Sunset Beach Soccer

There are times when you are sitting with your camera and things happen right in front of you. One night in Bali, on the rocks by the shore, some guys played a match of soccer, and two kids, sons of one of the players, watched.

 

Lessons from Green Waters

I have just spent nearly a week on Bali. The reason for the trip was to spend time in, under, and on the water, diving and surfing. That’s me above in the water in the white shirt with the big, red surfboard.

Diving is often a time for meditation, floating along, the clicking of your breath in and the burbles out marking your life. Funnily enough, I found surfing to be the same, waiting for a wave to catch, or merely catching my breath. It must be the ocean, for I seem to recall similar moments on Cheung Chau, just looking out at the rumbling water or watching it race away down the sand, pulled back out by an incomprehensible force.

It is good to not understand these things. I don’t think we can. We can figure out the waves, the patterns, drift, composition, but the ocean is a powerful mystery. But from it we can learn the most; recover that sense of awe that is so lacking in the world.

Diving requires adaptation to the most foreign thing we can experience on this world. We are not meant for the ocean, but we seek out its depths and try to find its secrets. We always find more. Even the simplest fish provide a thrilling experience.

Forests of coral spreading out over a hulking shadow of a ship. Anemones, that wondrous word, hiding small worlds. The sleek sharks skimming over the bottom; octopuses expanding and squeezing, changing shape, texture and colour in the blink of an eye; magnificent large parrotfish, nearly two dimensional, gliding along. So much in such a tiny space.Back and back you go over the same but different areas, shifting in the light, and becoming enchanted patterns at night in the cones of flashlights and light from a full moon glimmering above.

You realize that even if the surface is still, below there is constant motion with currents and eddies and cool spots and hot spots.

Surfing is the opposite. You seek the stillness amidst the clamouring waves, thrusting you along as you glide above, feeling the power through your feet. And as you head out, walking in my case, you know you are absolutely powerless. You are nothing in the face of the sea. The waves push you one way, pull you another, throwing you up and shoving you down. All of this in water that goes from waist to chest deep. This is nothing. You know it is the tiniest sample of the power, and only at the tiniest spot of shore.

Your ego simply disappears. You are in awe.

I think I spent most of the time under the water, being turned, beaten, twisted, and battered. I tried to catch green waves out from shore where you reach by paddling. I just couldn’t do it.I didn’t need to surf 2.5m waves. Not on my third day. I needed to simply stand up properly and learn to turn. So we, my instructor Roi (Pro-Surf is a great school in Kuta, ) and I went waist deep.

There was more than enough power and so I managed to spend more time on my board rather than under it, holding on for dear life.

And I realized something: there will be times when you want to keep going but the ocean will keep on its way. Not laughing for it doesn’t care. Not cruel for it doesn’t care. What are you to it? And you back off. That isn’t always enough. Sometimes you need to hit the shore and wait. You cannot win. Ever. But if you want to continue you can. Wait and watch and think, and the time will arrive when it’s time to go back in.

A good lesson.

Stendhal Syndrome

The legit DVD stores here in GZ are a mish-mash treasure trove. I have found tons of classic Hollywood stuff for the pittance of 15 to 25 yuan. Yesterday I found two classics: Vittorio de Sica’s The Bicycle Thief and Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera with a soundtrack by Michael Nyman.

I have played the latter about 6 times since I got home. The movie is still astonishing, and with Nyman’s usual propulsive music, it shows why you don’t need dialogue. Just watch Murnau’s Sunrise for more proof.

Now, the title refers to an extreme aesthetic response which plagued poor Stendhal. I haven’t been plagued, but in the right circumstances, the hair on my arm stands up and I have been known to weep.

The tie to Nyman is the soundtrack to Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books. There is the scene where the queen comes into the pool, and the opera singer hits a certain note that it is just…perfect. I had the same response to the last paragraph from One Hundred Years of Solitude, the first sentence of The Bluest Eye, most of Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red, and a lot of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Swimming in the Pearl

Yesterday, in addition to Zhang Laoshi, I saw people swimming in the Pearl River, which, at night is really nice, but during the day is a sludgy brown mass. Things like pollution, typhoid, or mutations can’t stop people, though, certainly not these two guys.

The larger guy actually dove right in, but I was not quick enough to catch it. The other guy swam across and back, which is quite a feat – it’s damn wide. I wouldn’t dive the river in a dry suit with a full mask, and here these guys were without goggles.

I was chatting with a friend yesterday, telling her of some plans to visit India at some point – maybe next year – and how I will need at least two weeks – one week simply for my stomach to overcome Delhi Belly. She suggested I join these two intrepid guys and use the Pearl as a training ground. She joked that if I could survive that, I could survive anything.

It’s probably true, but I am a pansy.

I love the big guy’s pose. Course I’d be pretty damn chuffed if I swum that thing everyday like he said he did.

Zhang Laoshi

 

This is Zhang Laoshi (teacher Zhang).

I met him while I was riding around lovely Shamian Island yesterday. His open smile – and slightly open shirt at the bottom – tells you everything you need to know. Well, not all, the sign helps.

