A Great Wall

Kyle and I rose before six o'clock. We strapped on the new Tigers we had just purchased from the silk market, slammed some raisin bread and yogurts we had stashed for the morning, and whipped out the door. A three dollar cab ride to the Dzogchen long distance bus station and we were ready to attack the best Beijing had to offer – it was off to the great wall.

Beijing is a staggering city – home to 18 million people. It lacks the geographical limitations of a New York or the zoning restrictions of London – thus it expands endlessly out into five rings and beyond, bubbling and yawning in concentric circles of urban sprawl. The cityscape is alien even to a Native New yorker. The skyscrapers are wide, square, unbelievably massive. They loomed like Ayer's rock overhead, their massive girth promoting an illusion of squatness, seeming more like mountains than the workhouses of men.

Kyle and I were doing the modern tourist thing. We bartered for hours in the Silk market, an anarchocapitalist heaven where there are no prices and no restrictions, where a T-shirt may be priced at $120 and sold for $3 and a grudging scowl, and the imminent threat of physical violence presages every hard fought purchase. After this battleground of Maoist Materialism, we dutifully marched through Tienneman square – an environ best described as DC with elephantiasis, white marble and sprawling government complexes which dwarfed our hallowed American halls in their celebrated alabaster grandeur.

There were no tanks awaiting us but plenty of souvenirs. We ventured to the Temple of Heaven, stood on the altar stones where the godlike emperors rendered sacrifice for the coming harvest, temples of purification and of ablution, worlds within worlds, architecture symbolic of the world to come.

In a strangely Orwellian portmanteaux we watched a strange game of bumper cars by the Forbidden city. All the cars bore lady liberty, clad in the stars and stripes and ready to rumble. As we watched America endlessly collide with itself from within its Chinese prison (no doubt someone in city planning is still chuckling at the oversight) the slowly light waned. Rote tourism accomplished, it was time for us to investigate the night life.

Beijing thrives with expat bars, but unlike Xian there is very little cross cultural mixing. We danced with the diaspora, the female expats who shared our transnational displacement, and made our way to the glimmering lake of Ho Hai. There we stare at the lake like some vast confabulated Shangri-la and passed innumerable neon lanterns glinting off the twilit waters, inviting the patrons from their hookahs and coffeehouses, towards the promise of excitement and adventure, and the ubiquitous happy ending off the cobbled side streets. Yet still through all of this we were surrounded by tourists, travelers, people seeking destinations, output, slices of cultural currency to display on their dais, proof that they had been somewhere and seen something. There were people everywhere, tourists by the boatloads, seeking fulfillment in a million external ways. There was little room, however, for the self, and it felt a vast Epcot of the soul – a glorious world of tomorrow, well constructed in its , safe and small and redolent of plastic. The bars did little to allay my thirst for reality. After all, alcohol is as ubiquitous as human suffering, but drink enough beers and a bar is a bar is a bar.

I have been a tourist in many strange lands, filled my mental checklist with all the proper prepackaged sites. As a result, I went to bed that night sated of body, but hungry of soul. There was naught but the wall between myself and the long ride back to Xian and my duty.

We made the 7:00 bus and immediately jumped conversation with an engaging German twenty-something named Marco. His visage was every bit the Teutonic ideal – blond and chiseled, and he was lively in conversation and with that idiosyncratic self deprecating humor that postwar Germany so deftly embodies. Marco worked as a bank teller and along with his friend Fabian was on a six month holiday in the orient. Despite being in his own words “Not very smart,” Marco proved to be disquietingly well versed in world affairs and late romantic era philosophy, dipping into Kant, Wittgenstein and Goethe on our ride in remarkably fluent English. Not very smart indeed – Marco and Fabian were easily the most conversant, knowledgable, clever foreigners I met in the city, counting many native English speakers among their number. In the past sixty years, something in the German educational system has gone terribly right.

