Finding Oneself Through Service

As my newsfeed on FB begins to fill with my friends beginning their long trek across the US from their homes to Black Rock City, I'm reminded of a major life event I haven't undertaken: Burning Man. I've been to regional events and parties. I've volunteered and done ranging shifts. I've found some of my closest friends, yet I've never taken that step. I've never gone to the desert this last week in August to dance, experience art, and just find myself lost in the experience of BM.

Two years ago this week, I went to Utah the week before BM started. I got on a plane with hopes of counseling young minds in the Utah desert at a survival camp for at-risk youth. That dream didn't quite work out for me, but it lead me back home and back to my family and friends. Of course, a year later I applied to the Peace Corps, and now, here I am...in China. My group of trainees swear in today. We commit the next two years of our lives to service to our country and volunteering in our individually placed communities. I look back on the last few years and I am reminded that there are any number of ways to find oneself, to challenge oneself, and to commit oneself to the service of others.

I began my journey attempting to find a place I fit in this world at birth. I've never felt a sense of normalcy or "humanness," in my life. I've always felt like there was a chip missing or that I was somehow different from others. I've felt compelled to go just a little bit further and just a little bit farther. I love adrenaline and extreme sports, and I seek out-of-the-ordinary experiences to fill my life. When I was very little, I tried to fit in, to find that chip that so many other people have, and to find my "place," among the popular girls and the people wanting to get married or settle down. Five years ago, when I first went back to school, I was with a wonderful man who ended up leaving me, accusing me of needing "a big life," by this time, though, I knew something implicitly, "yeah, well, I only get one! I better make it count!" 

So here I am, five years later, no longer stumbling around looking for my place. I'm making it. I'm creating my own future. It doesn't look exactly like what I thought it would and it definitely doesn't look like most everyone else's. I made a different life for myself. I forged a different path. I am dedicating the next two years of my life to serving my country, the country I find myself in, and my students. I joined the Peace Corps because I wanted to give of myself. I wanted to experience a life that was dedicated to being a better person and never giving up on that dream. I made it happen. That's why I have so little sympathy for those who complain about their situations. Do something about it. This world is big and experiences are unlimited. The only limits you truly have are the ones you place on yourself.

I've found my place through service. What will you find when you stop making excuses?

Saying Goodbye to CDU

I woke up before the sun...as I always do, and I began reflecting on my PST so far at CDU. I have learned so much here both about China and about myself. My host family lives a very different life than my family back home. I've seen some wonderful things, some shocking things, and some valuable things. I've fallen in love with a puppy and he's fallen in love with me. I've eaten new foods, had to overcome language barriers, and studied for hours a day. I had one of the worst exams I've ever experienced, feeling like I was completely unprepared for what happened to me once I sat down. I've felt let down and propped up. I sang at KTV and danced in a classroom. Overall, it was a rewarding and significant experience that I will take with me always.

My host family lives at their store most of the time, but I slept in their three-bedroom apartment that they own a block away. It's always been my dream to be able to walk to work. Now I know why. The convenience of having your entire life in just a few city blocks is unparallelled. It's been a fantastic experience walking everywhere I need to go. Shopping in Chengdu is an interesting experience. There are many stores, including convenience stores, fruit sellers on the street, markets, clothing stores, and mini department/CVS stores everywhere, but they all carry the exact same items. Looking for a dress? You can go to your local shop and buy it there or you can go to a mall and buy it there for twice the price! Need a bottle of water? The store underneath your apartment sells them as does the street vendor sitting outside the bus station (be careful there, though, as that same vendor was rifling through the trash looking for empty bottles yesterday...) Would you like a vegetarian pancake wrap? Well, there is an entire line of vendors that set up shop in the evenings less than two blocks away! There are also restaurants everywhere, but only three real varieties: noodle restaurants (mian fanguanr), rice restaurants (mi fan fanguanr) with local dishes, and hot pot (huo guo). These are your options, folks!

Shopping on the weekends is a surreal experience. Stores set up huge stands in front of them and blare music on repeat (sometimes American, like yesterday when the clothing store next to my host family's store was blaring a song requesting all female listeners, "make that booty clap.") Sometimes they have games or prizes you can win. They can be quite elaborate in the system one must undertake to win the prizes, like the one I recently witnessed where one bought an item, won a chance to break a golden egg, and picked a prize based on the ticket inside.

