The Monkey Kings 美猴王

Last night the Monkey Kings and Queen went with our agent and friend, Maggie, to a Xinjiang restaurant called 北疆饭店. The food was delicious! Almost all of it was spicy, but not too spicy. The bread with meat in them (新疆肉夹馍 I guess!) were fantastic, and we also had a big stew of meat, potatoes, ginger, and other things. The only thing that was disappointing were the mutton skewers–good but only as good as you would get on the street. Either way, the food was good and so was the company.

We met some people from… well, hard to say where they were from, as they had lived all over the world. They had lived in Thailand for the past five years, in China for two years before that, and other places before that. We ate with a little white boy who, if you asked him his nationality, would say Thai. It was an interesting example of what AIESECers and others call nomads. They (eg. my mother) always say that moving around too much screws children up, but I asked them and they seemed quite well adjusted. You gain much flexibility and understanding of the world when you live in different places. We will do more research on the question before we have children and move all over.

After dinner we went to the Suzhou Sheraton, just across the street. The rich know how to travel! We expected it to be flashy, of course, but we did not realise quite what it would look like. The front is of a city wall and old Chinese pagoda. Inside is an art store full of beautiful paintings and other works, and a waterfall that changes colour. My favourite part, however, was the garden. It was rocks and grass, with a stream running through it, and a beautiful pool that I would have loved to swim in. Makes you want to get rich, doesn’t it?

The Kings have been learning Chinese idioms and have decided that English could benefit from them. We have thus decided to translate and disseminate some of them. We prefer the four word variety, and will give credit to the Chinese when using them in conversation. For example, when the traffic is heavy, one can say “As the Chinese say, ‘car water horse dragon’ [车水马龙].”

As things get worse, one can say “river stream sun under” [江河日下]。 Then you must “fight heaven stand ground” [顶天立地]; because, as we know, “more toil more get” [多劳多得]. You can “self have public speak” [自有公论] when you are popular, though it could mean “ten thousand water one thousand mountain” [万水千山] to get there.

We’ve also decided to streamline some English idioms into the four word/four syllable format in order to make everyone’s life easier. Instead of the cumbersome “beware of Greeks bearing gifts”, one can now simply say “watch out Greek horse” (translated into Chinese possibly as “希马注意”?). One ought not to “kill gold egg goose”, nor should one ever “make me monkey” (make a monkey out of someone)–unless, of course, you are the Monkey King. “Horse first then cart” is a lesson for anyone learning these new idioms, for as we know, “walk slow win race”.

After I graduated from the University of Victoria, I was so excited: I was moving to Slovenia to work for AIESEC, the organisation I had given five years of my life and all of my spare time in university. I had an amazing time and I learned so much that I could not possibly squeeze it into one blog post–more like a five day conference. But when I got back to Canada, something changed. I was suddenly not as qualified for the jobs that I wanted as I thought. I was not as desirable to women as I had hoped. I had strong opinions and a desire to show them off, which clashed hard with working in an office. And I didn’t know where I was going, short term or long. I had reached my quarterlife crisis.

A quarterlife crisis is the son and daughter of the midlife crisis. It generally occurs in your twenties–in my case, at 24. It struck when my girlfriend broke up with me, but to say it is her fault would be unfair. For someone like me, it was a train driving a broken track, bound to crash some time. I didn’t have many long term plans, though I had some vague ones, but it meant that I didn’t know what I wanted to do then and there. I worked at a job I didn’t particularly like, under rules that I thought were wrong, with people I loved except for a manager that was practically my antithesis. I was working for money, when all the smart people I knew told me to work to learn, work for experience, even if it doesn’t pay anything. I got fired.

Something changed again. About three hours after the initial shock, I told my friend Mo I got fired and he said he was moving to Beijing for a couple of months, and that I should go with him. I went. I went partly for lack of a better idea, but mainly because I had wanted to move to Asia–anywhere in Asia–for years, and this was clearly my best opportunity. If I waited any longer I would have another job and fall into the same patterns and not go anywhere. This was my chance to learn Chinese, Chinese culture and politics, and maybe grab a piece of that ever growing Chinese pie going around.

Now, when I go somewhere, I do not have any expectations. It is hard not to have expectations when you have friends from the place you are going to, you have written essays about it and have been reading books about it every day before you go there, but I didn’t have any expectations. And China met them all. About a month after I arrived, my work, teaching English to children at New Channel (a good school and a good place to work, by the way), got harder, as I got more frustrated with the kids. I clung desperately to the advice my boss and friend, Stephen from New Zealand, gave me: don’t take it personally, just take it easy. But it got harder after I slipped into culture shock.

