Life in Kunming (the job that never was, and other anecdotes, Dec. 2016)

hey guys this is not the most serious
video ever recorded I used to record this type of material monologues with my life or real life updates as podcasts as opposed to videos but these days because my upload speed has been fabulous here in China and because i've been recording sitting at my desk most of the real life updates have been videos but if you're a patreon subscriber you can also download them as an mp3 as a you know in a portable podcast only format one of the one of the fun things I do actually have a portable audio recorder also so a couple of times i have actually recorded my podcasts while i was in the airport while I was walking somewhere tomorrow I could record a podcast while I'm at the Museum I should go in the museum so actually one of the reasons why some material is podcast only with no video is that I'm actually not at home when i recorded you guys know i have a mobile camera also so there's a little bit of variety in there but this is a this is a real life update podcast with video if you want to see the video and i'm also live streaming while i do it so guys I do see some people just made some funny jokes in the last 10 seconds actually I can see and respond to comments from viewers while I'm recording this live so we'll see how far can I get in this video without mentioning veganism but this is not primarily Avia's not primarily about politics this is primarily but my real life and this is being recorded at an interesting moment in my real life because I'm now packing up to leave kunming so my life you're in kunming as I've known it is coming to an end and some of you become very familiar with the view of this bed in the back and well it's not it's not forever people the view the you know the bed the wall the the slightly off-white you know oh you have the view of my rice cooker here i'll switch let's switch the camera let's have a let's have a one last goodbye to the rice cooker no oh you can't really see it that well back there anyway the books you notice the books move around i've been using the books people anyway um you know the rhythm of my life here in Quinn man which is not a rhythm I could ever really get used to is is coming to it and so just as you'll say well I've got a couple of things I want to cover here but you know I wrote a letter in Chinese handwritten Chinese which is very time consuming the Chinese themselves very rarely write letters in Chinese but you know I wrote a letter in Chinese to the staff at my gym now if you've really been following me on youtube and & in the podcast and so on you will know there was a time a few months ago when I had a really serious crush on one of the gym employees and my impression was that she was interested me to not going to say too much about that I guess I'm going to refer to as the short woman at the gym or the short girl with gym because it's possible i'm also going to mention some tall women in this in this monologue um but you know i wrote this letter today as it's not personal in any way it's not it's not coming on to her and it's not sexy but i decided to write this letter for a couple of reasons for one thing it is a letter of thanks and the letter closes the last thing in the letter is that it says during this time in my life which i just said it's coming to a close now during this kind of special time in my life when i was a student learning chinese in could ming the only joy in my life was coming to your gym now obviously that would be a bit maudlin if it was the first thing i said in the letter but it's the last thing that's at the letter closes so doesn't sound too bad cameras at a focus guys sorry if you see me moving my hand like this its try to get the camera to come back into focus sometimes focuses on the mic sometimes it focuses on my face and text support here at a ballet CL Broadcasting Corporation it's slightly less than perfect anyway so it is a letter of thanks a sincere letter of thanks to them and they say it closes by saying look during this special time in my life you know uh-huh during the letter it mentions also you know the only exercise i had was working out at your gym the rest time i was sitting at my desk using my computer studying Chinese hitting the books so really you know the one kind of joy in my life was coming your gym and it's thanking them for that the letter also goes over because that Jim does collect testimonials from their clients so when I say testimonials you know people say they lost 20 pounds or they achieve their goals or whatever the hell it is so I go over in that hand written letter in Chinese um you know what changed in my weight and what my routine is now so I now do regularly bench press more than I way partly because my weight declined so I mean today I was very casually bench pressing ninety five kilograms I could have I could have been bench pressing 100 kilograms but today I didn't push it cuz yesterday I worked it really heavy not worth digressing but you know so I said well you know my weight dropped I used to be over a hundred kilograms now I'm down to maybe 92 or 93 actually and you know this is how much a bench press and this is you know I do so many pushups per day so it covered that kind of stuff but then as you know veganism is also covert a propaganda for veganism you know I got in there I said look maybe you already know this about me because a lot of people Jim do know this about me so maybe already knows about this movie don't but I'm vegan and I know that a lot of people here in China believe that you can't maintain your strength that you'll lose your strength if you stop eating meat and I no meat no dairy no eggs etc and you know I want you to know that you know I've you know maintain this level of strength um you know with with with no no animal products in my diet so I said yeah obviously in some ways this is an intellectual exercise for me it's a way to practice your chinese but in some ways also is sincerely thanking them for the role that's Jim played in my life and it's and it's vegan propaganda and it's a testimonial that they'll use so jumping ahead they told me that we're going to use it too so I'm not sure I'm not sure if we can use the text but I took this and I provided them with two photographs photographs the most you guys already seen photographs with me shirtless pics where I'm you know I'm showing the shape that I'm in currently the current pics of me showing the the shape of men at age 38 this is out what I imagined my life would be like at age 38 back when I was 28 I didn't think this is one my life like