小树

It's been a while that I haven't written anything here, but I reassure you that I'm not going to present any substantial change in either vocabulary or plot. That is to say, I'm writing the same old story filled with drear and desperation. But hey, this mindset is about to change, no? Given that I'm finally financially secured and stabilized by a what's-not-to-love job at times of economy crisis. Some folks even marveled this moment as "You are a woman now." Like yesterday I was a cicada in a shoebox, and now I'm a Dürerian rabbit with delicate fur.
At the mental relaxation created by regular income, I begin to have the drive to write something. It doesn't have to be a book, nor does my expansion of expression allow me to. I don't have to be as harrowing as Anita Brookner, or as hilarious as Kathy Lette. I mean, A.J. Jacobs sells regardless his over-elaborate anecdotes are not quite as enchanting as Joyce's succinct badinage over a suburb Dublin wanker. Maybe by being such an Olympic name dropper I can now work for magazines. Those who cater their readers' taste to muddle indifference with majesty, narcissism with benevolence, and self-deification with classic.
What about freelancing for them so that you don't have to retreat to proverbs, clichés, and happy endings? I seriously thought about this, however, haven't managed to send out any letter as everyday I'm home, I'm flat dead. Don't how to put myself through, or whether a facetious intro line would work, like "I've been to loads of job interviews. Every time I had to make them believe that I possess some classic American values like being honest, marrying young and dying old. I would like to start to do something where I can be myself." No, this sounds even incredulous and blighting to myself. By definition, I imagine a freelancer would be told "As you are bestowed with utmost self-governance on both your time and content, you should not expect sympathy from us at any casualty or forlorn situation, e.g. PMS or constipation."

 Dearest Daxiang Mi,
Bible says "With the humble is wisdom." Did not you just erase all your writings and resound the noisy world with your humble silence? I thus do not understand God's plan no more. Likewise, I know that writing down these words is not unlike exhibiting my sore emotion which few people would understand. However, I do need to exclaim my deep grief. I found it hard to withhold it. I hope you can see from your beautiful eyes in heaven my broken heart.
I miss you so much.

Love,
Xiaoshu

    

This afternoon I went to a symposium on "Post-Olympic China" at the Dutch Institute of International Studies. Speeches were made on Chinese political, economic, legislative and security issues, however, on every period but post-Olympic. Apparently it was too bombastic a title and people hardly knew which criteria to implement on this antic prediction. Congruent to my anticipation, it comprised bland stories, derivative opinions, and pompous linguistics, which doesn't appear surprising no more after having listened to a few art history symposiums where professors talked Latin right onto your face.
Though being profoundly intrigued, I couldn't help deriding the professors who addressed the Chinese politics in an academic seriousness as if there exists intellectual values in the leaders' regimes and speeches. Meanwhile, I couldn't neither stand people carrying a "free-T*b*t" slogan bashing the Chinese human rights situation. I just can't love or debunk the Chinese government while having my feet rooting on the dais. I almost don't have a coherent viewpoint and it is a bit over convoluted. For instance, I don't feel sorry going back to Beijing where you don't spot strippers and pot shops right next the school faculty, but the great firewall does freak me out. I like Chinese online forums but hate the baidu encyclopedia, reading which is not unlike chewing others' regurgitation. Holland and China will be much better places respectively having access to better food and wikipedia.
Another thing that kept me excited over a few days is that we got a kitty cat in our house. A black horse-celerity cutie named Blixem. Suddenly there's much liveliness and alacrity in the house. I almost tolerated him bivouacking on my bed.

