I was going to share a new post that I wrote today, but found one that I am going to be installing from before I left China instead. It is a found-post that didn’t get uploaded. Following that, I’ll comment on a few of the things I mentioned and include a trimmed down version of what I’d prepared, since I largely said six months ago, what I wrote this afternoon.

I think one of the reasons I didn’t post it is because I was still in China at the time, and because of how questionable (free-speech issues) international realities have been lately. I wasn’t trying to pop my head up. Now that I’m back in the US, I can talk about how much I didn’t like my boss who, through his layers of functionalities and lies had a way of saying things so that he looked like he was everywhere at the same time. He absolutely told me that he’d see to it that I’d never work again in China if I submitted the resignation letter that I wrote. Perhaps he should have been less of an ass. Then I wouldn’t have had all those experiences that I related. I submitted my (filtered) letter of resignation March 4th.

The following blog @590 words was written April 10th, 2021. Following the line: “So, that should be fun,” I will write some follow-up thoughts.

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It’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged. It’s been a Covi-tastic year. That’s not an easy thing to write about. There’s been frustration in so many varieties that I couldn’t figure what to share that would offer hope. So I stayed silent. But lately, I’ve seen a lot of positive moves. So, I can share again.

I’ve been working in China, halfway around the world from the place from where my friends and family have been sheltering in place, as if it’s a war outside, and it basically is one. The enemy though, isn’t a person, it’s this virus that we’re all dealing with that has got us on our heels.

The country I live in doesn’t have a freedom of speech aspect. So, I’ve grown accustomed to biting my tongue. I’m so over that. The thing is, I really want to share positive aspects so that we can think towards health and balance. It’s just that I’m surrounded by toxic, chaotic environs that are logically unsound and actively detrimental in such volumes that it makes it a bit hard to be creative and share.

So, I’m leaving.

I’m leaving China. Maybe I’ll come back. My appreciation for the culture, the country, the people and more that can be described under the umbrella of the word are not gone. I just need a break. I’ve had an amazingly good time here, considering the people I’ve known and the places I’ve been able to see. The work environment, however, has been a struggle beyond what I’m willing to continue with.

My formal notice for the HR department was rather kind, but the reality is that my boss was underhanded, dishonest, rude, had uncontrolled anger management issues and was content to undercut my management position with people who should have been given supportive ideas instead of what he did go on about. It was a real shit-show. Dishonesty and underhandedness are great ways to receive a letter of resignation from me.

With the Covi-tastic year we’re having, I know it would be safer to stay in China, but I found a university that is in my home state of Washington where I can, in fact, continue studying the language and culture of China at, without the added pressure of having a day-job that stabs anxiety into my brain. The Jimmer needs calm, reflective time. Also, I can go for a Master’s in Teaching there and pivot to teaching in the US to follow. My 13+ years of teaching can come home. That makes me feel good.

Good things are afoot.

This season, in China, interesting events and happenings are going on, and I’m pleased to be participating in the design of one outdoor event that is going to happen in the near future.

During the May Day holiday, in the hilly woods north of Hangzhou, a group from that city is planning a four day event with music, workshops and more. Should be fun. I was able to go out with a site-assessment team for the property to plan how things would go, and from there, we will install a large dome, some stages and provide an itinerary for the different workshops that will take up the time during the event. Of course, I’ll be able to play with fire as well, because around here, my fire comfort is beyond most, and event though I consider my own skills rather humble, in these parts, they stand out a bit. It’s fun to play. I’ll play on.

So, that should be fun.

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So ends the unedited “April blog” post, as found on my hard-drive today. Turned out that the May Day holiday was an excellent outing, and I was even able to make a second event happen in the same weekend that was in line with the 10 Principles of Burning Man, and functioned as a local regional event even though it was Covid-wrapped in a name of being an Un-Burn. Truly a fine reality. I can speak well of the event production community in the area of Zhejiang and Shanghai. I’ll enjoy being able to keep in touch and look forward to seeing them again.

As I settle into October here in the US, I’m pressed with the goals of improving my Chinese language skills and putting together some books of photography and commentary from my time in China. It really was an amazing place that I hope to spend lots more time visiting, and I look forward to sharing the insights that I can with students of the language and culture. Certainly, understanding a culture is assisted by learning the home language. This is for some invisible reasons, as well as obvious. I get a sense that our grammatical habits represent prioritization for one, and for another, within the scope of an ideographic writing system, “spelling” also represents values. In some ways, this leads to gender imbalances that are considered differently from one culture to the next. In other ways, people can be deeply connected to history, and as such, tradition around how particular thoughts idiomatically follow with other thoughts. These insights and more like them are valuable for understanding why people act in certain ways. This understanding can lead to better relations when considered. Not gonna geek out on this now.