He claims to be able to teach anyone to ride a bike in four hours. I remember it took my dad several days of holding and pushing me down the street on my blue bike my grandmother gave me for my fifth birthday (I still see that moment in my head). I don’t know if I would give that up for being able to learn more quickly. For those impatient parents who can’t teach without yelling, or don’t want to leave wonderful memories, he’d be perfect.

Zhang Laoshi road around a few times, demonstrating his various skills such as hanging off and riding with his arms crossed. Much like an eight year-old would show off to parents. But he had tons of panache.

And press. Which he handed over to me, explaining the order

If you want to contact Zhang Laoshi – say, if you have a kid you need to teach to ride a bike – email him at xsx6611@yahoo.com.cn, an email address that makes no sense to me.
I think if my friend Shelley comes to GZ for a visit I know where to take her. Shelley is from Boston, not a child (in years), terribly smart, but can’t ride a bike or swim. I think we should take her to the Pearl River and combine both activities.

About Susie

Let me tell you about Susie.

She is the other expat in our rather large office – that makes two out of about 700 – and has been in the dragon’s lair for about a decade. She doesn’t need to work, but she likes it. And she likes to go out.

A lot.

The first time I really went out with her, she joined my friend and I at a new bar which had live jazz. The jazz was bad and the place was quiet. This was bad for Susie, so we ended up at a local nightclub called Tang. Lush. Huge. Live band. Packed and noisy. I was beat, but Susie was just getting going. At 1am. She bought the drinks. She works for fun.

Since then I have called Susie a monster. But I mean this affectionately.

Susie is the most gregarious person I have ever met. She can meet anybody, anywhere, in less than ten seconds.

Godfrey, Susie and I went out one evening, meeting first at this place called Velvet, in the bottom of an office building. Tiny. Smoky. Packed with people from the huge trade fair that happens here every six months and boosts the incomes of the local prostitutes – definitely high season.

So I see Susie talking with people on either side of us and assume that since she goes out all the time, she knows them. No. She had just met them.

This past weekend we – G,S and I again – went to a la de da wine tasting at the Shangri-La de da. I am an oenophile-opist, and all the swirling, sipping, and spitting made me nauseous, but it was a perfect opportunity to see Susie in action.

We walked up to a table with four people to set our glasses down. Soon Susie is yakking with everyone and making vacation plans with the help of a woman from Mongolia and her Dutch boyfriend. Then there was the French consulate woman, Stephanie. Susie just stood next to her at the table. Four or five minutes later I am taking photos of S, G and Stephanie after we all were talking. But the piece de resistance, is the gruff American guy who, near the end of the tasting, was complaining to the French table about wine and rudely asking for a glass of the “best wine left.” Susie began talking and five minutes later, they hug as he leaves.

I need her power. That lovely genuine and fearless interest in people that puts people at ease and pries them open without them even thinking about it.I can’t imagine anyone not talking to Susie.

She would beat any torture device. Let her into an interrogation room and within ten minutes, not only does she have a signed confession, but they’ve exchanged numbers, plans for the summer, and maybe a place to get some really good fish.

Jumpin’ Bike Flash

I carry my new camera, a Canon 30D which I bought as retail therapy, with me a lot. Not the most convenient thing to do since it is bulky, and, after a day, kinda weighty. But then there are moments when the hassle disappears completely and I am thankful that I have it.

Like last night.

Godfrey and I had left a local den of iniquity where I had thought as I danced with an attractive woman “this is going okay,” right up until the point she grabbed my hand and asked me if I wanted her to come to my place for “massagee”. A house of cards, indeed, and me the joker.

So I grabbed Godfrey and we left.

And as we headed to another bar – Godfrey likes to hop, which is something I had never really done – we came across a little gaggle of riders doing tricks on a wall along the sidewalk.

I quickly climbed onto the wall, amusing the people around me – I tend to become fearless for photography or video (I once shot a Chinese New Year’s day fireworks extravaganza, getting in with my trusty Sony Hi-8, and after finding all the news guys had fled back about 10m. Pansies.)

There is something about the rush when I feel something is happening. It might all turn to shit in the end, but at the time, it’s just wonderful energy.

All cities have moments like this.

I want to find them.

Pansies

“Motherf****n pansy” is my mantra at the gym. I say it to myself when I need to make a lift because I don’t want to be them.

Them. The pansy brigade which infests gyms everywhere – or should I say “health clubs”. I am glad people go to the gym and try to get healthier. But pansies are a pox. They preen around. They take up equipment. They are a distraction.

I am not a man’s man in the Hemingway, Norman Mailer, mode. My grandfathers certainly were. Vanity has it’s place and the gym is, for sure, about vanity to a certain degree. I may lift for strength primarily, but lookin’ good nekkid is also a benefit – although dressed is better since I am not allowed to work in the nude.

I improve and that’s what matters to me. Those little numbers in my book increase incrementally and all is right in my world. I have a plan and I stick to it, timing my rests, pacing in between sets, and trying to maintain my focus.

