bottling memories through sound is one of my favorite things to do. no-matter how much time has passed i can switch on a certain song and i am back in a certain place from that time. the tracks i listend to were suited to beijing. correlated to a lot of what i could percieve on an emotional level.
looking back at these things, memories are always more like dreams. because the past doesn't exist anymore. only in our minds...and i guess thats why i want to type this down, here. here because i have no where else to put this one....like a shelf packed full is my mind...and like a book so easily lost i don't want to lose this one. i can come back and visit it anytime i want, need.
i listend to "hail to the theif" by radiohead while living in beijing. which couldn't have been for a more suited time or place by the way. they are one of the major sound tracks to that experience for me, along with deftones and portishead..oh and also bjork! still when i listen to certain tracks from when i was walking around in china, it brings me back to those places. that time.
i let go of my fear in beijing. i remember the exact moment of letting go. i was getting into a taxi going to my first ever teaching job somewhere on the other side of the city with only a written address in pinyin that i would never be able to understand...with only the hope that i was going to make it there and back again..but then again...i didn't know where here or there even was. only blind hope in writing that i didn't understand. my own "home" address in "ya yun soon anhei bei lee" was totally cripted to me at the time. my sister was assuring me that i had all the information while helping me with a pep-talk on going out there into the madness of oriental traffic... i looked at her and said "don't worry i'll be alright"...she looked more scared then i felt. i got into the cab, showed the directions and was on my way into the nowhere that led somewhere. i got this serge of adrenaline that is really the most unforgettable. i felt free. i was free in that moment. i realized that nobody knows where i am. and then i realized something even bigger. nobody EVER knows where i am. haha. i guess what i'm trying to explain in my own clumsy way is my first "ego death".
i let go of myself. i realized to a certain extent being in china that i really don't matter at all and yet at the same time, for that, i do. it's fucked up and it doesn't make sense at all, but let me try to explain.
i was standing from the sixteenth floor of my appartment building just looking out over skyscraper after skyscraper sky clouded over with smog...and looking at all the people below...for not the first time i realized how small and insignificant i really am...like the fly buzzing around on the window pane...and that truely anything could happen to me here or for that matter anywhere- because everything is happening all the time...but this time that feeling didn't make me feel afraid and didn't make me feel small...it made me feel big, enormous, GIGANTIC on the inside. some-how some way it made me feel in my smallness is what is truely great.
It made me realize because i am so nothing...haha...i am something after all...and that is whats important. that is what is so precious, is that i am so small amoungst all of this seeming maddness. the chance of even being alive is a mirracle in itself. that i can be here to experience any of it. so with that in mind...a roll of the dice so to speak... i must take it as it comes...
it helped me overcome my inner fears. when i realised i had nothing to lose nothing to gain. just live. i let go. i allowed life to happen to me and me to happen to it. with no expectations. this is when my real spiritual practice began and i started to really understand the essence of being and meditation. unfortunatley i also started smoking while living in beijing. a habit i have not yet been able to kick.
beijing, china...it was everything and it was nothing. it was hate and it was true love. to this day i cannot pin it down with words and i don't think i ever will.
i was eighteen years old. fresh meat ready for packaging but not production. no idea what the bigger picture is. china taught me that the world is fragile or more so perspectives of this world are what is really fragile. like porcelein. me, like a doll in it. the smells of dust, age, random spices, shit, and fish swirling around from one area to another. the dirt sticks to your skin in the summer heat. when washing clothes the water runs black with pollution and dirt.
no-matter how many times showering could never quite feel clean. my electric shower in a room the size of a closet sang...yes it sang a song!! in fact i had to plug it in, in order to heat the small water tank. i was totally terrified that i may get electricuted one day by it...and when the hot water was ready it would strike the notes like a teakettle at full boil.
people constantly yelling in words unable to decifer even after the first month. survival manderine was all i got by on and it was enough. that and the help of my brother and sister who lived there with me for that time.
after graduation from the small tin can of highschool i wanted an experience that would really blow my mind. china seemed to be the thing at the time. i had the connections, the opportunity, the money...so...i went. lived there for six months. bearly enough time to really scratch the surface of anything, but it taught me a hell of a lot about myself and the world around me.
one of my favorite memores was sitting next to this blind homeless man on the street. i stayed with him for...?.... could have been one hour could have been minutes?? i was mezmerized by him. somehow he captured everything in his being that i was learning. his song depicted words that i myself was unable to utter. just being in the his presence knowing that he didn't know i was there was enough. he played this really interesting looking oriental instrument like a guitar combined with a violin with only three strings. after being deep in trans with him for what seemed like an eternity. someplace outside of time maybe. i gave him my payment from teaching that day.
my best friends became this really eccentric man named sufwey...and this family who owned the restaurant below my appartment building.
