Keeping Up With the Lees

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!

Keep Tahoe Green, Part 2

When last you heard from us, Jen, the kids, and I were bivouacked in a decayed tourist joint on the south shore of Lake Tahoe. This actually happened last summer; it's getting cold up in the Sierra now, and about time for the ski resorts to gear up. I was, and still am, trying to get a handle on the big writing project about the lake that I hope to be undertaking soon. During this trip, I was sick to the point of a kind of light delirium, not entirely unpleasant, although sleep was a sometime thing.

I did enjoy South Lake Tahoe, but a little goes a long way. One day we went horseback riding--or, more precisely, Jen and Dustin went horseback riding, while our toddler Lewis and I waited for them to return. We sat in the car for the hour and a half they were gone, in a dusty lot next to the corral. Lewis slept the whole time; I tried to sleep. When we arrived, a mechanic working on a diesel pickup next to the corral turned on a gasoline-powered generator and kept it going the whole time. Down the hill, a city or county or Forest Service backhoe was burying a sewer line or something equally edifying. The operator somehow contrived to spend the whole time in reverse, or at least the backup alarm suggested that he was. Vehicles kept coming and going, including a whole fleet of diesel trucks. At some point, I remembered a piece of turn-of-the-twentieth-century Lake Tahoe advertising prose that I'd seen in my research: "Come be entranced by its restful air!"

The very moment Jen and Dustin returned, the mechanic switched the generator off--but Lewis, at least, never did wake up.

We then returned to the hovel Jen, Dustin, and Lewis were staying in. We discovered--and I could hardly believe this--seven nails exposed where the living room carpet was torn next to the bathroom door. The nails were pointy-side-up. They were only about a quarter of an inch long (is that an argument in favor of the hotel?). I opened up the phone book on the floor to cover them, and left if lying as if someone had been reading the phone book and laid it face down to save the page. The phone book had to be open or else it would not have covered all the many exposed nails. I decided it would be best for everyone if, when we departed, we just left the nails as they were, without the phone book. My theory was that the next person who stepped on them--or the next, or the next, it couldn't go on forever--would be the one to sue, and then these problems might actually get fixed.

Jen, Dustin, and Lewis prepared for the beach. Jen suggested that I stay in the room and sleep. It sounded great. About ninety seconds before they left, a garage band that had been hired to play in the outdoor bar burst upon the scene. The bar, as I noted in my earlier entry, was right next to Jen's room. It seated about two hundred people. I later found that the band had set up across the walkway from the corner of Jen's hovel. The music was surely audible ten miles out on the lake. It was audible, I am certain, over the noise of boat and jet ski engines. About halfway through the set, the band slammed into a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," and gave the lyrics a local spin: "On we sweep with threshing oar; / Our only goal will be the Tahoe shore!"

I spent all this time standing next to the TV. I couldn't hear it if I sat down.

I at last staggered away, and found Jen and the kids on the beach. The garage band finished its set about a minute after I left. The Canada geese that hang out here were still in the area, walking from group to group, chortling in a Canada-goose way, and gobbling the pretzels and Doritos people occasionally threw them. I was supposed to taking this trip to do research, and since sleep was out of the question, I thought I should get some work done. I blundered down a trail to have a look at old Tahoe.

Conveniently close to the "resort" where we were staying was the Tallac Historic Site. Run by the US Forest Service, the site is a collection of vacation homes built by San Francisco millionaires in the early twentieth century, now publicly owned and run essentially as a big sprawling museum. I walked the full network of paths between the buildings, among trees that are in places bigger than any in the whole Tahoe basin (because it was a resort, this area was not logged). The houses and cottages were all wood and stone, some of them featuring lofty main halls with fireplaces that reached up and up to the remote ceiling.

I walked through the structures that were open, and peeked through the windows of those that were not. They were full of furnishings and odds and ends from a hundred years ago. These places were pre-synthetic, as was everything in them; they dated from an age before plastic, when everyday things were made of bone and stone and wood and the like. It was a heavy era, by which I mean everything weighed a lot. The skis that can still be found in one of the cottages looked more like surfboards to me. What I was seeing, I eventually realized, were artifacts left by people who came here, a hundred years ago, to have fun: tennis courts, fishing tackle, boats. They developed an elaborate powerboat subculture, and every millionaire had a boathouse on the lake. The boats combined elegant wooden hulls with power plants designed for maximum speed and noise and pollution.

Later that day, after I finished with Tallac, I returned to the pier at our resort. I arrived just as the bats were coming out, and walked again to the end. The big gray boxes along the Nevada line--the casinos--were turning bright red. I could smell the pine trees on shore when I was well out to sea. A friendly family greeted me as I walked out. A house full of revelers was open to the night, and I am certain one could hear them in Nevada if all the plentiful engine noise on the lake and the shore were to cease. The swimming dock over by Tallac was lit up at the end like the dock in The Great Gatsby.

Later still, I walked to the shore one last time, at about ten o'clock, and the reality of the lake was disclosed to me. The mountains were mostly dark, but the rim of the lake was lit up all the way around, a wandering oval made of light. In a couple of places--South Lake Tahoe, and the urban strip and casino zone on the northern shore--the band of light bulged upwards, but mostly it was thin, and mostly it was unbroken.

