China's Green Beat, Working Out, New Clothes

So, sweet stuff. On Saturday afternoon I went to meet with John for lunch. I wanted to learn about his project, China's Green Beat, and possibly see if there was any way I could help out. He explained his whole game plan to me: he has started with the videos, but plans to expand it into a web community, blog, articles, and eventual income through the selling of advertising space, all focused on drawing attention toward the growing environmental movement in China. The videos are on a bit of a pause at the moment, since one of his cohorts had gone to the U.S. for college, and the other was teaching in the rural parts of another province. Thinking about the kind of stuff he was doing, I had two ideas. First, once I start my internship at INBAR I can introduce the two organizations so that there can be a China's Green Beat video about the ways INBAR is using bamboo for cheap, sturdy housing, and maybe for their poverty alleviation, conservation and biodiversity projects as well. The specific subject matter will be up to John of course, but I could serve as the link to introduce the two groups. Also, at CET every now and then the Resident Director or a teacher organizes a speaker to come and give us a presentation or have a discussion. John came to Beijing on a whim after graduating from college in the U.S., and having never taken Chinese before, he took classes, job a job, and now (about two years later), has achieved competence in the spoken language. Not only having achieved competence in Chinese, but the stuff that he is doing is really cool too! So I am gonna talk to the Resident Director here and recommend him as a potential "come in with a talk and presentation" guy. I hear there is an environmental class next semester too, so that might fit perfectly for a 'guest lecturer.' That's not all I did this weekend though!

Sunday I headed out to a clothes market. I had spent half the morning looking at Antti Suniala's pictures and website, continuing my dream of being a performer. After thinking about it for a while, I decided that I needed some better clothes, so I went to the cheapest clothing market in Beijing (conveniently close to Capital Normal University) to look for suspenders and a hat. I found pretty much exactly what I was looking for, although I had to do a bit of asking and searching before I found suspenders. I am absolutely in love with my new clothes (maybe accessories is a better term) and I am proudly wearing them everywhere. Suspenders have an interesting feel, and I actually have a pair of blue jeans that it just a little too big around the waist. Since this pair of pants tends to slide down over time, my new suspenders are the perfect solution!

So, I worked out last night and it felt really good. I know I have definitely had a slump which I have moved in and out of over the past month or so, but even in the happy times it wasn't this kind of happiness. The best way I can find to describe it is the primal joy of using my body, and of feeling it work, knowing that it is being made stronger. Even when I get together with the juggling club (see photo of Fed, the Italian, being cool with clubs) or hang out and joke around with good friends, that is a different kind of happy. (I'm not saying that working out makes me more happy, it is just a different category of happiness) Back in the U.S. I had a very physically active lifestyle, with dance, martial arts, gymnastics and acrobatics, parkour, and just the general willingness to run and climb rather than walk and take an elevator. But I haven't kept that up in China. I live on the 10th floor, so I think that doing the stairs all the time is a bit much, not to mention it drenches my clothes in sweat and makes me 五 (that's 5 in Chinese!) minutes later to everything.

I spent the first month scouring the city for martial arts places, but mostly I ended up spending a lot of time and money with unsatisfactory results. (actually I think that is a primary reason why I don't feel I've connected to any of my classmates outside the kids I knew before coming here: I tried to make a life for myself in the city and failed while they formed friendships. Now I think it is a bit too late to start getting to know people who I will never see again after next week) Eventually I just gave up, and all the spare time that back in the states I would be doing gymnastics or aikido (or socializing) are spent here in Beijing sitting in my room, studying or reading. (I'm just glad I finally got some English-language books. Be thankful for what you got, friends and family in the U.S.! If it wasn't for BookMooch I'd be intellectually stranded here.) So my life here has been fairly sedentary, and although I still have fairly good figure and whatnot, effectiveness in what I am concerned with, not appearance. I got to thinking the other day: if I want to be a performer (which I do), and I want to go to the Beijing International Arts School （alternate page) this summer (which I am thinking about), I better get stronger and more flexible! It was kind of funny actually, last night when I was doing push-ups in my room (why pay two or three hundred 元 for a gym membership when I already have some open space in the middle of my dorm room?) my roomie walked in and said "你很厉害," which roughly means "You are really intense." It made me laugh, and I explained to him, in my broken Chinese, my desire to be a performer, my realization that fitness is a use-it-or-lose-it kind of thing (I taught him what that English expression meant too), and my decision to start using it.

I've also been reminded of the fun of physical play due to the construction outside our dorm. Just about every time I walk by and look up at it I think "damn, that would be fun to monkey around on." It is, however, too cold, too dangerous, and moderately populated by construction workers (most of whom are likely part of the floating population, but no legal housing or work permit for Beijing). Still, it would be a very 'spider man' kind of place to play. It is pretty typical of the buildings here to have to be renovated. Our dorm building is only a few years old, but it was thrown up so fast (probably with migrant labor) that it is falling apart already. The door stop in my bathroom actually came off yesterday. It is magnetized to the door so that the door will stay open when you set it open, so when I closed the door I heard this scraping sound. It's kind of like China's rapid modernization: It looks shiny, pretty and new, but the new layer of paint peels off pretty quick.