Christina in China

There were American students that came to visit yesterday, on a 3-week study tour of China, hosted by Myrrl and Rod.  Students were all excited for me.  “Christina!” they said.  “Your homemates are coming to visit.  Are you excited?”  To be honest, not particularly.  I didn’t feel like I had half as much to talk to these random college students (who were fulfilling a requirement to graduate) as with my students.  The Chinese students took the American students outside the gate to give them a taste of Jiangyou and college life.  But, to be honest, they didn’t seem that excited, just kind of whiny.  When I was with them, there wasn’t much to say.

Myrrl (or Rod or someone) brought a cross-cultural communication book for our library called Encounters with Westerners written by this guy named Don Snow who’s like the Christian ESL China Expert.  I was flipping through it and feeling depressed at the idea of anyone successfully communicating across culture.  Even more dismal was a statistic about Chinese international students studying in a grad program in the United States.  According to the (1998) article, these students said that after a year, 39% of them would say that they have no relationships or contacts with Americans.  Another third said that they only had maybe 1 or 2 American friends.  Sometimes I get sad about my lack of connections, despite all the people…but then I think that maybe this problem is mutual.  Do we create this ourselves by not being proactive and assuming that people will seek each other out?  Are there just unbridgeable divides?  I know a lot of people that say that they’ve been here for a while and lack close friendships.

And yet, for some reason, I feel closest to the students.  I don’t know why, but maybe because I still feel like a student myself.  Because I’m still young and have no baby or family.  Because they’re excited and more honest.  And I also feel close to my ayi (auntie).  Because I laugh and make jokes, and she laughs and makes jokes.  Because she sits on my bed in the evenings and looks at my stuff and gives me advice (well, this sometimes grates).  Because I feel like she’s comfortable, and it makes me comfortable, too.

What is a friend, anyway?  A person you tell secrets to?  A person you hang out with?  A person who understands you?  A person who just wants to be with you with nothing gained?  How odd that it would be in China that I ask these questions first, if I try to figure out friendship.  If I can be friends with people I’ve never told deep secrets of my life with.  Those people that I pick pipa (kumquat) or watch TV with, are they friends?  The people that banquet me, are they friends?  People who I work with or spend time in the office with or at lunch, are they friends?  The students that know more about me than I do about them, are they friends?  Anyone have ideas about this–especially people with international experience, but really anyone?  Who do you think are friends (as cheesy as that question sounds).

There are a few that I don’t have to question, and I’m grateful for that.  And I’m also grateful for having to think about this in the first place, as strange as it may sound.  I’m also grateful for the fact that I have many wonderful memories, just as many, interspersed among the hard ones.  But the hard ones are there, as they always are in stretching situations.

Post later about watching people harvest wheat and rapeseed.  It’s an amazing sight to see it done by hand before your eyes….

Sometimes I understand when my students talk about not knowing what to say in English.  I feel like that recently.  In Chinese, but also in English.  With people whose English is quite capable, even.  What should I talk about?  Did I get like this in the U.S.?  It feels even more important here…when if I don’t make conversation, sometimes people assume I can’t or don’t want to talk to them.

I feel a bit fatigued.  But I think that I got like that in the U.S., too.  Sometimes I like being a loner.  I know I need community, that is good and holy and character-building, but sometimes I wish I could just live by myself and watch an entire season of Gilmore Girls DVDs like Eunice did.

Maybe it’s adventurous to live in another country, but it isn’t always exciting.  Sometimes I just want to sleep and read books and make peanut butter cookies and not answer any more questions about the U.S.A.

That said, everyone is harvesting rapeseed (canola)–beating them with these big poles.  Is the word threshing?  In Chinese, it’s just “hitting.”  It reminds me of all these Bible parables.

