Iron and Wine

My father had spent most of our childhood traveling between two continents. Tucked away in American suburbia, my mother, sister, and I rarely accompanied him on business trips to Taiwan or China. Usually he'd be gone for a few weeks, sometimes months, but we got used to the rhythm of his comings and goings. Whenever he returned, he would inevitably be thinner, always weighed down by a cough (at best), and devastatingly tired. With the recuperative powers of San Diego sunshine, a relaxing home atmosphere, and plenty of time on the golf course, my father would gather his strength and then be off again.

The only visible sign we had that he was busy would be the late nights he'd spend on the phone, which coincided with the times the rest of the house was asleep. As we got ready for school in the mornings, he would often still be awake, sometimes preparing us breakfast, sometimes saying "good night" on the way to bed. To me, he had the greatest job in the world. Lots of intercontinental travel, a flexible schedule, and still plenty of time to spend with the family. As I grew up and started forming my own conception of a career, I decided I also wanted to be a businessman, just like him.

* * * * *

In the aftermath of 9/11, after I had soaked in the experience of watching the World Trade Towers crumble from across the Hudson River, I was ready to escape New York. That September morning, my friend was perched on our toilet when the first plane hit. He had woken me up and we'd run down to our apartment's boardwalk in time to witness the second impact. After thirty six hours of rumor filled panic and incessant television watching, we were convinced that any and all conspiracy theories were true. We made plans to flee to the safest place we could think of: Ann Arbor, the college campus we'd both just recently left. If there was going to be additional acts of terrorism, we were positive it wasn't going to happen in Michigan. In a burst of productivity, we rented a car, packed it up with CDs, and took off on the eleven hour drive, stopping just twice for gas.

After a week spent in the obscure safety of the Midwest, Sam and I returned to New York, both of us wary and disenchanted with the city. Living in Manhattan, or any other major U.S. city, seemed unbearably depressing. My classes downtown were cancelled, my magazine internship on hold, and I was left spinning my wheels trying to figure out what came next. Two weeks later, my father passed away overseas without warning. Within a few hours of receiving the call, I was on a plane headed home, to San Diego, making another escape from New York.

* * * * *

My paternal grandfather, a judge for most of his life, switched careers at fifty three and decided to purchase a woodwind instruments factory located in Taichung, the third largest city in Taiwan. The small factory produced flutes, saxophones, clarinets, piccolos, and the occasional trumpet. The factory soon became the responsibility of my father, the eldest son, and the whole enterprise also supported and employed two of my uncles. Over the years, the company grew and pushed my father toward America in pursuit of further business opportunities.

Expansion also eventually involved building a much larger factory in China, in a city an hour west of Beijing. Final construction on that factory finished in 1995. In the ensuing six years, my sister and I had never visited, with high school and college perpetually getting in the way. The first time we laid eyes on the factory would be to bury my father, who was found in his office, an hour after missing an early morning business meeting. Aside from the funeral arrangements, the immediate and overbearing question was what would happen to the company. That was the pounding thought that kept everyone focused amidst the grieving.

* * * * *

The China factory, built on a few acres of land, was one of the first in Langfang, a prefecture city. As defined by the government, a prefecture city is technically not a city as it lacks continuous urban settlement. It is instead composed of a main central urban area surrounded by large swaths of rural areas. The rural area often contains smaller cities, towns, and villages. During the years our factory was undergoing construction, Langfang was preparing for an economic boom. It hastily and optimistically threw up supporting infrastructure for a population five times its size. The boom hadn't fully arrived as we viewed the city from inside our cramped minivan, making our way from Beijing Capital International Airport toward the factory.

Mostly empty hotels towered next to the main highway, a six lane monstrosity that lacked car traffic but had plenty of bicycles. Pairs of sweepers shifted dust from one side of the road to the other using decrepit looking brooms, making no tangible difference. We passed by lots of new buildings, most constructed to be as ostentatious as possible. Roman columns jutted out from clean modern lines to form ghastly facades. One particularly bombastic entrance caught my eye, an administration building outfitted with huge marble steps rivaling any in Manhattan. There was a bustling downtown area we passed through but most of Langfang was clearly awaiting more occupants.

