love letters from my 34th summer

I’ll be leaving Hainan in four days. I have to say, I loved my time here and definitely could see myself returning. It’s time for a change, and I think living in Hangzhou will provide a nice change of pace (read—shake up my lethargic bum-like existence). We shall see. Here are the top ten…er seven things I’ll miss about the beautiful island to the south.

1. All my friends. When I first arrived here I made friends with a lot of Chinese people. In the past month of so, I have been hanging out with a lot of Expats and that has been pretty cool too. The people who live in Hainan are just some of the most generous, laid back people I have ever met in my life. To my friends here at the college, especially Hope, Erin, Brant, Katie, Jim, and the Mills. To all my Chinese friends, among them: Simon, Cathy, Jessica, Quan, Chen Huang Li, Li Le, Wang, Wei, Natalie and Salt Fish City. Then all my other friends in Hainan, among them: Rob, William, Joshua, Chris, Jenny, Jackie, Eric, Diana, Lido, Ares, Danny, Lui and those beautiful Japanese stewardesses. I got nothing but love for all of you. I’ll miss you for sure.

2. The Weather. Oh make no mistake, I don’t like cold weather. I was raised in the South. These days in Haikou, it’s a chilly 65 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. I wear a fleece around in 70 degree weather and mean it. I don’t know how warm it is in Celsius here. I think in Celsius it’s much colder, but in Fahrenheit it’s down right pleasant in January. As a side note, when China finally develops into a world superpower, it will eschew that impractical Metric System for the greener pastures of Feet, Pounds, and Degrees Fahrenheit. It does get hot here in the summer. That’s true. I don’t mind sweating though. I’ll miss you perfect tropical weather. I’ll miss you.

3. Linda. My lone English/Ancient Chinese Stick Fighting student that I have written about before here will be missed. Her parents threw me a wonderful going away dinner tonight. Before dinner started, Linda entertained us by wacking a waiter over the head with a stick that she had hastily constructed, at my request, out of a chair leg. Oh sweet, cute, little Linda. I have taught you all the English and Ancient Chinese Stick Fighting I know. It’s time for you to go out on your own. I’ll miss you, and your spinning throat strike.

4. The Siesta. That beautiful, beautiful afternoon nap will soon be a thing of the past. My long days will no longer be broken up with a two to three hour slumber at mid-day. Hainan’s citizens do care about money, but they care about their nap more. Everybody has a friendly understand concerning the nap that goes something like this: If you disturb my nap for any reason at all, it’s ok for me to beat you with your shoes. I will miss it.

5. My Restaurant. I chose a restaurant and made it mine. Its gray dirty walls and playful rats brought a smile to my face in between spicy and palette pleasing Szechwan fair. Will I starve now? After I told the boss I was leaving, he face became solemn and he told me I would have to buy a few more plane tickets. I eat there five to six times a week. Now I think that he, his restaurant, and the rats are considering a move to Hangzhou.

6. Bus 217. The people in charge of finding bus drivers for bus 217 must do drug screening first. Then, if the pee and blood have no traces of narcotics, the applicant won’t be hired. The best of these bus drivers survive only on a diet of Green Tea and Crystal Meth. You can hear the bus driver grinding his teeth from the back of the bus. That’s right! Bus 217 is the fastest, baddest, most dangerous bus in Haikou. Exiting this bus is an exercise in bravery and rolling skills that it only ever truly mastered by hobos who are adept at throwing themselves from moving trains. It gives new meaning to the phrase “Either get on or get off.” But you will get there fast.

7. Moto-Taxis. I have chronicled my love for this type of transportation in the past. I had the greatest Moto-Taxi ride of my life last week. The cops in town are really cracking down on the Motorcycle taxis for a variety of reasons. So, now they have to be really sneaky and creative to avoid main intersections and traffic stops. Last week I was going across town to a new destination. After I jumped on the bike, I was taken onto a sidewalk, and through a cut-out hole in a chain-link fence. This was about 10:00 at night. As we are winding down a narrow dirt path into the middle of seemingly nowhere, I decide this is where I’m going to die. I tried to move my wallet from my hip pocket to my shoes, but this is hard to do when you are riding a bouncing motorcycle in the dark. The motorcycle cabbies and I have one understanding. If they get me there fast, I’ll pay them more. So we are speeding along in the dark on a dirt path when all the sudden we approach another chain link fence with a hole in it. We go through the fence and onto a flat stretch of pavement. I look down as we roll over some familiar looking large numbers and large arrows. I am on an airplane runway. Yes, we have made our way onto Haikou’s old airfield, and we are going the fastest I have been on a bike in China. For a second I even wished I was wearing a helmet. The cabbie and I are laughing like the fools we are. It was truely a beautiful, cool China moment. I don’t know if Hangzhou has motorcycle cabbies, but I don’t imagine they use runways as shortcuts there.