a 30 day back when i was 18 i dinnae with this bill my life it was like a 38 not at all it's not I didn't think of myself as an athletic person and I still don't I'm not I don't think of myself in this letter as an athlete or isn't a photo person life gets unpredictable if you let it um anyway uh so I had to go to a print shop this story involves a few different themes I had to go to a print shop and print out these photographs myself the photographs of me with my shirt off and I took also photographed my daughter to get printed on paper because the photograph that I had a fur that was only on my computer and didn't have on paper so I go to a photo printing place um now you know don't worry this story comes back to the gym and comes back to a lot of other thumb attic issues in my life as I'm now packing up to leave packing to leave conveying i have made videos talking about what i like about Chinese culture what I appreciate about Chinese culture several but I remember one more that's really the title they're all kinds of things i can say i really i really positively appreciate with chinese culture we got went into the photoshop and even though it's a small thing so you know you pay the money and you weight it takes time i had to go i had to go to the photoshop go back to my school and come back again and then even when I came back I still to wait longer and just through careless carelessness and indifference they got it wrong you know the the photos were printed out in a way where they just didn't pay attention they didn't take the one second to check so the edges like the edge of my face was cut off the edge of my arms was cut off and the picture of my daughter you know it didn't look quite right and you know I just said to them look I'm sorry this is not good enough you're gonna have to them again this is speaking Chinese take great language practice and you know when I walked out there it's no big deal i did do it again they didn't fight me on it they didn't yell at me or anything which they can in China they can do that to you they can scream you that the photos are good enough and get the hell out or whatever so they did they did print them out so I had to go back to my school and make another trip back but you know I walked out I really felt awful and you know and reflecting on why I knew exactly why it's not just the photographs and it's not just that some of the photographs are photographs of my daughter you know which obviously is there is an emotional connection there there's an emotional component of that um it's just reminding you of an aspect of Chinese culture that is so depressing and you don't want to deal with and it's forcing you to face up to it you know I mean I had a job lined up here most you guys don't know this story before this job in in the Hong was lined up so the job I'm starting now is it a totally different University I had a job lined up here contract signed a hundred percent certain one hundred percent committed job lined up here and the reason given for why this one woman who was not a senior executive a woman who was really like a secretary a minor functionary was she threw a tantrum and in effect got me fired got the job eliminated before the job started was that she was so offended that when she asked me what hospital would you go to here in China if you got seriously ill my answer was I would buy an airplane ticket to Thailand I would not go to a hospital here in China it's that's the truth if I had a serious illness or a serious problem I would fly to Chiang Mai or Bangkok and you know go to the hospital now allegedly her her nationalism her sense of national pride in China was offended by this and long story short this cost me the job now the long story is way more entertaining this woman was insane anyway and several people including my own teacher because I had to bring my chinese teacher into the negotiations to translate because this is all happening in fluent Chinese several people thought that this one part of the reason she was so crazy that me in earlier stage he had a crush on me and there was evidence of that because over a couple of months um what she said other people about me and how excited she was to meet me and there was some weird stuff going on but she was she was weird period I mean this woman there were a lot of signs that she had apart from what that she had a crush on me she was trouble no matter how you look at it um anyway the first time I met her when I showed up on the University campus she was screaming at me for no good reason like as she walked toward me across the courtyard of this university campus she was screaming me I said you're in totally calm and self-confidence re you can't talk to me that way I'm a professor at this university you are going to talk to me as a professor you know I said it like that it was not loud it was quiet but it was firm and she was she thought she was just going to continue screaming at me like as we walked back to the office I'm not walking I'm said you know what I'm sorry you not gonna talk to me this way okay I'm an employee here you know you have to talk to me with dignity as another employee you know you can't scream at me like that Padma hilariously that was not what cost me the job it was this issue of the it was this issue at the hospital now this links back to the story I'm in the midst of the same attitude you hand someone you know a set of photographs to print that's their whole job their job is to take those photographs and spend five seconds on the computer and get them lined up properly and print them out and they don't do that and they don't care and you know that the only way for you to get them to do that job is preferably speaking fluent Chinese for you to stand over their shoulder and yell at them at every stage of them doing that job even though that is their job they work in the photoshop and this is the digital era all they're doing you know it's it's just like printing out a page of text from a computer they're just a couple of options you've gotta you know check to make sure that the photograph is correctly going to be printed than you print it you know compared to what photo developing was 50 years ago you know this is incredibly incredibly simple stuff um and it's the same thing when your life is on the line at a hospital at same attitude it's terrifying if you don't have someone there to watch what the nurse is doing like a hawk to to yell at them at every stage to check and double-check is that the right medicine are you doing the right thing why are you doing that now and not later you know what's the delay why is this