Bamboozled

I was just rudely awakened from my delightful Sunday afternoon nap, which began while reading of someone's troubles during the Cultural Revolution in Urumchi, by a (recorded) phone call from Charles Djou's wife, presumably a member of Team Djou, trying to refute terrible things people have been saying about her husband. The least of which are references to his weird name, which in old-hundred-names Pinyin should be Zhou.

This weekend the land-line has been ringing every half-hour with annoying calls from political vote-seekers, like Hawaii is really important. Well, actually it is. At least to itself. Mr. Zhou has been promised a seat on the House Appropriations Committee should he win the seat vacated by Neil Abercrombie, former Congressman and Faculty Senate member at University of Hawaii (where he was a sociologist earning a degree in American Studies), to run for governor against "Duke" Aiona, the current lieutenant governor, who has assured us he is half-Chinese. Which may mean something to the Chinese, sinophiles and, possibly, Republicans of the island, not necessarily a majority. The ultra-essential seat in Congress is still held in the Senate by our version of Strom Thurmond or Robert Byrd, the very cool Daniel K. Inouye, first and most important Japanese-American in the Congress, our one-armed Robin Hood, who has been chairman of the senate appropriations committee like forever. The one-armed swordsman theme turns up in both Chinese and Japanese martial arts tales; Abercrombie was the heir-apparent to this sensei until recently. We'll see how Mr. Zhou does in the swordplay appropriations, which are very important to Hawaii.

Politics bore me, and I generally vote for the good-looking guy, in this election, the ones with Chinese genes.

I intended to attend the China Splendor extravaganza today, but I'm too pleasantly housebound to drive in to town to the exhibition center, where I suspect the Zhou/Aiona (the good-looking party) forces are out in full force, begging the votes of the Chinese base. Instead, I have been working on my homework for my recently resumed Chinese brush painting class. After some warm-up bamboo exercise -- painting bamboo (and the rest of the Four Gentlemen) is like doing Eight Brocades -- I decided to attempt an homage to Qi Baishi. It felt like copying Van Gogh's "Starry Night." Looks so easy, but it is impossible to capture the qi...Vincent Van Gogh...Vincent Zhao. How long must one imitate the masters to become one?

Painting Again

Here's to Qi Baishi

How long will it take for Charles Djou/Zhou to become Daniel Inouye?

Railroad Comin' Through...

...right now.

Last May, less than 6 months ago, as we lumbered by bus from Shanghai to Hangzhou (via Suzhou) our witty and competent tour guide pointed out a big engineering project underway.

Pointing to an elevated railway that, like most projects in China, was either falling down or going up, hard to tell, she said people would use this new line to work in Shanghai and live in Hangzhou, her beloved hometown. Shanghai and Hangzhou are about 125 miles apart.

In Chinese time, six months must be nothing; the high speed railway has begun service today, and spurs and connecting lines are probably sprouting as I type.

In Hawaii, we have been talking about rail alternatives for as long as I can remember. If we had started construction ten years ago--if we were China --we would probably have a functioning rail transit system now and I could walk a block to a bus link and catch a train to work instead of driving. And now, even with Federal funds promised for the project, people still are fighting it. I expect this initiative to go the way of the Superferry, an inter-island alternative to flying that died an unfortunate political death.

There are many things to criticize about China's ability to get things done, and fast, particularly cheap labor, disregard for property rights and probably safety. (Don't know if the construction contracts for the trains have anything in common with those for schools and mines.) High construction costs and "human rights" concerns may actually hamper development in Hawaii. But there is one thing that China seems to have in spades: commitment. (The same article about the train also notes that the Three Gorges Dam is now producing electricity at maximum output. I've not been a fan of this engineering project, but before you complain, you should know that the idea for this big hydroelectric dam was planted in Mao Zedong's mind in our era of big dam building by...Franklin Roosevelt. Kind of the engineering equivalent of taking over Tibet. "Prease to not talk to us about Tibet or dams. We will remind your treatment of Native Americans and the TVA.")

China's current development miracles are partly due to today's leadership being civil engineers by trade, and not political demagogues interested in social engineering. By no means am I saying I wish engineers ran my state or nation, but I do wish we had leaders who could actually get something done.

A Mouse With Nine Lives

Another dead battery morning. A call to my mechanic and a review of his extensive records and every receipt since 1994 indicated that the current genuine Mazda battery had been installed in June 2001. Nine years on one battery. True, the car has no power windows or air conditioning or anything (not even a radio for the past two) that puts a strain on the electrical system, but still, that must be some kind of record.

With a new energy source and a tweak to tighten the alternator belt and she started up with a happy roar. My mechanic, who would have been a great dentist or doctor (always wears rubber gloves when he's under the hood) chastised my ongoing failure to check the oil weekly. (I do floss regularly although probably haven't been watching cholesterol diligently.) It was down two quarts. It only holds three and a half. Some Mystery Oil to calm ticking valves, a check on fluids and voltage, and I'm back on the road again.
More committed to follow-up than my doctor, he called back later to ask about the valve noise. (I knew it was him; I have assigned "Start Me Up" as his personalized ringtone on my phone).

