Welmer

Now that gender equality in terms of income has been achieved in the younger generation, and educationally women currently surpass men, most of us ordinary men find ourselves staring irrelevance straight in the face. A friend of mine recently observed that women are “taking over” his department at his former company. Except in specialized occupations that require male minds or bodies, women do indeed appear to have the upper hand. However, I observed to my friend that the top remains largely male, while the middle is dominated by females. The bottom, like the top, is predominately male. Unfortunately for us men, there’s a lot more space at the bottom than at the top.

So what does that mean for men who are not among the fortunate few? Are we destined to be lowly peons shoveling muck out of gutters? For many of us, our fate could be worse than that. Gutter cleaning pays fairly well, at least according to the last bill I saw for that service. The future certainly does look grim, but could there be anything redeeming about our new status as disposable goods? Yes, there could, but only when we learn to accept and finally embrace it.

Bound by a sense of duty and responsibility to family, employer and country, men demanded certain guarantees in return. All these guarantees can be summed up in one word: fidelity. We expected not to be cheated, lied to or abandoned. Sadly, all these things have come to pass. Perhaps our own complacency is as much to blame for this as anything else, but our betrayal is a fait accompli. There was the inevitable denial, rage, and despair, but finally we find ourselves at the point of acceptance.

Accepting such a great loss of security, confidence and trust is a very difficult thing to do, but it is profoundly liberating. Whereas before one was shackled to deceit and resentment, now the fetters are broken, the cell door opens, and suddenly the world is revealed. Feelings of guilt, inadequacy, anger, envy and disappointment dissipate in the open air; ought gives way to is. When one arrives at this state of mind, all of the countless obligations, worries and responsibilities lose their sting. It becomes clear that reality - the way things are - is our only true master. We owe no debt to anything or anyone else.

So once a man throws off his countless restraints and goes all the way up the chain of command to take orders from the top, how does he deal with his only boss? Perhaps surprisingly, dealing with reality is very simple; it is only a matter of “can” and “cannot.” There is no want, should or ought with reality. All those are subjective, and have nothing to do with the sun setting or things falling when dropped. A man who has a good idea of what he can do has a great deal of choices and ability, because there are infinite things men can do. Of course, there are always consequences. For example, you can jump out of an airplane without a parachute, but you cannot survive it. This is where judgment comes into play. However, although dealing with reality requires good judgment, letting other people do so for you requires absolute faith in their judgment AND their interest in your own welfare. That’s a risky bet.

Once a man is freed from the bondage of others’ expectations and desires, all that he does comes from his own heart. Any help or affection is freely given and not in any way coerced. His love and goodwill are pure and free from any taint of flattery. Likewise, any malicious acts are undertaken only by his own initiative. His heart and intentions are made clear through his actions. Because reality is truth, he embodies honesty.

These principles apply to all people, whether male or female, but the loss of direction among men in our civilization is a fairly recent development, and needs to be addressed. At this point, a politicized “men’s movement” might be counterproductive, because it would lead us down into the sewers of contemporary discourse. But a spiritual awakening, accompanied by a recognition that we have our own priorities, is sorely needed. Women rebelled against their social obligations and limitations and threw them off. Men, too, can do the same.

When men see that bondage is a state of mind - often an unconscious choice - they realize how easy it is to cast it aside. Our own bondage came from the guarantees that we demanded, which slowly created obligations that we came to see as inevitable. But now that the guarantees have been removed, we find that we are still in chains, and herein lies the great liberating opportunity afforded by injustice. Without the shock of betrayal and loss, we might have plodded along forever, devolving into something akin to oxen, fit only for heavy burdens and the whip. But that will not happen now. The deal we’ve got is clearly rotten, and there’s no good reason to haul that load.

The uplifting feeling one gets when laying down a heavy burden does much for the spirit. The bitterness over loss and betrayal is forgotten as the realization sets in that one’s life is in one’s own hands. What others want, think or expect becomes no more important than anything else, because all that matters is what IS and how one chooses to deal with it. When men know that, they know true freedom.