The school itself is beautiful. The classrooms in some buildings are being redone right now. We had our model school in one of the older buildings. It was a fascinating and very hot experience, but it was lovely working with all these amazing kids. Stephen and I chose the younger kids to work with and I'm glad we did. It was nice to see where my future students probably came from and what they were like only a few short years ago.

The CDU campus is wide open with many trees and lily ponds. It's beautiful walking around it and seeing all there is to take in. We even had a PCT versus China Host Family basketball game where my host mama and I both played!

Speaking of my host mama, this morning she came into my room as I was writing this and told me I sneezed because the air conditioning was on. I told her it was just dust. She didn't understand that. Then I asked her for some space and quiet so I could finish writing this blog, so she sat down on my bed and started listening to her voice messages on WeChat on her speaker as loud as it would go. This is what China is like, very little personal space or understanding of needing space or quiet. Kids read out loud in class as a unit to memorize and study and people just don't get that your space or body is off limits for them to touch or comment on. I've been called "fat," "older than I look," and "too tall," many times since coming here. My friend's host mom makes fun of my laugh and screams in my face until I respond in English, laughing hysterically, then doing it all over again. These are the parts of China that have been a test in patience. 

Yet these people also took me around the lake I love to run at in the evenings and joked with me and tried to get to know me despite the language barrier. They fed me and clothed me and took me into their homes and made me a part of their families. That is why the barrier doesn't exist. It's why she opens my door and comes in and sits on my bed and pinches my elbow and tells me I'm getting thinner and that too much AC is bad for one's health. She cares. She cares that I get enough food and enough exercise and enough fresh air. 

Last night, Xiao Fu came over, dropped onto his side, and put his head directly on my foot. My host mama said, "tommorrow, Xiao Fu will be sad. He will miss Sūn Méi." This morning she said, "when Sūn Méi gets to CNU, she send email to mama." Yes, this family is overbearing and a little too in my business. It's not that different from my family back home really. I will definitely miss them and CDU. It's been a hell of an experience!

Hard or Soft Taozi

I've been having a debate with my host mama although I'm not sure she 100% knows it. Every time she gives me a peach to eat, I gently push on the flesh to see how hard/soft it is. If it is too hard (I like ripe peaches) I hand it back and say, "wo bu yao!" (I don't want) she then shoves the peach back at me saying, "hao chi! Hao chi!" (Delicious, delicious!) I stare at her, shaking my head, and repeat, "wo bu yao!" Sometimes I knock it with my knuckles and give her the side-eye like, 'how could you give me this rock to break my teeth on?!?!' I've told her I didn't want it because it wasn't ripe, but in China, it's simply a piece of fruit. There is no real word for "ripe." This concept is foreign to her. If you have a piece of fruit, you eat it. There is no waiting period for ripeness to develop. Yet for me, eating a hard crunchy peach is sacrilegious.

I posed this question to my Site Manager, Chloe, a Chinese woman who has experience overseas and she laughed and told me that this is an actual debate online here in China: Which is better? Hard or soft peaches? 

Let that sink in for a moment. In China, there is a debate on whether peaches are better crisp or juicy... They say that crisp like an apple or sweet and juicy and soft are the two types of ripeness for the fruit. This is an actual ongoing debate/conversation, yet they have no real word to describe ripeness that is understood the way Americans do. It's a linguistic lacking in my humble opinion.

Here, the Taoist teachings say fruit has two parts like yin and yang. I spoke to my Language teacher and she explained that there is an ancient Chinese tradition that says that eating the skin AND the flesh provides a person with balance. In China, people peel almost all fruit because they believe this prevents them from injesting pesticides. You would not believe the conversations I've had about pesticides, antioxidants, and organic farming methods since I got here. Chinese people are fascinated by the concept of systemic fruit. I had to explain that even most Americans don't understand how fruit actually grows and that systemic fruit has pesticides throughout the flesh.  Throwing away the peel only prevents one from injesting the part of the fruit with the highest concentration of antioxidants and doesn't prevent one from injesting pesticides basically at all. 