Pansies don’t have a plan except to work the muscles they can see in the mirror. A mirror that stops at the waist. Almost everyday is chest and arms day, maybe with some shoulders thrown in for good measure. The back, maybe, but for width. Who cares about thickness?

I can tell one by how his pants fit. Straight down. No thighs. No calves. One long ankle from the achilles to the hip. Turn sideways and the chest may go out, but that’s only because it looks like the back is pushing it out.

Well, to me, if you can’t squat or deadlift what you are benching you got a problem. What are you going to do when someone asks you to help move a box on the floor?

“Yeah, Jim, just a sec. Do you mind lifting that box up a bit so I can lie under it?”

Pansies shower before they workout. They use some godawful insecticide body spray and go around leaving clouds of noxicity. They don’t like to sweat. They use gloves or those silly gripping things like pot holders. They use the pad on the bar in the smith machine.

My mom is hitting 70 this year. My mom, my hero, deadlifts and squats and benches. Real weights. I am so proud of my mom. I want to fly her to GZ and have her come to the gym, brush of the trainers who are going to try to tell her that she will hurt herself, then lift heavier and harder than the young skinny guys in the candy coloured sleeveless T (unstained, unsweated it, designer – of course) who thinks he’s buff. My mom rocks.

She is not a pansy.

For those of you who don’t know or are unsure about the state of your pansiness, check out T-Nation and Elite Fitness Systems. Great advice from guys who know strong.

 

Hey Ladies!

I just received an email from a colleague in Hong Kong.

It reads in it’s entirety, “english? try malcolm parker. he’s good.”

I have decided that, in the way of all movie tag line hacks, to amend this.

My new slogan is:

“Try Malcolm Parker. He’s good!”

And it’s true.

Paloma

This is my guitar. Her name is Paloma.

I would call it Pablo but it has to be a woman. It’s not that wouldn’t sit a man on my knee and hold him tight, but I probably wouldn’t if I could have a woman. And I haven’t reached that point yet. But ask in a few months.

But not one of those Blue Man guys.

But I digress…

I bought her on a whim one Sunday at the local mall. I think I went to go to a buffet but the restaurant was full, so I walked around, saw the store, and went in. I thought, “well, you have time, you like the guitar, and, why not? It’s only 890 renminbi (about $120 CDN)” It’s a Washburn, which I chose because I knew the name. It’s an acoustic-electric which is what I wanted and comes with a built in tuner. That saves me from tuning with my tone-deaf ears.

My ex-girlfriend Devon, who had perfect pitch and could tell you which synthesizer made the violin sound in that song, told me, “I didn’t believe anyone could be tone deaf until I met you.”

I was happier when I saw the price of the EA-16 on the internet. Ha! I love GZ!

So I began to plunk away, getting calluses to go with the gym calluses – my hands are a bit rough for a white-collar worker (gloves are for pansies).

So I started with some scales and such, wanting to work towards being able to play some blues. Bought some books when I was in Vancouver. And got a tab for “Whole Wide World” by Wreckless Eric, which is a great song in two chords, and since it worked in “Stranger than Fiction” (a great movie, Will Ferrell’s best) it would be good to know. I changed “Tahiti” to “New Jersey” for Linda, and strummed away, working up to warbling along.

I think it is coming along nicely.

I play in the morning as I relax before work and I play in the evening. I did take a break during October because, oddly enough, though I was bluer than my guitar, I didn’t want to sing the blues. But it feels good.

The other day I wrote a song.

A whole song with lyrics and all. Six chords. It even has a key change from E to G at the chorus, which just happened and was easier because I was learning some theory. Now, when I hear a song in my head, it is my song, which is very odd indeed.

It’s a maudlin song as you can imagine if you read the previous post. It’s not really about specific events or even feelings, though it builds on them.

I have thought of myself as musical but not especially talented. I taught myself to play “The Enertainer” by learning to read music one week at my Grandma’s house when I was eight. Piano lessons followed which proceeded to kill that impulse. I wanted to play “Peanuts Christmas”, not classical.

Years later, I figured out later, by myself, the pattern to the scales. The lightbulb went on and I cursed my teachers. It had been just rote learning, the worst kind for me. If they had just said “Full Full Half Full Full Full Half” life would have been so much easier.

I like knowing why, the reasons, the skeleton, the quarks (well, not quite since quantum physics gives me gas) of things, then I can figure out the rest. It’s the whole giving a fish versus teaching to fish thing. I am a fisherman.

Skip many decades and here I am, strumming away and singing. I am sure my singing sucks, but I am gaining confidence in it, which is the main point I think. I am ready to sing a few songs – maybe even under a few bedroom windows. Though in the land of the 40 storey apartment cabinet, that’s not the most practical.

I sang “Whole Wide World” to Linda. She liked it, but sadly, life isn’t the movies. This is a fact I bemoan everyday as I wait for my Katherine Hepburn.

This means I am Cary Grant, for those of you whose idea of “old movies” is stuck to the 1980’s. Watch “Holiday”, “Bringing up Baby”, “The Philadelphia Story” and “His Girl Friday” if you need an education in comedy. And romance. Funny how they go together.

But I am an optimistic romantic. Perhaps not the most practical thing to be.