滚？

the unwashed proles? seriously? social darwinism, white man's burden, eugenics, man, you've got it all. good thing your chinese is so freaking sweet you can read a book when all the "plebian masses" get sick of listening to you.

okay. that was mean. and i do think you're making a good point in here somewhere. as someone more eloquent than me said:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/you-dont-have-a-foreign-language-problem-you-have-an-adult-literacy-problem

it frustrates the hell out of me, too, when people say, "oh, i'm not learning the characters, they're too hard, and i can talk to people just fine without them." they are hard, but that's no excuse to stay illiterate and expect the people who did learn the characters to have sympathy for you when you can't read a menu or find your way on a subway map.

more often than not, though, the part of me that gets pissed off at those people is the same part of me that gets pissed off at MYSELF for not be able to keep up with a conversation that goes over my head or running into a character that i know i've seen a million times and can't quite place it or a chengyu that i can't make heads or tails of. there is no need to put other people down to make ourselves feel better. because they only bug us because they ARE us, however many years of dictionaries and flashcards earlier.

-nick

That last entry of mine really seems to have hit a nerve, and it's best expressed by this comment. I guess I've always had to answer this question one way or another, so here goes.

"How did your Chinese get so good?" Locals and expats alike feel the need to inquire about this several times a day, even as my Chinese is nothing I feel like I have any qualification to wave around and club other people with. The trigger for my last post was an unsolicited message on my long-warehoused OKcupid account where I posted a snarky dogwhistle-type screed in my profile in Chinese, and a less-so one in English. I got a message from yet another college student in the States who was all "OMG you learned Chinese I'm so jealous". I answered as nicely as I could, with a "Yeah, kind of, but it's never something you're done with, so don't get all idol-worshippy, I'm always down to hang if you make it over." (For the record, yes my profile says in big loud letters that I'm married and mean it).

But I sent it, and then I looked at it, and then I squinted at it, and then The Rage came upon me. GRARGRARLAOWAI and I let The Rage loose upon an unsuspecting internet, and I guess I should have expected what came next. But the thing is, people ask me that question, and they don't know about The Rage. They don't know how crucial it is to my language-learning process, and what lessons they should take away from that. It's not something I can explain in 5 minutes in a bar. I can say read a book, I can say the key to remembering vocabulary is forgetting and remembering, I can say it takes patience and determination and you've gotta get yourself in that headspace...but it's the rare man who actually listens. You can find all that crap anywhere in the CFL sphere, on blogs and advice sites and forums. Nobody needs that advice from me.

Don't be all looking at me like I'm James Frey, yo. The Rage is my secret, and it's intensely personal, and it's hard to generalize from it lessons and advice that you can take home and use. 99% of it is about me and my personality. And the 1% of it that you can use is a real long fucking roundabout. But now that I've posted it, I do owe an explanation in language that doesn't expect you to be inside my frame of reference.

First, the register I wrote that post in was put there partly because I'm frustrated with the EFL and CFL and foreign language studies all over the world. When you open your textbook and learn Chinese, Yuehan goes to the supermarket and comes home where Xiao Hong cooks dinner. And then they go to the museum and Tiananmen. The article linked in the comment above does a good job of expounding on how I feel about that:

How much of those frustrations have to do with language proficiency, and how much have to do with something else?

And alright, let's say you're not afflicted by the crazy. Let's say you're perfectly good and sane and aren't having an identity or confidence crisis (however small) because you're frustrated with trying to reach out and communicate across the cultural gap. The same principles still apply:
good thing your chinese is so freaking sweet you can read a book when all the "plebian masses" get sick of listening to you.

How'd you know? They do get sick of listening to me. My wife, however, seems not to. Then again, she's the woman who was wandering around with me the other night (remember she won't touch anything unhealthy, no alcohol, no caffeine, no drugs of any kind), asking strangers if they wanted any of Aunt Flo's Sprite. If you don't want to talk about the kind of communication dynamics that fudge up 2L acquisition, the communication dynamics that make that funny to her (and me) are just as interesting.