In contrast, my father's factory was understated architecturally, built to utilitarian tastes and painted in neutral colors, and nearly bursting at the seams. It employed almost two hundred and fifty workers and a third of them lived on-site. The ground floor was the factory itself, which included a large cafeteria for use three times a day. The second floor was office space, the managers' quarters, and a separate kitchen. The top two floors were residential and included a leisure room and practice space for workers who took complimentary flute lessons. A smaller building in the back housed machinery for the chemical process used to silver plate instruments. The rest of the grounds had plenty of space, including an unused basketball court and an oft-used soccer field.

For many of the workers, almost all of them uniformly young and from the countryside, this was their future.

* * * * *

Traditional Chinese culture dictates the passing of the family business to the oldest son. In my family, with no other male cousins, that was me. Even though our immediate family was thoroughly Americanized, the expectation was still there that the company would eventually be mine. Or ours, for my twin sister was my age, if younger by two minutes, and far more business savvy and accomplished. I switched from a business major to philosophy after collapsing in accounting; she was currently a successful accountant at a big five firm.

In the days after the memorial service, my uncles, the business managers, various advisers, and my mother gathered to hammer out a plan for the company's future. My sister and I attended all the meetings, struggling to follow along with our limited Mandarin. After one of these sessions, it had come time to decide what we both wanted to do.

"I'm in," I said simply. A life in New York was far removed from my mind at this point and my flittering forays into the film industry wasn't anything to stick around for. Despite the tragic circumstances, I was more than ready to get away.

After some hesitation, my sister said, "No. I don't want to."

I was stunned. Throughout all the preceding meetings and conversations, she'd given no indication that she was against moving to China. We had even discussed how our lifetime of being near-complete opposites might be advantageous in co-running a business. She was good at everything I was not and her weaknesses were my strengths. I asked her what had changed.

"They don't want me. They've been talking to you a lot more." This came as a total surprise. I thought we had both been treated as potential successors. "You don't see it," she continued, "but every time they ask a question or look for our opinion, they look to you first."

We were sitting on a bench outside the factory, both of us facing the soccer field, watching some workers race around in pursuit of the ball.

"Are you sure? I don't think so…" It took me a moment to process what she'd just said. I honestly couldn't recall them slighting her, but apparently I hadn't been paying attention. "Of course they want you. I don't even know what I'm doing," I added. "There's no way I'm going to move here by myself." The sudden prospect of living in China, away from my safe circle of friends, without having anyone trusted beside me, diminished my enthusiasm greatly.

"Seriously, I don't want to do it. I have a job back home anyway," she said.

"Don't you think it's our responsibility to move here?"

"I've been talking about it with mom. Putting all of our futures in one basket isn't a great idea anyway." I knew this tone of her voice. There wouldn't be much room for discussion. "You can do it, you should do it, but I just started my job and shouldn't quit now."

I could understand her point. She was in a career that she couldn't just leave and then jump back into later. Not without falling behind. My situation was, well, not even a situation. I could choose to stay without giving up anything. After some careful thought, I could even fathom how the patriarchal Chinese businessmen might have focused more of their attention toward me, and how I'd been too blind or flattered to notice.

"Okay, you go. I'll stay," I said.

There it was, the decision made. I would move to China and delve into the woodwinds industry. I would learn the family business. I would become a businessman, just like my father.

Branded

"There's a reference to the fleur-de-lis in Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers as an old custom of branding criminals with the symbol. My crime? I cheated on my last girlfriend. The fleur-de-lis is also used to indicate north on the compass rose. The Boy Scouts adopted the symbol because it 'points in the right direction (and upwards) turning neither to the right nor left, since these lead backward again.' On the ring finger, the two meanings combine to be a reminder to never cheat again."
-Fuck Yeah, Tattoos!-

Comments:

