The Wandering Monkey

For three years, I have been in China teaching Swing Dancing. Now I'm wandering yet again...

2005-08-27

And the latest

I've got some good friends out here. My friend Orchid, student card #001, is one of the most stable and helpful persons I've known. She's the most likely person to rely upon if something important and challenging needs to be done. She's also a quite good dancer.

Chris is also a good girl. She and I trained extensively for a while, and she became my dance partner. She's doing so well at dancing now that it's scary. Since she has had to be both a leader and a follower in dance, she's getting good at them both. Plus, she's got a certain youthful energy and spunk which keeps me going sometimes when I need it most.

My friend Mike is also an American, about 25, and he's also running a business of his own out here. He's very high-energy and intense, and he lives one block away from me right now. We get together about once per week and say hello. He's been a good ear, too, when I've had something I need to talk with about someone.

Ivo is quite an interesting character, too! He's Dutch, and he's teaching ballroom dance out here. He always comes to my swing classes, and he refers a lot of people to both the classes and parties. Also, since he is trying to do the same type of thing I am, I find he's perhaps the only person who understands the difficulties in trying to run a social dance school. One of the few people I can relate to, and also a cool person to hang out with on the afternoon. I think of him as a younger brother sometimes.

Andrea is another wonderful person. She was the boogie woogie and swing dance champion of Europe for six years. She and I worked on the movie the White Countess together, and when the time came that it looked I would take the center stage and she would have a more supporting role, she never got jealous or contributed any less. I wonder if I could say I would have done the same!

And then there's Annie, a very intersting girl. President of the college swing dance club, she's one of the very few people I can count on to always volunteer and always come to the events. She's also ambitious and organized enough to take care of getting 30 students, arranging for a practice space with a stereo, and handling all the advertising and such things. I have high prospects for her.

There's my friend David, who's an older guy who has helped promote various swing events. He's in the U.S. right now for the summer, and I often miss his youthful energy and frenetic flow of ideas.

And so on and so forth.

These last couple of weeks I've been feeling a bit drained, so I thought I would be a good idea to remember just what things I do have in life right now. And in Shanghai, the people I have met and what types of things we have been able to do together.

I'm working now, as I've said, on making the swing dancing thing a legacy. I need to get another job (unless something changes drastically), so I can see how I might not be able to be at the core of things. I guess it's been a difficult realization. It's not an outright defeat, but it is a dissapointment in a way. After two years, we have gained so much, but the 'movement' as such has not taken off to the degree I'd hoped for. I'm going to take a final withdrawl from my savings, then come up with a transition plan. At the moment, what I want to accomplish is to make swing self-sustaining. Then step back from it for a while and hopefully it will stand on its own and continue to grow, not unlike a child in some basic respects.

Then I need to re-examine my regular career prospects. E Commerce related things would be a logical choice. There's also Event Management, which is something I've had experience with in China for the last two years. I think E Commerce would be far more lucrative, and frustrating as it may be, still more predictable than Event Management. Having followed my dream and my emotions with swing, I have experienced the life of an artist. It is really cool, however, I can't shake the lack of security feeling. The responsibilities in any job will eventually become burdensome, and if there's no financial reward in it, makes you wonder if you are doing the right thing.

I guess there's also the back-of-the-mind thing about whether to start a family or not. At 35, I'm at the point where I am still healthy and physically able, although I feel the difference between say, this age and 10 years ago. Looking forward 20, or 25 years, I have to think that I'll need to have the energy to maintain a family, so perhaps I should not wait too long. Financially speaking, too, even if I don't decide to have a family, I'll need to be able to retire at some point.

My fried Mikey from back home said once that he could see me being the type of person never to have a family. I think this is possible. I've had several long-term girlfriends, but in only one case have I felt there was a future to look forward to. In most other cases, I've enjoyed the relationship but always felt like eventually it would change on to something else.

Also, I've never been a person who's be too altogether fond of kids. You see them, say hi, then by bye, but that's perhaps good enough! The people I know who are similar in personality to me and have kids usually say about the same things I'd expect to say: it's nice, love their kids, but it's kind of draining and not that much fun. With plenty of people in the world as it is, there's no global responsibility to create more people. Probably just the opposite. And I may be able to get all of my 'nuturing instincts' fullfilled by doing things like teaching, helping others, and so forth. I've somehow always been more involved and excited about projects and goals than relationships.

I was just reading something on the internet after a search on 'being happy', and it said that happy people tend to like others more and empathize with others more. The 'out for themselves' philosophy tends to be held by more unhappy people. So I'm going to try to focus a little more on other people and relationships and see how that goes.

All for now-

Posted by: Jimbo / 11:07 AM

2005-08-22

Movie news

So, I received a call from a Beijing group which was doing casting for a Warner Bros movie being shot in Shanghai. From the description of the casting person, I thought it might be a significant part- maybe something with speaking lines, possibly with the star in the movie in the same scene.

As it turned out, this was not quite the case. It's an extra role, doing some singing and foolish revelry in the background, and yes indeed the stars are present but there is no interaction with them. Plus, then wanted me to come up for a screen test, then come up again for the filming, both of which are in Beijing. Given the minor nature of the role and the low pay (would not cover one plane trip of the four needed) I talked with the casting agent and she agreed it was not really appropriate.

