Swine Influenza

I was going to write about how job experience is only really, truly valuable if one has a lot of it on a specific path. Those of us who 'dabble' down different paths inevitably find themselves back on the center stone of contemplation...while those who chose a path and stuck to it end up at levels unreachable otherwise.

But, the swine flu is taking place. That sounded mundane as hell. Here are some notable quotes:

"World Health Organization....said the flu was being spread by human-to-human transmission..."

"Containment is not an option," remarked Dr. Keiji Fukudu, the WHO's flu expert.

152 people in Mexico are suspected dead as a result of this influenza, with nearly two thousand more Mexicans under observation as likely infected.

There have been confirmed cases of infected people in New Zealand, Israel, USA (50 confirmed cases), UK, and suspected cases in many other countries. Right now, the WHO classifies this swine flue as phase 4, capable of human-human transmission (a serious step in of itself) and community level outbreaks. At least in Mexico, it is already very serious.

My girlfriend, reading an online paper the other day, remarked she thought this was going to be very big. So far, while we aren't going to choose pork anytime soon (whether or not this helps), panic hasn't hit. But there's something there, a small sense of dread lurking. If another situation like in Mexico occurs in another country we will be in phase 5...with phase 6 the full blown pandemic everyone is afraid of.

Tomorrow we're going to buy masks. Stocks have fallen due to the outbreak, travel to the Americas has been "discouraged" by the EU, and talks of quarantining possible infected in Asia have arose but restricting travel has been declared all but useless by international health officials.

A vaccine would take five months or longer, so it seems like now the best we can do is be careful, stay away from pig farms, cover our mouths when we sneeze, and read the news. And pray (some of us). And buy masks. There are already cases of recovery (one Israeli male who traveled to Mexico and back, for example).

Wish everyone good health and chicken.

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CNN reports on how different countries are dealing with the influenza situation (including what appears like a swipe at the Philippines): http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/28/swine.flu.international/index.html

An interesting blog post from an "MD based in Europe", not impressed by the reporting: http://lukas.zinnagl.com/2009/04/medical-thoughts-on-swine-flu/

The title of the CNN report is, interesting, the most "fear-inducing" as it reads "World Battle's Swine Flue as Death Toll Rises". Scary stuff!

Girlfriend and roommate are still on high alert, judging from excited voices in adjacent room. Then again, they might be talking about boys. They are speaking in Dutch which I still don't understand after 2 years.

Ik hou von yao.

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Yoinks. Just realized King is coming to visit from Hong Kong. King is a sharp, career oriented, handsome young Singaporean with ultra thin wrists. I liked him a lot before he said this to one of my female friends while at a night club:

"You look nice tonight. Not your usual slutty self."

After he said that I liked him more. You had to be there. Otherwise...it sounds...offensive. Crap.

Anyways, Hong Kong and China were at the center of the SARS epidemic back in 2003. Many lessons have been learned, perhaps most of all communication. Right now China is quarantining patients who check in with fever systems; Hong Kong is a step ahead with infrared scanners checking everyone who comes into the island's international airport for signs of fever. One official remarked that "washing hands and wearing masks" made a far larger positive impact than the full body suits health officials initially wore during SARS. Unless you believe Zinnaglism. But at least, wash your hands with soap.

If King calls on Friday saying he feels under the weather and won't be able to party, we'll be two steps ahead of him- we won't pick up. The girls were talking about ordering noodles.

New York Times swine flue story title reads "With Swine Flue Cases Rising, Borders are Tightened", mom makes joke online about having chicken...or fish. Fear factor falling...falling.

Maybe we can hang out on Friday...with masks?

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Asking folks the same question: "Are the people [in your country] afraid of the swine influenza?"

Chicago: "I think more so in the border states. CA, TX, etc.
but the midwest doesn't seem to be too troubled.
Once u start messing with the food supply though. Americans are gonna be pissed and scared big time."

D.C.: " im not. i havent heard too much we are having a measles outbreak here now too"
REALLY?
"Ya,like there was this woman who had it cruising around alexandria shopping malls and they had to notify everyone who shopped there that day that they might have come into contact
and shit"

Shanghai:"no, we are not afraid of swine flu la"

Hong Kong: "im a bit sick, flu like symptons, maybe i'll feel better after i see u and lucy"
FUCK?

