love letters from my 34th summer

For Big Dave

Mike, his dad–Dave, and I all huddled around the front of his red, 94′ Cavalier. The old alternator was off. That was quite easy. Dave had supervised the work while leaning on his black cane, and Mike and I had managed to unscrew the right screws, unattach the correct tables and extract the cold, dead alternator from its place under the hood.

The mood was light; took us maybe five minutes to do this. Together the three of us had little knowledge on the workings of cars, engines, internal combustion and other more obscure vehicle parlance. But still, we had done this much rather easily. We scoffed the life of mechanics, and shook our heads in unison at the large ransoms they charged for such simple work. Mike’s car had died. We three would not need to pay an outsider to bring it back to life, even if any of us had the money to do so…and we didn’t. Nope, we would do just fine on our own.

Then we began to install the new alternator. I held the serpentine belt tightly while Mike and his father attempted to manuever the alternator into its correct place. Immediately we realized we had a problem. The belt was so tight that whenever the alternator was in place, the serpentine belt would not slide over the side over of the alternator’s proper grooved channel where it could be made to turn.

Suddenly, sweat began to drip. We took the alternator from its resting place, put the belt around the alternator, but no, the alternator would not go back into its nest in the engine. The tautness of the belt was our enemy. We struggled against our foe for two more hours, looking for a lever to untighten the belt. We climbed under the car and looked up into the unfamiliar world of car stuff. When it was my turn to crawl under the car, I did so with relish and large unwarranted confidence. That confidence lasted until I slid my back against the sharp gravel and looked up into the engine. (more…)

Journal entry Jan’ 04

Basketball goal in the mountains of Qiong Zhong, Hainan

Mr. Quan says I have a soft touch. He says that is the reason why I can flourish in China. I don’t completely know what he means. He probably means I am really laid back and don’t have a spine. That’s fair enough, I guess. The longer I stay in China, the more I look for the undercurrent–what people are actually saying. And Mr. Quan, while a really nice man, could probably tell me my hair was on fire, and I was standing in a pool of lighter fluid with a gentle smile on his face.

One of the added bonuses to living in China is all the other foreigners I meet. I had a birthday party last month that was attended by people representing twelve different countries–well thirteen if you count Canada as a country (I see Canada for what it is–future parking).

Those of us in China from other countries do have a bond. That doesn’t mean that I embrace everybody I meet who isn’t Chinese, in fact, sometimes I can be rather aloof–mainly because I love Hainan, and we don’t need those crazy Norwegians slinging their slap-dash cell phone towers all over the island and cluttering the streets with cheap Hoo-Doo Voodoo Nokias, but I digress. I like most of the foreigners I meet. They, like me, are having an adventure, and we do enjoy discussing it.

Here in Hainan, it’s different from the rest of China. First, most of the foreigners here that are my age are girls. That’s right, I’ve dated more foreigners since I have been in China than Chinese. Secondly, there aren’t many young, single guys my age. So when I meet a dude from the West who is my age, it’s a good change of pace since most of the time, I feel like I could cut the estrogen in the air with a knife. (more…)

The game was over. Our breaths slowed in unison. A basketball rested where it rolled by the fence. We had flung our bodies carelessly in a circle on the paved court. Smokes were offered in lunging movements resembling “Qi Gong” to teamates and foes and the Water Man, who was our most faithful spectator.

And the sun was balancing itself delicately on the South China Sea. Now it wobbled once or twice but stayed right there.

I sighed, shrugged off a cigarette, and made a makeshift pillow out of the free throw line behind me while listening to all that beautiful, soft, idle, Chinese chatter.

I looked over and nodded at the Water Man, all gold teeth and black eyes. We were good friends even though we had never said much to each other except about the water, which he delivered to me once a week. He was the strongest man in the world, pound for pound, so I was happy to know him.

Eight flights of stairs with three bottles of water went my friend, gold teeth and black eyes, without one drop of sweat falling or one complaint. We had some sort of inside joke going, though neither of us had a clue about the exact details of our running joke. We just looked at each other and rolled our eyes at the absurdity of the world. On the elevator, around everybody else, we would glance, smile, then both be shaking, stifling, trying not to laugh and scare all the “respectable people”.

But now, my friend the Water Man, was discussing the finer points of the UCLA double post offense or Dean’s Smith run and jump defense (at least I imagined he was).

I felt myself becoming part of the pavement, and I eavedropped into conversations in odd dialects on subjects I could only guess at. Nobody was talking to me, and I was happy.

Some of you, not that there are many of you, have openly wondered what I am up to these days. Well I thought I would go ahead and address all that in one short post, so then we could move on and create some magic.

Part of this post is going to be very Xanga, which I enjoy mocking. I will find it difficult to mock Xanga after this. I have been back to the States about a year now. I am ready to travel again. I plan on leaving this country after the New Year. I will either go back to China, (to Shanghai probably because as Carl pointed out to me the other day: I haven’t lived there yet) or Eastern Europe (which as I pointed out to Carl the other day; has some attractive women) where my sister is currently teaching English in Prague. My sister rules, and before either one of us get married (it’s looking like it will probably be her first) we want to hang out and travel in foreign countries together. She even said she would be interested in moving to China. So what’s better than having a Doom in Shanghai? Having two Dooms there, of course.

Currently reading: Cash by Johnny Cash. Just reading this book makes you feel more manly–not that I need any help (spitting and adjusting my too-tight Wranglers). Reading this book also makes me want to avoid amphetamines, which is too bad because I was really looking for a new drug habit while I was in the States. Seriously, Johnny Cash was an American icon, and he is honest and articulate about his faith as well. I have enjoyed it. (more…)