here are a few of my favorite

New Zealand things. Apart from mountains of course, and sheep! and my beautiful friend Catherine.

There are hot water dispensers! 

Just like in China, where every home, every hotel and petrol station, and every workplace provides hot water for drinking, New Zealanders love their hot drinks.

This is teacher's lounge in Catherine's workplace. She's making a cup of tea. Waiting in the lounge for Catherine, I was invited to have a cup of tea by teachers that I hadn't met. I was offered a cup of tea in every house that I visited. A "cuppa" . . . anything really. They show you the pile of choices. Teas, Milo, Coffee. This is part of the reason that for Justin and I, New Zealand, like Australia, feels very British. Much more so than Canada, Justin assures me.

Also, coffee in Australia and New Zealand is rarely drip. It's either espresso based (an Americano is a "short black" while a "flat white" is like a latte. If you want skim milk you ask for a "skinny") if you're out. At home, it's either instant or French press (plunger in New Zealand). Yeah, hot water!

Catherine's flat mate Cynthia has a cat named Ivan. He's the kind of cat that manages both independence and affection without compromising either. He follows Cynthia outside when she goes to garden. He wiggles belly-up in your arms. He disappears for long periods of time on his own adventures.

But as soon as I entered the house for the first time, and every time after, he ran to nose at my knee and demand attention. He slept on the foot of my bed. I loved him.

I was also impressed with his little cat-sized door. Justin claims that North America has them too. I'll believe it when I see it.

Every house also seemed to have these spinning square clotheslines. I'm sure they exist in North America, but not like this. They have lots of sun, so they mostly don't have dryers. A lot of the houses I was in also did not overheat . . . so we wore sweaters inside. I loved it. And the most genius thing of all . . .

the bathroom's heated towel rack. I could live in this country.

Rob the genius barista part II

He sat down at the piano and started flying scales up and down the keys, with all that boyish drummer-energy, and with talent so raw it took your breath away. I stopped reading. It took me a long time to realize he was just playing scales with a few variations, they were so beautiful. He seemed to hear beats in his head, and then challenge his fingers to keep up. There were changing rhythms and little add-ins and pauses when he was searching for the next note. Some of it was practiced, but some of it was experiment. All of it was gorgeous. I couldn't believe I'd just stumbled into this.

An older couple with two teenage boys came in and ordered lattes and churros with chocolate sauce (turns out it was a Spanish coffee shop). They sat down at the corner table with an extra chair from my table so there was barely room for Rob at the piano. I was afraid he'd be too shy to play so close to them, but when he'd served their food and drinks he sat back down and soon they joined me in my astonishment and delight.

The woman asked him how he'd learned to play like that. He attempted humility, kinda shrugged and answered, "I taught myself. Too much time on my hands, I guess." He explained that he's a drummer, and he figured, "the piano is kinda like drumming, you just beat on it." We all laughed. And he played on.

Justin came and I made him get a coffee. He read the newspaper clippings on the wall and reported back that not only was Rob amazing, but the coffee shop - Hernandez Cafe - itself was as well. Hernandez, the owner, was credited with bringing coffee to Sydney in the early 1970's. Before that he was doing quality control in the coffee industry in Spain. The cafe does their own blends and their own roasting on the premises.

It felt like a gift, stumbling upon Hernandez Cafe and Rob the talented barista-musician.

As we sat journaling and listening, a couple different customers came in who knew Rob, including the guy in the background of the picture. It almost seemed as if it was routine, that he came specifically to hear the music. He left a tip, which inspired us to do the same later on.

We stayed for at least two hours, and the longer we stayed, the more Rob talked to us. He told us how thrilled he'd been when he discovered a chord he could play the whole way up and down with three fingers. "People think music is really hard," he said, "but it's not, it's easy." He saw the music in the keys, the shapes and patterns. He didn't play with the graceful full-fingering of a trained pianist. In fact, he did kinda beat on the keys. Maybe that was part of the effect. Along with very open personality. Whatever it was, we never made it to happy hour. But the night had turned magic. I walked out a lot less concerned about my job search (and the feelings of inferiority that accompany it), a lot more settled in the moment. I left thinking, dear god, I hope that boy makes music everyday of his life, and that's enough. If he wants to party all night long, and serve coffee all day, that is fine by me. As long as he spends a part of each day sharing music with people, he will fulfill his purpose in the world. What more can any of us ask than to find that thing for ourselves?

Rob the genius barista part I

I have a bag of coffee beans I carried all the way from Harrisonburg, but no coffeemaker . . . or stovetop, or french press to make it with. I do have a whole lot of tea from China. There's Tie GuanYin (a type of oolong tea) and Pu'er, both some of the top teas in China, both gifted to me by amazing friends in amazing quantities before I left.

