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chinese american deserts After a miserable start at work Saturday night that I don't feel like explaining because it would just make me upset again, I felt much more like myself when I walked out the front door this morning. I could think again and I knew exactly what I wanted to do on my upcoming weekend. ... Early this morning I reached the halfway point of the book River Town and the further that I get into the book, the more that I like it. My reason for liking the book is simple. Hessler often sounds like me in many ways and I truly envy what he saw and did when he was there in China. Obviously he had a few problems, but they weren't enough to send him back to the United States. One of the main problems that he had while he was there was with his health. Because of the pollution he had sinus problems most of the time that he was there, but I guess that that is tolerable. Plus from talking with other people I've heard that being on antibiotics when in Asia is not that uncommon. Beside some health problems, Hessler also had to endure being a spectacle of sorts while he was there. Being an American in a rural Chinese town drew a lot of unwanted attention. Quite often people would shout at him as he made his way through the city. What they would shout would be the Chinese word for foreigner. Other times they would shout "Hello" as loudly as possible and it sounded menacing more than anything else. Eventually Peter learned to take this in stride, because there was nothing that he could do about it, but it did take some adjustment on his part. Then when he mentioned this habit of shouting to various Chinese people, he was told that those people were just trying to be friendly. Peter disagreed and mentioned that these people not only shouted at him, but sometimes threw things at his as well. During his break from teaching, Hessler was able to leave Fuling and go to other parts of China and since Fuling is located in the south he headed north for a change of pace. He left behind the green hills and flowing rivers for mile after mile of dry desert. He said that it was a nice contrast and he got to hear what the people in the north had to say about the people in the south. The people in Fuling had told Hessler that all of the women in the north had bad skin, because of the harsh dry weather and sun. When he mentioned this to the women in the north they were quick to respond that that was true for women in the north, but not for them because they had good water where they lived to counteract the sun and dry conditions. For me this contrast between the north and the south seemed very universal. The same kind of mild antagonism happens quite often between the North and the South in the United States. ... Months ago I had read some glowing reviews about a new comic book called Demo, written by Brian Wood and drawn by Becky Cloonan. Due to a number of reasons, I didn't get my hands on a copy until last week and finally read it this afternoon. Now having read just the second issue, I know that the reviews weren't exaggerating and that I have to get the rest of the series. Demo isn't a super hero in the strict sense. There are no costumes, but there are supernatural events in the story that have an element of the Twilight Zone to them. From what I understand each issue in the series is a self-contained story so I am curious to see if there is any joining theme running through all of them. ... Before I left for work, I saw the Gus Van Sant film Gerry. I vaguely remember the New Yorker review stating that there was very little dialogue and having seen the movie I have to say that that is definitely true. My best guess is that there were less than fifty words spoken in the final forty-five minutes of the movie. Despite the lack of dialogue, it still kept my attention. The two main characters kept walking and walking in the hope of finding the highway. Now I suspect that that for many people wouldn't be enough to keep their interest in the movie, but I had to see how it would end. Getting lost in the desert is not something that I have experienced and I can't imagine what I would do if that happen to me. Plus I found the landscape to be amazing and didn't know until the credits that it was a combination of Death Valley, Salt Lake and Argentina. All three of those locations are places that I have never visited, but hope to see sometime in the near future. |