"Sounds great!" I assured him.

"Good, because as I was reviewing the records, I see it's timing belt replacement time. Do you want to budget that soon?"

Well, not really. At least my dentist, with whom I have been spending some serious restorative time recently (it would be much worse if I didn't floss) considers my dental insurance before proceeding. (Apparently I have sufficient benefits from three plans to restore two fillings, way more than nine years old, and possibly a crown, before the end of the year.)

Wish I had similar benefits for mouse car maintenance.

Energy Boost

She just needed a jump start, although I was concerned that TAO 61 (at 211,00o+ miles) had a different, more serious problem. I know her alternator belt should be replaced soon, it squeals in damp weather. But I think the battery just went dead when I left on the wipers or parking lights or something while getting the new radio on-line a couple of days ago.

While I waited for the Wizard to back up his big old pussycat XJ6 into position to give my little mouse car a jump -- the way a martial arts hero activates the energy channels of a not-breathing companion -- I read an article in our local business newspaper about the 20th anniversary of the Miata (or MX5, as it is now known--why abandon the lovely Italian-esque name?). My vintage (1990) roadster is not as beefy as a 2010 model and has identifications that are as clear, though perhaps more subtle, to afficionados as those that distinguish a 1940s MG TC fr0m an MG Midget. Still she seems new and vital to me. And she roared like a mouse as the Jag's battery brought her quickly back to life; I imagined CGI waves of energy all around as the little hero's channels opened. I should say heroine; she has been dauntless, overcoming a great deal, like an attack by a bigger boring Nissan Sentra.

To boost the charge, I drove to Safeway for wine, chicken, and chocolate chip cookies. (It is a holiday, after all.) I discovered the radio has acquired a surprising life of its own. In addition to being able to access the CD player, it actually displays the name of the song playing on my iPod. Oddly, I didn't know some of them. I've got so much music on the iPod, I have forgotten where it all came from. But set to shuffle, it all sounds like a station I personally programmed. Hmmm...I like that, it's... "White As Snow?" ...Bono?...a version of "Take a Load Off Annie" that I know isn't The Band, but... Taj Mahal doing "Corrina." I thought I'd lost that somewhere along the way. Ah, Tony Bennett crooning, "I've Got the World on a String."

In a euphoric mood enhanced by the music, I noticed a white cattle egret (the closest Hawaii comes to having a crane, it's like the Egyptian ibis) flying through the intersection, off through the trees toward the post office. Then another perched on a car roof as I drove into my parking lot. (It had been there when I left a half-hour earlier, meditating?) A pair of kolea in the street -- you NEVER see them together. As I approached they both lifted, wingspans reminiscent of C-130s, into the air. A friendly neighbor in his coke-bottle glasses walking his charming pound dog with the big ears. All very Penny Lane. (Yes, yes, we all miss you John, even if you were a little sanctimonious.)

Tony nailed it. He sings about love, we assume it's romantic love, but I think it's something bigger. Sittin' on a rainbow. What a world, what a life. I'm in love. Ai xin.

Chinese Mooning Over Hawaii

I couldn't get anyone, even my Chinese friends, at the last minute, to go with me to the Hawaii Chinese Culture Center's Moon Festival Celebration 2010, which is perhaps just as well. While I loved every minute of this entertaining spectacle, I'm not sure I would have felt right inflicting it on someone who hadn't already intended to go. The Wizard was wise to stay home and nurse his wisdom tooth extraction; the drums from the lion dancing might have been aggravating, especially during the chaotic seating which delayed the start of the show by half an hour and preempted the intermission in the two-hour performance.

As strange as the moon festival I celebrated in Wudang in 2008 (which featured karaoke,

Tibetan dancing and tai chi chuan demos and some very scary street food, (at right) and as flashy as the 5000-years-of-Chinese- history extravaganza in Hangzhou this spring, this Moon Festival had something for everyone, a Chinese Ed Sullivan Show celebrating not only the astronomical but the political as well. First, there was a nod to the 61st anniversary of the PRC (TAO 61 was there!), with cultural attaches from the Chinese Embassy in Los Angeles who process all of our Chinese visas, and emissaries representing the All China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC, which provided most of entertainment program). Next, not exactly as a conciliation to the PRC, a representative from the campaign of our recent replacement Republican congressman, Charles Djou, (one of the strangest Romanizations of a Chinese name ever), winking to the Chinese, and later, our ultra-attractive Republican Lt. Gov. and candidate for the real thing, "Duke" Aiona, who explained at length his half-Hawaiian-half-Chinese heritage and provided a rather lovely discussion of the meaning of aloha (the giving and receiving aspects of the breath --the "ha" part-- of life, very Taoist really, and not just hi, bye-bye). It's notable that our ranking influential and essential U.S. Senator is Japanese and a Democrat.

