Dear Twos,
Some of you will recognize this letter, others will have forgotten, but most of you will have no idea what the hell I’m doing, so I feel that an explanation is in order. The subject of this letter is a play on words that only the Grays receiving this will understand. This is not the first time I have written letters to “Twos,” but it is the first time in a long time. Basically the idea behind these letters is to keep those who I care about informed on what is going on in my life overseas. I wrote a series of these letters while I was living in Barcelona, and now that I am living in Saigon I feel it is time to resurrect the old habit and tell all of you what has been happening to me. You will get more of these, I make no promises on how often, and I do not hold anyone accountable for reading them. I will be the first to admit that I can, at times, be a little long winded, so I am warning all of you that these e-mails are by no means short notes, and if you choose to actually get some work done I will be the last person to be offended. In truth, I write these letters as much to satisfy myself as to satisfy the curiosity of others. So, one last piece of housekeeping before I begin, if those of you who do not wish or do not have the time to read on wish to see pictures of my time in China, I am going through the process of uploading them to Shutterfly right now and you can view all of them at the following page:
http://dialogue06.shutterfly.com/
Another warning, I have a lot of pictures, and have not yet put them all up, so if you go look now you will likely only see the first week or so of shots. In any case, to more important matters.
What have I been doing for the past five weeks? Well, ostensibly I’ve been traveling through China and Vietnam. I spent four weeks in China, the vast majority of the time with a group of Northeastern students and professors on a mission to learn Chinese culture. It was my last class at Northeastern, so as soon as I finish my research paper for the class, I am officially done as a college student. And as if that weren’t scary enough I decided to land myself in a country where I am a giant and I don’t understand a word of the conversations around me, even (perhaps especially) the ones directed at me. A complete change of my life, apparently, was not enough, I needed to change the world around me too. Though perhaps I am getting ahead of myself, the big picture is great unless it is too big, so I will focus things a little and tell you about China.
In America, China is our next fight. They’re the kid that suddenly found the weight room and now thinks the football captain ain’t so tough. They have 1.3 billion people, an economy that dwarfs its neighbors (and a good portion of the world), the largest military in the world, and the largest production economy in the world. Oh, and they’re Communist. What’s to fear, right? Well, one thing I learned in studying international politics is that nothing is ever simple, nothing is ever clear. China has a lot of problems too. For one thing, they have the largest production economy in the world, which means their economy is dependant upon the economy of others, if there’s a recession, guess who bears the brunt of it? For another thing, they have the largest military in the world, that’s not cheap, especially for a country that still has trouble feeding its people. For another thing, they have 1.3 billion people. Billion, with a B for Big. Providing for these people is, shall we say, difficult. Any mother will tell you that caring for a human being’s every needs is kind of a pain in the ass, and this comes through in their culture. The people of China don’t give world affairs half a thought, they care about dinner, they care about their family, they care about their friends, and they will trample the stranger in front of them without thinking to make sure they and their loved ones will be okay. One of my professors in China tried to explain to us that the reason that the Chinese had no problem pushing others out of the way when their clearly was a line was that “it was a subsistence economy not too long ago.” That’s a nice way of saying that not too long ago you had to push people out of the way to make sure you didn’t starve.
On a lighter note, some of you have asked me about the food in China. Think of the best Chinese food you’ve ever had, now make it good. At some point fairly early on in our trip, myself and my fellow students stopped asking what exactly it was that we were eating, because most of the food did not translate, either in language or in appearance. Lots of vegetables, lots of spicy food, lots of bones still in the meat, lots of things that were still looking at you or still giving you the finger, some things that were doing both. Spending a month in China teaches you to put it in your mouth and ask questions later, or, better yet, never. You learned to have a sense of humor about your food or you starved, it was that simple. A friend of mine on the trip admitted on the plane to Beijing that she had grown up a vegan, and that now she just considered herself to be really picky. She lost 15 pounds in the course of the trip, but she never complained, she merely laughed as the people around her used tiny straws to suck the marrow out of cow femur, or grabbed another grasshopper-on-a-stick. But it was not all strange, outlandish food, there was rice.