UK:"no, not many cases on this small island"

Wenzhou:"yea...i'm kinda catching a cold."

Seems that things are not so bad. Let's show concern, but not panic, yah?

the kids

I was hit, deep in a spiral of guilt and self-pity.
Looking at the outside world with no love, and finding enough to detest in every friend I'd ever met in the papery reel of memory whirring in my brain, I was hit.

Hit with the virtue. Hit by the children.

My brother, I forget the false name I gave him in my blogs so I'll just go with Scales...he opened me up to his world.

The malaise I had found myself under for the past months was a combination of outward forces drawing out my own inner weakness. The fear of failure is probably the single biggest of my life. It strangles me, sometimes, when I lay in bed. I fear looking back at my life with regret when I'm older, and I grow anxious at the though of others judging me negatively to the point of paranoia. I endlessly capitulate to that worry, and when I inevitably do I enter a vapid state of near inconsolable despair. A former lover called it me getting into my moods.

During this period, I felt I was doing dull boring work (actually true) and that I was destined, due to poor choices made, to not be able to find any kind of interesting career in the future. This last point is a guilty terror felt by privileged, middle class young people everywhere. That the hard work put in by our parents, often the first generation to get into college and then to continue to tertiary or higher degrees, will be unable to be repaid. That we will take our silver spoons and lick them clean and whine when there's no more because we never learned to do anything for ourselves. We enviously cast glances at our peers who took the spoon and ran to the finish with zeal and cadence to institutions like Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge. We especially feel small when we look at those, who like our parents before us, did more with less and clawed their way to heights in a way we can't fully comprehend. That guilty conscience: not living up to expectations.

This tangent might seem to be a beam of toxic green light firing away from my intended subject, but it's coming back.

I still said to myself sometimes, At least I'm not teaching English for a living.

English teachers. Teaching English. The terms are weighed on a unique scale in China. In my view this is true. The scale consists of perceptions and values, and measures the worth of the job. Teachers in the USA are largely viewed as under appreciated, underpaid, and infinitely crucial to society and the future of the country and world. It is a hard job, and a stressful one. Not everyone is cut out for it. Patience, authority, social skills, understanding, knowledge, humility, and experience and education are the facets of teaching required to be effective. Teachers should get more pay, and praise, for the new generation they are bringing along. That is the perception in America towards the teachers of America.

In Shanghai, I quickly learned that if someone asked you what you did, a good response is NOT "I'm a teacher". Why? I asked. Because to teach English you just need to have graduated from college, be from America (or the UK, or Canada, etc.) and it helps if you're white. Some large schools require certification, but if you apply online you can get it through a short training course at the school. In short, if you can speak English and went to college, you can make good money in China. Many people (both Chinese and foreigner) dismiss the English teacher as a job requiring little skill. "I guess I could always teach a little English on the side, you know for money, you know, while I look for a real job," is a fairly common thing to say and hear here. My roommate Rocksteady once told an asker, I work for a company called Berlitz. Berlitz is a very well known language institution, and he was an English teacher for them. It goes to show that even those good teachers working for good places feel the need to add a little something, to defend their position. The "Yes I am, however..." is something many of us feel necessary.

I have a lot of respect of teachers, having taught a class and tutored before myself a little. It isn't easy to control children, and it isn't easy to motivate adults and young people. The rewards can be quite stunning, but more on that later. I have respect for teachers, but definitely found myself under that shroud of not wanting to "resort"to becoming an English teacher. The most tangible reason wasn't the taboo of course, it rarely is when you're being paid more money, but rather the lack of career path afterward. In a country where English teachers are ALWAYS in demand, and the salary is quite high, you might wonder why teaching English doesn't get more respect in a city where money is the cat's meow. If you can afford to get a table at Guandi (I'm showing myself to be a hasbeen on the club scene, right here and now) or Richy (still oscillating with the most delectable nectars of Sino...ok I'm showing myself to be a sleaze) then who cares where the money comes from? Probably because unless you're really going to be G.T.x and be a teacher for life and rise through the ranks of administrations or evolve into a professor, you're only doing it part time. And everyone seems to know it, just as you do.