After the opening Lion Dance, everyone finally sat down somewhere and the show began...with narration by a strange trio comprising a short personable Chinese pop singer, like a Chinese Buddy Hackett; a striking black woman whose Chinese was actually quite good, if halting, and a very tall blonde in an evening dress which changed from red to yellow midway in the show.

Opening act was a nice tai chi demo with someone playing a guqin over recorded music. Some of the demonstrators had some balance issues, but I really liked the women who did a tai chi sword routine. Got to learn that!

This was followed by a dance routine to "America the Beautiful," which featured, simultaneously, classical Western ballet, a modern dancer, a modern hula, and an ancient hula. All against a huge photographic backdrop of Diamond Head.

After the East-meets-West of tai chi and ballet and hula, ACFROC provided a number of vaguely Las Vegas-styled Chinese dances and vocal perfomances. Yong Liang (Buddy Hackett) did some pop-style Chinese songs which got the audience clapping and singing along. There was a pair of vaudeville-like guys who did ventriloquist routines, a magic act and a shadow play (which included silhouettes of people with background music by Michael Jackson). There was an incredible "rolling lamp" acrobatic performance, a mini-version of something I saw in Shanghai where an impossibly lithe person balances little candelabra on feet, head, hands, and moves around, from stomach, to back, to all sorts of balancing postures. People shouldn't be able to move and twist that way. I should note that in Shanghai the candelabra were actually lit. (Thinking about the contortions makes me want to dip into the Wizard's supply of wisdom tooth pain killers.) There were Mongolian dances and Tibetan dances, although the performers looked all Han Chinese to me. A woman in a Tibetan costume sang two very beautiful songs against a background of mountains...she may indeed have been Tibetan, but I'm not sure. (I'm not convinced the people who presented the elders of our Wudang 2008 tour with white scarves--khatas--at that moon festival were Tibetan either.) The audience at the Hawaii festival was too polite to shout something like "Free Tibet!", if they cared, although everyone was chatting among themselves most of the time, mostly in Cantonese. And my guess is that most of the Mandarin speakers in attendance hail from Taiwan.

This little dose of China (first authentic hit since May), where tonight I was, according to my own estimate, one of four white people in attendance, not counting the two non-Chinese narrators--will get me through to the next cultural event, the expo that kicks off the Hawaii Narcissus Festival set for Oct. 30-31. Last year it was earlier, closer to the Culture Center's Moon Festival. I look forward to another Lion Dance, (check out this "pole dancing") but will try to avoid the demonstrations of "penis qigong," one of the stranger attractions on last year's program. Ed Sullivan would never have scheduled that!

New Way of Reading

I'm not generally an early adopter of technology-- still don't have wireless in my house, have an analog landline I still use, not being phone- oriented enough to keep my cell fully charged, to say nothing of findable -- but I have become quite attached to my relatively new iPad. In five months, it has made my beloved MacBook Pro more or less obsolete for most of my purposes. Lonely laptop gets used mainly for watching DVDs, and managing my music and email. For the iPad, I have acquired lots of interesting apps, particularly several useful for Chinese language study. (I highly recommend the "train Chinese" apps and a searchable Chinese dictionary called Pleco. )

What I didn't expect to do was ever read a book on it. I never thought the Kindle was all that hot (being kind of Mac-prejudiced) and besides I have a love for ink, print and paper. And I live with a librarian; our home decor consists mainly of bookcases...lining the walls of every room of the apartment, including the bathrooms.

So I surprised myself recently to read "Brightsided: How Positive Thinking has Undermined America," through the Kindle app for the iPad (admittedly, fortune cookie-style, in bed), and it wasn't bad. I mean, the book was very good, and the experience of reading it that way was reasonably satisfying. The book explores the history of "positive thinking" through breast cancer awareness and cancer survivor programs, corporate cheerleading, prosperity gospel televangelism, and other annoying movements in post-9/11 America, including "positive psychology", also just profiled in Harper's Magazine, the paper copy of which I read concurrently with the e-book.

I'm normally regarded as a happy person, but I don't think of myself as all that positive, in a Pollyanna way. I enjoy my share of existential despair and am a practiced cynic. I just think of myself as a realist supported by the Tao. So it is ironic that a book about the downside of positive thinking got me over my negativity to e-books. At first I expected it to seem like work--I make a living by editing documents, usually in MS Word with "track changes" turned on, nobody uses red ink or blue pencil on paper anymore. (And one of the downsides of e-reading is not being able to underline and make little comments to myself...but wait, I am assured by other avid e-readers, you can do this, and SHARE the comments. But it's not the same experience.)

Perfection

The Wizard came home this afternoon having delivered an inspiring speech to incoming potential students/customers/clients of the liberal arts university where he is an administrator. I listened to the recorded speech (I'd read it the night before) and it made me weep. I felt like House listening to Wilson (I am the Holmes to his Watson...although I suspect he would think I am the Watson to his Holmes). It was perfect, Obama-esque rhetoric about higher education, and referential to the small liberal arts college where we met many years ago.

"Did they know you were going to wear that shirt?" I asked, when he passed his lei to me. It was perfect.