Keeping Up With the Lees
posted by Jill @ 12:40 AM
Just when things should be slowing down?
My husband, daughter and I have been in Beijing now for over a year and we've decided that we are going to leave. Well, we decided that last year before my school offered me a new and improved contract to keep me on for another six months. We decided to stay for the extra half year with intentions of high tailing out of China when the contract expires. That deadline is the end of January, 2007. So, with that in mind we are slowing down, detaching ourselves from the life we created in the last year and bringing to a close this wonderful experience. Right? Wrong!
A month ago two friends arrived to Beijing to study alongside my husband at the Acrobatic School. They are friends from Mexico, she is Mexican and he is Hungarian. With their arrival and the need to make some money to pay for school we started looking for performance jobs where we could all earn some extra cash and continue building on our performance experiences.
Because I am working part time I have time in the afternoons to make contacts and meet with PR representatives and place advertisements in magazines and all those things that a performance company needs if it wants to find clients. It also seems that my Chinese (as poor as it is) is good enough to work my way through the throngs of translations and misunderstandings and explanations. In exchange for my effort on behalf of the performing company I am learning how to say things like black light and fire show in Chinese. My work seem to be paying off, and in return my visions of the relaxing part-time life have been swept away so quickly that I don?t remember what I had planned for all that spare time. My lists of things to do have been getting longer and longer, and in contrast, my spare time is being devoured like my husband eats Nutella. That's lightning fast.
Not that I'm complaining. My life is so interesting and at times I would even call it thrilling! I find strange pleasure in taking metal hooks and nuts to a welder and asking him to weld the nuts to the end of the hooks and actually getting what I want. It's even fun to try and explain to him that these hooks will become part of a belt that will have eight small flames that will move when the wearer dances and moves her hips. Surprisingly, the welder almost never understands what I need these strange inventions for and I'm certain that my explanations leave him with even crazier ideas than reality. I have, however made some great friends down in the construction shop area of town, something that I don't think many foreigners in China can say.
Other experiences that delight me include visiting possible performance venues. The other night I went with our room/work mate to the Beijing clubs to see about doing fire or black light shows. Well, these weren't the clubs frequented by foreigners and we attracted a lot of attention when we walked in. Could have been my friend's dread locks and his long beard (the Chinese tend to be unbearded), but upon a closer examination no one could take their eyes off my Chinese old man shoes (reserved for old men and laborers, $1 US at local markets). We received the same shocked reaction at each of the six clubs we visited, not surprising since each was exactly the same as the last. I didn't realize that the Chinese believe any night club must look like the tackiest of Las Vegas Casinos with mirrors and lights covering every square inch of counters, walls and ceilings. I left puzzled that none of the people we spoke to understood what black lights are. If you don't know, they are the lights that shine purple and make everything white and fluorescent glow really bright. They are great for shows and you can create a lot of effects using them.
Well, the show business is keeping me busy and I'm enjoying being an entrepreneur. We had a Carnival show this last weekend and I must admit that it feels wonderful to be the center of attention. I wore stilts and was asked to take about a million photos with people at the party. We all dressed funky with bright colors and we made a great impression on all in attendance.
If I was only trying to manage the performance group I think I would still be able to find some spare time. It's the yoga classes that I attend and the one that I teach, and the English lessons for the kids in the Hospital and the extra-curricular English lessons for the kids at my school, and the paper cutting lessons and the paper cutting itself and the blog writing and the brochure making and...you understand. I'm happily busy.
Instead of just focusing on the things I have on my plate now, I've started planning how to make myself busy in the future. I would love to begin importing Chinese products to wherever I end up next. The budding entrepreneurial spirit here in China has infected me and I'm ready to be my own boss and use what I know about China to succeed elsewhere.
Well, the fact is that there are so many things to learn and so many opportunities here in Beijing that even though I'm supposed to be slowing down, I seem to be getting faster and more involved in the community. Learning never stops, but being a foreigner here in China I feel overwhelmed with the amount of opportunities to learn and grow. It seems that I'm racing against time. Not only am I racing against my time here, but also against China's time as an authentic culture. The life of China seems to live in its Senior citizens and as they slowly pass on, so does the culture of yesterday's China. Older people dance in the parks, play with Chinese yo-yos, practice their tai chi, sing together and gather to share experiences and skills while the younger generations are learning to survive in a Western type society where work is first and family and culture learn to adapt around business schedules? something like what I'm doing.
The other day I went to my paper cutting lesson with Ms. Lee, my 95-year old paper guru. I apologized to her because last week I wasn't able to make it to our weekly lesson. I explained that I've been very busy and I feel like time is going so quickly. She smiled and we went back to cutting. About a half an hour later, out of the blue, she said, "Time goes by quickly"?. I said, "Even for you Ms. Lee?" She is long retired and spends her days creating art. She replied, "I have five books left to finish," referring to the 200 books of paper cuttings she is making for each country coming to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She continued, "when I finish those five books I will stop cutting paper." I was shocked and asked her why. She replied, "If I don't stop cutting paper, I will not have time to write my book."
So it seems some of us will always be busy, finding ways to fill up our days and keep ourselves occupied, and keep ourselves learning. Until next time, keep moving and have fun!
