Time-Warp to Thailand

Hello, good readers. Dear readers. Patient readers, most of whom comprise my family and dearest friends. Greetings from Bali. It is winter here, though a Balinese winter would feel like summer to most of the world. But I dare not speak of Bali now, for there is much ground to cover in the interim. I have much neglected my updates while in China, and my second semester passed somewhat more stressfully than expected. As you know, many moons have passed since I last vacationed in Thailand. Now that China is behind me and the shifting sands of my subconscious have settled, I have a bit more time and motivation to inform others of my goings-on this past half-year.

There have certainly been some adventures along the way. Reaching back to January, I would recommend Thailand to anyone, any age range. Without question, hesitation, or reservation. The Land of the Thais is a place of preternatural beauty, scooped up in heaping helpings and served on the cheap. The food is incredibly delicious, the oceans azure blue, the people bronzed, beautiful, and free. To any of my older relatives: if you haven't put Thailand on your bucket list, do so now. You may find yourself enjoying an extended stay.

I know I certainly did. I intended to spend just over a week in Thailand, and ended up canceling two flights and staying for a month. The country grabs you. Thailand was fated by geography to become a vacationer's paradise, especially during the temperate winter months of 'high season' - stretching from December through early March. The entire nation spans a narrow isthmus, with famous beaches girdling either side and islands dotting its peripherals. Thailand was colonized by England, and a large amount of British culture permeates. English was the lingua franca in the resort country I visited, and most educated locals spoke it fluently. I am lucky to have been conceived into the mother tongue, as it rendered navigation a breeze.

In lieu of an extended rundown of my events during my three weeks at The Sanctuary resort, I'll post a lurid rendition penned closer to my stay there. Thailand lends itself to prose-poetry, and while I trust the pictures to speak for themselves, a lurid landscape lends legitimacy to liberties with language.

How to do Thailand justice? Picture a land hand-crafted by the Maker for His Holy vacation. A portal into an alternate reality spangled with mangoes a-gogo and a hammock on every palm tree.

Blue seas frothing on white sand beaches stretch beneath the pink and orange of the morning sun. Then the island lazily shakes its perfect body off, swimming laps. Kickboxing. A yoga retreat or three. Thai massage - seven bucks an hour. And then in stumbles its bloodied, still drunken cousin from the Full Moon Party. The stars are still in their eyes - the party won’t be finished for at least another 48 hours. And why not? The yogis and the addicts, the tantrics and the tourists all have the same word on their lips: Ecstasy. This is Tahiland, and the islands are pulsing with joy.

My words don't tell the story well enough. Let me show you what greeted me, every morning.

Beautiful.

How else to describe Koh Phagnon? A shimmering atoll off the sandy spinnaker of the thai coast, Koh Phagnon and her elder sister, Koh Samui were made for vacations. They have no other purpose. Tourism is their life’s blood, the sand and the sea and the shining sun, their bread and toil. The food is magnificent. The people, entrancing.

Ashanti spirit healers and medicine men coupled with aurvedic shamans and tantric yogis. Spinal therapists mingled with art dealers, writers, composers. Bond traders shed their market floors for flip flops and ray bans as raves Omed into the distance from 6 in the evening past noon the following day before indefatigably shifting along the coast. The party did not end - it only changed its tune.

Sipping magic shakes on the beach with a Scotsman named Alister and seeing holographic visions tessellate the living stars. Waking on the beach, surrounded by friendly puppies who frantically pollinate you with their kisses before returning to their coconuts. Bamboo hut, and its preposterous pumpkin salad, and even more ludicrous oceanside view.

The magicans’ circle at the tea temple. The rollicking motorboat through choppy surf. The jungle. The days pass, effortlessly. It is a flower, budding and blossoming in one setting, a time lapsed bliss.

Took two tantra retreats and saw amazing things. A full kundalini awakening - My friend Kyle jerked up like an astral jesus after energetic exercizes with the magical Megan flamer. Kyle was flashing brighter than a neon christmas tree through the courses of his subtle electric, blinking, all the while stammering ‘its all real,’ and ‘i can see the lights!’ Oceanic bliss alighting the halls.

Tears, laughter, reconciliation. Contacts, crossings, cracking signals. Unclenching old fists. Realizing how much I love my father, how much he loves me. Pushing through the pain to get there. Stepping out on my own, yes, stepping out of my own shadow. You must see your shadow if you want to get out of its way. And of course, to leave the shadow, you must face the sun. There is so much more to tantra than the sex - it is a world entire. In two weeks, I got a year’s worth of focused growth.