More quotes.  Here we are:

“The more often [a person] feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.” -C. S. Lewis

“I’ve found that it’s relatively easy to raise a voice in protest, but unfathomably hard to invest in a life.”

and also…

“When did you last spend time with a poor person, an at-risk individual, or someone in need? When was the last time you were close to them for an extended period? I ask, because that’s what Jesus did. He was close to the poor who needed justice. The Messiah was sent to preach Good News to the poor, to proclaim freedom for prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, release for the oppressed, and the arrival of the Jubilee year (Luke 4:18-19). He did this first by becoming incarnate, one of us. He did not commute from heaven in a fiery chariot. “The Word became flesh,” says John, “and made his dwelling among us.

In urban ministry circles, we call this relocation. Many urban ministers intentionally live in the neighborhoods they seek to serve. Proximity builds trust with neighbors, especially if a racial divide must be crossed. Relocation also helps urban ministers discern the roots of need. A man may ask me every day for money. He’s down and out, he says. But if I live in that community, I’ll be able to discern if he is down and out because of systemic injustice or because he does not want to work. Then I’ll be able to share with him what he truly needs.

People in need of justice are not just in the inner city. Individuals and families are struggling in suburban and rural settings as well. In many cases, you do not need to relocate in order to meet a need. But when working for justice, it is crucial to have personal proximity to injustice.

Up close, the protest-oriented injustice-fighter may discover that some matters are best settled by a personal intervention, not a new law. The personal-responsibility injustice-fighter may discover that impersonal systems often devastate the lives of the poor, and that these systems must indeed be protested.

In either case, the best way to get closer to doing justice for the poor is, quite simply, to get closer.”

-Rudy Carrasco, from this article

I’ve been looking at some Master’s degree programs recently, some in peace studies/conflict resolution and some in international or urban economic development.  And I’ve also been thinking so much about the importance of dwelling together with people.  With actually knowing people, not just knowing about them or their problems.  Or how to “fix” their problems.  The longer I live, the more I don’t think protesting is the answer.  I think it can be a solution to some problems.  But I feel like I have to root myself in relationship…

I’ve also been thinking about hospitality.  What does it mean?  What is good hospitality?  In the Bamboo Sea (in Yibin, southern Sichuan) this weekend, my students’ families bought me gifts.  Way too many gifts, in my opinion.  They stuffed me with food, delicious food, and toasted me constantly.  They bought my tickets to sights and took me to eat local food.  They washed my clothes when they were dirty, and, heck, bought me a pair of underwear and a towel without being asked, because they thought I might need it.  I was in the honored laoshi role (and, for the record, it makes me more than a bit uncomfortable to get this many gifts) and definitely couldn’t take all of this for more than about five days.  To these families, I was doing a huge favor by teaching their kids English. 

China isn’t always this over-the-top.  But there’s a definite sense of hospitality, that I often find wonderful and sometimes find incredibly fatiguing.  Of the fact that people don’t need to call–they can just drop in.  Another bowl and pair of chopsticks will be found.  Tea or hot water will be poured, fruit or some little snack (if it’s there) will be given.  I’ve also been reading a book Tommy Warf gave me before I came to China, about four guys that traveled the world supporting local Christians.  It’s good.  More evangelical than the stuff I normally read but good.  A big theme of the book is about this, about community and hospitality and what that means.  Things that I know are important but that I don’t quite know what they are yet….And yet it’s on my mind, these thoughts.  Of ministering beside, thoughts that I started having sophomore year with my international lit class and kept having throughout talks with MCCers, short times in Buffalo during my Houghton time, time with the kids at church, a couple memorable chapel talks at Houghton, Menno Groupers, and now through books and life.

Where will I be in ten years?  Perhaps not in the middle-class suburbs, not that there’s anything wrong with that.  Will I have the chance to be serving overseas somewhere?  Or maybe in the inner-city or rural communities (I’ve also been thinking a lot about rural Appalachia and “my roots” of late)?  Who knows.

Sorry.  All this rambling.  Later, I promise I’ll tell stories about all the bamboo, toasting, and food of this weekend…

Yup, that’s right. No guilt about not blogging. I do, however, have some guilt about not emailing/writing more often. Maybe there will be letters written during my time in Yibin. Does this mean that I’m depraved and past the point of conviction? Maybe. Hugh said the other day that he had two months left in China, which means that I have about three.

