"Home" for Christmas

This is my first time “home” for Christmas since moving to China. In many ways, it feels so normal. It is normal to eat dinner with my family and play games with them. At the same time so many things have changed. My sisters, who were 12 and 18 when I moved to China are 17 and 22, have grown up and changed so much. My brother was not home for Christmas. Friends around me have gotten married, had babies, and moved away. And I’ve changed. It's hard to put into words all the ways that I have changed, but there are a few concrete ways that I can identify.

1)   I don’t want to wear shoes in the house. Growing up, unless our shoes were muddy we would wear shoes in the house. However, now when I walk in the door, I take my shoes off and put on slippers just like I would do if I were “home.”

2)   The US is so cold! Or China is so hot! I don’t know which one. In China, even in the winter, I hardly ever wear sweaters and sweatshirts. It is not that China (at least where I live in China) is actually warmer, but the heat is so warm, and I have basically no control over the heat. In the US, we have a great deal of control over the heat; it is expensive, so we keep the house at a cooler temperature. Also, I imagine a house that over 50 years old is harder to keep warm than an apartment that is less than a decade old.

Now I remember why I used to constantly drink tea, and I don’t feel such a need now. I mean I do enjoy a cup of tea every once in a while, but it is more out of comfort than necessity (this is a slight exaggeration; it’s not THAT cold).

3)   On the topic of cold, I don’t know why Americans drink ice water in the middle of winter. I mean during the summer, I, like a good red, white, and blue-blooded American, drink ice water even in China. But if it is winter and I am cold, I do not want to drink ice water. I do not even want to drink the water without ice. It’s too cold!

4)   On a similar note, it is a bit weird to drink water from the tap though we have good tasting tap water.

5)   I keep using tissues instead of napkins. In China, you can buy napkins, but they are not as readily available as tissues. We generally only use napkins when we have guests. On normal days we just use tissues. Also the fact that I say tissues instead of Kleenex is also something that has changed. I guess tissues is just more universal.

6)   Americans eat so much dairy! I don’t know if it is just because I don’t eat that much dairy in China and so I am eating it more, but I have been eating so many dairy products. In China, you can get dairy products, and I eat yoghurt every morning for breakfast, but things like sour cream are a special treat. I can pretty much get most dairy products I want, but they are expensive. Therefore, dairy becomes a special treat, which is probably healthier anyways. My stomach is not used to all this dairy.

7)   On the topic of food, I don’t know if it is the richness of American food or what, but my appetite has diminished significantly. I don’t feel like my diet in China is all that different. I also feel like I eat a fair amount. However, for whatever reason I can’t eat the portions that my family eats.

I am sure there are more things that I could come up with, but this is what I have so far. The thing is this whole concept of home. A wise person told me before I moved to China that living in China made her realize that this earth is not her home. I have clung to this truth the past few years. I may change and do silly things like drink hot water and use tissues instead of napkins, but that doesn't really change who I am. As the Father has been reminding me time and time again. I am a child of the one true king and this earth is not my home.

人山人海 (People Mountains, People Sea)

A few weekends ago, a friend asked me to go hiking with her at a Mountain called Fragrant Hill. I was looking forward to spending some time with friends and being one with nature. What I did not realize was that I would be one with nature with about a million other people. Thus, titling this blog post人山人海. The literal translation of this Chinese idiom means people mountains, people sea. It means something along the lines of people as far as the eye can see.

We started off the day early, leaving our apartment complex around 6 am in order to get to the train station before 7. We had a good group of people with us, 14 in total, so we waited for everyone to get to the train station. We got our tickets and hopped on the fast train to Beijing. The fact that we were actually going into Beijing should have tipped me off that I would not have the serene experience with nature that I had envisioned. For some reason had it in my head that we were not going into the city, but that we would be going some place outside the city. I was wrong.

Once at the Beijing train station, we bought our return tickets to guarantee our seat home. We bought tickets for around 3:20, thinking that would give us enough time to hike, eat lunch, and return to the train station. Then off we went on the subway to the northern part of Beijing.

 Waiting in line for the bus

Up until this point in the trip everything had gone according to plan. However, when we got off the subway, things began to change. It was pure madness as we waited for a bus. Literally hundreds of people were waiting in line. And yes, I did say line. There were people shouting at us in Chinese corralling us into lines as we waited for the right bus. Once the bus came along, the herders would shove as many people as possible onto the bus. We were not fortunate to get a seat on a bus, but we were lucky to be right by the door, so we had a bit more space than those sardined down the aisles.

