Dan in La Crosse

China rising

Watch out, world. While China may be about to harness fully its economic and military might, more impressive, I think, will be its take-over of international sports.

While running, I hate dogs, without discrimination. A dog of any race, breed or national origin, I hate. And I especially hate Chinese dogs because the scruffy beasts that roam the streets must surely be rabid. And my exposed calves, to a rabid beast, scream “appetizer.” And so, on my first run today on the insane street in front of the campus, I had to turn around and head back soon after I started. The dumptrucks bearing down on me, horns blaring, no sweat. The kamikaze mini-bikers approaching from behind, nearly up my arse, horns blaring, I’ll deal. But the squadron of scruffy beasts, used to feeding on garbage and about to be dinner for a kamikaze mini-biker and his family, sent me back to the campus “playground,” to run endless circles around its 400-meter black dirt oval.

Half of China joined me on the playground. Twelve basketball courts, filled with full squads against full squads, full-court, all-out. Six full-court soccer fields, full squads against full squads, full-court, all-out. Four badminton courts full, with birdies screaming across the sky like runaway missiles. A baker’s dozen sprinters gutted out 100 meter intervals. A racewalker did lap after lap. And, because it’s China, one woman javelin thrower tossed her spear which, amazingly, went completely unnoticed to the thousands of people potentially in its path and, equally amazing, managed to evade them all. Just as the mini-bikers manage to evade the dumptrucks manage to evade the chickens manage to evade the peasant bikers manage to evade the rabid dogs out on the skinny, bumpy roads.

And, also true to China, side games of basketball and soccer went on in every spare patch of land in the surrounding fields. In sports as in farming, not a speck of dirt goes unused.

And, in both cases, not a speck of grass grows. The soccer pitches are 100 percent infield dirt, the kind on baseball diamonds. The track is black dirt. And a tornado of dust swirls above it all, adding an inch of dirt to every participant’s skin and turning the sky coal black. If second-hand dust inhalation is carcinogenic, a billion people will drop dead tomorrow. It’s everywhere here, a sign, truly, of industrious hands, and feet, at work. Constantly.

I cruised 80-second quarters around the track and experienced my baptism as spectacle-boy. In an arena of thousands of young men of the same race, the same relatively short height, the same clothes – tattered old jersey, baggy shorts and Chuck Taylor Converse All-Star low-top sneakers – a 6-4 twiggy white dude dressed in skimpy, teal running shorts and a teal tank-top with “WARREN STREET” emblazoned front and back, that’s a freakin event.

The basketball players didn’t notice much, so engrossed in their games were they, but the soccer players stopped their games, ran home to get their cameras, lassoed me off the track and had their Kodak moment with WARREN STREET. The runners did a few laps with me, but no English speakers among them and no Mandarin in me, yet. The javelin thrower had no love for anything, or anyone, but her spear.

All of this was more fun than should be legal. One of the beautiful things about running gazillions of miles around neighborhoods is that I get to watch upstart youngsters play the sports – soccer, football, basketball, baseball – that I played as an upstart youngster, before reality hit: it’s running or no sports for you, awkward boy. Through them I retrace my youthful obsessions with draining jumpers, working on my vertical leap, polishing the fundamentals and growing, day by day, in confidence.

Unfortunately, I don’t see that scene very often as I run the roads of America. The suburban softification has led to top-dollar equipment – glass backboards, full courts – and threadbare skills. Namely, pretending to be a suburban Shaq on a 7-foot hoop. And the three-point line has spawned a generation of kids who do nothing but play basketball but shoot nothing but three-pointers. The eight-footer off the glass has no hold on kids’ imagination, it seems. Instead, get out the catapult and launch away from 23 feet.

On 12 courts in Zhuzhou City, China, with a tornado of black dust overhead, on filthy courts with splintered wooden backboards and rusty rims and no nets, I saw magic. In-the-jock D, brick wall picks, hard cuts to the hole, ferocious drives, equally ferocious blocks and no blood no foul. Hardly a three-pointer was hurled. Every shot was contested. Boxing out happened each play. And the teamwork was Lakers-Celtics, vintage 1985. Wow.

And the same was true on the soccer pitches. Every play left someone on the ground. No ball rolled out of bounds peacefully. Brilliant bending crosses were met by a slew of skyward heads, and a goalie sprawled to make the save. Every play aggressive, action nonstop. Wow.

By running gazillions of miles, I get to witness the future of sports, and it looks much more Chinese than American, at least through my eyes. I came to China to be inspired, and am finding inspiration in places I never thought of before I came. If this is a year I get to spend reliving my life as an upstart youth eager to make my name in a glamour sport, I will become a more gritty Warren Street. The Chinese have much to teach us about active engagement in athletics, far away from rabid dogs and with a tornado of dust above.