I’ve been proctoring exams with Mrs. Lai, who’s taken every opportunity to teach me Chinese, asking me to describe students’ pencil cases, telling me about the college entrance exams here (which are big-time, that’s another post). As we walk back, I carry the umbrella to keep our faces from getting tanned (ah, China), and she links her arm with mine. I feel a sense of importance, walking with Lai Laoshi, who is a venerated presence around here. But the reason I admire her is because she treats everyone with this same sense of importance.

Amidst all this, the travel plans have been formed for my May holiday (a 7 1/2 day vacation we have). I’m going to the Bamboo Sea in Yibin, now not only with Joan but also with a girl named Alisa, who I barely know and who’s been calling me every day wanting to tell me new details about travel arrangements. She seems very nervous. The other day, Petrel found me and said that she wants to come, too, that she has enough money. At first I was taken aback, but then I thought this was a good idea. Petrel is usually anything but nervous with me and is this gloriously rare source of randomness. (“Do heaven and hell have ice?” she asked me yesterday during Sleepless in Seattle. “I don’t know,” I told her. “Probably not.”) But Petrel says she’s afraid of calling these girls and had been putting it off because she thinks they’ll say no. Meanwhile, I’m getting nagged by Yibin students about buying tickets.

The weather’s officially short-sleeved weather, with blue skies most every day. I shaved my legs and am wearing a skirt. It makes me feel pretty and feminine, even though I’m constantly being told to fold it up so that it won’t drag on the ground (by my auntie).

I just read an article on Yahoo news about how gas is now up to $2.93 in most cities in the U.S. (average price). Um, is it possible to express how much I don’t want to deal with the hassle of a car again? I swear, I’m buying a bike and taking buses or something when I get back. I hate the fact that I’m going to be chained to an expensive machine that always breaks and costs lots of money to maintain and keep up, etc. Not to mention stinking $3 for gas. I should be grateful. My students all dream of having cars, but I just don’t like it, except for convenience. “The car is an isolating capsule,” I read the other day in an article that I agree with.

I’ve decided that in a year, I am no expert on China. I don’t pretend to be, just like I’m not an expert on anything. But when I get home, I have to tell people something. I have to write something. So I am going to write stories, stories about the people here, about my impressions of them. Hopefully to be accompanied by pictures. That’s all I can pretend to know, I think, even a part of.

To risk sounding like a feeling-sorry-for-myself whiner, today was a crappy day.  Crappy in that my not-knowing-what-to-say-in-Chinese-ness feels like it’s out in full force this week.  Crappy in that I got a bunch of the, “Ta ting bu dong!” (“She doesn’t understand!”) sentences said about me.  Crappy in that Lai Laoshi was teaching me very easy sentences that I learned in the first two months here…and also the Chinese grammar terms used to describe said sentences.  Crappy in that the activities I tried to make interesting for my students had them screaming, shrieking, and hitting each other.  And when I finally raised my voice and said, “Be quiet–this is class,” one girl just laughed at me.  When the bell rang, one of the students that’s the most motivated in the class, rolled her eyes, and said, “Oh, what a pity.”  Ah, hurt pride.  They all have this look of resentment that they have to take this class in their eyes. 

So, what did I do?  I cried.  And ate some peanut butter.  And wrote in my journal.  And asked myself if anyone wanted me here.  (This is not a plea for pity or reassurance, by the way.)

And then I went looking for Petrel (I know she gets out of class at 3:10), and we went for a two-hour walk-and-talk, past Lijiao Qiao and the train station, to parts of Zhong Ba that I’d never been to before.  She said she’d been sad, and I said that I’d been sad, and we both explained.  When I saw a student that is inviting me to her house, and she said that she should call the bus driver because he didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Chinese, I just sighed.

Petrel, love her soul, said, “I think that you and Eunice are independent, and you can speak Chinese and do things yourselves.  You came from the United States to China, so I think that you can buy things from the store.”  I wanted to hug her.