Fair thee well, Hainan.

Hello, 2004. I know it’s been 2004 for a few days now; but if I am one thing, it’s a procrastinator. I do EVERYTHING either at the last minute or—more often—not at all, which is one of my New Year’s resolutions. (1) That’s right from now on I will endeavor to not put things off. But since I have already wasted five days of this year, I think I will make this effective in 2005. Throughout this post you will be able to notice some of my New Years resolutions because I will thoughtfully and helpfully put parenthesis around them like this à ( ). In the middle of these parentheses you will see a counting number. This number will equally correspond to the number of New Year’s resolutions that I am making. Some of these may not seem like traditional resolutions. That’s because they aren’t.

This is an exciting month for me. The first BIG NEWS is that I am leaving Haikou and moving to Hangzhou. When I have more time, I will write a Haiku about Haikou, Hainan. (2) I should write more Haiku, now that I think about it. On January 12, I will tearfully say goodbye to Haikou, in a carefully staged ceremony at the airport at 11:00 PM at night. Young women will be weeping, young men will adorn their bravest face, and old people will shake their heads and wistfully mutter: “We hardly knew ya’, Jamie Doom; we hardly knew ya’.”

Of course they will be saying this in Chinese. (3) I need to quite fooling around and get down to the business of learning Mandarin Chinese. Sure, I know how insult people, order food, and tell people I have a cavity, but there is much more to life than this—I think. I want to be able to talk to these wonderful old people about history, their long lives, young people and their philosophy. I want to be able to talk to more cool young men about their dreams, hopes and fears. I want to be able to talk to more beautiful young women about…me.

After leaving Haikou, I will be flying to Nanjing with my friend and partner in crime, Liang Bing. Liang Bing is the Chinese brother I never had. I specifically remember asking Santa for a Chinese brother. He would nervously shift on his throne and mumble something about ho, ho, ho. It never happened back then. Instead my mother produced another white offspring; and as if to spite me, it was a girl. I have digressed. (4) I shouldn’t do that so much. I love you Jana, if you are reading this. If you aren’t reading this, then never you mind.

In Nanjing, we will be met by Liang Bing’s father who will, no doubt, be like the Chinese father I never had but often begged Santa for. From there, we will drive to a small town in Anhui. In Anhui, we will get down to the beautiful business of celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year. At that time, (5)I will make my Chinese Lunar New Year’s Resolutions which will not resemble these plain New Year’s Resolutions at all. So I will hang out with the Liang’s and (6) try to avoid eating dog meat, a real Anhui specialty, for a few weeks. (7) If I do accidentally eat a dog, I’ll remember that I have already eaten a rat which is a real Hainan specialty and is much worse than dog. I also hope that my PETA membership won’t be revoked because of one small hungry oversight. I also hope that if I eat a dog, (8) it will be a collie.

After feasting and celebrating at the Liang’s and meeting his huge extended family, we will go back over to Nanjing. I hope to stay there a few days. I’m not sure what there is to do in Nanjing. I imagine (9) I’ll walk around a lot and say nasty things about Japanese people. If there is anybody out there that lives in Nanjing and wants to hang out one evening, let me know. (10) I’m very easy to entertain, and (11) will insist violently on paying for everything, right before I let you pay for everything. Soon thereafter, I will leave Nanjing. There will be a small (brass quartet) but solemn ceremony at the train station. You know the drill.

After Nanjing, Liang and I head to Shanghai. In Shanghai, (12) I will stock up Western Sellout food. (13) I also hope to chill with more people there that I have never met. Yo, you know who you are; we have to hang out. Liang and I will stay with a friend of his from Anhui who has forsaken dogs and often eats at Pizza Hut. I hear there are a lot of people like this in Shanghai. While in Shanghai, Liang will bargain for me at every chance and act offended when I buy something after the shop owner has insulted him after he has insulted the shop owner. Liang, if you’re reading this; I got nothing but love for ya’.

Around February 12, I will arrive in Hangzhou. I have taken a job at Zhejiang University City College (ZUCC). I (14) will teach English there, and (15) try to learn a little more about China.

I look forward to this new job, but more importantly I look forward to new friends, new insights, and new food. Can’t wait.

For those of you curious about my movie career, (16) I will be posting something more about that here in the next couple of days. It’s really become a little boring for me now. But I’m sure there is something a little interesting in my memory of it. I’ll post more pictures. Also, during my traveling, I don’t imagine my weblog will get much attention. I’ll try to post random things when I have a chance, but don’t bank on it. I apologize in advance. Happy New Year to everybody back home! I know I owe a bunch of E-mails. (17) I’ll try to do better.