This Is 34

Turning 34 two weeks ago was just another day in the year, but a time also to reflect a little bit about getting older. I guess that now I officially feel like I am no longer young. There are a few grey hairs in my beard, sometimes I find it difficult to read small writing on a computer screen (just bumped this up from 12 to 16 font size) and there are days were I feel like my back is getting stiff. Instead of thinking about all the pints I will have with the guys, now I think about staying home and not having a headache all day Saturday. Most days I get up early and even on weekends now its hard to sleep past 7am or stay up much past 10pm. If I get up in the middle of the night, which happens more often than not now, I feel stiff for at least a few steps. 

So another year has passed and besides the physical indicators of middle age I also feel that I am in my prime in many ways. I am pretty fit and exercise just about every day. I am generally healthy and have good body weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. Neither Aya nor myself have any major health problem. That is something to be thankful for, a wife and good health! Being DINKs allows for a good deal of disposable income to save or spend on traveling and so we are enjoying today while also making a good nest for tomorrow. My job is very enjoyable and I feel it is secure. I have a good outlook for the future. I guess I say all that to mean, sure some things are happening as I age, but for the most part life is very good. Here is to 34 and another year of gray hairs appearing. I welcome them. 

Resolutions

Saturday night, the 2nd of January, Aya and I landed in Beijing. The AQI was at 540. Off the charts more or less. A welcome home to Beijing sort of a day. Of course I was disappointed. I could see the smog in the airport terminal and had my mask on before the airplane doors even opened. Our driver, Peter, told us that even in ancient times there was air pollution and that Beijing wouldn't be signaling any more "red alert"s as they were too inconvenient for working people and parents. Ah... home.

So now that its been a few days and the skies are blue, let me begin to write the new year post, but without any silly resolutions.

It was a good year. Aya and I were both employed and both of us enjoy our jobs and hope to continue with them indefinitely. Of course, for an international school teacher indefinitely just means at least one more year, but for Aya she wishes her job to last a long time. I also started a part time class with Global Online Academy which I have really enjoyed and seems like it will lead to a leadership position at my international school because of it. Work has been happy and home has too. We like living in Beijing, usually. Sure, the skies can be very unhealthy at times. However, we try to make the best of what we have. Poor air days just mean staying in the filtered indoors for a movie or games. Pretty much ok with us homebodies. Our health has been good. No major issues, few minor ones. The friends and family front has been good too. No major illnesses or deaths and we got to see both our families and grandparents within the last year as well as numerous old friends. It seems the older I get the more I understand that some friendships are forever and that family is important. I can't believe sometimes how old I am already. It seems like yesterday I was young, but this aging thing is going pretty good so far.

Quite often Aya says, "we are lucky" or something of that nature. I think I say it a bit too, but mostly I am just backing her up and of course we are. This past November I was scheduled to take a group of kids to Paris for an MUN conference. It ended up being cancelled because of the attacks there and a lot of the kids were disappointed, naturally. The thing is, many of those kids still pushed to go and didn't seem to understand why they couldn't. They focused more on how it was unfair to them rather than on the gravity of the situation. This is why we constantly remind each other of our good luck and do not take it for granted. Life can change at any instance, so planning for the future is good but you must also live today as much as you can. At the same time, we cannot take for granted our good fortunes and positions in life. Getting wrapped up in what we don't have only serves to make you unhappy (unless what you don't have is crippling poverty or something). Not often enough, perhaps, do people feel satisfied. Sure, we say it time to time, the important things in life are free, etc., but how many people actually live that? This year, maybe that should be people's silly resolution. 

6 Years On

This past weekend Aya and I celebrated our 6^th anniversary and this year it was her year to choose where we would stay or what we would do. She chose wisely and we spent a night in the Kerry Hotel in downtown Beijing. The Kerry is a nice place and Aya got us an executive room. This means a “free” happy hour and small buffet as well as access the the Executive Lounge with a nice view, media, tea cookies, etc. We planned to go for afternoon tea, have a workout/use the pool, get a massage, have some dinner at the hotel and get stinking drunk. Unfortunately, the air in Beijing was apocalyptic when we arrived. Though the hotel must have some sort of filtration system, the air inside was still an “unhealthy” 180aqi.

