The Story of A Ningbo Legend |宁波传奇人物故事
Written by (作者): Vincent R. Vinci 魏文深
Photos by (图片来源): Ningbo Focus 《宁波聚焦》, James Cosio
There are many people in Ningbo’s expat community that everyone seems to know, people who could be considered part of the city’s story, legends of some shape or form. One of these legends is four-year
Ningbo resident James Cosio, a Filipino-American who came to China after living in California, Mexico and Japan, and whose myth has grown with the amount of time he’s stayed in Ningbo. Before I even met
James, everyone told me of his amazing dumplings, that he could speak 5 languages, and he was skilled at pool and musical feats. Its often that myths don’t always live up to their name, but even if some of the stories of James are tall tales, he makes up for it with an understanding and kindness that embodies the heavily multicultural experience of expats here in Ningbo.
James has lived most of his life surrounded by people from different cultures, shaping him into the person he is today. Born in the Philippines in 1981, he immigrated to California with his family in 1987. Living in?the suburbs of Los Angeles he was forced to adapt to a new life. Even though he attended a Catholic school with many Filipino-Americans, he didn’t quite fit in, a first generation outsider amongst second generation kids who were used to living an American lifestyle. Instead of taking one for the count, James?adapted. We spoke over tea at an E-Kaffe near Gulou. The man speaks with a vibrancy echoed in his constant smile and laid-back attitude. Laid-back in that he could tell someone who until a few moments ago was a perfect stranger his life story, engaged while relaxed on white padded s eat s near a?window over looking the bustling Zhongshan Road below.
The Teacher
“I grew up in a Chicano neighborhood rather than an Asian one,” he tells me, pausing?to think back to his early childhood. James became more at home with the Latino community instead of his own, sending him on a trajectory that would form the first myth. Through interactions with people?mainly of Mexican descent and learning Spanish as a second language in high school and later university, James decided he wanted to become a teacher of English, to help other immigrants coming into the US to learn the language and to feel comfortable in their newly adopted country.
Growing up though, James didn’t quite fit the bill for a teacher “I took one of those personality tests, what do you call it, the Meyers-Briggs Personality Indicator,” he laughs, “and it said I was an INFJ which meant that I could be characterized by introversion, intuition, feeling, and judgement.” These?were traits most common for a “Counselor”, someone who enjoys helping others reach their potential. It is the rarest personality type that occurs in less than 3% of the population.
Building on his experiences growing up in California, James joined AmeriCorps NCCC, a group which sent teams of about 12 people around the United States to help with service projects, organizations, and?those in need. He renovated homes that had been damaged in hurricanes, provided disaster relief following 9/11, mentored underprivileged kids in Louisiana, worked in exotic species removal in Tennessee, Habitat for Humanity in Kentucky, and eventually wound up teaching ESL to Mexican migrant workers in Charleston, South Carolina.
It was this last project that embedded in him a desire to teach others and help them out, and it would eventually propel him across the world to teach English.
The Linguist
After AmeriCorps, James studied abroad in Guadalajara to keep up with his Spanish studies and, upon returning, took up a job at the Cheesecake Factory. Personal interactions seem to be one of James’ strong suits. He thrived on the situations in the Cheesecake Factory, noticing the little quirks?of the restaurant. “Cheesecake Factory was the fancy restaurant to go to if you were aspiring?middle class , ”he laughs . He started working in the cushy front of the house where “everyone wore?white and had to smile”, but then moved into the kitchen where the immigrants worked.
No matter where he was in the restaurant, he made friends. Before moving on from the restaurant industry, he had a going away party. It surprised his mother that her once quiet son had such a large group of friends that she had never seen before. It was this group of friends that wished him well on his first stint in Asia: teaching English in private and public schools in Japan.
