La Vita È Piena.

This is an interesting text-greeting that I had been meaning to put up.  Was sent to me during Chinese New Year:

 

新年好！恭祝你家庭大興，生活昌平，事業朝陽，愛情懷柔，萬壽延慶，財富豐台，心胸海澱，文采通州，事事順義！

 

Thought that was creative and very Beijing.

 

Enjoy!

In my never-ending quest for perfect habitation, my search has brought me to the slightly more expensive, but infinitely superior Chaoyangmen area.  The new place is in a re-done hutong area that has done a suprisingly good job of retaining the original feel of the community (it helps that many of the current residents lived there before the re-construction). 

 

My roommate (more him than me) and I found a place in Nangongjiangying #3 (南弓匠营3号楼) which literally means the "south bowmakers camp" and is, precisely as the name suggests, where bowmakers used to live.  I have to admit that the attractiveness of the apartment did increase because of the name.  To the west, just across Chaonei Xiaojie there are a good amount of "real" hutongs that I do believe are protected....at least until the Olympics. 

 

All in all a good move.  Welcome to all who may pass by my door to enter and sit on the floor (or the couch...but that didn't rhyme with door...and this is Asia afterall).

有过了很长一段时间才有机会写一个blog! 工作很顺利，天天学习新的东西 - 若是继续下去的话就好。除了工作以外，我还在努力於开拓生活的其他方面，上上个月我跟北京的国际节日合唱团(TM)audition，被收了，并在经过好几场排练和自练，上个周末12/6终于在位于故宫西南隅的中山音乐堂参加了Handel的Messiah。站在台上现在对我来说变得越来越容易了，虽然还有一些顾虑，但我能够看到我自己在成长、在适应，这是我所想要到台上去的原因。现在有及回到上海去再上一次台，或许这次就更有兴趣了，也可以圆满大家的心愿，在中国成为电视上的人物了。嗬嗬！

 

等着看。。。

My blog writing had trailed off when things started getting complicated...after I left Beida, looking for work, going back to the States and then moving across town after finding my new job.  I have been here for about three months now at Hollyhigh International (www.hollyhigh.cn) and it is quite the experience.  I never thought that I would end up at an investment bank, but all the same, here I am and learning quite a lot.  The work is varied and interesting, but somewhat overwhelming considering that I really did not have any experience in the field.  But things are going well and now that my life is settling down (although I will be moving again this week) I can sit down and write a little bit about what I'm up to.

 

I have to be honest and say that I have made a concious decision to make sure my social life did not suffer with the onslaught of a high-pressure job.  I have tried (and succeeded) to keep meeting up for dinners, stay active in the alumni group and I have even joined the Beijing International Festival Choir (www.beijingifc.org) and if anyone is in Beijing on December 2nd, be sure to come and see our Messiah concert at the Forbidden City Concert Hall!  This past weekend was my first experience with the choir and it was very nice.  I helped out backstage and got to know a bunch of the crew, all fantastic people.  Sunday I had a little meeting about a small "learning club" for local chinese kids and chinese kids who grew up abroad.  Interesting stuff, but still a lot of kinks to work out.  Then in the afternoon I met up with my friends from BTV (you may remember the contest I was in this past Chinese New Year) and did a show on foreigners working in Beijing.  I'm not sure when it will be on, but I'll be sure to make an announcement on my blog as soon as I do. 

 

All in all, Chaoyang has been a little too healthy for my social life and I have slowly been accumulating a sleep deficit, which I hope to pay off during the upcoming National Day holiday.  Although I shall take a couple days and head over to Tianjin to see Zhang Xinyuan and here new little boy.  Also, to get away from Beijing for just a little while.  It will feel good.  Next trip is to Shanghai.  Not sure when....November?  Burrrr!!! 

On my short 3-stop bus ride from home to work I have begun to see another side of Beijing different from that of Beida.  There are still the regular hang-abouts roaming the early morning streets, but unlike Beida, professionals (also known in Japan as buzinesu-man and in China [via Taiwan] as 上班族) are added into the mix along with all of the peripheral services that go along with them.  There are the 北京早餐 or Beijing Breakfast stands that go with every bus stop along Chaoyang Park Road South, the volunteer bus stop wardens with their yellow shirts and red flags, making sure that people don't get run over and that the buses stop at the right places...and then there are the rollerbladers. 