I have been feeling like an idiot (mainly because my Dutch remains at entry level) ever since January 18 when I got back to Holland, an idiot with ceaseless PMS which I name PMSHOFLM (PMS hanging over from last month). The thesis has been like constipation (literal pain in the ass) and so far I haven't been favored by the Lord's epiphany even though what I wrote is no other than hymning how glorified he was. Today in the restaurant I served an outrageously arrogant couple in identical blue & white stripes and had an acute desire to greet "Good afternoon cunt. What can I do to satisfy your reverse digestion?" The woman ordered a sherry and I replied in my best Dutch "Wilt u sherry dry of medium?" She went on pinpointing "droog, droog". I wish the Lord's epiphany landed on me slightly earlier so that I could associate it with "drought" and looked less filled with lunacy. Today there also was a guy, pretty but timid and startled, asking whether he could sit at the table but have only a beer. He tipped us ten times of the beer and ran off. For ten seconds I thought I just flash saw the Dutch Napoleon Dynamite, however who could more than likely be on drug or state lottery. I have jolly more or less memorized the menu in Dutchonese and felt less odd pronouncing the names once I considered ludicrous, i.e. tjap tjoy, babi pangang, foe yong hai, etc, etc. Other than that, I have also learned how to pump beer, make Irish coffee, and serve a chubby kid soft ice without looking officious. I read Pushkin when there's no guests, whose witty lines kind of have cheered up my gloomy days of this sorrowful summer.

The Turks lost the game to the German headball team. I was expecting a one beer, two beer, three beer, floor night with discount doeners, but now I'm f*cking sober as hell. Have been quite empathizing myself with the game, though it's becoming an immense bore. As the kick ass Portugas was rot op, the Eurocup to me has turned into an Ender's Game, brainy aliens mass killing humans by devastating both their pride and testicles. However, I was in between shortly jolly striken when the arrogant blunt was removed by the Russian dolls. No matter how much you were cheered by the Turkish miracle, graffiti artists earn no more respect than staid engineers. Last minute goals were read by commentators as cheating, and the kick along the run by Piggy (Schweinsteiger's Chinese nickname) a trill genuineness. As the game is now already too puke like, I'd guess there's even no point buying alcohol for the rest two. No motivation drinking for either the topless Siberian, the supercilious Bavarian or the petite Andalucian. Big entertainment to human curiosity if the Turks had won (which would have conveyed the game to a less Hollywood movie like look). Odds keep us entertained. I still remember how so I was amused by fantasizing the Chinese puppets stun Kaka and O Fenomeno in the 2002 Worldcup. But underneath the fancies lies the whipping idealistic soul. Six years later their poking turtle head is again switched off by those who are already screwed by missiles.

Voor een heel week heb mijn leven genconcenteerd om niets maar Eurocup en chips. Markten moeten nooit de chips in korting plaatsen! Ik heb belist dat ik ga voor een moment het gemakkelijk opnemen. Onlangs voel ik helemaal zat want de miljoen dingen wat moet ik doen. Plus ben ik meestal verwaard bij de vijf taalen tegelijkertijd spreken. Gewoonlijk begin ik te van een spraak houden na ik kan de vloeken hanteren, maar het geldt niet voor het Nederlands. Het is al een slecht taal zonder de vloeken. Echter vind ik het Albert Heijn Welpies liedje zeer leuk. Misschien van deze liedje begin ik zijn schoonheid te ontdekken! Jammer dat Oranje heeft verloren maar ik heb vanavond nog mijn liefst Italiaans! Ik heb mijn nagels in blauw geschieldeerd. Maar jammer dat ze moeten het Spanje vechten, van wie houd ik ook. Ik wou dat de Duits hoofdbalteam niet langer in de Cup blijven. Maar erg slecht gaan ze tegen de Turk, die maar een amateur team is.
     

Ricordo che quando ero a BJ, mi sono incontrata con un ragazzo che mi ha domandato, 'Parlai il Francese?' 'Si.' 'Sai cosa significa enc*ler?' 'No. Che cosa vuoi dire?' 'Nah, dimenticatelo ragazza. Quella e' la piu' sporca parola nel Francese. Cavolo dovrebbe comportati!'  Non fu prima d'ieri sono venuto da capirla. Accorgo che infatti mi sono rivelata essere una ragazza che non si comporta. Malgrado il fatto che parlo 'fanc*lo' ogni giorno ('dank u (grazie)' in l'Olandese si pronuncia come 'dans c* (nel tuo c*lo)' nel Francese), ho apparemente persistito la regolarita' di parlare 'che c*zzo' 20 volte al giorno, piu' o meno e' a causa della mia rozzezza, che tra l'altro mi stupisce tutto il tempo. E dico 'merda' da innumerevole. Non ho trovato molto vulgarita' italiana on line, purtroppo. I miei amici italiani sono gente troppo gentile chi non me la insegnano.

