my shanghai life is shaping up so fast and is quickly spiralling out of my control, but pleasantly, because it's spiraling upwards into a life that seems lavish but i can afford with ease (and I'm still planning on saving 20K, my grad school plans in london are shaping up pretty well). last night I went to a house party some french guys were throwing with my friend michael, whose party I went to recently, and my other friend ted from sichuan, and a girl i know named chelsea. i'd heard about it from some guy I met named ukachi, a nigerian who grew up in new york city and takes party pictures for a living now, his girlfriend has her own perfume. I'm getting job offers in text messages while we're drinking chinese plum brandy on a balcony that looks over a gleaming mass of metal that stretches for miles in every direction, an infinite maze of dirty small streets full of sleeping shirtless men and brothels and dumplings burning over charcoal. thursday night i saw some DJs and met some people, an afghani girl who lives in frankfurt, somehow i talked to her in german for an hour while michael talked to her friend who makes pornos in germany and came here to look for talent- the night ended in a soup restauraunt with my friend and I running into, by chance, 2 chinese girls he knew who slurped beef intestines while I wearily drank tea for my throat. last night i was babbling in french for an hour to a thai girl about architecture. this all feels like a big shift from the aimless adolescence i was living so recently; its kinda aimless, maybe, but certainly not adolescent anymore, even if I still am. tonight I'm seeing some chicago DJ with all the 15 party promoters I've met in the past couple of days, I'm trying to charm my way into the poisonous bosom of this city's nightlife and pretty successfully as far as I can tell- though everyone I meet is 5-6 years older than me. All this is frivolous on a surface level but the moments where I find myself staring into the mass of buildings and people from a nighttime rooftop have convinced me that what I am doing is systematically integrating the metropolis into my heart and thoughts. I think nathaniel might move here, which is really exciting, and I'm trying to convince hunter to spend some time here also, though I know he won't.
my work is going great, almost habitually now. I'm scoping out potential jobs in beijing and even other places like moscow; I don't know if these parties are a good enough reason to stay here forever, and I might find more art kids in Beijing. But I'm super happy on a daily level with my work and I think my kids are learning a lot. mostly I'm making everyone write constantly, which has the effect of causing me to have the english language on my mind all the time, and I find I have an instinctual adeptness with grammar points- like when kids get something on the PSAT wrong I know the right answer instantly, and why. there's not been any real new developments in my job; I sit in an office drinking tea and complaining about american politics and scuttle out sometimes to talk about Goethe with 15 year olds, or to eat the delivious noodle lunches that are free for me. My week is really consumed by working, actually, but thats fine- I spend evenings watching HBO movies, to get a better vocabulary of american images, and reading haruki murakami and baudelaire (which I'm trying to do in french, without much luck). I havent done more than a lesson yet, though I'm constantly picking stuff up here and there, but I'm planning on buying some chinese books today even, and working on that very seriously. I think my ambition I had prior to coming here, to become a translator, is pretty stupid; it'd be very hard to get my chinese that good, and plus, why, if I already have an easy and relaxing job that pays me enough to live so nicely and save so much money. however the etymology of chinese characters is really fascinating and once I get a deep enough grasp of things I'm sure I'll be fascinated by it for the rest of my life (I guess I already am, anyway).
I've been thinking a lot about the strange structure of this cities social life, but I don't know if any of you would be interested in that, or have a frame of reference. I do believe especially if our homeland is stupid enough to even consider electing john mccain, that this place is the place to be, compared to the USA or europe even here feels so much more real and happening. like in techno clubs in germany, the club itself is an idea of a city, for consumption by people hungry for the city, or at least it is for me. but here the whole city, and not just those places that seek to be, is hugely urban and fast, which in turn makes the dance parties seem somehow more compelling, as if instead of being a cultural footnote they were an essential expression of a place that is advancing in myriad ways every day. I mention that just cause I like techno and go to parties a lot but in general its like that too, I mean- the streets here are alive in a way that they just arent even in big cities at home, nobody is excited to live in chicago except maybe kids from madison wisconsin but everyone here is excited to live at all in this time and place. living for so many people here seems more tenuous, the poverty of citizens reminding me of the poverty of my friends, so that people of all ages do the things I associate with 20 year olds, frantically rearranging their lives from one day to the next.
2 comments:
comment of an argentine friend living in berlin:
Hola Jacob, tus cartas me llegan como desde otro mundo, sabes? tienen un efecto de distancia que no sé si se debe a China o la vida que haces ahora o, en realidad, claro, a que las escribes en inglés y eso hace para mí más dificil leerte, no sé... todo me parece demasiado lejano y ajeno. También tantas menciones al dinero, es algo que nunca te entindo tanto... ya te lo dije alguna vez creo. Puedo entenderlo mejor quizás desde que estoy en Alemania, pero esa manera de perseguir siempre el dinero, me aburre tanto acá. Mi opinión no ha cambiado sobre eso... tal vez para vos o para un alemán cualquiera mi manera de no pensar en dinero más que lo mínimo necesario es una actitud infantil, inmadura o simplemente frustrada, no lo sé, pero es como eso que dices de los chinos, que te recuerdan a tus amigos pobres de 20 anios, bueno, vengo de un país donde -ok, quizás no de un modo tan extremo como en China, porque somos menos, pero al final la pobreza es la misma mierda en todas partes, pienso yo- millones de personas viven en la pobreza,y se mueven con una lógica de pobres. Cuando has visto todo eso es dificil también observar con naturalidad acá a la gente vivir... todo lo que en BsAs se considera privilegiado o lujoso acá es un modo de vida básico. Y no hacen una vida más interesante los alemanes por eso, en general...
a virginian friend said:
I just signed another contract with National Geographic to work on their Madrid book. I have to write 25 little 100-150 word blurbs about cultural trivia, and I get paid $1250 to do so. While this one contract isn't enough to make a living on, maybe a steady stream of them would be. I feel like doing something with letters and or art is what I "should" be doing, ya know? I just need to figure out how to get more contacts. Another cool thing, and you've said this yourself many times, is that now it's not a question of what to do, but of where to do it. With the internet, I can literally be anywhere in the world and be working. That's why Berlin seems doable. It's cheap, and there's internet access. I feel like the only city that isn't a viable option is DC, because it's so fucking expensive. It's like paying NY prices and being sequestered on Staten Island for your entire life.
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