The stop and go traffic and the heat of the many people plus the several layers of clothes made the bus ride rather unpleasant, but being with a good group of friends made up for the discomfort. After what seemed like hours of sitting in traffic, we asked the bus driver to open the door so that we could just walk the rest of the way.

As we walked to toward the mountain, nature began to call to me, and I need to make a “quick” pit stop. The problem was there was quite a line, and this would be far from a quick stop. I will not go into the details of facilities, but I believe I now have a new worst bathroom ever experience.

With the line for the bus, the bus ride itself, the wait for the restroom, and the walk to the mountain, we arrived much later than anticipated. We realized that we would have to choose between hiking up the mountain (the whole point of our trip) and making our train on time. Since we could exchange our tickets once at no cost to us, we decided to hike up the mountain.  To make things more interesting, our group somehow got split up, so some people ended up at the east entrance to the mountain and some ended up the south entrance. The plan was to hike up the mountain and meet each other at the top.

The hike seemed never ending. Plus we had not eaten lunch, and it was around 2. There were so many people on the mountain that we had traffic jams of people. As I walked I watched in envy as the people serenely took the cable cars up the mountain, vowing to myself that I would not walk down the mountain but that I would take the cable car. Honestly, at this point of the trip, I had a bad attitude. Things had not gone according to plan, and I had not wanted to be gone the whole day.

Our group at the top of the mountain

Once we got to the top, we enjoyed the view, met up with the rest of our group, and took some group photos. I assumed that everyone would want to take the cable cars down, but only my co-workers college roommate whose English name is Jade wanted to go with me. So she and I planned to take a cable car together. However, we were told that we would have to wait in line for an hour and a half to take the cable car, so we decided to just give up and walk down. The rest of the group had already started down the mountain, so I ended up walking down the mountain with my co-workers college roommate who barely spoke English. This was my favorite part of the trip. We ended up speaking in Chinese the entire walk down the mountain. Now, my Chinese is not all that good, but with her limited English, my limited Chinese, hand gestures, and dictionaries on our phones, we were able to communicate. Often times, I find trying to communicate in Chinese incredibly stressful, but Jade had the type of personality that could make friends with anyone. She was bubbly and friendly, and she made me comfortable enough to speak my broken Chinese with her.

Somehow, we made it down the mountain before the rest of the group, so we bought some street food and waited for them to come down.

 10羊肉串 (Lamb Meat on a Stick) for 10 Kuai ($1.50)

Then the madness of getting back to the Beijing train station began. We walked, took bus, and then took a subway to get to there. On the subway, my second favorite part of the day happened. There was a little girl who stood next to us and she had a little musical toy, so I sang and played with her until she got off.

Once at the Beijing train station, we exchanged our tickets and got some food while we waited for our train. Then we went to wait in line for our train. There was the moment of panic when we realized that the line we were waiting in was for the next train and that we should have boarded the train already, but never fear, we made it on the train.

So our plan of hopefully being home by 4:30 did not happen. We walked into our apartment around 9pm. I am glad for experience and the cool interactions that I got to have with some people. I’m glad that I did it once. Key word being once.

Water, Water Everywhere

This summer I have had several adventures involving water. It all started when my friend Sarah was visiting me. Her last day here, all of the water in our apartment went out (the toilet water and the tap water). Here (I don't know if this is a China thing or a my apartment complex thing, but in general here) the tap water and the toilet water are separate, so if one goes out the other one does not normally go out, but that day both were out. I texted one of my friends, who also lives in my building, and asked her if she had water. She also did not have water, so I knew that it was a whole building problem not just me. My friend and I went out for the day, so it really was no big deal that we did not have water.

For several days before that day, it had been threatening to rain, but it had not yet rained, so my friend and I assumed that we were safe to be out and about. It was her last night in China, so she wanted to go to Trash Mountain. (This is actually a mountain made out of trash. However, the trash has been covered, and now it is a beautiful park. Also, mountain is a bit generous of a term for this mound of former trash). Anyways, as we were climbing the “mountain,” the sky started to rumble, and the wind began to pick up. I asked my friend if we should turn back, but she wanted to go to the top. The previous day it we had turned back because we thought it would rain, and it never did, so we did not want to waste her last night in China. As we got closer and closer to the top, the sky got darker and darker. When we got to top, we looked around for a bit, but we knew that we did not have a lot of time to get back down before the rain would come.