The first myth about James regards his linguistic prowess. All the people I spoke with before the interview told me he could speak at least 5 languages. This was laughed off, and James confessed he could speak only two languages with relative fluency: English and Spanish. This didn’t mean he didn’t understand the languages of the countries he resided in. While in Japan, he was already familiar with basic Japanese, learned some calligraphy and started studying Chinese. Because the Japanese used traditional Chinese?characters, James found it helpful recognizing the simplified characters used in mainland China.
It was also in Japan that James interacted many people of South American descent, namely from Peru and Brazil. With his bulky exterior he was often seen by others as a Brazilian rather than Filipino and?thanks to his familiarity with the Mexican community, many people he met thought that his accent was Mexican. He began to pick up a knack for accents as well. His immigrating to a multicultural society at a?young age and travel throughout his life led to his inadvertent ability to code switch, meaning he could change his accent, vocabulary, and/or grammar while talking with people from dif ferent regions and?countries to make speaking with them more comfortable.
The Dumpling Master
Thanks to working in the kitchens and “baking” at the Cheesecake Factory, James picked up a love for cooking and food that traveled with him from Japan and remained with him in Ningbo. While in Japan, he fell in love with gyouza, the country’s fried dumplings. “I ran into a student one day at the supermarket and saw him picking up these dumpling wrappers” he laughed. “I had never seen them before, and was so excited when I found out they were already premade and just ready to be filled with whatever you could imagine.” With this new discovery, he embarked on learning how to make his favorite dish and perfected it.
Before James left Japan, he had become frustrated with the lack of flavorful sausage in East Asia, and he actively sought out to create a dumpling with the same consistency of various flavors as that of Western sausages, even adding cheese into the mix because after all “everything tastes better with cheese.” While this author has yet to try these dumplings, there’s no doubt they’re amazing considering the amount of positive reaction that accompanies a mention of them.
The Pool Player
Another aspect of the myth that’s well-known around these parts is the fact that he can play a mean game of pool. “Most people know me as ‘the guy who plays pool’” he tells me. It all started way back when he entered the weekly pool tournament at the legendary LBB Bar, which at the time was one?of the only foreigner-friendly bars in Ningbo. Much to his surprise, he won the tournament and was hooked. “Before I entered that tournament I had never won anything in my life,” he tells me.
He eventually began going every week before taking over the running of the tournament when the original organizer left, quickly becoming known around the city as “the guy who does the pool tournament.” James spread his love of the game to other bars, starting the pool tournaments that at?both the Pit Bar and Stix.
“Someone once told me after deciding to stay a second year here that ‘it’s the second year where everything starts happening.’” It was this mindset that got him focused on the pool tournaments as a way to introduce people to the city, to show them there was a way for people to get out and have fun.
James had met too many people during his time in Ningbo who, all through their first year, would keep to themselves and wouldn’t get out.
The tournaments at LBB, the Pit Bar and Stix were a means to an end, and they became big. “Ningbo is?one of those places where if you’re looking for a scene but it isn’t there, you’re going to have to create it,” he explained. These pool tournaments, then, were his first real big mark on the city.
Although competing in tournaments has since taken a back seat, word of his skills at pool already spread “as far as Shanghai,” he laughed. Needless to say, he is modest and denies that he is good at pool, “certainly not the best”, which a great many people would have you believe otherwise.
The Musician
The final myth I heard before my encounter with the man himself was that James was a skilled musician who could play quite a few instruments. This was met with another laugh. “I actually don’t play any instruments,” James chortled “I used to be able to play the trumpet with just my mouth, but now I think?the best I can do is the tambourine, or maybe the egg shakers! I can play any instrument that’s the equivalent of ‘if you could clap your hands then you can do it.’”
What James is good at is singing. A few years back, he was in a small group of friends who would meet up just to just to let the steam off and play music. The group, lovingly called the Ningboners, occasionally busked in front of people but they also enjoyed playing in odd, secluded spots around the city.
“I was surrounded by people with real instrumental talent…we didn’t write much, we just played, and I sung.” Singing came naturally for James and eventually led him to his next project as the lead singer of the Faculty, which he started last year with a group of teachers he knew from around the city.