So in my combination of arrogance and despair, I pushed that world my bro was a part of into the recesses of the basement. Satisfied to spend the light droning on and on, and in the night battle pathetically with perceived demons from my past I feared were haunting and judging my current state-hovering over my bed with wicked malice. When in fact...they weren't thinking about me at all. You prolly think this song is about you...

And so I went to Scales's school where he teaches science and English among other things. It was well out of the city, from the advertisements and the products. From the shopping. He introduced me to his coworkers and showed me the new building of the school. Most importantly, all around me where the students, the children. Their ice cream faces (I'm partial, as anyone knows...to Asian kids...ain't gonna change because they just ruin me with their cuteness) and jokes at my expense were delightful. Scales alternated between keeping them in order and playing with them. Though I sensed that if they formed up into a mob they could easily overtake him, the key thing I saw was a connection with his kids.

What did I do? I ran up prices on accessories to everything in an online store and answered emails on why those accessories were breaking or not arriving and figuring out how to make people buy more of the accessories and market our image as a brand that had accessories to everything...that wouldn't break. That and teaching others how to do my job so I could go to more meetings. That's what I did.

My bro? He's about to sign his 4th teaching contract. A fourth year working with the cutest, most ice-creamy faced kids you've ever seen. Kids with bright smiles and futures who have a lot of love for him- and he for them.

And when I look back at days spent at summer camp as a counselor...when I taught Michael long division one of those summers and the unmatched joy it brought both of us...I realize that he is doing something I happily did, and saw myself doing and up until today had looked upon with the ugly, grey filmed over eye of the vulture.

Children melt away hardness of the heart, and sweeten the bitterest taste of defeat until it gives way to things that matter more. The ones who make us remember we were all children, and so were they-the demons of our past big and small. Their innocence forces a smile from the miserable, and stays the hand and harsh words of the angry. In each and every one of them, from the shy one reticent to enter the ball game, to the loud one yelling in your face the words of a juvenile playground song, carries a seed of benevolence as pure and delicate as layers of sugar paper softly folded together. To nurture that benevolence in them is a precious gift.

going the way of the highway

we're all here, suffering whether or not we know it.
growing stranger to our stems
while making love with foreign thoughts
East meets West
and the meek shudder
A wind blows cold
and gray skies eclipse suns
We strap ourselves in, gleefully
inside iron maidens adorned with silk and jewels
our faces frowning
grinning

Only those who know can save us
Most of them forgot this already

Dinner with Lupin, the 3rd

Just had dinner with Lupin. In two years living in Shanghai I've neither heard nor tasted 鲶鱼(Ni-yen yoo). This long, ugly, black fish was cooked with spices, onions, and more spice over an electric "hot pot" and accompanied by a variety of tofu skin, lettuce, small dumplings, and mushrooms free for us to add into the bubbling pan. It was sweet but not too sweet, with a texture that bordered on firm but with enough softness to dispel comparisons to swordfish or shark. With a little beer, we sat in that fluorescent lighted Sichuan fish restaurant talking about the experiences we'd had over the last year and half since last we saw each other. Between knowing comments and smiles we dipped chopsticks into the flesh of this fish.

It was catfish. First I'd tasted in China.

You're thin. How is your Chinese? You look depressed...maybe it's your hair. How is your Dutch girlfriend? Good? Those were the questions leveled by my dimunitive companion. He looked exactly the same, a bit between a mole and a rat with his glasses and light-upon-non-existing-beard and his skinny frame. He looked exactly the same as when I had met him at a 小龙虾(sheeao long shia, crawfish) place when I'd first arrived in Shanghai in 2007. I told him he'd changed, but that he was mostly the same. I was prepared for all his questions, especially the one about looking depressed. I told him it was the hair.

We talked about the people we knew who had left. I mentioned the people who'd stayed and who I didn't talk with anymore. That's a better indication of how much has changed...the people you vacationed with and had sou juu with and laughed with knowingly who became awkward less-than strangers. Strangers you know how to talk to. You say how are you. Friends who become like this, well, you're liable to start talking about the past every time you meet until you both realize that's the only thing you're doing when what you should be doing is making memories for the time you meet years down the road and...you realize it's not gonna happen. We talked about that a little.