It was strange having culture shock, because though I had had it very slightly before, I didn’t recognise it. I thought it was just that China went against all my strongest values. In some ways it did, but my problem was that I was seeing things that made me angry when I could have just accepted them and let them flow over me as if was lying at the bottom of a river, looking up at the sky. I had a few friends in Beijing, which helped, but I would probably have left had it not been for my darling Joy.

Joy was the first woman I met in China and the one I fell in love with. She made me feel good all the time, and comforted me during the time I wanted to drop it all, July and August 2007. It was not the biggest challenge of my life (because that time was when I moved across Canada when I was 12) but perhaps the second. I lived in an apartment with cockroaches (and was afraid to set foot in the kitchen), I had classes with 12 year old boys that I could barely stand, I didn’t have internet access or movies, which would have made me much happier, and I was beginning to see how angry Chinese people get when you say bad things about China (”中国人太紧张“）. But Joy was always there with her hugs and smiles and songs, making me feel like it was worth being anywhere as long as I was with her.

That was the height of my culture shock. It faded as I learned more about the culture and language, made new friends, got much better classes and extra hours, so I was making more money. We moved into a better apartment (in Wudaokou–my favourite apartment in China) and got an internet connection again. The hard times ended when, in October 2007, Joy and I got engaged and announced it at my birthday. I realised that, no matter how I felt about China, none of it would have been a waste because I met the most important person in my life there. From then on, the culture shock faded away and my quarterlife crisis with it.

The quarterlife crisis did not fade because of my engagement, however. It faded because I improved the conditions I was living in, stopped focusing on what I didn’t like about my surroundings and started thinking about my (now our) life in the future. I love planning my career, setting goals and budgeting. I love learning about things that may or may not be useful for the future, to add to my store of knowledge and gradually round out my wisdom. It’s investing. I’m still doing it: why else would I be learning Arabic and starting a Toastmasters group?

I am pretty sure that my quarterlife slump is over. Other features of it could arise but I am covering my bases. I am building my career in several directions, and building my future with it. Joy and I are planning all the great things we want for our life together–and even if less than 100% of your wishes come true, wishing them is worth every minute. I no longer feel the insecurity and confusion one feels during one’s quarterlife crisis and, because of everything I have learned and will learn from it, I am thankful.

The Kings of old went to Tai Lake, or Tai Hu Lake, whatever they call it. It is a big lake just down the highway west of Suzhou. We went with two of our students (Ken and Christina) and one of the tutors (Tracy, all pictured below) from Web. We got to drive through a couple of districts we had never seen before and saw mountains, rivers partly covered by grasses and lilies, and a long bridge across the lake that leads to the three big mountains. We didn’t climb them–not this time–but we did go to a restaurant overlooking the lake. To get there, you walk along winding paths with streamlets on either side full of goldfish. We even picked pomegranates. It was a great way to spend our day off. As soon as the weather cools down we will do more traveling around Suzhou.

Suzhou Web Toastmasters held its demo meeting on Saturday. Over forty people attended. Many people held formal roles like evaluator and timer, others gave speeches and everyone seemed enthusiastic about being a Toastmaster. Our meeting was a bigger success than I expected. Our volunteers did a great job and so did the speakers. If this is what we can expect from the club, we will be really successful.

So far, we need more people volunteering for this week’s meeting, including for giving speeches. The club, so far at least, is based entirely at Web English school, so all we need to do is ask our students and teachers if they would like to do anything at the next meeting.

And since it is at an English school, I would like to put extra emphasis on English learning. That would mean giving the grammarian (the person who helps us improve our English at each meeting) extra time to learn more things, and lowering the bar for membership to those who might not have very good English but are still anxious to be Toastmasters. I’m really looking forward to seeing what can happen in the months to come.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever heard something a hundred times and only thought vaguely about it, and then the 101st time you think, “yeah! he’s right, I should!”? Well that’s what happened to me and food.

I have heard innumerable times about how important a good diet is, and I have heard several good diets. I’m not talking about Atkins, I’m taking about simple, healthy, still tasty diets. I have (mostly) given up processed foods, white bread and meat.

The trigger for this life change was the video “What’s Wrong with What We Eat”, from TED.com, which I recommend you watch here. I knew many of the things he talked about, but it made me realise that I should start eating more healthy. I go to the gym (started going about a month ago with the other King), I don’t smoke or drink (almost never, anyway), why shouldn’t I start eating right? I don’t know about you, but I plan to live to 100!