Personally, I'd call it a frame of reference issue. And I'd wager that whatever your reaction to that might be, it's not boredom (well, ok, you had to be there). It's the kind of intimate, ingroup-affirming communication that friendships and relationships are built on. The larger your frame of reference, the more capable you are of forming those connections. So how do you expand your frame of reference to things outside of language proficiency in such a way that they're helpful to you in communicating across cultures, or subcultures, or whatever in-groups you aren't a member of yet?

Well, for me, it was The Rage. Really. I have no secret to learning a language. Instead, I have...anger issues. We need not go into the details of how I got them, but suffice it to say I got them early and got them alongside a pleasure in details. And that makes me: a snob. I am the hate camel, and I hate with an attenuation impenetrable to the average angermonger. I hate tech house, I hate Ben Gibbard, I love garbage house, I love American Analog Set. I hate fish on the bone and will not eat it, but gimme that tuna. I don't share a lot of love for The Onion, but I love McSweeney's like nobody's business. xkcd is passe, achewood is timeless. I am compelled, I am driven, I am addicted, I must analyze and separate and compartmentalize and then, ever so gingerly, turn my nose up. Obviously that didn't earn me many friends, but it did leave me with a stronger sense of self and a deeper connection to my culture. I cling to my sarcasm and my classification systems in English - to survive as I was in China, I had to learn to do the same. I came into China with linguistic goals entirely different from most. My goalpost was (silly, I know) to criticize, to be smarmy, to be a cultural critic the likes of which they'd never seen.

And that's it. That's my secret. An immature desire to be better-than-thou, even if I had to do it in a 2nd language. Referring back to my own culture doesn't work. Europe tried that in the colonial era...and it didn't work. They came out looking like asses and rightfully so, what with all that racial typology and bullcrap about civilizing other cultures. So that's right out. No, I was out for pwnage and lulz, pure and simple. Pwn the world.

Well...I didn't really manage to do it. But I did learn a lot in the attempt. And in my attempts to pwn China, I learned that the dynamics of their own culture are just as varied and complex as my own, and that I had to get up to speed if I was going to even come close. The ways of the pwn are myriad and profound, and they deserved study. But the rules governing the pwn are the same that govern all human interactions, and they are, as the reams of ineffectual eloquence on the internet prove, not limited to language proficiency. And that's why I knew, when I preened a joke for 3 hours and it fell flat, that it was probably not the joke. It was the frame of reference that needed fixing, not my grammar.

So. The takeaway from all that is that if you want to really learn a language to the point where you can use it effectively, for pwning and other purposes, you have to get inside the heads of people who speak it. Then, and only then, can you circumvent the culture gap. Until you do, your interactions are limited not only by how well you speak the language, but by how well you can engage your listener's frame of reference. Communication suffers when you can't. Books...are generally the easiest way to do that. Once you've had a conversation about all the kinds of 韭菜 there are with the lady who makes your dumplings, what do you have in common? Shared humanity? Please. You and 6 billion other people. I'm sorry, but it gets boring after awhile. Shared humanity is a good start, but it only gets you so far.

So what's to be done? Books are probably the easiest solution. Seeing as you're learning Chinese and are in China...

was my point.

This blog hasn't seen as much action as that post got in YEARS. I thought I was shouting into a void here. Thanks for reading, even if I pissed you off and you won't be back...

Right, so, a few comments on the, in truth, rather offensive tone, and more on that in a second, but first, a public apology for the Down Syndrome analogies. That was over the line. I'm a white guy in China who gets his lulz from brooking the inappropriate. By god but is that a fine line to walk. You don't have to stay classy, but you do have to not be an outright dick. You have to dodge colonialist and sexist and classist and religionist and racist and agist and any other number of things while still keeping your offensive wit sharp. That's part of the fun and challenge of it. Down Syndrome isn't even a place you should go. It was low and my standards have been lax lately. I'll blame Encyclopedia Dramatica (I was drunk and had been reading that site for a good 8 hours before I posted my snarly entry), but I also won't because I know why "'tardlulz" work there but not here. It's inappropriate because, at least here, targeted humor is what works, not broad swipes. They've got a whole website devoted to pissing people off, and building layered in-jokes, I don't. Even then, they make a good number of people angry. It's not humor that takes all comers, but I will say that, under the right conditions, I think there's a place for it. That place isn't here. I'm sorry.

