Monthly Update

It's been a month. I owe a blog. I know some of you are like, "When you don't update, I forget to check!" To which I say... get an RSS feed. Feedly works nicely for me now that Google Reader is kaput.

I haven't posted mostly because my days are very similar. I get up, I write, I hangout with family, exercise, occasionally cook, go to bed and do it all over again. My Instagram feed is all pictures of slugs and the meals I sometimes I make. Wild times.

I write in the morning. A lot of people write novels in the morning. I reckon this is because the task is so daunting and the imperative to make marginal progress so horrendous that if you don't do it straight away it just looms over the whole day.

I thought I would be close to a full first draft by now (ha ha, joke's on me!). I'm close to half way. It seems kind of crazy that people start doing this and actually finish, and that some people do it more than once.

In recent weeks I developed some mild but persistent anxiety that I was spending an awful lot of time on something that might be complete, irredeemable garbage. But last week I went to the Napa Valley Writers Conference and the chapters I showed were well received, so that was encouraging.

I've been organizing travel photos this week, which makes me nostalgic. I miss China, or rather, I miss my community that was in China, much of which has scattered to the wind anyways. Sometimes I'm afraid nothing will ever be quite so exciting. Here I was so juiced to fly a couple states over on a freelance assignment -- I got to fly to Pyongyang and Urumqi for work when I lived in Shanghai. But I have to remind myself that I've never really been an adult in the good old US of A and I really need to give it a try.

The other tough thing about this writing-a-novel thing is, pretty much, you have to write a novel inside. And the weather in Florence is always best before noon, when the wind picks up. After all that time in polluted Shanghai, I feel guilty sitting at a computer instead of walking on the beach. Who knows when (if ever) I'll have this much time to walk on the beach again! So I've decide that this month I'm going to go a bit easier, try to write in the afternoons and get outside more. The novel is going to take a long time anyways, I want to hike and kayak the coast while I can.

Happy 4th!

This is my first time celebrating in the States since 2008 and my first time celebrating at home since 2006!

2012 - Beijing (That's Beijing)
2011 - Shanghai (That's Shanghai)
2010 - Shanghai (That's Shanghai)
2009 - Taipei (teaching English)
2008 - Seattle. And I had to work! But I was covering the parade and I interviewed Captain Sig from Deadliest Catch. (interning at Seattle Times)
2007 - Anchorage (interning at Anchorage Daily News)
2006 - Florence (ranger aide! Honeyman State Park)

Something on my Dad's satellite TV broke this week and my reaction was, "Don't you still have a warranty for that?" And both my parents looked at me: "Obviously not, it's seven years old ... Although to you it must seem like about four months!"

So much bouncing around, I'm really enjoying my extended sojourn on the coast. Today I am making chocolate cream pie and blueberry pie. Easy access to baking supplies and resplendent grocery stores are definitely two of the best things America has going for it.

Enjoy your holiday!

Best Photos from Yunnan

Most of these are on my Facebook already, but for continuity's sake, and since my whole trip log is here, I wanted to post here as well - albeit more than a month late. 

Flying Tigers wing at the Kunming Museum

Tibetan mastiff up north close to Tibet

A French lady, one American, an Aussie, and two Israelis hike to Yubeng Cun.

Along the way to Yubeng Cun

Temple in Yubeng Cun

Rock shrines made by others who went before us on the hike in

A bunch of prayer flags near the sacred waterfall

More Yubeng Cun

Hiking out

Yak attack!

Tiger Leaping Gorge

show off

The scrub brush in "heaven's first bathroom"

Sign asserts that, seriously, this bathroom is heavenly (it had a great view)

At the bottom of the gorge

This lady sold me honey

Delicious noodles made of very mild cheese

This lady sold me cheese noodles

This man sold hair (I did not buy any).

Pretty sure this is one of those inspirational signs brought to you courtesy of the local CCP.  Maybe one day I'll get motivated and translate it.

Goat cheese fried in honey? Yes please.

Another shrine along the sacred waterfall hike

The Wrong Wallet

In coming weeks, I'm going to post a few odds and ends about my trip. First order up is - what is the exact kind of wallet you should not bring on a four-month journey through Southeast Asia?

The answer: a wallet that looks like a giant wad of cash.

I brought this wallet because my normal one is a big purple pocketbook thing, too cumbersome for travel. Plus, I wanted to keep it simple, I knew on a day-to-day basis I would only need a bit of cash and maybe one card.

