The Last Chapter of Part One

As many of you know, I am trying to write an historical novel while in China and am thus restricted to a baffling lack of access to information that I need. I am half-a-world away from the places, like the Massachusetts Historical Society and Phillips Library at the Peabody-Essex Museum, where I need to be...and Mr. Xi has not torn down the Great Firewall. In fact, he seems to be raising it higher even as he strengthens his navy, builds a new silk road or two, plays with sand castles, and swats at the never-ending parade of tigers and flies.

In the coming weeks, I will enroll in the Teacher Apprentice Program at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. Working at Mount Mansfield Union High School in Jericho, Vermont, I will assist a full-time teacher from August to March as I pursue certification as a public school social studies teacher. This may pave the way for my now nearly fifteen year old dream of returning to the right-side up state from the upside-down state of New Hampshire.

I gave New Oriental notice that I intend to be finished here by June 15. I will also give my last public presentation for Overseas Consulting, which has repeatedly bragged in written material, despite my protestations, that I attended "Philips [sic] Academy-Exeter" (which I did not) and where the director once introduced me as a graduate of Phillips Andover Academy (which I most certainly did not!). I will spend a couple more weeks teaching two hours away from my home, in the mountains to the northwest of Beijing. For six hours a day, I try to inculcate spoken English in the minds of some engineers and other project management staff, who build gas and oil pipelines for one of China's largest state-owned enterprises. Given that I believe digging up more fossil fuels is immoral, this has been a particularly "character-building" assignment.

I hope to travel in late June, perhaps seeing new parts of Yunnan; Shaolin Temple and Zhengzhou in Henan; Xiamen (Amoy), Fujian; and the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. Those two resources that control human movement, money and time, may make accomplishing all of these goals difficult, but this going to be the last chapter of my first major (four and a half year) stint in China. It will also be one of the last posts on this blog before I transition to a new blog. Announcement coming soon!

Returning to America does not preclude another long period in this marvelous land at some point later down the road. I have too many good friends here and there is so much more to see so I know this will not be good-bye. I made a trip last week to Changchun, where I spent 2.5 years of my Chinese adventure. I said some sad farewells and was loaded up with fresh tea by a former student is both an emergency room doctor and a tea store proprietor.

One of my American conservationist friends asked, "Are you seriously abandoning your legal skills to help fight the environmental crisis after living in the heart of the polluters for the last four years?!?!? Please make sure your teaching certification is for you to keep helping us fight!!!!!" While flattered by her confidence in me, I have to say that, in a world filled with more than one Sen. James Inhofe, fighting ignorance might be our last best hope and I really think there is no more admirable way to make a difference in our national fabric than to serve as a public school teacher of social studies with all that entails: civics, economics, US and world history, geography...and critical thinking.

It will be great to be near Burlington as the junior senator battles for the Presidential nomination of his party. Contrary to some people's misplaced confidence in my desirability/ability as a political campaigner (I have never picked a winner or won myself), Sanders has not asked me to run his campaign. That said, as time allows, I will do all in my power to elevate his status and see that the issues which he intends to highlight become the focal point of a national dialogue about where we need to be headed.

Juanita Nelson, May She Rest in the Peace that She Championed

Last time that I was home, I got to spend four wonderful nights at the New York Catholic Worker's Peter Maurin Farm with my dear friend Deacon Tom Cornell and his wife, Monica. They were introduced by Dorothy Day after Tom was the first one to burn his draft card during the misbegotten VietNam era. While I was at the Farm, news arrived that her grandchildren had given permission to exhume Day's remains in time for this summer's papal visit. This was welcome news, because DD has played such an important role in their lives.

I met Tom Cornell through my friend Chuck Matthei, who was an amazing champion of community-supported agriculture and community loan funds. Chuck and I met when he came to speak at a Phillips Exeter Academy Martin Luther King Day event in January of 1993. He accompanied an elderly man and his spry wife: Wally and Juanita Nelson. During the last years of Chuck's own life, when he was suffering from cancer, he was like a son to them and took great care of them. I was at Chuck's memorial service and attended Wally's at Deerfield Academy. I am sorry that I will not be there for Juanita's. She was one of the most remarkable women that I have ever met. Today, from Tom Cornell, I learned that Juanita Nelson has marched on from the land of the living into eternal glory.