 

Not along my route, but at the end, in front of Junwangfu (the palace that I work at, which was moved from Xisi in the west of the old city), there are always rollerbladers, and quite good ones at that.  There are old ones, young ones, ones with helmets and ones without.  They go in circles around the central ring or up and down the ramps at the small platform on the side of the park.  I'd never taken China as a place for rollerblading, but I am becoming more and more convinced that China is a place of lasting fads, and I say lasting because there are just enough people (because of the sheer number of the whole) who remain interested that the fad does not entirely fade away.   I see rollerblading as one of these, added to the list of outdoor ballroom dancing, outdoor pingpong and other outdoorly visible activities. 

 

Interesting.

My friend gave me this on MSN one day and I think that it must be one of the coolest things that I've ever seen.  It makes you realize just how many people are in this ever-smaller world of ours and the limitless possibilities that make up the human experience. 

 

 

 

 Enjoy and Learn!

 

-Josh

This last trip back home to the US makes me realize that I am just at the beginning of a yo-yo like existance.  I have this queezy feeling in the pit of my stomach that I will be bouncing back and for the from one place to another forever.  Of course, I've chosen this and know what I've gotten myself in for and I secretly enjoy it, but still, it is a torn life. 

 

Going between New York and Florida when I was young was oft refered to as having the "best of both worlds" and that is also true with China.  But that was when I was young.  My very mobile life is in conflict with establishing any kind of stable base from which to begin a life.  God forbid I should have any kind of relationship going on.  It would be over before it started.  But that is another story.

 

However, be that as it may, this opportunity to go back to the States and see home once again and recharge my batteries (and be reassured that there is a place in the world where things do stay the same) has been a great one and I am ever grateful to my "students" for funding my latest jaunt.  I do hope that they will read this and practice their English a bit! 

 

New York City was as it ever was: a city.  They are all the same to me on a macro scale (of course little things are very different in the details) and New York this time simply reaffirmed that.  I was really unimpressed.  I do not enjoy the noise and annonymity of large cities, impersonal and unapproachable by definition.  But I have to say that I gained a new appreciation for Central Park this time.  That large of a green space, striking that big of a contrast between the forest of concrete and the forest of trees, is simply amazing.  Walking in the Rambles I truly felt like I was out somewhere back home like Grimes Glen or back in my own woods.  I couldn't see a thing that resembled so-called "civilization."  But then in about five minutes I was back on the edge of the city that looked like a cliff rising to the sky from a sea of green. 

 

Of course the trip back home was nice.  And the expectation as we drove the 6+ hours from the City to Naples made it all the more wonderful.  We stopped in Corning on the way up and spent about 2 hours rummaging around the craft and kitsch stores that line Market Street, which the girls loved (the two guys that were with us had to go back to China early for work stuff).  They were very impressed with the small-town uniqueness of Upstate.  Once we got to Naples, and got them situated in their rooms at the newly rennovated (though not quite finished) Maxfield Inn, I made my way back up County Road 36 to the same old Feather Street.  Driving up to my old house in a car by myself kind of felt like a real "homecoming"...not being picked up at the airport or transported around.  I came myself, back home. 

 

Of course things were the same and the sauce was cooking on the stove, ready for our dinner that night that I would bring our guests to.  They really liked the food...despite it not being Chinese ;)  I, of course, ate far too much and made sure that it would last me.  The unfortunate thing is that we only had time for one meal of sauce and noodles...next time 吧。Apple pie and cookies were also on the menu while I was at home, completing the culinary experience of the homecoming.  Entirely enjoyable.  I still have to make sure that I make sauce here.  I'm just too lazy I guess. 

 

This time coming back to China, however, I was a little apprehensive.  Knowing that I had job searches waiting for me and other issues to deal with (water damage costs, translations, etc.) did not make my return entirely welcoming, but at the same time, when I arrived at my apartment, it did seem like home.  Familiar things, smells and people are what make home home and China definitely has those.  I suppose that I can accept two homes, but it is also difficult.  Not sure I really want to, but it seems that I have no choice.  Just have to make the best I guess!