The wallet was a farewell gift from a friend in Beijing. She also gave me a couple stamps from North Korea (she was privy to my obsession).

I didn't realize my wallet looked like a huge wad of cash until I was in Vietnam and the guy renting me my scooter said, "Oh - I  thought you had a lot of money!" At that point, I had about six weeks left in my trip and probably should've traded it out, but I was cheap and lazy.

I was also inobservant. Since my friend had given me the North Korean stamps, I assumed the wallet was done up like North Korean money - it actually looks like an old Chinese Mao-era bill. People continued to ask about it as I made my way through Vietnam, Laos and southern China and I always gave the wrong answer, "oh this is what North Korean money looks like." Finally a Chinese person pointed out to me that, "it looks like old Chinese money..." Then I really took a look at it, and they were correct.

I wish I'd noticed earlier, because I got the most reactions to the wallet in China, and it would've been nice to contextualize them. Almost all of the reactions were positive. A lot of these reactions were just in passing, so people were maybe just being friendly. But I definitely got a few congratulatory (nostalgic?) old people, "this is very good!" Which is always a bit strange, since as a Westerner you learn from those ninth grade world history courses onwards that the Mao Era was categorically horrible.

I got one emphatic negative reaction. I didn't pay it any mind at the time because I still thought it looked like a Korean bill and I was in a hurry. I'm pretty sure the guy was some kind of driver. He was in his 30s or 40s. "This is bad." He said it two or three times, to be sure I heard it, and shook his head. Now I wish I could've picked his brain a bit.

Luckily, I never had any incidents. No one tried to snatch my not-that-giant wad of cash. 

I'm on The Hairpin

I interviewed my Mom for The Hairpin about the Better Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow award she received in high school. Check it out here.

In America

I know my blog neglect makes it looks like I'm still in Yunnan, but actually I've been back in America for almost a month (!).

Last week I took my first road trip to somewhere outside Oregon for the first time in five years. Try that on for crazy. I went to Chicago for a wedding last October. Those two trips are it though. I'm so excited to start exploring and re-exploring my home country.

Since I'm solidly in my mid-twenties, obviously last week's trip was also to attend a wedding. A really sweet, wonderful one in Sacramento. So good to see so many friends I haven't seen since college.

On the way back, James and I drove up 101 (here he is in some forest or whatever - pretty puny trees, right?).

Part of the reason I haven't blogged is, in the back of my mind, I've been trying to think up something succinct to say about China and leaving China. But, after working in media there for four years, it's hard to find something that hasn't already been said. I don't feel like I have much to add to that dialogue. There are a lot of obvious good things about China and about an equal measure of bad ones. I could live there again, I might have a reason to someday, but I'm absolutely thrilled to be back somewhere with a vibrant, free, open dialogue that promotes arts, science and culture. And by that I mean, I'm absolutely thrilled to be back in a country with fabulous television.

Here on out, I'll try to keep the blog updated at least once a week through summer. I think. I'm not sure what I'll do with it now that I'm back in the US. I like it as a means of communication with family and the handful of other folks who care what I'm up to. On the other hand, my writing and creative energy is monopolized by other projects, so I don't think this will or can be the best representation of my thang. I think the compromise will be I'll keep the site, keep updating - however mundane - but de-link from my portfolio site. Meh. To be determined.

Summer on the Oregon Coast is fabulous. Two years away, I forgot how lovely it can be. One more time, it's good to be back.

Northern Yunnan: Hike to Yubeng Cun (雨崩村)

Note: I'm actually in the Seattle Airport now. In China I had to blog through email since blogspot is blocked, but apparently this one never sent and was relegated to drafts, so here it is.

I didn't get to Tibet. But I got a good slice of the Tibet experience: I saw the beginnings of the eastern Himalayas, I got winded climbing stairs at 3,000m, I saw a giant monastery that Chinese administration has sucked the authenticity out of, I saw massive public security buildings, I met Tibetan monks and laypeople who readily complained about authoritarian rule, and I saw shiny new schools with huge dormitories (necessary for far-flung village kids) and enviable sports facilities - hearts and minds campaign?

After Shangri-La I thought I was done with scary bus rides. Ho ho. The five-hour trip to Deqin was fine for the first half - new roads, good weather - but the second half was fogged in. Hairpin turns. Remains of several landslides that reduced the road to a single-lane. One overturned truck stuck in a gravel pile. Our driver was careful, but still, high up on a foggy mountain top, it felt like with any turn we might swing off into free fall.