The ninety minute bus ride ended with us passing high into the hills, overshooting our intended destination by a good 30 kilometers. Kyle seized the opportunity to unsuccessfully haggle with the cabal of taxi cab drivers which fringed this dusty, barren locale. They had united in an informal union and were not budging at their price of five dollars a head. Exhausted of niggling over pocket change, I went to join the Germans in their cab. They were not going to our section of the wall, with its bobsleds and chair lifts. They had heard a tip that a far section forty kilos hence was all but deserted, promising a difficult ascent bereft of tourists or guardrails. In comparison to the bustle of Beijing, it seemed all I was looking for. Frustrated in his attempts to broker an impossible deal, Kyle joined us in our van, and we chugged up the mountain road to the wall. I rode like an expectant pup, window down, hair blowing in the wind as we rushed through the freshly clear skies. The van honked at passers by as we bounded over the uneven pavement. This was the way I wanted, the rustic nonchalance which I had found alone years before in the Egyptian desert and which was visiting again this country morning. Adventure was bounding back with every pothole gouged in the path, and every hairpin turn about the winding mountain road set my heart beating ever faster.

The van let us off without further instruction at a quiet road path overlooking a ruined tower. There was a lake pooled languorously above a rusting dam, and Kyle and I strafed the handrails towards the ascent. Rounding the corner we encountered two toughs whose beurocratic credentials consisted of a hand lettered sign and a single weatherbeaten chair demanding two quai for walking rights. Ever a man of principle, Kyle was ready to come to blows over this perceived slight on his touristic liberties, and the men seemed happy to oblige before I slipped the 65 cents into their balling fists. We passed on and crossed switchbacks to arrive at a growing hillside, atop which snaked a parapet of the old wall. A rusty ladder, precipitously joisted into position between two loose stones, beckoned us upwards with no further fanfare. We climbed and the ascent began in earnest.

The wall here was well formed and dutifully cobbled but still unforgivingly steep, and the way was treacherous in our untrammeled shoes. As we rose to greater heights, new sections of the wall sprawled relentllessly before us. The sheer insanity – the audacity of the work smacked my awestruck eyes. The centuries of toil, vigilance, and slavery which built this continent spanning edifice!- I was familiar with the history, but walking the mountainous wall laid fresh mortar upon my consciousness. This wall was a miracle of engineering puts all but the pyramids to quibbling shame, this poem to the infinite hewn in roughly cut stone and naked toil. Like the pyramids its time had come and passed; men are unlikely to see its equal ever again in human history. We rose as the slope approached forty degrees, chugging our liters of water as we basked in the panoramic harmony of the unpeopled countryside. With every step we took we were more alone; with every footfall, we grew closer to history as it was lived.

We raced up a fifty degree scramble, finished, panting, and carelessly guzzled half of our water on hand. We had been on the wall only an hour but still distant heights loomed. Unwilling to rest, we pushed ourselves to scale the near peak, thinking to sit in silence and enjoy a bit of bread and water at the summit. These plans were scuttled by the miasma of pop music as we reached the local zenith; a gaggle of local teenagers had already colonized our intended bastion. We wearily climbed up and introduced ourselves in halting Chinese – the teenagers reciprocated in fractured English. Hand gestures were hastily employed by both sides; negotiations ended in pictures, but the music continued undimmed.

Gazing forth from the Rihana haunted summit, the rest of the path quickly sprawled into view. We had not even begun. A far peak rose impossibly in the distance, the wall first tripping down in a near vertical plummet before rising in a writhing serpentine course to this brilliant, cloud-wreathed summit. In the weary distance, its broken cobbles were interwoven with foliage, its timeworn parapets crumbled in romantic decay. Beyond our stand, not a living soul was in sight. Kyle and I passed the locals, sat at the edge of the path, and contemplated a descent into this untrod wilderness. The locals saw where we were going, warned us of the danger, and coyly invited us to go ahead. We needed some rest, however, and some time alone. Kyle and I sat, legs dangling over the precipitous edge which marked the bounds of antiquity, and tried to meditate on our little peak, shadowed by that endless snaking road rising in the distance.

