The Campus Begins to Change Color

My updates seem slowly to moving toward an every other day pattern, I suppose because the days are so small and quiet that it hardly seems worthwhile to mention them. I suppose everything seems small after my Great Wall adventure. However, today I am turning over a new leaf and will try to go back to daily.

First: here are some exceedingly small and exceedingly curious fruits. I actually got hold of them when I went to the barbecue place on Tuesday night--I smuggled them out wrapped up in my napkin. They seem like an unripe something, some fruit with a stone, like a peach or more probably a plum. However, they are tiny (size of large blueberries) and an improbable color of green. They are also extremely sweet, but with a very odd flavor, artificial somehow? But they seem more fresh than pickled. It's a puzzle. I asked the elevator girl, but she had no idea. I am at a loss.

Yesterday morning, I was still full from all the meat I ate on Tuesday. One thing about eating a lot of meat, though--and I can really notice, because it's such a rare occurrence: it makes my metabolism run very high and warm. I was downright toasty all night, and that's not because it was any warmer than usual in my room. I could feel the cold air all around me, but in the middle of it I was just burning like a fire. This must be what it's like to be Colin. Anyway, I delayed breakfast until around 9 when I was heading in to school, and caught the last of the breakfast carts. There is streetside breakfast of great variety sold all along the road if you get out early enough. I had millet porridge (comes in a sealed cup, which you perforate with a giant-size pointed straw) and a rice and bean Chinese doughnut (a ball covered with sesame seeds, rice-flour, sweet bean paste filling).

For once I got to class early. My history and legend class is proving to be one of my most worthwhile courses. It's clear that the professor is not a "believer," which is really important. If you want to know how important, it's like having a course on the historical composition of the Bible. You're probably going to get a very different story from someone who believes that a Divine Hand was at work than from someone who--well, doesn't. And from the point of view of textual scholarship, I guess I'd rather have the non-believer, whatever the advantages of the believer may be. Of course this is a whole different tradition from Biblical stuff. It's been worked over so most of the deeply improbable things (miracles, etc.) are out, and what's left is almost plausible. But also, completely mythical. Myth reworked as history. We are not really looking at this bewildering forest-type issue, though. We are more focused on the intricacies of individual trees and for me this is great. I have no deep interest in mythology, but I do have interest in the implications of some of these smaller issues. How does the enumeration of pre-historical dynasties from one philosophical line to another? When did the four directions become the eight directions? When and how were the groupings of rulers extended? And so on. The only thing that loses me most of the time is the endless bickering about surnames. I find the surnames unreasonably boring, for reasons I can't quite explain.

This is the first really impressive yellow tree to appear on the campus this year, as far as I know. The colors have been nothing much, but we then haven't had a frost yet.

Nothing much else to say about yesterday, except that I had pulled noodles for dinner and felt a lot better about it than last time. I think the key is not to try to talk to my favorite noodle-chef. It's unfortunate but true that we don't communicate too well. But I like to watch him make noodles and he knows it (he actually looks around to make sure I'm watching before he makes mine, so as to be sure I won't miss it. But I am always watching). Beyond that, there's only the ritual of purchase and preparation. He always puts the ingredients in carefully and generously (he doesn't ask me anymore if I want cilantro because he knows I do), and always gestures to the vinegar and hot pepper which I am to add myself. The last time I went, I felt badly because my asking him questions upset the ritual and he forgot give me the chopsticks and napkin and got flustered. In this case (unlike for Confucius), the asking of questions is not the correct ritual. Some people can get actually friendly with their local noodle chef, but I think that for me it's better as-is.