Arriving in Deqin, the last major town before Tibet, I hooked up with an Israeli couple who'd also rode the bus. They were nice and grateful for my Chinese skills. I like when I can help people, but as anyone who has played translator can probably attest, people start to feel entitled to requests they would never dream of if you weren't there to mediate. Best example? "Can you tell him [waiter] how to make an omelet?" Answer: "No."

We linked up with two other hikers and the following morning took another horrifying hour-long van ride to the trail head. I was afraid the altitude would make it tough, but the five-hour hike to Yubeng Cun (translation: Rain Collapse Village) was easier than expected and included passing convoys of mules loaded with village supplies and forest alleyways dressed in prayer flags. Pictures to follow when I'm back in the US.

Yubeng Cun is tiny. Just 35 families, all Tibetan, and the economic mainstay is guesthouses. The trek has become popular with Chinese hikers and some foreigners, but we saw a lot less of the latter.

As it was Saturday when we arrived, that evening a bunch of village guys congregated in our guesthouse commons for drinking, darts and karaoke. To really get the party started, they ordered a whole chicken i.e. one that had to be snatched up from the yard and slaughtered.

Fine by me. But one member of our hiking group was a bald Buddhist French lady. So when a guy went out to take care of the chicken, she walked in a circle around him chanting a Buddhist mantra. Imagine me rolling my eyes farther back in my head than you thought humanly possible.

Why did this annoy me so much? For one, she didn't chant a Buddhist mantra for the stir-fried pepper and beef the rest of us ate for lunch earlier that day. Plus, these Tibetans have been Buddhist a lot longer than she has. Plus, the next morning she (jokingly?) told the sole remaining chicken to run away. 

Westerners are privileged in their dietary choices (especially those who can afford to travel). This village is a one-hour car ride plus a four-hour hike/mule ride/iffy tractor trip from the nearest town, and the people live - to relative extent - a subsistence lifestyle. So, ugh, don't tell their chickens to run away. 

The following day we hiked into the "Mystic Waterfall," where hardier people than me make pilgrimages to bathe (this waterfall is located above the tree line and there was snow on the ground).

That night I had a chat with a local guy. We talked about Buddhism, his family members who've ran away to Dharamsala, and life under Chinese rule. A lot of the Tibetans I met seemed especially happy to meet an American. In two days, I wound up trading away all my remaining American money to people excited to see dollars. I suspect this has to do with the notion Americans are sympathetic to Tibet. 

Favorite passing interaction of the trip? This one with a van driver outside Deqin.

Me: Oh look, there go the soldiers. [as military jeep passes by]

Him: Yep. Soldiers.

Me: Do you like them?

Him: [grinning] No.

Me: Yeah, me neither.

On a somewhat related note, the people least enthused about my Americanness on this trip were Laotians. There when I told my nationality, people quickly and politely changed the subject. No wonder as to why.

The following day we hiked out. It was downhill the whole way until we had to hike up to the van because there were rocks obstructing the path to the parking lot. This van ride was even scarier because it was just a gravel road with a bunch of switchbacks carved into the side of the mountain. At one point I was reduced to "Oh my god oh my god oh my god." We all sat on the mountainside of the van, as if that would save us from the precipice. Our driver was all, "Don't be scared, I do this every day!"

In Deqin, we switched to another van bound for Shangri-La. Two Tibetans rode along and I chugged a beer at their request (China: no open container law), which helped take the edge off the drive. 

It's amazing the lengths of construction up there to service relatively few people. I'm talking three-story concrete retaining walls built into the mountainside for stabilization (some of them crumbling in places...) Would've loved to do this drive with an engineer for an informed opinion.

I spent the night in Shangri-La and today took the most hair-raising bus ride yet. I pray/doubt that it can be topped: It was much flatter and all paved, but we actually saw a long-haul truck come around a curve, bust through the concrete guard blocks and roll over into the adjacent grass. I assume he took the curve too quickly, but I also saw a woman running out of the way, not sure if that was related to the cause of the crash. I hope the driver is okay. We didn't stop, but there were people in the area. I'm glad I only have three bus rides left. They're all day-time rides on well-maintained roads and will be of relatively short duration. 

Tomorrow I'm going up to Tiger Leaping Gorge for one more two-day trek, weather permitting.