Your Time and Pageviews

Dear Reader,

I am home! Happy, safe and, most importantly, fed. It is strange to be surrounded by Americans, traffic laws, and tipping. I already miss China prices, but I’m sure I’ll stop yelling and trying to bargain soon enough.

It’s such a relief to be in my own country, in my own home, with my dog and my family; but before I get too settled, I have to thank you, dear reader.

I am so appreciative of your patience with my posting, or lack there of, and I have to tell you how much it means to me that people in America, Russian, Jordan, and on stumbleupon found me interesting enough to read the thoughts and experience of a 20-something engage in writerly pursuits.

You trusted me with the only thing a writer can hope for: your time and pageviews.

I look forward to making our relationship permanent, thank you,

Mr. Mockler

P.S. I’m going to take a break from posting original content and finish posting everything that I have hand written and start adding photos. Hopefully I’ll be done in a two weeks and can start focusing on the Eastern side of the Pacific for awhile.  

My Countrymen and Women

I love a good travelogue.

No matter if someone is showing me a slideshow, I’m reading a magazine, or I’m just hearing about it over a cup of coffee, I’m frequently entranced re-imagining tales of riding in hot-air balloons over France, witnessing riots in Ireland, or putting bird seed in your sister’s hood at Trafalgar Square while she isn’t looking, so she gets attacked by pigeons.

Romanticizing mundane walks through a European street is one of my favorite pastimes and thinking about exotic, far-away places and spaces leaves me in a fantasy world of first class flights and champagne that (I now know) is as far from the reality as possible. When I was still in possession of my naiveté, however, the only thing that could ruin my musings was when someone said,

“I had fun, but it sure isn’t America, and I’m glad to be back.”

Instantly, my imaginings evaporated and all I could think was:

“Well…DUH! Of course it wasn’t America. It bet it was better! You just got back from riding in gondolas and lazing about in palazzos. In America, you probably would have been riding in SUVs and lazing about in the McDonalds drive through…” 

In my mind, America seemed so…ordinary. Timbuktu, Shanghai, London, New Delhi, Dublin, my mind didn’t want to make these places any less than I had imagined them, and I scoffed that returning to America could be so wonderful.

Going to Tiananmen Square, however, made me realize why foreign stories are always upended with my old daydream killer.

                                                                      

Before I begin, contradictions, restrictions, and all-around ridiculous bureaucracy tend to make me laugh. It always seems to be people can’t see the pointlessness of it all and they either get really mad or timid. I, however, get giddy and start to skip. Literally.

As we crowded onto the bus from the hotel, I couldn’t help bouncing in my seat. I kept imagining what everything looked like in 1989 and wondered if we were on Tank Man’s street. Since I had known I was coming to Beijing, I was unable to contain my joy at going to the paragon of ridiculous restrictions, and planned on doing something  sarcastic that screamed “’MURICA!” As I scampered off the bus, however, I was struck with an epiphany:

The Chinese government don’t play, y’all.

Tiananmen Square, at first, seems to be your typical square that is able to hold 500,000 people. Really big and really empty (except for the line to see Mao’s body). Every couple hundreds of feet, there is a group of tourists, the odd street vendor, and really elaborate lamp posts that immediately caught my attention. Classic and elegant, these lamp posts have obviously been here for a while, but on closer examination, I realized they have been subject to some modernization and now each is home to a large, wholesale electronic store.

Speakers are arranged like a hive under the lights and at least five cameras are pointed in every direction. If I pulled my little stunt, it would be seen from 614 different angles, and would probably result in me starring in my own combination show of LockedUp: Abroad and Survivor. Sitting in a Chinese jail cell, I’m sure I would have still found the situation hilarious, but in a very dark “Call-my-embassy-I-promised-my-mother-this-wouldn’t-happen-I-don’t-want-a-bullet-int-the-head” sort of way.

Still marveling at all the security, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was standing on some kid’s (who probably wasn’t much older than me) grave. Would I have had his courage to stand up for my beliefs and hunger strike in the middle of a Square? How could this place –filled with families, fans, and fake, waving Mao watches—be the staging ground and cemetery of a better organized Occupy Wall Street?

Suddenly, being there, knowing what I know, Tiananmen stopped being funny.

It stopped being something I had only read about in history class.

It stopped being passing pop culture.

It became serious.

It became real.

It became morbid; a hallowed ground showed no reverence because the principles it stood for ran counter to the goals of the reigning status quo.

I finally realized that my friends weren’t talking about the little things in foreign countries that make you realize you aren’t in America, like the food, the toilets, the beds, the bugs, the fruit, the traffic, the streets, the houses, the farmer’s markets, the night markets, the malls, the mannerisms, the clothes, the people, etc. etc.