It's also worth saying that I've worked with people with Down's Syndrome both in and out of China and made friendships I'll always treasure (http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/ I know how weak this is, is what I'm saying). They're people with a disease is all. I know cancer patients and deaf people too...no different. So keep that in mind if you laughed. "They" are people with problems, just like you. Who knows, maybe you're afraid of water or heights. Maybe you can't talk about your feelings or have anger issues. We're all hobbled to some degree, and it's not always something we can help. The line between friendly jabs and dickish cruelty is when you mock something that the other person is incapable of laughing off. I crossed that line, and now I'm apologizing. I hope you'll accept it.

Do we want a more substantial update about ME??????????

Yes we do! Yes everyone do!

Ok. Since, um, what, I've been married to Yoga Teacher (look back). V, for record, has also married and made reproductions. I mean god damn had a baby. And I don't know why she did that, because the pre-child life for her, with the drugs and such, was enough, but now...there's a baby added to the mix. NOTHING REALLY CHANGED. Thank god it ended and all that.

So right, I'm married to Yoga Teacher. Existentially speaking, things go well, because she's, well, rich-ish. The -ish means that even if her parents die and stop making them incomz (look, I've been suffering from an overdose of encyclopedia dramatica, and I don't need your judgmentz, trust me though, I can write like a human being, I just need awhile to stop being so g1ddy from it allz (I do it to annoy you)), I'm set like a football star, but it's not like I'm bleeding cash. Her parents like me and were all, "Anything you need, we got you." But I've seen the bank balances, and with those bank balances, yes I won't starve, no I don't need E and hookers in Thailand.

So, I still have a job. Because, y'know, even though 4 properties around Beijing isn't so bad, should I ever, in fact, need E and hookers in Thailand, that's on me. So I'm still working the translation gig. Check this resume yo: 宁浩，谢晓东，薛晓璐，郑重，王坪，胡玫 - those ohsosexywhyNickwhy names are a list of the directors I have transnatored the fuck out of in 2009. You can look them up, you can see what's up with what, on the mighty of searches, googdu. That's a neopolitism from me, your host, me. Dude, it was awesome. I know so many directors now. And I'm totally hooked up in the movie translation biz for future profits.

The question on your mind, because it's the question on the mind of everyone who talks to anyone in China, is do you teach English and how is it. Yes in fact I do, I know I foreswore it in such an entry as this but, that was a year and a half ago, and the money is too easy not to take. I currently tutor (as in it's just me and who singular) a corporate consultant who kicks ass on investigating stuffs, a college grad whose mom produces movies and is my neighbor, a dog food executive who lived in Ireland, an insurance adjuster for BMW, a meedja exec, a talent agent in, surprise, movies, a Baidu legal exec, some random chick who seems determined not to learn, and some 60-year old chick who owns a sugar company who goes to India all the time. I tutor them and make teh profits while I also translate for real estate, books, and movies. Look, the English money is silly. They pay me for conversing. I can't not. But no classes, no way no classes. If I teach a class, get me out of there, because I don't belong in such for the damage I'll do.

What else. Bro is here, I said so in forever ago, and he's still doin' what he do. He's a sick, and when I say sick I don't mean the insurable type, DJ, and will rock your socks, shoes, and other, higher-placed garments off, because it's sexy sexy music. Dude is awesome. Wife...now what does she do. Not a Yoga Teacher anymore, but the effects still show. She's not gainfully employed, but she advises others on health matters and continues to assist in interior design matters (which she studied in college) and generally does Good in the world.

I got my people. I'm very health-oriented now, thanks to wife-naggage. Rui (that's her name, I can reveal that) has a patent on this. She is advanced, and will teach you to nag your husband for a fee. But, thanks to her, I feel way more...well, y'know what comes with the physical activity of sorts. I'm more awake, more aware, less achey. Seriously, start exercising, you dirty unwashed. And wash yourselves. It's not like it's hard.

I still smoke, though much less, and still drink, like I'm drinking right now. But, dammit, life's good, I'm good, and things are good. I have switched from a 15" monitor for my desktop to...duhn duhn duhn, a 32" TV. Get DVI for that. It's better. Also, get freenas (google such). You'll thank me. You rent movie, you copy movie, you have movie.

I know some crazy Python. And CSS. I will design the fuck out of your website. You won't even know. Get in touch.