happening it's it's a kind of horrifying aspect of Chinese life of life in china and I can I can still recognize that horror even when it's in something relatively low pressure like printing out photographs as opposed to something tremendously high pressure as opposed to saying where you really rely on other people's confidence like you know what's what's going on in hospital and of course my experience with that administrator in that particular University at very much Foles under the same heading like what was her job what was I relying on her to do she was on the day when she freaked out and cost me the job she was screaming at me all she had to do was meet me in front of the university or meet me in the courtyard at the front of the university walk with me to the office and then physically handle the paperwork I was her whole job didn't require any thought to inquire any intelligence quiet extremely little confidence she I had brought my paperwork she already had her paperwork she had to physically put the papers together in order receiving the papers I gave her that was it the contract was signed the commitment was there for the job and all this stuff everything was done decisions were made by the executives people many levels above her and you know anyway I did get those photos printed out and I did have this meditation on some of the aspects of Chinese culture I really don't like and that really can be terrifying I am reading your comments as i go here guys I just I don't know the joke about doing the mannequin challenge I don't know if it's worth replying to to all these confident sets that go here so I printed these photos out my shirtless selfie photos to be blunt and I combined them with this letter this letter of thanks that I've written to the to the gym you know and then I went to the gym and I did work out at the gym that's not the part of the story I'm going to tell though so I'm in this gym I've been going to this gym every day for what five months now it's been a long time five months six months it's been a long time going to gym so I'm known and I know all the staff and I've noticed some staff have left and new staff but hired that's enough time at a gym that you see that kind of thing and it's funny it's just ironic so I know I'm going to talk to this woman whom I formerly had a crush on and that also i mean it's funny you can learn a lot from these interactions even when nobody's teaching anything so this is the same woman for those of you have been really watching every video or listen to every podcast this is the same woman who was mentioned in my very casual and enjoyable conversation with American unicorn so if you search for the name American unicorn she was another vegan youtuber and we kicked off that conversation with uh talking about I you know she spends a lot of time at the gym and I was talking about my gym romance my question the son of the gym and that spawned a few memorable quotations some people still make fun of me because in reference to this particular woman I said look I have crushin this woman of course she's not vegan um you know I asked myself if she told me that as her part-time job she goes to a slaughterhouse and uh you know slits the throats of cattle for kicks or something would I be hopeful that lose interest in her so there was some there was some memorable joking around in reference to do i know i'm gonna go in i'm going to talk to her and give her this letter which again is not anyway personal it's not anyway hitting on her what have you and I have which is also interesting i have in fact lost interest in her so there's a there's a question here someone asks or their hot chicks at your gym yes and i've referenced that in a sense negatively in many discussions about veganism I mean there's not a single person in my gym that that's vegan and you know we have all kinds of amazing most people other if you go to a gym I don't know unless you live in okay I'm not even gonna say I was gonna say unless you live in Scotland but it's some of my best friends are Scottish let's stop hating on the Scottish here but no I mean most places in the world they're going to be good looking people in your gym and all that meat meat every day and there's some of them are very slim and something very muscular and some of them are other shapes and sizes but no vegg gray says that was a fleeting fresh no it really wasn't because that was a couple months long and i'm just going to comment now on on why that was that i might as well say in response to this question you know one of the things that really got to me so that woman had a crush on she's not the best looking woman at the gym and better-looking women that Jim flirted with me and really hit on me and some of them really tried to initiate relationships to me there were a lot of good Lingam there and a lot of them paid attention to me um one way or another struck up conversation being what have you but one of the things about this particular woman I think I'm call her this short woman at the gym one of the things that really really got to me was seeing her playing with children so it's not part of her job but she seems to be the kind of person who's great with kids and likes playing with kids and friends of hers would go to the gym it seems to be friends or friends of friends I you know obviously don't know the whole story I would ask her to play with their kids while they worked out and uh you know some of those kids were toddlers were young children but um you know one of them was really more of an infant and she had she'd obviously done this enough she had learned different funny ways to kind of modify the gym equipment to uh you know to like make a little swing and put the baby in a swing and swing the baby back and forth so maybe they're you know they're two tethers that are supposed to be used for some kind of yoga or some kind of exercise but she figured out little ways to make make fun things for kids out of the gym equipment and you know it was just once you know I remember I was bending down to tie up my shoe and I saw her playing with this you know with his baby with his infant it wasn't at all it was really a young kid and wow that really that really got to me so I'm sure she's a woman who has many redeeming qualities but the good with kids thing that really got to me so we got a bunch of fun questions here for me to respond to enriching this podcast I helped not Curtis asks do they play awful music in Chinese gyms my gym plays a lot of mmm believe it or not so that's the white American rapper Eminem they play a lot of mmm I don't know why you tell me um I