The fact of the matter is that I haven’t wanted to talk about China. Even with my close friends, I’ve shunned the topic to a casual comment now and then, a funny story, some anecdote about spitting or staring, even though my closest friends are deeply curious about the hows and whys of my coming home in a third the time originally planned and with a brand new, far less flattering view on my once beloved red China.

It’s not so much that China even left a bad taste in my mouth, though it did, even physically; I’m just not certain if I’ve come to an objective enough understanding of what happened there to blame it all on them yet. I do believe there’s something here for me to learn about myself and the rest of the world. While to criticize an entire people and culture over my individual experiences, the strenuous stresses of my circumstances at a singular moment in one dirty, little Chinese town, seems on one hand an immature judgment formed from anger and resentment, yet, on the other hand, hadn’t that very culture made the people in that dirty, little Chinese town the sort of people they are today?

I was torn, I think. Because, to think in terms of my martial arts training, to consider how everything and everyone were connected, to understand that the culture that I subscribed to and the people I was encountering in Handan were so intimately related, seemed to damn itself by damning them. It’s been existential vertigo – it started the first day in Handan and still hasn’t ended. If I were a more outwardly emotional person, I might have had a breakdown or a tantrum. I think I’ve been tried, troubled, yet I’ve never seen myself as the sort of person who could get tried or troubled.

I think China represents a turning point. Perhaps the largest turning point in my life in any recent year. From the moment I got there, I began to question if it was actually the right thing to have done. Once I started to question whether I’d made the right choice, for the first time in such seriousness, I also began to deconstruct my trust in Chinese culture. For those of you who know me, I’ve spent most of my thirties constructing a large foundation of Chinese culture beneath my character, trusting that such a foundation would make me a better person, a more renaissance person, reading Chinese philosophies, studying their martial arts, training my mouth to speak their language. I’ve trained my mind to consider Chinese medicine first when confronted with an ailment. I’ve approached a true and logical spirituality that I’d never been able to fathom with Catholicism.

To shake this foundation then, questioning the logic with which I’d constructed many of the truths in my life, had added to the already immense pressure of adjusting to a strange country. Whether I could’ve admitted it or not, I wasn’t immune to homesickness, nor loneliness, nor could I so easily bend with the storm of situations blown at me. That sudden doubt then disallowed me from making choices that my martial arts training had already taught me to choose because I was questioning that training and its philosophy.

Tai ji chuan teaches me to balance the world and its relationships, to be like bamboo – strong but supple, flexible in every way. But would following the rules and suggestions of tai ji really grant me what I wanted so desperately as I stared at the dusty, vinyl floors of that apartment? The answer seemed to require faith, faith that the sacrifices I was undertaking would ultimately carry me further on my journey. Or perhaps, given that faith is so impalpable, it only required foresight, foresight enough to understand where that road was going.

In any case, some primal instinct had already taken control. The moment, caged and cold, circumvented any of the possibilities the future could offer. I was set in my ways. I chose to abandon China. However, I don’t necessarily believe that I also completely abandoned my training. Simmone has always said that we wouldn’t be students if we didn’t make mistakes. That’s always made sense to me.

I came to the decision that I needed to separate the various passions I have in Chinese culture from the culture itself. Like taking the cherries out of cordials. This seems a very un-Chinese thing to do. To study one part is to study every part. Nothing should be separated. But I was convinced that separating the martial art, the medicine, the literature, from the larger, now recognizably flawed culture, was precisely what I needed to do in order to continue to respect these various arts, preserve what I’d already gained from Chinese culture.

In other words, the experiences I’d had in Handan challenged my notions enough that I was tempted by anger to push it all away, all of the culture that I had ever studied, but some part of me still understood that this logic was flawed.

So I’ve decided to write about it now and then. I don’t suppose it’ll hurt to bare a little more of my private thoughts to the public domain, if only to be an entertaining and perhaps educational read for those who might be going to China, or some other strange foreign land. What I want most is to have learned something from China, or to learn something yet by writing about it. Writing this out in my blog is useful. Writing has always been useful in that way for me. The same way some people have conversations with their friends late into the night about their emotions, so too do I take them up with my computer.

I’ll end with this for today, since I’m being long-winded: One of the first mornings back in San Francisco, when I was walking down Market Street at about 9 in the morning, it seemed incredible to me that my research trip to China was all over and done with. I’d wondered, I’d planned for so many months for the trip, that it seemed trivial to be over and have not been completely changed by it. On the plane home from China, I wondered if it would all feel like a dream once I was home, if those 10 weeks would melt into a sort of … or if being home would feel like the dream.

Aside from Britney’s new album hitting the shelves, a couple of other divas are keeping us entertained, as well. I checked out a few tracks from Annie Lennox’s new album and I have to say I’m sorely disappointed. Oh, I’m sure some people like this more brash and “rocking” side of Annie, but I’ve grown used to her introspective side and the beautifully-crafted moody songs from Bare and Diva.

Kylie has a new album, too, with the massively overused title X, but from the tracks I’ve heard, it’s a good-enough follow-up to Body Language. She’s promoting the new album in a unique way: following the link at the top of her myspace page, if you hand over your e-mail address you can download an album preview DJ mix, which gives a nice sample of the major tracks from the album. The first single of the album, 2 Hearts, is one of those take-it-or-leave-it pop songs, without much inspiration, but it gives a hint at the direction she’s taking — I think she’s trying to sound a bit like Goldfrapp.

Last, but not least, Roisin Murphy, the former lead singer of Moloko, has never disappointed me. Her new album, Overpowered, though more pop-oriented than her brilliantly unique first solo album, absolutely shines, in my opinion. The woman can do no wrong. I don’t know, there’s just something about her voice, something about the way she crafts lyrics and melodies, that sets her apart. She’s like a jazzy, street-diva version of Bjork without the funny accent and the screws loose. The first single, also named “Overpowered,” has stayed in my head for days.