a letter to Frank, first night in Zhuzhou, Sep. 29, 2003, in response to, "how's China, Dan?"
Frank,
Dusty. That's how China is. Everywhere I go it seems the town has been destroyed by war or revolution and is starting over. Buildings are being toppled and re-built daily, although no road graders or skidloaders -- instead, dumptruck after dumptruck filled with topless dudes, all smoking, wielding picks and axes and sledgehammers, taxiing from one scene of destruction to the next, swerving in between the endless squadrons of kamikaze mini-bikers, kids on bikes, loose dogs, chickens, naked babies, old ladies and taxicabs. Even the highway from Changsha, Hunan's capital, to Zhuzhou is under construction, and thus impassable. So, we opted for the road through the countryside, which is also under construction and about as smooth -- and wide -- as the McCarthy Road in Alaska. That felt almost dangerous, scraping by dumptrucks, narrowly missing old ladies and never once slowing down, while swerving in and out of endless obstacles on a road fit for passage of two cars, exactly, mirrors scraping, and bumpety-bump-bump through potholes the whole way. At one point, my waiban said, "So sorry, traffic jam." This caused by the telephone pole snapping in half in the middle of some village just ahead, with live wires down and cars and mini-bikes racing to get around it, not a care about getting juiced by the downed wires, about ten feet away. Our guy steered the taxi basically into a storefront, sending patrons fleeing, slowing only a bit, and we kept cruising.

That will be my journey every Wednesday. Check out this schedule: teach all day in Zhuzhou Monday and Friday, teach all day in Changsha Wednesday, Tuesday and Thursday freakin free! And, I write this from my third-floor penthouse sa-weet, which is four rooms and overlooks this massive garden plot, which turns into a ginormous tree-covered hill in the distance. Despite the absolute shithole that surrounds it on every side, the campus itself is a sanctuary, with greenery covering every wall and trees freakin everywhere. I guess it is the Garden Campus after all. Birds have their own orchestra outside my window, which is good because I didn't think any birds could exist in this place. As far as I've seen so far, those are the only birds in China.

I spent the past few days at Zhaoqing University visiting Alyssa. She's in the same school that Cathy Frederick taught at, and everyone still raves about Cathy. Seriously. As I'm sure they'll be raving still about Alyssa for years after she's gone. She has a devoted student fan club, and is amazingly proficient at turning elementary conversations into exhilarating, provocative experiences. And she's also incredibly proficient at driving the hardest bargain, in busted Cantonese, with cabbies or waiters. She's there by herself this year, as Maryknoll didn't sponsor ANY new teachers, so her only friends -- and they number in the 100s -- are her students, ex-students and one funky old priest named Larry. He lived in Bolivia for 30 years prior to this and has prostate cancer. He had surgery, the clinical name of which is orchiectomy, or nut-removal, three years ago. He waits, patiently, for his chemo meds to come every month and keep him alive. But he's always smiling and talks endlessly about Bolivia "during the wo-ah." Once a Bostonian, always a Bostonian.

I participated in "free chat" with some of Alyssa's students -- Honey-Dew Melon, Crystal, Panda, Tree and Happy -- last night. God, Chinese girls are 22 going on 12! Actually, it was quite enjoyable for most of the night. They asked me to show them my stories, so I did. Memorable was my attempt to explain my story about the hole-in-one guy, titled "Ace in the Hole." "What do you think 'ace' means in the context of golf?" I asked them. Tree got all giddy and giggly and shot back, "it mean, kick it just one time and, Bingo!" Yes, indeed, I couldn't say it more colorfully myself, Tree. Then, on to fly fishing. "Why not you just put fly on end of line, instead of fake fly?" That from Panda. And then, "Atrial fibrillation." Aunt Tilly in Bismarck may understand the Health Letter, but I was a long time explaining "upper part of heart shake like Jell-o." And off they went to the dictionary to find out what exactly I meant by "Jell-o." Overall, it was a total freakin hoot, and makes me all the more stoked to start classes next week.

It's strange to think I was on planet Saweden just weeks ago, surely many galaxies away from this one. The two could not be more opposite, and I'm glad I'm here instead of there. When dust settles, a year from now, I will look at a place vastly different from the one obscured by all that dust now. This is a developing country, emphasis on developing!
Good night,
Dan

Image, Sweden

There's modesty everywhere in Sweden -- Stockholm has hardly a skyscraper, people drive sensible Volvos and Saabs, bigwig lawyers race around the streets on 40s-era military bicycles, and the jaw-dropping beauty of the women is characterized by their stylish clothing -- plaid scarves, tarry-cloth coats, well-tailored trousers and funky spectacles -- rather than overexposed cleavage and undercovered derrieres.

And yet, politically and culturally, there seems to be a bit of haughtiness in the Swedish people. This assertion comes from their vote, this past Sunday, to reject the European common currency, or "euro," and instead stick with the Swedish currency, or kronor. Many news stories about the vote have cited Swedes' general fear that a move to the euro means a cultural and political move closer -- too close for comfort, apparently -- to the other European countries, and a move away from cherised Swedish independence.

Swedes -- and I -- believe that their distinctive approach to government -- tax the bejesus out of income, goods and services, put the resulting treasure into schools and hospitals and roads and social causes, and don't raise so much as a bayonet in battle -- makes theirs' a distinctively successful, prosperous, harmonious society.