However, I did get some more information about the film. It's set in the 1920's, and there is going to be a significant amount of dancing in it. I asked the casting agent, What are your plans for that? It seemed she wanted to get some videos of people doing dance from that period and just sort of 'fake it'. I cringed. Don't do that! I told her about my work on the White Countess, and I told her how I'd set this up. Plus I have a friend who I've worked with on several 1920-era movies who is very good at these ballroom types of dance and could get them set up on it relatively cheaply. My goal in this whole thing is to get into the role of the Choreographer - work again behind the camera and set up the dancers in the shots for the movie.

All of this stuff is off in Beijing, but it's an interesting sounding project and I'd make the trip, so long as I came out a little ahead from the experience. Plus, I know I would be able to contribute a lot to the movie - improve it quite a bit. The goal for this movie is not to have any incredibly fancy dancing footwork. If the movie's not about dancing, and there's a great professional couple showing off, I think it is rather distracting to the flow of the entire mood of the movie. However, what would be good is to get the people up to the level of dance skill which one would expect from everyday people of that era. You want to make it so that the average viewer would notice the dancing, appreciate it but not be too distracted from the point of the movie. AND, you want to have it so that those people who are really good at dancing will not say, "What are they DOING?"

There was a Weezer (90's pop-punk band) video called Buddy Holly. It was filmed on the old Happy Days tv series set. In the video, there were many people dancing, what should have been swing or rock & roll dancing. To the casual observer, I'm sure it looked fair enough. But to those who know swing, it was obvious the actors had never had any sort of training at all. They were told to come on set and merely improvise... anything which they might be able to imagine. Not one actual swing or rock & roll dancer present in the dancers, or probably in the entire production.

So for this movie I want to avoid that type of thing. Plus, from my involvement on the previous movie - doing the dance training, dancing in the movie, and in the second half getting behind the scenes and working with the director to choreograph the scenes - I can say that the most satisfying thing of all was choreography. To do it properly, you need to work with the dancers during training. Work with them, grade them, then match them up as partners. People who are good dancers should be paired with others of the same skill. People who are not very good dancers can also be dancing in the film, moved to a filming position so that they can fill up the room but not necessarily be prominently featured.

So, just an hour ago I talked to the casting agent, and I think I have a good chance of convincing them to get myself and my ballroom dancing friend involved in the movie. He as dance trainer and dancer, and myself as choreographer. The movie people are concerned about budget, but since it is a Hollywood movie I think we'll be able to do this at a fee much lower than they would expect.

More updates on this as we go.

Peace,

-J

Posted by: Jimbo / 11:27 AM

2005-08-19

Language tutor

My language tutor is an interesting person. She's very tough. She puts me through learning a lot more words than I'm comfortable with. In my ad, I asked for a slow-paced learning schedule. I said, five words per session. Any more than this and it's pointless, because it's too hard to remember in the long term.

Well, technically she does put me through five words. But today it was many more. Like about 20. Plus, every time she uses an example, she uses about two or three new words which we've never talked about. For instance, the Chinese word for "do" is "zuo", pronounced zwau, with a downwards inflection (as if you are saying, Darn!). So I say, how do you use it in a sentence, and she'll say the Chinese equivalent of "They did nothing since the business closed." Of course, the problem being, she's never explained 'nothing', 'since', or 'closed'. She'll tell me the meaning of these additional words, but it makes every example quite painful. That's a bit of a down-side.

On the plus-side, she's pushing me. If I haven't properly prepared for class, she gets sincerely perturbed and scolds me for it. Makes you wonder who's working for whom in this arrangement, but in fact it's probably a good thing. Today she said about 12 new words, once in Chinese, then once in English. Then she read the Chinese to me and asked me what each meant. I was a bit frustrated. I almost stopped her, saying that I could not possibly memorize twelve new Chinese words just by saying it once. I did, actually, explain this to her after the second time we went through it. She said we'd go through the whole list a few times and at the end I should have it all memorized. I knew this was not possible, but what else can I do? I considered for a moment that perhaps she's not the right teacher. She's giving me material far to challenging, and I don't learn well in this method. But I went along with it. By the end, she identified five words that I have as 'homework', which I should memorize for next time. Those words are:

office bangongshi

building lou

post office youju

bank yinhang

hospital yiyuan

shop shangdian

Plus, Chinese is a tonal language. There are four different possible tones, or inflections for every syllable (plus sometimes 'no tone'). These tones are numbered, cleverly enough, 1 through 4. The first tone is flat and high. Like as if you were announcing your presence by saying "Here!" when someone is doing a roll call of names. The second tone is rising, like if you were saying "huh?" in a confused state of mind. The third tone first falls a little then rises, as if you were expressing great hesitation by starting a sentence with 'Well...". The fourth tone falls quickly, as if you were definitely saying "No!".

In theory, anyhow. In practice, the Chinese do not actually speak these tones so clearly. I have a very difficult time distinguishing between the second and third tones, because in reality the so called 'rising tone' actually does seem to drop down a little first. Also, when spoken, some words are more heavily emphasized than others, and their tone is more clearly pronounced than other words' tones. If you pronouced every word with the tones as they are written, you would end up sounding like a "Mr. Speak" talking machine, in which you'd type a word and a machine voice would say it.

