On the Jet Plane...

WHAT is it about these rare, long looked-forward to days of departure transit arrival that always serve to tie the disparate, tangled yet intertwined, threads of my existence together in my mind? Perhaps it’s the altitude of my vantage point here—37,000-odd feet above the landmass I’m ever striving to rise above, a higher-than-birds-eye view from which the buildings roads farmfields forests that loom large while on the ground fade away into a tiny toy world soon to be obscured by clouds—that allows my lens on life (like my view of the structures that usually define it) to zoom out for a glimpse of the big picture.

Or, perhaps, these rare periods of relative relaxation that come with sitting in airport terminals (so sterile and all-the-same, but, because of the possibilities they represent, among the most thrilling places for me to be) and restlessly idling away the hours on airplanes (despite the inevitably exhausting scramble of the string of days leading up to my departures, I’ve never been able to sleep on planes: I’m convinced that the stuffy, stale re-circulated cabin air is infused with a gaseous form of adrenaline) offer an uncommon opportunity for reflection.

Or, is it the underlying theme of travel, this drive to rise above and move beyond the borders of hometown and state and country that provides an undercurrent of my life, that works to tie threads of fate together? Or a combination of the above? As I sit miraculously suspended in mid-air (and as the mighty aircraft, vehicle of my destiny, spews out more greenhouse gases than I choose to imagine into that very air), preparing to hit the ground running once I touch down in Shanghai, so much seems to come into focus.

Thoughts of my next couple days making my way from Shanghai to Nanjing are dwarfed by the scope of journeys that will follow, journeys planned and the possibility of those not yet imagined. This has been my ideal kind of summer: 9 days in California followed by almost a month of adventure in Australia; then, back to Bloomington (a town that has won me over in spite of expectations linked to its location in the state of Indiana) to plan and rehearse for the Silk Road Festival and lay the groundwork for an institute—also music- and Silk Road-related—that has the potential to strengthen my ties to that Indiana town for years to come; and now, finally, on to China, where I’ll spend a semester studying; then further afield into India, Bhutan, and Tibet. Then… Then? Into the thrilling expanse of the unknown, and beyond.

The Adventure Begins… for real this time.

August 19th, 2008

I don’t want this narrative to begin with a failure to disclose any important, interesting, and relevant information. So I’ll begin with a disclosure:

I am a dense, foolish, forgetful dimwit.

Some of you reading this might agree. But why would I make such a statement? Well, in anticipation of my coming departure, I’ve been going around for months telling everyone that “I’m leaving for China on August 18th.” On the morning of August 18th, my bags packed and all prepared for this long-awaited adventure to start, I arrived at O’Hare airport. Only to find out that…
(I cringe in embarrassment at my own stupidity at this crucial oversight)…

I arrived a day early. The United Airlines self check-in computer told me, “Please come back tomorrow, August 19th.” I pulled out my printed itinerary to verify this information. Indeed, the computer was correct. And alas, I was—gasp—wrong.

So after my grandma, who kindly came to see me off at the airport, hobbled her way into the terminal with no small hardship; after my mom went to pay for a place to park the car; I had to emerge from the check-in area and admit my mistake. My brother, who also came along to the airport, was poking fun at me non-stop for it the rest of the day, and claims he still will for years to come.

Although I was really ready to go, admittedly it was nice to have that one extra day (that I thought I’d be losing in transit anyway) to say a proper farewell, to really prepare myself to leave my home and my family for the next 10 months. To my surprise, no one seemed angry at my mindless—and costly—mistake. My mom, bless her heart that I know aches to see me go, was glad to have me around for one more day. We enjoyed that last evening together on the beach, went for one final refreshing swim, and saw a spectacular sunset. Then, the following morning at 6 AM, it was off to the airport again. Yesterday was just practice. This was the real deal. Today, there weren’t any computers telling me to come back again another day.

The Adventure Begins… or maybe not.

August 18, 2008

千 里 之 行 ，始 于 足 下

千 里 之 行 ，始 于 足 下

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.

道 德 經 ~ Dao De Jin

So said the legendary Laozi, Chinese philosopher and among the founders of Daoism. If a journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step, then what about a journey some 7670+ miles, across continents from one side of the globe to another? I guess if you want to be technical and unimaginative about it, you could say that this trip I’m about to take begins with…

… the step I’ll take out of the house and towards the family car, in which I’ll catch a ride to O’Hare airport, where I’ll board a plane that will take me the bulk of the 7670 miles and (too many hours later) arrive at Shanghai’s Pudong Airport, from which I’ll then take a train to the city of Nanjing, where I’ll spend the semester studying.

But I’m not one for technical, unimaginative answers. In the unending tempest of cause and effect that defines the contours of our lives, it’s hard to pinpoint a precise moment when any journey begins or ends, or specifically when the seeds of this journey I’m about to take were planted. But I can look into the past and see the beginnings of my present journey before I was even born.

To spend time studying and traveling in China has been a longtime dream of mine. The seeds of this dream can be traced back to a journey my parents took back in the early ’80’s (yes, before I even appeared on this earth), when my mom and dad (in their more adventurous days when they weren’t too tied down by kids and careers and responsibility and habit…) embarked on a biking tour through China. This was shortly after China had opened up to Western tourism. It was a country suspended in another time, still reeling from the Cultural Revolution, and not yet consumed by its current drive towards capitalist communism and modernization.

I’m guessing my parents would barely recognize China in its current incarnation, such a contrast to the images implanted in their minds during their visit over 2 decades ago. But those images of a now non-existent China of the recent past have been planted in my mind: my mom is an amateur photographer of sorts (who, alas, gave up on her dream of becoming a photographer for National Geographic at the behest of her parents who insisted she go into engineering) and, from the few weeks she spent biking across the Chinese countryside with my dad, brought back some incredible photographs. And some incredible stories to go with them.

Flipping through these photos, hearing the accompanying stories, and seeing her slide show (which always ended on a cute and clever note with a slide depicting a mother holding a baby with its bare bottom facing the camera, titled “The End”) as a kid was what, in retrospect, initially sparked my interest in China. The connections I’ve had and the affiliation I feel with East Asia increased since then, giving rise to the dream I’m about to fulfill of going to study in China. See, once I started reading more into my interest and hearing about the break-neck speed of the changes overtaking China, or at least its cities, I was even more inspired to go there and see the country and culture for myself before more changes take place, before more of its history and uniqueness are lost in the tide of capitalist communism that seems to be sweeping the country.

So now, after a couple not-so-successful attempts to teach myself Chinese during high school and (more successfully) spending the past 2 years studying Mandarin Chinese at Indiana University, I’m about to take the first steps to start the journey, the path of which started to be set before my birth. Welcome to Silk Road Central, my travel log blog, which I’ll be updating regularly (thanks in part to the inspiration of my friend Farid: chox sag olun for the encouragement, Farid-bey!). Please feel free to visit periodically to read about my adventures along the modern Silk Road!