Wanna know why? Of course you do, you LJ drama queens. I just got asked, for the gazillionth fucking time, how I got so good at Chinese.

Oh shut up. Books. I read. I have books. I read them. The books tell me things, and they just happen to tell me things that I'd never hear on the street, talking to the unwashed proles most foreigners strain to pat themselves on the back for being so able to hold a conversation with.

Look, no offense to the Chinese, who are some of my favoritest bestest friends ever, but man, most of them are just stupid. Not objectively, not mother dropped me at birth, not even compared to other cultures or anything. They're stupid compared to the smartest 20% of them.

You know what it's about. You've lived in or heard about the redneck masses in the US who use "gay" as awesome's antonym, who argue about whether Chevy or Ford makes a better truck, who haven't even heard of Pi, let alone could tell you whether they like it or not. The people who wear promise rings and Nike sweatshirts and Wrangler's and have a singing bass (the fish, idiot) in their living room. The people who talk about their fucking cats and only see the Eiffel Tower and Mona Lisa when they visit Paris. The people whose kids fuck off to Tijuana and laugh at Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook and get MBA's if they're lucky and drive uninsured Priuses because they want to get smarmy about it but who wouldn't touch a Metro if you paid them. They watch Fox, MSNBC if they're enlightened. They listen to everything but rap and OMG isn't "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" like so ironically funny? Those people fucking suck. And most of the people you meet in China? They suck just as hard. They're nice enough people, but they're douchebags who can't hold an interesting conversation on more than a few topics for more than a few seconds. They're obnoxious breeders who, aside from the fact that they sell you dinner or fix your bike, you wouldn't even think about talking to, and you sure as shit wouldn't sit there kvetching at them about the weather for an hour unless your Sinotard glasses didn't make them look so rosy and profound, with all their deep authentic realchina knowledge of the language you're studying.

They're decent people. And this car I'm trying to sell you has not only brakes, but headlights! And a trunk! And radial tires that keep more contact surface on the road, even when the road is coated with the greasy slime of your standards!

Nobody but fucking nobody learning Chinese tries to pick up a book and read it. THERE ARE SO MANY OF CHARACTERS I HAVE NOT MEMORIES TO HOLD THEMS. Then fuck off and learn a language with a latin alphabet and cognates so you don't have to look at the funny pictures. I MUST READ THIS TEXTBOOK AND I WILL LEARN TO READ TEH MENU!! Just like my 10-year old neighbor! And she doesn't need a dictionary, fuckstick! I CAN CHATTING ON THE QQ TO LEARNING SO MANY KNOWLEDGES AND CURRENT SLANGSES TO IMPRESS LADIES. Y'ever read youtube comments? That's your ambition? To reach the same level in Chinese as a youtube commenter? And I'm sure you had a great conversation with the taxi driver about how you're used to China and how white women actually aren't easier. Congratulations. You are now a puerile twat who can objectify women.

And then people complain when their wives are Hello Kitty freaks/Chinese guys have no serious interest in them, and Chinese people don't take them seriously. Well what the fuck did you expect with those sources? You have, in the immortal words of Jim Lahey, taken a ride on the shitcoaster. You are one of the plebian masses who, in the US, you would avoid like the plague. And the interesting Chinese people? The ones who'll discuss ancient ship hull designs and how they clash with Jared Diamond's (yes, he's been translated, and people have been reading, were you aware) theories on cultural dominance, the ones who will laugh at your jokes about Chinese parents throwing chairs down the stairs to name their children, the ones who think Bob Marley needs to shut the fuck up because Elephant Man and Burning Spear are so much better, they will ignore you. They hate you and your hick ass.

You know why? Because unlike the 80% who at least speak the language at birth, you have started from zero. You don't even get the most basic of cultural references, or if you do, they're more played out than the grass mud horse. They were interested in English teachers and had "foreign friends" 7 years ago. They're through with that shit, they've been to NLGX, Lonely (China, which you know was added by their USian managers DON'T YOU) Day was cool when they came out, but Le Fly Pan Am did it better. On to bigger and better fish.

