(This is one of the more unusual song and album titles I know. It’s an early effort by the great jazz/fusion guitarist Pat Metheny.)
I am pleased to announce that any news of my demise is premature. I am still here, both geographically and corporeally. I have a plethora of excuses for being silent for several months in this medium, but I’ll burden you with only a few. As you know, this school year I have a fairly long commute: I spend 1 month in Beijing, then a month in Virginia, and so on. Thanks to my intimate friend jet-lag, I feel lousy half of my life: the first two weeks of each month.
I reported in “Cough Up the Bucks” that I was sick in November, thanks to a good friend who seems physically incapable of covering her mouth when she coughs or sneezes. That happened in my first day back in Beijing at the beginning of November. It lasted through that month and through December, during which month I finally was able to visit my doctor in Washington who prescribed an antibiotic. At first I thought it was pneumonia, but it turned out to be only a virulent case of bronchitis.
By the time I returned to Beijing at the beginning of the New Year, the bronchitis disappeared – more or less. Within a couple days of arriving, however, I acquired a violent intestinal “issue” any accurate description of which would gross out the toughest marine (DS?). That lasted 3 weeks, and over that period I was highly reluctant to stray more than 10 feet from the facilities in my apartment.
I seem to have come down with a mild bout of laziness, a condition I despise in anyone.
Some of the projects with which I’m connected have begun to catch fire, and I find I have a lot more writing and editing to do than I’ve had in the past.
Finally, and very irritatingly, the Internet here declines daily. You may have read about how China is cracking down on VPNs and other taboos (i.e., mechanisms that bring information to its people). If you add that to the already astoundingly poor Internet connection here in my dorm (which is intentionally minimized on my floor because we’re foreigners — no joke), it takes me 30-60 minutes just to log into my email or to do anything else that is not expressly permitted in China. It takes a similar length of time just to post something to a blog that’s already written.
Oh, well, enough about me.
I’ve mentioned X23 a couple times, a female graduate student from the university across the street. Though certainly an odd couple, we’ve become very good friends for what I believe is a very logical reason: we’re both are set apart from the people in our respective circles; she is much smarter and kinder than the others in her circle of friends, and I am an American surrounded by Chinese.
Anyway, X23 (who’s 25 now) has been informing me of events at the university (Renmin). During the past 6 months, there have been 4 suicides at Renmin. Three people have jumped from high-rise dorms, two of which from the dorm immediately adjacent to the park where we sit. I’ve looked for blood spatters, but X23 assures me that the authorities are very quick to clean up after one of these Icarus days. The latest jump happened 2 weeks ago.
One week ago a student poisoned himself.
Details of these events are difficult to come by; they’re acquired mostly via word of mouth as the authorities are reluctant to publicize this stuff. (Duh.) I’ve asked several people if this rate of suicide is similar at other universities, but most people have no idea. One professor I know told me that 4 suicides per university per year are normal for Beijing universities. I involuntarily raised my voice a bit, saying “FOUR SUICIDES IS NOT NORMAL. It may be the average but it certainly isn’t normal.” She seemed unconcerned and simply replied that 4 wasn’t the average but the minimum.
The Renmin University’s administration has instructed all professors with graduate students to meet with those students and give them anti-suicide pep talks. X23’s anti-suicide briefing is sometime this week, so I may report back to you if anything interesting is said.
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On my last trip to home in Virginia, I installed a program on my laptop and a new desktop called Outlook Sync. It allows me to ensure emails written and received on one computer appears on the other. Unfortunately, I botched the installation process and deleted my IN box. In that box I had been saving several emails from friends and students that required substantive and lengthy responses from me. I was waiting for a good time to sit in my back yard and enjoy responding. I can’t remember all of these ephemeral email messages, but I do think there were some from Ritu D. (whom I loved to call R2D2), Henry H., Alice G., as well as others. If you sent me an email of any length and I have not responded, PLEASE resend it. I wouldn’t want you to think I’ve forgotten you and just didn’t feel like responding.
Pictures next time. I promise.
保罗
DC's Asian Adventures 