Da Vinchini

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The pages of my own diary have been scattered intermittently with the pages of a book entitled Da Vinci Code which has been indeed difficult to put down. These pages have included a very long and difficult journey to the US and back as well as a few days of recouperation here back in China. I have already posted some of my previous entries from the States themselves and am now starting on the plane back here.

I was sitting next to a man from China who I almost immediately started talking to in Chinese once my friend passed by us "I'm sitting in the back but I'm sure I'll see you later," he called. His name is Shen Qin Min and he was on the same flight to New York that I was on. After talking for a while we realized that we would be on the same flight back to Beijing as well. He is a Chinese diplomat and this was his first time in the US. After a little while of talking with the man next to me he broke off from the Chinese and into English. I think this break always makes me somewhat uncomfortable because it's almost like insisting "Well, you're not very good in this language so let's talk in a language that you are comfortable with." Whether it actually is meant to imply that much or not is a different story. That is simply what the transition itself seems to imply to me. After a short time a woman came and sat next to me who didn't speak very much English at all but she also insisted on speaking English with me. Now the act of someone who doesn't speak your mother tongue very well speaking it simply to please you or for whatever reason instead of speaking their own language, which I can also speak, again tends to make me uncomfortable. So I decided to drift off and fall asleep leaving the two of them to talk to each other in Chinese. After a while I was woken by a tap on the shoulder. "You eat?" the woman next to me suggested in her broken English. I decided to wake up and eat something. The steward offered a plate of beef or fish to the two Chinese people sitting next to me and then proceeded on as if I weren't there. At first I thought nothing of it. After asking two more rows of people the cart was almost past us when the Chinese man in our row said "Do you want some?" and I replied to the affirmative. He waved the man down and I promptly told the steward in Chinese "I don't like beef so I'll have the fish." "Do you want beef?" he responded in English. "Um, no thank you," I replied in English almost getting offended this time. I started eating. After some time the stewards again came by with the drink cart. "I would like some water please." "Orange juice." The two next to me replied to their requests of "Would you like anything?" in Chinese. The cart again passed me without even asking, this time passing all the way down the aisle without even once stopping to ask me or the two next to me asking me. I was beginning to be angry and frustrated but I just tried to keep eating. Unfortunately my frustration kept me from eating everything on my tray.

Immediately after I finished eating I got up to go find Shen Qin Min. He was sitting in the third to last row of the plane next to what I found to be an oddly attractive man. I spoke with the two of them for quite some time arguing about discrimination and telling them how it was difficult for me to transition from the US to the plane we were currently on as this transition very much required me to face the facts of transitioning from a part of the majority to a very difinitive part of the minority. Xu Ke (who I fondly like to call Shrek, the man sitting next to my friend) responded that he didn't believe the problem that I was facing in this transition to be due to discrimination but instead due to fear, innocence and a lack of communication among other possibilities of a lack of enjoying one's job and other possible problems the stewards might have with their own jobs and or lives. He insisted that Chinese people simply did not discriminate against foreigners to his knowledge. He suggested that while Chinese definitely hold a very strong grudge against the Japanese and therefore willingly discriminate against them that there is not such a grudge against foreigners and therefore is no reason for discrimination. Whether this be true or not I do not know but what I do know is that I do agree with him to some extent. There is some possibility that there might be some other reason for the treatment I often receive from people. One suggestion that both Shrek and Lin Min gave me was that people are often scared to speak in English just like foreigners are often scared to speak in Chinese or other foreign or secondary langauges.

After this conversation I decided it might be a better idea for me to sit back with them and we decided to switch with the people ahead of them so that the three of us could sit together instead of one of us having to sit in the aisle or on one of the arms of the chairs. At first I tried to convince the foreigner to switch with us. "Do you speak English?" I asked him. "Little little" he responded. I then asked him but he clearly did not understand no matter how many different ways I tried to tell him. In the end we ended up discovering that he had too many things for it to be logical for him to switch seats. However the two Chinese women next to him were nice enough to switch with us. We sat down and got comfortable and Lin Min began speaking with this foreigner. It turned out he was from many different parts of the world but originally from Russia. Lin Min needed my help to have a true conversation with the guy as both his Chinese and his English were extremely broken. Shrek just sat next to me and laughed at the irony of the situation. After all I was often translating from broken Chinese and English to my own slightly broken Chinese (although admittedly much better than his). We had a great couple of minutes talking to him but after a while both he and I started becoming very tired from the difficult manner of translating through broken dialects (which is often very stressful indeed). In the end I had a headache and was tired and went to sleep. I looked over and found him doing the same. Throughout the next seven or so hours of our trip I had some great conversations with my new "plane friends" as well as watching the movies that were being played, reading a small bit of Da Vinci and having one more meal (after being hungry for quite some time). The three of us walked out of the plane and down to customs together joining our three separate lines - one for diplomats, one for Chinese and the final for foreigners. Lin Min got through and down to baggage claim first with me following a little ways behind and Shrek following close behind me. Lin Min was going back home in the company car and thought he may be able to give me a ride but turned out he wasn't able to do that so Shrek instead helped me to my bus with his very nice lady friend (or girlfriend whichever the case may be I didn't know at the time, although it turned out to be the later).