Sewfey is one of those rare people that your lucky enough to get the chance to meet. his memory is tatoed into my being. this is how we met. he called my sisters appartment while i was there alone, he was asking for some guy named Jerry. as i did not know who this person jerry was i told him i think you have the wrong number sorry. he said that he played pool with jerry and he really wanted to visit him (his english was absolutely horrible and it was incredibly difficult to understand most of what he was saying over the phone) because i had gotten acustom to giving my chinese students english names i also gave sufwey an english name... because he was looking for jerry, i named him Tom. i also had a chinese name "meimei" was my name in beijing...and it means little sister and beautiful woman (depending on the intonation)
Tom and i decided to meet up that night as i was curious to who this guy was. he sounded interesting. we met at a spot mutual to both our knowing and from there started on our mini adventures together. i attempted to give him english lessons but was not very successful. we communicated through body language the majority of the time. motioning to this or that to become understood. it was the best communication ever. so pure. no bullshit. he lived and worked in a hairsalon near my neighborhood. we would go there most of the time to hang out together. he moved in a way like i have never seen a man move before...his body filled with this kind of energy. like electricity was sticking out of his hair ( it was standing up in that sort of way) both of his pinky finger nails were really long...and he would use these long nails to sepperate the hair of his clients. he was around the same height as me. i went to play pool with him one time at this nearby pub and he blew my mind. tom shot every ball into the hole like...it was nothing. he made it look so fucking easy. i felt embarrased to play against him and didn't stand a chance. he willed the ball and it obeyed. i really admired his skill.
to my surprise when i found out, his house was his hair salon! he slept behind this curtain in his hair salon. all he owned was a bed, a small stove for cooking, and some space to put his clothes...although i don't now remember where that could have been because he occupied the size of a narrow passageway. the chinese astound me for their ability to occupy small spaces comfortably and aficiently!
the other friend i made was a woman who owned this restaurant in my area. i went there to get dumplings (which i lived off because eating anything else could always turn my stomach inside out) i forgot the word for chicken so just said "jeeowdzz" and then went into a sharade act of imitating a chicken. all the waitresses and the owner started laughing at me, and i was laughing too feeling so rediculous clucking like a chicken in this place. from that moment on we were all friends. i taught her twins english in exchance for food. good trade. the funniest time was when the waitresses wanted me to explain in english how to say "slap", "kick", "punch" they just motioned the movements to me while laughing...and i said the answer. we played sherades to speak. laughing lots of laughing. to this day i don't know why they wanted to know these words in english. but they wuold repeat me when i said "kick" or "punch" and start laughing uncontrollably, until i was laughing too just for the sake of the situation being so out of this world.
one night the woman of the restaurant with the twins took me to tienmen square, and the hall with the big picture of chiarman mao (don't know how to spell that name, don't care). we went at night. and she explained to me in chinese and very secretly ....she was explaining so many things that i couldn't understand with my mind, but could translate with my heart...and through understanding. i know why she took me there at night. because it is not allowed to speak of out loud what happened there during the day. people fly kites in the square and pretend like nothing happened. like people where not massacured. like mao was some hero...instead of a dictator. she was crying. that was a really profound night for me, and iàm happy that she honoured me by showing me her own perspective. even though i cannot understand her language and all the details of her perspective. i understood.
life is filled with random memories. i guess...for me... my memories can feel worlds apart. life is short but it is so long and i feel so old sometimes. i don't know exactly why i want to share about beijing now except that it is something sacred to me ...somehow...and because radiohead is also sacred to me, i feel safe to share these things here.
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