The vast territory of China encompasses many different lifestyles, cultures, nations and even races. Even within the prevailing Han ethnic group there are differences at least as important as those between the various Romance countries of Europe. The lowland farmers of the Yellow River basin are distinct from those of the Yangtze, who are different from those of Fujian, and Canton and so on. The Mongols, Turks and Koreans of the north and west speak languages unrelated to Chinese and maintain a distinct identity. If one looks at an ethnic or linguistic map of China, there are fairly large contiguous sections representing the Han majority and its subsets, Turks, Mongols, Tibetans and then smaller areas that look like paint splattered across sections of the map representing the small minorities such as the Manchu and Miao.

The reality in China is very different from what one might gather from looking at these maps. Boundaries are not so clear, and the many intersections between different cultures are neither neat nor well-defined. Here in America, we tend to assume that populated areas are all accessible, and only empty widerness is off-limits to the casual traveler. If one flies over our country, all inhabited areas are seen to be neatly linked by roads, and it can be safely assumed that where transportation infrastructure is lacking there are no people. However, if one flies over China, except for the infertile deserts and the very highest peaks and plains of the Himalayas, it can be guaranteed that there are people below. In arid, mountainous central China or the rugged, moist coastal south one can observe terraced hills and other signs of agriculture from above, but very few roads. Even the vast plains are mainly crossed only by rail or dirt roads, and getting from town to the train station often requires a gruelling days-long bus ride over terrible roads. Despite the massive population of China and the existence of people in practically every fertile nook of the country, most of China’s people live in a state of isolation that very few Americans can relate to.

The static nature of most of China’s population, which has only begun to change as a huge contingent of migrant laborers has congregated in major cities, makes estimates of the true extent of linguistic and ethnic diversity very difficult and throws doubt on their accuracy. In much of the country, the dialects are so numerous and divergent that one need only travel a short distance to find people speaking an entirely distinct tongue even within the solid areas on linguistic maps. In these places the educated officials serve as intermediaries between the locals and all others, and can accrue great power through their status as interlocutors. As one moves further from China’s center, this cultural and linguistic diversity grows even more extreme, and infrastructure even more primitive.

China’s ancient and excellent administrative system, which spread across so much of East Asia, has evolved to accommodate the realities of the extraordinarily complex empire it has managed for so many years. The unwieldy Chinese writing system is often described as a barrier to foreign invasion, but its most important function has been to culturally unite a people who speak so many different languages. One can read Chinese characters in all Han dialects, so that a native of Beijing could read a letter written by a native of Xiamen even though the two couldn’t understand each other’s speech. A phonetic alphabet could never serve that purpose in such a linguistically diverse country. However, this unifying characteristic of the Chinese language is not as effective with non-Han cultures, particularly those with their own scripts and a tradition of literacy. Although primitive, illiterate tribes can be assimilated through intermarriage and long-term exposure to Chinese culture, and many Chinese considered Han today are descendants of such people, this is not practical with distinct cultures such as the Tibetans, Uygurs and Mongols, so a different approach was needed.

Historically, when China has been strong it has asserted itself through control of territory on the periphery of the Han-dominated heartland, which comprises less than half of modern China’s territory, but contains the vast majority of its population. Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Manchuria and some traditionally Korean territory are currently under Chinese control, but this doesn’t mean these places are properly China or Chinese. Nevertheless, it is important to note that this soft form of imperialism has been the status quo many times throughout the history of the Chinese empire, including during non-Han dynasties such as the Mongol Yuan and Manchu Qing, so it isn’t necessarily attributable to Chinese chauvinism, but rather to a system of frontier management that kept the peace. Because the traditional assimilate and intermarry strategy did not work with these advanced and frequently aggressive frontier cultures, the Chinese central government maintained control over them through garrisons stationed at key strategic locations, often at great expense. Although the relationship between these subject societies and the empire has been traditionally described as “tributary,” the tribute was more of a symbolic than onerous burden, and frequently the net balance of trade and taxes favored the subject peoples. This was the compensation that frontier cultures received for submission to the Chinese empire, whereas the troops in the garrisons were the threat that hung over any potentially restive population.

