have empty

In Chinese, free time is translated as "have empty."

I teach each day until noon. Some days are hectic, but on most days, I have lots of empty.
So, what the heck do I do with all of my free time, aside from writing vapid blog entries?

Well, I read. A lot.
Lately I've been worrying that I've been spending too much time loving, betraying and dying in fictive lands, and conversing with the echoed creeds of dead philosophers, instead of investigating the nooks and crannies of this real-life Chinese adventure. After all, I did not journey all the way to the Middle Kingdom to read. Or did I?

I remember how, as a student, I'd fantasize about indulging in novels and political theory (not just the Wikipedia summaries), but I never had enough time - ironically, I never had the space for emptiness. So naturally, I take life here in Lidu as a sort of dork's paradise - a place to be wooed by Vladimir Nabokov, to be dazzled by Isabel Allende, to be teased by Karl Marx and Michel Foucault, to be humbled by bell hooks, to be inspired by Azar Nafisi and Martha Minow.

Still, because I am wary of being absent more often than I am present, I fill the void with other leisurely activities, such as playing tag with ten-year-olds, chatting (or at least, attempting to chat) with the elderly gardeners, translating in acrylic and gouache my impressions of China, and swapping ex-boyfriend stories with my site mate. But it's getting colder by the day and increasingly difficult to deny myself afternoons curled in bed with a book.

Today I was greatly encouraged by an email I received from a good friend, in which she mentioned speaking with a returned volunteer who read a book a day while serving in Africa. It's nice to know that I'm not alone in this literary la-la land. In fact, this magical little world, to which the Peace Corps is definitely invited, even has a queen, her majesty Nina Sankovitch. Now she needs to get a life. :P