Chapter 5: Touring

EMETT

But this wasn't the first time I'd dealt with demons. Around the time of the previous election, I had been in bad moods before. In fact, some of this had nothing to do with the leadership, and everything to do with my personal demons. As I mentioned before, I was a crossdresser since I was a child, but never really got to act on it. So a good bit of depression was spent moping over how I felt trapped in a body that I didn't want. It was only later, nearly at age thirty, that I finally did sort of act on this, and when everyone was in lockdown, I largely lost all nerve and interest in it for quite awhile.

Then there was the time when a girl named Kelly broke up with me (we were never dating, it was a prolonged friendship or something), and I signed up for a volunteer teaching position overseas. The plane trip and such cost about $2000 just so I could get away from the pain of her just not being that into me. I went to China for about eight weeks. Honestly, I for some reason expected vastly different trees and for rocks to be green or something, but the overall vegetation was pretty similar. China had azaleas, pine and spruce trees, and maples. What it did have different was a great deal more urban buildup. Yantai was a small coastal town I'd never heard of, but it was built up in places like I'd only seen in New York and Chicago. In comparison, the US seemed hopelessly rural through much of the country. I also noticed a particular bird outside my window that I'd never seen in America. I think it was called a White Wagtail.

This cute chirpy bird kept me company as I stared out the window wondering what I was thinking coming to a country where I couldn't speak the language. I also got to tour the mountain of Ta Shan (not to be confused with Taishan), where a gauche theme park was built on the base of a mountain devoted to Taoist and Buddhist shrines. I ignored the tourist crap and climbed up, passing a grave and some other sights. There was some sort of giant ant statue, that was awesome and horrifying at the same time. Unfortunately, without any cultural context, I didn't understand whether it was some sort of nature deity or supposed to be some demon who ate souls in Buddhist purgatory. All I knew was that it was very eye-catching. See, look there it is.

Aside from seeing the cool pagoda and shrines atop this mountain (and indeed there was a great number of murals containing Byakko the white tiger, Suzaku the phoenix, Seiryuu the blue dragon, and Genbu the black turtle... though that's their Japanese names), I spent a great deal of my time watching shows. Eventually, it snowed, about a month or two earlier than usual. I had settled in, so I bought a VCD player on a sketchy Chinese market that sold me the player on discount if I would also buy several other unsold merchandise, which included a microphone, a karaoke CD or two, and a German porn involving too women and a horse. Apparently, the guidebook said that this is part of Chinese culture. Haggling designed to benefit both parties. I wanted a cheap VCD player, and she wanted to get rid of her stuff. In any case, I got great use out of this VCD player, watching several anime and films. Tokyo Mew Mew (to which I had known as Mew Mew Power, a butchering of the series that ended midway), Detective Conan (what I had known as Case Closed and likewise ended before about 100 episodes), and Return of Condor Hero. The latter of these, I had to search for several years for the title because it was entirely in Chinese or Japanese. I had to ask people online, based on character names and random details. And it turned on the anime ended in an extremely weird place, with one of the characters slowly dying of poison and the two of them canoeing together. It was a weird and kinda dark ending that I only later found out was not the true ending, after watching the live action version. Along with anime, I also bought a scroll painting for 200 yuan, and some of the best gloves I'd ever owned. And all sorts of souvenirs.

As I was teaching, the first place was a bust, and I had to move. The second place, I taught mainly reading, directions, and simple games. In particular, I had to sing You Are My Sunshine an awful lot. During my off-time, I hung out in the teacher's lounge with a girl named Rain (who was hung up on the fact that I was younger than her, but otherwise friendly), and learned about Korean dramas after watching the most depressing show of all time, known as I'm Sorry, I Love You. The girl falls for two brothers but I think her sister or something indirectly hurts both of them so they are slowly dying. One has a brain hemorrhage, another needs a heart transplant. The one brother decides to donate his heart when he dies, but the female lead sits at his grave when he dies, eventually poisoning herself.