Although first the ROC, and then the PRC, officially declared the end of dynasticism and empire, thousands of years of culture and tradition are hard to erase. Following the epic failures of the Mao era, China has slowly returned to its historical methods of governance and has even begun to revisit its ancient, underlying philosophies. For the frontier cultures, this is not necessarily a bad thing, because the Han expansion of the Mao era has begun to ebb. However, a different kind of Han dominance has emerged: economic hegemony. During the Cultural Revolution Chinese were sent to the far corners of the country to work the land. Manchuria, which was sparsely inhabited only a hundred years ago, has seen its population explode as Chinese settled there after World War II to work in industry, and then during the Cultural Revolution to farm. However, recently, as population controls have loosened, many Han Chinese have begun to return to their native provinces or to migrate to cities in the prosperous coastal region. There is no longer an imperative to settle outside the Han sphere of influence, so population replacement of non-Han cultures is not as much of a threat as it was previously.

With modernization and prosperity in the Han heartland, a greater disparity between Han and non-Han cultures has emerged. The Chinese in places such as Urumqi and Lhasa are not interested in displacing the local farmers, whose income and land are negligible assets to Han entrepreneurs, but they are perfectly willing to exploit any business opportunities. These businesses could be in tourism, resource extraction construction, government contract jobs or any number of money-making opportunities. With their access to larger amounts of capital and government connections, Han Chinese are willing and able to shove natives out of the way and squeeze every drop they can from local economies. That the official language is Mandarin and the ruling culture Han provides yet another administrative advantage to Han economic migrants. Faced with this, members of frontier cultures cannot compete in modern, profit-driven China, and have been economically marginalized.

While the traditional methods of governance in frontier provinces have been restored to some extent, the economic realities of modern China have tipped the balance that existed centuries ago under the tributary system so that the benefit to local populations has been erased while the punitive elements remain in place. This is the real source of the current conflict in Tibet, where protesters targeted Han-owned businesses in a very clear statement of anger about their economic marginalization. There are religious overtones, but Tibet is a theocracy, so that is unavoidable. However, people in the West seem largely to miss the point about the unrest, which is that Han economic dominance is the largest factor in Tibetans’ discontent. The same problem exists in Xinjiang, and it threatens to become a more serious problem for the Chinese government in coming years. For China, there is a bit of a dilemma here, in that there are no painless solutions. One measure the Chinese could take would be to grant more autonomy to autonomous provinces, allowing them to make their own languages officially dominant, as Quebec has done in Canada, but that would tend to diminish Beijing’s political control. Another solution could be to clamp down on the cultures and try to assimilate them, but that would be a very painful process with no guarantee of success that would be sure to provoke more serious resistance and unrest, and Beijing’s image abroad would be significantly tarnished, giving it less leverage over Taiwan and its immediate neighbors to the east.

What we may be seeing in Tibet is a turn in the age-old cycle of Chinese expansion and contraction. Large, complex systems such as the Chinese Empire are awesome in their size and power, but they, too, have their limits. Seen from an historical perspective, the PRC is another dynasty, like the Tang or Ming, and one wonders how, without a spiritually galvanizing leader such as Mao Zedong at its head, it can maintain expansionist momentum. As the Chinese people give up the idealistic zeal that led armies of peasants to consolidate the country under their red flag, the masses will inevitably fall back toward the comfortable center, turning their efforts toward profit and pleasure while the barbarians on the outskirts of the empire grow ever bolder and more assertive.

I came across an essay titled "Politics and the English Language" a few days ago and read it before going to bed. It was written by Orwell in 1946, and remains relevant today. However, the examples he uses to make his point that indirect, vague and obfuscating prose has a real influence on our thought and use of language are stark compared to the problems we face today. I was born almost 30 years after World War II ended, and I have only recently begun to understand how dark those years were, including the years directly after the war. The dawn of the nuclear age, the revelations of slavery and mass murder in Europe as well as the USSR, the emergence of the Cold War — all were menacing clouds that rapidly overshadowed the joy of victory.

In the face of these horrors, Orwell advocates discipline in writing; a clear-minded portrayal of reality for the sake of humanity. Given his experience and the circumstances of the times, it isn’t surprising that there is a martial quality to his campaign for more effective and direct use of English. Above all, Orwell sees language as a tool that should be used in the service of mankind, so he deplores writing that "falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details." Insincere and indirect writing are detriments to his cause - if not outright enemies - because they cloak barbarous threats to peace and decency in meaningless phrases that "anaesthetize a portion of one’s brain."

