A Southerner finding peace in SoCal

So this week my wife and I have been prepping our backyard for a party this coming Sunday. I have helped assemble a gazebo, dug holes for plants, pruned shrubs, and swept the patio. One of the more gratifying chores has been the assembly of patio furniture. Getting a table and chairs put out on the patio, and a couple of faux wicker seats with large green cushions bisected by a steel fire pit next to it really rounds out the set.  From college to China, then first years of our marriage-- I have occupied a string of apartments, guest rooms, hotels and hostels. None of those places sported multiple citrus trees or a pair of semi-feral vagrant cats. Not to sound cliche, but this place is really special; one could call it a milestone.

As I sat in my green cushioned, faux wicker glider chair yesterday after work, I indulged in a handful of fresh kumquats. Yes, we have a productive kumquat tree adjacent to our patio. For those of you who haven't savored the exhilarating rush of kumquat consumption, it ambushes your taste buds. The fruit is consumed whole, skin and all. A light zephyr of sweetness emanates from the peel and sets you up for the sucker-punch tartness of the middle. It is like having a conversation with Christopher Walken about some esoteric hobby and having Robin Williams interrupt you.  The kumquat: enjoyable, yet surprising.

That backyard experience with near perfect weather, and the promise of an almost infinite growing season combined to ease my mind about being here for a while. I used to be edgy and feel "cramped" within the social and political structure of this state, but California is cool. Dang cool! I don't recall being able to have fish tacos en route to Home Depot in Alabama. Nor finding any bougainvillea in the garden section there :o)  Perhaps the peaceful feeling is a sign of my growing tolerance of people who have a wildly different (lackadaisical) world view.

Just another example today at work was from a colleague's comment. He told me that I possess an abundance of "useless information." I gently retorted that much of my reading and learning is solely for personal enrichment. That threw him sideways; he couldn't fathom studying and memorizing information just for the sake of knowledge.  I suppose my outlook is contrarian to my peers. While many of them see studying as a painful means to a necessary end, I see it as a positive lifelong habit. Never stop learning! And in the words of gun scribe LT Col. Jeff Cooper, "If it is worth remembering, WRITE it down!" So many things I think about writing down for the sake of posterity, but slip into the pit of procrastination. That is a dangerous trap one should avoid. Steer clear, remain vigilant, read the Proverbs, and always keep looking up.

Chinese drivers are MORE PATIENT than You.

The powerful forces of Wuhan

Feb 2010

When you live in a city with 11 million Chinese people for two and a half years you appreciate what things you can control, and learn to patiently yield to the dominating monoliths that never make exceptions. Of these behemoths that cotton to neither rank, privilege, U.S. Passport, chauffer driven Audis, nor any other badge of prestige, traffic must be the biggest.  It is surreal to contemplate being an old Chinese man. I often sit back and wonder what it’s like to have lived through two world wars and the Depression as many of our grandparents’ older siblings did (Papah b. 1920 was the youngest of 10).  Having a paid for house and car, color TV, and some cash stuffed under the mattress or tidily growing at modest rates in CD’s was all they aspired to.  All that, plus having some healthy kids and grandkids, too.

But contrast Uncle Bubba, Papah’s older brother who was a Naval Academy grad and Alabama Supreme Court Justice with Zhou Laoshi, my Chinese tutor who is now sixty-five.  Zhou, a retired college professor who tutors foreigners to supplement his pension, was five when the war ended in China and Mao Zedong proclaimed a new China from the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Tiananmen Square.  Mao would provide little peace to the people other than a protection from the Japanese and other foreign invaders. 

Zhou’s apartment is similar to mine, which is similar to most of today’s Chinese middle class.  Approximately five hundred square feet, fourth floor up (no elevators) in a squat grey concrete building adjacent to another eighty or a hundred buildings of identical appearance, externally it looks rather dreary.  On the inside however, one finds the digital age has crept in.  There is a thirty-inch flat screen TV, DVD player, cordless phone, mini fridge, cell phone, and computer with internet access.  The only things lacking are finished floors, a water heater, five-gallon water dispenser, and toaster oven.  Zhou never had any of those things growing up and is not American, so why waste the money on frivolity?  He does have a piano that he plays on occasion (hate to be the worker who delivers those in China- no elevator, 4^th floor!) and has a grandson who drives a car.  I sometimes wonder what Zhou does with his money because there is no conspicuous consumption… younger Chinese should emulate this thrifty example!

Traffic. That is the name of the beast, that terrible behemoth… the unyielding force of Wuhan. I was told by a senior expat teacher that as recently as the early '90s Dida, our school, was on an unpaved and heavily rutted gravel road. It is now reached by turning off of the multi-lane roundabout, Lu Xiang and proceeding down a much-improved four-lane road.  One might expect such rapid change to keep up with the ever-worsening traffic.  It hasn’t.  I was also told in my first week to always lock my bike, and even then to be prepared to buy another.  I’m still on the first bike, and am told now that the bike thieves have switched to pinching electric scooters and motorbikes.  I can only guess that the Chinese phrase for grand theft auto will soon work its way into the lexicon.  Cars aren’t really the problem; neither are the taxis nor buses. None of these factors is bad by itself, but together they form a dense cloud, literally (bad pollution) and figuratively. Don’t forget Chinese haven’t yet abandoned their use of three-wheeled pick-up trucks, bicycles and other such slow moving vehicles.  The regular Monday through Friday rush hours always produce predictably awful traffic jams, but weekends can get much, much worse.

Just this past Saturday for example, Eliz and I were trying to get back to our apartments from downtown on the main thoroughfare, Wulou Lu.  It runs into Lu Xiang roundabout before continuing on towards Eliz’s school.  Our taxi made it halfway to Lu Xiang before encountering the worst traffic I’ve ever seen in my life.  About half a mile from the roundabout, our driver decided the left lane wasn’t moving fast enough, so he and numerous others began using the next available two lanes to the left on this six-lane road.  That’s right, we were barreling down towards what should have been oncoming traffic. But in typical “only in China” fashion, there were no cars coming toward us.  A torrential flood of traffic heading into a roundabout creates chaos; chaos with two lanes of contra-flow!  I felt the mind numbing power of it all when we were creeping past a police car; he in the far left lane, us to the left of him in the ‘right lane’ of the contra-flow.  The idea of anyone having control of this situation at that moment ceased to exist.  (Fade into the Pixies: “Where is my Mind?”)

After grinding through another quarter mile or so, our driver forced us out about two hundred yards shy of Lu Xiang.  To his defense, we had been idling for about five minutes and noticing a flock of pedestrians glide past much faster.  He didn’t even charge us, it was just shift change time and he was already running late.  So we walked on past the horde of immobile buses, taxis, Audis, Hondas, and Citroens.  We actually made pretty good time by hoofing it past two bus stops and were able to catch a mini-van ‘black taxi’ on the un-congested Carrefour side of Lu Xiang.  Still, it took forty-five minutes to cover what would normally take fifteen or even ten minutes in America.  It is experiences like this that make me immune to American, British or other trifling traffic delays.  We have real traffic jams in China. Americans outside of Boston, New York City, L.A. and the like have nothing to complain about!  

However, a “government solution” (hahaha) is hopefully in sight.  Last year, work began on Wuhan’s new metro system.  There will be a metro stop right behind the Ramada hotel on Lu Xiang as well as at Chicony department store, where our taxi ride began.  The authorities moved the finish line for construction from 2010 to 2012. Whenever it does open for service it won’t be a single day too early!!!

God Bless.