Evidence of this superiority is everywhere, for all to see. Streets and the sea are remarkably clean. Everyone is well-fed. There's hardly a hint of poverty. Trains run on time. Women and children are treated as equals and, shazaam, so are immigrants and minorities! More than any place I've ever been, this is a color-blind and gender-blind society. Swedes' backs deserve a pat.

And, yet, is it only the Swedes themselves who are doing the patting, and is it deserved? According to my friend Dan, a lawyer in one of Stockholm's Big Three firms, Swedes pat themselves on their backsides all too much, without justification for it. They celebrate their mythic state; the reality, according to Dan, doesn't measure up.

"The Social Democratic state is rotten through and through," Dan said. Whazzhemean? The Social Democrats, unquestioned leaders for 70 years, are shamelessly corrupt. Its officers live dazzling lives, fed lavishly by figurehead positions on phony boards. Relatives and friends of the powerful have backstage passes to government favors. A Soviet-style black market in goods and services thrives, inspired by people's dread of paying exorbitant taxes. Red tape a mile thick and bureaucracy a mile wide must be negotiated for even the smallest request. And women's rights? A farce, at least when it comes to the private sector, according to Dan. The only place where women have opportunities equal to men, he says, is in government. That way, he explains, the government looks pro-women's rights. But women's access to other sectors -- business, finance, law, medicine -- is equally unequal here as anywhere else.

So, back to the euro. It seems that Swedes voted it down because they feared it would mean an end or at least a compromise to their free-thinking, clean-living ways. What would set them apart, anymore, from everyone else? But, another question, from a cynic: are they truly set so far apart, and will their image of themselves as an enlightened, egalitarian society crumble around a rotten core? I freakin hope not.

September 11th in Stockholm
I wouldn't imagine, as I awoke in Stockholm this morning, that the second anniversary of the 9-11 attacks would be far from my mind as I fall asleep tonight. Alas, other tragedies intervened today and made the present more urgent than the past. Grieving 9-11, so far away, seems quaint and desirable by comparison.

Close to home, a thief busted my Honda's window and ransacked through all that was inside: a couple dozen neckties, a few QuikTrip coffee cups, my Mealbox, 66 CDs (my entire collection!), a bad novel and, ugh, my spankin-new Pioneer stereo. All will work out in the end -- insurance will pay for the items I need, the thief will have good tunes to listen to and I'll head to China with few worries and perhaps a few hundred samoleans from State Farm. But, the bah-stads broke my trust. And my parents will live in greater fear from now on. Even sleepy little Falcon Heights isn't safe anymore.

And neither is Stockholm. Yesterday, my first day here, 46-year-old Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed, repeatedly, while shopping in downtown Stockholm. This morning, she died of complications from her numerous wounds. And a cloud of sorrow hangs over Stockholm, and stands to linger for decades. The killer has not been caught. No motive is known. And Sweden's political heart and soul have been hollowed.

I walked the streets of Stockholm today and watched people mourn. Expressionless faces, gray as the glum autumn sky, rested awkwardly atop stylish plaid scarves and collared, button-down dark coats. A red rose, one in seemingly everyone's hand, stood out, a flash of vivid color against the dark surroundings.

The red roses are the symbol of Lindh's political party, the Social Democrats. But they also are the color of blood. And through them floods the emotions of a reserved, stoic people. I saw hardly a tear shed. I saw few embraces, no emoting for the cameras. I saw men and women, boys and girls, blonde native Stockholmers and coffee-skinned Ethiopian immigrants, one by one, silently walk up to makeshift memorials, one red rose in hand, add it to the stack, bow the head and then retreat back to their normal lives.

In one way, this silent mourning seemed unnatural -- now is not the time, it seems, for stiff upper lip and stoic, steely gazes. Where's the outraged shouting? Where are the desperate cries for justice? Where is the musician strumming John Lennon peace tunes?
In another way, though, it made more dramatic public mourning -- for Princess Diana, for JFK Jr., for Wellstone -- look contrived and made-for-TV by comparison. In their silence, the Swedes seemed to say: we're stunned. We have no words for this. We'll leave our rose and go to mourn in private. So soon after the attack, and with the killer still among us, there can be no closure, or even the beginnings of it. To cry out only makes you look foolish. And that doesn't help anyone.

According to everyone I talked to, Anna Lindh was known and loved by all Swedes -- even her political enemies. She had charisma, guts, a sharp mind and the wiles to compete in the old-boys Swedish political establishment. She was next in line to be Swedish prime minister, the answer to decades of silent hopes and prayers: someday, God, may Sweden have a female prime minister. Anna Lindh was to be the first.

The night she was attacked, she was scheduled for a debate about the upcoming Swedish vote on whether or not to adopt the euro as its currency. She was leading the "yes" faction, and her face, smiling, confident, radiant, adorns billboard after billboard after billboard all around town.

Maybe it's especially sad that this pioneering woman died while fighting for a cause -- the color of Swedish money -- that seems quite mercantile and, in the broader scheme, insignificant. And I think it's another sign of this age of lost innocence that, in the safest, cleanest, most beautiful national capital I've seen, in the place where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, the people's silent hopes and prayers have turned to silent outpourings of shock and sorrow, and stacks and stacks of roses, red like Anna Lindh's blood.