How am I supposed to feel?

The articulate kid in his second year of medical school at the university was talking about his career choice.

"How am I supposed to feel when I see these patients?"
"It's a question of finding balance, perspective."

"Yes," he said, "I am one of them. I am a patient. It's hard being a doctor. I don't know enough to help them. I am learning from more experienced students and doctors."

"What do they tell you in the emergency room when you help them?"
"They tell me to wait, how I will learn how to keep my perspective over time."

"What do you do to relax?"
"I go out with my friends to a club. I go to movies. I want to forget about all the terrible things I have seen at the hospital."

"But," he continued, "I am happy being a doctor. When someone puts on the white coat they feel special. They help people. I thought about becoming an engineer like my father but I saw how he only works with machines, how at the end of the day he would come home and talk about electricity. It was interesting but I wanted more out of life. I wanted to understand DNA and genetic structures. I wanted to help others."

"I see," said the blind man.

"Being a doctor is hard. I don't know how I am supposed to feel."

BIG Time

One curious phenomena here in the land of Turnkey is BIG Time. It is predominant, predictive and highly fashionable. BIG Time is displayed in a wide variety of large grandiose opulent design styles, colors and assorted analog displays. You can't miss the huge pieces of Time displayed on wrists with panache and glamour.

Frequent sightings include super sized chromatic sundial devices featuring a weight lifter because, for the majority of wage slaves, Time is a heavy burden.

Their second hand laconically sweeps piles of debris stranded on corners past extremely bored women studying their undulating reflection between numerals 12 and 6.

A wild rabbit dragging a pocket Watch Out! ran down Dream Time Street yelling, "I'm late, I'm late for a very important date, no Time to say hello, goodbye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!"

The rabbit passed Mr. Historian holding out his hat.

"What are you doing?" said Mr. Rabbit.
"I am begging people to give me their wasted hours."

Turnkey questions

People love asking questions. Can you make a question a statement? That’s a fine question.

The Turnkey people find it amusing and perhaps vaguely interesting when I tell them the first question a Chinese persona asks you.

“Have you eaten yet?”

“Why do they ask this,” wondered a mechanical engineer.

“Millions of Chinese starved during various dynasties. Many perished for lack of food during Chairman Mao’s attempts to industrialize the country. He said, 'Let them eat grass,' so they ate grass.”

It’s an old song and dance, this question, this opening move in life’s chess game of experiences people get to play.

Most people here only know about China through the media. Discovery this, discovery that.

One thing Turnkey and Chinaware share is a poor, shall we say, inadequate education system. People here in the Kingdom of thirteen civilizations are not afraid to say it. They say it straight.

“Our education system is poor.”
“Can you explain?” asked a visitor from somewhere else, from out near the eastern border where nomads grazed nocturnal beasts under a full moon inside a lunar eclipse.

The moon is red because the sky is blue.

“I can try. To begin with, it’s top heavy. Too many adminstratlords grazing their flocks of paper. They love paper. Perhaps it’s the same in Chinaware.”

“Most definitely. Writing and paper was invented in my country. Ink and brush and paper; thin, strong yet pliable silk. Have you ever tried writing on silk? It’s amazing because the ink blends in and soaks through. If your turn it over you can read characters backwards. Did you know, perhaps it’s the same story with some minor modifications, how in Chinaware every single citizen has a file?”

“Really, a file?”

“Yes, a file containing every single bit of data, every fragment of their life from birth to the present day or Now. Files on every single solitary family member; their place and residence of birth; location of their hovel complete with straw mattress bedding, iron wok, dilapidated radio, rusty bedpan which is carried outside every morning and dumped in the hutong community sewer where it attracts flies; their school records (if they are lucky enough to attend school which is usually the case in the cities, but not the extreme interior or far western lands where children work in fields and never see a classroom); their WORK unit factory, area schools and local hospitals.

“You see,” they continued, “the state government has always needed to control it’s citizens for various reasons like fear, power and propaganda and so, hundreds and thousands of years ago, a powerful solitary eunuch in the Forbidden City came up with this idea about registering every citizen.

“They ran it past the Emperor’s advisors who chopped a piece of paper with their official seal to indicate approval. It was a blood red chop engraved with a character indicating their name and position. The chopped document passed through the channels until it reached Mr. BIG.

“Wow, I imagine some have very large files.”

“You better believe it. In fact I met a Chinese teacher at a private business university and asked her about the possibility of her finding another teaching job.”

“You must be joking!” she exclaimed, or explained with pain inside her heart.