Mostly, we talked about each other and ourselves. Lupin told me about his mom, the best mom in the world. I told him she was great but that I couldn't say that title out loud for obvious reasons. He asked me how I knew. I told him that I saw it in her eyes on his graduation day. A little of it also in how she treated me and treated the soft spoken driver who went with us to restaurants and to the ceremony itself and how I almost mistook for a relative and even almost mistook for his father at one point. But mostly, I saw it in how proud, and how damn happy she was her son was graduating. It was the only day I met with her, maybe she looked like that with her face scrunched up so and her eyebrows gracefully curved down in sadness but overpowered with the joy of her smile. Maybe she did.

And make no mistake, Lupin is smarter than me. Smarter than me and nearly the same dreamer as me. He sure won't waste time like I feel I inevitably will.

We talked about destiny versus following our dreams and heart. I mentioned YJamison (this is sheer name butchery here...), probably the guy I'll always and forever come back to when I think of the steps it takes a guy to choose his path in life. I can't call him fucking YJamison. I'll call him Yung. He is a Korean who studied and lived in America, not far from my house coincidentally, and he walks with his hands clasped behind his back like an old Chinese. Yung used to tell me how he wished he envied people who could do what they wanted, instead of walking a path paved for him by societ, parents, and a destiny.

Lupin told me that he most certainly was going to follow his passion, and that I needed to do the same. His English had improved, and he was more confident. He still needed a lot of advice when it came to women, and I happily obliged because that is one of the only things I feel confident in advising people about.

We said goodbye with a firm handshake and a hug.

About two months later I coached him through an interview for a doctorate of pharmacology scholarship at Oxford. He had prepared materials and answers, and called me. We did the mock interview and I was impressed when he started talking about global citizenship, community work outside the lab, and being a well rounded person. I had nearly nothing to add, and wished him luck.

I imagined him waiting for news back from Oxford about the scholarship. Nearly two years ago at Tao Li Yuan at Jiao Tong University he had nearly grasped Machine and my hands in his saying "Pray for me". At that time he was waiting for word from Jiao Tong on whether he'd won a very, very competitive scholarship award to do his master's at Oxford.

This time, I didn't receive any news, nor messages of uncertainty or needing to meet up for a talk and some liquid courage. Instead, just a few days ago, I messaged him online and asked how it was going. He said he was just about to call me to tell me he got the scholarship. He was going to go back to Oxford, this time for 3 years, and would come back a doctor.

We're meeting tomorrow, and I expect him to be the happiest guy alive. I just wish I could have seen his mother's face when Lupin told her the good news.

free

free to live on the edge a little...hope i choose that edge instead of looking for safer ground.

ode to an angel

Bronze skinned angel
Voice like delicate sea shell shaped bells of iridescent pink and pearl
She comes up through the tall grass all hair and arms swinging
Smiling as she comes over and down the ridge
Into my arms
And hold her as I hold her in the night
To feel her warmth for myself, and the way we fit together
To float away the time as if we were small cherubs in the clouds
with nothing more than to rest our chins in chubby palms and watch the world go by lazily
But also to protect her, to clutch her not with jealousy, though perhaps a little,
more so to safeguard her from the cruelness of the world and of widespread realities
that swirl in the shadows and call out menacing names
She's pure, she speaks no art
Yet her mind and manner, her thought and lack of tactic,
that down to earth pureness
are Art in of itself.
Her life is art, and I feel but as a watcher not worthy even when she moves me to tears

She's held me, too
During black moods of selfish sympathy
Ghosts of the past, phantoms of doubt and hypocrisy and sin and suffering
Weaved together if only for a lack of light
She does her best to dust them away with sun
While taking no credit for her hard work, her eyes not searching for gratitude
She not offering lip service, instead throwing open curtains
And letting me bask in simple warmth

Like a child she runs and plays, her smile too large for vanity
Eyes like small onyx stones dance with delight
She's angry now, I've called her a kid
She sulks like one, too, and then we share a laugh
The best girl I ever knew
Kinny