I used the word 'cadence' to describe this aspect of language - the actual emphasis and volume changes used in a spoken conversation. The problem is, 'cadence' is never taught. It is not even truly written down, and the rules of spoken language - though they may exist - are merely just understood by those who know the language. Think back to learning English. At what time did you read in a book or were taught by the teacher how to emphasize different words, change volume and pitch, and so forth? A small amount of it is covered, such as how the meaning of a phrase changes when you stress a particular word. Take for example the English sentence, "I walked to the store". Now, add *emphasis*. '*I* walked to the store' (implying some one else did not). 'I *walked* to the store' (meaning I did not take a car). 'I walked *to* the store' (meaning I have not walked back). 'I walked to the *store*' (meaning I did not go to the movie theatre). These are relatively simple examples, but if you say each one alound, you'll observe that not only does the emphasized word change, also the volume, tone, and speed of speaking the other words also changes.

In Chinese, this is becoming a difficult part of understanding spoken language. The theoretical tones actually do not sound anything like their listed rules. People use tones sometimes, and sometimes they don't. Also, in a long sentence the many quickly-spoken, non-emphasized words are very difficult to pick out if you haven't heard them very frequently. No to mention the differences in dialect; perhaps 50% of the people in Shanghai are not Shanghainese. They each have their own accents, and even if you know the words they are saying, you may not recognize them.

The next problem is the pronounciation. Chinese has several sounds which simply do not exist in the English language. Years ago, bad movies would use Chinese speaking English by having them mix up their "R's" and "L's". "Would rou rike some flied lice?" However now, I can tell you I understand the difficultly much more. There are several consonants and vowel sounds which have no English language counterpart. One is represented in Romanized characters by the spelling "U" (with two dots over it.) This makes a strange sound, a cross between 'ooooo' and 'eu' (as in euphamism). In the end, it sounds something like the sound a kid would make when playing and simulating the sound of a race car. There are about five sounds which are completely new.

Also, there are certain sounds which in English only appear at the end of a word. Take for instance the word, "That's". The 'ts' sound at the end is actually a very common beginning sound in Chinese. The Chinese word for toilet (a very useful word, if you ever should visit) is pronounced something like "tsouwh swoau".

And so forth. Another unusual thing about Chinese is that you have the equivalent of vowel and consonant sounds, but you are not free to reorganize them in any way you wish. Every character in Chinese has a single-syllable pronounciation. But while the "ts" sound may be able to end in "ouwh", it is not allowed to end with the "ee" sound. The beginning "ch" sound may end with "ee", but not with other sounds.

The end result is, you have a limited amount of possible total sounds. In English, you may rearrange any letters and make up a completely new word with a new pronounciation. Chinese, however, is not based on an alphabet. It is based on a set of complex characters, and it so happens there's only about a hundred (?) different possible sounds representing all those symbols. That's part of the reason the tones come into play. With four different tones, this multiplies the amount of distinct sounds four times.

Now here's the odd thing. You may remember how to say a word, but you can't remember the tone (happens all the time, let me assure you). If you are in a conversation with a Chinese and you use the right sound but the wrong tone, they will not understand you. In fact, if they realize you are not saying the correct word and they try to guess what you are trying to say, they almost always keep the TONE you used and change the SOUND to something else, asking if this is what you meant. It's odd. There seems to be a deeper frame of mind based on tone than their is pronounciation.

And last, there's the characters. If you've ever passed a Chinese restaurant, you've no doubt seen a crazy squiggle of lines and dashes in the name of the place. This name is made up of Chinese characters, of which there are some 3000 commonly used. I used to think that characters were each a completely unique work of art, but thankfully this is not so. There are some 83 different 'radicals', or smaller basic symbols which are combined and rearranged to make up the more complex sybols. Sometimes the combination of radicals makes sense. For instance, the word for 'good' is 'hao', pronounced 'how' with the third tone, falling then raising. The character for this is a combination of the character for female "nu" and male child "zi". Because, back in the old days, apparently it was the thinking that 'female' with a 'son' was 'good'. I can remember that one.

And even furthermore (sorry, I said 'last' before, but...) within the characters there are a finite number of different possible strokes - only 20 or so. A stroke may be a straight line or a complex curve, but in essence it would be the action of putting an ink brush on the paper then lifting it up counts as one stroke. Each radical, and in turn each character, has a specific defined order in which you must write the stokes. Similarly, each stroke has a defined beginning and ending point; you may not draw a line right-to-left if that line is supposed to be drawn left-to-right.

I started learning these characters. I have about 20 now. Strangely enough, it was relatively easy for me to learn the characters. I think it is a combination the fact that I worked in computers, and I am a very visual person. I appreciate the artwork behind the characters, and when I search through my memory I'm more likely to recall the look and stroke order of a character than the definition and pronounciation of a word I'd only verbally learned.

So anyhow, that's the scoop in Chinese. It's hard. I can't keep these tones straight, I can't hear what's being said half the time (and the other half I don't understand), and my pronounciation is still bad enough that people don't understand me once I start speking outside my core group of commonly-used words.

But, keep at it.

