jamie doom

July 13 2003

To A Silly Girl,

Today, I’m sitting in this large room. There is this musical tonal echo of voices bouncing off old gray walls, and I’m smiling like a fool. A generous, smiling, thirty-eight year old man is pressing a coal-like papaya against my ankle, which I messed up several days earlier playing basketball. It suddenly hits me that I’m in China. I’m sitting in a huge kitchen, and loud, fat cooks are walking by and poking my belly and telling me about their daughters. It is all music and wet ink to me. When I laugh, I’m laughing with my whole body. It is been a good 45 minutes since I said anything sarcastic or felt smarter than anyone.

I’m in China and I don’t want to miss any of this. I want do see, smell, taste all of it. I stay awake at night wondering if I will remember the way our cooks nostrils flair when she starts to yell at me or the way Martin’s (the thirty-eight year old) voice gets soft when he talks about his son. I wonder if I will remember the way the other blue-uniformed cooks slap the water from their wet onions, or the way the old boss men with skinny, coffee-colored legs poking out of cheap plastic sandals lean on each and pick their teeth and talk about who knows what.

Sometimes I wish that I could just open my mouth wide and breathe it all inside me. Mostly, I wonder how long till that vivid picture of you hanging in the middle of my brain begins to fade. How many months will it be before I can’t remember exactly the way your laugh starts and stops so suddenly?

So these days I’ll be trying to get it down. I’ll be breathing in more. I’ll be trying to memorize you. I don’t want to leave anything out. I want to get it right. These days, I feel differently. I’m staring hard at things–trying to get it all inside. Who knows? Perhaps I need to forget all my sunsets and clouds just to make room for all your things. If this is so, I will evict the sun and whistle while I sweep every fluffy cloud out the door.

Jamie

7-18-2003

To My Friend Mike,

Hope it is all well there. Here is amazing. The other day I thought of you. I was listening to your wonderful compilation “The Spirit of St. Louis” on my MP3 player while I was riding through the dirty streets, then through the countryside of Baisha on the back of a dusty motor bike. Rice patties and priceless bent antiqued men in straw hats whizzed by while Busta Rymes broke it down. This is China, my friend.

We were riding bikes to the lake, where we went fishing. The lake is quite large and on this lake are Islands where entire villages live with no electricity, indoor running water or gas. We had been invited to hike into the hills on one of the islands and feast on two chickens, two fish, and a goose, and conversation. These are the Li minority people and they know who they are. First they want to get you drunk on their hospitality. Once that is accomplished they just want to get you drunk. They begged, pleaded, cajoled, cried, and threatened me to drink baijiu with them. Three other Americans were there, but they all know a drinker when they see one. I (thinking of the other American’s who were not drinking and the fact I was trying to be a good example) said no, but to appease them I proceeded in slamming bowls (they ran out of cups) of warm Coca-cola. These were the Li men, and they kept telling me through a Li interpreter that they wish they could speak English so that they could tell me how much they liked me. I was the only whitey drinking with them, and it being only Coke did not stop me from yelling, sputtering and coughing every time I slammed a flimsy, clear bowl of it. Two hours and four gallons of Coke later we were finally ready to go. We (or they rather) had drank two large gasoline looking containers full of rice alcohol. I felt really awake and had to pee. We had to take a boat back first. It was at this time that I realized I had been getting our boat driver and all our motorcycle drivers drunk…oh well. We are still here one month later.

In the evening, I go out with the guys and they lean on me and tell me stories. The men in Hainan like to sling their arms loosely around you when you are their friend. They can often been seen walking down the street. in unison heads angled together…communing. So at night, I drink iced lemon tea, and kind male English teachers tell me about their hometowns, their families, their mistresses and their lives. They won’t let me pay for anything. They won’t let my cup get any more empty than half full, and they clap for me when I tell them a good story. This is how people are supposed to live. They are simple, but smart. They are happy, but not cynical. They are loving, but not mushy. They don’t watch CNN, and they have never checked E-mail from their Blackberry. But they can tell you the name of all 753 people who live on their hand-swept streets, and can tell you what kind of tea that each of them likes to drink. These are the Li minority people. They have never been as rich as they are now, and they are poorer than anybody I’ve met the U.S. But they laugh and give and give and give. I am having a blast. I wish you were here, bro.

Jamie

7-27-2003

To Mom and Dad,

Things are wonderful here. This is the weekend after our third week of the workshop. We have split one hundred Li teachers up into four groups based on English level, and we have each taught seven classes a day five days a week. The work here is hot, busy, and long, but instantly gratifying. Many of these teachers come from obscure minority areas where no westerner has ever been. Somehow they see the value of learning English and helping all their students improve. Most of these teachers try very hard and stay up late, many using gas lighting to study for the next day’s lessons. Many of them teach in horrible conditions with over seventy-five students in each class. But they are warm and gracious and try to give to us every chance they have.

The town of Baisha is small. It has about eleven thousand people. We four westerners are the first westerners to ever stay there for any period of time. The people on the street are much friendlier and warm than the people in the bigger capital city of Haikou. The pace of life is slower here. There are no car taxis, instead there are seemingly hundreds of little motorcycle rickshaws swarming about like bees every time on of us walks outside or walks down the street to the store to buy something. Many Li Minority people populate this town and some of the older ladies still have the tattoo markings on their faces from times past. The teachers, my students, are all asking me to come visit them and come to their school and give advice on how to make their classes more exciting.

This is a pioneering effort. Baisha County is the poorest county in all of Hainan. These teachers have the most challenges and the fewest resources. …I am so happy to be part of this workshop, the first one. We have our own cook, who I call Mom. She reminds, in Hainanhua, all the time that I am her naughty god-son. I sneak up on her and scare he, and sometimes I hide the food after she puts it on the table. She thinks I’m strange and funny. She laughs at my pronunciations. I have had a good time getting to know her.