Long story short, we ended up spending most of our time in our hotel room with the air filter the hotel could provide, playing board games and munching on the snacks the hotel provided. Much to the Kerry’s credit, Aya had told them it was our anniversary and the hotel provided a bottle of wine, nuts, and a nice cake to mark the occasion.

The luxuries of life at our finger tips, but just out of reach, it made me think about how much those things didn’t matter. I had a really great time just spending a night with Aya, playing board games, drinking some scotch, and hitting the hay early. The best things in life are (nearly) free. I can’t believe 6 years have gone by, they have gone so fast. We talked about each year that we have been together and where we were for each anniversary. It took a little doing to figure out all the details. Each year as we do this the minor things will be forgotten, I’m sure. That’s ok. The important things, they don’t get forgotten.

Celebrating 70 Years since the End of the Japanese War of Aggression

Sitting at the gate to the airport expressway I chatted with my usual driver, Mark. Mark grew up near Beijing, but not in it. He was in the PLA for a number of years as was his father for 20 years. Mark is now mostly a driver, has a wife and kids, aspires to have his own business for running tours both in Chinese and English. We were sitting at the gate for near to 30 minutes. This is what happens when someone important comes to Beijing, the whole highway gets closed off to ordinary people so that the important person can have a smooth drive to the city center (which it otherwise would definitely not be). We talked about who it might be that was coming in, would it be Putin? In just a couple days time the parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of the War of Japanese Aggression (WWII to the rest of the world) would be full on. The city had been practicing for weeks and Mark spent some of the time while we waited showing me footage captured on his phone of tanks and trucks passing intersections near where he lives downtown. The images were had to see as they were blocks away from where he was standing, guards were posted to keep people at a distance. The rest of the time we talked about the war, our families, and a bit about China. Mark said that to end the war in China it took America, Russia, and China in that order. Sounds about right to me. He also said that had not China been so large, the Japanese probably would have taken the country. Seems about right too. 

As we sat there at the gate, chatting, I kept looking at Mark and wondering how he couldn't be frustrated in the least that we spent 30 minutes not moving. I had hired him to pick me up, I had an errand I needed a car for, but his deal is that he charges by the hour and not when stuff like this happens. He was sitting there with me for free. Yet his face was calm, he didn't complain at all. I am often struck by this feature of Chinese people. First, that they remain calm in situations where many other nationalities would be blowing a gasket. Second, that they remain calm when their government does something that is clearly at their expense. 

The parade to commemorate the end of the war cost a lot of money to put on. Even more so, it cost people because of weeks of closed roads, closed business, travel restrictions, and even restrictions on residents in some places to stay in their homes. All of this so a parade could be put on that would be seen by a select few in person, while the rest of Beijing was standing at intersections watching the tanks roll by a few blocks away. I watched the parade on tv like the rest of Beijing, though I could see jets and helicopters buzzing downtown from my window. Whenever something flew over downtown I would check my tv to see what it was.

While I fully appreciate that China wants to celebrate the end of the war, I wonder if having a military parade with tanks and jets is the best way to celebrate a 70 peace. A few days later I went with a friend to the National History museum. They had an exhibit on the 70th anniversary of the war. It was a tasteful display with a number of interesting pieces of war time propaganda and photographs of Chinese troops.   

Many western leaders did not attend the ceremony and while the reasons are complex I did see a few statements about it being a military parade. Most notably Russia and S. Korea did attend, but Japan and the US along with other nations did not. It is understandable why Japan wouldn't want to attend. Many in Japan have felt the tension with China and Korea as both countries have ramped up nationalistic fervor in the past decade or two just as most Japanese have lost interest in apologizing for the war. I can't blame the Japanese of today for no longer wanting to apologize for a war they had no part in, but there have been a number of provocations as well on Japan's side, especially from their now prime minister, such as visiting the Yasakuni Shrine (a topic worthy of another blog) Interestingly, it was the emperor who said on this anniversary that Japan was remorseful, while prime minister Abe basically said nothing. Aya and I have had a few discussions about this and concluded that Japan should be remorseful, but isn't obligated to be anymore. Am I liable for the sins of my grandfather? I would say not, but confronted with them I would express remorse. 