I gave her two chocolate truffle eggs: one for her and one for Future, and I was informed that Future was planning a surprise for me.  At least I don’t know what kind of surprise.

And at the end of the walk, she said, “Hao le ma?”  (Are you better?)  And I said, “Hao le.” 

I’m better.

To risk sounding like a feeling-sorry-for-myself whiner, today was a crappy day.  Crappy in that my not-knowing-what-to-say-in-Chinese-ness feels like it’s out in full force this week.  Crappy in that I got a bunch of the, “Ta ting bu dong!” (“She doesn’t understand!”) sentences said about me.  Crappy in that Lai Laoshi was teaching me very easy sentences that I learned in the first two months here…and also the Chinese grammar terms used to describe said sentences.  Crappy in that the activities I tried to make interesting for my students had them screaming, shrieking, and hitting each other.  And when I finally raised my voice and said, “Be quiet–this is class,” one girl just laughed at me.  When the bell rang, one of the students that’s the most motivated in the class, rolled her eyes, and said, “Oh, what a pity.”  Ah, hurt pride.  They all have this look of resentment that they have to take this class in their eyes. 

So, what did I do?  I cried.  And ate some peanut butter.  And wrote in my journal.  And asked myself if anyone wanted me here.  (This is not a plea for pity or reassurance, by the way.)

And then I went looking for Petrel (I know she gets out of class at 3:10), and we went for a two-hour walk-and-talk, past Lijiao Qiao and the train station, to parts of Zhong Ba that I’d never been to before.  She said she’d been sad, and I said that I’d been sad, and we both explained.  When I saw a student that is inviting me to her house, and she said that she should call the bus driver because he didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Chinese, I just sighed.

Petrel, love her soul, said, “I think that you and Eunice are independent, and you can speak Chinese and do things yourselves.  You came from the United States to China, so I think that you can buy things from the store.”  I wanted to hug her.

I gave her two chocolate truffle eggs: one for her and one for Future, and I was informed that Future was planning a surprise for me.  At least I don’t know what kind of surprise.

And at the end of the walk, she said, “Hao le ma?”  (Are you better?)  And I said, “Hao le.”

This is a quote I got from another blog–the blog of a SALTer in Egypt.  She was writing about a party she was at with a lot of Egyptian Muslim men, breaking down stereotypes, the fact that we get our information about people from news and not relationship, etc.  It’s a good blog.  If you’d like to visit, here’s the link.

And here’s the quote.  It resonates with me, here in China, possibly in a different way than it does to the girl in Egypt.  Addressing fear (something that, with the help of God, I’ve been working to banish from my life) and stereotypes together.

“For it is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed. It is shyness, before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. For only he who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation to another as something alive, and will draw exhaustively from his own existence.”

-Rainer Maria Rilke, in Letter 7, from Letters to a Young Poet

I told somebody in my host family community the other day that I was here to learn about their culture, and they laughed and said they didn’t have any culture.  Translation: Culture equals education, learning, knowing to read well, knowledge of all this classical Chinese stuff.

Yesterday, Dean Zhao called Eunice and said that he needed to see us.  What did we do, the two of us, that we were getting busted for?  I thought.  That Hugh didn’t do?  When we got to the office, we learned that we’d been invited to participate in this big Li Bai culture festival that Jiangyou has been gearing up for for months, that people had heard that there were a couple American teachers at Jiangyou Normal that could speak some Chinese.  Li Bai, in case you were wondering, is one of THE Tang Dynasty poets and hails from none other than our fine little city.  Kids start memorizing his poems in school in first grade.

So Eunice and I are going to be on stage, along with an Israeli woman and some Japanese people and about 80 primary schoolers, reciting a Li Bai poem about a waterfall.  The first two lines, Eunice have to say by ourselves.  It’s been good practice for tones…and, for sure, the topic of the week for my Chinese lesson will be to have Ms. Lai teach us how to properly read a Chinese poem.  (People read very slowly and expressively.)  I’ve almost got it memorized, about the purple smoke and the waterfall falling for thousands of feet.