Ma mère il y'a des jours a été tellement furieuse sûr mon écrit personel en QQ: 'Je voulais bien être complètement silencieuse qu'être la volute de silence.' Certainement y'a-t-elle échoué à conaître cette définition n'était aucune création de la mienne. J'ai cité Elizabeth Neumann, qui a commenté sûr la solitude appliquée généralement à l'homme dans une étude faite d'après une enquête sûr la grande election allemand en 1977. Ma mère a pensé-t-elle que cet écrit n'était qu'une expression idiotte et sinistre, spécialement dans un temps très si spécial. J'y en ai été pas convaincu avant. J'ai simplement lu trop de croyance négative, sûr l'état, la party, et le gouvernement, individuel, ou alignée (qui n'est pas necessairement plus autorisé, e.g. les parents qui onts perdu leurs enfants et étaient unifiés.) Et pourtant ne puis-je être en colère puisque de toute façon c'est pas moi qui à l'endurer. Je ne trouve pas un equilibre entre le patriotism et d'être en bas-esprit. O le patriotism, disait Oscar Wilde, la vertu du vicieux. Je ne peux pas s'empêcher de parcourir les sites chinoise des nouvelles, qui encore me dérangent: leurs discours monopoles, l'esprit haut, et la tristesse et le courage forcé. On a interdit l'autre voix que celle d'un coeur rouge, des foudre contre la parole qui l'on fait mal à notre faible ego, et d'une tristesse nationale si forte qu'on n'a plus besoin de loisir, de NBA. Tous cela m'appaitent extrêmement compliqués.

“It’s indeed not easy for you international students to study in Holland”, said the lecture of the workshop “Time management”. It was much alike joining an AA meeting but wearing name tags and talking about more abstract problems of being lazy and disorganized. Everyone was relieved in the end and thanked her “It seems my situation isn’t the worst”. I needn’t to be loquacious here but almost of you could have guessed that I didn’t manage to think higher of myself. No, there was no drama. I briefly narrated a typical week of mine during the period from February 2008 till present and immediately won eight sympathetic looks, plus an “Oh my Gosh” from the lecturer.

I tend to believe that this discrepancy of my life is not of any temporality, certainly even less of spontaneity. Like C. S. Lewis put it “Humanity does not pass through phases as a train passes through stations.” I am the collective image of what I have chosen to do. Speaking of this, I start to feel slightly eased because I can try to outsource facetiously the wretchedness to a couple of factual causes which are rational, consequential, or simply bloody natural. I come from a country whose culture was originated from a non-religious, non-extreme, tolerant and practical philosophy. Confucius said “It is basic instinct to love food and sex”, meaning it is absolutely mundane to satisfy the morning erection as to have breakfast. Currently my country is more challenged than respected by the international community for its otherness. I now study in a country where euthanasia, marijuana, gay marriage and prostitution are all legalized, however, my research field the medieval Christianity insisted that a mere glance caused by passionate love at your wife, within your marriage, was adultery.