Gravity and necessity made that oval. The lake shore is where everyone wants to be. The lake shore is where the ground is relatively flat, where roads can be built with an ease that is unusual in these ruthless mountains, and structures too. The weather is milder the lower you go. So the mountains above are mostly dark, but the shore--the line beneath which no one can descend--is lit up all the way around.

What we see at Tahoe--the things that people do there, and build there--is nothing new. This place has been a playground for a long time. There is just a whole lot more of it.

Behind Open Doors

Prior to this summer, I've wondered what it would be like to be one of the few remaining employees in a deserted park during a shoulder season. I have now come face to face with my curiosity as I am one of the last remaining seasonal employees in Yellowstone. To be honest, I was uncertain about the month of October in Wyoming and I didn't quite know what to expect. Good summer friends would be finding work in new cities, meeting new people, collecting unemployment, or off somewhere filling their passports with stamps and visas. I didn't know if the habitual goodbyes of coworkers and friends would affect my attitude. I didn't know if I would get cabin fever being the only individual living in an 8 bedroom house. In essence, I was expecting October to be kind of a drag. However, October in Yellowstone has been anything but mediocre.

After working in Yellowstone for the past five months with the nonstop barrage of photo-hungry visitors, the Old Faithful faithful, and the hour-long bison jams, it seems as though the park has rewarded the permanent employees and longer-seasoned seasonals. Yellowstone is becoming more beautiful by the day, just as all of the visitors have vacated. All of the cliché autumnal changes have been better than I could have expected. The grasses and underbrush have turned various shades of brilliant and soft reds, oranges, and yellows. The elk outnumber the people. And the skies are consistently some of the most unbelievable sights I've seen. It's as though the sunsets and sunrises mysteriously encircle you to form a 360 degree scene that looks more like something out of a Pink Floyd illustration than a truly natural sky.

And the best part is that the "summer" season in Yellowstone is open for another month. By some fortuitous circumstance, Yellowstone has saved its best for last. And yet the doors to Yellowstone are still open. They'll remain open until November 5. However, it seems as though Yellowstone's phenomenal Octobers will remain secret to the masses.

Since Yellowstone is somewhat of a ghost town in the fall, I expected it to be lonely and boring. I couldn't have been further from the truth. I do not feel lonely, and I am certainly not bored. This month has given me the opportunity to know some of the personalities that have lived in the park for decades. I've been able to have philosophical conversations with a soon-to-be-retired botanist, and I've debated (or attempted to debate) string theory with a long-term ungulates biologist. I've celebrated birthdays and house-sat for permanent employees. And I've been able to experience what Yellowstone is like without the infamous amounts of traffic and visitors. Contrary to what I expected, the opportunity to be in the park after it has emptied has been the reverse of loneliness. It has actually made me feel part of the community. And I will consider myself lucky to be one of the last standing seasonal employees fortunate enough to experience such a vivid shoulder season.

18 and Life

I work with undeclared freshmen at Montana State University. These students represent a bright group with many desires and passions. They tend to have so many desires and passions that they become easily overwhelmed by their choices.

It's true: freedom can be damning. Stupid freedom.

At this point in the semester, the student population I work with starts focusing on their next semester. They take a personality assessment and they complete some informational interviews. For some students, all of these tasks that show them the process of figuring out one's life is little more than reaffirmation. Lots of these students have suspected things about themselves for quite some time. Some have had inklings about being a teacher or studying sociology, but many of these students can't wrap their heads around choosing a major. Many of these students start to get panicky and want to choose that applicable major that will help them get a job, which most figure will be the "one thing" they should do for the rest of their lives.

ONE THING?!

Please people! How many of us are going to just eat one thing, or pursue one hobby, or go only to the same place for vacation for the rest of our live. Yawn.

Sure it still happens, but how often? We try to explain to students that onerarely keeps a job forever and one doesn't always work in her field of study. In fact, most college students will experience 7-10 major career shifts in their lifetime. I like to think arming my students with this information now might help some potential future discussions between parent and child. (How many of these discussions did we have, Dad?)

So as October starts to roll around, and as we start advising students for upcoming semesters, don't worry I am gentle with the "fresh"men/women. We ease into these myth shattering conversations. When a student gets back their personality assessment and can't understand why their top three jobs might be Clergy, Athletic Trainer, or Flight Attendant, I'll start talking about transferable skills, interests and abilities. But first, we're going to look at what they want to study.

To come out of college holding $19,202 of student loan debt (national undergraduate average of Stafford and Perkins loan debt of graduating seniors), wouldn't you like to have some fun and take some classes that interested you?

What about just learning? What about exposure to new ideas and cultures? What about enjoying this HUGE thing you've just started?

Then, I'm going to talk to them about traveling, about classes abroad, about working in a national park.

Certainly these things aren't for everyone, but many students don't think of these opportunities. Often, students just think about the next step that they have to complete.

As someone who changed her major about 6 times, still graduated in five years (with honors, thank you very much) and had many panicky nights where she felt like she needed a "plan," I feel very confident in saying catch your breath and go take a philosophy or a film class. Or a philosophy of film class. Add that yoga class, or take that medieval art history course.

How many times do we get to do this, anyway?


Montana State University map - Tagzania