fate

I realized today that I have been remiss in this blog’s Chinese lessons, so today you’ll get a few words. Our first word is mingyun which means “fate.” The ming in mingyun is also in geming, which means “revolution.” Geming means, literally, to “dismiss fate.” Isn’t that nifty? Doesn’t that just make you want to run out and sign up for a Chinese class?

I’ve been thinking about fate today mostly because of the idea of being “ill-fated,” which my training run today definitely was. I had 20 miles on the schedule for today, made especially difficult because I just did my 18 miler 9 days ago and I usually like to have two weeks between really long runs. I decided to go out to the Yuyuantan Park and try to run 7 laps. The weather today in Beijing is sunny, in the 60s, and somewhat windy. Not shachenbao level windy, but windy. Shachenbao is another new word—it refers to the rather nasty sandstorms that occasionally afflict Beijing in the springtime (someone told me that they are pretty much like the Dust Bowl was in the Great Depression). Even when there is not a shachenbao going on Beijing is rather on the dusty side and so there was a fair amount of junk blowing around. I made it to Yuyuantan Park only to discover that they are having a “Cherry Blossom Festival.” The Chinese are actually not terrifically fond of the Japanese, but apparently that is not enough to stop them from celebrating cherry blossoms. OK, I thought, I’ll go to the track at the university. That, however, was also not meant to be—it was closed for some university visitation day, though there were loads of people around campus and absolutely nothing happening on the track.

So I headed for the King Gym. On the way there I saw two women involved in a fight—I mean literally punching and kicking each other. Such violence is not an entirely uncommon sight here, and rather puts to rest the latest government slogan that China is constructing a hexie shehui or “harmonious society.”

End result: a total of 15 miles, 5 short of my goal but my psyche could only face so long on the treadmill. In two weeks I'll go for 22 miles, my last really long run of the training program. In a certain way, the runs are a relief--at least it is a respite from speaking Chinese. Except for today--while in the King Gym one of the employees asked me whether Bob Dylan is really famous in the United States and if people have problems with the fact that he uses/used drugs (try saying "artistic temperament" in Chinese while also running on a treadmill). Then another employee wanted me to hold down the shop while she went upstairs to buy some candy (appropriate lunch fare for a gym employee, really).