The Western traditional view on sex is indeed much more tabooed and complicated than the Chinese one. However, one has to accept that constraints bring about curiosity which makes sex so more fun. We witnessed a blossom of Chinese erotic literature by the Ming dynasty, a time when talking about sex was regarded as an abnormality yet a sheer excitement as aristocrats found it an indoor fashion to “be dirty”. Compared to the poetically narrated Chinese porno, the Western approach is more ideologically interesting. Gregory the great believed that any sexual desire was sinful as it reflected the original sin that corrupted human body; however, the actual sexual act was innocent as it aimed at producing offspring. Hugh of St. Victor, a 12^th century mystic formed again a fantastically inspiring speech: not only was the desire for sex evil, but also its pleasure, which was in fact a punishment of a sin. He insisted no pleasure we experienced on earth was comparable to the ecstasy in paradise. Sexual orgasm, compared to the innocent joy that Adam and Eve indulged themselves in, for example, loads of wild strawberries and crispy mineral water, was nothing but of low class. Since both the initiation and the outcome of sex were evil (its by-product, however, was legitimated), a perfect sweet life for a medieval vassal, to my opinion, would be marrying his lord’s daughter, who happened to have a huge pelvis and a repulsive face that (bingo!) stopped him from performing any further than pre-cum.

Though producing offspring was the only bless of a marriage, on a spiritual level, the idea of having children was actually horrifying. Neither was it popularized to consider oneself as the child of a saintly figure. Even nowadays the society is not more child-friendly. Here vets receive five years training, teachers get three. There was no decent fun for children that at the age of 11 my only entertainment was listening to Celine Dion, whose passionate blood somehow was tantamount to the young Chinese aspirants. At the same moment, we were taught in school how to control the desire of masturbation before knowing from anatomy class which part of our body was supposed to react. I definitely had no idea why people would bother to touch themselves and the suggestion “Shift your attention to more meaningful things like study so that you can better serve your country” sounded more than reasonable. Perhaps as kids nowadays are more accustomed to sophistication, they could have managed to agree “We are sorry, but touching yourself does not unscrew the soaring CPI.”

Ten days after the earthquake. Having shed too much tear on heart-breaking images, been immensely moved by TV programs that aimed at cracking your mental line of defense, until now that my heart is filthily rich of love, Xiaoshu fidgets on the chair, awaiting desperatly for the cynicism to emerge. Usually this self denial happened when someone pointed out that I had bad morning breath, stubbled armpits, and evenly greased face at late night, which resembled a picture that justly ascribed to the collective image of “born in the 80’s” Chinese girls: when hyper stress meets poor hygiene. Strident comments also targeted at me not having a driver’s license or a cleavage. Precisely. In addition, I have neither been greeted ebulliently by a pilot slash prince from a handsome helicopter, in the backyard, which in my case, the trash trail.

    On Chinese web forums, me together with all the once and currently acne faced staid 80’s girls, are verbally brushed off from the “stage of era”, giving our way to the younger generation with immaculate skin and killing smiles. Skirmishes between generations are fierce. Let’s face it. While the younger ones are Pampered and Kleenexed, we were held up together in rags and have perplexed with our parents by whether to cut the toilet sheet paper recycled from all sorts of waste into 6 or 8 pieces, calculating which was more unacceptable: to spend extra money on shitting when it should be spent on eating, or to crap on your own fingers. We inevitably mirror what we possess.

    Days ago, I saw some video clips of a Shanghainese woman born in the 70’s. Showing off her Ferrari, Chanel, and family size champagne bottles, she was ridiculously confident over her unrivaled wealth, compared to which, the money J. K. Rowling earned from the Potters can only be called evanescence. Although her horrible dressing code divulged that the entire thing might be no more than a bad intentioned farce directed by a bunch of scoundrels, she still managed to stun many. As having been targeted in many other discussions on the impotence of the Chinese society, Chinese men are again inevitably addressed in her speech, as a group of blandness and dwindling sexual attraction. Skirmishes between genders are fierce too. Frankly, my professor in Beijing has also acknowledged this issue. “The obsolete Chinese men are 20 years fallen behind Chinese women”, he declared. Indeed, the dispute on the needs of Chinese women is running high, leading to guesses that in a short period of time he, a Chinese man, will be feeding the male ego with missionary position, wanting a boy to inherit the Chang’s snack bar, while she is wondering whether a horse or a donkey is more fun for bestiality, wanting an artificial insemination from a six feet blond, followed by an extensive child education plan including scuba-diving at the age of three.