-J

Posted by: Jimbo / 11:13 AM

2005-08-16

Addendum

One addition-

My roommies not a bad guy. He's actually in many ways quite a good guy. But I have to say that from my experiences as an adult with roommates, I think it's better not to have them. Both my past roommates would have made fine see-you-around friends, but who as an adult male wants to share a place with another adult male whom you barely know? Last time I considered having a female roommate (provided she was cool with my single lifestyle and she herself - unnattractive). Normally I would not go out looking for a female roommate, but in my last ad I didn't specify male or female, and over half of the respondants were women.

Anyhow, I just got some information forwarded by my roommate about a guy who manages foosball tournaments here in Shanghai. Back in college, I was a brief foosball king, which was a big deal considering the quality of the other members in my House. And normally when I go out I can beat anyone at the tables (I've only lost to one person in Shanghai). Based on this story, my roommate went through the trouble of taking down the information of a guy who organizes foosball tournaments and forwarded it to me. He's a good guy, I mean at heart.

But regardless, I think that it's me who wants a place to myself. Fair enough, that.

-J

Posted by: Jimbo / 5:43 AM

Small update

I've come to the conclusion that a large part of the reason I have been keeping strange hours is to avoid my roommate. I've started looking for new places to live now. Once I find one, my plan is then to set up the new rental and find a peson to sub-let my existing rental. Should not be too complicated a task, just take some time and require the benefit of good timing.

Today I was up at 4am, making myself some food in preparation for sleep. My roommate came out, only in his underwear (which he often likes to do - makes me nervous) and said, cheerfully, "HEllooo!" Dude, I think, It's 4am. Just grunt. Why do you have to make such a song-and-dance of every interaction. So he says, "Whatcha doing up?" Cooking, I say. Hope I didn't wake you. "No, I had to be up anyhow." I think, strange answer. What you have to be up for? "Had to go to the bathroom!" Damn, you are odd. My decision is correct, I think.

Maybe the tone of this guy does not come through in the writing, but I can say this; I've never finished a conversation with him without thinking it was strange. I can also say this; I don't feel like going home, and when I'm home I spend most of the time in my room. I'm checking out rental places now.

In other news... Last Sunday was a good night at swing dance, relatively. To begin with, my muscles were exhausted from lack of proper sleep and food. My own fault for that. But, upon arrival at the night, the assistance of other people made it all work out OK. I also left the place in a much better feeling, and I've been eating better since. In the end we had sixteen people in class. One new student sign-up, plus one renewal. I had one volunteer as a greeter, and two assistants to help teaching (though I still lead the class). The real good news is that one of our dancers from America has agreed to help teach the Intermediate class at 6pm. I asked him to help this last time, since I was tired and out of original material to teach, and he said OK. I told him I was very happy with it, and I asked if he could do this next Sunday, and the Sunday after that? He said OK, and seemed to be happy about it. This takes a big pressure off me, and finally I myself can begin learning something. Still no DJ volunteer, though, but if we get that I can take a vacation!!!

In movie news, some new developments. It's a jinx to say to much, but there are several American film projects working in town right now. After this email I am sending my profile to one of them. I know some people in the production, so I hope something good can come of it.

Will update.

Peace!

-J

Posted by: Jimbo / 5:13 AM

2005-08-13

Burnout

Some people in life seem to inherently know what it is they want, or know what they have to do. I'm not that kind of person. It takes me a long time to figure out what I want, especially when it's a big change. Sometimes, I may consciously think that I want some thing, but then when I look at my behaviors and actions, it really seems like I want something else.

Over the last several months, I have been taking inventory of people who are big contributors in the swing dance scene. I've nailed down a list of several functions which are essential to the success of a night: 1) greeter, 2) teacher, 3) DJ. A Greeter says hello and takes attendance, asks people if they want to join the swing dance class, and collects member dues. 2) A teacher teaches. 3) A DJ plays music.

I have arranged for a rotating group of Greeters, and I have promoted my dance partner plus one of my best students to teach as Assistant teachers. The DJ just needs to play the music, but its really a lot more complicated than that. He (or she) must know all the music, select the good from bad, and keep on looking at new music all the time. This takes hours of time every week. Before a single big party, I probably spend six hours alone getting the music selected and ready. For a weekly event, you just need to

In addition to the event staff, there are also some vital background jobs which need to be taken care of. 1) Class structure design, 2) Email newsletter design and distribution, 3) website design, 4) graphic design, 5) pulicity.

And, in addition to that, there is the long-term planning: 1) Event Planning (a major job!), 2) Getting guest teachers, 3) setting up sponsorships, 4) designing marketing plans, 5) taking care of business legalities, and 6) probably more.

If swing dance is to continue after I'm gone, I need to make sure these things are all accounted for. No one has time to do all of it themselves, and since it is not a money making enterprise (as of yet) no one would want to do it. However, a group of people might all contribute enough to keep it going.

So, what's my point? Though I've said it before, I am burned out. I don't know if its the swing dancing thing, or Shanghai, or what, but I'm mentally, spritually, and physically burned out. I'm not finding joy in what I do anymore, and I'm even not finding joy in my off-work hours. This past week has been one huge computer game binge, with the exception of probably three hours of work a day to keep the minimum things going. But I'm missing my social and business apointments. What's the point of this? Why am I here so unhappy that I spend all my time in escapes? Why not just change something?