Orwell’s stern reminder of the consequences of language, its tendency to be abused and of the obligation to be vigilant against drifting into the semi-conscious lull of convention leaves the reader feeling like a new recruit facing a drill sergeant, and this must have been his intent. He was a soldier who understood the importance of discipline as well as the need to discard useless burdens, and he applies these rules to his art, which is created with a soldierly purpose. His explicit goal in the essay is the "defense of the English language," which he optimistically suggests is "probably curable."

Sadly, Orwell was fighting in vain. In the 62 years since he wrote Politics and the English Language his foes have only grown stronger, the phrases he deplored have not, for the most part, been rejected, and in the cruelest irony (for us — he probably knew it) some of his own metaphors have lost their edge from overuse. Even the academic writing he sampled to point out examples of abuse reads as fresh, clear and reasonable compared to most of the unreadable sludge that oozes out from university print shops today.

It may be that the upheavals and terror that Orwell’s generation survived are a precondition for the philosophical determination, devoid of fanciful illusions of chivalry, unwilling to be satisfied with mere gestures of speech, that characterizes his writing. And perhaps it was the same determination that brought the world back to war to settle the unfinished business of the Great War, and then to the brink of nuclear war, because to compromise after such sacrifice for convictions would have been unthinkable. In his writing, it is clear what we were fighting, and, from the perspective of the time, why we had to.

The soldiers of the 20th century, men who lived through disaster after disaster, turned the wisdom they gained from merely surviving the spasms of a world violently delivered into modernity toward the creation of a better world, and they succeeded. Their legacy, though wearing thin, remains, but their lessons are ignored if not forgotten. The grim determination, the profound understanding of the inevitability of consequences, and the philosophical depth gained from carrying on through that troubled century lie buried in graves marked with fading names.

In the written records left by the Lost Generation, one can still find the spirit of those lost days lingering like an old photograph in the yellowing, fragile pages of an ancient book. But even in their works of literature they were not effusive people, and subtlety is all but lost in our world of brilliant screens, blaring speakers and electronic communication, so we live our lives amidst a wilderness of light and sound, largely unconscious of the underlying ruins of their bygone civilization.

In Orwell’s writing, the degeneration of language itself becomes a metaphor for squandered gains, carelessness and the unconscious rush of the herd toward the edge of a cliff. His humanity compelled him to warn us and to fight against it, but the genius and tragedy of his vision was its prophecy.

Only an elite few are familiar with the exquisite pain that is gout, that "disease of kings" that strikes in the wee hours like a thief in the night, leaving its victim howling and cursing as he hops on one foot or hobbles to the medicine cabinet for a dose of painkillers.

Podagra, the most common manifestation of gout, strikes the big toe like a firm blow from a hammer, then hangs on and gnaws at the joint like an angry little beast with very sharp teeth. If the pain were a noise, it would be feedback emitted from a giant speaker at a rock concert; if it were light, it would be a laser to the retina. "Inflammation" is the term used to describe the physiological reaction that causes the pain, redness and swelling that accompany an acute attack of gout, and although appropriate for its association with burning and heat, perhaps "sustained nuclear fusion" would be a better term, as the afflicted joint feels as though it is being held to the surface of the sun.

Tiny, barbed crystals, shaped like jagged spears and formed by the precipitation of uric acid in synovial fluid, pierce cell walls and trigger the immune response that introduces the sufferer to an esoteric realm of pain; a brotherhood whose membership is ordinarily earned through years of diligent dedication to excess, and marked by this searing badge of honor.

