The small matters are mostly mere frustrations: the fact that I can’t take a proper shower at home for instance. My first day here Auntie Zhang explained that hot water was limited and sporadic, and demonstrated her system: a pair of shallow buckets to fill with warm water and then splash oneself with after turning off the shower spigot. I joined the gym the next day. But some days I just don’t have time to go and there’s no choice but to curse and shiver my way clean.
Another source of irritation has been the construction work on a neighboring building. Every single day for more than a month there have been construction workers less than 15 feet from my window
building this:
Apparently it will keep the building’s residents cooler in the summer. I’m so happy for them.
The noise isn’t usually too bad, but being forced to choose between light and privacy is. I’ll be working at my desk with the curtains open and then look out to find that a ruddy-skinned country boy (all of the construction workers in big Chinese cities are from the countryside, officially termed the “floating population”) is staring at me dumbly. Do you know how frustrating it is when you don’t even have the one-finger salute in your communication repertoire? It isn’t nearly as satisfying to scowl and close the curtains with a dramatic flourish, but what else can I do? I really need to learn some offensive Chinese hand gestures.*
Many of you have heard already about my research troubles and I won’t elaborate here, aside from saying that it is exhausting and disheartening to be denied at every turn. I’m learning a little through my own channels but I can’t get official access and I’ve gone down so many roads that have turned out to be dead ends. I don't like being without a meaningful task and I feel like I'm disappointing my committee and wasting my time.
Y'all know I'm not exactly thick-skinned, and so the worst part of living here is also the best: I find everything so curious and compelling and that leaves me wide open to letting things affect me, both positively and negatively. I think that’s an important quality for an anthropologist and I don’t want to lose it, but it can also be draining. Although urban life suits me nicely and I feel far more at home here than I ever did in Bloomington, this is also a dense, dirty city with more than twice the population of New York. Sometimes, on what I like to call “bad China days” my favorite quote from The Wasteland comes to mind:
Unreal city,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
I do enjoy getting caught up in all the chaos, losing myself in the powerful currents of urban life, but it takes a certain degree of engagement that I don’t always have the energy for. When I first got here I could stand on the subway entertained by watching and listening to people for the entirety of my 40 minute commute to campus but more and more I’ve been relying on electronic devices to help me pass the time while being jostled and squished and trying not to think about communicable illnesses. Ever since I got my iphone unlocked and started carrying it with me everywhere again, I have frequently fallen prey to the dangers of shuffle. I am just not strong enough to deal with the disjointing combinations that result: listening to Starship Trooper (the "Awesome" version, of course) while perusing vegetables at the market, enjoying the mashy goodness of The Grey Album as my bus staggers past Tiananmen... it's just too much for my tiny brain to handle. Time and distance collapse and contract and I'm everywhere and nowhere all at once. I'm sure you've all had similar experiences.
I once spent a long melancholy day at the Peking University library after spending my commute listening to the entirety of an album on constant rotation on my last few days in Seattle and which made shimmering water and steep hills appear before me like mirages. Oh dry flat dirty populous city, you cannot compare, you cannot compare.
*Since I first wrote this, I have not only learned a uniquely Chinese offensive hand gesture, but also verified that flipping the bird is in fact comprehensible to the majority of the population. Sadly, the construction next door is almost finished.
4 comments:
Emmy and I owe you postcards more than ever. This post confirms that we must post them, post haste.
Your sad days are interesting, beautiful, and, from the sounds of it, fulfilling on some deep level. Great post.
I had some serious difficulties with access. The rural elite in Brazil have ways to keep themselves sheltered from the prying eyes of outside researchers. I spent 9 months frustrated but determined, and 3 months sprinting once a door was opened. I thought this kind of experience was common, but actually most people I speak with had fewer access problems. I turned it into a chapter re: methods/social class and visibility.
I once met someone who had gone to Venezuela to study Indigenous politics. She spent 10 months in government offices, only to learn that they would most likely keep her from conducting her study. She wrote up her work as a study of Venezuelan bureaucracy. “It’s all data”, she said.
I don’t know how useful this is, but solidarity can bring comfort sometimes. Consider yourself solidaritized ;-)
Kirk, no hurry! Mail is not required but it is appreciated!
Matt, thank you my king!
Ryan, I do appreciate the solidarity -- it isn't as if I didn't expect to have setbacks but the frustrations can be awfully intense...
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