Those are superficial and (hopefully) you get used to them (I have), but that my friends, my countrymen and women, were talking about the big things.

Like the Declaration of Independence.  The Constitution. The Bill of Rights.

For many Americans, those documents can seem like old, crusty pieces of paper that you are obliged to see when you pass through D.C.; however, when you don’t have them and are staying in a country that fundamentally doesn’t understand them… that’s stuff I could never get used to not having and would never want to…

Proud to be an American,

Mr. Mockler 

Monocles and Waistcoats

I’m writing this as I pass through the idyllic Chinese countryside by train. The perfectly manicured peasant fields meld incongruously with the remnants of the Great Leap Forward and only the occasional nuclear reactor break up the flat, northern expanses of China.

Unfortunately, the romance is all lost on me because I’m so hungry, I’m about to eat my keyboard.

Look up hungry as a bear in an idiom dictionary and you’ll probably see a picture of me when I a) Wake up b) Get out of class c) Have free time d) Stay up all night to talk to people in America and miss breakfast. Generally, I exemplify all the positive qualities of my ursine cousin: cute, cuddly, hair--but I will eat your arm, dear reader, if I miss a meal.

Usually, hunger and sleep deprivation just make me unpleasant, but throw in the frustrations of navigating the Chinese transit system and I was about to go full blown grizzly.

Honestly, the Chinese are good at a great many things, but they are the best at making travel so exceedingly difficult that I was all set to have a staycation by the time I made it to the train station. As we packed into our cattle car bus, I proceeded to engage in a contortion routine to fit into my seat. Since my driver was too lazy to down sift, the bus proceeded to chug and puff, leaping in jolts and starts, making it easy to visualize how rough seas feel.

Finally getting off the bus at the train station, I slammed my head into a bar obviously put on the bus to punish tall foreigners. Sleep deprived and hungry, I would have normally grunted and swore under my breath; however, today, dear reader, I bellowed so loud, people not in our travel party stopped and stared.

Trying to find my happy place, I removed myself from the general crowd so as not to yell at anyone and sat quietly in the centuries old train station. Getting on the train, I put the Grizzly to sleep for a little bit, as I realized that I was super excited to be riding on a train. 

I’ve always felt it superior to other forms of travel, but never had the experience to make a definite decision. Sinking into my comfy SPACIOUS human –sized seat, my feelings were confirmed, and I spent a few moments imagining myself in the 1920’s, getting ready to set off across the US on the transcontinental. Monocles and waistcoats lulled me into hibernation and I hoped to wake up in Beijing.

Since, I am still writing this from the train though, it is obvious that I have not arrived in the land of milk and honey. When I woke up to the fleeing peasant landscape, I accepted the fact that I will never be able to properly gauge how long a trip will take, and tried to find the dining car. Finding only dried fish and other sketchy Chinese snack foods, I’ve moved from contemplating eating my keyboard, to eating more substantial prey…

Seriously contemplating cannibalism,

Mr. Mockler 

Wingman

Clear azure morning. Light cloud cover and light streams through the puffy white clouds. Quiet afternoon. People walk to and from class. Tree tops stir. The silent breeze whispers as it rushes towards me. Turn to feel the sun on my face. The breeze feels nice as it moves from my knees. Upward. A stirring on my cheek, and…wait, could it be? Is it possible? Why yes! Yes, dear reader it is! So joyous an occasion, for MY FACIAL HAIR IS LONG ENOUGH TO BE STIRRED BY A BREEZE!

Yes, dear reader, I have stopped shaving. I’ve just been waiting for the right moment to announce it to the world and let everyone know about my decision to become a wild man. Between an 1/8 and ¼ of an inch of fine black hair now extends from pretty much every place a beard should extend (still working on the upper cheeks). Most of you are probably thinking, “So what? It’s just a beard. Probably looks as dumb as that ‘moustache’ my brother had in the seventh grade.” While I assure you, dear reader, that assumption is probably correct, I am ecstatic all the same.

In the time I’ve had facial hair (probably since I was 11, give or take) my relationship with my whiskers has been filled with issues and bad decisions. Like in the sixth grade when I was so embarrassed of my mustache that I Naired it off. Or the Christmas break that I tried to grow out a beard, only to have my facial hair take revenge because it became so itchy that I literally sanded the hair off my face by rubbing it with my hands so much.