Ok, so here we are again. Change what? It's not so easy a question to answer. There are a few things that have been on my mind, so I suppose I'll just list them.

First is my roommate. He's an OK guy, keeps the place clean, pays the rent and all. My problem with him is that he never gets beyond small talk. You know, when you first meet a person, you sometimes enter into the peppy, "So how are ya!" type of talk to get things rolling. But then, after a few days of knowing a person you drop that and talk more normally. He never gets beyond "So how are ya!" I realized it in about month number two. It's like I'm always talking to a game show host. He's always trying really hard to be peppy and smart and energetic. But it's so agonizing! After a while, you're like, "Hey look, drop the act." But from painful experience, I have learned that you just don't tell people to do this. It never goes well. They have developed into who they are for some very good reasons. Telling them to change who they are is like telling them to re-evaluate their understanding of reality (which is, of course, what I'd like him to do.) So, that is Life Item #1.

Second is my body. I am 35 now. When I came to Shanghai, I was in better physical shape than I am now. I've lost weight, and I've lost muscle mass. People who haven't seen me for over a year amost always say from the beginning, "You've lost weight." or "You are looking skinny". I'm still healthy enough, but its not a good sign. Plus, my knees are hurting more than they have been before. It's always been an issue, but I can see where things are going. I'm not able to keep up the pace I previously had done. I look at my dance partner, who is 23, and she's still popping around after spending four hours on the floor. (She also is about 5'2 and 115 lbs, so it's easier for her to do this!) But the point is, Life Item #2 is that I am not only ageing but I am not properly taking care of my body.

Third is money. I still do have enough. Thank god for computer consulting and mutual funds! But although I ignore this problem most of the time, and I can continue to ignore it for several years, it's a losing strategy. I think the emotional effect of knowing that all my efforts go into losing money is also having an effect on my overall feelings. I can make myself ignore Life Item #3, but I think it is hurting my self esteem and self respect. That's so stupid! Why can't to just make your own decisions about how you want to act, and not have it affect your mood! Well, it does.

I suppose next item would be the female situation. Though my mom does read this (love you mom!), and I keep it clean for that reason, I had better talk about it. To put it simply, here in China I have choices. I am a reasonably good looking guy, sociable, and so forth. If back in the States, I would probably be able to find a girlfriend. But here in China, the choices are so vast. The mentality of the Chinese female is pro-Western and pro-older, on average. I think it is part of the Chinese culture to admire the older men rather than the younger. Many girls will not consider dating a guy who is 21-25, considering him still a boy. So, when you meet a pretty young woman, back in the States you'd have to jump through hoops and do quite a lot to impress her, perhaps even just to get her attention. But here, out on a night on the town, you are very likely to find many young, pretty girls, some of which are excited to talk with you. The tables are turned. How can this be a problem, you ask? Well, it's not, really. But it is an important change in lifestyle. Life Item #4 is something very important to consider, should you intend to every move from this place back to the States again (or any Western country). But, it does change you. For a man, a lot of your personality is based upon how women react to you. It's probably one of the number one motivators of men in life. The reason I learned swing dancing in the first place was because I needed something to do to impress women. I needed an angle, a competitive advantage. Over here, there is already a built-in competitive advantage. Again, it's not a problem, but it is an important consideration in any decision I would end up making.

Next is my feeling towards dance, and swing in general. Even back in the States, I went through points at which I didn't want to dance. So I would take a break, some times for months. It was a choice I had. But here I do not have that choice. I am organizing a social scene, and I feel a responsibility for keeping it going, regardless of my own feelings. But I think that pressure is affecting me. In my free time, I never want to listen to swing music. I do not want to meet people to go out swing dancing. I don't feel any enthusiasm for it. It's the last thing I want to think about when I have free time, because when I'm working I'm always thinking about it. I think this will not be a real problem, if I get other people who are excited to help out. I still like setting up swing dancing events and making plans for the organization as a whole. That is the last point.

So, the end result is this: I have been blowing off all of my responsibilities lately. I want to do just the minimum things to keep the long-term plans running, because I don't want to fuck that up just because I'm in a bad mood. But I have been missing appointments, both social and professional, to take hours and hours at the internet cafe, playing some well-designed, engrossing computer game. Not eating well, not sleeping well. Just wanting to escape, to leave reality behind. If there's a problem you can't do anything about, and that problem eats away at you, the only peace you have is to forget about that problem, albiet only temporarily. It's the nature of many addictions, I think: escape. Not unlike alchoholism, once it begins, it is harder and harder to escape from it. Each escape gives the life pleasure, or peace of mind and soul, only to plant you right back at square 1 (or square zero) in the morning again.

There is one more item, something I've been probably trying to avoid even thinking about. My dad had a minor stroke some months ago, around the time I stopped the blog last time. My relationship with my father, at its best, has been uncomfortable. So many sons, so many fathers throughout history, the same problem over and over. But each situation is unique, and each case the egos of the people involved can be the most difficult barrier.

In the ages of grade school, my father would help me with homework on occasion. I remember one particular time, we were going over vocabulary. I had read the words, felt I understood the list, and had given him the definition list and we were going over it. He read the word, I said the definition, and so forth. We got to one word, well...