In the autumn of 1996, as a Middlebury senior, I got lost in the Adirondacks looking for the home of a future Middlebury scholar-in-residence, Bill McKibben. Around and around, I drove, burning up fossil fuel in my quest to interview the author of the End of Nature. My senior thesis, The Complex Task of Living Simply, would feature McKibben, the Nelsons, and Scott & Helen Nearing. Helen had driven into a tree the year prior and Scott was long gone, but the getting to know the living subjects of my thesis was a joy. I came away with the conclusion that McKibben was the most effective, because he was the most willing to compromise the purity of his daily life in order to make sure his important message was heard. The Nearings were the least effective--Scott basically disowned his own children for their lack of moral purity, as he saw it--because they were extremists. There was a lot to imitate in their lives, but there was a lot to be wary of.  It was Wally and Juanita who represented the Middle Way. Who can dispute the effectiveness of Wally's witness? He was a pre-Rosa Parks bus rider in April 1947 (see You Don't Have to Ride Jim Crow). He was a conscientious objector during the Second World War. He was the son of Alabama sharecroppers who fell in love with a woman from the South Side of Chicago--"the baddest part of town".

Wally and Juanita lived on Wolman Hill, a Quaker community in Greenfield, Massachusetts, off-grid and drawing water from a well whilst growing their own food and not paying their federal taxes, because they did not want to support the war machine. Juanita would continue this existence for years after Wally passed away. I would periodically drop-in to say hello sometimes warning her by leaving messages on an answering machine that was in a different house. Sometimes I would bring a curious friend, as well.

One of my happiest memories was in the spring of my senior year at Exeter, piling into a couple of cars with the diminutive Mr. Belcher, Bud & Barbara James (my mentors), and the not so diminutive Rev to go to Coltrane for a War Tax Resisters event with Wally & Juanita.

I cannot think of Juanita without picturing her in a sweater at her kitchen table, serving dried apple slices and reading by kerosene light. She had a voracious mind and her little cottage was lined with radical books. We had so many deep conversations and she was such a sage. I am sure she is looking down now upon us as we go about the quotidian tasks of our lives. I can feel her radiance. May she rest in the peace to which her life was a sturdy testament.

Exciting news in the mail

As many of you know, I have been teaching in China for four years. During that time, I have met thousands of students. One of the very best that I ever helped prepare for an interview wrote me this note when she woke up this morning after her mother gave her some great news:

I am SOOO happy to receive my offer from Exeter. How excited I was to get this news from my mom when I just woke up in the morning!

I had a wonderful summer at Exeter last year, and it is exactly what made me fall in love with this prestigious but also supportive and welcoming school. Thank you so much for teaching me how to do an interview, which helped a lot during my applications! I hope I will make a difference this year as an Exonian!

Many thanks and best regards, 

Q----

This girl is inquisitive, meticulously polite (she writes thank-you notes with alacrity and regularity!), and open-minded. This gives me great confidence in Exeter's admissions process.

I have written back to her that she will be a "prep" with the new principal and that the community is very excited for this breath of fresh air. What an auspicious time to attend the Academy!

Tomorrow I will meet with a couple of boys (for the first time) who got wait-listed.  Oh, cruel world!

Update from the Chinaman

Greetings! I am writing an historical novel that has little or nothing to do with China. I have more than 20,000 words, which is a start. I don't talk about it, except to say that I am doing it so no questions!

Mr. Xi, Tear Down that Wall

I don't blog much any more because using the Internet in China makes me weary. I have a dark joke that China could control the world simply by tearing down that Great Firewall. Productivity would increase threefold, at least.

Will be state-side from February 9th to 26th, doing research for book and seeing some old friends and older family members. Have done less traveling this year. Made it to Hainan in November and to Guangzhou for four days of exquisite food, warmish weather, and a picturesque writing environment from my balcony in the historic Victory Hotel.

Music in the Air

Going on the perfect date today. Lunch, followed by a visit to the National Museum of China, followed by attending Mass at Wangfujing, etc. I may be compelled to sing in the choir today.

Only a few of you know that I joined the International Festival Chorus and sang Handel's Messiah during Christmastime. We performed at the Harrow School in Beijing and the huge municipal concert venue in Tianjin. We also caroled at the Australian and British embassies in Beijing. For the former gig, the Ambassador herself presented us each with a bottle of Syrah from Oz. Now that is advanced diplomacy!

