Day Three

6:30 wakeup call; 7:30 bus departure. We left in our formal suits and dresses for our first private lecture at Tsinghua University. The lecturer was Dr. Yuan Peng, whose specialty and lecture topic concerned Sino-American relations and foreign policies. I took extensive notes...

At the end of the lecture, during questions-and-answers, a single Chinese girl -- first in Chinese, than in English -- asked the professor about cooperative government and then turned to us, Americans, to ask by what means we demonstrated our love for our motherland, as she herself wished to do. One or two people hesitatnly made comments about volunteer work or what-not, but I came to realize that not one of us had adequately understood the question. It would seem, at least now to the Chinese students and professor in that room, that the idea of a steadfast love for one's country, to the same extent as for one's mother, has practically to residence in the mainstream concept of politics for young Americans. What is 200 years, anyway, compared to 5000, no matter how long we may be adjusted to our present economy and form of government? It is an idea with little ground for us...

We had lunch on campus, where each table of seven or eight people was joined by a university student. To my excitement, my table was joined by a Ms. Maeda Yoshie (前田よしえ), who was originally from Kobe and had come to Beijing to study law (-- her mother was Chinese and her dad provided the law influence). It was unexplainably lovely to exchange some words in her native tongue, making me realize, after our brief conversation about my job and her family, how very intimately Japanese has become a part of me, a part that felt as though it had been holding its breath before surfacing, now forced again for the time being to remain submerged. She proffered her card (名刺), and I planned to contact her again as soon as I could.

The next stop was the U.S. Embassy, into which I was prohibited to carry even a pen and paper notebook to record the one-hour interview with four of the embassies staff members; I have thus forgotten their names. They took their seats at the front of the small, florescent-lit delegation room -- three more or less obviously American middle-aged men, who specialized respectively in diplomatic relations, education/environmental/cultural policy reform, and economic reform: and between them sat a woman of Asian descent whose primary office, I believe, was human resources. They each gave a brief outline of their role and position in the embassy and then immediately opened the floor to questions. We, the students, as expected jabbed them with a few difficult, or at least detailed, inquiries, to which the staff members responded with a good deal of beating around the bush -- no less than Dr. Yuan had in response to questions that entailed giving his personal opinion or equally detailing answers. Many of us failed to get our questions addressed at all. A great opportunity given too little time to experience it.

We returned to the hotel, changed clothes, and had our debriefing of the past two days. It was rather difficult to believe that we had in fact covered as much ground as we did in just under 48 hours. But many of the deeper implications to what we had seen and heard still seemed lost on some of the (many) less contemplative group members. It still seemed to me taht everyone was continuing to speak of democracy and capitalism as though America represented the only true model of either, and I made an open comment about it toward the end of the meeting. I hoped that even a few were truly comprehending my lead. To be unaware of our language, in whatever realm of subject, especially in a country as foreign as China, can too easily be compared to walking into a dark room with a sword you only think you know how to wield -- everyone is prone to the diplomatic error of forgetting that they are the very embodiment of assumptions about life and what it even means to be living, let alone forgetting what some of those assumptions are. Knowing we would soon leave Beijing in another day, I quietly anticipated finding out how deep some of those assumptions lay for us considering the experiences we would soon have away from the familiarity and comforts of the city.

The evening ended with a trip to the theatre: a narrativeless piece comprised in its entirety of body motion, in dance, kung-fu, and stunts of balance and pain that again challenge the assumptions of what the body can do. The story of the hero, aspiring endlessly to become a perfect master in his art, even as to avoid the temptations of a beautiful woman from his dreams, deeply moved something in me, churning my melted innards to the rhythm and tones of a mix of traditional (and modernly-depicted 'traditional') soundtrack. I fell in love with the lights and colors and hot smells as well as the fluctuations of speed that marked the phases of inner evolution of the boy-monk becoming master of the bodymind, becoming out of the pure necessity of his fated being. The warrior in me -- aware, too, of the warrior in you -- stirs at the thought.