But this time, I bit the bullet, stopped shaving two days before I left, and handcuffed my hands to my side. For my patience, I’ve been handsomely rewarded with a handsome display of my God given secondary sexual characteristic. I still have a month to go, but I’m already planning on how I will style my beard once I get back. Initially, I intended to shave it like Senecca Crane from the Hunger Games, but a quick Google search and some time spent on Wikipedia later, I learned I have so many more options as well as some surprising statistics about beards.

Styles of Beard or Mustache

Full, Circle, Sideburn, Chinstrap, Lincoln, Giribaldi, Goatee, Junco, Hollywoodian, Hulihee, Reed, Royale, Stubble, Van Dyck, Verdi, Neard, Soul Patch, Friendly Mutton Chops, Stashburns, Monkey Tail, Natural, Hungarian, Dali, English, Imperial, Freestyle, Fu Manchu, Pancho Villa, Handlebar, Horseshoe, Pencil, Chevron, Tooth Brush, Walrus

Quotes about Facial Hair

Wisdom is in the head, not the beard. –Swedish Proverb

I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face; I would rather lie in the wool. –William Shakespeare

I have the terrible feeling that, because I am wearing a white beard and am sitting in the back of a theatre, you expect me to tell you the truth about something. These are the cheap seats, not Mount Sinai. –Orsen Wells

He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he who hath no beard is less than a man. –William Shakespeare

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Statistics about Facial Hair

In 2009, the popularity of facial hair in Hollywood created a trend that ended up causing sales of shaving products to drop 12%.
33% of men in America have facial hair.
50% of the world’s men have a hairy face.
63% of men think they look more manly and attractive with a beard
92% of women think these men are idiots, and would rather date his clean-shaven wingman
95% of women also think that kissing a man with stubble is like kissing a Brillo pad and makes romantic kissing a turn off.
The last US president to have any facial hair? William Howard Taft in 1908.
(Statistics prove that I should shave this beard if I don’t want to end up like Taft, stuck in a bath tub)

Awesome People with Facial Hair

Teddy Roosevelt
Jesus
George Clooney
Chuck Norris
Weird Al Yankovic
William Shakespeare
Zach Galifianakis
Abraham Lincoln

Braiding my beard,

Mr. Mockler

DELICIOUS

Today, I wrote self-pitying me a self-gratifying note because, to tell you the truth, dear reader, this Monday sucked just as much as the last one. Staring at my terrible grades, I longed to fall into a carb induced permacoma. My fingers lingered over the evil white strip, and I was set to launch into a new sets of groans and moans, before I stopped myself and began to write a letter to my wounded ego.

Starting with trite cliches, I covered an entire page with babbling platitudes that ranged from The Help's "You is smart..." to "You did not come to China to get fat." When I finished, I managed to yank myself from the clutches of the buffet table, and realize: I'm in GOSH DARN FRICKIN' CHINA!

Again, life has handed me two choices. I can weep daily and refuse to see anything else other than my grades and complain at every opportunity, or I can pull myself together, get some help, go exploring, and avoid adding a third person to my already large frame.

I believed I softened my last epiphany with a puppy picture. Please take a moment to go to look at it; however, I can't wait, though, because I only have so much time in gosh darn frickin' China.

Since you are still enveloped in the sweet glow of puppy pictures. I'll tell you, I'm going with the second option. While I have no regrets about last week (that ice cream was DELICIOUS), eating like a pig really didn't help anything. In fact, it made me a hypocrite because I refused to take my own advice from the mini-crisis post. As I prophesied, I put myself in a situation to be imperfect, but was still shocked when I found out I wasn't perfect.

Wallowing in my self pity (again, DELICIOUS) only made me want to come home, not take advantage of all the wonderful things I can do in this country. I've been to Old Qingdao and New Qingdao. A farmers market, a night market, and a fake market. I've done so many things here and still only seen an eighth of all this city has to offer. Basically, I've opted to make this trip about complaining, instead of making this trip about learning.

Obviously, I can't escape complaining, it is a way of dealing with new settings and circumstances: however, when did my coping mechanism become a never-ending-pity-orgy? I've literally never heard or caught myself complaining in so many different ways. Sarcastic complaints, statement of fact complaints, illogical rambling complaints, complaints about complaints, etc. have bred nothing but animosity and perpetuate an emotion cycle that has made me miss America.

Other people cautioned me about culture shock and such before I came, but I've been using my complaints as horse blinders to all the marvelous things this country has to offer. Ultimately, I think we thought we were going to Chinatown, not China. Chinatown is intriguing and exotic, but you don't actually have to "experience" it before you flee back to the Western part of the city. In China, you're are encapsulated in thousands of years of history. Old cultures, new cultures, and weird cultures come from all sides and must be accepted. Shutting down and locking it out has been like watching a bug fall into a glass of water. The bug buzzes angrily, makes a lot of noise, but if it doesn't find a way to pull its way up, it ultimately drowns...