One can’t blame the disease entirely on gluttony — it is after all far more prevalent in people with metabolic characteristics conducive to hyperuricemia (elevated serum uric acid), and strikes men at a far higher rate than women. However, the association of gout with the royal lifestyle and its unlikely number of highly accomplished victims has given it a certain status among diseases. If the sufferer is a hefty, ambitious executive with strong drive and a lust for power he can relate to King Henry VIII. A gouty political leader with influence spanning much of the world could ponder the life of Emperor Charles V, crippled by gout at a relatively young age from his voracious consumption of beer and insatiable appetite for beautiful Flemish ladies (it was long thought that gout never strikes men before they have enjoyed the physical pleasures of women). A tormented artist with a brilliant, creative mind, hobbling as he sets chisel to stone, can take solace in the fruitful travails of Michaelangelo, who labored on his masterpieces with a gouty knee. For gouty statesmen and inventors, there is Benjamin Franklin; for scientists Sir Isaac Newton, for writers Henry James, and the list goes on…

Regardless of its long, distinguished and exclusive pedigree, gout, like many other luxuries, has become increasingly available to the masses since the onset of modernity. Increasing body mass, more leisure and access to rich foods has precipitated a steady increase in its sufferers over recent decades. However, gout remains the affliction of a select elite — an elite whose members can limp about with distinction and pride, knowing that the sublime pain to which they subjected is only the duty collected on a life of pleasures both coarse and refined.

Below the pale sky on the sands of a gray beach the children played, barefoot and happy in their children’s world, plunging their little hands into the wet sand, chasing the water then running from the waves as they splashed ashore. They took little notice of the man watching them from the grassy bank at the top of the beach, a man with a sad, soft expression on his face. His face was still young, but displayed little of the vitality that accompanies youth and health. He looked on the scene as an outcast, forever banished from the world of children and his eyes betrayed a deep longing and sense of loss.

The man stooped down, trailing his fingers through the sand, then took some up in his hand and let it run through his fingers. He looked up again at the children and at the waves behind them: waves that ceaselessly throw themselves upon the beach, tossing and churning everything before them; that end their long journey across the sea in one final moment of power and action, then slide back exhausted, extinguished, indistinct, into the primal pool from which they emerged.

No better was the fate of the stones that defied the sea, pushing up with determination from the depths of the earth, mighty in their strength and weight, but worn down and ground to sand by the tireless waters. Thus was the terrible beauty of the beach formed from the enduring struggle of the elements: a monument to a never-ending war and the futility of its combatants’ efforts.

This thought the man as he listened to the dull roar of the sea that was the sound of inevitability, that was the battle-din hovering over all creatures and all things. But there before him were little boys and girls, laughing and trampling the sand under their bare feet, daring the waves, breathing the mist and twirling in the breeze, and he wondered at it, that all these mighty things belonged to them.

China in the late ’90s was in the early process of opening itself up to the rest of the world. Decades of isolationist policy were just starting to give way to engagement with the world — economically, politically and culturally. In this climate, more and more outsiders - known as laowai to Chinese - were flocking in from all parts of the world. Many were businessmen, some worked for foreign governments and there were plenty of young students and adventurers as well.

Getting a job as a foreigner in China was easy; there were opportunities in a number of businesses. Young English speakers often got teaching or writing jobs while young people from continental Europe found work easy to come by in the hospitality industry. Most white middle-aged men, whether North American, Australian or European, worked in business, and had very limited knowledge of the Chinese language and culture. They were valued for their technical or organizational expertise. Russians were in a class of their own, most being traders, government workers or prostitutes. Africans, who usually entered China on student visas or through diplomatic channels, were frequently involved in criminal ventures.

Most foreigners were men. Some American and European women worked in hotels or at clubs and some were students, but they were few in number, so naturally most foreign men dated local women. The Chinese women who dated foreigners were of a couple different classes. There were the straight-up hookers, who swarmed hotel bars like wasps, scanning customers with calculating eyes, wearing tight, dark clothing and heavy makeup. And then there were the visa-hounds, as they were called by US marines guarding the embassy. These were a ubiquitous breed in any locale where laowai were to be found, latching onto American and European men in hopes of a better life abroad.

Because there were so many of these women, white men in China got used to behaving like pigs. The old China hands were as bad as the fresh new arrivals, but they carried with them a cynicism about the state of affairs, indulging in the dissipated lifestyle almost as a hopeless old alcoholic sips from his glass of liquor, knowing it to be poison but needing it all the same. The young men, bursting with desire and intoxicated by the countless willing young women, plunged into their beckoning arms with without restraint. Many of these young fools rapidly fell in love, but over time they, too, gained the jaundiced eye of the old-timers.