Just like you, you bad bad man, right? Your indie-peen could topple the Sears Tower, what with how you memorized Them songs in high school and know how a Virus With Two Shoes got their name. You read The Game and were all, "Yeah, PUA shit was cool when I was 14, but I ain't readin' none bitches palms." You were like Slumdog Millionaire? Nah dawg, Ashoka. You read World War Z and it's still so cash because it's so cash (do you like to drink my Pabst). Yeah. You're the shit. You're way beyond all that fuckoff Fox News Republibullshit and you might have a dog but you talk about how its nuts are dirty rather than how cute it is. Because you rule. Oh yeah, and you have a Wii.

But dude, you do the opposite of that in Chinese, even if you can throw down in the hutongs. Even if you're an erhu hero. Even if you're Da my-wang-awaits-your-tender-dictionary-selling-lips Shan, unless you make like unless you make like a mill and get them pulps. I do NOT mean no fuckoff textbooks. I mean 无土时代, I mean 中国凭什么不高兴, I mean 诺名信, I mean Edward Said's last book, whatever the fuck that was, in Chinese.

Now, I'm not trying to brag. I struggled through them just like I hope you will with a dictionary and notebook and it took me 3 months to finish the first one. But fuck you in your I-can-drink-straight-koubei face, you are just a parlor trick monkey if you can't talk about what was in those or other volumes. You may have read the translation of Anna Baby, but that is not Xing good enough! You are still, by dint of your ride on the shitcoaster, a dirty breeder pleb to the Chinese people who share your voluminous indie-peens and could actually have a conversation that wouldn't bore the flying fuck out of you if you weren't having it in Chinese.

Did you get that? You bore the fuck out of Chinese people, you white/black/Mideastern/Hispanic/AZN dooch. You are 无聊到家. You are on the wrong side of the Pareto principle. Because there are 280,000 books published here every god damn planetary circumnavigation, and your shit be's out of that club. Suplise, every single Chinese person you know is in that club, and they get more out of one day in it than they do from 50 days of conversing with a, face it, illiterate retard like yourself. That's why you get the polite refutations and history lessons and patronizing smiles and why everyone is suddenly busy once you get too drunk.

Look, if you don't read some, um, books, you're functionally illiterate. That makes you as interesting as a non-reader. You got jack shit to add. Unless you meet someone overbearing with a didactic streak, your conversations are going to be stale of anything relevant to your audience. So man up and Levar Burton, or shut up and accept that in China, your furriner ass is, at best, still, about 8 years old mentally. That's what you are unless you can read. You will fuck people that will date an 8-year old, you will have engaging conversation with people who will have engaging conversations with a 8-year old, and you, well...yeah. Shut up, you, and open a fucking book.

Jen Kwok - Date an Asian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG9vYZmoqmg

知无方有大用，无为方无不为。天下莫弱于水，而攻坚者莫之能胜。上善若水啊！
Sit on your ass. Hard work pays off tomorrow, laziness pays off right now. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

先生微言大义，吾道一以贯之。先生的道是大象无形，超然物外，不限于世间……而我的道则在人间。
You're like a dull knife that just ain't cuttin' it, just talkin' loud and sayin' nothin'. I'm trying to have a system here. Jive talkin' got nothing to do with anybody anywhere. I'm a people person.

那就不要在意天下人的误解吧。富者赠人以金子，我没有金子，就赠你这几句话吧！
Sticks and stones is your MO then, bro. If I was a sculptor, but then again, no...Or a man who makes potions in a travelling show, I know it's not much but it's the best I can do, My gift is my song and this one's for you

"Battle of Cliches", an exercise in free association translation, by me.

Source material, Confucius and Laotzu. Douchebags.

and I know you do. If your question is, "Will you have this next payday?" I think you know what the answer is. Somehow, I just think you do.

I just totally rode my bicycle from Guomao all the way home. It's about 11 km, which google says is 6.8 miles, and red lights included at rush hour, dude, I rolled that shit in 24 minules. I was all pulling past electric bikes, dude. Fuckin' sweet.

If I do this for like a month, everybody who comes to this journal will think I rule, and won't realize that I was a total loser in 2007.

I own a house that I live in. This house has three bathrooms and two occupants. And the other occupant, my wife, is manic about her desire to use only the one in the master bedroom. So I have to cover the other two in addition to wakeup pees in the master bedroom. It's a lot of hard work, but not when you have frequent, low-viscosity stools, which is why I drink 5 cups of coffee a day.