In my more contemplative nights I stayed alone by the sands and surf, listening as the waves lapped endlessly upon the shore. I woke to these lovely creatures, gnawing at their coconuts amidst their morning nuzzle:

Now I know, if people weren't busy working in China, there would certainly be far less play on the Thai beaches. Passing from China to Thailand, I felt I had journeyed from purgatory to paradise - from grey to green, from dry to lush, from silent to vibrant, and cheery, and welcome. Yes, its easy to smile when you’re not working, and easier still when it’s for a month at a time. But the easiest smiles come in a place like Thailand - where nature is decked in her proudest raiment, where the surf squeals joy in chorus with monkeys and macaws, and the flowers outdo one another in their sexing allure.

That sums it up nicely - about as well as I could do myself. ;) If you get the chance, do yourself a favor and book an extended break in Southeast Asia. The reality of it trumps all the text I've chucked to date - it's beautiful beyond words.

Hello Again!

It has been a half year between updates. The consolation and the wonder of that span is this: I can clearly view the changes that time and a relative isolation have wrought on my psyche. In many ways, I’m much more realistic and self-aware than I have been in the past. That comes with the territory, I suppose. and the time.



My brain handles new situations much more methodically. I am beginning to look towards the horizons of my life, enacting the rudiments of a plan for myself. I am no longer tied to one set future, and am free to venture toward multiple goals. My goals are no longer centered upon others, nor a projection of my internal insecurities. I am improving myself, and only through this primary action can my world become a better, more vibrant place.






This newfound autonomy has its upsides. Remarkably, given my position on the fringe of my old life as a foreign teacher, I have notched over $10,000 in the bank in the past four months. Just as remarkably, my parents have forgiven my outstanding college debts, and the albatross which looped hungrily about my neck has flown for other, drearier seas. I am already lucky to be a young American - to be that and debt free is colossal. Thus: a huge and lasting thank you to mama and papa Horst.





I have been to Thailand and had some wonderful experiences. The place is a paradise. I enjoyed the sights, though due to the nature of the workshops, most of my adventures were internal. Kyle, my friend and coworker, had an even more enlightening experience, with a full Kundalini awakening, a bunch of new friends, and a beautiful and intelligent Australian girlfriend Megan, whom he somehow coerced to leave paradise to join us for a three month contract in central China. At any rate, Thailand was beyond exquisite, and I will detail the trip in full with my next entry.



In the meantime I’ve climbed a couple mountains and went on a few vacations here and there. I’ve taken up a second teaching job on weekends, and the kindergarteners I minister to bring new meaning to the word ‘adorable.’ I met some lovely foreign friends: Joel from Vancouver and Claire and Leon Frey of Michigan and Manchester. Claire’s care, Leon’s wit, and Joel’s easygoing nature are braided into our regular game and movie nights. Together, they have mitigated the often isolating experience of life in a foreign land, and I for them.





My oral Chinese is slowly improving, but reading and writing is still beyond me. On paper and at pay time, I am technically an expert. In practice though, my three lovely TAs, Sophie, Amy, and Cedar hold my hand throughout much of my daily life. They handle my Chinese communication and coordinate my affairs with the local authorities. I would be lost without them, as they well know, and make up for this somewhat by rising with the electric roosters at dawn to supervise morning exercises. This allows them an extra hour of sleep, and when the workday lasts from 6:00 AM - 9:00 PM, that hour certainly counts. I enjoy the privilege of a fairly comfortable schedule, for which I am duly grateful. Many Chinese teachers do not have a full day’s break, settling for Saturday evening and Sunday morning for a break. A 24 hour leave, perhaps, but inconceivable to many in the west.


I have become a much better teacher in the past six months, and I owe a debt of thanks to Kyle’s influence. He really cares in the classroom, regardless of the input of the students, and if he makes education his career he will make a difference in many young lives. He also inspired me to undertake a pushup regimen which has wrought sweeping changes on my musculature and bearing. Still, even his Herculean presence as Assistant headmaster could not forestall that slowdown familiar to so many students and teachers in response to the irresistible advances of summer.



At the beginning of the semester, Kyle and I set up a system of strictures to govern student behavior. We have since learned that our powers for discipline are sadly limited. Two of the students have severe respiratory problems, owing to a parental indulgence of their smoking habits. We have tried to confiscate their cigarettes, but they somehow always end up with more. These same students sleep in class, and disciplinary measures do little to alter their behavior. Eventually, even Kyle threw up his hands, and I did the same. While we have achieved some successes. The students no show up to class on time more often than not. They are also bereft of their cell phones and PSPs. Of late, there has been a marked drop in student-teacher stabbings. This is a first year school, and is hence a haven and last resort for behaviorally challenged youth. The students’ grades are in free fall, but as Chinese academics are entirely dependent on test scores and our students joined an International school to escape the national tests, our marks matter little to either the students our the administration. Perhaps as a direct result of this policy, the students break more rules than they obey. 