For those of you who don't know, the Rodin Museum in Paris is my favorite in the pantheon of all museums. Here are the details on the exhibit in China.

Date : November 28, 2014 - March 22, 2015
Venue : Gallery N10
Hosted by: National Museum of China, Rodin Museum in Paris

Rodin Museum in Paris The National Museum of China, after the exhibition of Ten Masterpieces of French Painting- Making the 50th Founding Anniversary of Sino-French Diplomatic Ties closed in June, will host another exhibition t hemed on classical French art, namely, Rodin, l’oeuvre d’une vie, to bring a successful conclusion of this memorable year.
A total of 140 original works created by Auguste Rodin, a great French sculptor in the 19th century will be on display, including The Thinker, The Age of Bronze, Monument to Balzac, The Gates of Hell and other representative works. Moreover, many drawings for Rodin’s gypsum sculptures will also be exhibited, through which art lovers can get a glimpse of the thinking process and moods during the artistic creation by this most prestigious master in the world history of modern sculpture.

Vignettes from a World Traveler

On Education

I am home in the land of the free and the home of the braves (and the Washington Redskins). I ran into my old acquaintance Winona LaDuke down at Battery Park on Monday after marching the prior day in a 400,000 + person Climate March. She has always had so many common sense things to say about education. Today, as I flew for $201 (plus baggage fees!) from the Big Apple to the Mile High Metropolis, I read about First Amendment restrictions on reporters in our national parks and about a Colorado county where they want to revise the textbooks to, possibly, erase Caesar Chavez and the browner parts of our sordid history from the books.

I get lots of questions about education in China, where the scrubbed version of history is the status quo, but have to wonder if the same thing is happening here. First they attacked science (climate change and evolution), which they continue to do. Now the crazies are on to new subjects.

As some of you know, part of this five week stint in America includes ten days of taking two Chinese students and a group of about nine parents on a tour of prep schools. This will bring me back to the East from LA on October 1 and includes a sojourn to St. Paul's School and the Academy, as we Exonians pretentiously refer to our alma mater.

On blogging

One thing I have enjoyed on my trip home is the relative availability of free WiFi and not having to use a VPN to access the New York Times, where, a couple days ago, I read China Clamps Down on Web, Pinching Companies Like Google. That has led to my blogging less over the last few months. It just takes too long to upload photos. It has been fun to be back. I ran into a couple of people on the march who I had not seen in a decade or two. One bemoaned the diminution in my blogging. I may try to do a bit more when I get back, but an earlier post announced that I was cutting back.

Self-Indulgence (aka Updates on Yours Truly)

I have joined the International Festival Chorus (IFC) and am considering taking a 茶道 class, which will both consume a fair bit of time. I will sing Handel's Messiah, which happens to be my favorite piece of music, in both Beijing and Tianjin!

I have turned forty on this trip and this trip home has included staying in a different bed nearly every night so far, often with friends who have kids in the range of four to ten. I am feeling a bit behind and badgered by those who ask when I will come home. I will! But not yet. I am not done. There is more that I want to see and learn about these people on the other side of the world.

Yunnan: A Peak, A Town, and a Forest

Faced with a week of no classes, I made plans to travel to Yunnan. I went alone, which was brave or foolish or both. I flew to the capital city, Kunming, known as the "City of Eternal Spring," and landed in the early afternoon last Monday. One of the reasons I had initially wanted to come here was the central role this place played in World War II and prior to US involvement in the war when the Flying Tigers were doing the most dangerous flight route in all history, called "The Hump." Kunming was the place where pilots would touch down after flying over the Himalayas from Burma (now Myanmar). Any trace of that history here seems to have been erased and forgotten.

I departed from Kunming on Saturday morning so that I could teach my American History class on Saturday afternoon. In the interim, I took a night train to and then from LiJiang, which is famous for its "Old Town(s)" and for being in the shadow of a 5,596 meter or 18,360 foot mountain massif. The far side of the mountain forms one side of Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hutiao Xia), but I did not have time to venture there. As my father is wont to say, "You have to save something for next time."  I did, however, stay in the Old Town at a fun hostel and "climb" the mountain.