Anyway, dear reader, I vow from this day forward that I will only complain when there is something legitimate to complain about. I vow to experience China in all her glory, and run away on weekends to avoid all negativity. I vow to work hard, but not kill myself. I vow to finally start taking my own advice and really start enjoying China.

Thinking happy thoughts,

Mr. Mockler

Early Bedtimes

Today was a bad day. No silver lining, no redeeming quality, just a very bad rotten no-good sort of day. My first round of grades has ripped through my sails, and left me somewhere between Lake Lachrymose and De Nile.

Bad test grades typically don’t get me down, but today it cut straight to one of the things I value most, my writing.

Did I consider myself the next Mengzi? Had I really believed my writing was a beautiful work of time and effort? Did I believe that somehow my efforts would count for something, even if I made errors?

Yes, yes I did.

But, with one slip of white paper, my false pretentions have been swept away. Flipping past streaks of red (no more than in America, mind you), I almost threw the journal across the room I was so shocked at what was written. At first, I didn't know whether to laugh or rip the journal in half. I shed a single solitary, requisite manly tear, and then set about repressing the memory into something better. Fat. That’s right, dear reader, I decided to eat my feelings.

Zipping down to the convenience store on the break I bought a Coke and some candy bar. I’d tell you what the candy bar was, but I inhaled it so quickly, I'm surprised I'm not dead with the wrapper halfway down my throat. I managed to get through the rest of class only throwing the occasional smoldering look of contempt at my journal, and by the time I'd thrown it in my bag with particular venom, I was mentally prepared to leave my dignity on the lunch table.

As I sat down, my sadness-induced gorge slowed ever so slightly, only because who doesn’t love a good whine with Chinese food? I sang the Woe is Me chorus to everyone within earshot and worked my chopsticks more skillfully than a ballerina works at the bar. Listening to my other classmates, I realized I wasn’t just eating to assuage my sadness, but theirs as well. Their skinny frames screamed to be fattened, and I knew I could answer their calls.

Tears are temporary my doe-eyed health nuts, but pounds are at least six months.

The afternoon activity brought us into a mall. For a few minutes I forgot my food crusade as I marveled at this eight (nine with basement) story monstrosity. Floor after floor of brands I’d never heard of and all the advertisements had white people. My momentary lapse was soon forgotten as I headed for Snack Alley (2nd floor) and the “Boutique Supermarket” (Basement). Unfortunately, my food court follies were foiled, as, since nothing is simple in China, they wanted me to buy a card to load with money to buy food. Too much of a hassle, I sat down in the middle of the atrium, scowling. After leaving the mall, the self-pity-orgy-buffet continued as I lay in my bed, listening to sad jazz, and eating trail mix.

Eventually I sulked down to dinner. Choosing my favorite restaurant, my palate watered for plate after plate after plate of newly discovered comfort food. As each dish came to the table, I set about stuffing my resentment under a mountain of food. When I finally finished the meal, I headed out for some ice cream and a remote locale where I could break some of the many bottles that litter this former German colony.

Bottles broken, I entered the convenience store, going straight for the premium ice cream case. The door glided open, and I plucked a Magnum ice cream bar from the top of the pile. Inconvenienced by paying, I finally sat on the steps, and once again let my emotions over take me.

First, rage consumed me and I eviscerated the packaging. The chocolate shell of the ice cream bar glistened in the street lights, and I admired the embedded swirls, mattes, and sheens of the cold chocolate. My appreciation flashed red and I sank my teeth in with a satisfying crunch, imagining that I was actually ripping out the spine of my imagined diary. The ice cream had already begun to melt on my tongue, and I uttered a low moan of self-pity as the velvety rivulets of cream and chocolate began to mingle in my mouth. Each luxurious bite rocked my body with self-loathing, but also made each morsel taste even sweeter. Finally, I snapped the stick in half and reluctantly thew the wrapper in the trash. Pity party over, I headed back to the dorm in silence.

Turning in for an early bed time,

Mr. Mockler

Yoda

Luckily, I had a parent who loved me when I was a child. Pushed me to be my best, taught me to get up when I fell down, and, thankfully, never threw me in the pool and said swim or sink.

I have now come to learn that real life doesn’t give two splits about cushy parenting styles and life is totally the jerk kid at the pool who likes to shove people into the water when they are fully clothed.

