I left before the end, because I had an hour's ride on the train between me and home, but luckily the organizer for Yokohama was one of the presenters I got to listen to, and it's a shorter commute home from Minato Mirai than it is from Roppongi, so another awkward night is probably in the cards.

In fact, another awkward night came along the following weekend - the opening reception for the contest at CLOUDS.  The school had its festival that morning, so I was slightly sunburnt and sweaty, and Koenji is pretty far from Yokohama, so I was flying solo (although if by some miracle I win, I'm guilt tripping everyone into coming with me to THAT opening, which they should anyway because Koenji is a fun neighborhood).  It was a little surreal seeing my art on the wall, but also good.

The honest to goodness truth, though, is that all of this is incredibly daunting.  I feel like an outsider, in spite of spending my adulthood going to galleries, teaching students day in, day out, and actually holding two student shows in galleries in UB.  Walking in alone, both to PKN and the opening at CLOUDS, was terrifying in a way that I can't even quite explain, as if somehow everyone there was weighing me and finding me wanting.  However, since I've never been one to let my fear stop me from doing things, you get to look forward to more posts about how awkward my attempts to transform myself into an artist are. Of course, maybe it won't be that bad.  When I end up in a workshop with a group of art teachers, usually I manage to get along and hold my own.  I guess I'll see if it holds true when working alongside other artists this Wednesday night when I go to Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School - a life drawing event where burlesque dancers model which takes place in a bar (I know, sounds fun...try not to be too jealous!)  Even if that's a bomb, the next contest I'm entering is taking place in Germany, so if my drawing is accepted I won't have to worry about feeling awkward at the opening reception, since I won't actually get to go to it, and honestly, that's kind of a relief.

*At least not now...perhaps I'm developing a new retirement plan that involves traveling the world by making art at different residencies...  Perhaps by then I'll actually be a good candidate for one.
**Half-assed Mormons like me look forward to our semiannual General Conference, which is broadcast from Salt Lake City and is viewable online.  Thus, a Sunday off.

The End of All Things

I was sitting in Ulaanbaatar's Chinggis Khaan airport as I began this post.  My flight was scheduled to leave in an hour and ten minutes, and I was completely shattered.

It's been five years since my last leaving.  I remember thinking at the time that things seemed to go remarkably easy.  Maybe it was because I accepted the job with the American School of Ulaanbaatar in early March.  Knowing where I was going made it easier to accept the fact that I wouldn't be in Shanghai.  Also, the fact that I kind of hated Shanghai...

Mongolia, on the other hand, I loved.  I didn't expect to be there five years, but ASU supported me and my students were the best.  About a month ago I found myself asking why the hell I gave up my job.  I was paid well, had friends, loved my work - but I just HAD to go looking for something else.  >le sigh<

A few days later, I got up early on a Saturday morning to try and get a grip on my packing.  My own personal procrastinatrix showed up to crack the whip only after our fine arts banquet, graduation, the end of year camp were looming (I probably should have backed down and let a few things go this year...but that just wouldn't be me).  But during my morning look at the interwebs my delusions of productivity smashed to pieces when I saw a job posting for an art teacher at a school in Yokohama (if you've been paying attention, you've noticed I never mentioned the name of my former school up to this point.  This is where the new school becomes It Which Must Not Be Named and it's okay to reference the old one).  Instead of spending my morning packing and cleaning, I put together a cover letter and sent off my documents and prayed.  The answer to my prayer came that evening in the form of a facebook message from a guy I knew my first year at ASU whom I wasn't very close to, so at first I was a little pissy about being offered help, but eventually I told myself not to be a bitch and replied, thanking him for the offer but that unless he knew someone at School X, I didn't know that there was much he could do for me.

"Believe it or not, I do," he replied, and after three interviews and some cost-benefit analysis I accepted the job.

Now, over the last six months I have told myself many, MANY times, "You need to clean your apartment."  Because I did.  I never actually fully cleaned the damn thing, which made dealing with the detritus accumulated over the course of five years much harder to deal with, but since we can only manipulate time going forward, my options were limited.

I left Shanghai after moving about three times.  My first year I lived in an apartment right next to the school, and moved about 5 minutes by bike away for my second, onto Laohongxing Lu.  My realtor negotiated with my landlord to let me out of my lease early, and so a few weeks before I was scheduled to leave Shanghai, I had to move out of my apartment.  This turned out to be the practice round for leaving the country, since I wasn't bringing all my crap to my friend Meen's, who was letting me take advantage of a spare room, and the momentum really did help me get ready for the big bad goodbye.

