2 Questions Every Girl is Asking Herself

Chapter 26

Waking up in this house is such a beautiful feeling.


At dawn I hear all kinds of animals who unwittingly shared the surrounding gardens with me. Dogs, cats, crickets, roosters, ducks, geese, frogs, birds, coming from all directions, like the jungle zoo. With that background music and the first streaks of sunlight peeking through the window curtains, I stretched out my arms and made my happy noise, "Ah....".

Our house is a one bedroom with a small kitchen and bathroom. On one side of the room, you have the queen bed, a vanity table and nightstands made of espresso bamboo.  On the other side, a tea drinking area – a Japanese tatami mat, a low wooden table, and two squares of cushion for sitting, right by the window.

The high ceilings look like one large straw mat, with a tiramisu colored ceiling fan hanging down the center. The doors are made of carved dark wood, with two ring knobs, like nose rings you see on cows. At night when you lock the doors, you'd close both leaves and push the horizontal latch into place. Jeremiah says it looks like a door from a castle.

I unlatch the doors to find sunshine flooding the front porch. It's my favorite part of the house, and where I spend most of my time writing, reading, daydreaming, plant watching, and tea-drinking. It's a few steps above the garden path, paved with champagne colored tiles. The pillars and front door façade have been treated to look like limestone. On either side of the porch, two wide straw blinds drape to the floor for privacy. In the center, directly out front, you'll find lots of big leaves and a round fountain adorned with fern, and cabbage like green flowers spewing out of the centerpiece. It's bright, quiet and full of charm.

I fell in love with this place the first time I saw it. It's by no means perfect. There's a concrete skeleton of a two-story house being built right on the other side of the fountain, semi-concealed by lots of leafy greens. Hence the name - concrete jungle. The tropical plants are so tall and gigantic that if you sit at the right angle you really can't see much beyond them.

We saw a bunch more houses, but I had to come back to this one.

I guess I'm not exactly living by the beach. I am living in a tropical garden in Ubud, which is at least 2 hours away from the nearest beach in Balinese traffic, where mopeds ride on sidewalks and polisa cars move at the pace of snails even with siren blaring at full force.

There's something really calm and peaceful about Ubud that's conducive to writing and thinking. The roads are quieter. Everyone seems to live in a beautiful garden. Somehow as a writer I like being in semi-enclosed spaces more than wide-open spaces like the beach, as if to keep my thoughts and creative energy together, otherwise they'd get blown away by the ocean breeze. It's a different kind of energy that circulates in gardens. I like it.

Jeremiah and I walk down the street to a corner store to get breakfast. We buy some eggs, bread, rice, chicken broth, and Indonesian instant noodles all for 8000 rupiah, which is about one US dollar. The Balinese couple beamed at us, "We same price for tourists and Balinese people. My wife goes to market every day at 7, write what you need, she bring to you." I beamed back, nodding my head and shaking her hand. 

I made breakfast, well I fried the eggs. This is the first time I've ever made breakfast for a guy. I've cooked for men before, lunch or dinner or snacks, but have never spent the night and made breakfast the next day. This is all very new and foreign to me. Jeremiah's back was hurting, so I did the dishes as well, which leads to all kinds of questions in my head: does this mean he'll take me for granted? Am I being too nice?  Is he going to lose interest in me now?

From my experience of dating blue-eyed studs, I've often felt that I can't dote on them or they'll lose interest, turn the other way and run real fast. It seems like whenever I make a very special effort to celebrate their birthdays, (which may involve taking the day off from work, spending a whole afternoon walking all around town shopping for gifts, selecting the perfect recipe from three different magazines, buying groceries, making dinner, ordering cake with their names on it, and having a small treat ready for them the moment they wake up) it's the kiss of death. Right after I do these nice things for them, they break up with me. I don't know how to explain it. Am I supposed to not do these things? Men like a good challenge. Am I not enough of a challenge by caring too much?Some wise woman once said, "You don't need to love your husband, you just need to like him". That should take 50% of all the frustrations, jealousies and madness out of your marriage.