“My heart is heavy,” she sighed. “They require or force us to sign a five-year contract. Then after one year, they give us another five-year contract to sign.”

“What happens if you decide not to sign another contract and tell them you are happy to finish the original one?”

“Are you kidding me? They will make my life miserable for the next four years. They will tighten the screws. The old man behind the big brown desk will solemnly nod and say, ‘You’d better think this over very carefully.’”

“In other words, when you open your mouth and express your personal desire he will issue you a subtle threat, a warning?”

“Of course he will. He realizes I am capable of changing my mind, of making a decision, a free choice. ‘Unheard of! he will think. This one is dangerous. She can poison others with her radical counter-revolutionary ideas. She is a threat to social order and a harmonious society.’”

“It sounds like a bad dream.”

“More like a recurring nightmare,” she said, “if you want to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me Mao.”

“How now Mao?”

Chinese Teachers Report For Duty

Ah, what a great summer in China. I don't make much money as a University teacher you understand, so I use it carefully and wisely. Family is big deal here and to avoid relationship clashes of dynastic proportions, I shelled out roughly $200, or a third of my salary, for a round trip train ticket home.

After paying my University an exorbitant rental fee on my drab, empty apartment and electricity and water, I barely had enough left over for soggy onions, fresh spinach, tofu, rice and fruit.

Home is where, they say, the heart is. Well let me give you a little advice about that. I left my heart in San Francisco. Just a bad joke from an old song. Singing the blues, which is life's way of talking, I dutifully lugged my broken suitcase home to hearth and kin.

Whew! So much guilt, so much Duty. I am overwhelmed by the heavy burden of my family's expectations.

After fulfilling all my academic responsibilities (meaning - Pass all the students - or face the dire consequences) given to me by the University Authorities who, will for the sake of Social Stability and Harmonious Educational Reform Committees, remain faceless, nameless and totally obscure, I escaped from my prison.

It took twenty-two long, boring, tedious endless hours sitting in "hard seat" with three transfers and the stations were packed out with homeless migrants, laborers and prostitutes. People without a wing, hope or prayer. The ancient Oracle predicted this development.

Mothers and fathers formed concentric protective circles around their children to prevent thieves from stealing them. Stolen kids are a HUGE underground economy here as you may or may know. People will gladly pay large sums for a boy because they have a higher value in our NEW economy.

Human life is cheap here so Stealing, Selling and Buying children is just part of the way things work.

Speaking of work, I've gotta run because I must help mother with the cleaning, shopping and endless chores. If I don't perform my filial duties she may threaten to sell me. I'll be returning to my other life as a teacher next week after I report back for Duty and will file another report.

The Three Baboons

Then, one day he saw three baboons. They were part of a tribe living in his neighborhood. This is how it happened around dawn.

A blond corn-plaited hairy one stuck her head out of a 5th story window and spit. She watched the spittle fly past trees and SPLAT! on the pavement.

She looked around and they saw each other. She smiled. Her upper teeth were small and sharp. She started jabbering in her strange language. Her sounds, her words were questions. She wanted to know something.

Here is a rough translation.
“Where do you come from?”
“Are you alone?”

"Do you have money?"
“Do you want sex?”
She made many sounds but that’s the essence. Baboon language is simple and direct.

He just stared at her and smiled. She smiled. They smiled at each other.

She disappeared. A moment later she returned with two friends. One had dark hair, very hard eyes and big floppy breasts. She shook them side to side while speaking to him.

“Look at these watermelons,” she said.
They were heavy fruit.

Another baboon joined them. She was blond with sapphire eyes and straight hair with short spiked bangs. Her oval face smiled and she stuck out her tongue. A shiny silver post glistened from the middle. Laughing like a child, she rolled her tongue around, up and out like a little snake. Every now and then a snake needs to find a cave.  

She appeared to be the most playful one in the group.

All three stared at him and jabbered again, making suggestions and questions with their inarticulate yet clearly understood sounds.

“Where are you from?”
Blah, blah, blah.
“How old are you?”
"Do you have money?"
“Do you want sex?”

The plaited hair one got halfway out on the narrow balcony and crouched down, opening her legs. She started riding an imaginary wild mustang. Her eyes and face assumed a state of ecstasy.

The one with hard eyes started gesturing with her hand, massaging empty space. He stared at this spectacle and smiled.

They laughed. The power of suggestion.

The silver posted one kept smiling and flicking her tongue in and out, like breathing.

They were full of energy and wanted some action. Such amazing, funny and strange wild baboons!