Fat

If any of you make it to Loprinzi’s, tell Bob how much we miss it there.

It is difficult to imagine a world where one cannot exercise. “Just do it,” right? Well, we seem to have found a situation where things are not that simple. Paul and I are both very, very active people. At home we ride bicycles rather than drive. We practice martial arts several days a week, both externally, with kajukenbo and sombo, and internally, with qi gong and tai ji quan. I climb rocks, sometimes; we hike; we walk; he plays softball as long as the weather will allow it. We are busy people who inhabit our bodies most fully, and who depend upon exercise as a way of staying calm, of staying sane.

Here, it seems, it is very difficult to do the same, where ping-pong is a sport and no one ever breaks a sweat. I can’t even find deodorant for sale. We go to a gym three times a week: it is dirty and most of the machines don’t work, but we use free weights and manage to keep our muscles strong. However, the cardio machines are limited to five stationary bikes and two treadmills. The bikes are all in various states of dismantlement – warped wheels, broken seat posts, tension irrevocably set on vertical climb. One of the treadmills is broken, too, and the other is permanently occupied by a thin woman who walks/jogs slowly for hours on end. There is no etiquette for time limits on equipment here, so, as the gym is only open 4 hours a day, I am pretty certain she is the only one who gets to use it – I’ve never had the patience to wait and find out. I get tired of the sidelong glances by the dozens of dudes in various states of undress – I’ve never seen a more narcissistic crowd: half-naked men all checking themselves out in the windows, flexing – I actually saw a guy kiss his bicep. We laughed aloud at an oblivious kid in a tshirt that read in giant green letters: BALLS. I wanted to ask the men on the bench press in their panties if they needed some time alone. Nonetheless, I enjoy the camaraderie of the few other women there – we don’t talk much, but exchange sympathetic smiles and occasionally trade names or ni-haos. Once a women’s basketball team came in to train together, and I was in heaven. Basketball girls are the same the world around: same bodies, same way of carrying themselves, same rough strength and ponytails and big legs. We sized each other up in a friendly way – some were almost as tall as I am. I wanted to ask them where they buy their shoes.

We ride our bikes, but that is wholly unlike riding in a clean, orderly city like Portland. Traffic moves very, very slowly – there is nothing cardiovascular in the death-defying weaving through packs of honking chaos and plumes of black smoke that is bicycling here. We yawn a lot as we ride, we’ve noticed: an utter lack of oxygen on the roads.

I am unable to run due to old knee injuries; I have tried a few times, but 6 or 7 laps around the track leaves me limping for days after, and the burn in my lungs has nothing to do with conditioning. It’s not the heat and strain that comes from exertion – it’s a chemical burn, a feeling of toxic exposure, like jogging in a room full of ammonia fumes. The Peace Corps does not allow its volunteers to run outside for exercise – the damage done to one’s lungs by the pollution levels apparently far outweighs any benefit the exercise can provide. Paul is unable to run due to a vestibular condition. It’s all very puzzling. All we want is to sweat!

So, raw vegetables will make you sick and everything else comes soaked in chili oil. Exercise is bad for you, and badminton is competitive. We have a rigid schedule for tai ji and qi gong; we practice sitting meditation. When it’s not too cold, I run stairs – for some reason, my knees will allow it. I’m just warning you now – if you thought we were coming home thin as reeds from a year of plain white rice and pickled kelp, of carrying buckets of water up and down monastery stairs, think again. China’s making us fat.

~ by knifemaker on December 4, 2007.