Apparently Sydney used to be mainly a tea-drinking place, though coffee has certainly found an important place. That's always one of the first things that I notice when I fly from China into a "Western" country. Walking out into the airport terminal the smell of coffee is so strong (and so nice). Here in Sydney cappuccinos, lattes, long blacks (what I would call an Americano), and flat whites (what I would call a very low-froth latte) are everywhere . . . and they pretty much start around $3.50. So until we buy a french press or repurpose an old sock (Jeanette's trick) for coffee making, we're doing tea.

But then there are times when you've been out offering resumes to every cafe and bakery on the street, and it's windy, and Justin will be off work in 45 minutes and could just slip over to meet you for the happy hour at the bar on the corner. Cold and windy.

And then I saw a sign for $2 drip coffee, which I actually really like, sometimes, so I walked in to the tiniest, simplest of cafes for a humble cup of gas-station-style coffee. As such, the coffee was black and oil-thick, and obviously had been sitting there for a few hours. The very friendly boy behind the counter took pity and let me "tip a bit out" so I could fit more milk in. He was jumping around and drumming on the counter and just so full of energy I asked if he'd had a lot of coffee that day. "I've had a few," he said. "I'm feeling so musical today."

A woman in her early forties maybe, dressed for business, came for a latte. He asked if she was having a good day. It was alright, she laughed. And you? "Pretty good," he said, "nothing exciting has happened yet today. . . but it could, you know? That's how life is. Unexpected things are always popping up. Life is an adventure." Did he actually say that? Something like that. This was the kind of guy who said things that other people might sound really stupid saying. Somehow it worked for him. Especially after he sat down at the piano. Then we really started to listen.

and here I am

It's New Year's Day and I'm wishing I could be on a plane back to China (as the plan went) instead of wandering another afternoon down the hill toward gorgeous blue bay water (what is wrong with me?) and into lively downtown Berkeley.

I haven't even kicked my butt in gear enough to get into San Francisco, though I will, I will. There was a "dragon-awakening" ceremony in Chinatown on Saturday. The parade on Feb. 7 is supposed to be pretty big. Alas, I will, hopefully be on a plane by then.

I searched for signs of people celebrating the first day of the lunar year, and saw an under ten year-old boy and his grandparents boarding the bus. And up by the college a young man holding his mother's hand as they wove down the busy sidewalk. 

The bustle of this place, at least, is comforting, not to mention all the ethnic and vegetarian food, the coffee, the Obama buttons, the artsy bookstores, all the liberal leanings. I could stay for awhile. If ZX, and so-long-awaited language study, and a city I have called home, an so many unexplored possiblities, were not waiting.

At Peet's by the bus stop on Shattuck I remember how much I love public transportation - the encounter with PEOPLE and LIFE. A heavyset man with baggy jeans and a striped toque on the slightly raised sidewalk landscaping box. He smiles and gestures to the street like he's giving a speech, or a tour. A skinny man with a black duffel bag, a red plastic five-gallon bucket, and a caulking gun. He sets them on the metal bench with green paint but does not sit down.

I also love that Ryan and Christen have driven me to Sonoma County to climb rock faces by the coast, camp in a damp forest, and walk through giant redwoods, to Marin County to hike overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and yesterday, to Yosemite for six hours of snowshoeing. Their piles of gear cheap from REI used gear sales. Even though I felt slightly ridiculous about our ski poles when we passed other snowshoers, I was grateful for them while my hip flexors groaned the last three miles. And the waterproof gators wrapped round my ankles were so nice.

the ordinary

It's been weird reading Justin's blog recently, as he's posting stuff he wrote while he was here. It's weird to go back and read someone else's perspective on things that you witnessed and (especially) that you had conversations about. Still, weird in a not un-nice way. Cause Justin is nice and doesn't write how I talked for hours about myself and had no idea which ATM took international cards. He admires things about my life that I don't always see, just like how I admire things about his that he doesn't necessarily see. That he gets out of bed in the mornings to write, and walks to the library to stack books for food (and rent). I admire the freedom in how he chooses friends and his books, and the cat, and the tea, and the principles as he wants to live them, no danger of his job defining him.

On the Tuesday after Justin left, inspired by the stretching before me of months unmarked by foreseeable visitors or trips, I decided to register myself for the April HSK exam, the Mandarin proficiency test for non-native speakers.

On the way to the registration office I passed a hotel billowing black smoke, people gathered around to watch. The fire engine wasn't getting anywhere fast, so it stopped 500 meters from the intersection and the firefighters got out and jogged to the scene in their ill-fitting yellow uniforms. One had to slow slightly to fix his helmet when it slipped down over his eyes. They were young, and I was filled with a sudden affection for all of them, and for the familiarity of the people gathering on the street corners to watch . . . as they would an argument . . . or anything, really.

On the Nanjing University campus I asked directions for the building whose name I hadn't understood on the phone (after asking her to repeat it four or five times I had gotten embarrassed and given up). The worker I stopped took pity on me and walked me to the nearest corner (opposite of the direction he was going) and carefully explained the turns I'd need to make. In the awkward space of his kindness and the steps to the corner I tried to make conversation. "I hadn't imagined that NanDa was so big!" I exclaimed. He turned to me with a mixture of confusion and sternness, and shortly replied, "Nanda is not big. It's not big at all."

