Today I realized that I might be the coolest person in this city, if only because of the fact that I know who Led Zeppelin is. More on that thought later. Getting used to this place has been a stranger and more difficult experience than I thought it would be, and I think I might have some inkling of why that is. For one, it's just four of us now. We're out of our dynamic roving band of merry foreigners, and we're left with just us, and as far as I can tell, none of us make good social leaders (I know that I don't for sure), and this makes obtaining a lively group dynamic an uphill climb for all of us. This fact is not helped by the fact that we all have our own rooms, and as such, nobody sees anyone unless they physically go and see them, and right now, I believe, and I may be completely wrong, that we're all just too damn tired following our whirlwind teaching tour of northeast China to put forth much effort on that front.
There's another thing about the rooms that I've noticed, and it's probably a very important one: my room feels like a little America. I have all of my music, all of my TV shows, all of my books, and all of them are from home, and they make things feel like I'm at home. Granted, it's a sweaty, humid version of home, but it's enough to trick my mind into comfort. Couple this with the surprisingly fast Internet access in my room, and the fact that I can peer into my screen and with a few clicks it becomes a portal to one of you where we can converse as though we aren't thousands and thousands of miles away, my room becomes a comfortable, womb-like environment that is actually kind of hard to leave. Is that a bad thing? Maybe so, maybe not. All it really provides is a protective cocoon to keep me from the fact that I'm still in rural China.
Finally, it's worth noting that even if I wanted to leave the cocoon, I have nowhere to go for leisure. I mean, there are restaurants and stores here, but those are really only places I go if I need something, like food, or the delightful running shoes I bought earlier today, but they aren't places to go to hang out or meet people. Really, all I want is a bar. I've gone through my adult life under the assumption that no matter where I would go, there would at least be a bar I could go to, and in that, I thought I had some sort of social security. China doesn't have bars. I'm in a town of 3.4 million people, and if I'm lucky, there is one bar in the entire town. If I'm unlucky, there are none, and that upsets me more than it should. It's not about drinking, which you can do anywhere here, including sidewalks and just walking down the street. It's about the whole Cheers thing, the place where everyone knows your name. A social place, a place where you can just go and sit for a long while without feeling pressure to leave, like a restaurant gives after you've been in it for too long after you've finished eating. A social rallying point, like the Midi gave me and my friends during college. I'm not sure I can find that here, and as such, I'll probably end up spending too much time in my room, and my ability to socialize will be damaged, like I was afraid of when I received this position.
Other than that, there hasn't been a whole lot of stuff going on here, as you could probably guess. Last night we tried in vain to find a bar to go to, but we only ended up with sweat and disappointment. I slept late today, as I am wont to do when able, listened to the Phish show in Colorado live through the wonders of the internet, and caught a bus into town. I had two goals for this excursion, buy running shoes, and wander aimlessly. I succeeded in both goals. I got lunch at the KFC, and everyone stared at the foreigner sitting by himself with Led Zeppelin II going through his headphones, eating a chicken sandwich by himself. The mere act of me eating is spectacle here. As I ate, I thought to myself that none of them had any clue who Led Zeppelin was, and I felt the same way that I would suppose a missionary feels when they think of all of the people who don't know who Jesus is. This knowledge made me feel cool.
After eating, I took a right and kept to the shady side of the street, and to my non-surprise, I found most of the places I found were exactly the same as all of the other places I had been. There is very, very little variation in shops in China, so little that I can't help but wonder how they all stay in business. Even the technology district suffered from the same problem. I walked past the same Lenovo store four times in the span of a mile, and I can't imagine any of them are making much money. As such, my walk was a bust, except for the last part of my trip. Just off the main street, I may have found what the Hold Steady calls the sweet part of the city. There's definitely a bunch of restaurants, and there might be a bar, I'm not exactly sure. Miles and I are going to investigate tonight. I returned to the KFC, bought running shoes for $30, and caught the bus back. Mission accomplished.
I think I'm going to enjoy my cocoon and watch an episode of Louie now. I'll probably work on the retrospective when I get back from the potential bar tonight, so look for it soon, unless it spirals out of control and becomes a 20 page behemoth, which it very well may.
-Cooper
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