Meditation, however, would prove futile. The exertion had only fueled my excitement; Kyle, for his part, was distracted and profited little from the delay. As we pulled out our loaf to break bread, a voice called out from behind. It was the 'Hallo!' of Fabian, followed closely by Marco's ready grin. The Germans had arrived, sharing ample bavarian provisions in a sausage fest worthy of Frankfurt. With these necessary reinforcements, our journey commenced anew.

I walked to the beginning of the descent and stopped, soon joined by the others. We looked over the edge of the tourist section in amazement. The moment of truth was at hand; the drop yawned forward mercilessly. As I dandled my toe over the edge loose rock heaved down a seventy degree slope, interspersed with brief but treacherous vertical drops. We stuck to the edge, held fast to the crumbling crenolations, and slowly made our way down the ruined causeway.

At some parts, the side of the wall had wholly fallen through. At one point, I knocked a small brick which triggered a chaotic landslide, nearly reducing our number by a quarter. The tread in my deftly haggled shoes was fast wearing away and our pace slacked. Water reserves were diminishing in alarming fashion – we went shirtless now not to bare our sex but to preserve our sweat. The sun rose into a defiant october blaze, and the temperature climbed as we dipped into the valley. Swarms of bees undisturbed by man roused forth – we had little choice but to cross our fingers and dive on. We found the bottom, saw a road ch perhaps lead back village and drank all but a few dear sips of our precious water. The pinnacle glared on ahead and we had another decision to make.

Deadlocked between prudence and the peak, I climbed up into the underbrush and my fellow travelers followed suit. We pushed up through towers utterly neglected save for foolish and bold, drank the last of out water and mushed bravely on. Then inexplicably, down from the summit echoed the footsteps of two friendly strangers. A frenchman and his son, they had spent six days caterwauling about the ridge, camping at the peaks. They informed us that our summit, seeming so close from the canyon floor was in truth another two hours up the winding way, but should we choose to press our luck, they cached a bottle of rice wine atop the mount. It was a tempting offer, and we resolved at the next clearing to consider the option in earnest.

As the two passed on I couldn't help but envy their idyllic journey – I had been on the wall for nearly three hours, and was fast coming to love its careless plunges, its dilapidated solitude, the sweat of the climb yielding vistas unequalled in memory. But even this was not enough to counterbalance our lack of water. We reached a clearing about halfway up our intended climb, saluted the far off mount, and agreed we had gone as far as we were able. As Kyle said, beyond the next summit there would be even loftier peaks to climb – of course, every new achievement reveals the next goal. Still, it was a beautiful view, undiminished in the coming descent.

As I placed foot over foot, China blossomed about me. The verdant countryside opened forth, accepting me, overwhelming my senses as it spread its shoots in all directions, surrounding me as I bounded down the crumbling ridge. “This is a great wall,” I quietly realized, understanding the magnitude of the path which I trod for the first time. In a world where few titles bear the descent to reality, this moniker earned its superlative, brick and mortar. A goofy smile broadened about my chapped, trail dusted face. “Hey everybody,” I shouted, my voice caroming off the canyon floor - “This really is a Great Wall!”

Diarrhea and the Dao

Ten hours into the slow train to Yi Chong, a revolution was simmering in my bowels. A vast spectre stood before me – the hideous phantom of Chinese train food. I will not paint the entire canvas here - highlights included 'meat' balls of indeterminate origin and a new and questionable form of tofu – but it was less Rembrandt and more Pollock with every passing hour. There were three of us in our little cabin, bunked horizontally in our allotted cubic meters as the train chugged its way through the plains of China to the banks of the Yang-Tze. There was little else to do but contemplate the Dao, peck away furtively at my notebook, and pause every half hour or so to frequent the medieval sanitation facilities, which could only be entered while the train was moving, as the lavatory itself was a simple hole in the restroom floor which emptied directly onto the side of the track. At least my tofu addled stomach could take come consolation from the wisdom of Lao-Tze, for in the lavatory I would derive pungent new meaning from chapter 43 of the Dao:

“The world's softest thing gallops to and fro 

through the world's hardest thing. 

Things without substance can penetrate things without crevices.”