The other reason I decided to all but give up on meat (I’m not stopping entirely, just cutting down to maybe one small portion a day, which makes it easier than giving it up entirely) is when I learned, from the same video, the enormous hazard livestock poses to the environment. I had no idea that those cute little cows, pigs and chickens actually pollute more than transportation. The biggest sources of pollution in the world are, in order, energy production, livestock, transportation. I was mind boggled. When countries develop, in general, they eat more meat (and who can blame them, it’s delicious). With the rise of countries like China, Brazil and Russia (India is mostly vegetarian), we can expect more and more livestock production, and more and more cow farts. With all the energy I already consume, I can at least reduce the amount slightly while doing something good for myself.

A change in diet, if I keep it up, is a good way to be healthier now and in the future, and to do a small part to reduce my effect on the environment.

The Monkey Kings have decided that, for the full month of July, we shall be speaking entirely (stay tuned for the exceptions) in Chinese. If we are speaking with my wife, the Chinese English tutors and other Chinese coworkers, with each other and almost everyone else, we will be speaking only in Chinese. The only exceptions are the obvious ones: with our students and with people who don’t know Chinese.

It hasn’t been as hard so far as I expected. We are in class 25 hours a week, we watch a little tv, read newspapers and books and listen to music in English, and when we simply can’t express something, we’ll speak in English (just for a word here or there, of course). So we are around enough English that we are not desperate to speak it. But I know how these processes go: there is a honeymoon stage, a period where it is really annoying and you wonder why you did it in the first place, and then a time when it gets to feel more natural. That is the culture shock curve or circle or pie chart (however you present it), and I’ll bet this will be the same.

This month is a great opportunity for us to drastically improve our Chinese fluency, and I think mine has improved already. I ask people to correct me when I make mistakes, and hopefully being corrected will help me avoid picking up any bad habits. That said, I don’t trust many Chinese people to correct me very often. The culture prohibits it as rude. People are loath to do anything that could be perceived as rude, even if they are your friends and you say you are fine with it. They are like Canadians that way. I have been in this situation before. To people learning a language, I recommend finding someone you trust to practice with, someone you trust to correct you frequently in your speaking. You only need one or two people like that and a little discipline. You will lose your bad habits.

July is not just a chance to improve fluency but a chance to cement all the grammatical constructions (word order is my biggest weakness in learning a language) and vocabulary I learn this month. So I should be reading my exercise book more… on top of work, preparing speeches, starting our company, writing my book and going to the gym. I’m busier than I’ve been since December. It feels great!

I just became a member of China Advanced Toastmasters, or CAT. Having completed the first Toastmasters manual by giving ten prepared speeches, I am a Competent Communicator in Toastmasters. CAT is a club designed for advanced speech makers, where you can get the feedback and the opportunities you need to clear all the last hurdles to your mastering public speaking. And an unexpected bonus was that it was the cheapest Toastmasters I’ve ever found.

I am also strongly considering starting a Toastmasters club at my company, Web International English in Suzhou. It would be a boon for the teachers and students. I’ll let you know how things develop.

The Monkey Kings and Queen went today to the Humble Administrator’s Garden (拙政园). We weren’t there long, as it started raining (as it does every day in Suzhou, it seems), but this was our day off and we were determined to see one of Suzhou 75,000 gardens. The administrator didn’t seem that humble.

The garden is very big and very beautiful. The walkways were all little, round stones. There are long, thin canals running through the garden, with walkways and bridges all around, some of which go down to the water. The canals are like long ponds, with big, fat goldfish and wide lily pads. The Monkey Queen said she used to use such lily pads as umbrellas when she was younger. Some of them could have covered her whole family!

The garden also has a small bonsai garden (彭景苑)–lots of little trees growing out of pots–an art gallery (like all Chinese tourist spots) and a lot of little pavilions. Though the price was high (70rmb ($10) each), and we cut our visit short for the rain, we felt it was worth it.

Monkey King Matt went to to the mall to buy something for his computer and I accompanied him. When we got to the top floor, which for some reason had computer supplies and musical instruments next to each other, I saw a bunch of guitars. I thought I could probably get one for cheaper elsewhere, but it might take hours to find and I decided I wanted one then. When I found one for 200rmb ($30), I thought, wow, maybe I should get one. I played it, it was just as good as a $200 one in Canada, so I bought it. Now I am back in the habit of playing guitar for the first time in eight years and I’m even teaching Joy (the Monkey Queen). Maybe I can find a way to work it into my classes.