One last breathe

Trip Start Jan 03, 2008
1
18
20
Trip End May 30, 2008


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Flag of China  ,
Thursday, May 1, 2008

Here I am, one month later, and still in Dali.  Something about pain that draws you to it.  I guess there was part of me hoping that I can find my own space here, hoping that I can make it work.  Like a battered wife keep going back to the very man who brings her so much pain...something in us that draws us to pain and something in us that believes if we strick around long enough, things will change.  Things don't change.  I finally quit my job as a bartender.  I was scrubbing floors, washing dishes, and cleaning up after other people's throw up, all of which I didn't mind so much because I believe its all those things that humbols us and brings us charactor.  But when I was sitting at the bar listening to a couple of Chinese men talk about how much they hate foreigners in the most raw, hurtful language and how girls are sluts...that did it.  I realised how NOT Chinese I was.  I will never wash my husbands dirty underwear, my worth is not measured by how well i can cook and my job as a bartender was never to stroke a man's ego by downing beers with him while he called me baby, I am NOT ANYONE"S FUCKING BABY.  o yah...and I will talk back to you.  So I guess maybe all those things makes me a complete stranger to this place, to this country. 
I told myself that I would dedicate the remaining two month of this trip to China, the country that had given me birth.  To be with my people.  Hoping that I would somehow discover myself in the process.  What I discovered instead was how little I had in common with this place and these people aside from my outer appearence.  But even that...I have people asking if I'm Korean or Japanese because my facial features don't look Chinese.  BOTH MY PARENTS ARE BORN AND RAISED IN WUHAN!  what more do you want from me?  Categories and names, origins and places of residence, "Where does your parents live, in China or America?"  WHY THE FUCK DOES ALL THAT MATTER?  They fucking live on this planet just like you and I.  So go back to your own categorizations of social class and rest assure that I have nothing in common with you and will never fit perfectly inside any box you draw for me. 
Ok, venting over, now on to more important things.  So I've quit my job after a group of drunk Chinese men tried to force me to drink with them.  I have my own apartment which is paid for until May 18th, but considering that it was 30 dollars for the whole month, I'm not so sad about leaving early.  As to where I will be going...I have NO idea...Maybe i'll just hop on a train and wait for the Universe to speak to me...
Oh yah, let me also formally announce my return.  I had had plans to stay and work in China.  But after serious consideration, I will be going back to the States for the New York teaching program.  So see you all soon!!!

Alice
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