玉龙雪山 (Yu Long Xue Shan) or Jade Dragon Snow Mountain is gorgeous, which means that Chinese brides and bridegrooms traipse into off-limits areas with their camera crews and do wedding photo shoots, as is the custom here.

To say that I climbed the mountain is a huge exaggeration, but I sure paid a lot of renminbi. I was not alone, though. It is a week prior to the May holiday--China's Labor Day and five-day mandatory vacation. The tourist attractions and the trains will soon be choked with travelers. To some extent, as you can see from the queue in this picture, the lines are already quite long.

This line is where people wait for the bus to the cable car. There is a counter when you go through the turnstile and more than 2,100 people had been through before me that day. I spotted only three other bai ren (white people) in line--one Russian, one German, and one unidentified alien. There are many tour groups in uniform jackets or matching hats. Some close friends in China just decide to match their clothes or hats to show their closeness. I suspect that is the case with the two blue bonnets.

Fortunately, throughout the trip I was able to join up with kind people who spoke English. On this leg of the expedition, I was taken from my hostel by a girl named Lizzy to an area where parked vans are all waiting to bargain with tourists for a ride to the mountain park. (Lizzy is an "intern," which is to say her room and board at the hostel are free in return for helping out around the place. She plans to go to Tibet in a few weeks.) Here I joined a husband and wife from Guangzhou and we journeyed to the mountain together in a taxi van. We stopped once along the way so that they might buy a can of oxygen since we would be well above 8,000 feet. I opted to be tough (or walk slowly so as to adjust and not get winded).

We shared the cable car on the way down with a group of people who had driven from Beijing. They were on a huge tour.

After the bus drove us from 3356 meters and the cable car dropped us off at 4306 feet, we climbed stairs to 4636 meters. I was proudly wearing my Red Sox hat, which I was given as a keepsake at my good friend's wedding. He and I have climbed many mountains together and were the head of the PEA Outing Club when Bob Bates was still alive and Steve & Mary Gorman were frequent chaperons.

Along the trail were several interesting things. Aside from the maidens in wedding attire, I saw a couple of people with their shirts off (it was 6 degrees Celsius), plenty in high heels and other ridiculous footwear (taking "selfies"), and my new buddies got a picture of a crazy American planting the Chinese flag at the height of the opened section of the observation stairway.

After coming down off the mountain, I went alone to the Black Dragon Pool. Among the things to see was something one of my pals told me is a "mahjong tree"--no matter whether I was being had or not, it was a remarkable specimen. I could not resist shooting a couple pics of the park signage, either.

This is a sacred place to the Naxi People, one of China's 55 ethnic minorities. There are also lost children who come to meditate there, I guess, by the burbling brook. In fact, the whole Old Town is full of people in ethnic dress posing with tourists. I imagine there were people from the East who went West in the US to get their picture taken with Indians before they were totally acculturated. There is an aspect of keeping culture alive akin to the powwows in America, where you can see traditional drumming and dancing, but there is also an LA porn-shoot quality to some of the Chinese men toting around big Canons and telling the girls exactly where to stand. The town is famous for its canals and bridges. All of Yunnan is well-known for its flowers and selling the signature type of tea, puerh, which is grown and picked in the southern parts of the province

A very beautiful tea cabinet for storing discs of puerh tea, my favorite kind of tea.

After befriending a NaXi girl who worked at a tea place, who said that I could come play in the mountains with her family if I was ever back in Yunnan; nibbling on some yak meat; and eating twice at a restaurant featuring Naxi traditional snacks, I took the train back to Kunming. It left at 9:30 PM and brought me to Kunming's bustling train station at 5:30 AM. By the time I had taken the wrong bus twice and gotten myself to the East Bus Station, it was nearly 9 AM. Another one hour and a half bus ride to the Stone Forest (Shilin) was made bearable, because an architecture student sat down next to me and we conversed for the rest of the trip there. Her father is a chief planner in Xi'an. She and her mother were on a vacation together, the mother having just retired from her professorship a few days prior. She will go to St. Louis, MO, next year to continue her architectural studies. I spent the next several hours with her and her mother, who also spoke passable English.

These are my pictures from the Stone Forest, a karst topography. Again, I had to take a photo of a couple signs. One indicates that smoking is permitted and the other, though hard to read, ends the English version of its text mid-sentence.