    Though people fart against the Shanghainese woman in exasperation, they seem to be more pissed off by her attacks on the 80’s and 90’s girls, like “You are as cheap as buy one get one free toilet paper,” which is so not true (I mean, puh...lease). However, over the question that she raised about the disproportionate favor western guys received, Chinese men instead tend to form a rueful smile and plunge into a somehow tacit contemplation.

    Xiaoshu has failed a job interview at an English recruitment consultancy company. There were five candidates, three giant Dutch guys, one German girl with noticeable fine movements and me, a live encyclopedia of clumsiness. Two potent ones were chosen in the end: the German girl who was trained to be a psychologist and have successfully terminated several suicidal attempts. She looked exceedingly reliable that in her eyes a company would see a billing of 100k in the first quarter, and a man would spot on a sexually satisfying, intellectually reinforcing, and offspring prospering happily-ever-after with all sorts of laughter. The other one was a Dutch African guy, so gorgeous that he wouldn’t be disqualified to pose for Givenchy. Yet the unspeakably elegant lightheartedness and the flippant dimples which basically electrocuted the interviewer would make Tom Ford deadly happy to embellish on.

I’ve made a humble guess that the only chance I’d win this job would be in a competition with someone who has only one eye or a deformed nose, or who was recently amputated an arm. However, those people of incredible resiliency are busily preparing for the Special Olympics and will not be interested in fighting with me for a position in head hunting, counting and dumping. Still, I would probably anyhow lose this game because the numb heart I possess was newly discovered broken. I of course didn’t tear over this on the train, not because that I left both handkerchiefs and the phone home. I somehow heard Schopenhauer’s cynicism over happiness banging on my head, increasingly louder, “Bugger off, you who cuddle hopes!” I shrugged it off.

    Truly, it doesn’t sound like normal practice however I didn’t even make it to the one-on-one interview or any opportunities to show them how much I love people and hate art history. I was determined by a 45 seconds self description and several enthusiastic nods made during the company introduction. Trying to convince and console myself, I listed out the possible reasons that lead to the failure: non-European; young but not exuberant; extravagant American accent in speech with contemplative breaks as lengthy as menopause; colored contact lenses as a manifesto of an appreciation on otherness; acnes. The wretchedness, however, could be upgraded as I don’t really know how to fix the problems.

Back home, I found the book I ordered (lacking of which has considerably delayed my writing) finally got arrived: Henry Suso’s 14^th century hymn style incomprehensible (what mysticism is primarily about) praise on the glorious Lord. What a fantabulous timing.

A Sunday afternoon with beautiful sunshine and constant liveliness in the air, I stayed-in at my bijou residence (which definitely is not chic) to relieve the melanin sedimentation. The regular boastful writing on late medieval mysticism, which is not unlike duplicating what has been explained with extreme scrutiny in those bulky hardcover volumes, went surprisingly well as I almost forgot to count the words for the fifth time. The daily horoscope asserted that I possessed a high exuberance which should be worked off by mental and physical exercises to avoid impulsive actions that would alienate others and undermine my own interest. Luckily I have been a sweetheart for a considerable length of time and only showed a look of agony covered by an inquiring smile over my roommate’s smoke-filled saucepan later on as a wrap-up of this well-rounded day. It is difficult not to involve people I encounter, especially those based on a daily frequency, into this journal because this is basically a regurgitation of my entrée quotidienne (yes, if you do it quick, you can enjoy the food twice). However, more often I tend to take longish digest while the output turns out to be extensive rumination on my wistful being.

P.S. Though could not have been more wary, (due to my anxiety about moving towards the edge of the enclosure of student life. N.B. Life style is too posh a word to be used here as if life could be turned on and off and switched channel by a remote control) I still managed to swamp my roommate’s plants, crash two bikes, and fail an attempt of pinching one in the vicinity. This I consider high drama yet of absurdity when placed in the tranquil ambiance that the town gives off.

They have put the children rescued from the Texas polygamist sect to foster homes, in a hope to launch in them a gradual recognition of the outside world, TV sets, basketball and school buses, however, compromising in the first step by not to dress them in red, color of Jesus’ robe when he returns.