Just got off some previous entry madness.

Misanthrope much? I'm like a real-life Roast Beef from Achewood. I am a walking punchline. Fear me.

Now I have to make a bunch of new entries to push all the crappy old ones to the back. And I don't even really have anything cool to write about.

I have a new hat. That is a thing I have that is cool to write about. It's like a grass fedora. I wear it and people walk slightly to the side of me.

Actually, y'know, being cut off from this was probably good for me. There's about a year and a half of drama y'all asses didn't have to read.

I have another thing that's a Treo, with Little John Palm, which you should install on your phone, because it emulates every retro gaming system out there.

I'm married now. I'm seeing a year and a half of drama being replaced with, "Yoga Teacher made me do the dishes at 6am today. We have a new showerhead."

Did you know that I know about 1/3 of PHP now? I do. It's pretty sweet.

All those promises to update more...how 'bout that huh?

Here's another one! I think I'm getting better at these promise things...

Livejournal's unblocked?!?!?!?!

After years of suffering the indignities of 404's and server timeouts, I have finally removed my ass from the figurative chair (it's still firmly implanted on the real one) and installed Tor. That means, folks, that I'm back. Bigger, faster, stronger, and better than ever. And with lots of crap I've been wanting to say. So, here's to renewed blogging (next to me is a bottle of horse milk booze; those crazy Chinese, eh?).

I hope this works. LJ has been blocked for a long time, and I've still not found a decent way to download a backup, nor have I really found a service that would let me post the backups. Sometimes I hate China...

Then I can at least still update.

And update I will.

Every time I update though, it feels like I'm expending my best energy on worrying about who and what's revolving in my social life, which in the end, is, as everyone who's stumbled across this can probably tell, worthless. I've got five years of entries detailing nothing more than what I'm worried about, and I'm usually worried about the same things.

My life, though, hasn't worked like that. I've never meant this like I'm saying it now: things have changed.

So much.

Did I ever tell you about Yoga Teacher? Because this summer, after my brother came over, alive and unharmed, I started dating her. And it's been 5-6 months, depending on where you count the start date (but that's not really important to us), and we're happy. I'm happy. For fuck's sake I've never been this happy. Everything came together at kind of exactly the right time and taught me what it means to be happy.

I've never liked settling accounts with my own regrets, but that's what it's meant to me to have a blog. I have to explain myself, but this time, that's all the explanation you're going to get. The future and the present aren't just more intrusive, they're more compelling and important than the past has ever been.

She was the woman V was staying with when I met her. I haven't talked to her since the day I kicked them out, but Lu and I have talked, and we're still friends. I should call her soon. The yoga teacher and I, well, we got along from the beginning. We agreed on everything, same sense of humor, all that. And we started dating, then we moved in together, and as is, it's good.

I've quit teaching. The English school grind was fun for awhile, but then it just got repetitive, and then it just got to be a drag on the things I was trying to steer myself towards, and so I've quit and decided to be a freelance...something. Translation, for now. The money's not much, but then I've not been chasing it seriously either. It's been just over a month and I've already found three clients, one of whom is running a film festival, and I'm his house translator. It's incredible fun for a phrasing mook like me, and my work is, in both fact and arrogance, the best I've seen. I haven't seen much, though, and I'm excited to see more.

