(I am in Xining)

I squeeze through stone arches and onto campus. I have joined the flow of students; we are like salmon swimming upstream. They seem to rush with brisk steps and leather jackets swishing; in contrast I am a swaggering frieze. These students seem young, indeterminate ages…I couldn’t even begin to guess. Seventeen, twenty four, thirty-two? Time tells no one’s secrets here. I must look older to them (even in my ski cap and tennis shoes) or does my foreign status hide as much as their dark hair, ageless wrinkle-free faces, and pinched eyelids?

We all bottle-neck into the jiaoshi lou (class room building); there are three sets of doors but only one set is ever unlocked. Girlfriends with long pony tails make friendship chains with their hands and pull each other through the mass of people trying to enter. I pull my school bag tighter and protect my coffee mug from bumps and bruises.

I am the Meiguo (American) Godzilla in these tight halls…breathing invisible fire and whipping my reptillian tale to and fro. I try not to let them see me for fear that they will run screaming and stampeding, jabbering panicky phrases I would only understand with English subtitles. These students push into large classrooms with desks, wooden chairs, and long blackboards. I ponder what ethnic pools each one has swum out of to arrive on this beachhead of Xining–this metropolitan Mecca of opportunity. But even their cultural history escapes me. Unless they are wearing crimson robes or white hats I have no clue whether they are Tibetan, Han, Hui, or Haitian. I am drowning in blue jean cults and the Gap’s next target markets.

(I am in Xining)

I hold my breath. If I breathe I could die. Treading water and trying not to visibly shudder I cruise past the restrooms? (who could rest in there?) bathrooms? (at my dirtiest I wouldn’t consider a bath in such a place) and I say a quiet prayer for the unfortunate souls who might have lost their way in that toxic Dante-imagined underworld. I wonder if a heavy gate would have been more fitting for this abyss. Perhaps with portcullis and skull and cross-bones emblazoned across the door in red paint. Instead, a two foot cloth hangs from the top of the doorway with the Chinese characters for either Women or Men printed on it. Should you choose to look (I don’t) this protective cloth leaves everything private and important completely visible to the naked eye. Since the windows in this smell?-room are often open, this frail blue covering is often blowing around like a lost kite. In Chinese, there is no word for privacy I am told.

(I am in Xining.)

The foreign language classrooms are small. Cozy. The desks remind me of the third grade– which is fitting to our Chinese ability level I believe. You can put books, pens, snacks, or Star Wars Action Figures inside the cubby holes in your desk. I usually put my hat in there…and try not to forget that it’s there. The blackboard has not been outmoded by the whiteboard yet in this epoch. There’s no "dry erase" in western China. Everything is tangible like concrete verbs, coal burning stoves, and chalk. I don’t need to check out the new rooms any more. Besides concrete and radiators they all look the same. Einstein or Confucious will be staring at me from their poster home on the wall (no pressure); despondent flakes of paint will threaten suicide above my head; and the standard map of China with the accompanying national anthem lyrics and music notes reminds me again how little Hanzi (Chinese characters) I really know. But, hey, I can show you the places I’ve been!

(I am in Xining.)

In class, when the laoshi (teacher) speaks, the battle for comprehesion begins. At times I wonder at what point Charlie Brown’s teacher replaced my own. With every "wah-wu-wah-wah-wu-wah-wah…" that comes out of my teacher’s mouth, I feel more sympathy for that misfortunate boy with the schizophrenic dog. It’s no wonder he had such problems with self-esteem. Over time the words seem to plaster themselves to my brain like tattoos. They stick. They hurt. They embarass me when revealed…at the wrong time, in the wrong context, to the wrong audience. But at the same time as I mutter my "wo’s" my "ni’s" my "bu zhidaos" I feel that these words are becoming part of me. These characters I am learning are becoming part of my character–for better or worse. In these moments of clarity, as the sun shines through the dusty windows, when language begins to carry meaning and the words flow for a second or more, I become super Chuck rearing back and tramping up the field…with Lucy holding the pigskin under her forefinger smiling a devilish grin…and Snoopy blowing his whistle from the grandstand…and Woodstock fluttering near the goalposts, that’s when I rear back and kick…

and instead of twirling and flailing, sputtering and failing, falling flat with a sickening SPLAT! instead of Lucy’s laughter and snide remarks or Snoopy’s head-shaking and Woodstock’s snickers, I find my foot making contact somehow…with something firm…

(I am in Xining…)

and the ball just sails…end over end…arcing and pirouetting like a dancer into the sky. I can’t see it. It was a rocket. I don’t know where it went or whether it has curved out onto Ba Yi Lu (8-1 road) to distract traffic. It might still be sailing out into the Xining skyline for all I know. But what matters is not where it went, but that contact was made. For whatever reason, success happens even (in Xining) here and the words begin to find their way out of their hiding place in my cranium. Maybe I’ll join the circus. I’ll be the tatoo-ed man who swallows knives and heckles the bearded lady.

Each day as the recorded music blares signifying the end of classes (China’s answer to ‘the bell’) , I pull one more Charlie Brown trick and let out a -SIGH- of relief. Good grief, my mind is mush. With the other trout, we BIG noses head downstream again. The sun outside is warm and it greets us with hints of lunch and leisure. As I follow my shadow off campus I see the world in green and blue and China is right in front of…me.

(I am in Xining.)