Each time when I try to explain the nature of his attitude towards me, I go through a difficult explanation. It was not the words he said, it was the way he said them. The feeling, or attitude behind them. The annoyance, or downright anger, which waited behind any potential mistake. Or even, that same annoyance and anger which laid behind anything he dissaproved of.

There was also another side to it. My father never had any close friends. He was not one of the boys. His two friends that I can remember by name were both also psychologists, and they themselves quite odd people as well, even by his own admission. But he was a respected person at his work. He worked, of all things, with retarded kids program for the state of Illinois. My sister went to one of his 'farewell' type parties, and the things which she heard at that event made her completely change her mind about my father. The other people there were saying he was a hard working, loving, dedicated person who gave no second through to self-sacrifice. He spent his life making the lives of disadvantaged others better. And so forth, with complete sincerity, over and over from many, many people.

My sister said (either to me or to my mom) that it was like they were describing another person. All of these character traits, the personality of a philanthropist, a quiet worker making lives of others better. I was not there at this meeting, but it was after this that my sister's relationship with my father improved. She, as had I, at about college age attempted repeatedly to 'break through' to him. That is to say, if I may cycle back to the original problem, when you talked to him you never felt like you were really getting the true person. He lay behind a wall of arrogance and an arsenal of reflexive criticism, tools of emotional war which he never laid down. Sometimes you just wanted to say to him, Stop being so arrogant! Stop being so critical! I really need your help right now! But during those times he was not to be reached.

Those who have not experienced such a person, what's the technical word... Narcissistic. I got this diagnosis from one of the therapists I had been seeing myself. A Narcissistic personality is one who's development has been interrupted during the Narcissistic phase of their life. This phase is the age somewhere between 2-4 years old, when a baby becomes mentally aware of their own existance, but has not yet realized of the existance of others. Eventually a baby will realize that others exist just in the same way that them themselves exist, and now they've exited the Narcissitic phase. If a person's development is interrupted during this time by a significant trauma, lack of proper stimuli (such as being surrounded by other Narcissistic people), or other problems, it will lead to a chain of events preventing them from making proper inter-personal relationships. They will never truly connect with others, a thing which most people take for granted.

Narcissistic personalities, as adults or young adults, can realize their position and attempt to break out of it. Probably, they will attempt many times. But most of these attempts will yield nothing but amusement, criticism, or anger of others. (This much I know from my own personal experience).

And, as a coping strategy, they may find a skill, art form, knowledge, or character trait which they excel at and will make people admire them for this skill. Or, lacking such a skill or character trait, they will simply convince themselves they are 'really good' at something, or 'really good' at everything. Or, simply criticize everyone and everything around them, thus feeling that if the world sucks anyhow they by comparison are not so bad.

When I was in college, after about two years I felt something was quite amiss, since I myself had for some reason not formed any close friendships. I went through a very painful period after the death of a close friend in which I had to take stock in what was happening. Though I could not have begun to conceive of it at the time, I myself was a Narcissistic personality. That's the whole thing: from your own point of view, you will never know.

Though I would not be able to put a name on it for many years, I knew something was wrong, and having no other choice in the matter I had to deal with that something, no matter how bad it might be. Through concentration, trying different approaches, and close observation of myself over weeks of time, I eventually came up with a life strategy which got me going on the right track. Then, once stable again, I needed to determine why the problem had emerged in the first place. During this very difficult period, I noticed that whenever I fell into despair, I would do some soul searching and try to find out the root of the problem. I just kept thinking of different problems (like I'm doing now) and kept going until I found a thought which caused me to relax or feel a little better. Then, no matter how random that thought may have been, I would take a mental note of that 'relax' thought and keep on going.

After a few months, I'd noticed a indisputable pattern. 90% of the 'relax' thoughts had to do something with my family. They were not necessarily very well formed thoughts; could be I would remember doing something as a child, or having an argument with my dad, or something strange my mother had said to me a long, long time ago. The thoughts seemed random, but there was a common thread in it. So, like solving a great puzzle, I kept gathering pieces and pieces until a more clearer picture formed.

Anyhow, that's enough for tonight. Peace be with you.

-J

Posted by: Jimbo / 7:34 PM

2005-08-02

Class Reorganization

So today I met with my student to talk over how we can put together the class schedule. As it stood, we were teaching three different styles of swing dance: East Coast Swing (a six-count dance, sometimes called Jitterbug, similar and the ancestor of Rock N Roll dancing), Charleston (a version of the 1920's dance which is the precursor to Lindy Hop), and Lindy Hop.

Among the hardcore people, Lindy Hop is the most commonly used. I originally began with East Coast Swing because that's the style I originally learned. Then, after people have that we segue them into Charleston, and if they're still OK, we go into Lindy Hop, which is a more complicated, eight-count / ten-step dance.

The theory was, Lindy Hop is too difficult for most beginners to learn. It was thought that we start them on something simple then move them forward. However, this caused a couple of problems. First, it was downright confusing for folks who had spent two months already in dance to switch to a brand new style. Plus, we had two levels of East Coast and two levels of Lindy Hop. It became difficult to schedule everything, because we have at the moment only four class times per week in reserved locations.