Sitting at that highway gate with Mark I told him that one of my grandfathers had fought against Germany, then had his daughter marry a German and his grandson a Japanese. The other grandfather fought in Korea (against the Chinese no doubt). I said I was sorry if that was the case, but the world was different then. Mark said, "it doesn't matter, things change". Seems about right. 

NEH Rethinking the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

This summer I had the pleasure of attending the Rethinking the Gilded Age and Progressive Era set up by the NEH, Robert Johnston (among others), and the University of Illinois Chicago. It was a wonderful experience and I can't wait to apply for a third NEH program in the future. My first was Chinese Film and Society two years ago and that too was a great program. 

As with my first institute I learned many things both from the leaders of the program and the other teachers who were there. We took a number of tours around Chicago labor movement sites from the Pullman Factory grounds to Haymarket Square and the stockyards in S. Chicago. Though too many to list, we had a number of great speakers and readings which lead on to some very interesting discussions about the labor movement and progressive era in US history and which for me made a great connection to the second gilded age that we live in today. I have actually formed a lesson that I will try in the spring of this year in which I posit the place and responsibilities of community, employer, employee, and consumer to each other. It should be a fun lesson as China now has many factory cities which I can use as examples of the extremes employers go to both in their paternalism and in their desire to see a happy workforce as well as the fact that Chinese labor is not allowed to organize (without permission). 

I will be looking for the new postings for the summer of 2016, which should be coming some time around December of 2015. 

Summer in America

Although technically my summer here in America is not over yet, it has pretty much wrapped up. The first week I spent at my mother's house, hanging out with my brother in the evenings and trying to sort through the mess of things my brother and I had created for our mom by living in her house and leaving our old stuff there. A monumental task. When Aya's parents arrived I was excited to show them around and to have my wife with me, but like most things when you are in the driver seat, there can be moments of stress. All in all, it was a great time and Aya's dad got to mow a lawn, a true American Experience.
After that I went to Seattle to train for Global Online Academy, which I am super excited to begin. I can finally apply some of the things I learned in getting my master's degree and the timing is good too as some of those things are beginning to become out of date so I will get to refresh them. In regards to that, I have been considering getting a Phd too, but that isn't pressing and so I probably won't start it for another couple of years. Now that will be a process!
Then saw my father's for a few days where he lived. It was great to spend alone time with him, fishing and making beer, but just generally hanging out. I don't know if its my dad getting older or just time passing by, but he seems to be more and more comfortable with my life of coming and going each time I see him. This is something that I have noticed this time. I think everyone I know back in the US is now quite used to me coming and going. My mom didn't even cry this time (yes mom, I noticed!) and though my dad got choked up saying goodbye it wasn't as much as before. Seeing some old friends was great and when it was time to go the hugs broke out, but they weren't they deep long hugs as we did before. Everyone knows, this is the new normal and I will see them again next summer.
So now, here in Chicago, after 4 weeks of studying at UIC on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era it almost seems anti-climactic to be going back to Beijing at the end of the week. I will be excited to be getting closer to seeing my wife and excited to start the new school year again, but that feeling of ripping myself from this US life is no longer there. When arriving in the US, my grandfather was not there to greet me. That was awfully strange feeling. My family's cottage, though still in the family, is now changing hands and form and a lot of the childhood memories I had there will be assigned to a place that no longer exists. I am more there than here in many ways.
Especially in talking to teachers in both Seattle and Chicago, but also in seeing family and friends, I have realized that I don't really know how American lives are lived anymore and intimately as I once did. Things have changed enough since I have really lived here that I can't precisely say I know. At the same time, being someone transient doesn't give me grounding somewhere else either. I feel like I am floating outside of the sphere and its liberating, but also makes me a bit anxious.