use I use headphones I listen to my own stuff so uh we had another question here from km be asking is there anywhere that you go where women don't hit on you um well why'd you keep listening I mean you know the other thing is a lot so when you're talking about conventionally good-looking women here in China they really expect men to initiate they most the lake of a woman is conventionally good-looking here she expects that if she opens the door an inch a man is going to run up and kick the door down like a man is going to open it the rest of the way so I have an example that was part of the part of the story I was going to tell here so when I showed up to give this letter to this woman who I used to have a crush on and again it's not in some ways it's not a shallow crush because you know the the kid thing got to me the you know seeing her playing with kids there were other things that really really made that an unusually kind of durable and deep crush although it's just a crush um you know um I showed up at the gym today and there was there was a new employee there was a new girl working there now pretty much all the employees of the gym are somewhere between good-looking and extremely good-looking I mean that's who gets hired at this gym um but was this is very strange because I go to the gym every day for this girl it's either her first day at the gym or it could be her second or third day but I'm there so often I'm really really strange so some of you are trying don't anticipate that moral of the story here people come on so anyway show up I've never seen this girl before so she's definitely new it's quite possibly her first day on the job another reason why I think it might be your first day is that you know there was this other girl who I called the tall woman so the short woman in tolman tolman I did not have a crush on but there was this woman the tall woman who really tried to initiate a relationship with me at one point and I saw the way her boss and her co-workers reacted to that because the tall woman she had tried a couple of times to initiate with me and it's not worth telling the whole story for different reasons it didn't go anywhere and then one day at the gym in front of other employees like other employees they weren't standing right next to us but they were within the they were within eyeshot know they could see we were talking I'm sure they could hear to some extent the nature of the conversation um this girl really later cards on the table and again this stuff is very very culturally-specific but um you know she asked a bunch of questions so I mean again this is good this is just one example this is one example but this is totally sensible I don't I don't resent Chinese women for asking this question if a Chinese woman is really interesting you she is gonna ask quite close to the start of the conversation where she's initiating she's going to ask do you have a girlfriend and then she's going to fold that app one way or another but asking do you have a girlfriend back in Canada do you have a girlfriend in Beijing like you know because a lot of guys a lot of girls also if you ask them do you have a girlfriend or do you have a boyfriend they will interpret that to mean do you have a girlfriend right here right now like you have a girlfriend within five kilometers or within 500 meters like oh yeah I'm single today like I'm like uh-huh I've I'm single with in a five-kilometer radius if we're having this conversation so they will ask one way or another they will ask do you have a girlfriend and then do you have a girlfriend waiting for you back in Canada or waiting in Shanghai or waiting in Beijing or somewhere else so again and it's funny because when she got to that part and again it's not just how she had is not just it's not the fact that she asked it's also the way that she's asking right if you really understand Chinese culture it's it's very clear that she's she's initiating relationship and I remember when she did that you know I I knew what's up I understand Chinese culture enough terms the facial expressions and all these kind of funny nuances but the other employees who were watching they they kind of stood up disapprovingly and they actually interrupted they said you were hey stop you have to go do something like in the gym which she did of course they have nothing to do like the employees at the gym in the morning they opened the place up at night they have to close it down but for hours and hours they're standing around doing nothing the eat-off you know no offense but they they have a few little jobs but they're not they're not busy but anyway I remember there was the attitude of the other the other Beatles will break it up so I think they disapprove of the employees hitting on you know hitting on the customers I have no idea what they think about customers pending on the employees I never asked but it was a funny and telling little little example but anyway so I show up to deliver this letter to the short one totally different woman from the tollon and there happens to be a new member of staff there and this new member of staff so the geometry of the gym is a bit weird but I'm walking past her than a kind of long trajectory to get from one piece of equipment to the other and um she's looking straight up at me and smiling with a really big bright smile she's beautiful but I mean like I said pretty much everyone at this gym it's beautiful um and she's smiling and looking straight straight my eyes and then she starts laughing also in this you know very feminine laughs now I'm gonna distribute this is 2016 if somebody is laughing for no reason in 2016 I assume either they just read something funny on their phone or like even though she didn't have headphones like they're listening to something like if you see someone laughing for no reason I assume there's some technology you know they can be watching a movie or something you know what I mean I don't care and also I'm there to work out I got a lot of the things in my mind like I don't really care but it was the funniest thing so this the new girl I'm walking past her and she's looking straight at me she's looking them eyes fine I I'm walking from one piece of gym equipment to the other and you know as it becomes clear I'm just gonna walk right past her with a toddler her whole expression changes and it stops being inviting something come hither she's actually shocked that I'm not talking up she's shocked that I didn't it she comes if I mean is what I want it what at the end of this is one clue that this is part of the kind of this is part of the madness of middle age you get