Moving out of the teachers' apartments never actually crossed my mind during the last five years.  While they weren't super-deluxe high-rises, and my view left much to be desired (because who wants to look out their window at work everyday???) there was plenty of room and I was comfortable.  I was never too cold, it was a quick walk to work, and I felt secure surrounded by my colleagues, even the more eccentric ones, of which we had a few.

Admittedly there were more than a few times when I wished I were on the side of the building that wasn't directly across the parking lot from where one of these eccentrics would practice his sad sax every evening, and perhaps because I spent so much time going between the two, there were times when I used the wrong key.  But when I needed to run home at lunch for a coke (or occasionally at the beginning of a class because I promised to bring a kid my markers or some other supply for their project) it was hellaconvenient.  Nonetheless, the inertia of a life lived well in one spot was hard to break, and I was still dealing with tic tac shit the morning I flew out.  (If you're wondering what it looked like when my apartment wasn't empty...this was wrtiten in my first year, so it wasn't anywhere near as full, but it gives you the idea).

A wise woman (named Engrish) once told me, on my very first ger camp, that Mongolia gets under your skin and makes you fall in love with it, and it was true.  It's a beautiful country with wide open skies, but I think more than anything it's the people that make it the place that it is.  My frantic packing and cleaning over the last week was broken up with goodbyes - one last brunch at Blondie's, a final massage with Five, dinner with a family I'd known since the first year, and being driven to the airport by my principal. 

That aside, though, if you've been with me for these last five years, you've probably noticed that even though this blog is supposed to be about traveling there is an endless string of references to my students, and the hardest part of leaving has been leaving them.  The end of the last day of school was brutal, a massive attack as they stopped in, teary-eyed, for a final hug as I promised that I was coming back, that I'd see them in next year's musical.  And then there were my brats.  The original, "accept no substitutes," kids who have been with me since day one organized a farewell dinner for Time Lady and I, and came to the airport to say goodbye two days later.  It's been a long road since we first sat in the teeny-tiny classroom that was mine that first year.  Many of them are gone - studying in the US or England - and they've had their challenges along the way, but I'm proud of them and wouldn't trade the pain of saying goodbye for anything in the world, because it's a testament to how much it meant.

My Kind of Mormon

It's been two and a half weeks since I applied for my dream job.  I followed up my initial application at the two week mark, and got the dreaded autoreply:  "Don't call us, we'll call you."  They actually say it more like, "We've got a shit ton of applications and we're weeding through them.  We'll be contacting suitable applicants for interviews over the next two weeks."  It still makes you feel like dirt, because if they were interested, wouldn't they have already emailed you?  And I've worked damn hard to make myself into a top candidate over the last few years, so they should have emailed me.

This is not to say it won't happen.  I still feel like it will - after all, I begged and pleaded in prayer for pretty much this exact job, so it's destiny, right?  (Of course, after my last botched attempt at a relationship - many moons ago with a French guy I was once stuck in Beijing airport with - for a while I still felt like somehow that might work out, too).  But faith is a funny thing.  It's not logical, which is fine, since sometimes logic turns out to be completely wrong.

I've been trying to be a better Mormon girl lately.  And by lately, I mean since July or so, because the last few weeks I've missed church for one reason or another, which I guess is ironic...that someone who pins her hopes of getting shortlisted on an all-powerful being's favor (at least a little - after everything I could do on my own, that's all you can do, right?) would allow herself to miss an opportunity to show obedience to that Being's commandments because of snow, or her stomach, or a kind of lame Japanese culture thing.  This week, though, I was scheduled to teach the English speaking Sunday school.  I was not thrilled about this assignment.  I don't have kids, after all - why should I have to teach other people's brats*?  After all, teaching is my job and the sabbath is supposed to be a day of rest.  However, there's also this thing in Mormon doctrine where you're supposed to help lift one another's burdens, and this isn't the sort of thing to which you say no, at least without a reason that does not sound like, "BUT I DON'T WANNA CLEAN MY ROOM!"  So I printed off the lesson and went to church.

