Doctor Who as a Metaphor for Life

There are so many things I could address in this blog. I could address our fat idiot of a principal threatening me. I could address the fact that Yew Chung eats your soul, even when you don't work there. I could tell you about the old Chinese man shuffling down the street backwards in his brand-new Converse All-Stars this morning on my way to church. But I'd rather talk about Doctor Who.

A significant number of people who have come into my life in the last six years have been Doctor Who fans, and this spring I decided to give it a try. I liked it alright, enough to watch two seasons, and enough to get excited and set the recorder when I found it on BBC America this summer, but it wasn't until a week and a half ago that I decided to start season three. It and four (which I'm halfway through after starting this morning) have been amazing. Why? Okay, I gotta say, I love the whole traveler of time and space thing - repeatedly the Doctor is asked what he does, and he replies, "Travel." That's kind of my life! But what's really doing it for me is the heroines from these two seasons. Don't get me wrong - I liked Rose, I liked what I saw of Amy, but they don't have the flaws that give Martha and Donna meaning. Or their strengths - I love the fact that after a season of pining over the Doctor Martha says, "Look. Enough of this. I'm getting out and moving on." Who has that kind of strength? And Donna, who we meet at the beginning of season three - she's kind of a loudmouthed idiot, but she helps save the world and, more to the point, pulls the Doctor back from the edge that he currently puts himself out on, then says, "You know what? No. Not going with you - ya kinda scare me." She comes to regret that decision, and by the time you see her again at the beginning of season four, she seems like a totally different person. Still a loudmouth, but more with it, more willing to embrace the world, even when it scares her, and still able to help the Doctor remember what makes him who he is.

I kinda want those qualities for myself.

I also love the fact that this show leaves you with that feeling that anything is possible. I don't mean aliens or time travel, but the little miracles of finding your strength, of moving forward and reaching for what you want.

It's November 21, 2010. I've been in Shanghai for three months and eleven days. In that time I've lost some weight - not sure how much, as it's been a while since I last hit the sauna - made some friends, and become a more driven teacher. But I've kind of been holding back. There's so much more I want to do - I want to belly dance again, not just practice but perform, in the body I had when I lived in Korea. I want to write and illustrate my book - I haven't even touched it in almost two months. I want a closer relationship with God. I realized today that the way I feel about one of my friends, who doesn't seem to really care about me unless I'm needed is probably the way I make Heavenly Father feel, even being the patient, omnipotent deity that he is. When I get home from school, there's not much dance in me, or much art for that matter, and let me tell you about how much I feel like hanging out with Mormons for three hours on the other side of town, let alone throughout the week. But I've been that version of myself before, on all three counts, and so it MUST be possible to be me again. And watching impossible things like Doctor Who makes me believe, somehow, that I will.

That's all I have to say, I guess. Except that I wish - OH, how I wish - that the weekends were just one day longer. I could really use another day.

Honeymoon's Over

So, I've been in Shanghai for three months now. In my experience, this is about when the whole, "ooh-I'm-living-in-a-foreign-land-kinda-like-on-vacation" period ends, and the reality sets in. In other words: the honeymoon's over.

But actually, I'm not sure I even feel that honeymoon period anymore. Maybe I'm just jaded, but picking up and moving to Shanghai hasn't been that exciting. Like any place where the majority don't speak your mother tongue, there are challenges, and like any international school, there are quirks, but on the whole it is, as they say here in Asia, "Same-same, but different." Same s-h-you-know-what, different toilet (in this case, one over which you squat, and which no longer comes with a hose attachment). I mean, Shanghai is basically a big city, and no matter where you go, big cities operate about the same way. It is modern and fairly clean, has subways and buses, and all sorts of foreign foods and shopping. It's not hard to adjust, under the circumstances, and I've gotten pretty used to communication gaps and being stared at, and the culture shock has quietly eased during my last two adventures.

In fact, if anything, I feel like I'm hitting my stride right now. I've gotten used to the pressure and angle the school uses when they jerk me around, and because this is my second PYP school, I can anticipate some of the things they're going to ask me to do. I'm getting over that awkward period you go through with new friends, and things are normalizing with old friends. I've found a good dance teacher. So maybe the honeymoon's over, but I'm sure the honeymoon gets boring eventually, and the mark of a good life is being happy to be home, and I guess I am.

Pounding Pavements

This is the seventh night Socrates and I have gone walking since last Monday.