I've noticed that Chinese men have a different understanding of the role of boyfriends. Like the job description for boyfriend is different in China than it is in Canada. They pick you up, drop you off, pay for everything, (one of them said to me, when I offered to pay for the cab, "I've never let a woman pay for me in my entire life, ever", as if it's a gross embarrassment or moral injustice if he ever allowed a woman to get the bill). They shower you with attention, give you presents for no reason, take care of you at the dinner table (if you ever go for Korean BBQ, they'll grill the meat, wrap it with all kinds of yummy ingredients in a piece of lettuce leaf and then hand it to you), and they'll even hold your purse. The majority of them still believe that after marriage, their wives shouldn't have to work, or work too hard, because if a woman has to work too hard, very soon, she won't be beautiful anymore. Ever notice how Chinese women all seem to magically age gracefully? It may have something to do with their husbands.

Now wouldn't all women want a Chinese husband?

This China visit did lead me to meeting half a dozen Chinese men, 6 in 21 days to be exact. While I'm fully aware it's a small sample size, and doesn't necessarily represent the general population, they did give me a sense of authentic Chinese men. Four were either married or about to be married, only two were single. Among the committed men, I was astonished by how uncommitted they felt about their women, in the extreme example of Han. But there are some who'll feel their heart stir but let their minds restrain their actions. I later get into this discussion with a Chinese girl, who's into white guys, about Chinese men and North American men. (and yes we all want what we don't have) And she tells me in her experience that yes, the Chinese men will take you to new heights when they are in hot pursuit, but they'll drop you once they've completed the challenge. I haven't dated enough Chinese men long enough to know that for a fact, but would I rather be with someone who doesn't even bother with the pursuit, and taking you up high, but stays on flat ground the whole time, with maybe a slight upward slope or downward slope a few months in? I can't even friggin' fall in love with that kind of lukewarm mentality.

At least there is a pursuit, a bit of romance, and the men are brave. They don't complain to me about the rejections that come with approaching girls. People aren't as commitment-phobic in China. Over here in Vancouver we are so laid-back and stuck up it really takes a while for things to heat up, if at all. We would meet at a cocktail party, text back and forth, wait for 3 days to make the phone call, another 3 days to go on a date, pretend to be busy when we're really not, date several people at a time, just getting to the "we're exclusive" stage is a big hurdle and could take months of infrequent contacts to finally cultivate. We act cool, aloof, busy and nonchalant, when we really are interested and curious and quite possibly dying to find out more. We're so desperate not to seem desperate, we miss the opportunity to strike while the iron is hot. Or strike at all. Is all this pretense really that much more attractive than the simple, "Hey, I'm into you"? So what if it burns fast and furious? At least we've gotten to know each other, made a decision and moved on.

Back when dating aid books and movies were just starting to gain popularity, people were still a more innocent and ignorant bunch. Part of the reason the mind games worked is because it was known and used by a select few rather than the general masses, and that women (or men) didn't know about them! Now with dating aid books and movies running rampant, detailing the intricacies on how love is produced (add three teaspoons of lust, two cups of romance, a few drops of mystery and a sprig of bitterness - just so she doesn't take you for granted) readily consumed and practiced by the mass audience like a recipe out of a cookbook, we may have lost some of the magic in what used to be a beautiful and enchanting affair. While everyone is busy playing tricks in the pursuit of love, the ones who let their heart deal with matters of the heart, may very well start to come out ahead. 

And if I may make one last commentary, it's not that nice guys finish last, it's the shy guys who finish last. Just because they often appear hand-in-hand on one person doesn't make the causal relationship assumption correct. Nice is definitely NOT unattractive. Shyness isn't unattractive either but it does pose a significant barrier to meeting women. So a shout out to all the nice shy guys out there, please stop being shy and please, please, stay nice. We don't need any more jerks in the world.