Billy Joel talked about this, kind of.

I know how bad this sounds. I've wondered in the past six months away from the US whether or not China has a soul. Don't get me wrong. I know the people have souls. No doubt. But it sometimes seems like the soul of China is suffocating under it's current social, political, economic, creative, and moral situations. When these things team up, it's hard to see past them. The Professor pointed out that our dorm room walls are painted that terrible pink color as a combination of communist blandness and Chinese red. He may be right. Things in the homes are the wrong colors, each a bit too bright or too... artificial.

While journeying alone in this artificial world yesterday, I went to Xidan. I go to Xidan a lot, though mainly because there are two Starbucks which are a very short walk from one another. Yesterday, after I'd gone to my particularly favorite Starbucks in Xidan I went in search of a particular tourist-ready China gift that my secret Santa giftee mentioned to me he (or she) would like. There are stuff markets in Xidan, and I never realized how many. These are like the fabled Silk Street market, but less aggressive, for which I'm thankful. I've learned that one never stops moving in a market situation unless he is positive he wants to explain what he wants or doesn't. So I briskly walked through two markets (about 10 levels in two different buildings) and then in the third spotted something I liked. Now one must understand that in these markets are all the knock-off clothes from designers one might ever want. One should also understand that these clothes are not a good quality, and they will not last long. This over-abundance of counterfeit makes me shudder. I wonder if my life doesn't so often look like that. The only thing missing is someone screaming "looka-looka" and pointing out the wonders of a life spent chasing things which may not be what they appear.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't an existential crisis. We've already had that. That's so two months ago. And we're getting to the soul I discovered. Past the calculators and fake jade carvings, I found a small, unostentatious stand selling Chinese paper-cuts. Most were the Chinese zodiac, and, though beautiful, I couldn't care less about them. Then I found a mask. You may or may not know this, but I am a budding mask collector. There is something intriguing to me about the faces we put on, and, not to be too deep, they're pretty. These sets of paper cuts I found were sets of the traditional faces worn in the Peking Opera. The faces have deep, understood significance. When a person who is versed in this artform goes to take in a piece, the faces tell them which characters are which before a word is sung.

The people who developed this are the soul I'm looking for in China.

I may be too late, but I don't think so. I know we're all made in the same image. I see the beauty around me, even in this pulsing struggle of a city. I want to find the soul underneath the pressures. I want to see the smiling faces of the people who thought "what if..." and created the hutongs and the Imperial Palace. I want to uncover the spirits of the people who are not so bogged down with studies and money and today that they might stop to do something beautiful. I want those people to be my brothers and sisters.

If I can tell you a secret I've learned lately, it's this: some of them already are.

T