On the way to the bus stop, I slipped for the first time this winter.  It hurt like hell and I probably dropped the f-bomb.  Maybe more than once.  Not an auspicious start.  Once I was on the bus I was stuck in traffic for the longest time.  I have no idea why there was traffic that far up in Zaisan at 11:30 on a Sunday morning; maybe Engrish will be able to tell me, if she was running up here this morning.  Either way, I did make it, and during the first part of church I mentally prepared myself for the ordeal of teaching primary. Except, when I went to teach, it seemed that all of the expats had left.  The room was empty, all the kids were gone, and I couldn't find any of the adults.  And even though I didn't actually want to teach them, I was a little peeved that they were all gone, because I was looking forward to the blessings that Mormons believe come from keeping the commandments (an attitude that I have in common with widowed prophet's wives from church history, if anyone is thinking I'm hypocritical).

The truth is, I'm not actually very good at being Mormon.  The screaming child behind me doesn't make my ovaries explode with envy that the woman behind me is a mother and I'm not.  And although getting married is supposed to be the second most important decision we can make in life (right behind baptism at #1), I'm honestly not that fussed about it anymore.  I'm not trading my independence for anyone but the most awesome guy ever at this point.  If that makes me apostate, then so be it.  I'll just have to settle for a lesser degree of glory in the afterlife.  But the thing is, I haven't given up.  You can call me crazy for believing what I do.  Maybe I am, but in spite of the disappointments I've felt and the fact that I no longer "fit" in the church as well as I did 20 years ago, I still buy it.  So I still believe I'm going to hear back from the dream job.  If God can manage the things he did in the scriptures, he can manage me.  And if not, that will be okay, too.

*I mean it affectionately.  (Or I do when I'm talking about my actual students....)

Me and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Well. Not a whole lot has been going on around here. Got caught up in the winter doldrums, and have been axing deserving individuals from my life (Socrates has not been mentioned on here in a very long time, but it wasn't until January that I finally cut him out of my life, thanks to the fact that he came back to Shanghers this fall and I - like an idiot - felt sorry for him). I've also been busily job hunting - this recruiting season, I sent out 29 applications, but it wasn't until three weeks ago that I set up my first interview. I was excited for that one, since it would have sent me to Marrakesh and a K-12 art position, if I had succeeded. After the interview, I felt like it was okay, but decided that rather than sit around and hope they called, I started filling out other applications. One of them was for the American School of Ulaanbaatar, for a secondary art job, just in time for their deadline. Later that night, I got a reply, asking for an interview, and after talking to their personnel consultant, and their principal, I was offered the job. It's not Marrakesh (who I never heard back from), but I have a feeling God was guiding me in this, since there are several congregations of my church in Ulaanbaatar itself, whereas there's just the one in all of Morocco, and that in faraway Rabat. And I think I'm going to like working for the principal a lot, and I work a lot harder for people I like (sad but true), and there is a decent-sized Korean population in UB, and while the salary is a little less, the taxes are as well, and I won't have to pay for rent or utilities (other than phone), and all in all, I think it's going to be a good place for me.

That said, Mongolia is really, REALLY bloody far north. Right now it's 19F up there, although tomorrow the high's supposed to be 28 (almost above freezing - How about that!) So I celebrated being offered my contract with a trip to the fabric market. Ostensibly, this was to buy layers, but far be it from me to leave China (thank goodness!) without doing my part for it's (endless) economic growth spurt. So in addition to the two pairs of long underwear I had copied in silk jersey (silk wicks sweat away from your skin) and the two plain shirts I had copied to put under other shirts, I ordered a dress, and a copy of a wrap skirt I own (except out of wool knit instead of the light breezy cotton it was originally made of)...and while I was looking for colors of the wool knit that DIDN'T look like the 60's threw up all over it, I found the most awesome shiny gold and blue leopard print, and decided I needed a dress made out of that, too. I told myself no more leopard print after the pencil skirt I bought back home last summer...but one more can't hurt, right?? Especially one like this - I figure I can go out dancing in this over the summer when I visit the Evil One in Lima...

Anyways, after the Shanghai Literary Festival - where Shermeen and I listened to Steffi Schmidt tell us the preface of her book...err, talk about her book, Shanghai Promenade (mostly stories about German spies who used to live here - we weren't unduly impressed, although Meen went ahead and bought the book and has promised to share any gems that tumble forth from the very dense book) - and lunch at Charme on East Nanjing Rd, I headed down to the fabric market to pick up my new clothes. The shirts and underwear were fine, the leopard-print was stunning in a nice, loud way, once they lowered the neckline a little, and the skirt - well, they need to reverse it so the purple layer is on top and the black on bottom, but it fit fine and I think it will be nice and warm, I may even have to have another made. And the other dress? It was beyond amazing. It was the best thing I've bought at the fabric market. It fit perfectly and was really flattering. This is it...

