Introduction

This introduction was written in 2012, long after I first went to China in 1994. I often write the introduction after the "body" of the text; it just seems to sit better that way.

"Fragments of China" gets its inspiration from Whitman's "Leaves of Grass", although I cannot exactly say why. When I first read "Leaves of Grass", I felt myself to be a stranger to, and an outside observer of the cosmos Whitman portrayed. Yet, there is a unity to the apparent chaos, the many different people, faces, scenes of life one finds splashed across every page. Out of the fragments comes a unity, as in an avant-garde mosaic. Thus I have done here, in "Fragments of China" -- out of the fragments, comes a unity. Perhaps this is necessary, for such an enigmatic topic as China. China, like Russia, is far too complex to be understood and portrayed in writing; one can only make attempts.

My first contact with China was in the 1970's, when I was growing up in England. The BBC put out an imported serial of "The Water Margin" (Shui Hu), and it served the "mythic origins" of my consciousness of China. For many years, nothing came of it all, but it was there, implanted.

In 1984, 1988 and 1991 I worked in West Africa, in Burkina Faso and Niger; that is written about elsewhere. I only mention Africa here, because of one incident. I met another expat who gave me a sharp rebuke at the time, but who later suggested that I consider China as a place to work in. I put Rhoda's letter in a tin box, and went on with life. At this point, I should say that although the many years in China have been very important to me, and full of so many experiences, they pale in comparison to the six months I spent in Burkina Faso and Niger, between June 1984 and January 1985. Those were the finest hours of my life.

I wanted to go to Central Asia in 1987, when I graduated from college, but there was a voice inside that said, don't go, you are running away. So, I didn't go, and spent seven years doing other things. I taught, took courses, and went to grad school. Inside, I was wasted and hopeless, and felt very, very pointless. After barely graduating from grad school,, I spent a year alone in my apartment, dangerously depressed. It was here, that three things happened. It was about 1993.

First, I went down to my archives, and the tin box, and re-read Rhoda's letter. Consider China. Maybe it is suitable to your personality. That letter reached straight out of a cosmos of nothing, and into my lowest situation. Second, when I was with some other people, someone said, if you get a second chance, then take it. Who were you? Third, one of my college classmates gave my name to the recruiting staff of an organization that sent English teachers to China. Thank you, Deborah. Each of these women made a decision and said something which forever altered the course of my life, directing me to work in China.

One more thing. When I spent a semester in Boston in 1986, I roomed with two grad students from China. They also had an influence on me.

These, and many other formative events in my life prepared me for the experience of teaching English in China. The act of teaching oral English classes was only part of this experience. There was travel; there were people; there was writing; there were friends; there was a new identity; there were members of a new family.

"Fragments of China" is just a collection of disparate events, a random transect through the landscape of China over about twenty years, by just another English teacher. The thematic unity of this book is in the fragments.

--April, 2012.

"The Coming of Age"

Bengbu, Anhui Province,

summer 1994.

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