• Love love love this!
• KIND of an asshole, but the fact that he knows Dumas and he learned from his past actions (hopefully) makes me think that there’s hope for him yet. And I think this is a really cool tat.
• Bad tattoo idea of the day -- Dude, do you realize you’re going to have to explain the significance of your tattoo to every girl you date from now on? Just because you got the 18th century french equivalent of a scarlet A tattooed on your hand doesn't mean you’re going to not cheat on the next girl who comes along. And if you lie to her about it it’s just going to piss her off when she does find out.
• Such a solid meaning. though the fleur-de-lis also represents the virgin mary, the other meanings toward it symbolize someone who now knows right from wrong and will make an effort to make sure it never happens again. props to him.
• I really, really, really like this idea.
• Oh my gosh, seriously, one of the most simplistic, beautifully meaningful tattoos I’ve ever seen.
• I really like finger tattoos (not sure how I’d feel about one on myself, but I love seeing them). I really like this guy’s meaning, too.
• So relevant. I love this idea.
• What a nice little cheater! I think I would have about 6 tatted up men floating around if every dude did this.
• I’m a pretty strong believer in the “once/always” rule, but I applaud his attempt? I think?
• I think Lord Alfred Douglas once called himself Prince Fleur-de-lis in a letter to Oscar Wilde. (Douglas was kind of a douchebag but I really like him.) In related news, I am so over monogamy.
• I really like this. A lot. I hope it works :/
• You tattooed yourself with a permanent reminder to any partner-to-come that you’re a stupid fucker who can’t keep his dick in his pants. Not even a wedding ring will cover up that brand of untrustworthiness. Good job pre-emptively ruining any future relationships. And who wears a thumb ring anymore?
• I really like this one and its explanation. I can’t wait to finish off my last two tattoos: Quotation marks and “2+2=5”
• Love this. A lot.

Higher Education

It's been a struggle getting to class on time, even if I dutifully pack my bag the night before and lay out my clothes. For every reason under the sun I'm habitually ten to fifteen minutes late and despite an early afternoon start time, am always rushing to pay for parking and then trotting to class, swimming against the tide of students who've just been released. Returning to an academic setting instantly triggers hard to kill habits. Being late, a reluctance to finish homework, sitting in the back of the room. The old anxiety surrounding speaking up in class. On this last point I've been challenging myself to say at least one thing per period, even if it's to ask a simple question. Twice I've caught myself raising my hand, courage gathered but timed a beat late.

"No more questions?" the professor will say and I'll sheepishly lower my unnoticed hand. I've already decided who are the studious/smart kids in my class, and have maneuvered to be around them, on the off-chance we become friendly. I've run out of patience for lazy students, like the one who somehow fell into my group and declared that he hadn't done the reading because he didn't fix his laptop yet. Is it possible to attend college nowadays without a working laptop? I doubt it. Ten minutes earlier I'd been afraid I wouldn't have anyone to group with, now I was worried about the makeup of my four member team. I wanted to reject him immediately.

When bored in class -- which isn't often because I am here to learn this time -- I look around the room and jot down clothing combinations, do word sketches of interesting looking people, and hope it'll all come in use one day when I create characters. I am probably just as familiar with some of my classmates' clothing rotation as they are. You can deduce a lot, and imagine a lot of stories, if you keep a running log of somebody's outfits. One guy seems to always wear the same sports jacket and I assume he's not from San Diego because he refuses to remove the jacket, even when it's very hot and stuffy. The girl who plants herself in front dresses up on Thursdays but down on Tuesdays. I suspect she has some sort of job after our Thursday meetings. One that requires her to look nicer than the typical college student. From little personal details spilled through the first few weeks, I've gathered mini-profiles on about ten people in each class.

Of course, I've yet to actually meet any friends. The last time I was on campus, in 2002, I befriended someone after a few weeks. I'd sit with her at the bus stop, chatting while she missed bus after bus. I reciprocated by missing my Brontes class. The closest I've come to having a friend so far is a guy who has the same classes as me back-to-back. We take the ten minutes in-between to complain about our first session and prepare for our second. We've shared chocolate chip cookies, video game recommendations, and a mutual appreciation for Ayn Rand.

The elevator in the Literature building is still broken, just like it was seven years ago. The most used classroom in the building is located on the top floor. I'm familiar with this classroom as I took Poetry here. The room looks exactly the same except for a broken window our first few weeks. A few professors ranted during orientation day that the Literature department is underfunded and on the brink of extinction. I believe them.