This week will be our final week here. In my writing class, I asked my students to write me papers about their China, their lives, their towns, their families, their jobs. I am learning China one paper at a time through their eyes. It has been a rich and humbling experience. I’ll write more later.

Jamie

July 27 2003

To My Friend Mike,

After you have eaten fried rat, nothing bothers you any more, you ate rat. You are man. You now think like rat.

Last night I ate a fried rat, and I meant to. All cliches aside, it tasted a lot like chicken. I did it for the experience. I did it because the rats there seemed cleaned. Mostly I did it for shits and giggles. I like the attention one gains from being the loud tall westerner eating the short, quiet mouse. It was fun.

I am starting my last week here in the country town of Baisha. I like it here better than Haikou. Haikou is too busy and too big for me. This is simple and easy. I am lazy, and that is ok.

Jamie

One Year Later

July 27 2004

To My Friends and Family,

A couple of afternoons ago I was sitting in a study/hall homework class contemplating the end of my time here in China. It was raining then as it is now. Earlier that morning the dark, suspicious looking clouds had been loitering in the green hills in the west. By that afternoon they had taken over the entire sky, and the rain tropical-style, came fast and furious.

From my vantage point on the second floor I could see the rain glisten the green leaves of the palm, coconut, jack fruit and banana trees in the Baisha #1 Middle School courtyard.

Inside things were mostly dry. The floors are a gray unfinished concrete. It’s the color of the two-day old chewing gum one might find stuck to the bottom of his favorite pair of shoes. The desks are a happier, mahogany color.

On the gray halls that lead to my classroom are long posters of famous people. Michael Faraday, Niu Dun, Hua Luo Gung, and Thomas Edison are pictured on my hall. Their names are in English, but the descriptions of their contributions are in Chinese. Stickers of the middle school students’ real heroes are stuck mischievously to the desks: Michael Jordan, Lebron James and Yao Ming. The rain is soaking everything now. Through the courtyard I can see puddles forming on the three basketball courts. I won’t be playing any ball with the kids that afternoon.

Life here in Baisha is simple. It’s so simple one could even call it boring. Around ten o’clock at night, teashops begin opening all along the small narrow streets. The people in Baisha have three great loves: sipping new green tea, playing cards, and watching T.V. Farmers will come into the town and pay one RMB to gather around a twenty-two inch television set to watch a movie and drink tea. All those makeshift theaters are situated outside. So if it keeps raining there will be no movies tonight either. One can walk down the streets and pick from a variety of movies. Most of them are stories about the past dynasties. They all have lots of Kung Fu, love, bravery and betrayal. Those not watching T.V. at one of the miniature cinemas are busy playing cards. They slap their cards down with a gusto and flair that would give the brashest American pause.

In some ways, I feel these are my people, even more than the teachers I am teaching or the officials that are entertaining me. Baisha’s people possess an innocence and a naiveté that I find endearing. Having never seen any other part of the world except Hainan, these people are satisfied to have their families and their friends and a cup of green tea from one of the bushes that are visible on the hills surrounding the town. This is a different kind of ignorance here. It’s not rift with consumerism and excess, like back home. We can recognize the evilness in that. The ignorance here is more comfortable, more simple.

I like to joke with these people that nothing happens quickly in Baisha. And that is true, but as I help them with their education, I don’t want to spoil any of the good stuff going on here. I try not to tread too heavy, or speak too much about things I don’t understand or haven’t had the time to digest.

I am ready to return home. I have been ready for the past three weeks. I don’t want to say my heart wasn’t into coming to Baisha again, for it was. But I have been distracted. I have memories here in Baisha. Things are never quite so pure and wonderful the second time around. Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again, but we humans try. We have more teachers here this time. After spending my last five months in the company of eight male teachers in Hangzhou, it’s quite a change to suddenly be in the company of so many women, and dare I say so, many emotions. In Hangzhou we lived to spar, to argue, to discuss. Every off-hand statement received scrutiny and challenge. So I have arrived with my tongue honed razor sharp by my ZUCC brothers, ready to parry. These girls just want to get along and be comfortable.

I am not much of a curmudgeon (some of you care muttering “yeah right” right now and I know who you are and you should be ashamed), but I feel myself playing that part these days more often than I care. But this past week I have spent more time with the girls and have become closer to them all. All of them except one,(my closest friend here at the workshop who grew up here and speaks the language well) have been in China for one month. I think they sometimes consider me “too Chinese.” But I believe I will miss them all when we leave.

The Chinese teachers here are wonderful. They don’t seem as fresh and energetic as last year’s teachers, but I am sure that is mostly my fault. I don’t feel as fresh and energetic. These teachers are a younger group. Maybe they are bit cooler and more self-conscience. Being self-conscience won’t do when trying to improve in a second language. But I enjoy my time with them; they are all so beautiful and dedicated to the idea of communication. And I get to act silly and stupid in front of them, which everybody knows is one of my greatest pleasures. The American guys up in Hangzhou referred to it as the “Jamie Show.” Mostly it is me craving the exact center of attention. And when you are whiter, five inches taller, and forty pounds heavier than everybody else for a hundred miles, you naturally become the center of it all.

I miss my family. I miss all my friends. I miss my books. I miss my little sister (I thought it might irk her if I mentioned her after my books). I miss my mountains—those beautiful mountains that are as much a part of me as the skin covering my body. I imagine when I arrive home I’ll be surprised by how well everybody has got on without me. I imagine that it will perceive my absence to have been longer than it actually was. But I can’t wait to be on a trail high in the mountains—sweat in my ears, a beautiful ache in my legs, and that anticipation about what is over the barrel of the next hill.

Jamie