I've turned into a motorcycle fanatic. The R9, which anyone less masochistic would have sold after a week, took me until June to unload. It was plastic, failure-prone, overambitious like the Amazon Reader, and a joke to anyone who knows anything about the machines. I gave it up for a bike which has recently been nicknamed "Black Velvet" by a friend of the man I sold it to, my brother's roommate. This summer and fall saw lots of changes, and I think the pair of motorcycles that carried me around were symbolic of more than just changes in my attitudes toward machines. Black Velvet, as it were, was a 1998 Zhufeng 150cc, although it looks like a much larger capacity machine. It looks like a motorcycle should, black and silver, bulges and curves around bare engine parts, and seats as wide as a man. It was big, low, loud, and smooth. The entire bike feels solid. Not a thing on it was plastic. And when I thought it was stolen (it wasn't, just misparked), the bike I got to replace it was even bigger. It was shorter, silver, slightly more squat, had a sharper, louder roar, and controls that were just a slight bit stiffer than the Zhufeng. They were both, in every way that a machine can be, beautiful. After I bought the silver bike, I sold off the Zhufeng and then proceeded to have it taken by the police, a risk illegal drivers take in Beijing. If you live here, you understand why people take those risks in the first place, with traffic and public transport what it is, and police only enforcing the law when they want a profit or a quota. Those two taught me to love motorcycles, but being swiped down in the street and told to hand over my $450 keys taught me not to waste money and effort on things that aren't safe. Two weeks after, I went to the outskirts of Shunyi, handed over $70, and drove away with an ugly but ridiculously functional 48cc bike that could have outrun any of what I'd driven before. I used to laugh at those guys driving around on awkward-looking heaps, but not anymore. They're more maneuverable and more reliable than anything with flash. And what I lose in eye candy, I'll make up by telling people that I only paid 600 kuai for it, a quarter of what most people consider a good deal on a Vespa ripoff, reminding them that it uses a third of the gas they consume for the same performance, and then I'll take it over curbs and leave it unlocked while they worry that their baby will be stolen. And if the cops get it, I'll go get another one. They can keep eye candy, I'll take competence, security, and foresight.

My brother is here and he's doing well for himself. Whatever flaws he won't grow out of will become a part of who he is as a man, of which he really is turning out to be a fantastic one. I was right, you know. What he needed to get out of his self-destructive patterns at home wasn't discipline and hard work, it was opportunity and perspective. I wish I could compress all that he's shown me he's capable of in a few sentences, but that's impossible. He is ballsy, intelligent, tasteful, interesting, funny, and it all amounts to someone who's just plain good at life. It's been seven months, and what he's built in that time shows more than that he's put his identity as an exurb banger behind him for good, it shows that he is, in fact, infinitely capable of whatever he wants. And this made me look again at some things that I'd taken for granted about my family. They were, for as long as I can remember, a taint on my past. They were something I ran from. They were to be forgotten, negated, blotted out with all the pieces of my own identity that I could erect and force other people to see. They were wrong, one of society's mistakes that should have been prevented. And maybe that's still true, but what is also true is that they imparted a lot of potential to my brother and I, and they did their best in their circumstances, which though I'd acknowledged intellectually, I hadn't taken full stock of morally. I owe them, all of them, a lot. Seeing what my brother could become has forced me to come to terms with my own anger, and look at where it was directing me. It was directing me to be afraid of some of the most powerful aspects of myself and deny myself the basic happiness that belongs to any human being with the good luck and grace to grow up, love. I was afraid loving them would lower me, and I was afraid loving others would cause me to repeat their mistakes. But they didn't make many mistakes, really. And that's why, when my father told me he had bought a plane ticket a little over a month ago to come see us, I wasn't too afraid. I didn't want to avoid him, and though I thought about bringing up the past and trying to confront him for an apology, I put that thought away. He was more than decent. He impressed my friends, appreciated our hospitality, brought gifts, and was just happy to see me. I have no need of being afraid of ending up like him, because he's a decent human being, and more than that a pleasant, interesting one, which I'd never had the guts to think of him as before. And he's accomplished a lot, when you think about it. By whatever measure you consider him, he's done as much as any man could and stayed happy and sane. I respect him and I love him, and I even like him. As I've learned to do a little better with myself.

The yoga teacher helped too, of course. Having her here, seeing how much she cares about me, with none of the fights, none of the suspicions, none of the demands and irrationality that have marked my relationships in the past, has done wonders for me. And I hope I've returned the favor. I can't impart at all how much she's given me, at what seems like no cost to herself. And if she has that capacity, I must too. I'm not really afraid of being alone anymore, I'm not afraid of deprivation or not succeeding, or even of those measurements, because whatever I'm doing, it's okay with the people around me. I'm afraid of not making her happy, of not living up to what she thinks of me, and despite having been through this in the past, I've never been so free of the other fears. I'm just afraid of failing her, and so far I haven't done that. I've never wanted to be less selfish.