There were certain cliques of young diplomats’ and businessmens’ adult children who congregated together at European-themed cafes, partying every night at clubs, driving nice cars and living a limited sort of playboy lifestyle. Because the foreign community was still fairly small, their world was necessarily restricted, but they were a noticeable presence. One young Italian man I remember, a diplomat’s son, struck a peasant with his car and promptly left the country. Another girl I knew from this crowd, a French woman of Lebanese ancestry, showed up in the newspapers after I left China. During a vacation to the Philippines, she and her friends were kidnapped by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and treated very harshly before they were rescued.

Life as a foreigner in China was certainly interesting, and among foreigners one could find a menagerie of characters from all walks of life. There were cowboys and loggers, teachers, farmers, engineers, businessmen and even criminals. Most would drift in and out, but a few would lay down an anchor and settle in to life in China. The stories told in bars over drinks, the companionship shared in strange circumstances and the countless petty dramas that played out every day colored the small society of expats, and gave us a character of our own in the vast mass of humanity that is China.

The years have pushed on since I lived in Beijing, so for better or worse, I think it’s time to write down some of the history of the city when I lived there in the late 1990s.

I lived in NE Beijing, on top of an old cemetery near sihuanlu (fourth-ring road) — a location considered suitable for foreigners at the time. My neighborhood was a growing suburb where flocks of sheep grazed in the vacant lot next to the nearest McDonalds. The Airport Expressway was still fairly open, so one could hop a cab and be in the center of the city in a couple of minutes. Although Beijing is an important and populous city, it isn’t - or wasn’t - very large. I was only about 5 miles away from Tiananmen, but my neighborhood was still considered suburban.

During the building season, tent cities sprung up around the roadside ditches housing migrant laborers from the provinces. Many of my neighbors were Korean, mostly from the north, and there was even a smattering of West Africans in certain buildings. So I lived in a banlieu of sorts, apart from the exclusively Beijingren danwei housing blocks that existed as self-contained communities. However, if I walked a few blocks down the road and over the canal I approached the tightly-packed urban environment of Beijing.

My memories of the immediate environment around my neighborhood recall empty lots that were nothing but dust in the winter, yet luxuriant in spring and summer. When the spring rains came grass and hemp sprung up from the ground in a matter of days, and the constant irritation of yellow-brown dust was suddenly replaced with suffocating damp heat. Mosquitoes bred in stagnant pools, and swarmed into my apartment. Shutting the windows at night was out of the question — the heat was too oppressive. Before I got an air-conditioning unit, I would lie every night naked and miserable on my bedsheets, sweating from the humidity and itching from the bug bites.

Every Sunday morning during the growing season a farmer’s market opened directly outside my window, where food and goods were sold by shouting peasant hawkers starting at 7:00 AM. The hawker directly beneath me sold cheap keyboards, playing “happy birthday to you” on a loop to advertise his wares, slowly driving me crazy in the process. Almost as bad were the smells that wafted up. Meat has a way of rotting very quickly in 95 degree heat and high humidity. How does one describe the smell? Something like a piece of flesh that has been stuck between teeth for days.

But every few days relief would come. The heat would build and the moisture in the air would increase to saturation, upon which monstrous clouds would form and blot out the sun. During the middle of the afternoon, the sky would turn purplish black with swollen clouds - the color of a grievous wound - and then cool winds would sweep down as the sky unleashed a torrent of rain and a roll of thunder. The next day would be clear and tolerable, and then the cycle would begin anew, with the heat, the moisture and the screeching of the cicadas building to yet another climax, over and over throughout the summer of ‘98.

An urban scene in contemporary China, by Yan Yong (click on photo for gallery site)

Judging from most modern and public art, skill and beauty are foreign concepts to Americans. The statues cities put up and the paintings displayed in museums seem almost as though they were designed to puzzle or disgust people rather than inspire them. Many of the works are so lacking in skill that it appears that they were designed by children in kindergarten.

But hope remains, both here and abroad. Despite decades of effort, the love of beauty has not been entirely snuffed out, and fresh visions emerge from the minds of people who are mercifully spared association with modern art culture in the West. In America, graphic designers are producing beautiful animations for games and movies, and in Asia, China in particular, the ancient arts of calligraphy and watercolor are merging with western artistic traditions to form some of the best contemporary paintings in the world.

