on the other side of aging

we are being lax with the punctuations and capitalizations if only to demonstrate our non-compliance with formalities, particularly the category of senior citizen that is imposed on many of us over 62 in the u.s. of a. and china, too.

it also happens that naacp’s julian bond called 10-4 at 75. he was a levi’s-wearing handsome dude in a cleveland conference i attended in 1967. he was also an unfortunate casualty of john lewis’ popularity in georgia; they were both active sncc activists.

a year and a half ago, i retired from teaching at shenyang aerospace university in liaoning, china. in beijing’s desire to root out corruption in public offices, it decided to “go by the books,” retiring employees in public offices at 60 for the domestic male and 50 for the female, and 65 for foreigners regardless of gender. 

i was three years beyond the bend and the former dean of the educational center, a card-carrying party member, was reportedly called to the carpet for condoning a stretch on the provision. his minions tried to secure another year’s working visa for me but the foreign affairs lowered the boom, going by the books!

there were no restriction for becoming entrepreneurs in private. the pension (not available to foreigners) is hardly affected by individually gained additional income from efforts outside of corporate employ. but in a culture where one’s status is determined by how well one fitted to a social milieu, the impulse to go against the familiar path is not very common.

chinese are masters of the one deal, ready to move on to the next one sans regard for the first, so entrepreneurial endeavors tend to fall on the short term rather than establish a systemic procedure that will continue even when the initiator is gone. short-term enterprises are biased toward making as much on the returns of a one-deal. not a good beginning for effective long lasting customer service relations but “business is business.”

i would have been an entrepreneur but i still needed a working visa.

i am back on saipan, not divorced from shenyang since we invested in a local pedagogical concern. pss assures me that age-discrimination does not apply. i am keeping my application and teaching certificate current.

i left pss on a spondylosis diagnosis, and instead of going into disability, i took my retirement contributions out and dealt with my own therapy outside the government referral system.

my teaching certificate now restored (it expired after two years), we are available for pedagogical services. if not hired, c’est la vie; i already declared myself “to love life,” j’aime la vie, my public signature. but social security is adamant. already 70, we still need two years worth of contributions to qualify for minimal benefits. gee, i could have played the disability gig.

we started with aging. we fumble the door keys at night when the hallway lights are off, or the calves while in a horizontal position tend to cramp (need more calcium, potassium and magnesium), or the eye and ear functions noticeably fade, not to mention the embarrassing loss of balance on the corals at wing beach, we are definitely on to the hallmarks of aging.

our consolation is a worker at our apartment complex who, after we got to know each other, declared that he was older than i, already 59. i did not have the heart to tell him that i was hitting 70 this year.

but i ran into one of two men who deliver water to my place, and after finding out where i live, he declared that he delivered to so-and-so at my address. mustached and goateed me must have looked different, and old.

hope is hanging out with the likes of a carolinian colleague on his beach front or at his farm in the shadows of mt. tapuchao. he is a sprite 75 who still navigates his sailboats in the lagoon and on to mañagaha, especially when there are ladies who join him for the ride.

master to the semi-circular hull of the carolinian canoe, he gets up to speed in the water. he looks firm and trim, his belly’s size negligible compared to the mine!

with relations coming in and out of his beach front, we came to know a few of the personalities—of folks like pete and jerome, arsenio and cecilio, joe and lanie. one of them introduced himself to me and informed me that he has followed my writings from the start. i did not test his memory but he voluntarily described his encounter on my literary output. “Some read columns to be up to date on controversial issues, but i read yours because it makes me laugh; it entertains.”

entertains!?! my writings have been described many ways but never that. i was baffled until i realized that the carolinian practice of “talking stories” entertains. “talking stories,” often done into the night around bonfires, has young ones listening to the elders. the telling is entertaining.

we’ve discovered our rainson d’etre, to entertain naturally, to write as one of the carolinian elders delightfully points out, “like you were an elder in the glow of a bonfire.” i can handle that.