Bejing Buddy

Nathan is originally from San Fransico. I met him this summer at the Organic Garden Interniship which we both did in Quebec this summer. He’s been studying Chinese in Bejing for the last 5 months.


Nathan: merry xmas, philibiuster!

me: happy solstice my chinese-speaking american friend!

Nathan: how are things out in the Nova of Scotia?

me: Relatively warm for this time of year, the atmosphere feels almost omniscient. Though I finished up my school term and came back to Ottawa to see my family and childhood friends for a while.
I start school again on the 3rd, which is right around the time you finish exams I think?

Nathan: yeah, I finish on the 5th
then I don’t have school again til the 26th of feb
that’s great you got to go back home and see folks

me: Yeah, not to brag or nothion’
Will you return to the states for a bit? Or maybe do a little tour while you’re out there?

Nathan: I’ll be back in the states for about a month, then back to china by way of Japan for a week

me: Cool dude! You must be stoked!
Have you met any friendly comrades over there?

Nathan: totaly
definitely made a few friends

me: Any Chinese ones?

Nathan: unfortunately, two of the closest were only here for the semester, and they left already
I’ve actually found it kinda hard to make friends with the locals beyond just making polite conversation
btw, on a totaly unrelated note
http://heliocide.livejournal.com/36706.html

Sent at 12:29 AM on Friday

me: haha, that’s fucked!

Nathan: other than that, life is good
heh
thought you’d like that
btw, I don’t know if you’re planning on being at the ashram again anytime soon, but I think one of my dearest friends is going to be an ashramite

me: So Leandra is leaving for New Orleans to teach the "Breath Water Sound" course on the 25th of Dec.!

wow! cool!
have they taken the courses?

Nathan: double cool.  that’s great that leandra’s doing the course
she’s taken the basic

Sent at 12:33 AM on Friday

Nathan: she met most of the Amhearst crew when she took the YES course, actually, a few months ago

me: wow, is she a youth?

Nathan: she’s about 22.  I think it was the YES+ course, or something
don’t remember the details

me: say, how’s Whitney doing?

Nathan: she’s been pretty crazy lately.  work and school and ever-busy social life, and on top of it all, one of her friends commit suicide last week
so it’s been tough not really being able to be there for her beyond what little I can do from so far away

me: wow, pretty tough stuff. What was the friend so depressd about?

Nathan: don’t know
I didn’t know her that well, and I haven’t really had much chance to talk about those details with Whit

me: Yeah, being in China an’ all

Nathan: I think the death of a parent was involved, though
yeah, being in China…

me: Say, are you in the largest city in China?

Nathan: umm, I think Shanghai is larger, in terms of population
but beijing is pretty huge in terms of size, regardless

me: My father told me yesterday that every year a city the size of Ottawa is built on the outskirts of Bejing because it’s just Hoppin’ with life

Nathan: I’d believe that
this place is unbeliavable huge
to take the subway across town is like an hour
have you seen any of the pics I’ve posted of beijing?

me: not in a long while, but I"d like to go see them now

Nathan: http://www.flickr.com/photos/icarus_with_a_tan/323753092/

if you look at this one closely, you can see a person at the base of the dome for scale
you’ll probably have to push the "all sizes" button
this thing is effin huge!

me: what is it?
oh, the national grand theatre

Nathan: http://www.flickr.com/photos/icarus_with_a_tan/322240520/
or there’s me on campus
where the lake froze over
we’re gonna ditch class on xmas morning, go get german food, see the forbidden city, then go back and ice skate on the lake on campus

me: ahah, good to see your firm stance again my friend

Nathan: 
I think this guy is the Chinese Santa Clause
http://www.flickr.com/photos/icarus_with_a_tan/295227772/

me: the forbidden city?

Nathan: only, that actually is his beard
yeah, forbidden city
where the emperors of China lived
a huge walled compound in the heart of Beijing, a city within a city

me: woah, sweet!
are you allowed in?

