China

A few days ago I was sitting at work when my cell phone rang. It was the Peace Corps. I immediately got nervous. My volunteer passport application had been sent the week before and I saw that it had been received according to the tracking. I was nervous that something had happened to it. The man introduced himself as Russ and said, "some additional visas have opened up for China. We want to extend an invitation to you to switch assignments and go to China June 17." He offered to send me the paperwork and answer any questions I may have. He then said, "I need to know by tomorrow at 4pm." I called him three hours later and confirmed my wish to switch.

China. A land where over 20% of the world's population resides. A land where cities give way to farmland with no suburban transition and rice is the main staple in everyone's diet. A land where at 5'9" and a size 10.5 shoe, I will most likely be unable to find clothing that will fit me, so it's important that I pack well.

When I was about ten or so, I was sick with the flu and my mom gave me The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck and eventually lead to her being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. I read it, poring through the pages and imagining such a different life and landscape from my own. Now, 23 years later, I am going to be living in an area that could probably be compared to that landscape, and where life has changed since pre-WWI China, many things have stayed the same. I took the assignment change for many reasons. One being that I really want to experience a completely different culture from my own. I don't want to just see poverty, which is guaranteed no matter where the Peace Corps sends you. I wanted to see staggeringly different life and experience it through the eyes of an anthropologist. As an anthropologist, my job is not to change a culture, but to observe it. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, my job is to foster positive relations and provide tools for greater community, economic, and educational development. I will be teaching college-age students English as a second language in China. My job in Moldova was to be a Business Adviser, which is very closely tied to my pre-alumnus life when I was an International Insurance Broker and a Marketing Manager. The difference in the old assignment and the new is obvious.

Many people don't know my goals when I return home, but one is to receive higher education and possibly become a college professor. I am very fond of saying that I want to go to school for the rest of my life. This job will enable me to get onto a track of educating myself and others. It will enable me to gain experience that will be absolutely paramount in my next steps as an adult human. Whether I study Anthropology, Public Health, or Law, the experience of teaching in China will give me incredible experience that I will carry with me in the next stages. In addition, I will be able to actually gauge the progress of these students and change their lives as well.  It reminds me of Taylor Mali's What Teachers Make Poetry Slam performance. I get to make a god damn difference!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU

I'm not saying that going to Moldova wouldn't have been worthwhile and life changing, but it felt like following a path I already stepped off of. It felt like I was living someone else's life. I applied to the Peace Corps to change my life and a little piece of the world, and I wanted it to be on this new, less traveled path. I'm done with business and business development and making money and profit with no substance. It felt dirty...like I was still a registered Republican (yes, I believe in small government and state's rights, and yes, I also know that the party has been high jacked by evangelicals and the greedy, and with the cost of globalization making small government nearly impossible in this society, I am now a registered Democrat, because that's what happens when you become educated...you see the flaws in the system and want to make them better. You don't want to go back in time to a racist, bigoted, morally bankrupt time when things were "great," only if you were a middle aged straight married employed white man.) But I digress...I want to create a life that fits me, and China just feels right. It feels like the right wedding dress, my favorite champagne, and a bite of watermelon that is crisp, juicy, with no seeds. It feels right. So I'm going to China. The doctor who filled out my paperwork was so sweet. He talked to me for two hours about travel and how much he admired me for my service. This is a man who takes mission trips and does Doctors Without Borders multiple times a year, and he admires ME? Wow. I let that sink in and I found a place within me that felt whole and complete. I now feel full of joy and I feel blessed that in this life, I've already lived such an incredible one and that I have the opportunity to change, grow, and do something truly extraordinary.