really into in middle age you get really into the subtlety of how much is expressed through the eyes and facial expressions you know I think a lot of modern American filmmaking is like that you know the last season of Game and throw game of thrones to come out 2016 season you know people were freaking out over these scenes where nobody says anything Jamie looks at Cersei and we're all supposed to interpret the expression on its face interpret the look in his eyes you know that's what a lot of people get into it's a really weird kind of madness that creeps up on you in middle age where you you begin to savor how subtle those things were and it was a walk past but even that I noticed and then I turned around and looked over my shoulder and she had indeed turned all the way around you know her whole body and was looking at me like yeah to her it was obvious that her just just by looking at me and smiling and laughing wherever she comes from and then probably she's thinking of being at a bar or so it's not a bar it's a gym it's not a bar I'm not there to meet women I'm not hey I'm and she is a very good-looking girl I'm sure that her experience in her culture is that all it takes is to smile at a man like that and again like I say she opens the door a little bit she expects the man to come and kick the door open you know like she expects all men or all unmarried men to respond to that kind of very mild suggestion that she's interested in talking to you by running over and and you know sparking something up so anyway I don't know I mean if you're actually at a bar or if I had a singles event or even a coffee shop um you know she's probably not wrong that's her culture that's where she comes from and that's what she's about but from my perspective it's like you know she's got a pretty face but I she's just another pretty face I have no the thought to have no reason to be interest in their weight but anyways this is another minor thing that reminded me of all these kind of aspects of Chinese culture that surround me so so act so again this is cool i can i can respond so Ashton says good move don't gain game of the gym so this relates to another piece of advice I gave someone here on you now just a couple days ago but you know we had a woman on who was a lesbian I just in the in the crowd in him among my fans and she at first didn't mention she was lesbian but she said there was someone she had a crush on at work and the person she had a crush on at work she was hesitant to try to initiate a relationship because it was at the workplace and I compared it to the gym I said to her actually the problem with the workplace isn't initiating one relationship the problem is you can only ever initiate one relationship so I say the same thing about the gym at my gym if I try to date one of the employees that's okay never too never three if you try to initiate a relationship with three different women who all work at the same gym then you're perceived as the guy who's trying to sleep with everybody right or the guy who's trying to talk to you know was trying to spark things up with every employees you know you can do it with one period and I mean at the workplace in the workplace is like the gym is a workplace I mean for the employees it is their workplace remember if I take a girl out on a date from the gym all the other employees are going to know that and they're all going to remember me as the guy who went on a date with Tina and they're all gonna remember Tina as the girl who went on a date with the with the white guy with the bald white guy or whatever you know what I'm saying so that's that's it right yeah just laughing we got it we got it we had a good joke there in the in the comment section that is not not worth translating into video in podcast uh this is good though alright so my point was that the workplace in these things these things cast a long shadow um so I think if you're going to hit on one percent your gym that's a big decision and don't get into plural don't get in numbers not at the same gym like for real because if you think about it if you if you have a relationship with just one employee at the gym whether it goes well or goes badly that's already your reason for you to quit and go to a new gym because if you're if you keep going there let's say you just go on three dates with someone who's an employee at your gym really you should quit and go to the gym because you're up for workplace you're up her whole the whole dynamics of how she relates to the other employees how she relates to the other customers the other people training you don't want to bring that energy into that room right so go get a new gym so in that sense it's high risk high stakes and there are big consequences for just sparking up one romance at the gym and you can't get into two or three so that's my response to that i'm not i don't think i'm not totally opposed to meeting someone at the workplace i'm not totally opposed to meeting some of the gym it's got to be some one one not two not three if you want two or three different yoga instructors go to two or three different gyms can't be at the same gym cannot because they all got to work with each other to right and at one point the short woman and the toll woman they were both interested in me and I didn't know if they were talking to each other or what right so that's also weird it's like okay is there two women at this gym and they kind of know each other or so what are they saying to each other about me anyway um a long time previous the short woman so the short woman was the one I really had the crush on as has already been discussed at some length here and you know the short woman at one point I did go up to her and give her a note which was totally not personal and what the note was was of just to fold it up the poster it's been mentioned on youtube before mentioning you know before this poster saying that I was looking for a language exchange partner and at that time I thought the short woman I thought she spoke pretty good English this is apparently a complete illusion today she didn't seem to be able to say anything in English any other been a couple of different times when the short woman when she really got flustered you know she like again she just seemed interested me and seemed flustered but I hadn't helped I mean you know is what it is as I've already said in very sure you know I did basically lose interest in her at one point but there was a point at which I was very interested in her and you know at least she was interested in talking to me you know doesn't mean doesn't mean anything more than that I don't