Out of the group, James carries the least amount of equipment, only carrying a mic and a tablet. “What I like about singing: I grew up an immigrant, I picked up the American accent. I remember as a kid I could?copy cartoon voices very well. There was a popular group when I was younger called Boyz II Men, and I’d copy their singing, and I realized copying singing was the same as copying voices and singing itself.” He used his ability with accents and copying sounds to his advantage, becoming good at the?adopted art.
The Man, The Myth, The Legend
Having lived in Philippines, the US, Mexico, Japan and finally winding up in Ningbo, James has made a home for himself in this city by the sea. Not only is he a myth, but he is one of the easygoing people who make this city great, and who embody the expat spirit here in China.
Over the years, James has retaken the Meyers-Briggs personality test to see if his results had changed. Thanks to his new experiences that had forced him out of his comfort zone over the years, he had changed by one letter to an ENFJ, the “E” for extroversion meriting the “Teacher” classification, a perfect fit for his chosen profession and his changed mindset.
“I think the reason why may people think I’m more competent and more capable than I actually am,” James told me, “is because I like to share what I have learned myself. It is easy to share in a city like Ningbo because of its size.” It is this small size, James tells me, that brings people closer together. “I like?being able to bring people together who have nothing in common, who would normally never hang out with each other. I like communities like that, like what we have here.”
