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The food comes and he says nothing. They laugh when the kung pao chicken arrives and he obliges by calling it the lao wai chicken. They can tell he is bored so they ask if he wants beer to drink but he says no. He only drinks alone when he is alone and not when he’s not. This he has learned from a Dennis Lehane novel. He realizes he’s being an ass by sitting and not eating much and talking even less. But he is the only foreigner there and even with foreigners he can’t stand to make small talk. When was the last time he had a good conversation about his hometown sport teams, or a good movie, or some music he likes. He is drifting in a world he doesn’t understand and worse yet doesn’t want to understand. And certainly a world that does not want to understand him. The knowledge he’s gained from being part of this culture for three years has only pushed him further from his culture while simultaneously closing doors into this one. He wants to sit and rock to his music, maybe Pink’s mizunderstood playing “just like a pill” loud and twice. ...

June 1st is Children’s Day in China and Wikipedia tells me it is a common holiday in many counties although the only recollection I have of it is from China. Here it is bigger than Father or Mother’s Day, as children are such a focus. Since China instituted the one child policy, there are typically at least six adults looking after the one child. The two parents plus four grandparents. In many cases there is also an Ayi or two. It is not much of a surprise that the kids grow up thinking they are the center of the universe. I thought I was the center, and I was number seven of eight. The terms for older/younger brother (gege 哥哥, didi 弟弟) and sister (jiejie 姐姐, meimei 妹妹) have been extended to beyond the immediate family as practically no one’s immediate family has siblings anymore. ...

She spent 17 years trying to save her soul and now she finds she can’t get out. She was an innocent, albeit a slightly disturbed one. She found her fun on Saturday nights at the clubs dancing and moving to the rhythm. She knew the good DJs from the poor ones by sound and not reputation. Before she lost her soul, she used to find it every morning rocking with the music and writing. Always writing. ...

Aidan is sitting on our bed and telling me about the earthquake. He holds his hands our in front of him and shakes them side by side. He says the ground moves like this. Then he raises his hands face level and says the roof falls. And that many, many si le 死了 (dead). Schools where hit the hardest and after my last post I looked at pictures of small children lying side by side in the rubble and one picture simply of their backpacks. And if that doesn’t get to you, nothing will. ...

He lost his muse and didn’t know how to find her again. He tried looking for her in coffee shops, restaurants, and bars. His writing was blocked because he no longer had anyone to write to. No one who would read what he would write and drop the perfect comment over a shared biscotti. He tried to write anyway, but the words came slow and what came was an unfocused mess. ...

It’s Monday, and Aidan comes to our bed at 6:30am and tells me he wants to watch cartoons. I’m somewhere still lost in a dream about something most definitely not a cartoon but still manage to find the remote and tune into channel 42 – Kaku – the cartoon channel. I see a news broadcast, in Chinese of course since we are in China after all. The strange thing is the Kaku channel logo is visible so it must be the right channel. Aidan repeats his request for Cartoons so I flip through each channel one by one more so because I want sleep than I want him to have cartoons. They are all showing the same news broadcast. All 60 or so cable channels we have. ...

It was Monday morning after the fateful Friday and she was laying out her clothes for the day. She was careful to pick the right length skirt that was short enough without being too short and showed her shape without being too tight. She picked a black sleeveless blouse because on Friday night he said he liked her arms and because this particular blouse had been successful in the past. She showered and combed her long straight black hair. She looked in the mirror and was happy with what she saw, a fairly tight body for 35 but at the same time there was no denying the effect of age and gravity. ...

The day is over and she is tired and she just wants to get home, have some tea, curl into a blanket and sleep. She waves down a taxi, gets in and says “Zhichun Lu”. The taxi driver replies “qu nar”? She repeats. He repeats. She then says the larger area name, Zhongcunsun followed by Zhichun Lu. The driver still asks where. She is so frustrated. Then the taxi driver says the damndest thing. that he doesn’t understand what she is talking about. At this point she decides he’s flake and she gets out of the cab. ...

the kid played with his small gi joe soldier. he had just the one gi joe and no enemy soldiers so he had to use a stick in their place. he found that the stick naturally beat the gi joe but then found himself bored and needed to break the stick himself and start over. there were no other boys he could play with beause the other boys his age wanted to punch and kick and otherwise do things he wasn’t interested in. he liked to play catch and play games. but not touch. not fight. not tease. ...

How do you eat an elephant? You start by taking a bite. Such was our move strategy when packing. Just do it. So we packed bit by bit over a week, in between meals, cat naps, nights on the town. And when the movers arrived Friday morning everything was mostly packed into plastic bins and plastic bags. There were three movers and three supervisors. Yang supervised from inside the condo and our ayi and I took turns supervising the elevator area and the truck area outside. We don’t have anything super valuable but it would still be a bummer to have stuff stolen, so we stood and watched as the workers lifted, carried, and placed. We also had to supervise as our apartment security guard would occasionally hassle the movers for no apparent reason. On time they asked them to keep a man at the truck at all times so that it could be moved even though they clearly left enough space. ...