too glam for guiyang

i am too glam for guiyang.* although that is not saying much. and i am not exactly in guiyang. (i’m in qingzhen, outside guiyang (guizhou province), just off of hongfeng hu (lake) for a work program in which the local host is the two lakes and one reservoir environmental protection foundation.) even though the last two days – focused on environmental legal advocacy – have been substantively interesting and the participants have been very engaged and all’s well on the guizhou front, i have found myself uninspired. and i don’t say that i am too glam in a self-aggrandizing way. it’s more frustrating or funny than anything else at the moment. i don’t intend to terrorize small children when going on a morning run. or frighten the water buffalo and their keepers. but i can’t help it.

i also am officially over the charming sometimes honesty of chinese culture. i say sometimes honestly because there is a true art of lying and avoidance which is also very crucial. but straightforwardness about one’s appearance, weight, age, bodily functions, and ailments is quite acceptable. and context doesn’t seem to change or alter this honesty. i am always reminded of this during work programs where i will be called “beautiful” or basically be told by an elderly male Chinese judge or civil society activist that i have a slamming body. not in a disrespectful or harassing way, but merely as an observation. women will say the same, but usually elaborate. instead of just saying ni di shencai hen bang – your body is really great – they’ll usually add hen miaotiao – very long and willowy. this used to make me blush. by now, i’m accustomed to it and just say thank you.

these sorts of comments are totally not remarkable in a culture in which it’s permissible to be candid about the fundamentals. it is fine to call someone fat, or inform them that they have become fat since you’ve last seen them. or to say you’re late because you had diarrhea. in fact, when i was at the waijiao xueyuan (foreign affairs college: the training school for the chinese foreign service where i studied for a year after high school) i showed up for class one day only to be informed by an office assistant sitting at my professor’s desk that class was cancelled because teach pan had really bad diarrhea. not much to say in response, really. i nodded knowingly, turned and went back to my dorm.

the good thing about all the time i spend in second tier cities (or countrysides) – even in places where the weather is milder and the air is cleaner – is that it makes me very excited to return to beijing. i cannot wait to go back. and this is a successful program! which makes me wonder about my own level of engagement. rather than, ‘meiling, you have a slamming body,’ perhaps a more astute observation from a workshop participant would have been, ‘meiling, you are slamming bored.’ sigh.

in more exciting news, i think i’m finally settling into a more sustained writing project. something i have been circling around for some time, but am finally getting a sense of. it feels good. also, i had an epiphany the other day. something i have felt and known and held deep inside the me within me for some time, and which has surfaced amid my chatter about needing to continue and complete my conversation with beijing, but never really realized or articulated or accepted. i came here for love. not for love of one person or for china, but in order to wholly and complete learn to love myself. perhaps part of that is laughing at being too glam for guiyang and the qingzhen water buffaloes.


* also writing that i am too glam for guiyang reminds me of when, once upon a lifetime i was a young competitive swimmer and showed up for practice with a teammate having decided in the carpool ride over that we would serenade our coach with our own remix of the then popular “i’m too sexy” pop song. we paraded around the pool, strutting about and singing, “i’m too sexy for this pool, too sexy for this team, so sexy it’s cool” and such. he was not amused. i think we swam a 400m butterfly for time as a warm up. ahh, to be young and foolish.