On the way back down the mountain, we planned to try to get a taxi home so that we would not have to walk home in the rain. Unfortunately, part way down the mountain big drops of water began to fall from the sky. Once we got wet, it was over – no taxi would take us then. We began walking faster and faster hoping to make it home before the storm really hit, but it was too late. Our clothing completely soaked through, the wind roaring through the trees, and the streets beginning to flood, we took refuge in a W.C. (Water Closet  - British word for a restroom). Already inside were a Chinese family with two young children and a middle-aged woman. As we waited a young boy on a bike and a man in his late twenties also joined us.

Once the rain had let up, we began the trek home. As we were walking home, we discovered that the road that we had to cross to get home was completely flooded and that we would have to walk through flooded, sewage-filled streets to get home. We hesitated at first and looked for alternate routes, but it seemed like that was our only option. We did whatever we could to stay on non-flooded sidewalks, including holding on to the side of a food vender truck as we shimmed along the curb, but walking through flooded streets was simply unavoidable. 

 (This is a picture that my friend took on our walk home from Trash Mountain)

We got home only semi-damp, praying that our water was working again, but sadly it was not. So we had walked through dirty rainwater, and we could not shower. And all of my friends whom I would normally call if I needed a shower were either out of town or also without water. The solution was purell and baby wipes.

Thankfully, the next morning the tap water was back on and we were able to shower and to wash our shoes. However, the toilet water remained off for 12 more days!

The next water adventure happened when we ran out of water. In China, we have a water meter under our sink. When we have used up all of the water that we have paid for, the water goes out. Then you go to the store; put money on your water card, and then you go home and put the water card in the meter under your sink. This is similar to the electricity; you can read about my adventures with electricity here.

When our water ran out, I tried to put the water card in the meter, but it did not read it. I had thought that my roommate had said that it was full, but I figured that maybe I was mistaken. The next morning I took the card to get it filled. That evening when I went to pick it up, the lady told me that the card was not our card. It is 15-307's card. Apparently, my roommate had gone and filled our water card, but when they gave it back to her, they gave her the wrong one.

So we had no water, and we had to buy a new card. However, we could not buy a new card until the next day, and the next day I had to go to school because I was teaching at the summer English camp that my school was having. Thankfully, I called my ayi, and she bought a new card for us.

So the next day, when we came home from school, ayi had taken care of everything. Soon after we got home, we got a knock on the door. It was the women from the apartment above us, telling us that neither the 21^st nor the 22^nd floor had water. She said a bunch of other things that I did not understand, but I think the main point of her coming down was to find out if we had water. Our water pressure wasn’t great (as it often is not – it’s hard to pump water up the 20^th floor), but we did indeed have water.

Summer in Tianjin seems to be filled with water adventures. There’s also the tree that fell over in the storm last night and the day two summers ago when we had to cancel summer school because of rain and flooding, but I don’t have time to tell them here. All in all, these adventures, though they can be frustrating and uncomfortable at times, make for good stories. Plus the rain brings beautiful blue skies. 

(Here's the tree that fell over in the storm last night)

(The day after the storm sky)

Spring Trip 2014 - Gansu and Qinghai

Friday - Day 1

The first day was just traveling. Aside from a delayed flight, everything went off without a hitch.

Saturday - Day 2

We got up early to go do our service project, but before we left, we had to go get Niu Ro Mian (spicy beef noodles) for breakfast. My stomach didn't know what to do with mixture of spice and coffee.

We drove out of town to a farm area where we met some children with special needs. The plan was to do different stations with the children, but by the end the stations are sort of melded into one group. We did a skit, sang songs, made a paper chain, and ate lunch with the children.

When we got back to town, we met up with a Chinese high school soccer team, and the student enjoyed playing soccer with them. I think that this was probably one of the highlights of the trip for the students. After playing soccer, we went to a market for street food.

Sunday - Day 3

Lanzhou is known for having the yellow river, so we took some speed boats out on the river. Another thing that Lanzhou is known for is Niu Ro Mian, so for lunch we had Niu Ro Mian again. After lunch we headed to a park in Lanzhou that has cable cars up the mountain. Once on top of the mountain, we did a zipline and an alpine slide. Last year, the hike down the mountain was one of my favorite parts of the trip, but I think that the reason why it was so fun was because the pathway was under construction, so it was rather treacherous. It was bonding experience for those of us who went. However, this year the construction was complete, so the “hike” was just walking down a bunch of stairs, leading to several days of walking like an old lady and sore calves. Next year, I think we’ll take the cable car down the mountain.

