September into October: Where am I? Where I’m at. • 從9月到10月：我在哪？我在這邊。

Hello, my name is Halden Levin, and you are listening to Little Dragon’s Journey. 你好！我叫李靜辰，你正在聽小龍的旅程。

Transition Music（音樂）

Dear Reader,

Sea Change, How to Be Drawn, a collection of Audre Lorde’s poetry later, I’m still here. Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind, morning zazen and evening zazen, dokusan with Roshi later, I’m still here. Zeng Laoshi 曾老師, Xing Ru, Spring later, I’m still here. Tea eggs 茶葉蛋, stir fries 炒飯, steamed buns 包子 and mooncakes 月餅 later, I’m still here. Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋節 and Double Ten Day 雙十節 later, (you guessed it) I’m still here. Where am I? Here.

September, bleeding into October, was quite an eventful month. I began Chinese classes with Zeng Laoshi from the Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages 文藻外語大學. I cooked nine different Chinese recipes mainly from the Omnivore’s Cookbook. I read many poems from various books, the Poetry Foundation, and the Academy of American poets (and wrote a few of my own), as well as learned the lyrics to four Chinese songs. I continued practicing zazen with the Sonoma Mountain Zen Center and had the opportunity to meet Jakusho Kwong Roshi one-on-one. Lastly, but certainly not least, I began my internship with the State Department’s International Disability Rights Committee and began conducting research on disability rights legislation in Morocco.

Let’s dive a little deeper, because there is much to be said.

Chinese Class 中文課: The Kaohsiung, Taiwan 高雄，台灣 🇹🇼 NSLI-Y cohort is comprised of nine individuals from across the United States, including one Hawaiian, one Puerto Rican, one Californian, one Minnesotan, one Illinoian, one Georgian, one North Carolinian (that’s me), and two Virginians. We’re divided into three different classes, Chinese 111, 121, or 131, based on our current Chinese language ability. I’m in Chinese 131 with two others and Zeng Laoshi. Figuring out our class schedule was quite a challenge for the iEARN NSLI-Y team (iEARN-USA is the facilitating organization for our NSLI-Y program) because of the six different times zones.

Every week, unless there’s a holiday in America or Taiwan, all individuals in our cohort attend Chinese class from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm EDT Tuesday through Thursday and from 6:00 pm to 7:50 pm EDT on Friday. We also meet with our language partner 語伴 on Monday from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm and meet as a cohort from 7:40 pm to 8:10 pm on Thursday. I usually spend a good hour or two in the morning reviewing Chinese and completing the homework or language task/presentation assigned. Although this arrangement is working out well, I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll still be able to travel to Taiwan in January. Also, Zeng Laoshi deserves some serious recognition for being able to teach us Chinese at 6:00 am Taiwan time in a rather lively manner. I’m a morning person, but I don’t even think I could do what she does.

Chinese Cuisine 中國菜：Since I’m still here in North Carolina but want to continue engaging with Chinese culture, I’ve decided to make one authentic Chinese dish a week. To start off, I created a Pinterest board called 亞洲菜 (Asian Food) with three main sections: 有用的 (Useful)，希望做 (Hope to Make)，and 已經做了 (Already Made). 有用的 (Useful) is where I save useful information about Chinese cooking or links with collections of recipes. As you can probably guess, 希望做 (Hope to Make) is where I save recipes I haven’t made yet but would like to try, and 已經做了 (Already Made) is where I save recipes I have already made.

As another preparatory measure, I traveled to two different Asian markets, H Mart in Cary and the Grand Asian Market in Raleigh, to gather ingredients and equipment that are otherwise unavailable at the standard grocery stores in the area. The Grand Asian Market was definitely better suited to fulfill my needs since H Mart supplies mainly Korean goods. In regard to essential ingredients for Chinese cooking, the Omnivore’s Cookbook has an incredibly useful article on this very topic, and the Wok’s of Life has another interesting article on useful Chinese cooking equipment.

