The Shanghai shuffle.

A great many things have been attributed to this city. I've realized that you could point out any anomaly or even a commonplace thing that occurs in daily life, and easily--somewhat justifiably--say "that's Shanghai".

I had a conversation the other day with a lady I met at an adoption agency. She was telling me how you were only allowed to walk dogs before 7 am and after 7 pm. That's Shanghai. (the agency actually just told her that to avoid getting the animal taken away by police because she was fostering the pet and therefore unlicensed)

You tell the taxi driver to take you to a new place and ask them to look for a certain building when you get to the street. The driver says "I drive, you look". That's Shanghai.

The drinks that you order a restaurant rival the meal in price. That's Shanghai.

And the job that you thought you had down before is replaced by a job that's totally opposite in almost every way within a 10 day period... yep, that's Shanghai.

I called my mom yesterday to chat with her about some things. My brother had been telling me that she's been really upset at my dad lately, and one of the first things she asks me is "are you still working at that place?" Considering it was only about a week since I left the company and three days after I received my offer at Monitor, I found this a bit unnerving. Had she been waiting for me to leave the company for a while now, or does she just have some kind of freaky motherly sixth sense thing when her sons feel uneasy about their current employment.

I was expecting her to make a big deal out of it. What is this company about? What's in it for your future? How is the work permit going to be handled... blah blah blah. But she didn't really ask much except for what industry it was in. I think I may have worn her down when it comes to nagging me for my decisions, and I also think that maybe she's begun to accept that I may not return to Los Angeles to settle down for a long while. Because the thing that I most expected her to ask me was, "So when are you going to come home then?"

For those of you who don't know, Monitor Group is an international consulting company. I... will not be doing consulting as I do not trust my business sense enough to ask a client to pay for it, but instead I'll be doing the design for Shanghai office. The location is great. The people seem relaxed. The money is livable. Again, the exact opposite of my last job.

I've been a bit overwhelmed by the amount of change that has occurred over the past 10 days. For a 23 year old recently out of college, in a foreign country, with an ever-so-slowly improving language ability... a dramatic career change can be a bit disorienting, albeit... also welcome.

One of the things that draws me to this city is the amount of change that occurs in such a short amount of time. People come and go. Buildings fall and rise. New restaurants pop-up every month. While not perfect in any sense and imperfect in a very many, Shanghai seems to serve as a drug dealer for those addicted to change. It's one of the few interesting cities in the world that has a "future" whether it be good or bad.

But stability in forms is also welcome: I'm getting a puppy soon. I've decided it's time for me to make the investment. The cashflow is good. I'll be able to afford to import an animal back into the United States should I need to, and well... it'll be good to have something in my life that grounds me... that I can take with me to other places... if that makes any sense at all. I mentioned earlier that I went to an animal adoption agency. I'll be taking care of two kitties for a couple weeks until they find a permanent home and hopefully within a month I'll be providing the permanent home for a small black puppy.

I really can't remember the last time I was this excited about something. Having another being that will become a part of my life and go with me wherever I go makes me feel like... I'm growing up. Like, I'm finally capable of taking care of something other than myself--financially, emotionally and otherwise.

I wonder what it'll feel like to have a baby.

Letting go.

I made up my mind sometime last week to quit my job. The pay sucks, as does the commute... I hate my boss... and there's a good chance that the company is going nowhere. But I was waiting--being polite, because she had just returned from looking after her ill father in Kuala Lumpur. Finally last week, I got a chance to sit down with her when I picked up my salary. She started, "Sun, I've been thinking about whether to keep you on or let you go..." and I thought damn. I should've went first.

It's like the boyfriend you couldn't break up with, because next week was his birthday and Valentine's was in a month, just to find that the little hussy was cheating on you.

I am definitively bitter over the circumstances, but I can't say I'm not relieved. I have four more days to come in and train a replacement before I get to leave and start again. Recently, I've realized that my life can be arranged by the times I've been desperate to get out of things: LA to Boston to my first job to UC Berkeley to San Francisco to LA and now to this wretched production house, which is basically the non-organic extension of this harpy of an employer.

I've been in Shanghai now for about a year, and thankfully not sick of it yet. But as fuzzily defined anniversaries go, I guess this can be said to be a big one. A year ago, I ran away from another place... and now I realize it's not really a bad thing to run away from some problems. Had I had a reason to stay in California, I would have. But I didn't, and I would just be fighting for nothing if I was there today. And besides, the problems I really needed to face... I knew they would follow me no matter where I went.

It seems like recently I've learned to stop feeling sorry for myself. I still get angry and frustrated and sad, but I never really consider anymore that I'm not worth it.

A year later, though, I'm still not really over it. Mike has asked me a couple times within the last couple of months if I still loved my ex-boyfriend. I used to believe that you could never really love someone who didn't love you back... maybe more of a protective logic than an actual one. Like you can't hit a ghost so it can't hit you. I think at one point in the future, it might be nice to hear his voice again.

I got a message from Sam yesterday talking about how he didn't want to meet up with me in Shanghai because he didn't want to bring back my troubles in Berkeley to this new place. I think I've gone through many different emotions towards him: from hate to jealousy to a now somewhat mitigated resentment, but it's pretty safe to say that I never faulted him for what happened. In actuality, I learned to resent a lot of the people in my life a year ago--anyone who had a connection to my ex. At the time that I wanted to be with him the most, I also started to believe that he would find kindness for everyone around me but me.

I've excommunicated a lot of people because what happened. And I guess most people would probably read this and think that I have some serious attachment issues... and they're probably right. But it's probably in my disposition to obsess. How do you stop caring, when you just do? If you could just flip a switch, doesn't that mean that you never really cared in the first place?

Why haven't I learned to let go? According to popular relationship knowledge, it's supposed to take half the time you were together to get over a person. So I should've been over it about 11 months ago. But I guess I don't want to ever forget, and I don't want to write off my feelings as "I was young".

There was a morning back in Berkeley that I came to drop off his books that he had left at my apartment. We were in that ambiguous stage of our relationship, where a brush of the arm could result in 3 hours of dialogue spread over the next four weeks. And I came into his basement level room, put his books down and nudged him awake. He sat up completely dazed and kissed me on the lips for a second. And in that second, my brain registered about a hundred different memories: how the bed felt as I sat on it, how bright and pale white the light seemed to be seeping through the curtains at 9:30 am, the slight woody smell of the room and the temperature of his body, the warmest I had felt it in all our time together. Half in shock, I watched expressionless as he mumbled "hi" ... and collapsed back onto his bed... When I wonder today if I had ever really loved him, I consider that morning.

In the future, I will try to make amends. I will try to show less anger towards those who are undeserving of it, and I will heal as I have done tremendously over the past year. But I'm not going to let go, at least not completely. If I do, then a year of my life loses a lot of meaning, and that morning and that second is just a paragraph in my memory which loses the appendixes of emotions that tie into it. By letting him go, I also let go of that morning. I guess you could call me obsessive, naive or foolish, but honestly... it just isn't worth it.

Happy golden pig year, everyone.