Penetrating wisdom indeed. My, I was a long way from home, and it was turning out to be a bumpy ride.

I had not intended to spend my weekend with diarrhea and the Dao. But that was before I passed Principal Joe in the hallway and he beckoned me into his well lit office to share what appeared to be light conversation about the New York subway system and the pleasures of lyric poetry. About half an hour into our tete a tete, Joe's face suddenly morphed into the expression I have come to understand as 'Work mode.' He took in a deep breath and spoke in a tone that was suddenly slow and measured.

“You've noticed your students.” He said, carefully weighing my reaction. “What do you think?”

“Some of them are doing very well. The eleventh graders in particular. But the twelfth graders...”

“Yes, it is a shame,” said principal Joe, with a shrug of his shoulders. “They don't know very much.”

“No, they don't,” I said, glancing at the clock on the wall.

“There's a lot of work to do.”

This was true. I have a lot of work to do. Principal Joe was able to defer a lot of the blame for the state of his flock because he, like myself, was a new teacher. In fact, the international school has had a new headmaster every year for reasons that have not yet been explained to me. I assured him I would do my best to help the students learn.

“You must be very strict with them,” he said.

“Of course,” I agreed.

“Very hard.”

“Yes. It won't be easy

“Very good, very good. Hard knocks: very important!” And he clapped his hands on my shoulders and laughed. I gave a chuckle in response. But then Principal Joe 'remembered' something else, which must've been the real reason he called me in to see him. And keep in mind this was after a half hour of light conversation.

“Our sister school in Yi Chong is having their opening ceremony this weekend. They want you and Janice to attend.”

I did not even know we had a sister school, and Janice and I had already made plans for the weekend. I carefully phrased my reply.

“Do you mean, tomorrow?”

“Yes, we would leave tomorrow morning.”

The noose was tightening.

“So what did you tell them, Principal Joe?”

“That we would be going to Yi Chong tomorrow. It is a fifteen hour journey by train.”

There had to be some way to get out of this.

“Have they already reserved the tickets?”

“I will make sure,” he said, “and then I will let you know.”

But I already knew. There was no way out. The conversation thus ended, I returned to the teachers lounge.

I told Janice of the news and she immediately responded by planning to get sick. Janice, it appears, had considerable previous experience with the Chinese train system. Just as she was debating the preferred method of catastrophically weakening her immune system, Principal Joe burst in with a gleeful look in his eyes. We would have the tickets, he said, and he would be pleased to accompany us at 6:45 on the morning train. Without waiting for an answer, he was gone. Goodbye weekend, hello Principle Joe.

At least I had a bed in my compartment. As I moaned softly by the curving window, I eventually settled into the rhythm of the train. The view wasn't so bad. There were green things and delicately curving mountains. I finished one book and started another – appropriately enough, Dante's Inferno. I even subdued my intestings for a couple brief interludes of slumber. I wasn't crisp and refreshed when we exited the train at midnight on saturday morning, but I was still reasonably sane as the battle for my bowels raged on. Sadly, all would be undone by the rigors of Chinese hospitality.

Picking us up at half past midnight, our hosts in Yi Chong saw fit to whisk us away in their pristine new BMW to a scenic bistro overlooking the Yang-Tze river. When we got there were were alone: aside from a waitress and a cook, it was just us and the food. And oh, the food! A full seven course meal swiveled seductively on the table before my weary eyes, beckoning on the dais like a Park Avenue escort. I knew the sordid consequences of each additional bite, but Chinese custom mandated I partake of their hospitality. The main course was a Yang-Tze river fish in a steaming broth of fresh country vegetables. He gaped at me from his luxurious cauldron, and as my eyes met his, we shared a moment which resonated the most secret chords of my intestines. I grabbed my fork and had a bite of his tail, complimented my hosts on the local cuisine, and then sprinted in defeat for the nearest restroom.