I’ve been to Texas, Dallas/Fort Worth, joining an art history field trip. It was a five-hour ravenous (literally) visit to their Cezanne-and-Rubens-juxtaposed museum. The museum has an interior of a catacomb in cement adjoined with silver powder so that it looked more bling-bling. I had an impression that its curatorship was mainly about spending lavish money on everything that’s composed by dead-white-men and that hasn’t been clenched in rich hands. It was a nice sunny December day, Fahrenheit 77. We even got to chill out a bit beside a 30-inch tall marble cascade in verde lavars in front of the 3^rd north-east gate, after a half day of almost bodily intimacy with a dozen Roman sarcophagi. Not far from the fountain there was a sculpture that could be vaguely interpreted as “six gooey multicolored existentialism kidneys”, on which a Philippine couple has frittered way too many negative films. I highlighted my day with a spinach mushroom wrap and some beheaded gingerbread. The point of eating at a museum café is that it automatically turns the black bean in tomato paste into an exquisite dish that its indistinguishable texture appears like a rotary screen print of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night on a plate. Merel and I scorned over the food in the café to save 6 bucks however it proved that our picnic in the sun was way more jovial than to dine in the catacomb appendix.

The trip was initiated by Professor K, one of the world's finest medievalists. Merel and I were appointed to his minivan as the whole group set off from the airport to the museum. Having glued his hands on the horn and the gear shift, Prof K shot us off in an aircraft speed and on six merry-go-round seats. I didn’t talk much in the van partly because it took my entire congenitally immature cerebellum struggling relentlessly to keep the balance. As he could see me in the rear-view mirror, I was also dying not to do anything reminiscent of my big lousy mouth that he has previously discouraged.

At our first session of lectures on Jesus’ life, he brought to class a portrait after a skull restoration of a contemporary of Christ. Scientists claimed that it could be what the Lord actually looked like: a chunky fellow with beard stubble and man boobs in a harvest time joyfulness. Prof K questioned why this manga figure could make you art historians chocked-full of first glance disgusts.

My first class in America, in conjunction with the sheer transcontinental excitement.

“The problem appears to me,” I raised my voice, “is of the picture’s exaggerated realism that Christ is deprived of the halo, the stiffness, the glory, the pain, and the shimmering messianic look in his eyes. It looks as if he has actually ever existed…like a farmer.” I swallowed the last three words like three houseflies when I realized the rest of class with half of its population being theologians were staring at me as if they’ve just witnessed the first Chinese blasphemous speech in life, which, more than likely, was the case. “Yes, that’s reasonable.” Prof K replied tersely, which as I later figured out was a rather merciful gesture: in a succeeding session on the sexuality of Christ he addressed a theologian student “what a fag!”

I am lucky to be an art historian of the 21^st century. Back to the time of Joan of Arc, the bloody consequence could have been being whipped, branded, scourged, whacked by rotten tomatoes, executed by burning, leaving my last word to the world a howl of pheasant. I don’t even get to touch a sword or any chance to save the fate of my country. I am a lonely fighter accepted by no battle fields, not even places like German’s Verdun, or rather, English’s Dunkirk.

Dallas is of astonishing size. 15 minutes away from downtown, by jet, there’s still neighborhood of barbecue backyards and kidney-shaped swimming pools, equipped by supermarkets, DVD rent shops and Chinese restaurants with noodles-to-go scooters. It is hard to imagine that a couple of miles away (which equals the distance from Groningen to Luxemburg) from this to-the-other-side-of-the-street-drive city there are people leading highly self-sufficient life. They crop potatoes and basil, cream milk, probably even manage to dye their prairie style dresses with spinach and blueberries. Young girls are forced to have sex with “spiritual husbands”, leaving a pile of confusing birth records. Still, women choose to return to the compound where they call home and strive to have their children back. This sounds to me totally understandable and psychologically less odd than the Stockholm syndrome, or even the stubborn self-rightness which enable average people to delight over compliments as winning cash and masochists to enjoy blood-spurting pain.