There’s a funny rule about squares. All the sides are equal and every corner is 90° . If you are given a point you are free to travel in any direction. When you stop, turn 90° and go the exact same distance you went before. Repeat two more times and you’re back where you started, but look at what you’ve created: a baseball park, Hollywood Squares, a crossword puzzle, and many more quadrilateral phenomenons.
Another meaning for the word ‘square’ is to acclimate or adjust to fit. Surprisingly fitting in this case, I think. While somewhat more intangible, it requires no less inferring of the other three points. Confucius says that the lesson should not be repeated if a person could not complete the task of inferring a square. If you can’t make a square what exactly can you do? It’s easier than licking your lips, tying your shoes, using the toilet! But then again…
I got on the first bus I saw. It would be nice to blame inattentiveness due to hunger and the call of nature, but forty minutes southwest of Chengdu, I knew I couldn’t. The girl who had been anxious to understand everything her Chinese professor said was not the same girl who assumed that all buses exited from the West gate. Even worse, this was a girl who shied away from—rather avoided—public restrooms in China.
The bus stopped at what turned out to be the new campus of Sichuan University. Reluctantly alighting at the stern command of the bus driver, I realized that the eager, anxious girl in class and the girl willing to let her appendix bust rather than having to squat to use the toilet had to unite somehow.
The return trip to campus provided the opportunity to remember Confucius’ words. Why had I jumped on the first bus I saw? Had I been afraid to ask directions or more afraid of using Chinese outside the classroom? I admit it was a little of both. I still don’t know which bus exits out of West gate because I had not been eager to express what I could not express.
The bathroom dilemma was a different story. Every time I saw the porcelain holes I thought, “Why would any woman want to use that?” Clearly I could not identify. But according to Confucius, learning does not come until one is anxious to understand. And at that point on the bus, boy was I anxious. I decided then that half of the trouble I put myself through could have been avoided if I had not been prissy when it came to using the bathroom.
It’s still somewhat of a mystery why the choice is to make a hole look more inviting rather than have a full-size toilet. However, I trust enlightenment will come eventually. Perhaps just around some 90° corner of my square-inferring life all the answers to my questions wait. Until then, there will always be other points to infer and squares to complete, not to mention a plethora of public restrooms.