Their delinquency may be due in part to our winnowing contracts. Kyle and I will only be teaching for two, perhaps three more weeks at the maximum before going off on our respective trajectories. Kyle and Megan will likely take a summer teaching position in East asia, returning to California for Kyle to finish his teaching degree. I will circle China with my good friend Alex before heading south overland to reach mystical Bali, Indonesia. I will stay there, traveling and learning for several months. My current mental schematic has me returning to the east Coast for a family Thanksgiving, but life is often not so predictable. The fates, however, are kind. Tanner will shortly be transforming into a demigod at Deep Springs, and so the old Honda Accord will be awaiting me in North Carolina. The road is open wide, and wherever it leads, I greet it with open arms.

Stink Bugs

Stink Bugs.

In my time in Xian, I grew rather attached to these quizzical creatures. They quickly revealed themselves to be the dominant life form in our dorms, clambering over everything they could see seemingly for the hell of it.

Why did I climb this umbrella? Because it is THERE.

The girls were terrified of stink bugs. I returned the favor by threading them into their hair whenever I got the chance. The stink bugs and I would play a little game together, seeing how long the intrepid voyagers could hold on as I held back laughter.

Our record was nearly an hour. I placed my stinkbug on Eva, leaving the dorm. It stayed on her for the taxi ride and showed signs of wanderlust. I quickly transferred him to Janice, where he sat enraptured for the remainder of the evening in the crowded dance club. When he left his perch, perhaps to go bumping with the local cockroach coterie, I felt a real sense of loss - and a burgeoning respect for the species.

Stink bugs are apex scavengers because they cannot be killed. Well, you can kill them, but the action is extremely inadvisable. The species is exquisitely adapted to life among humans because their death brings something worse than pain - it yields aesthetic inconvenience. Some quirk of the stinkbug’s intestinal alchemy results in a disproportionately potent effluence emanating from their bowels. The resultant combination is a fugue of stench - like a reeses peanut butter cup if instead of chocolate and peanut butter it were bile and diharrea.

I did not know this at first, because I loved the little creatures and never turned thought to harm them. I loved to watch them crawl - each little motion of the legs curled a smile as my eyes widened. Middle legs up, then front, then back. Afternating each side - six separate motions at once. LIke a jazz drummer, or an exquisite organist sitting down to Bach. Their every movement proficiency and improvisation. These bugs cost me minutes on end as I watched their thoraxes edge across the shower spout, preparing for a kamikaze bungee into my dripping coifs.

I have yet to see one eat.

Giving Thanks in Xian

We pulled up just outside Xian’s South Gate, facing its 15 meter stone walls and imposing fortress crenolations. The glistening, brass studded red doors stood at attention, sentries eternally preserved yet eternally petrified, a monument never to rust nor again open. On either side of the ancient portcullis, great holes had been carved into the city walls, allowing thruway traffic purchase into the imperial capitol. Where archers once drew their bows, bike tours now whirred their concentric levity around the firmament. Stoplights and crossing guards replaced boiling oil and murder holes. The roads of history diverged on this night, and we chose the western of the two. Giving the cabbie his 30 RMB, we strode into the evening, sheathing fork and spoon at Howard Johnson’s luscious Thanksgiving buffet.

In China, Howard Johnson’s is a five star experience. This may sound counterintuitive, but in China, America’s gutter turns to glory. In Beijing, Pabst Blue Ribbon (also known as PBR, the hipster brew of choice due to its cheap price and self-knowing mediocrity) has been repackaged as a luxury brand. Its ‘oak aged’ vintage is priced at a staggering $40/liter, and sold in the finest gentleman’s clubs and fine dining establishments. Brands such as PBR and Howard Johnsons are seen as typically American, and can thus command great value regardless of their connotations in their native soil. As such, they shrewdly capitalize on their traditional American imagery in an unfamiliar, ever hungry Chinese market.

In a sense, I do the same. Any foreigner who comes to China is suddenly a commodity, and none moreso than the blonde haired, blue eyed male. There is an amount of deference afforded me, an undue respect which is freely given, due to my relative scarcity. As the world opens up, this artificial inflation will slowly diminish, but for the present, both myself and Howard Johnson’s were the beneficiaries of American advertising. I’d toast the trend with a PBR, but at present, it is out of my price range. A sixty cent Dark Knight stout will have to suffice.