The one other person I've talked to for more than ten minutes I chatting with while walking down the stairs after class. Negotiating a narrow stairway, barely wide enough for two, and with a still getting to know you stranger, requires a certain distance to be kept. I fell a step behind to decrease the awkwardness. After slowly descending three flights to street level, we turned to leave and she extended her hand in greeting and goodbye. "What was your name? I'm Mary." Professional and confident, which seemed foreign on a college campus.

It's weird being back.

Freedom Fighter

Early on in our educational careers, my twin sister and I were asked if we wanted to be separated into different homerooms, or if we wished to continue being packaged together. Without hesitation, after a decade of doing nearly everything in lock step, we eagerly elected to be separated. For the rest of middle school, we never shared a class. In high school, with only a handful of honors and AP classes available, there was no choice but to be thrust back onto similar schedules. By then, we had veered off into our separate interests and aptitudes. I gravitated toward the humanities while she excelled at math and science. Our friend groups were also completely different. She hung out with a pack of girls who were one standard deviation away from the popular crowd while I lunched in the computer lab or on the basketball courts, scarfing bites in-between games. Even as our social and school lives joined, separated, and reconfigured, one thing remained constant: The rules and boundaries established at home.

One challenge of raising twins, especially a male and female pair, is deciding whether or not to treat them differently. From early on, my parents were of the mindset that we would be treated equally in every respect. We unquestioningly attended the same schools, went to the same summer camps, were involved in all the same after-school activities, and were given the same responsibilities and chores. This arrangement served us relatively well until our teen years, when my sister began to chafe for more freedom. Her driving motivation? Boys.

Where once we had banded together to challenge parental authority for common causes (most of our lobbying centered around extended curfews or higher allowances), our united front quickly fell apart when it came to dating. I had no interest in attending school dances or taking a girl out to a movie. As a teenager, I was happily confined to the five mile radius of our house, which contained my best friend, a community pool, and two strip malls. There was nothing else I needed. My sister came to realize that I wouldn't be a motivated ally this time around and embarked on her own crusade. I stood diplomatically neutral and watched as she campaigned for even later curfews, more use of the family car, and late night phone privileges.

At this time, my father ruled the house and any major decision was left to him. My mother supported him publicly but behind the scenes they struggled with a major difference of opinion regarding dating. My mother wanted to set down strict guidelines, leaving no room for negotiation. "In before nine, no calls after ten, no car use on the weekdays." My father, loath to play the role of totalitarian parent, could be reasoned with (or cajoled) into leaving a little slack. As my sister poked and prodded for weaknesses, she started butting heads with the authorities. Each time she came back a few minutes late, there would be an argument and maybe a weekend grounding, but somehow my father would relent and our curfew would be magically pushed back.

Over a period of several months, my sister managed to get curfew extended from nine to eleven thirty. Since we were still being governed under the "treat them the same" policy, I got my curfew pushed back too. Soon, I emerged as the child that gave them no problems, as I reveled in our additional freedoms but wasn't involved in any of the arguing. I should have been more supportive of my sister but instead gleefully waited for her to mess up to see what constraint might be removed next.

Eventually, my father's will hardened. As the tensions between him and my sister rose, he exacerbated them by trying to withdraw previously extended privileges. At this point, my sister did what almost any teen girl would have done when faced with the choice between first love and family restrictions: she rebelled. Instead of gently pushing back against her perceived captors, she reacted to the new regime by basically going crazy.

She started sneaking out at night, lying to them about what she was doing after school, and generally disregarding any and all rules. Each time she was caught, a privilege was stripped from her while mine remained intact. This infuriated her but my father reasoned that it wasn't fair for me to lose my privileges on account of her bad behavior. I benignly stuck around the neighborhood most nights, plopped on the couch watching movies, rarely getting in trouble, and playing witness to an escalating war between my parents and my sister.

Subtly, without acknowledging it, the central tenet in their child rearing philosophy had changed. There now existed two sets of rules, one for me and one for her. As their relationship deteriorated, my parents took extreme measures such as setting the house alarm at nights so she couldn't sneak out. One morning before school, after being shaken awake by my mom, I sleepily followed her the short distance across the hall to my sister's room. The window was wide open, the insect screen flung out on the grass twenty feet below, and my sister missing. Desperate to escape an untenable situation—my parents were set to send her away to Texas for the summer, in an attempt to starve her relationship through distance—my sister had taken the only escape route available. Her room was on the second floor and it never occurred to my parents that they should activate the upstairs alarm too.