Nearly ten years ago, I visited an art gallery in Beijing where young painters were showing their art, both traditional and modern. My friend Liu Yaping lived with an artist in a spare, concrete-floored flat by Sanyuan Qiao (Third-Ring Bridge) Beijing, so I spent some time in artistic circles in the city. At the time, Chinese artists were largely unknown and very poor, but when I saw their work I was favorably impressed. Prior to seeing their paintings, I had never taken any young artists seriously.

An interesting combination of eastern technique and western material, by Chen Wenbo (follow photo link again for gallery to see more of Chen’s golf paintings)

Although I certainly hope some of these artists have won some recognition for their talent and made some money, I’m afraid of what might happen if they gain too much fame. Even so, I hope some Americans recognize the skill and vision underlying their art and are inspired to produce something beautiful themselves.

For any connoisseurs out there with money to burn and time to spare, I would suggest a visit to Beijing’s art galleries. You will find good paintings for fair prices and have fun doing so. If I didn’t like the artists personally, I’d keep it to myself.

Until I had kids I didn’t really think much about the issue of homosexuality. It seemed a bit odd, but not all that important. Things changed when I realized what a big issue it has become in schools, and then it started to bother me. Not only the political aspects of homosexuality, but the fact that it doesn’t seem to make any sense from a social or biological standpoint. I was mystified by it, and none of the explanations I came across were satisfactory.

Having grown up in Seattle, and partly on Capitol Hill, the gay center of the Northwest United States, I have naturally been exposed to many gay people. Some have been friends, some neighbors, and very many simply part of the crowd. From my observation and from what they have told me themselves, they are different from other people. Not just in their sexual orientation, but in their very nature as well.

The way they walk, talk and carry themselves differs subtly. Perhaps the ability to pick up on these cues is what is known as "gaydar." Some gay men can mask their homosexuality very well, but when you get to know them it invariably emerges in one form or the other. A certain softness sets in at times, or perhaps a tendency to gush over things like women do. Whatever it is, one can’t escape the feeling that there is a difference, however hidden, in the way their minds work.

Some people say homosexuality is a choice. I cannot accept that explanation. Every straight man should know how little control he has over his own sexual desires, so why should it be different for homosexuals? Are they endowed with the ability to switch their sexuality on or off at will? That is very doubtful, so the most likely explanation is that there is something different in the architecture of their minds.

But why would that difference occur? It just doesn’t make sense. Genetically, socially and biologically speaking it’s a dysfunctional trait. But it’s been around for at least thousands of years, which seems to defy the idea of natural selection. So it can’t be a mere aberration; there must be some logic behind it.

Since the gay pride movement, homosexuality has come out of the closet and people have begun to discuss it openly. A multitude of theories has sprung up to explain its origin, and finally it appears that we are closing in on the answer. Thanks to the work of dedicated biologists, geneticists and doctors, a fuzzy picture is starting to emerge. It is necessarily unclear, because the environment in which we develop, the fertile womb, is more mysterious than the Martian atmosphere, and our understanding of genes and how they work is still very limited. But thanks to much research and a few recent discoveries, certain genetic and biological relationships between homosexuality and other traits have become established.

To open up the latest discoveries to interested laymen such as myself, many of whom could probably contribute to a better understanding of the subject, I have gathered together a number of findings and the work of some important biologists and geneticists, and I am in the process of organizing these sources into what I hope will be a coherent, reasonable essay on the best ideas yet concerning the causes of, and reasons for, homosexuality.

The most intriguing finding I have made is that homosexuality is probably the result of a genetically advantageous adaptation. It may also be linked to different reproductive strategies that have evolved in geographically disparate populations, but this is the most speculative idea I’ve come up with on the subject. Nevertheless, it appears to me that this idea is also on the minds of some scientists, but they dare not mention it, so I, with nothing to lose by doing so, will happily take credit for it. In addition to explaining the technical side of things, I’d like to add some interesting historical background for the benefit of those of us who are not sufficiently stimulated by scientific matters.