Since the beginning of September, I’ve made tea eggs, the classic fried rice with a copious amount of vegetables, pickled red shallots, tomato and egg stir fry, napa cabbage stir fry with a vinegar sauce, steamed vegetable buns, and traditional mooncakes with black sesame paste and salted duck eggs. For my younger brother’s birthday and the Mid-Autumn Festival on October 1st, I went a little overboard; the steamed buns and mooncakes took a good half a day to make. I’ve continued to make tea eggs every week for lunch, and I also made pickled red shallots twice (pickled foods are my favorite). After I complete the cooking/baking process, I always take a picture and write a few notes on how I could improve next time. If you have any recommendations, I’m all ears.

Poetry: One thing I love about poetry is how it reinvigorates the language we use every day; takes the words we are habituated two and gives them new life. After morning zazen, I take an hour or so to explore poetry. I read the daily poem from Poetry Foundation and poets.org every morning, as well as various poems from whatever poetry books I can find at the Chapel Hill Public Library and on my shelf. I have also been slowly reading Why Poetry. After reading poetry and about poetry, I typically free write or attempt to translate Chinese poetry I’ve been reading from Yu Xiuhua. Although a bit apprehensive to share, here’s my free write from September 14th:

09/14/20

Idea(s): Umbrellas Opened and Closed

Today, I am your older sister. I brought the umbrella for you. It’s too small for the two of us, but no matter because I am oceanic. I need the water to survive; mists, monsoons, dew, droplets. There’s too much oxygen on dry land, the wrong type at least.

In addition to poetry, I have been learning lyrics to Chinese songs; I can’t sing well, but I am trying little by little. Music and poetry go hand in hand, in my opinion. Lyrics to songs are poems. They have rhythm, rhyme, and usually a playful hand with language.

Zen Buddhism: I continued to sit zazen this month with the Sonoma Mountain Zen Center and even had the opportunity to talk one-on-one with Jakusho Kwong Roshi. Most individuals in the SMZC sangha just call him Roshi, which means teacher in Japanese. To be completely honest, even though Roshi is quite friendly, I was a little nervous to meet him, since I’ve only been practicing Zen for two-ish months. During our half hour talk, I learned quite a bit. For starters, I mistakenly thought Roshi is Japanese since SMZC is a Soto Zen Buddhist Center (Soto Zen Buddhism is the largest Japanese sect of Zen Buddhism). Actually, Roshi grew up in California and is of Chinese descent.

Apparently, he dropped out of college, married young, and was looking for an alternative lifestyle when he happened upon Soto Zen Buddhism. He became one of Shunryu Suzuki’s students, was later ordinated as a Zen teacher in Shunryu Suzuki’s Dharma lineage, and started SMZC in Santa Rosa, California. In addition to telling me about his life, he helped me better understand gassho. Gassho is the act of placing your palms together a few inches from your face with your arms parallel to the ground and bowing from the hips. There was one statement he made regarding gassho that resonated with me, but unfortunately, I completely forgot it. I’m meeting him again in November, so I will ask him then.

Disability Rights Legislation: Last, but not least, progress on researching disability rights legislation has been good. I’ve done research on Morocco’s and Lebanon’s disability rights legislation, and it’s quite interesting learning more about how the disability community is being supported in the international community. In America, the ADA and the amendments to the ADA have certainly been positive for the disability community, but there are still many areas where we can improve as a nation and address some of the major inequities individuals with disabilities face. Learning from the international community is important, as well as determining how we can best support other countries in their efforts to support the disability community and other marginalized groups of individuals.

P.S. The picture for this episode is of a Carolina mantis. I've always thought praying mantises are interesting creatures, but until this fall, I'd never actually seen one in person. Last month, my family went to William B. Umstead State Park in Raleigh, NC, to meet up with my sister and a few relatives, and on our way there, I discovered this little guy on the inside roof of our car. My mom did not think a bug hanging out over our heads was cool, but I was so entranced by how this small creature could hold on to the roof for dear life in our moving vehicle. Once we arrived at our destination, I immediately helped the mantis out of the car, and to commemorate the encounter, I decided to take a number of photos. The photo I'm sharing is one of the few where he looked straight at me (fearfully, inquisitively? I'll leave you to ponder). I'd also like to share this short, interesting article on Carolina mantises from Our State.

Tired and happy,

Halden

Transition Music（音樂）

Please visit haldenlevin.wixsite.com/littledragonjourney to access the transcript of this episode, and know you are always welcome to contact me through my website, email, or social media. Thank you for joining Little Dragon’s Journey. 謝謝你們參加小龍的旅程。拜拜！