This is what we have in Ningbo, James preaches, it’s a community with a lot of people -locals, migrants,?foreigners- who are brought together even though they may have little in common, and they have the?opportunity to look pas their differences and interact and share with one another. James is just another?colorful part of the city that is Ningbo, and he has enjoyed every year of his time in this great city.
宁波有这样一些人，他们的名字人尽皆知，他们的传奇故事也被城市中的人们津津乐道。已经在宁波居住了四年之久的詹姆斯?科西奥就是这样一个传奇人物。詹姆斯是菲律宾裔美国人，来中国之前曾在墨西哥和日本生活过。他的神话随着他在宁波生活的时间日益发酵并且流传开去。在我见到詹姆斯之前，每个人都告诉我他会做极其美味的锅贴，能说5种语言，擅长打台球和唱歌。传闻并不总是名副其实，即便关于詹姆斯的某些故事完全是无稽之谈，他仍以理解和善良弥补了我们这些听众心中的缺憾，在他身上完美地体现着宁波外籍人士的多元文化经验。
詹姆斯人生中的大部分时光都是与来自不同文化的人一起度过的，也正是因为这样，才将他塑造成今天的样子。他于1981年出生在菲律宾，1987年随家人移民到美国加州，住在洛杉矶附近的市郊。那段时间，他不得不去适应新的生活。即便就读的天主教学校里有很多菲律宾人，在一群已经习惯了美国生活方式的二代移民中间，作为第一代移民，他仍然是个
格格不入的外来者。
与其沉沦于孤立无援之中，詹姆斯选择了适应。我们在鼓楼附近的意卡菲边喝茶边交谈，他面带微笑，优雅而自在地坐在靠窗的白色软垫座椅上，俯视下面的车水马龙，以一种悠然自得的态度以及充满活力的声线向一个几分钟前还全然陌生的人讲述着他的人生故事。
老师
“我生活在美籍墨西哥人而不是菲律宾人的群体中。”说到这里，他停顿下来回忆童年时光。比起自己的同胞，他觉得与拉丁裔群体一起站在洛杉矶的街头更加自在，关于他的第一个传闻也由此成形。通过与身边的人（大部分是来自墨西哥的移民）相互交流并在高中和大学学习西班牙语二外，詹姆斯想要成为一名英语老师，帮助移民到美国的人学习语言，让他们在这个新的国家感到舒适。
长大后，詹姆斯发现自己并不适合当老师：“我做了迈尔斯-布里格斯性格测试，”他笑着说，“结果显示我是INFJ型的人，即内倾、直觉、情感和判断。”这个类型的人适合当顾问，热衷于帮助别人和洞察周围的一切。
在加州期间，詹姆斯曾加入美国志愿队。这个组织把由12个人组成的小队派送到美国各地支援服务项目、慈善机构和那些需要帮助的人。他修复过被飓风摧毁的房屋，参加过9?11袭击事件后的赈灾，教过路易斯安那州的贫困儿童，清除过田纳西州的外来物种，也为肯塔基州的仁爱之家工作过，最终在南卡罗来纳州的查尔斯顿教墨西哥移民工人英语。
语言学家
退出美国志愿队后，詹姆斯去瓜达拉哈拉继续深造西班牙语，回国后进入芝士蛋糕工厂工作。与人交流似乎是詹姆斯的一大特长。在芝士蛋糕工厂中，他成长了很多，也注意到这家餐厅的小小怪异之处。他笑着说：“如果你是洛杉矶市中产阶级的下层，那么这家餐厅对你来说就是个奢侈的去处。”他先是在周年庆、提案以及许多节日场合帮忙，然后进入
厨房（那时是这么叫的）。
无论在餐厅的哪里，他都能交到朋友。在决定展开下一场冒险之前，这个曾经安静的小男孩居然前所未有地带着一大群朋友来参加欢送会，让他的妈妈惊讶不已。多年以来，他确实已经有所改变。正是这群朋友祝愿他的第一次亚洲之旅一切都好——詹姆斯要去日本中学教英语了！
关于詹姆斯的第一个传闻是他的语言才能。在采访之前，每个人都告诉我他至少会说5种语言，对此，詹姆斯一笑置之，我了解到他可以流利使用的只有两种语言：英语和西班牙语。这也不意味着他能听懂所有曾经生活过的国家的语言。在日本的时候，他开始学习中文和日语。因为日语中有很多传统汉字，詹姆斯发现理解书法相当容易，这种对传统汉字的领悟促使他最终来到了中国。
也是在日本，詹姆斯接触到很多来自南美洲秘鲁和巴西的人。因为体型健壮，他经常被误认为是巴西人，又因为和墨西哥人走得很近，很多人觉得他是墨西哥口音。他也学会了识别口音的本领。由于从小移民到一个多元文化社会，也一直到处旅游，他无意识地学会了语码转换，也就是说，与来自不同地区、不同国家的人交谈时，他可以毫不费力地转换自己的口音、词汇和语法，让双方的交流更舒服。
锅贴大师