I found the registration office with ten minutes till closing. The man and the young woman behind the temporary office messy desk seemed bored, sharp contrast to my country mouse excitement. I tried to mask it, was glad I had everything ready, the two passport pictures and the money, and didn't have to ask them to help me read the form. It's good to taste once in awhile the expectation that I should actually be able to get along in the language of the land.

Later I went to the bookstore to look for books to help me study. Got mad that after almost four years I'm only ready for the basic level test. I was in the bookstore coffeeshop, looking at the prices of the desserts (thinking to buy time at the coffeeshop tables so I wouldn't have to buy the book) when a manager-ish man approached and asked if I would like to have a free cup of coffee. It was their first day, and they were doing test-runs, collecting comments. I asked him twice if he was serious.

In the end I had two different specials, and a chat with the actual manager, who was younger than me, as peppy as her hair was curled, a newly-gradeeaaated English major, and highly goal-oriented it seemed . . . but also (and why should this be surprising, really?) fairly pleasant to talk to. (It's probably just that she complimented my Chinese a lot. And she was from Gansu, which is closer to Sichuan than to Jiangsu . . . and she gave me free coffee.) She said a big part of their marketing is just educating people about coffee - where it comes from, how it's processed, different kinds, etc. We're different from the Starbucks kind of fast-food coffee, you know? she said. That's what we should be doing with psychology, I thought.

Which brings me to the little work I have been doing lately. Drumroll, please. That's right, "English Island" has been brought out of the garage, revamped, re-oiled and, with Holly at the wheel (less concerned about the actual driving than the re-adjustment of the driver's seat), we're off. Friday's second round went well. That old energy came, and it felt that they went away pleased, if that's the way we're to measure these things. The unfortunate thing is that the level is so low (with a few shining exceptions) that interesting conversation is spare-to-none. I guess I'll have to settle for fun, which it has been.

My uncle asked in an email this morning about my thoughts on Tibet. I've been wanting to write more for awhile, and hope to soon, but my mind's a mess. I've been reading and reading - news, blogs, videos - from foreign journalists, Chinese alternative news, bloggers in China both western and Chinese, some of it good, some of it labeling and/or emotional, some of it only worth laughing at. I've gotten overwhelmed and depressed, and been comforted and relieved, then numb and tired of it all. I've thought I understood then been shocked with a new side of it. And there's the personal emotion all wrapped up in it because this thing of China being criticized (consistently) by the West is me and these are my friends and this my home. Then swirl in the added stuff of the discussions ZX and I have done over and over, almost nightly for awhile, swept away in the anger and defensiveness, the cultural views, then forcing ourselves to step away, to separate . . .

To cope, maybe, I started looking up stuff about Daosim. (Sunday's sabbath was good. To leave the computer at work for a whole day, read and write on the balcony, make food in the kitchen.) Started reading a book by Thomas Merton The Way of Chuang Tzu. I like this from "A Note to the Reader" in which he's explaining his appreciation for the philosopher and the "Dao",

But the whole "way" contained in these anecdotes, poems, and meditations, is characteristic of a certain taste for simplicity, for humility, self-effacement, silence, and in general a refusal to take seriously the aggressivity, the ambition, the push, and the self-importance which one must disply in order to get along in society.

Yes, we have that taste, some of us, don't we. Breathe, sigh, breathe. Look up at the world in a new way all over again. Later in the afternoon I hold FR's hand (like usual) as we walk to the supermarket. I don't think about the places I'd rather be (this is rather unusual) and laugh deep when she says the air "smells warm". I argue, that air can't 'smell warm' even though I agree that the description is true. But FR being FR responds to my half-serious protests with a full-out lesson about how in Chinese this is a valid way of saying it. It's a metaphor, see, similar to how we say she has a 'sweet' smile. We don't actually taste her smile . . .

Nanjing, through a J-lens

So Justin is a good photographer, and when he wasn't on the balcony in my apartment writing, spent a lot of the time walking around the city. We joked about how he got more familiar with the place than I am after eight months, but it's mostly true. He also helped me to see the city in new ways, and get excited about it again.

A corner near my apartment . . . .

View from the counseling room in our office.

On the city wall

Boats on the Yangtze

Worship at the Buddhist convent temple

One of my favorities.

I have loved this second-hand made-of-iron stove-top one-cup coffeepot since Theresa gifted it in November. Like she told me, it can burn bad coffee to a pretty good taste. Plus I just like the sound of the bubbling, the routine of dumping out the old grounds, watching the blue flames leap around it's bottom. My roommate's brother came over and opened it up and peered inside and asked me to explain how it works. "I have a coffeemaker too," he then told me. "It uses electricity."

And this is just outside the door of my apartment.

Apparently, I've never looked up.