Admittedly I may have a biased opinion, some people did not like the food. When polled I think I was the only one on the trip that enjoyed every single meal we had. I was also one of the few that did not get sick, unless you count the eye infection that I had on the train from Shanghai to Kunming, waking up and not being able to open your eyes is a little disconcerting, especially when you don’t know how to say hospital, medicine, sick or even ow. I was lucky though, I only had to rip my eyelashes out one morning, and it was pretty much cleared up by the time I left Kunming.
I guess that if I had to sum up the last five or six weeks of my life, I would say that it has been a life of extremes. Whether in the bars of Beijing, the Taoist temples of Anhui, the cockroach-infested hostels of Kunming, or the beaches of southern Vietnam, I have dealt with pimps, pinheads and other perils, but between these moments of madness come whispers of paradise. The greatest tea I’ve ever had in my life was used to wash down silk-worm larvae (very dry, and spiced oddly), I spent fourteen hours with a woman who spoke no English so that I could sit on the beach and eat crab that had been crawling on the ocean floor no more than twenty minutes earlier, the greatest sunrise I’ve ever seen was seen through puss-covered eyes on a train in the middle of China, the most beautiful mountain road I’ve ever seen was witnessed while three people within five feet of me were simultaneously vomiting. I wanted new experiences, and I think I got them.
Back in Boston I spent my time thinking about a lot of things, what am I doing? Where am I going? What am I going to do with my life? I had a lot of problems, and the worst part was I had to wait for all them. Now, I don’t think about these things, I’m too concerned with trying to figure out how to say bathroom to worry about where my life is going. My problems now are right in front of me, I can see them, hear them, or worse, feel them. Some people don’t like this way of life, some people love it, I’m not sure which I am but for now I am happy with what I’ve got. One perfect moment on my trip came when I woke up the morning I left Beijing. I was still wearing my clothes from the night before, I reached into my pocket and found a napkin, on one side was a quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein that said, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world,” and on the other side was a Chinese girl’s phone number.
In any case, that’s where I’m at these days. I hope you are all well and happy. I love news from everyone so please feel free to e-mail and tell me what you think and what you’re up to. Until next time…
Love,
Some of you will recognize this letter, others will have forgotten, but most of you will have no idea what the hell I’m doing, so I feel that an explanation is in order. The subject of this letter is a play on words that only the Grays receiving this will understand. This is not the first time I have written letters to “Twos,” but it is the first time in a long time. Basically the idea behind these letters is to keep those who I care about informed on what is going on in my life overseas. I wrote a series of these letters while I was living in Barcelona, and now that I am living in Saigon I feel it is time to resurrect the old habit and tell all of you what has been happening to me. You will get more of these, I make no promises on how often, and I do not hold anyone accountable for reading them. I will be the first to admit that I can, at times, be a little long winded, so I am warning all of you that these e-mails are by no means short notes, and if you choose to actually get some work done I will be the last person to be offended. In truth, I write these letters as much to satisfy myself as to satisfy the curiosity of others. So, one last piece of housekeeping before I begin, if those of you who do not wish or do not have the time to read on wish to see pictures of my time in China, I am going through the process of uploading them to Shutterfly right now and you can view all of them at the following page:
http://dialogue06.shutterfly.com/
Another warning, I have a lot of pictures, and have not yet put them all up, so if you go look now you will likely only see the first week or so of shots. In any case, to more important matters.
What have I been doing for the past five weeks? Well, ostensibly I’ve been traveling through China and Vietnam. I spent four weeks in China, the vast majority of the time with a group of Northeastern students and professors on a mission to learn Chinese culture. It was my last class at Northeastern, so as soon as I finish my research paper for the class, I am officially done as a college student. And as if that weren’t scary enough I decided to land myself in a country where I am a giant and I don’t understand a word of the conversations around me, even (perhaps especially) the ones directed at me. A complete change of my life, apparently, was not enough, I needed to change the world around me too. Though perhaps I am getting ahead of myself, the big picture is great unless it is too big, so I will focus things a little and tell you about China.