Monday – Day 4

On Monday, we traveled to XiaHe, a small Tibetan town. Once we got to XiaHe, we were able to hike around the Labrong Monastery, which is the second largest Buddhist monastery in the world. Our tour guide explained to us different aspects of the monastery and Buddhism. Plus the landscape was beautiful. Seeing all the beautiful landscapes, I am further convinced that there is a creator of this universe (Romans 1:20). 

Honestly, I would love to go back to XiaHe on my own, and just to enjoy some time outside of the city and to be alone with God in nature.

Tuesday – Day 5

We went outside the “city” of XiaHe to the prairies where we enjoyed some Tibetan snacks and rode horses. I almost didn’t ride a horse because last year I found it rather terrifying. However, my horse this year was much more calm, and I am so glad that I did it.

Another highlight was using a countryside toilet. To be honest, it wasn’t too bad, and it certainly was not the worst toilet on the trip. The fabric door had a rip in it, so I felt a little exposed, but it did not smell like other toilets that we had to use at various gas stations on the trip. 

Later that evening, we met with some Chinese high school students and had an English corner, which turned into a Chinese corner instead. I think the students had fun playing games with each other.

Wednesday – Day 6

This day was the beginning of our misadventures. This was my first time leading this trip, and on Wednesday, we went to a new city that we had never been to before. This addition had been added to the trip because another teacher who had been there before suggested it.

We drove for several hours on bumpy roads, but I would say that the landscape was worth it. Pictures cannot do justice to the beauty that we saw. As we were driving, we were going higher and higher into the mountains, reaching almost 12,000 feet above sea level, which is twice as high as Denver. At one point, we stopped at the top of the mountain to see the view, stretch our legs, and use the restroom - just below this cliff was our toilet.

Our plan was to stop at a park on the way to our next destination. The ETA was 11 am, which would give us several hours in the park before we continued on our journey, but we did not arrive until around 4pm. We did get to see a small part of the park, but honestly by that time, most people were just tired and hungry.

When we got the hostel, we enjoyed pizza and hanging out in the common room. I am so proud of our students they had such good attitudes about the trip, which was important because we needed these positive attitudes for the next day.

Thursday – Day 7

The plan was to go to Qinghai lake, the largest lake in China, eat lunch, play Frisbee by the lake, and be back in time for dinner at a street market. We drove to the lake, and we stopped for Frisbee and lunch by the lake, but we did this in the parking lot instead of going into the lake area because the plan was to continue to another part of the lake to get out and look around. What started as a 7-hour trip turned into a 12-hour trip. We ended driving around the entire lake, which was a little over 400 miles. We did get out of the vans and have the opportunity to bike beside the lake, but once again we got there so late that everyone was just tired and hungry and ready to go “home.”

However, this bus ride was a blast. We played Mafia, solved the world’s problems, discussed theology and religion, sang songs, and generally had positive attitudes.

Since this was the last night, the plan was to let the students stay up late, but by the time we got back, most of the students were so exhausted that they just went to bed.

Friday – Day 8

We slept in, which was beautiful. Then we met for devos where we talked about looking ahead to being seniors.

After the students packed up, we got on the busses and head to lunch. Unfortunately, we were trying to go to lunch near a mosque, and Muslims have their worship service on Fridays around lunchtime. All the cars stopped in the middle of the road so that people could go to the Muslim service.

So we got out of the vans and split into groups to get lunch. During lunch, we talked about our takeaways from the trip; everyone said patience, which was good because it took us about a half an hour to find our vans after lunch. On top of that, the school children were heading back to school, and they mobbed us foreigners. It was rather overwhelming. At this time, the Muslim service was also getting out and there was just this sea of white hats flowing from the mosque. It was hard to believe that all those men could fit into one building. 

After wadding through the sea of humanity, we got on the vans, headed to the airport, got on the plane, and made it safely to Beijing.

Thanks to the brilliance of one of our leaders, we ordered Avocado tree (the Chinese version of Chipotle), and we had it delivered to the airport so that we could get on the road and get home asap. Unfortunately, we needed to learn another lesson in patience. The bus to take us home was not supposed to drive in Beijing from 5-8 pm, so we had to wait in the parking lot of the airport until 8 pm before we could go home.

The bus ride was once again filled with Mafia and good conversations, and we made it home around 11 pm.

Takeaways

If I am going to ask my students to talk about takeaways from the trip, then I should also reflect on them as well.

1)   I built good relationships with both the students and with the other leaders on the trip, and I look forward to continuing to build them.