After making it onto the bus I slept the whole bus ride to the train station and after recharging my cell phone and giving Camillo a quick call I again slept for the entire train ride to Dalian. Once I got to Dalian I called my parents and talked to both of them. My mother was safely transferred into the rehabilitation part of the hospital and according to both her and my father was doing very well there. When I called and talked to my father he suggested "take a rest before class. After all you must be tired" but I didn't feel it so I instead continued reading Da Vinci. I went to our morning meeting which consisted of almost nothing but some suggestions on getting a new Visa and paying attention to our due dates. I later learned from Craig that Cat was currently in China with no Visa as hers had earlier expired and was having to go out of the country to Hong Kong to renew it and pay a large fee for being in China with no visa. Fortunately my personal Visa is good through August so I have no problems in that area at the moment. After the meeting I decided to go up to the coffee shop and sit and have myself a nice lunch while reading Da Vinci. I wasn't feeling too well, in fact it felt very similar to the non-alcoholic hang over I had the day after returning to the US. However I managed to make it through classes. My students were all thrilled to have me back. I learned that one of my students had cancelled all of her tutorings with me while I was gone simply because she couldn't handle the substitiute teacher and was more comfortable having me teach her. Unfortunately I also discovered that my TA had not given any of my K8 students their homework back (even though it was sitting in the same spot that I told her it would be ever since the day I left). So that means my K8 kids do not currently have homework for this week. I'll have to figure out something to do about that. Maybe I'll simply make it homework to do during classtime.

After class I joined Kelvin in going over to Adam's birthday party at a fairly nice restaurant over in Heishijiao (next to the second branch of our school). I felt sort of spacey the whole time but it may have been more due to the fact that there were too many people there for that time. Then I joined Joel and his wife Wendy in a taxi home. We talked for a little while until I got around Camillo's house. "Stop on the right side of the street up here and I'll get out," I told the taxi driver in Chinese. "You speak Chinese?" I was asked by Joel on the way out. I thought it a very strange question as I had just given the driver directions which he was following.

I got out and walked down the road to Camillo's. When I knocked on the door I was answered by a slightly unintelligible response. It was in Hunan dialect so I just answered "hey" in English (I believe). The response continued so I responded "Darby". I still had no idea as to whether I was responding the right way to the short messages coming through the door but I knew it must be Alex and that he would figure it out after a while. When he finally opened the door my eyes were met by a slightly confusing scene. There was a Chinese woman sitting slightly into Alex and leaning over Camillo. The strange part was unlike the other Chinese women I'd met as Eason's friends this time I didn't feel the territorial response but instead a simple confusion "who was this woman?" Camillo moved over on the couch to let me sit between him and the girl and after a little bit just before I sat down Alex said "this is my girlfriend" in a comical way. I was wondering why he was laughing so much but just responded "okay..." Almost immediately after Camillo responded "this is my little cousin" and I relaxed teasing Alex for his joke. We sat there for a little bit and his grandmother came out of the bathroom to join us. Camillo had mentioned to me that she was there but not that his cousin was also there with her. The two of them were very nice. I told Camillo that I had some gifts for him but that they were at home so he and I took his bike over to my place to get them and went back. Both him and Alex were very happy about the TIGI DVDs I got him as well as the Zippo and Swiss Army knife. Camillo commented to me a little later that Alex wanted to go to the spa and asked if I wanted to go. I replied that that would be fine but we ended up going to the bar instead. We went over to Alice's and the four of us ended up drinking a bit and dancing. Strangely enough once Camillo's cousin started dancing she was dancing very close to me. I had never danced close with any Chinese woman and so this was a new experience for me. I was definitely attracted to her but I also wanted to dance with Camillo. He joined us for a bit and then sat down to let us dance alone. Overall it was a very interesting night.

Tonight was a very simple night. For some reason my body felt the need to sleep so I slept until 6pm even though I didn't get back that late from the bar. I woke up feeling very well rested to quickly go to the Salon and then go down to meet my tutoring student and teach him. After tutoring him I went back to Camillo's and had dinner with Camillo, his grandmother, Sayles, Hui, Kast, Alex, Eason and his cousin making for a very full room. I enjoyed sitting around and listening to them even though very often I didn't know what they were talking about. It took some time after dinner to realize they were talking about the World Cup and how the different teams were doing. When Hui, Kast, Eason and Sayles left Alex, Camillo, his cousin and I went to the Tin Whistle to watch England play Trinidad and Tobago. England won but it wasn't a very interesting game and even though they were close to the goal for the entire game they only made two points.

Now I'm back. Back to Da Vinci.

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