Our whole walking thing was a lot more convenient when he was living upstairs from me. The only effort required was one of us phoning the other and suggesting it. (This was not the only convenient thing about being neighbors - it was easier to convince him to bring his movies down to watch on the projector when it was a matter of taking the stairs rather than a taxi. Oh well). Now one of us has to go across town to meet the other. One of us being me. Don't go hating on him, though...I volunteered for it, and not just because I am so selfless that I will go all the way across town just to be sure he gets his exercise. Partly it's because I want the extra exercise of riding my bike over to his place, partly because I eat dinner over there every other night or so, anyways, and partly because afterwards I can stop at Coldstone's, if I'm feeling it. Okay, maybe the trip to Coldstone's negates some of the positive effects of walking for one and a half or two hours...but then, since I rode my bike over and back, I reckon I'm still ahead of the game.

And yes, I said one and a half or two hours. We never walked that long in RAK. Usually we made it forty minutes back then. Of course, there really wasn't anywhere to go in Ras al Khaimah. No sidewalks. Sand in your sneakers. Assholes driving up and ogling you. None of that's a problem here (okay, actually I get stared at quite a bit but I've just accepted that as a fact of my expat life, and I don't mind it when Asians do it), and there are endless tree-lined streets to beat. We've wandered the streets north of his place. We've wandered them all the way to my place. We've even wandered ones that we didn't know the destination of and, thus, ended up getting turned around to the point that neither of us were quite sure of where we were. It was fun...well, up to the point where he had a hypoglycemic episode on the ring road without a convenience store in sight. That was a little scary...as he was swearing and talking to himself about where the next convenience store was, I was having visions of carrying him piggyback up to the walking street (and so yesterday I stuck a pack of candies in my purse just to be safe, tonight he carried a can of coke).

Is it a pain in the ass? A bit. I haven't had the time/energy to work on Kashmir in a week and a half. But I'm enjoying the time with him, and I'm REALLY enjoying the fact that my clothes fit better - whether it's from the walking, or just plain old Asian magic, I can't wait til the next time I weigh in at the sauna!

Blind Man's Massage

Note: Nothing at all like Blind Man's Bluff.

So I met up with Audrey this afternoon to use the vouchers we got from the speed dating night. I couldn't actually find my voucher in the end, so instead of going to the posh spa that we originally intended to go to, we went to a massage parlor that she had been to before. Where 90% of the masseurs were blind.

Yeah. When she told me that I went, "Whoa. Really?" But it makes sense, right? Your other senses are supposed to be stronger to compensate for the lack of sight, so you'd think a blind masseur would be better than a sighted one, that they would be more finely tuned to what they're feeling. And honestly, I can't complain - it was a really good massage, and I don't particularly care for massages. And it was cheap (they are, here), only about $15 for a back and foot massage. But the best part was when the guy who was doing her feet figured out I was American and started telling me (through Audrey) that he LOVES American basketball. He knew all the teams and all the players. It was fun.

And then afterwards I spent a half hour trying to catch a cab in the rain. I learned that it is not always possible to intimidate someone into NOT stealing your cab - this morning when I yelled at the guys doing it, they backed off, but this evening the bastard ran for it. Who says chivalry is dead? Thank goodness I am home in my flannel jammies and supersoft fuzzy Korean socks. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't leave the house tonight for love OR money!

Shanghai American

You've gotta understand something. For the last year, I've mostly associated with Brits. I'm not going to lie and say I haven't enjoyed it, because I have (mostly) - normally I can figure out what they're talking about and I quite like their dry sense of humor - but there are times when I've felt a little outnumbered, and even though I know what THEY are talking about, the reverse often proves not to be true (how can you not know what a cougar is? Or how to teabag?) A typical Friday-Thursday in RAK would be me, Socrates, our married friends, and the school drunk...who are ALL British, and actually all of whom have degrees in one science or another, so while they were nerding out on things like gravity I sometimes found myself wishing for someone who would understand why the joke about Toulouse-Lautrec and the prostitutes* was funny.

Oh, how the tables have turned! Last night was myself, Socrates, and two musicians from Minneapolis. It was nice to have someone laugh at my "your mom" jokes and to not have to translate. I could get used to this!

We went to see them play last week - they had a gig at one of the restaurants on Hongmei walking street. This is the "scene" in Hongqiao/Gubei, if indeed such a thing exists. You can get just about any kind of food on this street - Mexican, Indian, Thai, Japanese...not Korean, actually, but I've got enough of those on my street - and there are plenty of bars as well, many of which have life music. It's also a little artificial, as this is whitey central and you will bump into any foreigner in the area, if you wait long enough. Michael plays guitar and Joann plays cello and they both sing, so it was quite different from the electronic shit we suffered through (for all of ten minutes) the week before.

