A New Leaf - Possibly Bamboo

Ok, China. Truce. For real this time. Today, I shall reform.

Tonight, as I lay in bed, trying very hard to go to sleep and not having very much luck, I concluded that my attitude and behavior needed to change. Now.

For the past 8 months, I have done nothing but blame China for all my troubles. I cannot do this any more. True, this country has its fair share of frustrations and tribulations that would make any westerner feel steamrollered and snookered. The censorship, the pollution, the roundabout way of getting nowhere, the spitting, the noise, the construction, the food, and the sheer, staggering what-the-hell of it all. It is indeed overwhelming. But the blame should not rest solely on Red’s shoulders.

I admit I’ve been living in the past, wishing things could be like they were before I came here. This year has certainly not been an easy one. Leaving Wyoming was something I did not want to do. I had established a life and a home there. It was, by far, the best two years of my life; and, to be yanked out of it, I felt no less than devastated.

However, I have had to plow through transition depression before and made it through. This time should be no different. And it is time I pulled myself up from shadow again, recognized my surroundings, and looked forward.

So, as of tomorrow morning, when I wake up, there is a new sheriff in town. I’ve decided to take more advantage of the culture around me, especially since I have been thrust into a temporary – albeit seemingly indefinite – state of unemployment and boredom.

How have I been in this country for this long and not taken time out to discover some of its ancient poetry? Shame on me. In China, the most exulted position you can claim is to be a poet. How marvelous!

It was just yesterday that my cousin’s girlfriend brought out some old Chinese poetry and read it aloud for us. I noticed the unusual cadence that seems to take precedence over content. These poems are not at all concerned with cliché or sentimentality, but rather with the tones that pair off like one singing lark to another. They, like Shakespeare’s plays, were meant to be heard, not read.

My current goal is to immerse myself in some of these poets, such as Li Bai 李白 (the poet that J. read yesterday), and see if I can distill some of the qualities that the Chinese regard their poets to possess.