epiphanic badmintonic

I went to play badminton at the school courts today. Whenever class finishes, the back yard of Yucai Third Middle becomes a teeming crowd of basketball players (mostly boys), joggers on the track (mostly girls), and badminton players (mostly teachers). On the way to the badminton court I even saw a few people practicing Tai Chi (mostly women teachers). Truly a very diverse spectacle to see all crammed together, sharing the same space.

Inside the court I saw Guan Laoshi, but she was already busy playing with another teacher friend. I went over to the bleachers to sit down and wait, unsure of how to go about this. The last time I tried this I ended up being herded into a match by Hu Laoshi, who had spotted me and told some wayward students to play with me. Becoming a bored 12 year old’s charity case had been a little irksome, but in a land where I’m dumb, mute and dumb dumb I’ll take what I can get.

Eventually a tall guy, a teacher maybe, walked over to where I was sitting. “Xiang wan yixia?” I asked him with a smile. (I think I asked him if he wanted to play for a bit.) He grunted something and pointed at an empty court, taking out a racket. He then proceeded to school me – I think I spent most of my time picking up the birdie from the floor of my side of the court. I tried laughing it off, but he was unreactive – neither smiling, laughing, or nodding at my ineptness. He just kept hitting the thing over.

As I attempted to mount a vain defensive net (which mostly resulted in hitting into the actual net), I wondered if he knew whether I was the foreign teacher or not. I wasn’t sure which way I preferred it. If he knew I was, then he could be thinking to himself “man, this guy – do they play sports in his country? Totally lame.” But on the other hand, if he didn’t know, he was probably sneering “man, this guy – totally lame. And he keeps smiling like an idiot. Who the hell is this moron?” I wondered if he kept glancing at the other entering people because he was hoping that he could switch partners soon.

I batted the birdie and these thoughts around for a while until somehow I realized something.

Whether or not I am good at badminton or proficient in Chinese or can even get what I want in this country or any other place, it doesn’t matter. I am still standing right here, I am this guy’s opponent, whether I am bad or good, easily dismissed or formidable, I am still standing in front of him on the other side of the net. I’m even sending him back some volleys now and then. I need to get out of my head and understand that it doesn’t really matter what the impressions of others are, because whatever those impressions might be, I will still be here, and they will still have to deal with me. I am like anybody else who could be here standing against this guy.

Strangely, the pivotal moment in this realization came when I became aware of the empty space right behind where I was standing. Somehow a spatial element was involved in finding myself as an individual and respectable entity. I’ll have to work this out in a literary conceit later.

Anyway, it would be nice to do that too because it’s stupid to just say “I just realized today that I should have some more self-confidence” because that is honestly a pretty dumb realization. I’m annoyed that the issue is still dogging at me and that I haven’t outgrown it yet. (To be fair, it could be that I learned to compensate for it in America through language and culture, but without those here in China I need to build my sense of security over again from the ground up.)

This ties in with a certain attitude and carriage I have noticed among Chinese men. More on that another day.