Before we went out last night I needed to make a run to the bank and Carrefour. The bank closes at five and I didn't want to waste money on a cab, so as soon as we were allowed to leave school I was off like a rocket. Uhh. A bicycle-powered rocket. In fact, I was in such a hurry that I ran over someone. Yep. Well, he wasn't at the crosswalk and he was crossing against the stoplights, so what did he expect? It could have been worse - I only hit him because he hesitated and I slowed down, so it was not enough to throw me from my bike or get more than his foot. If you're thinking that this did ANYTHING to the way I ride, the answer is no. I continued weaving in and out of the traffic like a drunken bat out of hell, and in fact, discovered that it is just as fast to pedal to the intersection of Yan'an and Hongmei roads...one of the families I teach left the school at the same time I did, and we kept passing each other, which the kids thought was pretty hilarious. I lost them at Hongmei.

Anyways, I made it to the bank, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I had a LOT of money left (possibly enough to afford that spontaneous trip to Beijing my partner in crime suggested last weekend), and went to Carrefour, where I wandered for a half-hour before I remembered what I wanted (as I was next in the checkout line...grr) - a mosquito plug-in. I am declaring mosquito jihad on the little bastards as they've kept me up twice this week. I always found it a little troubling when my Dark Lord and Master used to set them on fire while we sat on the smokers' deck at GDA talking, but after two months in Shanghai, I've learned. I am still trying to figure out what else to do to take the fight to them - for now, decorating the stairwell in the gym with their splattered bodies and getting a good night's sleep is enough. But I'll keep you updated.



*Q: What did Toulouse-Lautrec used to say to the prostitutes at the Moulin Rouge?
A: Got time for a short one? Get it?!?

Capital Improvements

I know the truth about the size of my body (how can you not, when you've been half-clad and shared a stage with Asian girls on more than one occasion?), but I've managed to put my insecurities far enough aside to get on with life. I do have insecurities, but in spite of being surrounded by girls the size of chopsticks, Korea did a lot for my self image. I could, for example, eat whatever I liked and still lose weight. There was also the fact that I worked for a man who was NOT one to spare your feelings, and when one night at the Beer Halle my Dark Lord and Master told me I was NOT a "big girl," I had to believe it.

And then I went back to America and gained 50 pounds. Life hasn't been the same since, so it was not a complete surprise when a person of my acquaintance called me - not too terribly long ago - a big girl. Still, I'm as human as any of you, so as you can guess, the insecurities were thrust back into the limelight, and now I find myself scrutinizing when I walk past a mirror.

What can you do? Well, I'll tell you what you can do. You can give up pop. Again. (Third time's the charm, right???) And I have - it's been a week since my last soda. You can stop eating chocolate bars for brekke and start eating two nice eggs with a little salsa for flavor (again). Okay, go ahead and laugh, tell me that of COURSE I've got some wobbly bits if I eat chocolate for breakfast, but it's been a staple of my diet. Ask any teacher from GDA between 2004-2008 about the Rebecca Teacher diet and they will tell you snickers and coke are breakfast foods (as I said before, I can eat whatever I want in Korea). But the fact of the matter is, I'm 31 years old now. Although at the rate my life is going I should have lived enough that I'm ready to die by the time I'm 60, I probably will not (as has been pointed out to me...I don't drink, smoke, do drugs or engage in other risky behaviors). And I don't want to be crippled and unable to enjoy sweets guilt-free if I do. Thus the changes.

I've been biking a lot this week, as well, but since most of those bike rides involved a stop at Coldstone's, the positive effect is kind of negated. And last night I went for yet another belly dance class. I've actually been to three teachers' classes now - a week after QiQi's performance class I went to the beginner class taught by Julia (pronounced Yu-lia), who is Ukrainian. She figured out at some point during the class that I was not, in fact, a beginner, and afterwards asked me how long I'd been dancing before suggesting that the following class with Tanya might be better suited to my level. This was the plan all along, so last night I finally (due to holidays and vacation) made it to her class. She's another Ukrainian if I'm not mistaken, and I've got to admit, I was not expecting to be impressed with any former Eastern bloc dancers. What can I say - I lived in the middle east, and except for Katia of Cairo, I've never seen a Russian dancer that was a dancer. If you get my drift. I still don't quite understand what they're doing here, but both Julia and Tanya were pretty decent teachers; whether or not they know all the fascinating cultural stuff that Azhaar knows, they can dance, that's for damn sure. Hell, Tanya put me through my paces so well last night that I've been sore all morning. And it's good to feel it.

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.