There would be more nights and more dinners, a feast for the eyes and a Bataan death march for the innards. Indeed, the cuisine of southern China is luscious – with amazing buttery omelets, tamales, roast duck and fresh river fish parading in a decadent pageant across ever replenishing platters. Over hours long meals I met the staff of the Yi Chong school including two other foreign teachers. I quickly bonded with the older of the two, an inspiring young gentleman named Kyle, who shared my interests in comparative spirituality, new – age philosophy, and as it would later turn out, celebratory drinking. As coincidence, it was also his birthday that weekend, and so I would have someone to toast after all...I girded my stomach for the onslaught and dug in for another day of revelry.

The next morning opened with another official school assembly, the collection of an even larger bouquet of ceremonial flowers (22 this time!) and an assembly on the front lawn of the Yi Chong school, highlighted by inspiring speeches from Kyle and Principal Joe. At the dinner my hosts gave me my first Chinese name which, phonetically spoken, was dun kie luh – one more syllable than Kyle's Kie luh. I forget what it means exactly – whether it means 'great bear desire' or 'works well with others,' I cannot say. You see, the senior teacher at Yi Chong was a fairly manic drinker, and he made a point of filling our glasses with rice wine to the point of overflowing. It is indeed a miracle that I have retained any memories of the evening at all. Apparently I was leading the foreign teachers in rounds of Disney standards, in between my rounds of Bi j'io, an especially potent distillation of Chinese rice wine.

The term 'rice wine' is itself a bit of a misnomer. While most traditional wine hovers at around 14-16% alcohol by volume, rice wine sears the gullet at an astonishing 56%. The brew is surprisingly palatable strangely sweet, and a trifle doughy besides. In 'socialist' China there is no state tax on liquor, and so this nostrum costs an average of fifteen cents for a shot of intermediate quality. Understand, then, the distinct combination of love and fear that most Chinese reserve for this potent brew. The teachers at Yi Chong were pouring it by the unadulterated glassful, which explains some of the pictures from that evening's festivities.

We drank that day in lunch and at dinner, and in between saw the Three Georges Dam. It was suitably massive. Sadly, the Gods would not cooperate, perhaps angered in man's mastery over their masterwork, and intermittent showers veiled the enormity in a perpetual mist. The sense of mystery we experienced on the scene is lost in the majority of our my grey-scale photographs, though the weather cleared just in time to snap some dusky shots which give some feel to the majesty of the Chinese countryside. As dusk closed around the car, we settled in for yet another meal.

Dinner that evening meant a fresh batch of exotic liquors culminating in a colossal birthday cake - later to be tossed gleefully from a taxi cab into the densely thicketed Yi Chong suburbs. That night Kyle and I went out roller skating with his students, an evening that would hardly be possible in the overly protective states. Due to a combination of factors, (ok, mostly the rice wine) any trace of body control I have come to possess scattered like roaches under a fridge the moment I tipsily skittered across the freshly waxed pine. Picture a weasel ball nailed to a two by four and you'll get a glimpse of my skating form, but damn if I didn't have fun, laughing from freshly purpled knees. I think I even enjoyed the bruises – for looking back at my childhood, every cherished memory was a badge of honor pinned on by its own distinct bruise. But that's the spirit of adventure, that dangerous pleasure whose very disregard for safety in the moment ensures its own longevity in the mind.

We were able to secure a direct flight back to Xi'an, sparing me the China train drain. My stomach soon returned to normal after day of green tea and oatmeal, but I bear no illusions as to the source of the disturbance – train food and rice wine are a Trojan horse that could sack any fortress, and it certainly toppled mine. For all my quibbling misfortunes, I had a great time, met a wonderful new friend in Kyle, and saw some sights that I certainly would've missed out on otherwise. Yes, I will be uncomfortable in this strange, vast, venturesome new world. Yet, the more I get pushed out of my comfort zone, the more I feel challenged, out of place, and yes, a little queasy, the more memories I constantly accrue. Reading over Principal Joe's translation of the Dao the next week, this phrase from chapter 22 jumped off the page like a Yang-Tze river trout.

The ancients say:

"He who yields will have the whole."
Are these merely empty words? 

No. Eventually he gets the whole.