With this as my stepping point, I am studying more. (Pics below are from Qinghai, July, 2021.)

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Below is a blog post that I wrote this first week of October, 2021, six months after the one above.
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I have reason to apologize to all those who would have appreciated reading what I might have been able to share all these last months that I have written exactly nothing.

Transitioning from the realm of the nation of China to the nation of the USA has been both a physical and mental strain. There are oddities that are kind of funny, and also bits that I’m less amused by.

I’m able to settle well in the area of the Pacific Northwest, only because I’ve been thoughtful about keeping in touch with those who I have been in touch with since I arrived this summer. Thank you all for that. It means the world to me to be able to see faces of people who have been true friends through all my distance, through all these years, through all the possibilities for alternate decisions around interest or caring; and I hope to reward you with things and thoughts that will seem like prizes for being your naturally kind self, because I have recently known unkindness that is hard to put into words.

Part of why I’m back is because of that unkindnesses that I found in the business environment of the pseudo-international schools that I taught in, in China. My time in that nation is soundly compartmentalized around interactive settings. On the whole, I had an amazing journey there, and I hope that I can share some of the beauty and wonderful things that I witnessed in the books that I’m working on creating and in conversations that I share with folks. On the other hand, within the business world of precarious educational institutions, I found so many people’s habits unacceptable that I had to leave.

While being a partly professional and upstanding space, my most recent teaching environment was largely a chaotic place of deceptive actions and lies used for counterproductive results. In my frustration, found myself saying “Hey, this is the world of Mr. Rogers, not Game of Thrones,” on more occasions than I can recall. Another example is that I had a supervisor that both undercut my position that he created and was flatly honest about his anti-black racism regarding hiring practices while discussing a friend’s resume that I had offered him. Our following conversation cemented our divide. It was a place where the ability to trust people became a rapidly deteriorating notion and I don’t miss it a bit.

Upon departure, I took a 4-week trip to central China for some of the most amazing reflective visits to places I’ve ever experienced.

I went to a few ancient-but-modern cities in the center-west and then into the difficult-to-access mountainous regions away from them for the Tibetan monasteries, Muslim mosques, and Han cities wrapping up the communities that I was able to find there. It was a kind experience that reminded me of why I still have a great appreciation for China, even though I had a tough time at the office there. Hiking in the hills that surrounded the storied valleys was a highlight that I’ll take to my grave.

Yea. It’s been a whirlwind.  

Now I’m here, in Bellingham, Washington.

Back. Stunned. And yet… Still focused on the world there as well as here. ~Aiming to BE a bridge~ Here, I’m studying the language so that I can help amplify what goodness I have seen and continue to be personally impressed by the poetic nature of Chinese, through its historic and modern writing.

The American community needs to have the opportunity to know about how many fine folks are there. Current media is far too harsh for the reality beyond the sea. Hey, it’s not like American businesses are perfect~ In my lifetime, we’ve seen the Wall Street engine artificially pumped up by cocaine and greed from the 1980’s to the 2008 debacle of the crimes that laid waste to huge swaths of people’s livelihoods; and unpunished, it went. Even now, with our corporate habits of stock buybacks and bottom-line capitalism, we are still creating a tougher world than a kinder one, largely. But there is improvement, and there is so much, that I’m inspired to be here. We have some of the most progressive ideas (that are being embattled by some of the most regressive) in the world. They need more explanation… A friend once said: “Your words explain things.” And from that thought, I have penned many words. Words with a purpose can be spelled many ways, and I hope to learn as many ways to spell as possible, in order to share as well as possible.

If all goes as planned, I’ll be teaching in the American public school system in the near future.

China has aesthetics that I find profound. These can be seen in architecture and more. Linguistically, I’m transfixed at the complexity, poetics, and grammar. They weave stories with cadences that are unlike stories from the west, and refer to a cannon of literary works that are for the most part unheard of here as well. I hope to bridge that for the sake of good tales, for the sake of social cohesion.

That’d be a win. Wish me luck. Long path ahead. Looks like a nice hike though.

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