由于在餐馆和芝士蛋糕工厂的烘培坊工作过，詹姆斯超级喜欢烹饪和美食，从日本到宁波，一直没丢弃过这个爱好。在日本的时候，他爱上了那里的锅贴。他笑着回忆道：“有一天，我看到一个学生抓起一块饺子皮，我以前从来不知道还有这种东西，这个新发现让我兴奋不已。”从此，他开始学习如何制作锅贴，并且不断精进。
几年前，詹姆斯在宁波开了一家店。他想制作香肠馅，再往里面加入芝士，使锅贴变得美味绝伦，但在日本和中国都很难买到优质香肠，他感到很沮丧。
令人吃惊的是，在关于詹姆斯的所有传奇故事中，这是唯一真实的一个。你可以问任何一个认识詹姆斯的人，他们一定都会告诉你他做的锅贴是全宁波最好吃的（如果你问对了人，他会告诉你这是全中国最好吃的）。虽然笔者还没品尝过这些锅贴，从人们提到它们时那种垂涎欲滴的表情中就能想象出它们究竟有多美味。
台球高手
另一个众所周知的传闻是詹姆斯的台球技艺非常高超。他告诉我：“大多数人都知道我会打台球。”这始于他曾参加的LBB酒吧每周一次的台球比赛，这家酒吧在当时是宁波为数不多的几家酒吧之一。他出乎意料地赢得了比赛，并从此痴迷于台球。他说：“在我参加这场台球比赛之前，我从未赢过任何比赛。”
他每个星期都会去那里，一直到原来的承办方离开，詹姆斯接管了比赛的运作。很快，他就以台球比赛组织者的身份出了名。詹姆斯将他对这项娱乐的热爱传播到其他酒吧，直到今天，在Pit酒吧和Styx酒吧仍有台球比赛。Styx酒吧以前是在Office 酒吧三楼，如今Loft酒吧所在的位置。
他说：“有人告诉过我‘你在宁波的第一年过去了，第二年一切都会变得美妙起来。’”就是这种心态使他专注于将台球比赛打造成使人们融入这座城市的一种方式，告诉他们可以走出家门，娱乐一下。詹姆斯在宁波遇到了很多外籍人士，他们到宁波的第一年总是宅在家里，不与他人交际。
Pit酒吧和Styx酒吧的台球比赛是达到目的的手段，它们不断壮大。“宁波是一个你想要什么就可以创造什么的地方。”他解释道。这些台球比赛是他在宁波做的第一件大事。
虽然詹姆斯已经退居幕后不再参赛，台球技艺高超的名声却早已传播出去了。甚至于，他笑着说他听到远在上海都有人谈论他的台球技艺。毋庸置疑，他很谦虚，他不认为自己
台球打得像很多人说的那么好。
音乐家
在我与詹姆斯见面之前听到的另一个传闻是他是一位优秀的音乐家，会好几种乐器。这又是另一个玩笑话。詹姆斯哈哈大笑，说：“事实上，我不会玩很多乐器，以前还会吹喇叭，但是现在我想我最擅长的就只有手鼓了，也可能是沙球。我会玩任何一种乐器，就相当于‘如果你会拍手，你就能做到。’”
詹姆斯擅长的是唱歌。几年前，他有一小群朋友，每次见面只是在一起即兴演奏、释放压力。这个组合有一个很亲切的名字— — 宁波人。他们偶尔会在人前表演，但更喜欢在城市中奇特、隐蔽的地方演奏。
“我周围是一群真正会玩乐器的人才……我们从不写任何东西，只是演奏，而我只是唱歌。”在知道学一样乐器需要花费很多精力之后，他充分利用了他的歌唱才华，因为这是天生的。这些歌唱技能会一直伴随着他，最终促成了他的下一个计划——他在去年与一群本地的老师一起组建了一个乐队。
在这个组合中，詹姆斯需要的装备最少，只有一个麦克风和一个平板电脑。“我喜欢唱歌的原因是：我成长于移民家庭，我学会了美国口音。我记得小时候我可以很好地模仿动画角色的声音。在我青少年时期，有一个很火的乐队叫 Boyz II Men，我总是模仿他们唱歌，我意识到模仿唱歌和模仿口音是一样的。”他充分利用这种才能，变得很擅长学习音乐。
男人，神话，传奇人物
从菲律宾到美国，再到墨西哥、日本，最后到达宁波。詹姆斯已经在海边为自己建造了一个家。他不仅是一个传奇人物，也是一个平易近人的人。他完美地体现了在中国的外籍人士的精神，让这座城市变得更美好。
在来中国之前，詹姆斯又做了一次迈尔斯-布里格斯性格测试，想知道结果是否有变化。这些新的经历让他从多年来的舒适区挣脱出来，他成为一个ENFJ型的人——外向、直觉、情感和判断，与他所选择的职业以及现在的心态都完全契合。
詹姆斯笑着说：“人们之所以认为我比实际上更能干、更有才华是因为我喜欢参与。融入到像宁波这样大小城市是很容易的事，正是因为城市规模不大，人们能够更加紧密地联系在一起。我有能力让毫无共同之处的人聚集在一起，这些人通常从来都没有过交集，我喜欢这样的社区，我们在宁波所拥有的就是这样一个社区。”
“这就是我们在宁波所拥有的，”詹姆斯再次强调：“这个社区将很多毫无关联的人汇聚在一起，让他们透过彼此的差异去交谈和分享。”詹姆斯只是这座丰富多彩的城市的绚烂一笔，他享受着在宁波的每一分每一秒。