2)   Patience.

3)   I need to be flexible in the best-laid plans of mice and men. I worked hard to make sure this trip was well organized, and things still didn’t always go the way I planned. At that point, the options are to get frustrated or to make the most of the time given. I think that as a whole, we made the most of our time.

4)   I think even before this trip that the Father has been teaching me about surrender. All other belief systems are about man searching for god, but Christianity is about God pursuing man. My faith is not about what I can do to earn his favor; it is about being “alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5).

The Great Bike Saga (Part III)

If you are interested in reading about parts I and II of the great bike saga, you may read them here and here.

Today, the plan was simple: ride my bike to E-mart to see Captain American 2, and then ride it to dinner for a friend’s birthday. While I did get to do both of these things, there was quite a bit of trouble along the way.

On the way to E-mart, I was switching gears and my pedals locked up. I pulled my bike onto the sidewalk to find that my chain had come off and had gotten caught. After several minutes of pulling on the chain, getting my fingers caught on the chain, pushing on the pedals, almost having my bike fall over, I got the chain back in place and was on my way.

After going to the bathroom to wash my very dirty hands, I arrived at the movie theater as the movie was supposed to be starting. Thankfully my friend had bought my ticket, and we sat in our seats just as they were turning off the lights. The movie was excellent, and I am looking forward to future Marvel movies.

When the movie was over, my friend had a headache, so I tried to give her some ibuprofen, but the little packet that I had would not open. We tried to go to the stationary store to use a pair of scissors, but it was closed. Therefore, we went into main E-mart grocery store so we could use a pair of their scissors in order to open the packet.

With the medicine working its magic, we headed to the restaurant for dinner. Now, as we were leaving E-mart, I know that I put my bike chain in my basket on top of my purse. I purposefully put it there because I don’t want my purse to get stolen. In order to steal my purse someone would have to open my basket, pick up my chain, which is fairly heavy, and take my purse without me noticing. I don’t know that my bike chain is all that heavy, but it makes me feel better when it is on top of my purse. Well, either this plan worked really well or something else happened because when we got to the restaurant, my bike chain was gone. I don’t remember anyone being close enough to us to steal it, and I don’t know how it could have fallen out (I think I would have heard something), but it was nowhere to be found.  To top it off my bike tire was completely flat. There was a place not too far from the restaurant where I could take my bike, but some of my friends were already there, so I figured I could take my bike to a bike repairman after dinner.

I knew that I should have gone before dinner, but I didn’t. Dinner took longer than I had planned, so by the time dinner was done, the bike repairman had packed up for the night. So my plan was to ride my bike, very slowly, home and hope to find a bike repairman along the way. I figured that I would probably need a new tire, but if I could at least get air in it, I could get it home. I stopped at a gas station (in the US, they usually have air), but no luck. Then I stopped at a car tire place, but they did not have the right part for a bike. As I continued to ride, I questioned whether my bike would make it home. Then I remember that a family from my school lived near where I was. I don’t know them well, but I called someone for their number. Then I called them to ask if they either had a bike pump or would let me stash my bike at their place, so I could take a taxi home. We tried the first option, but then I realized that my tire had come out of it’s tube, and the newly inflated tube looked like it would burst, so I opted for the second option. I locked up my bike in the stairwell of their apartment with the intention of coming back to get it another day.

The next part should have been easy. I was going to take a taxi home. I walked to the corner and wait and waited for a taxi. As I was waiting, the wind picked up. Dust was blowing in my eyes, and there were no taxis to be found. The dust was bothering my eyes, so I put on my sunglasses to try to protect them while I waited. They didn’t really help, and it was just harder to see since sunglasses are not meant to be worn at 8 o’clock at night. After a while, I decided to walk back to the apartment complex and ask the guard to call a taxi for me. I’ve never had a guard do this for me before, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.

When I asked the guard, he told me he couldn’t call a taxi and that I should walk. It is not that far of a walk home, but I’m not sure that it would be the safest walk home. Instead I walked to another intersection, and I waited some more.  The wind was still blowing pretty heavily, raindrops were beginning to fall, lighting was striking, and everyone and their brother wanted a taxi. Finally, by a miracle of heaven, after a total of over 40 minutes of waiting, I got a taxi.

In all of this, I can see the Father’s hand. What if I had tried to ride my bike home in the wind and the rain? With or without a flat tire, it would have been difficult. Also, He put people in my life who were able to help me. I’m not sure how I will get my bike home, but that is a problem for another day.