All the buildings in town have new faces on them, roads have been cleaned and repaired, new pedicabs are wheeling down the streets, and seven interpreters have been trained.  There are billboards everywhere about “building Li Bai culture.”  The man in charge says that over 75 foreign journalists are supposed to be here.  I’ll believe it when I see it, but for sure, with all the fan dancing, fake soldiers waving flags, kids waving flowers, middle-aged ladies dressed in pink banging drums, and people dressed in dragon suits, it should be an good time.

This weekend, Julie, a friend from Chongqing and CEE pastoral care person came to visit. I’m sure it was memorable for her because she got to have rice porridge at my host family’s house this morning and take pictures of people in my uncle’s pedicab, the new kind of pedicab with tassels and little tiny red lantern replicas and a Li Bai poem. It’s just on the edge between tacky and kind of cool. My auntie thought it was amazing that Julie, at 57, was wearing a red skirt. This is apparently not something Chinese women do.

Yesterday, I said in my little pleading tone, “Can I go with you?” when my auntie went out to prepare the rice fields. There she was, knee deep in mud, digging ditches in the flooded paddy, irrigating. “You don’t do this in the U.S. Why do you want to learn?” she asked me. “It’s interesting,” I said, echoing my students.

I got a viewing of Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs (literally “Snow White and the Seven Small Short Men”) in Chinese, along with my second lesson of the weekend on how to make paper flowers. (The first was with my students on Friday, paper roses before watching Memoirs of a Geisha.)

And today, in church, I learned the word “repentance” in the sermon about Zacchaeus. I semi-taught numbers and colors in the English class.

Ms. Yang (the aggressive chorister who was aggressive again this week) invited me to her friend’s house, where she made a bunch of statements about how Americans always eat steak. When I said I only ate steak like once every two months, she looked at me skeptically and then said five minutes later about how Americans always eat steak and raw vegetables, never cooked ones. Every time I tried to open my mouth to answer the questions people were asking her about me, she completed my sentences and wouldn’t listen when I tried to correct. The most frustrating part was when she started talking negatively about my host family, whom I love, who listen to my pieced-together sentences with infinitely more patience, who say that Americans and Chinese are the same, just look different. “For Americans, time is money,” Ms. Yang told her friend as she was explaining how I had to go do work. And from that point on, I just tried to figure out how not to cry until I got to Palm Springs Coffee with those quizzes I never have graded.

Yesterday evening, when my auntie, uncle, and I were all home, we sat in the kitchen with the hanging light bulb burning and cracked peanuts to eat. “If you have any problems staying here, you can tell us,” they said. “You’ve been here a month.” They asked my birthday and laughed when they said they could buy me a cake. “Too sweet,” my auntie said. And I tried to explain to them about how some foreigners would do gestures when they couldn’t speak Chinese. They laughed, I laughed, and the light in the kitchen was yellow and warm.

It’s warm here, and the face-washing towels now dry by evening when we use them again. As I went to the bathroom, I heard my auntie tell my uncle, “She’s fun.”

This was an article recently printed on British newspaper The Guardian‘s online site.  It is, incidentally, about Chongqing, a municipality very near Sichuan Province, which, according to the article, now has a population bigger than Peru or Iraq (and adds the equivalent of the population of Luxembourg every year).  Chongqing actually used to be a part of Sichuan before it was recognized as an independent municipality region.  A very interesting profile about everything from the foreign-educated rich businessmen to the “bangbang” men that haul loads on their backs to the street kids.  Pretty accurate portrayal of the China that I’ve seen during my time here.

Invisible city Chongqing is the fastest-growing urban centre on the planet. Its population is already bigger than that of Peru or Iraq, with half a million more arriving every year in search of a better life. And yet so frequently is this story repeated in China, that outside the country its name barely registers. Jonathan Watts spends 24 hours in the megalopolis you’ve never heard of

Jonathan Watts
Wednesday March 15, 2006Guardian