i'm not an ego trip but one went the other but anyway so I go up her tour today and I have this letter folded up as I've already said this letter and it said on the front so it's folded up but even its folded form it says in Chinese like this is a letter of appreciation like this is a letter of thanks like giving thanks to the gym so it's very obvious it's not a love letter it's very obvious it's not proposition but it was really you could really see the minute I walked up to her and she seemed to just be hanging out with a friend of the gym like she was she wasn't exercising she wasn't doing anything so at first I thought is this a bad time but I sounds like uh no okay that's actually good time so I walk over cuz she's doing nothing she's just chatting with someone and I said hey you know uh you know and give it letter I didn't say much more than say hey look you can read this letter yourself and if you think it's more appropriate you can give it to your boss I can give it to the the owner of the gym whatever but she's pretty much the boss there I she's one of the bosses whatever um but it was so funny you know you could see you know she was really flustered and concerned she hadn't read the letter yet she'd know I said and this kind of thing and it was this really weird period of time in the gym where she had the letter and she'll go okay and she kind of put it away right away you don't know what she's imagining or what she's thinking and what she didn't read it I mean like most gyms that set up in a word a-and I start working out I start lifting weights and doing push-ups and doing so the stuff and she's you know looking around the corner at me and you know very very human very peculiar situation and you know oh we're talking about leather shoes before I mean like in terms of traditional Chinese culture if I really wanted to initiate a relationship with this woman the thing to do would be to buy her an expensive leather purse that's 2060 try as normal Chinese culture and the really up thing is because women here including women who hit on me women who try to stir with women avoid admitting that they have a boyfriend Oh or that they have a husband even even if she had a boyfriend she would accept the purse and she would show it off from her boyfriend say hey hey this hey that's handsome foreigner I said your crush on me he bought me this purse I mean there's so many aspects of Chinese culture I'm never gonna participate in in a sense that's why I feel so positively about Chinese culture is just that most of the stuff I dislike is not part of my life in any way so anyway again this is the kind of thing you really get into a middle-aged is you know reading emotions and the look in the eyes and the you know the tone of voice and these weird suggestions but then I don't know for like 20 minutes or something she hasn't read the letter but it's funny because for a couple of months now I'd say more than more than one maybe two months you know I haven't been interested her she has been trusted me I i I'm a beginning the number of months wrong but there was a time not so many months ago when I was really interested in her and as I said trouble reading her but you know she was at least interesting talking to me and she responded in the very flustered way and you know there was a there was something going on but anyway months so many months have gone past that's another interesting thing about this I mean I think so many people they get a crush on somebody and then they leave town or circumstances change but this situation where like she and I have been seeing each other in skin tight clothing every day for six months that's pretty weird like we've been making eye contact with each other in nearly nude outfits I mean she wears spandex she was incredibly revealing clothing every day and like again back when there was more interesting a couple months ago you know whenever least everybody oh hey what's up yeah you know a little chitchat but like never heard now you know whatever it's a gym you don't want to you know but anyway just was funny because it seemed like suddenly all of her behavior you know she was suddenly so alert and looking at me interested me and so on now obviously at some point you know she stopped what she was doing and went into her office and actually read the letter right now I have to imagine it came as a surprise to her what this letter said because the letter is not hitting on her not at all right and again I mean I don't know like a culturally a lot of Chinese women they have a role they want you to play and either you're gonna play that role or they don't want to hear it and that actually fits into if you guys some earlier video talking about the booty call messages at 2am there are a lot of Chinese women who do not want to meet me for coffee who only want to meet me actually not for coffee you know what I mean and I think that's part of it also is like all the stuff that maybe makes me interesting or appealing to a Western woman all the complications like oh this is what I study this is like you know this is my research this is my engagement with animal rights and veganism just stuff that makes you human stuff that makes you interesting a lot of the Chinese women respond to that with like yeah yeah yeah I don't want to know Nick yeah yeah that's all the stuff I'm not gonna hear about I'm talking to deal with I'm gonna call you at to him you know they have some role preconceived for you and you're going to play that role now another thing in terms of urban 21st century Chinese culture a lot of women will basically force the relationship to be like a one-night stand even if that says a prelude to transitioning to a meaningful relationship so I'm not hating the player of the game just saying culturally that's kind of like the exact opposite of what we kind of try to go for in Western culture I think in Western culture what a lot of people want to avoid is feeling like it's a one night stand a lot of people want to avoid the feeling that you're disposable or easily replaced especially the beginning of the relationship but in a sense of thing you could say a lot of Chinese culture embraces the one night stand and then it's like the one-night stand may or may not be a gateway into them dealing with or even acknowledging the other complexities of who you are your research your job the fact that you're vegan or whatever else right whatever would make you a good or bad boyfriend anyway anyway um so I only imagine maybe she felt some mix of like relief and disappointment when she got to her office and read this letter and realized that this was