As we walked into the marble halls of HoJo, we were serenaded by a player piano, slowly rotating in an enormous crystal enclosure. We were greeted in rote English by a beautiful unsmiling Russian concierge. She took pictures of us as we sidled up by the moat, beside the ferns and the koi. Cameras returned, I paced with my fellows at the Bodi international school towards the buffet.

Prices were western, as was custom. Dinner, including unlimited wine, appetizers, turkey and dessert, came to 120 RMB - a red 100 RMB mao and his lesser orange 20 RMB counterpart. As in all Chinese establishments, tipping was not encouraged, and incomprehensible to the majority of the wiatstaff, so the bill was as is, without any further decision. The meal was a special treat - the feast cost twelve times as much it did in our jaunts through the village. Money works differently in China. When you are foreign and in the company of generous friends, any expenditure is a surprise. Twenty dollars had become a ludicrous expenditure for a good meal, but luckily, our spread was well worth the cost.

I turned to enter the buffet, with its red wine oxidizing under a purple, velvet draped roof. I sampled an excellent pumpkin bisque, hesitantly passed on the turtle soup and lasagna, and greedily snatched from the cheese display and the salads. Salivating, i dressed my salads in caesar, italian, a variety of creamy balsamics. As most Chinese establishments only served thousand island and nothing else, it was a welcome change of pace. I grabbed my appetizers, hungrily tendered my cheeses, and resumed my place at the table.

Cheese is a rarity in China, as a large majority of the population is lactose inolerant. Pizza is a luxury rarely sampled, and when it is available, it is enjoyed as a five star experience. Pizza hut is a jacket and tie affair, with crisp white tablecloths and sommliers touting the wine selections. The pizza buffet was replaced by a single turky, which was sufficient for the entire evening. Most patrons tended towards the sushi, hot pot, and other traditional asian fare.

Though there was no dog on the menu this evening (at least, not labeled as such - Chinese chefs can be tricky), China has yet to accede to the health foods craze of superconscious America. Nutrition labels reflect this divergence, even in familiar brands. In China, Heinz ketchup comes in an aluminum squeeze bottle, spitting forth like crimson toothpaste. In China, one serving of this formidible nostrum contains 1300 mg of sodium - over 60% of the daily value for a fully functioning human being. In Mali they used to trade salt for gold. Somebody should pitch this to Heinz - they’d make a fortune. In my four months here I’ve likely had more MSG than Yao Ming at Madison Square Garden. Don’t worry about me though - I’ve been drinking a lot of (bottled!) water. And if I’ve learned anything in my times at Chinese laundromats, it all comes out in the wash.

As we stabbed pairs of gleaming ebony chopsticks into the freshly minced turkey - one of which was sufficient to feed the uninitiated locals - Jason’s millionaire friend Bo rolled up with his entourage. Toasts were traded, chairs added, and the meal commenced with renewed gusto. Appropriately enough, Bo works at Boeing, where he manages the Xian branch. His father’s franchise is based in Shanghai. Bo frequently rolls up wearing million dollar watches, buying bottle service and flashing meticulously sculpted arms and the whitest smile in the Orient. Evenings with Jason Bo are a blur of Western debauchery coupled with eastern precision. Boeing beer pong at the dubstep diaspora. Bo is better informed about hip hop trends than anyone I’ve ever met. Somehow he finds the time to do this and manage a thriving branch of a multinational corporation.



Toasts, and toasts. I had no work on friday, so the shackles were off. It was a good meal, good company, but typing this now, hundreds of miles away in rural Yichang, it strikes me how surreal my life in Xian was. It wasn’t like China, it wasn’t like America - I can’t even call it the future with true certainty. So much of my stay in Xian felt like a half constructed dream - a blank check fantasia of rags to riches without the provisions of planning or architectural training. In my wild nights in Xian, I rambled through a living theme park whose terse, businesslike childhood had blossomed into a dualistic pseudomaturity - of work undertaken to capture the pleasures which youth denied. An entire generation living in Western frivolity with Eastern efficiency. What strange new animals dance about in Chinese Neverland!



The dinner ended, and my last holiday in Xian came to a reluctant close. We all took new photos with the Russian concierge in front of the rotating crystal piano, and then outside into the open air. Bo sidled into his absurdly luxurious prototype BMW - one of two confirmed in the entire province. Just as absurdly, it was painted in dark blue with racing stripes had the word POLICIA professionally embossed across the side. Bo asked me if I thought it was amazing. Looking at it all under the smoky twilight of Chinese halogen, I could only say, “yes."

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.