~This post was originally written in November of 2019. It was unpublished for lack of review, but now, as March of 2020 rolls on, and the Novel Corona Virus has shifted how all things are, I thought it would be nice to share for a snapshot of what life was like before. It’s good to remember. Be well~

First of all, I’m on a life-high from a simply wonderful yesterday and today, so I’ll cut and paste the blog I wrote a week ago below. But first, I’ll write a bit extra.

Friday happened. Fridays happen. . . But not always like this. It started out sort of normal, but not really. I woke up with the residue of a late night with a friend who is visiting from a city to the east. He is in town for a tea expo. He’s a professional with some real depth of capability that is well worth celebration, but more on that later. He had two high-school friends (that he hadn’t seen in over a decade) and me for dinner. Barbecue and laughter. 现在我的中文不错。我们一起说很容易， 感到愉快了。

The next day, yesterday, Friday, I woke up with three times the weight in my head than normal, but was able to wash it and get it to class on time where I slinked through and functionally achieved the normal expectations, while actually learning until it was time for lunch.

I have a group of friends that are mostly Cyrillic, linguistically, who I have lunch with regularly and we share a group in WeChat (the ominously all-present messaging app that acts as a broad digital web in China) called “Fridays Happen,” so we often try to do interesting things Fridays.

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This Friday, there was a tea expo that I recommended so one tea-obsessed, and one rasta-themed Russian joined me for a jaunt downtown. We got there after a few weird bumps through the underwoven tunnels in the expo area, and found a massive installation of businesses representing tea from all over China. It was pretty amazing.

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We only were able to make it around one floor. We mostly enjoyed white tea, black tea, a bit of Pu’er, Tie Guan Yin, and Da Hong Bao. We’d need to go to the second floor for the green, yellow and larger installation of the Pu’er, etc. But we had arrived late, having only decided at lunchtime to go, so we enjoyed what we did, with the two of them vowing to come back Sunday for a full day of tea-play.

Without getting too into the event itself, for the sake of brevity, I should celebrate what status my friend who was visiting was in, professionally. He is leaving the company that he was there to represent, and was being courted by serious big players in the game for his next adventure.

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As a pleasure, he invited me and my girlfriend to have dinner with him at a hotel near the expo that was exquisite to the max. The lady who had invited him owns over 4,000 tea shops. She was about my age, sat with her daughter and a woman who works with her, so there were six of us at dinner.

The room was the Yellow Jasmine room, a private dining room in The Shangri-La Hotel. Dinner was an elegant experience. The table was round, and bits were brought out very slowly. One bit at a time, never showing more than four foods at the same time, but circulating a series of no less than fifteen dishes including a delicately prepared fish, beef-rib steak, lobster, and a series of following dishes that created a comfortable feeling of culinary kindness that only something of that sort really can.

The woman was trying very hard to get him to work for her. I was trying very hard to not ask her for a job. Lol! I don’t know if she got what she wanted, but I didn’t ask her for work, but I did add her on WeChat with a promise of inviting her to some French wine tastings.

So, now I’ll cut and paste the blog from a week ago. ~ And breathe (a breath of the wonderful new white tea that I got yesterday).

I’ve become addicted to WeChat, the local messaging platform that serves as a bank teller, communication device, government spy tool, social networking platform, food delivery app, and so much more. It has creeped into my work-spaces, my personal life, my data flow, and basically stands as an all-encompassing app for digital functioning in China.

I say this with the purpose of sharing a confession. I have become one of those people who walks down the street looking down, into my phone, where I am intensely looking for just the right animated GIF to reply wittily to the previous comment that someone else has sent my direction. I watch it from my focused study time, I watch it even now, as I type… It has captured me, and I don’t know if there’s any turning back.

So this is a trial of mine. Not as bad as some problems in the world, but it is its own thing. Interestingly, we never hear of mass data theft in China. There’s nothing even anecdotal. I don’t know why that is. I wonder if it is because the government’s absolute access leads to their ability to isolate anyone who would do such a thing (and then perhaps employ them) and stop it before it becomes out of control. People generally trust that their data is safe, that no malicious fraud will surprise them (other than mistaken gifting to dishonest sales people).

That’s it though, isn’t it. Complete control, instead of the multi-party complexity that is western democratic style. I’ve realized that the Chinese experience is socially somewhat like when the Catholics ruled Europe, but without so much killing. Specifically, the living idea that the rule of law is absolute coming from the top and that, naturally dissolving the further you get from the center of power, dependent on the local governors’ opinions. There’s even an ancient Chinese saying 山高皇帝远, which translates as “the mountain is high and the emperor is far away.” I think of following the law here as if I were visiting a religious order. I wouldn’t eat meat in a Buddhist temple, or pork in a Muslim land. It’s fine for me to do what’s asked. It seems to be the respectful thing to do. The particularity stays above the board because everyone around is hip to the game. Outside the most rural communities, I don’t know of anything that could equate to the kind of privacy that most westerners take for granted. much less a possibility of living off of the grid.

Because of this system in which I am a guest, as a courtesy to those who might have to mislead me for their perspective, and for the sake of self-preservation, I don’t participate in what I would consider regular political discussions or debates. Similarly, I temper my online voice for the public. As a result of this system’s design, there is a veneer of clean happiness that coats the surface here, and reaches into the people, as if they were looking at themselves through a black mirror, having the smile become the feeling, rather than the other way around sometimes. But it does lead to a dramatically strong sense of social cohesion. I look forward to open discourse with local individuals who can speak with candor, clarity and kindness, sharing an understanding of mutual learning and growth.

In other news, Autumn is almost here. I’ve really only had to wear long sleeve shirts about half a dozen times this season so far. Not today though. Still a shorts and t-shirt day and I’ll consider sunscreen if I go out. I might not go out though. My studies keep me focused on work and I don’t always make it out of the house if I have a day off these days. I have a fine place, lots to do, and I’m working on becoming even more functionally competent in the language of Chinese, so maybe I’ll sit back and enjoy a full chapter in a grammar book like someone else might read a novel.

This week would contain Thanksgiving if I were in the US. If you are, I hope you enjoy it. Or I hope you enjoy your protest of it. Or I hope you enjoy giving it a pass. I’ll likely give it a pass, as I did with Halloween this year. Just saw it come and go and didn’t really do anything at all about it. Being in a sub-tropical land with a culture completely removed from the American experience leads to this kind of thing… But I will get two months of vacation in about a month and a half in celebration of Chinese New Year, so I’ll be aiming for that as I buckle down for intensive studies these next few weeks.

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Other than a touch of grammar, the above is as written in November.

As an update, I didn’t pass on Thanksgiving, a friend came to town, her boyfriend flew in to visit her, and we make a foursome out of the evening, complete with turkey with cranberry sauce, and Turkish tea with a shisha for dessert. We are after all, in China. Living the internationalist’s life.

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So that’s it. I’ll find fitting photos and send it on. I have more modern work to review and share soon. Be well~ Jim, 2/29/2020