not me confessing my undying love for anything Oh camera is out of focus a little bit with uh Mordy get on it get the camera back and forth focus more tea um tech support you know um and she came out and she said you know but thanks to me in chinese and she apparently she seemed to not be able to speak English at all you know previously she'd spoken English and again it was funny because one of the reasons why I think she she thought the letter was a big deal this handwritten letter was that the first time I gave her something on paper which is a mention was actually the poster of me um it's just the poster explaining that I'm looking for language exchange partners I'm looking for people looking for someone who wants to practice their English and I want to purchase my Chinese which could have been her and said the time she at least pretended she could speak English I really don't like that the camera is out of focus but I want to so not too mature um you know I remember she read that with the other staff which is normal so like you know she had it open in front of the other staff and the other people you know came over and read over shoulder and the reddit together and you know passed around who's totally appropriate it's fun but everyone looked at it and this time I'm a note she saw it it was a big deal she put it away she hid it away and you know none of the other staff saw it right um and again I wasn't doing this to hit on her but this letter did include those two photographs of me with my shirt off that oh you guys have seen the same photographs that I put up here on YouTube just the other day you know showing the shape I'm in because that was what what the letter was about anyway she came out and she told me that um you know she's gonna put my my photo on their poster so you know they've got like a poster for their their testimonials their success stories and they're gonna use gonna use some aspect of my story and they're gonna give me some kind of prize they're gonna give me I think like a like a like I guess like a jacket like this that has their logo on it so you know to thank me for my testimonial they're gonna do some stuff like this alright cool I guess I officially I guess I officially endorse your gym uh you know it's cute the more I wanted to draw to this story is is twofold you know um thanks Marty thanks morning thanks for thanks for helping out i think the camera just came into focus to appropriately enough you know on the one hand there's just this kind of overriding issue of middle age and of i mean look this along with the relationship the non relationship i just had with this woman who I met at the train station on their last day here blah blah blah so I took her to the train station a lot of you guys remember that story some of you won't but I mean it's funny but I mean I guess what's rewarding about these things is the feeling that you're learning from the experience and at age 38 I do i do still feel that I'm learning from these experiences we're doing self interesting you know but I mean it's some you know it is also this really it's this strange madness of middle age where you almost you just sent seem to appreciate more this range of very subtle emotions emotions that you might have ignored as a teenager or scoffed at in your 20s or you really want to revel in the sort of subtle uncertainties of these situations as they as they unfold and of course the other big conclusion for me here I mean you know when I first when I first came here to China I remember saying to my own teacher very bluntly and very explicitly you know I never want to marry a chinese woman I never even one of a Chinese girlfriend I really do not want to be part of this culture in that way and in this monologue you have probably already heard just in passing many many other reasons why I felt so strongly in felt so certain I don't want a Chinese girlfriend I don't want to Chinese wife the Chinese culture is really just not compatible with what I'm about in that way although as I've said before there are many many things i like about Chinese woman I sorry there are many many things i like about Chinese culture there are many things I like about being uh being an intellectual being a scholar being someone who cares about history and politics in Chinese culture there many things is a good about being vegan in Chinese culture there are many many things i like about Chinese culture but I do not want to marry into Chinese culture and I don't even want to date I really don't I mean I don't is mentioned I don't ever want to buy someone uh I don't want to buy someone a purse that's ridiculous to me and I don't want it you guys heard this man was a hilarious video with me complaining about getting the booty call messages at 2am I don't want we Jesus Christ I don't want to get the coal I don't want to respond to the call I don't want to show up at a hotel at 2am to hook up with a stranger Jesus and none of those would anyway oh yeah so much and by the way I got another email again actually from a lesbian of your different lesbian not the one who was mentioned before there was another lesbian who wrote to me saying that it was striking her that video she said that specific video about the 2am booty coals and all that stuff she said it's amazing that her experience as a white Western lesbian in China is the same the like of a bunch of things I complained about in that video she said the one-sided conversations and the booty calls and people trying to sleep with you but they're not willing to have coffee with you and like where it's it's the exact opposite of our expectations of like like the expectation I want to get to know you and feel I can trust you before I see what it's like note the opposite it looks like though let's let's let's remain strangers this kind of thing that was interesting those it was a white lesbian perspective on dating in China and saying wow you know a lot of the same to a striking extent a lot of the same problems and she ended it by saying like hooray hooray for gender equality because apparently the lesbian situation is the same as the situation from men that was that was interested in here I guess I can wrap it up by saying you know when i showed my teacher that handwritten letter you know for corrections to correct any mistakes i made the grammar or what have you um sure comment was just you know it's it's really sad let and she was really just referring to last sentence which is true the letter ended by saying you know this is now the end of my time and couldn't mang I've been here for so many months and you know this is a special time