'Go with the flow, and the flow will come to you.' Like the great Yang – Tze, living in China is like flowing in a mighty river. Yet unlike the Yang-tze I will not be damming up this experience – I lack the engineering skills, and besides, the project would be far too Confucian for my taste. Like Lao-Tze advised, I think I'll just release my inhibitions, let go my apprehension, and enjoy the bumpy ride.

Teacher's Day

“But we have no classes – it's teacher's day!”
In a two second burst, Janice shattered two hours of hurriedly cobbled lesson plans the moment I stole into the teacher's lounge. Still, my coteacher's greeting wasn't half as welcome as the fresh pot of local honey and the inscrutibly smiling Moon Cake that greeted me upon my desk. By some chance coincidence of the 2011 Lunar calendar, Teacher's day and the Mid – Autumn festival coincided, and the four day weekend born of their timely union toppled our usually stalwart schedule. Thus, this friday would not be spent in the classroom, but in the schoolyard, gobbling moon cakes and watching the seventh and tenth graders perform military drills. We foreign teachers would then share a formal lunch with the head principals, and enjoy the rest of the day to ourselves. The day would not be typical, but I am beginning to suspect that in Xi'an, 'typical' goes without translation.

(The Bodi International School, main facade)

Consider the weather. The first four days we were in Xi'an, the rain came down in stultifying sheets. Jason Thomas, a three year veteran of the Bodi school and fellow expat, had hardly seen weather so severe. “It hardly ever rains in Xi'an,” he stammered, as dumbfounded and bone soaked as us foreigners. Lacking any semblance of adequate rain gear, Janice and I stumbled to class on tractionless flip – flops, huddled under Jason's plaid, wind weary umbrella. When we toured the city for necessary supplies, I barely got a glimpse of the surroundings. From the rickshaw motorcade, it all seemed a grey soppy mess, as jumbled and confusing as Mandarin characters to my American brain.

I can be forgiven for my jangled first impression. Xi'an is enormous, and incredibly difficult for a foreigner to navigate. Bustling with over eight million people, the city boasts no subway, trolley, or tram system to speak of. Throughout the week, we were ferried about in a multitude of three dollar cabs, or packed sardine tight into seven cent busses, fighting for space as well as for air. It takes an aspiring urbanite forty-five minutes to get to the city center from our suburban compound, and god help you if you forget your toilet paper. Four days of torrential rain coupled with and an easily overwhelmed drainage system meant that travel in the rain was in increasingly dicey proposition. Thus, the first few days I spent virtually marooned within my compound, wondering why I came to China, and furthermore, what China was in the first place.

But I knew friday was different when I marched out into the practice yard. Tenth graders clad in camouflage clapped in unison to a recorded fanfare on the school's PA as the spectacle unfolded. Communist Party soldiers and officials looked on from the side as their flag waved fitfully overhead in scarlet and gold. The students had been groomed all week for this moment, and the clouds above respected their efforts, mercifully withholding fire for the first time since our arrival. After some inscrutable speeches, the girls marched in formation into the practice yard, fanning out into the four directions and weaving in a synchronized ballet of t'ai chi. The boys followed with a tightly honed display of karate, followed by military rolls, marches, and shouts of “HIYAH! HUH! HAH!” wed to every motion. Then the students stepped aside and the teachers were ushered forward. I stood to the side at first but was quickly nudged into line. I had been there less than a week, but I too apparently had my part to play in the pageantry.

As teachers both native and foreign filed into the square, first and second graders poured forth, eyes bright, mouths grinning, the traditional red flowers of teacher's day clutched tightly in hand. They flitted about the faculty like hummingbirds, pollinating each teacher with a blossom and hastily skittering to their seats. I stood a full head taller than most of my teachers, so I could see the bee-line the skinny, pale skinned girl made for my place in line as she bypassed five rows of local teachers to give me her scarlet, long-stemmed bloom. I smiled as I took the flower and soon enough, my fellow teachers received their own. But students kept coming with flowers, and it looked like they were running out of teachers gift. And then a little round – faced boy handed me his blossom. And then another student came up from the side. And then another. And another, and another...

