For some reason, I was thinking this afternoon "if I could have anything in the world right now, what would it be?" And no, it wouldn't be Blink 182 and burritos. Maybe it's the fact that being in language school full-time reminds me of summer school in Middlebury, but if I could have anything, or be anywhere, I would be back in language school going for the same walk I did every day after dinner - down from campus to the bridge connecting Frog Hollow to Marbleworks, standing on the bridge, watching the waterfall. Somehow, it was reassuring to get away from the artificiality of speaking Russian all the time, and get in touch with something eternal, unchanging, and powerful. Ever since I was very very little going to visit my grandparents in Middlebury, and short enough that I couldn't see over the edge of the Main Street bridge over the falls without jumping up a little (which really used to freak out my mom), I've thought those falls were really cool. Maybe it's the same feeling I get when I look up at Mt. Greylock in Williamstown - the same feeling that no matter how I scored on what paper or what test, the mountains would always be there, still the same.
Last weekend I started reading a book called "Soul Mountain", the focus of which is the role of the individual in Chinese society. In a place where lines are tightly drawn, and rigid boxes surround what is knowable, acceptable, and available, where does the individual seeking his own path fit in? If you are fine with filling your days with fashion magazines and computer games, then maybe you never question what lies outside the gate. China, for all its elements of the ridiculous, has clearly defined what is OK and what is not. The whole concept of ridiculousness (for me embodied by the above statement, the two being the band I was listening to on my Ipod this afternoon, and the food I want to be eating right now) just doesn't exist here the way it does back home. There are things here that definitely defy explanation - for instance, the three-wheeled bicycle cart I passed on my way home yesterday, piled high with what looked like about three huge wardrobes - ten feet wide and five feet deep - for all that the whole idea of trying to load all of that on a bicycle was ridiculous, the three guys doing it were very, very serious about it, and they were GOING to make it work!
This may require more thought as time goes on, or maybe I'm just hungry and want to go get food. In any case, perhaps to sum things up: maybe you can quickly judge a country by who you can put on stage as a sock puppet. In the US, I can't imagine there being a public figure that you couldn't have a sock puppet imitate. In China? the only websites with Mao sock puppets that showed up with a Google search were based in the US - and they were blocked.