In America, China is our next fight. They’re the kid that suddenly found the weight room and now thinks the football captain ain’t so tough. They have 1.3 billion people, an economy that dwarfs its neighbors (and a good portion of the world), the largest military in the world, and the largest production economy in the world. Oh, and they’re Communist. What’s to fear, right? Well, one thing I learned in studying international politics is that nothing is ever simple, nothing is ever clear. China has a lot of problems too. For one thing, they have the largest production economy in the world, which means their economy is dependant upon the economy of others, if there’s a recession, guess who bears the brunt of it? For another thing, they have the largest military in the world, that’s not cheap, especially for a country that still has trouble feeding its people. For another thing, they have 1.3 billion people. Billion, with a B for Big. Providing for these people is, shall we say, difficult. Any mother will tell you that caring for a human being’s every needs is kind of a pain in the ass, and this comes through in their culture. The people of China don’t give world affairs half a thought, they care about dinner, they care about their family, they care about their friends, and they will trample the stranger in front of them without thinking to make sure they and their loved ones will be okay. One of my professors in China tried to explain to us that the reason that the Chinese had no problem pushing others out of the way when their clearly was a line was that “it was a subsistence economy not too long ago.” That’s a nice way of saying that not too long ago you had to push people out of the way to make sure you didn’t starve.
On a lighter note, some of you have asked me about the food in China. Think of the best Chinese food you’ve ever had, now make it good. At some point fairly early on in our trip, myself and my fellow students stopped asking what exactly it was that we were eating, because most of the food did not translate, either in language or in appearance. Lots of vegetables, lots of spicy food, lots of bones still in the meat, lots of things that were still looking at you or still giving you the finger, some things that were doing both. Spending a month in China teaches you to put it in your mouth and ask questions later, or, better yet, never. You learned to have a sense of humor about your food or you starved, it was that simple. A friend of mine on the trip admitted on the plane to Beijing that she had grown up a vegan, and that now she just considered herself to be really picky. She lost 15 pounds in the course of the trip, but she never complained, she merely laughed as the people around her used tiny straws to suck the marrow out of cow femur, or grabbed another grasshopper-on-a-stick. But it was not all strange, outlandish food, there was rice.
Admittedly I may have a biased opinion, some people did not like the food. When polled I think I was the only one on the trip that enjoyed every single meal we had. I was also one of the few that did not get sick, unless you count the eye infection that I had on the train from Shanghai to Kunming, waking up and not being able to open your eyes is a little disconcerting, especially when you don’t know how to say hospital, medicine, sick or even ow. I was lucky though, I only had to rip my eyelashes out one morning, and it was pretty much cleared up by the time I left Kunming.
I guess that if I had to sum up the last five or six weeks of my life, I would say that it has been a life of extremes. Whether in the bars of Beijing, the Taoist temples of Anhui, the cockroach-infested hostels of Kunming, or the beaches of southern Vietnam, I have dealt with pimps, pinheads and other perils, but between these moments of madness come whispers of paradise. The greatest tea I’ve ever had in my life was used to wash down silk-worm larvae (very dry, and spiced oddly), I spent fourteen hours with a woman who spoke no English so that I could sit on the beach and eat crab that had been crawling on the ocean floor no more than twenty minutes earlier, the greatest sunrise I’ve ever seen was seen through puss-covered eyes on a train in the middle of China, the most beautiful mountain road I’ve ever seen was witnessed while three people within five feet of me were simultaneously vomiting. I wanted new experiences, and I think I got them.
Back in Boston I spent my time thinking about a lot of things, what am I doing? Where am I going? What am I going to do with my life? I had a lot of problems, and the worst part was I had to wait for all them. Now, I don’t think about these things, I’m too concerned with trying to figure out how to say bathroom to worry about where my life is going. My problems now are right in front of me, I can see them, hear them, or worse, feel them. Some people don’t like this way of life, some people love it, I’m not sure which I am but for now I am happy with what I’ve got. One perfect moment on my trip came when I woke up the morning I left Beijing. I was still wearing my clothes from the night before, I reached into my pocket and found a napkin, on one side was a quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein that said, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world,” and on the other side was a Chinese girl’s phone number.
In any case, that’s where I’m at these days. I hope you are all well and happy. I love news from everyone so please feel free to e-mail and tell me what you think and what you’re up to. Until next time…
Love,
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