By the time it was over my bouquet comprised nine flowers, each tied with a ribbon and sheathed in heart spackled cellophane. My own students were laughing at me and I waved to them like a royal, basted in my gratitude like Miss America on a turkey day float. They smiled and laughed all the harder, and I laughed too. I was a happy show pony, all prances and struts and smiles. But I had come to realize that as a foreigner, such outlandish behavior was virtually expected of me, and that understanding couldn't diminish my glee.

I joke that I felt like a show pony, but in Xi'an, such sentiments are stabled in truth. In China, white is beautiful. Students often shun the sun in their trips between classes, skirting through the practice yards like Puritans beneath their cowls or Victorians under their parasols, for fear of getting a tan. And with my blond hair, blue eyes, and preturnaturally alabaster skin, I'm the whitest horse in town.

My skin color was not lost on me at the faculty luncheon that followed. Talking with principal Joe and the staff, I was given an embarrassing amount of attention, despite the fact that what little Mandarin I knew essentially amounted to the numbers one to a hundred and “we drink beer!” (Phonetically: 'Woe man euh pee jee-yo,' more or less. I can also order a bubble tea at KFC, inquire as to the location of a rest room, and inadvertently insult your ancestors in a thousand hilarious ways. Note that though I'm learning the spoken language, in terms of writing or reading, I'm functionally illiterate.)

At lunch, the principal and his staff lavished attention on me, marveling no doubt at my unprecedented ability to wield chopsticks one-handed and speak in smiling blond American sentences. I like principal Joe. He spent some time in New York, and cotaught a course on traditional Chinese poetry at Columbia in the 80s. He's every bit the Chinese businessman, with a strict attitude and attention to detail belied by his ingratiating demeanor. He's also unsubtly hilarious, and like a prizefighter, will suddenly close to within an inch of your face before delivering a punchline, erupting in spasms of laughter. Then, in an instant, he'll rise in serious business mode once more, espousing the integrity of the school and the need for discipline and academic rigor. Smiles and frowns, handshakes and performance reviews. For all his idiosyncracies, he's still a principal. I must remember that. And for all mine, I'm still a teacher.

My co-teacher, a Chinese - American born in Beijing, was less of a sideshow than I. Then again, Janice could converse with the faculty in their native tongue while observing all due decorum of Chinese society. When principal Joe did mention her in English, it was to praise her sterling credentials before telling me about his translation of the Tao Te Ching. Janice, a literature major at university, could've chimed in at any time. But she let me enjoy the limelight, prefering instead to chat with faculty about the particulars of the Bodi school, and generally acting as the go – between for us both.

Janice is wonderful. Without her help this past week I would have been just another puddle on the rain soaked pavement. Janice began teaching me Mandarin off the plane in Shanghai, and has kept at it unflinchingly as I've mangled consonant after consonant, slowly gaining a familiarity with the Mandarin tones. Janice diligently lesson plans, creating new worksheets and homework for her classes and making sure our American curriculum is deeply rooted in the reality of Xi'an. Janice taught ESL for two and a half years in college, eight SAT courses with Revolution, and tutored many others besides in the SATs, ACTs, and various exotic admissions exams. Janice seemed surprised at how much her students praised and recommended her in her Revolution profile, but I for one am not. She's an incredibly diligent teacher, and amid the hubbub of urban Chinese life, inspires me to be the same.

That's about all for today – I'll talk more about the Chinese night life after I have another dose. Last evening I jammed out to the Beatles with two Chinese singer/guitarists at a popular downtown hostel – we actually found a working three part harmony on “I'm in love with her and I feel fine,” and my rendition of “Stand by me” won me a free beer. I was also an egregious, giddy tourist in the Muslim quarter, sampled street food, bartered for knicknacks, and tried out the Chinese club scene at the aptly named Fantasy (and yes, in case you were wondering, they know dubstep). It's been a wild first week. Though I still don't know what China is, at least I know why I came.

Light through the hanging garden at Bodi

A flower garden on the school grounds.