All of this was very fun, but I didn't exactly plan ahead. I ran out of traveler's cheques, so when my dad was late, I had left the key with Rain. I expected to meet my dad at the airport, but his plane was late due to a storm. So I had to have the key back, but Rain was gone for the night. The police had to bring her back to the school (Chinese police are scary), and I was super-embarrassed about making her go through that. My father spent the last eight days touring with me through Beijing, Wuhan, and Xi'an. He didn't seem to care about regular life in China, so we did a lot of train and boat rides. Total tourist. Anyway, we saw the Great Wall as well as the Forbidden City, and took a river tour of the Yangtze I think. One of the tours that I wanted to do was of the Little Goose Pagoda, as I'd heard that it was where the Buddhist scriptures mentioned in Journey to the West were stored. But our first tour guide was an asshole, so he drove past and said, "Take a picture as we go past!" I managed it, but it was a major disappointment that I could actually look at the ancient scriptures or whatever else was there. We did get to see an underground market in Xian, as well as eat at a Chinese McDonald's, which had an interesting take on fried rice. They literally fried it like hash browns. We also got to look at some of the bell towers, and got to see the terracotta warriors. But still... most of his sites seemed to be very geared towards typical tourists, and he seemed to only want to go places where he got a cut. He was hoping we would spend a lot of money, even though none of the places allowed haggling. So anyway, these are some terracotta warriors. It's said that the First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di, built these warriors to guard his tomb, because he was insane and fanatical about immortality.

So here's the Little Goose Pagoda, as he drove past without stopping. Needless to say, we didn't give him nearly the money he wanted.

Our second tour guide was much cooler. In Beijing, we met Sunny, who guided us through the Great Wall. Unlike the other guide, she had a very perky attitude, and when I said that I wanted to go check out the Foreign Language Press in Beijing (since most of the books from China it turned out I couldn't read), she was willing to go. Needless to say, we enjoyed her company a lot more, and we not only spent more but recommended she get a promotion or raise.

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This is Sunny, standing at the Great Wall.

We also got to check out the Beijing Opera, but nevermind all that.

All of this did help to get my mind off of relationship drama, and into a normal mental state. But after I got back from China, I had reverse culture shock. I didn't know how to adjust to American life, and I in particular wasn't really ready to settle into the 9-to-5 daily grind. So it took a few years to really settle into work, and I never truly felt at home in the work world.

Later on, I met a girl named Caitlin in the Eastern Shore. She worked at the local bookstore, and after this graduation and return from China, she helped me pick up the pieces. I met her because she went on walks with our family ever night that we did that, along with a few neighbors who wanted to stay in shape.

Unfortunately, we were going to going to move, and I think I couldn't handle that eventuality, so I headed out west. Yeah, I know. When things get tough, I only know how to cut and run.

I worked for WWOOF doing organic farming, allowing me to head everywhere from Forks in Washington to Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone. On my way back, I even checked out Niagara Falls. But before that, I visited my sister Willow and her friend Ariel. I came at an interesting time when she was staying near the Mexican border, so at one point we climbed a mountain. They brought their puppies along too, so there was a whole event, with my sister, her friend, and her friend's older sister. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that I understand the timeline around this point, as when I met my sister, she was unmarried and seeing a loser boyfriend who ditched her to make pottery, but the one that she took on that mountain with her was the one who would be her future husband. I also remember her both rather unsettled in a city called Bisbee and living in a house near Douglas. I'm afraid that I can't reconcile these events beyond a split reality here. But then, ever since learning to use the heart sense, for some strange reason, I was able to see things like ripples in time and branching reality. I could also sometimes get snippets of the future as déjà vu. I could usually tell when something changed in time, as it left behind weird side effects. For example, trying to change the 2020 election so that Biden would win made all sorts of brand names filled with stupid misspellings (Froot Loops for instance, when the cereal was originally Fruit Loops). I have the box to prove it. See?

Similarly, Mandela probably did die in the 1980s, before the timeline was changed in order to save his life. Whenever the timeline changes, events and products change with it. For example, in Star Wars where Mandela died, Vader said "Luke, I am your father." But in all timelines where he lived, they said "No. I am your father." Because my memories are able to see across time and space, my normal short and long term memories don't work. Anyway, I digress. Here Ariel is below, making a victory sign after reaching the peak.

In about October of 2011, I set out on a trip that would change my life. Part of it was due to the government shutting down, and part of it was due to... something else. But let's get to that later.

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