But back to the soft versus hard debate, if I could use a peach as a hammer, I don't want to try and put it anywhere near my mouth. Period. Sometimes I get a beautiful and magical ripe peach, perfect in its soft and juicy glory. Those are happy days indeed. Even my closest friend here has gotten in on this and sends me messages every time he gets a decently ripe peach. Sometimes the pictures he sends with the messages are downright pornographic. This is how we entertain ourselves in China. We send each other well lit pictures of the juicy ripe fruit our Zhongguo mamas give us. It's a hard life... 

Chengdu Sidewalks

To walk... You think you know but you have no idea. Have you ever walked out on a wet deck in flip-flops? The kind that is really new and has just been sealed? The slippery kind where you could basically just slide right across it? Where your flip-flop, because it has so little tread, just wants to slip out from under you and fly off your foot, leaving you hopping on this slip and slide of death in your flip-flop, hoping for the best but knowing your butt is about to land 'kerplunk,' right onto that slippery nightmare of pain? No? Okay, well I have, and as a sometimes clumsy person, it isn't fun. In fact, it's dangerous. Yet on a deck in the US there are usually railings or furniture pieces of some sort to grab a hold of for steadying.

Now imagine you are on that slippery deck, only is marble. Wet marble. You are in any type of shoe imaginable. It doesn't matter. Tread be damned. You are going to slide. You are going to slide until your foot hits the grooved ridges magically appearing in nine inch spaces from the slippery and ungrooved other nine inch space behind/flanking/in front of it. That is what it's like to walk on the sidewalk in China.

We call them 'Suicide Sidewalks,' because no matter how slowly or how carefully you place each step, the sliding from one grooved pavement piece to the next is inevitable at some point. Even worse, on most campuses, there are brick sidewalks worn down over time to a slick surface where in summer, moss and algae and mold grow, the Chengdu heat and humidity mixing in the perfect storm of slippery danger. Most Chinese people tell you to just, "walk in street. That safer."

Yes, walking in China can be hazardous and sometimes walking in the street can be safer than walking on the sidewalk. Mix in the fact that liability laws here are apparently nonexistent, so canals have no barriers, stairs often lack hand rails, and nobody is required to provide unslick walking surfaces, it can sometimes feel like an obstacle course in the rain. Yet this got me thinking. Without such strict liability laws, individuals are left with only one option when it comes to their own safety: pay attention. It is nobody's fault but your own if you can't walk properly. Nobody is responsible for salting ice that Mother Nature laid down on the ground. If you fall on someone else's property, get up, shake it off, and next time stay home if it's icy and order delivery instead of take-out.

As a former insurance agent, I've seen some interesting and ridiculous liability claims. Claims where people claim it is an establishment or business or individual's responsibility to basically combat Mother Nature and make an "inside" environment for their outside, essentially eliminating any natural elements just in case a person wants to walk in their door. Which has made our lawyers fat...and our personal responsibility nonexistent. It's always someone else's fault when we get hurt, not our own. We are not responsible for our fall by leaving our houses and entering the world. It's someone else's for not making that experience of leaving the house come with bumpers and handrails. Personal responsibility/culpability starts on this low level of simply being responsible for one's own safety while walking.

When Guiliani took over being Mayor in NYC he did one very small thing to combat crime. He ordered the local police force to start giving out jay walking tickets. I'm sure there was a more elaborate plan, but that was the basic source of crime reduction. Jay walking fines. If you can't even walk across a street at designated intersections at pre-determined times (it's blaringly obvious by the visual and audio aide) without getting a fine, what happens if you do something major? Basically, the idea is: personal responsibility starts small.

I realize that this is a little bit of a leap when it comes to hand rails and guard rails and slippery "slopes" if you will, but essentially, this is how I see Western China's "Suicide Sidewalks." You, as an individual, are responsible for being more careful when it rains. Step lightly. Pay attention. Follow the basic human rules for survival in the society in which you live. Don't pass the buck and don't escalate. It is so simple really. If you end up in a creek, it's your own fault.