I decided to start calling the girl in the shop the Little Chinese Seamstress. I met her last spring when JoAnn was next door ordering shirts...it took a long time and as I was wandering around the third floor, I ended up in her shop because I saw a dress that I thought was really cute. The Little Chinese Seamstress was very convincing - she had good English and she wheedled me into ordering the dress I stopped to admire, even though I was kind of over buying things that day. It's a good thing she did, because everything she's made has turned out well. This is the fourth dress she's made me, and by far the best. It goes a little past my knees, has a flat panel down the middle of the front with ruching down both sides. My only wish is that she had more patterns to choose from - it's a really small shop - and that fewer people had discovered her, because she's usually pretty busy. I promised her today that I'd be back every month til I left, and I fully intend to. Leaving behind the fabric market is going to be one of the hardest things about leaving Shanghai. Here's the original dress she made me...

Speaking of leaving Shanghai, I've decided to live it up tourist style until I go. I've told myself that I will write a blog every week til then. While I bitch about the fact that there's not much soul to this city, there are lots of things I haven't done yet. So stay tuned.

Ramblings

It's never a good sign when you find yourself missing the hagwon (private English academy) business. Hagwon owners are dirty bastards who will sell their own mothers. And yet...there's something comforting about the predictability with which you get screwed over. I had this conversation with my own Dark Lord and Master just a week ago - and now I find myself echoing his sentiments. It's probably not hagwons I miss; it's him, and B, and the comfortable safety of GDA, which, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists. But all the same, on this day which found me catching curveballs before 8 a.m., a very large part of me was wishing I HAD walked to the English academy up the street and got me a job, bidding China a fond "zai jian!"

I don't really have anything important to say tonight, just snippets of memories from the last week. Like the importance of A Well-Placed Word, in this case, "chu-go-llae." I was trying to snag a cab to Bundang on Thursday, and some ahjjusshis (old men) on the other side of the street crossed over to MY side to steal the cab that was slowing down for me. I yelled out in frustration, and they looked at me as if to say, "Oh well, next time," as they climbed in the cab. I then shouted, "Chu-go-llae?" at them, it being the first thing that popped into my head. Now why the Korean words for "Do you want to die?" should spring so readily to my lips boggles the mind, I know, but it did, and whether they actually felt intimidated by a buxom ginger or because they were so amused by a whitey shouting death threats, I don't know, but it did the trick. They got out of the cab and sent it to me.

Then there are Things You Never Knew About People. Specifically, the fact that a former coworker whom I will not name used to do editorial work on erotic fiction (until the technicality of it got tedious and they started getting headaches trying to figure out whose fingers were in which orifice). How cool is that?!?

Also, Conversations You Can't Understand and Wish Would End. Emily asked me if I would go to the sauna with her, knowing how much I loved a nice long soak in a tub with staring ajjummas (old ladies), and I readily agreed (I've said it before, and I'll say it again, nothing says friendship like getting naked in a bathhouse together). We found one across the main drag of their neighborhood, and went there, and enjoyed ourselves immensely, even if it was a little ghetto by Bundang standards. Well, we decided to go for the hot room (after freezing our nipples off in the cold bath), and had settled in when an ajjumma decided to strike up a conversation with us. Except she didn't speak any English, and Emily's Korean makes mine look advanced. So I fumbled through, responding to her "O-di-yo"s with "America," then "Korea and China," then "hagwon and wei-guk-en hakyo (foreign school)," before she started babbling about something that I couldn't figure out, and since she wouldn't shut up Emily and I decided it was time to go back into the bath. Escape is always a good option.

A year back I wrote about how I was strong enough to go back to RAK, in spite of the fact that I was still finding my feet, and that when I began this life five years ago, I don't know if I could. It was Korea, all those years ago, and now I find myself longing for it so much - cross at being here. Being there I felt whole - I'd left my partner-in-crime here, and some friends that I have a feeling I will become quite close to, and yet, I didn't feel their loss like a huge gaping hole in my heart. So who knows - maybe after I finish my contract at my current school I'll be able to get back there.