through the looking glass

I’ve managed to make a friend (and by this I mean an actual friend, not someone who just wants to practice english and calls me a lot to see if I need help buying food) in the city, hu, a photographer for the local tourist spot maijishan (maiji mountain). he’d run into antony one day while we were out shopping and we started talking about a book of american photography he was carrying. we’ve since had many a pleasant chat about random underground music (he listens to leonard cohen, ween, dar williams and the gourdes), movies (he owns all the weird dvds I’ve bought here), european and chinese philosophy (he’s read deluze of all things), ginsburg and the beats, and of course computers (he’s got a mac). every now and again I’ll be listening to him speak in the mix of chinese and english we use and swear I’ve fallen into a twilight zone episode. because really, what are the chances that I find a person with such similar interests in a place so different so soon after my arrival.

his family history’s quite interesting as well. apparently they’ve been here for ~500 years, we tried to wander around the ancient house he grew up in, currently being restored and turned into a museum, but only made it into the courtyard. both his parents and all his grandparents are/were teachers, so there’s quite a bit of interesting history there as well, I feel I’m learning more than I thought possible about things I cannot even begin to comprehend.

thinking on my toes.
had a little confusion at english corner. I’m getting the kids to organize it themselves, antony, alison and I can be invited as guests. (this is to avoid 120 kids swarming around the foreigners all expecting to talk only to us.) the girl who’s organizing this week wanted to teach a song, I said rock on, go ahead. later that week I stopped in about 20 minutes after it’d begun, thinking I’d listen for a bit then head upstairs to work. I arrived to a room full of kids watching two 18 year old english girls desperately trying to fill time. the relief on their faces when they saw me was priceless; they had expected to listen, not lead, just stopping in from their day jobs as middle school teachers with project trust.

written on the blackboard was ‘annie teaches us a song’. oh my, crossed wires are fun. so I grabbed one of the girls and ran up to the english recourse room to find some music. teaching a song just wasn’t going to happen, but I huck finned the brits into teaching them some popular dances. ten minutes later I’m watching a room full of chinese students doing the macarena to ‘I’m too sexy’.

random.
walking down the street the other day, an older man walking a bicycle scurried up next to me. he said something in tianshui dialect I couldn’t even begin to understand. rummaging in his bag he pulled a small printed piece of paper from a wrinkled tissue envelope and held it up for me to read. below some chinese charachters were printed the english words : I am a christian, are you?

synchronicity.
wandering around today looking for funny hats and other props for my students (we’ll be doing skits, and sometimes dressing up, becoming someone else, helps alleviate fear). passed a music store I haven’t been in, went in to see prices on erhus and violin hunt. the two strings were waay expensive, out of my league. I asked the woman if she had any old violins and she looked at me blankly, sending someone off to get the english speaker. sigh. he said he didn’t have any old ones, but there was a new professional one I could try. which I did, having the time of my life sliding up and down the board even though my fingernails were entirely too long to play. too pricey at 3,000 kuai, but damned I needed that feeling.

the english speaker turned out to be a tremendously interesting classical guitar player, recently returned from beijing to teach. with his father, who happens to be the best erhu player in tianshui. after listening to him play I have to agree, the man made this instrument cry and laugh with the lightest touch. two of his students asked to play for me, and I enjoyed watching and hearing the older girl (maybe 14) playing traditional songs passionately, then the 7 year old girl playing a more modern piece in perfect time. we let them get back to their lesson, once outside the english speaker picked up a guitar and started playing my favorite classical piece. we chatted a bit more about music, and I asked him to think about who might be a good erhu teacher for me. (the bow runs between the strings, not over them, so it won’t be like instruments I’m used to). I just got a call from Zhang, letting me know he’d talked to his father, who would very much like to have me as a student. I protested eight ways to sunday, a master should not teach a novice, but he finally won when he told me I was being a moron. ;-)

did I mention that I’ve walked down the wrong apartment block and into the wrong building twice recently? only noticed when I got to the second floor and realized I was not in fact standing in front of my door.

it’s also been pointed out that my posts make war and peace look like a bedtime story, so I’ll shut up now