Every moment since I’ve set foot in China has been a sink-or-swim-go-now-don’t-think experience. Getting into the taxi, eating breakfast, figuring out where to eat this afternoon, all of it comes down like a wave. Wave, after wave, after terrifying wave. I like to believe handling the onslaught well, but I can’t express to you, dear reader, how uncertain my existence is because I don’t know Chinese.

Case in point, today we were treated to (maybe assaulted by) a tour of Qingdao. We gathered in front of the International Student building and waited for anyone familiar, program coordinator, TA to show up and tell us the plan for the day. Weren’t we in for a surprise…

Around 9:45 a bus shows up with two Asian girls. I’d call them tour guides, but they were more like program sanctioned handlers because they didn’t speak any English and I’m almost convinced couldn’t speak at all because they barely said a word in Chinese, too. At 9:55, they started making noises and gestures at us that seemed to imply we were supposed to get on the bus with no explanation of where we’d be going or what we’d be doing. Forgetting all our American indoctrinated “Don’t go anywhere with strangers” talks, we all herded onto the bus and were whisked away into the snarls of traffic.

After about a twenty minute bus ride, we got off at a beach and sculpture garden and began looking around, wandering aimlessly, and asking each other what was going on. This initial stop set the precedent for how every other stop would ensue. We’d get off the bus, follow the Asians until they stopped, turn around and follow the Asians the other way; all the while receiving no explanation as to what we were looking at or why we had decided to stopped where we were. I managed to snap some neat photos, but I could have just as easily took pictures of the ground and have had better explanations for why the photos were important.

For about an hour we trekked through scenic walkways, up mountain sized hills, and just generally around. By the time lunch rolled around, most of us were suffering from some form of lingering jet lag and thought lunch would be an opportunity to sit and rest. Unfortunately, my hopes dissolved when we pulled off the side of the road and followed the Asians into an alley (Not a good sign. Ever).

Teeming with life and noise, the alley was lined with restaurants. Small Asian men and women stood outside doorways screaming at us from stalls filled with strange ingredients. Starfish, jellyfish, sea urchin, squid featured prominently at each location and each store seemed to have its own city-sized aquarium. The massive displays were reminiscent of the pet fish aisle in Wal-mart, but instead of guppies and tiger barbs, these tanks were filled with catfish, clams, snails, conch, and a whole manner of other aquatic animals that I had never seen, but assume people eat...

It wasn’t until the small Asian men and women started coming up to us and touched our shoulders with one hand as the other motioned towards tables and menus that we finally understood that they wanted us to eat in their restaurants. Either way, our group stayed huddled together from fear of getting lost and followed the Asians deeper and deeper into the network of alleys and people, chasing the dream that maybe we were headed to a restaurant laid out for thirty with menus and quiet time.

Nope.

After dodging and squeezing for about ten minutes, we finally stopped in front of the one food stand that I’ve seen in every movie, travel show, and slide show that centered on Westerners going to foreign places: a bugs-for-food stand. Pods that shook, truncated worms that squiggled, and others that just lay there, accepting their foodie fate were presented in a terrifying tableau of bowls. Basically, everything I have been taught since birth is the stuff of nightmares was ready to be skewered and slapped over some coals. The most jarring sight was the live scorpions (a bowl of yellow camping-sized ones and a bowl of giant black, Egyptian tomb guardians) clicking and pinching at gloved chef hands as they were scooped from a slithery mass of at least 100 and turned into someone’s lunch break…

Luckily, we weren’t eating at the nightmare stand, but we were treated to an even worse announcement: “Alright, time for lunch, you’re on your own.” By the time I had asked someone for a translation, the Asians had disappeared, leaving me and my companions huddled in the street.

Almost immediately, two girls latched onto my arms telling me they were coming with me and, others assuming that this meant I had a plan, soon crowded around me asking where we should go. In America, I’d have no problem with this. I’m usually able to ferret out some delicious whole in the wall that causes envy at my gastronomic prowess, but, not having a deep and abiding knowledge of food terminology in China, I was caught in the classic situation of the blind following the mute. Eventually it just came down to eeny-meeny-miney-moe and a kind waiter who pulled us off the streets and up into a private room.

Finally we were seated and faced with the new challenge of having to order food. Probably the best part is that every restaurant has pictures in their menus, so we were able just point and finally eat without thinking. With one minor snafu over some vegetables, we gorged ourselves and were eventually found by the Asians. In a burst of Chinese, we were told that we were late and had to hurry and return to the bus. Whether or not this was true or not, I don’t know, and I feel I can only blame my not knowing on the fact that my Chinese mental telepathy just wasn’t up to snuff to catch it, so yeah...

Sorry I am, Yoda, failed you I did,

Mr. Mockler