in my life I said at the end the letter this Jim the io obviously I can only express myself imperfectly in Chinese anyway this gym will become a happy memory for me you know um while I lived in kunming during this time in my life studying Chinese this jim was the only was the only pleasure in my life it was the only thing I it was the only thing I had to enjoy you know and it's true in the original in the original Chinese um that is a little bit bittersweet at best you know the the connotations of the of the particular words that that come across there was one guy here who you know he pitched a little bit of a fit he was he was an idiot I despised them it was a there was an American guy here he was one of the other students and I don't remember exactly how the conversation started but he said something to me like but that's why you love learning Chinese right like but that's why you want to learn Chinese something about Chinese being wonderful and ascribing to me that this is why I want to learn Chinese I know that's not why I want to learn Chinese is it I don't want to learn Chinese at all which was true then and it's true now this is not what I chose in life this is in many ways fundamentally the opposite of what is chosen life this is everything that I wanted to avoid being forced on me by circumstances beyond my control I don't want to be living in China I don't want to be learning Chinese I do want to be studying languages but Chinese is the wrong language and another conversation with someone who was a Tibetan and I remember this Tibetan was talking to me and you know excited about you know my knowledge of politics in history but of course Buddhism if you guys watch the channel you know I know a lot about Buddhism and I had to say this Tibetan look like I know we have lot to talk about but my whole life is about avoiding too bad I want nothing to do with Tibet I want nothing to Tibetan politics I want nothing to do with Tibetan Buddhism I don't want to study Tibet this language like you don't get it like I know I know I know more than the average Westerner both the bed I do obviously way more of you know than the average Westerner but it's not my heart of expertise top immigrant interest is the opposite so you know but to come back to that anecdote you know I remember so sitting there at the breakfast table with the other students I just said it's got a hundred percent bluntly I don't want to be learning Chinese at all but I'm born with a Canadian passport and I'm stuck with it and because I'm Canadian I ultimately did not have the option to study any of the languages I was passionate about learning I was forced again and again to sacrifice all of my hopes all of my aspirations all of my dreams all of my career plans because of the incredibly poor quality of the education system in Canada and the incredibly narrow possible career paths open to me that wouldn't be the same if I were born a French citizen it wouldn't be the same for born an American citizen or even a German citizen but because I'm Canadian I couldn't continue with Lao I couldn't continue with Cambodian I couldn't continue with Burmese I couldn't continue with sin alize I couldn't continue with ty I couldn't continue with Cree I couldn't continue with a jib way and those two I feel the most bitterly as the Canadian Korean ajiboye being indigenous to Canada everything I spent years and years of my life developing expertise in not even to mention pally I had to sacrifice and I had to start with this language that I don't merely lack interest in that I actively don't want to learn that I never wanted to learn that I chose again and again to avoid learning this is everything I wanted to avoid in my life and I've been forced to accept it that's why I'm living now in China I in says at the time but you know also I didn't even want to learn Chinese in China I wanted to continue in Canada I was getting a university degree in Canada but I couldn't do that for the same reason because of the abysmally low quality of my education in Canada so there are a lot of things I appreciate about Chinese culture there are a lot of things I appreciate about China it's always somewhat hilarious to me when people think i have a kind of glamorized view of Chinese culture or China because it's the opposite um but I'm here learning a language I don't want to learn doing a job I don't want to do in a sense developing a career in an area of expertise that don't want to have in the surreal circumstances of my slow motion divorce unfolding in France we think also my slow motion core case unfolding in Thailand you know all these other bizarre things in framing the situation and I'm sacrificing so much in my life to learn a language I don't want to learn and to learn to pretend to be a part of a culture I don't even want to pretend to be a part of I don't want to marry into this culture I don't want to date in this culture and you know the guy I'd said this to at that breakfast he was really offended and he was an ignorant ass white guy who converted to who converted to Buddhism to zen buddhism the worst kind of Buddhism he was an ignorant ass white boy who converted to Buddhism and who obviously had glorified and glamorized notions about Chinese culture and he took it up with me later to like at another time I went out to lunch with him and he sat down he was like well it's very obvious you don't like chinese like as a language like you don't say yeah you want me to lie to you you only to pretend this is a special or wonderful language to me it's not that's so it's just another language and it's in many ways and especially oh and especially terrible language and it's not a language that leads to any kind of a bright future for me or for my daughter it doesn't lead to any kind of employment in Canada it doesn't lead to any kind of master's degree or PhD or anything else in many ways here in China I know day after day I'm digging my own grave I'm destroying any possibility of me having a positive future and I would be earning more money if I got a job at starbucks or as a waiter or stalking the store shelves at a grocery store or doing any other working at a gas station in Canada rather than what i'm doing here in china even though what i'm doing here in China may be more intellectually pretentious or may seem more impressive of my resume in some ways so I mean that's the incredibly grim reality surrounding and underlining that one line in that hand written letter that I gave to the girl at the gym today that during this time in my life you know going to your gym was my only pleasant distraction was my only pleasure