So, we are dropping East Coast. Everyone will now learn Lindy Hop from the beginning. (This is how our counterparts in Beijing have been doing it all the time). Now in Shanghai, we have two Lindy Hop Level I (basic) classes per week and two Level II (intermediate). A beginner can attend both the Wednesday and Sunday classes at the same time, allowing up to two practice sessions per week. This is also good, because people were saying they found it difficult to make any progress when the just learned one hour of dance per week.

In order to make these changes, we have had to redesign our Performance and Level III classes. My assistant came up with a surprisingly helpful idea: make one Performance group just for Level II people. Let people who have had enough basic understanding of the dance join a simple performance.

So we will have one medium-skill performance which most anyone can join after about two months. And an advanced performance for our hardcore people. Since there are only four people qualfied and able to learn level III performances, this will work out well (I hope!)

This month we'll implement the new system and hope for the best. The student helping me organize is also willing to help me round up new students and spread the word. The nice thing about this deal is that I no longer feel I'm working completely alone. At least a few of the people are contributing in a much more than verbal way.

It's always too easy to find a person who will give 'advice'. Most of this is just theoretical ideas, such as "Why don't we recruit more people?" When you ask them how, or ask them if they are willing to do the work to get it accomplished, these folks tend to say "Uh, I'm kind of busy..." So it's nice to see someone who is going to pitch in.

What else is new? On the personal front, I'm learning the language. Slowly but slowly. If I practice one hour per day I'd be much better off. Practicing language alone is dry work. But got to do it.

Right now I'm planning for a big party in late September or late October. The first week of October is off-limits, because there is a Chinese national holiday during this week. Everyone gets one week off from work. I mean Everyone. People take advantage of this time to travel back home (so the train station people don't get the week off, but you get the idea.) There's no point in trying to get anything done during this week. Almost all businesses are closed. Even Westerners tend to take this time off, since most of their business counter-parts are away anyhow.

There's two holidays like this. The other is Spring Festival, coinciding with Chinese New Year. I think the origin of these holidays coincides with harvest and planting seasons back during the agricultural times. For both of these week-long holidays, most employers require their workers to be present on the weekends before and after. So no one is free to attend a party during that time.

So for this party in the fall, we need to have the two performances ready. This is two months from now, which means we must begin training immediately. Everyone who is in Level II will actually be learning those moves which will be used in the performance. Then, after the month we'll invite some of them to join the 'official' performance class, which will teach the routine and principles of dancing as a group for an audience.

yada yada yada.

My sister's kid, my niece, is five months old. I get pictures of her occasionally. My sister & husband and their daughter are living in Germany. In this regard, I don't feel like I'm missing out by not being back in the States, since they wouldn't be around anyhow.

Most Americans living here in Shanghai have a similar feeling about returning to the US. The question is, Why? For most people, the largest dilema is separation from their family, and this is of course an issue. But the changes which have been happening in the US since the Bush II years have left everyone here feeling very unexcited about going back. First, the economy is still flat. Second, with the losses in personal freedom and increasing amount of control and supervision from the government, one finds it hard to feel enthusiastic. Every day there's more news about military, oil, and such things. Plus more conservative goverment people appointed in judicial and executive positions. It just doesn't feel like it used to. Ironically, there seems to be more financial opportunity and freedom of action and choice in China than there is back in the Land of the Free.

There's a computer game, Civilization, which deals with growing an empire and building it up. You begin in the stone age with one small village and a club-wielding army troops. Then, things progress through the ages, to Roman-type times, the Renessance (sp?), Industrial Revolution, to modern and the space age.

During this game you change the Government type of your cilization to pick the most effective. You start as an absolute ruler, then can eventually select Monarchy, then Repulic (like Rome), then Democracy (like the US, originally). The further you go along the line, the better the economy improves -- BUT it becomes progressively harder to wage war. In Repulic and especially Democracy, people begin to get upset when troops are moved abroad. (Imagine, for example, the 1970s and the reaction to Vietnam).

So, in this game, when you decide it's time to squash an opponent, sometimes you will down-grade your government type from Democracy to something simpler, allowing more control over the populace, at expense of the economy. Then you are free to move your units about without risking loss of control over your goverment.

'Nuff said.

Posted by: Jimbo / 3:09 AM

2005-08-01

What's Up

Today is Sunday night (monday morning) and I'm relaxing after the Sunday night swing dance. We had a monthy party at a bar on the Bund (a relatively famous area of Shanghai). It rained heavily, and the summer is a slow time as many expats flee the city's heat. But we still had a good attendance, near 100. It was good fun and I think we'll have a few new students from it.

As for me, I'm about the same. Been still feeling tired, but there's a bit of momentum. I've got to get into the correct frame of mind for running a swing dance movement. You can't take it too seriously, but at the same time you can't be too disorganzied or unplanned. I have been trying to get help from folks to better our marketing, class plans, and so forth to increase the amount of students and regular party attendees. The swing parties are a good idea. People who are otherwise too busy will come out for them. People who otherwise do not dance will also come out for them, just because they are fun and something different from the usual night life here in Shanghai.