And so when I bought that new motorcycle, it was more than just a replacement. It stands for...I don't know, just letting go of what isn't necessary anymore. Its existence by itself is impressive. Its failure rate is impressive, the way that even though the battery, breaks, lights, speedometer, and all else was broken on it, the engine was still fine, and still is fine. The way it's so freakin' butt-ugly but still gets everywhere it needs to go and motorcycles like it are the mainstay of tons of small businesses in Beijing is impressive. The cost was impressive. The fuel economy is impressive. The fact that one kick starts it in the cold is impressive. Its universality is impressive, because it's one of a million on the road, and its uniqueness in the expat community distracted by esoteric concerns like what restaurant in town has the best pizza while it hires other people to clean apartments is impressive. That I have a car and still prefer this is impressive. And, here in China where women are still women and men are men, where it's not uncommon that women won't touch dirty peasant machines like this if they don't have to, and resent it if they do, the yoga teacher with a really nice car, really nice apartment (she owns), and all the other status symbols the Beijing yuppie generation aspires to saw the advantage immediately and wants one for herself come spring. That's impressive, both in her and the fact that I've ended up with someone who hasn't lost their head for having accomplished all the typical material goals this society stresses. It's a fantastic machine that impresses anyone with the insight to understand it. Which is the kind of person I can aspire to be, and which I've made huge strides toward being since I updated last.

My Chinese? It's...I won't say good. I still stutter sometimes. And I'm still not reading as fluently as I'd like. But after four years of living in it, I can make a living with it, and have a relationship with it. I don't have a laowai accent, I don't usually confuse grammar, and people rarely speak slowly to me or treat me with special care after we've talked for awhile. I'm rarely treated differently than anyone who makes their living translating or teaching, which is something I'm immensely proud of and humbled by. I'm a man.

And I'm surrounded by people who love me. And I've made accounts with my past. I'm not hobbled by it anymore. It's a collection of experiences that have given me some incredibly powerful tools to contribute, and I know I can, and I know I have. And I'm almost 24, which I think isn't too bad of an age to have acquired the arrogance necessary to take risks with myself in order to contribute. There is, as usual, nothing to see here. It's what you'll see anywhere else, but right now it's on my turf, and if you're curious, that's what I've been up to.

More to follow.

Temperance, friends!
‘Tis the only way to forestall the oncoming disasters!
Ah yes, those disasters
They’re brought on by dusty notions and trifectas of globs of brilliance
And assorted menagerie of mellefluence
Bounded by
Nothing!

Ye compulsive goal-setters!
Nay! Bestow yourselves not unto the shimmering temerity of our age!
These timorous days of happy uncoupling
Of these bulwarks our saviors (though paired or for naught)
Tradition and audacity
Spare audacity only for thy resplendence through moderation!
Forward, though solely if forbearance be your guiding virtue!

Because, dude, like,
It’s kind of annoying when you don’t finish shit you start
So don’t start too much
But
Um
Start some stuff,y'know?

I have no odd talents that make me interesting, but I compensate with my dazzling armament of useful ones.

Related: "Quirkster" should be a word. Like hipster, but someone who thinks that their quirks rather than their choice knowledge of subcultural errata makes them interesting. I'm gonna start using it. You should too.

What strikes me most about this article isn't the tragedy or the sentimentalism. It's this idea of the endurance of a tradition of books, knowledge, and curiousity. While you might not know it, since most of its legend has been drowned in a torrent of polemicized politics, soppy-eyed ogling of History and Culture, and tinkytoy recitations of entrepreneurial Wealth and Opportunity, Beijing is just another of those cities. It's a city of books, brains, ideas. It's a burbling Glasgow too shy to show its nerdy side because it just got a new Trans Am (er, um, stock market & stuff). What struck me most about this article is just how much it reminds me of Beijing, and how much it makes me realize there really are magical places and people on Earth. It's a tragedy what's happening in Iraq, and it's a sin to say this, but one day Iraq will be fine. Baghdad get rich, everyone in the world will drool, and when the drooling gets old, like it's starting to get for Beijing, those books will come right back out, and that's what everyone will remember. The Beijing, at least, that I know, isn't the Beijing of Baidu and knockoff Prada, it's the cyclone that propelled Lu Xun to change the language and inspired Beijing Opera and xiangsheng and does the same today with snarky Qinghua graduates who've read more books than you ever will and can swear with more vitriolic wit than a Louisiana shine runner. Some places are just that way, y'know? Baghdad is one of them, and so is Beijing. Thank god it is.