My husband, daughter and I have been in Beijing now for over a year and we've decided that we are going to leave. Well, we decided that last year before my school offered me a new and improved contract to keep me on for another six months. We decided to stay for the extra half year with intentions of high tailing out of China when the contract expires. That deadline is the end of January, 2007. So, with that in mind we are slowing down, detaching ourselves from the life we created in the last year and bringing to a close this wonderful experience. Right? Wrong!
A month ago two friends arrived to Beijing to study alongside my husband at the Acrobatic School. They are friends from Mexico, she is Mexican and he is Hungarian. With their arrival and the need to make some money to pay for school we started looking for performance jobs where we could all earn some extra cash and continue building on our performance experiences.
Because I am working part time I have time in the afternoons to make contacts and meet with PR representatives and place advertisements in magazines and all those things that a performance company needs if it wants to find clients. It also seems that my Chinese (as poor as it is) is good enough to work my way through the throngs of translations and misunderstandings and explanations. In exchange for my effort on behalf of the performing company I am learning how to say things like black light and fire show in Chinese. My work seem to be paying off, and in return my visions of the relaxing part-time life have been swept away so quickly that I don?t remember what I had planned for all that spare time. My lists of things to do have been getting longer and longer, and in contrast, my spare time is being devoured like my husband eats Nutella. That's lightning fast.
Not that I'm complaining. My life is so interesting and at times I would even call it thrilling! I find strange pleasure in taking metal hooks and nuts to a welder and asking him to weld the nuts to the end of the hooks and actually getting what I want. It's even fun to try and explain to him that these hooks will become part of a belt that will have eight small flames that will move when the wearer dances and moves her hips. Surprisingly, the welder almost never understands what I need these strange inventions for and I'm certain that my explanations leave him with even crazier ideas than reality. I have, however made some great friends down in the construction shop area of town, something that I don't think many foreigners in China can say.
Other experiences that delight me include visiting possible performance venues. The other night I went with our room/work mate to the Beijing clubs to see about doing fire or black light shows. Well, these weren't the clubs frequented by foreigners and we attracted a lot of attention when we walked in. Could have been my friend's dread locks and his long beard (the Chinese tend to be unbearded), but upon a closer examination no one could take their eyes off my Chinese old man shoes (reserved for old men and laborers, $1 US at local markets). We received the same shocked reaction at each of the six clubs we visited, not surprising since each was exactly the same as the last. I didn't realize that the Chinese believe any night club must look like the tackiest of Las Vegas Casinos with mirrors and lights covering every square inch of counters, walls and ceilings. I left puzzled that none of the people we spoke to understood what black lights are. If you don't know, they are the lights that shine purple and make everything white and fluorescent glow really bright. They are great for shows and you can create a lot of effects using them.
Well, the show business is keeping me busy and I'm enjoying being an entrepreneur. We had a Carnival show this last weekend and I must admit that it feels wonderful to be the center of attention. I wore stilts and was asked to take about a million photos with people at the party. We all dressed funky with bright colors and we made a great impression on all in attendance.
If I was only trying to manage the performance group I think I would still be able to find some spare time. It's the yoga classes that I attend and the one that I teach, and the English lessons for the kids in the Hospital and the extra-curricular English lessons for the kids at my school, and the paper cutting lessons and the paper cutting itself and the blog writing and the brochure making and...you understand. I'm happily busy.
Instead of just focusing on the things I have on my plate now, I've started planning how to make myself busy in the future. I would love to begin importing Chinese products to wherever I end up next. The budding entrepreneurial spirit here in China has infected me and I'm ready to be my own boss and use what I know about China to succeed elsewhere.
Well, the fact is that there are so many things to learn and so many opportunities here in Beijing that even though I'm supposed to be slowing down, I seem to be getting faster and more involved in the community. Learning never stops, but being a foreigner here in China I feel overwhelmed with the amount of opportunities to learn and grow. It seems that I'm racing against time. Not only am I racing against my time here, but also against China's time as an authentic culture. The life of China seems to live in its Senior citizens and as they slowly pass on, so does the culture of yesterday's China. Older people dance in the parks, play with Chinese yo-yos, practice their tai chi, sing together and gather to share experiences and skills while the younger generations are learning to survive in a Western type society where work is first and family and culture learn to adapt around business schedules? something like what I'm doing.
The other day I went to my paper cutting lesson with Ms. Lee, my 95-year old paper guru. I apologized to her because last week I wasn't able to make it to our weekly lesson. I explained that I've been very busy and I feel like time is going so quickly. She smiled and we went back to cutting. About a half an hour later, out of the blue, she said, "Time goes by quickly"?. I said, "Even for you Ms. Lee?" She is long retired and spends her days creating art. She replied, "I have five books left to finish," referring to the 200 books of paper cuttings she is making for each country coming to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She continued, "when I finish those five books I will stop cutting paper." I was shocked and asked her why. She replied, "If I don't stop cutting paper, I will not have time to write my book."
So it seems some of us will always be busy, finding ways to fill up our days and keep ourselves occupied, and keep ourselves learning. Until next time, keep moving and have fun!
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