The downside, at the moment, is the usual downside. It's been a money-losing affair for quite some time, and that's got to stop. I have two options; one is to try to get it to become an actual career. The second is to get a regular day job and do swing dance as a very interesting side-line. In either case, I need to increase the amount of helpers I have. At the moment, I'm responsible for almost ever aspect of the operation. Publicity, graphic design, web design, venue management, teaching, performing, choreography, data entry, and marketing/sales. I am trying to get help in the marketing/sales area, as this is the root of everything. I have interviewed a very promising candidate last week, but she failed to show up for the first meeting day, or even answer the phone calls.

All the time I did computer consulting in Silicon Valley, I was always a one-person operation. Granted, I had a lawyer and accountant, but neither of them were involved in making the business operation work. I considered several times about taking on additional employees, but that's an entirely different situation. There is an enormous responsibility when you have a full-time employee, especially in IT. First, you must ensure they are qualified, then you must ensure they are doing the work correctly and documenting everything. Then, assuming everything works well, you have another responsibility. You must keep the operation continually working so that you can pay their salary. An adult is depending on you for their means of living. This means that you yourself must sacrifice some of your life choices. You can no longer terminate operations just because you feel like it. You are obliged to keep going.

It is the goal of many people who set up their own companies to get the operation running, put the proper people in place, then be able to walk away and have everything operate without their intervention. Go and live on the beach and collect a check at the end of every month. However, this is easier said than done. As the head of an organization, you become responsible for any mistake, absence, or vacation of your employees. You have to stand at the end of the process and catch anything which falls through the cracks, and many things do just that.

The swing dance organization, though not a company in the usual sense, is a very different type of multi-person operation. I have several volunteers, who grant their efforts in exchange for free lessons, good will, and such. However, with volunteers you must accept that you can never TELL anyone what to do. Just like with the students, you can never take too much of an authority position. People do not like being told what to do during their leisure activites. So it's a tricky balance.

I just got word that my cousin in Phoenix is doing very well with his business. He's started his own gym for training of gymnastic and cheerleading, and he's got over 300 students. (I think I mentioned this before).

In the IT world, I was succesful because I could provide solutions which businesses required to operate. My role was that of a specialist necessary for the day-to-day life of the company. Only a handful of people worked in my field, so I had a great deal of leverage over my client/employer.

This dance business thing is nothing like that. I'm providing a leisure/entertainment role. I can't just set a goal and have everyone obtain it. I've got to be sure everyone is HAPPY as well. And if I myself am grumpy, who's going to be happy taking my class?

So, again tomorrow I will try to get some assistance with the marketing area. Hopefully we will come up with something and the organization can turn a corner and experience significant growth. We've been hovering all this time at under 20 active students at any given time. It is remarkable that I've been able to keep things running, hold successful events, and get media attention with so few people around. But the whole point of this effort is to popularize swing dancing - not to count how many magazines and television shows we can appear on (but, in case you might wonder, it's been about 20 magazines/newspapers and 4 television stations. Plus soon, one movie!)

Yes, and about that. The White Countess comes out in September, approximately. In an solemn turn of events, the producer of the movie - Ismail Merchant - passed away within the last month. I believe this means the White Countess will be his last film (though it is possible he had started another project since then). It's a shame, really. When I met him, it was my first day on the movie set. I walked on, and a upper-middle aged Indian man of average height came up to me, shook my hand, and say, Hello, my name is Ismail. So, having no idea who he was, I said, Hello, nice to meet you. It wasn't until days later that someone pointed out to me who he was.

Since the White Countess, I have had some involvement in other films. I danced tango (poorly) in a movie starring some big Hong Kong stars. I myself did not know them by name, but I had seen their faces on movie advertising posters in China. It really is best not to try to learn how 'big' a star you are working with. It is much better just to meet them as a person and be natural about it.

However, besides that, the other movie involvement has been just extra roles. After you've been on a movie set, the thrill of being an extra the second or third time gets a little thin. Plus, the pay is really, really low. It comes to 50 rmb per hour, which is about seven dollars. As low as that sounds, it's a lot better than the local Chinese get for being extras in the same movie. They only recieve 50 rmb per day!

There is a project a friend of mine is producing. It involves some ballet and hip-hop. Ballet is not my forte, but a decent amount of swing can cross over into hip-hop. He's verbally expressed interest that I may come on that project as an Assistant Choreographer. This would be cool. I really enjoyed the choregraphy work, even more than the on-screen dancing. It's quite a thrill to be sitting behind the monitors, seeing what it looks like, then going out to the dancers and giving them instruction for how to improve the result for the next take.

Of course, as nice as all this sounds, I've got to face a financial situation. What would be ideal would be to take on some sort of job which allows me flexibility, just in case something good in the artistic side comes up. I'd hate to 'sell' myself back to the corporate world, only to have to pass up an artistic opportunity. But at least I have that choice. A friend of mine, also a foreign dance teacher, has gone into dance immediately after college. He's done no other type of work, so he's committed to his profession, for better or worse. Should he abandon it and go into a more normal career, he'll have to start at the ground level and work his way up, all the time feeling the sting of being removed from his chose profession. Such is the life of a hard-core artist.

Well, I should probably get some sleep. In the morning I have my Mandarin lesson and I haven't studied sufficiently.