Nathan: yeah, especially since the fall of Imperial China, the relics of that time are largely tourist attractions now

me: how many people in your class?

Nathan: started out at about 25, but now it’s down to about 4 or 5

me: My goodness, is it that hard?

Nathan: partly it’s that
partly it’s that a lot of people were only here for the one semester, and they had to leave early
all the norwegians and CIEE kids

me: CIEE?
 

Nathan: Council on International Educational Exchange

me: (wow, nice gongs in that market)

Nathan: god, they have everything there
I did all my xmas shopping there

me: What did you get for everyone?

Sent at 12:51 AM on Friday

Nathan: scroll paintings, little canvas book bags with Mao on the front, communist propaganda posters, an ancient, copper combination lock for my friend who’s an archaeology major, some jade carvings, some photo
photo’s of himalayan mountains and giant buddhas
paper cuttings
etc

me: are things cheap there?

Nathan: absurdly cheap
I can eat for about 3 dollars a day, if I want to economize
a years gym membership is about 200 dollars

me: was the guy that was drawing pictures of kittens and bamboo reeds selling his work ?

Nathan: yeah, he had a whole stall of his art

me: that’s beautiful stuff

Nathan: if you have the vocabulary to communicate with him, he’d probably do requests, too
yeah, that market is about the size of two or three football fields

me: Jumpin’ G willikers

Nathan: I bought all those presents for everybody for a total of about $150-200
and that’s 1-2 presents for about 15 people

me: good lord

Nathan: including some really nice, very large scroll paintings
that is one thing I’ll miss about this place
everything is so damn cheap

me: My roomate’s friend just came back from there and he says that a lot of the population is oblivious to antyhing that exists outside of China or chinese history. For example, they didn’t even know there was a lunar landing

in your opinion, is this prevelent?

Nathan: hard to say, honestly
I wouldn’t be at all surprised
but I haven’t talked in depth with enough chinese people
I sure as hell don’t know how to say Lunar Landing, yet
my chinese isn’t that good

me: haha
That guy with the backwards feet is incredible!@

Nathan: yeah.  he has no legs below the knee, so he wears backward shoes for balance
there’s also the pic of the armless beggar

me: haven’t gotten to that one yet

Nathan: the beggars and the homeless out here are pretty intense
it’s hard to see them, sometimes, and not want to do something

me: I’m at these huge glass towers, there’s about 5 all clumped together. Are those apartments?

Nathan: but like with homeless everywhere, the problem is not whether they have an extra dollar today, it’s that they’re never going to leave the streets…
I think so, yeah
that’s across the street from where I live

me: Is it because there’s nowhere they could go live if they actually had any money?

Nathan: partly that, yeah
it takes a lot of momentum to get out of the streets anywhere
and as a begger in china, there’s not many places you can go

me: nice rooves, all curvy n’ such

Nathan: yeah, the architecture here still blows me away
especially when I think how old some of it is
and how new some of the stuff 10 feet away is

Sent at 1:03 AM on Friday

me: I guess if you build something incredibly beautiful and strong, the manipulation of time will unphase its existence.

Nathan: that sounds like the premise for some good sci-fi

me: I’ve been watching a little of that lately

Nathan: cool

Sent at 1:05 AM on Friday

me: Btw, the friend I have who reminded me of you (in the sense that you both have made fictional DND style characters who kick ass in mystical fantasy battles) now lives in my house

Nathan: nice
very cool
would love to meet him some day

me: I’m helping him a bit with ideas for him trying to write a book about his imaginary adventures.

Nathan: nice

me: The story you told me that day of the tents still sticks in my mind

Nathan: tents?
I don’t remember

me: our task was to set up tents and take them down as means to organize them. for an hour we just stood there and you told me this incredible story

Nathan: oh yeah, I remember the tent fiasco
I wish I could remember which story I told you, but I’