Let's talk about...watermelon

I don't know about you, but I love watermelon. I'm not talking that, "oh, yeah, watermelon is a nice treat in the hot summer months at bbqs and evening soirées," type of love. I'm talking, when my parents know I'm coming to visit me, they buy a watermelon as a present for me. My dad brings me watermelon when he comes to my house to help me work on leaky pipes or electrical problems. My mother buys me watermelon juice from Costco because I like it even more than coconut water. This love goes deep.

My ex boyfriend once asked me what the strangest thing I ever got grounded from was. His was garlic bread, so the first time I made him dinner, guess what I made him? Pasta and garlic bread of course! My strangest grounding was from watermelon. Instead of throwing all my watermelon rinds in the compost heap, after consuming half and throwing those rinds in the compost, I threw the other half of them that I wasn't able to self-control myself from demolishing, in the trash. I wasn't allowed watermelon in my parent's house for years. Those were the worst years of my life! I tried to sneak it in to no avail. Finally, after some coaxing and prodding, "but I'm in my twenties now!" My mother submitted and on a visit to my parent's house on my birthday, I found myself face to face with my very own, personal sized, watermelon. It was the best day of my life.

I bet you are wondering why I'm even mentioning this love of watermelon in a blog dedicated to my Peace Corps service in China. Well, the answer is simple...I got placed here for a reason. The fates intervened and kept me from Moldovan Business Advisor status for a very distinct and specific reason...watermelon. Every single day here it is like a watermelon festival. There is fresh, cold, crisp, juicy watermelon on every street. The kind of watermelon that is sweet all the way to the rind and it dribbles down your chin at every bite. The juicy and crunchy kind of watermelon with seeds, so you don't get too full of yourself while eating it and always have to be careful so you don't get that annoying, "crack," when you bite down on a black seed. This watermelon is so good, that when I was very sick last week with a sore throat and sneezing, all I ate was watermelon. It's so good that when you go to a restaurant or something and they serve you an old, room temperature piece of watermelon, you look at the waiter like he just killed a kitten right in fronting you. This watermelon has spoiled me. It's made me invincible while I'm eating it. I could pluck bullets out of thin air just because of the super powers this delicious summer treat gives me.

I arrived here nearly two months ago, in June. It was already stiflingly hot. In two or three months, I'm sure the fruit stands will be filled with apples, pears, and beautiful autumn squashes. I learned recently on a trip to Wangcong Shrine, that the greatest Sichuan kings worked with the people to focus on crop rotation and using seasonal fruit and vegetable growing methods to avoid famine, which are still used today. This can only mean one thing, my watermelon will be disappearing soon. It will go the way of grapes and ramps, disappearing as the hot rainy season gives way to cold humidity. I can only hope that next year brings as sweet and lovely a crop of my favorite food.

Fulfilling a Dream

Doris loved teaching. That's why she got her PhD in teaching from Fordham. She worked hard for all her degrees and she didn't stop until she had that super coveted PhD. She dreamt of teaching teachers. She wanted to make a difference in the realm of education. She even wrote a textbook to help teachers teach English to non-native speakers.

As Doris's granddaughter, I remember what it was like to be taught how to read by that smiling and patient woman. It took two or three days of frustration on my part, but she always knew I could do it, and I never stopped reading once I learned. In fact, I loved it so much I ended up a writer so that I could contribute more into that realm of knowledge and books.

My grandmother (Nana to my brother and me and Grandma Doris to our cousins) never did teach teachers. She retired from Stamford Public Schools and moved south to Florida with my grandfather before later succumbing to dementia. Watching that once vibrant woman descend into the depths of forgetting herself and those she loved was absolute torture for my mother and the rest of our family. Even the knowledge of her own accomplishments disappeared. 

The other day, my mother and I were talking. My grandmother passed away before I graduated from college and well before I joined the Peace Corps, but I think she would be proud of me. And as I get ready for the start of my semester at this wonderful teacher's college, my mom reminded me quietly, "that was Nana's dream...to teach teachers." 

So this trip to China, this wonderfully challenging and sometimes frustrating endeavor that I decided to undertake at 33-years-old, I dedicate to her, my grandmother, who taught me how to read. I'm fulfilling this dream for both of us.