That morning, instead of joining in my parents' panic, I laughed incredulously, thinking of my unathletic sister, runner of a nine minute mile, hopping out her window with barely any climbing structures below to the safety of her boyfriend's waiting car. It was a physical and mental feat beyond my imagination and I was both impressed with her audacity and appalled at the risk she’d taken.

My sister's dramatic escape scared my parents to the point they decided to no longer rule with an iron fist. They also gave up all pretense of unilaterally supporting each other's decisions. My mother took a much more active role with my sister while my father, humbled that "his way" had led to a Houdini-like escape, was forced to confront his failure. Softening their stance, frightened of driving their daughter away, my parents started supporting my sister instead of constantly forcing her to choose between family and the boyfriend. While their relationship wasn't instantly repaired, it was on the mend.

Left to my own devices for most of high school, I chose to go off to college in a distant state (my sister stayed in San Diego to be closer to her boyfriend) and within that time somehow flipped good child bad child roles with my sister. No longer causing my parents grief, she had gained something in all her hard fought battles. She was now more mature and independent than me, and had also taken a job early on in her relationship to support new expenses, helping her learn fiscal responsibility. I experienced most of college like a kid left on a playground, neglecting my studies, eradicating any semblance of a healthy lifestyle, and leaving my parents puzzled as to where they had gone wrong raising me. My accumulated reservoir of goodwill faded as I drifted further and further away from accountability. After four years, my sister ended up graduating on the Dean's List while I left school early and wandered from temporary careers to temporary cities.

As the philosophy of treating us both equally had been clearly deviated from years ago, the differences started to manifest themselves more overtly in how much help my parents offered us during and post-college. Instead of being punished for having terrible grades and eventually jumping off the good ship academia, I was given permission to move to New York and even granted financial assistance in pursuit of a film career. My Jersey City apartment overlooked the Hudson River, offered a spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline, and was nicer than anything I've lived in since.

My sister, always diligent and hard working through everything, had to support herself immediately upon graduation, taking charge of a new life in San Francisco. It was preposterous to her that I suffered no penalty for dropping out of school. Our life decisions were being measured by different metrics but it seemed that while she had pulled ahead and out achieved me in every arena, she was still the one being punished, this time for following the rules.

Years later, this still remains a sore subject between us. She was right of course, and it was absurdly unfair, but recently I pointed out to her that we could never escape each other. Regardless of how we were being evaluated, or which individual paths we took, it would be impossible to not be in constant comparison. I thanked her for jumping out that window, for shattering the perception that we could be perfect children, and then asked if I could crash on her couch for the summer. She reluctantly said, “Yes.”

You, Me, Us

Having failed spectacularly at pretty much every resolution I made in 2009 (the list was supposed to only encompass Jan-Mar too), I did at least one thing. I started podcasting. Hooray for me! It turns out I didn't even need a microphone because the built in mic from my laptop is pretty decent and with that and Garage Band, I'm able to just sit down with someone and start recording.

So for the past few weeks I've been dragging people into the studio with me (meaning any empty room) and making them talk to me. The idea is that it's just a slice of conversation from my life. Actually, that was the original idea. Now I'm working on being a better host, directing a conversation, sticking on topic, and basically making your fifteen or so minutes worthwhile.

The early episodes were a little rough -- but still amusing -- and I'm far from taking my podcast game to the heights it will soon be. However, it's been amazingly fun for me to do and I like it even as a historical account of conversations with friends. So yes, if you'd like to listen in and subscribe, the information is below.

So far I've covered some very fun topics and I'm hoping to get one a week up, which will be easy because I've already got another five or six in the chamber, so to speak. Next move is to figure out how to podcast with someone who's not directly in the room with me, so I can get episodes with friends from all over.

Podcast summary:
"You, Me, Us" is a podcast dedicated to talking with friends and people I know. The idea is to get interesting people to talk about something interesting for 15-20 minutes. Bear with me here, awesomeness is around the corner.

Main site: http://youmeus.posterous.com
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iTunes link: here
You can also find it by searching for "You, Me, Us" in iTunes.