Monkey bars

Monkey bars: You let go of the last bar before reaching out and grabbing the next one. That's what C. S. Lewis has to say about "endings and beginnings."

I'm indeed letting go of a lot as I end my two year Peace Corps stint in China. That includes this blog, so let me pause and thank all of you who have taken a little time to read some of Jing's Journey. I can't see individual's names, but I can see countries, and your tuning in has meant a great deal to me. I'm posting for the last time something from China, and I've seen for the last time many a Chinese face and place--and will continue to say goodbye to others before boarding a plane in Shanghai in July. Monkey bars. Yes. I'm indeed uncurling my fingers here and reaching out to something else, something over there.

"Monkey bars" works on lots of levels--but figuring out the boundaries of any analogy is half the fun. All transitions--all beginnings and endings--involve letting go in some ways, or should, as part of moving on. But have I really let anything go? Could all those faces and places, experiences and feelings, still live inside this little brain, a brain that, like all of ours, is still wider than the sky? Or have I let it all go--and am I already mentally and emotionally far away?

You see, in my mind's eye, I'm bursting through the gates at San Francisco International Airport, now catching sight of Mary, Tony, and Jim--and, who knows, maybe Paul and Jade. Now I'm opening the doors to the oak book case in the Gans homestead in Missouri. Ben and I are sizing things up as we get ready for an estate sale. Ann, too. I find myself squinting up the olive tree alley with Jim, trying to decide how much to cut back those branches-on-steroids so that a furniture truck can make its way down the lane. Now I'm in Michigan, waiting for my mama's head to turn when she hears my voice--and Sally's and Ted's. Will she know me? Us? I find myself trolling the pages of the CU website for the Writing and Rhetoric program, trying to familiarize myself with who is doing what. And then I find myself halfway up Boulder Canyon, high in the Rocky Mountains, at Pat's place where I'll be living for a while. Jane's there. Most of all, I find myself going back to Chris and Ana's north shore rooftop in Pittsburgh, witnessing three brothers laughing, Nick the hardest. Seeing Ana's growing belly.

And then I come to. Actually, I'm in China. I'm here. Hunched over my laptop. Maybe mentally I'm holding the next monkey bar (for those images are real enough, or will be), but at least physically I'm still gripping the last monkey bar. Here in Beibei. The dancers' music from the garden way below drifts in on a still-soft breeze. A motorcycle revs up and I hear the chop-chop-chopping of cabbage in several nearby kitchens. My own kitchen counter is laden with bounty bought dirt cheap from the vegetable man. A critter scurries through the walls. My eyes fall on my Chinese book--a book that felt like my best friend for over a year--but a friend I jilted. A month ago I had to admit--wo meiyou shijian--I didn't have enough time to keep up with my class and still make progress on a book project with Professor Liu and honor my other Peace Corps priorities before leaving. I was surprised just how heavy that loss felt--almost like a break up that was long in coming but not desired. A letting go I wasn't ready for. Yesterday I sat at the banquet table, a farewell luncheon the waiban hosted, trying to figure out which pieces in the dish before me were pig's ear and which were mushroom. It was hard to tell.  I'm here in China, alive, but with hand outreached for the next monkey bar.

Later in July, the situation likely will be reversed: I may find myself mentally back in this kitchen chair in Beibei, mentally picturing ferns sprouting everywhere, even out of stone walls, mentally strolling through the lush campus landscape, under the magnolia and fig trees, mentally appreciating my hard-working students. And yet physically I may be somewhere else, maybe on a dry mountain trail in the Flatirons of Colorado.

The lane a half mile behind my apartment in Ban Zhu Cun

Endings and beginnings, letting go and reaching forward, of course, are not simple. Multiple, overlapping, varied. Identities are stretched, expanded, altered. What is it that we release and what stays with us? With identity? With experience? Awareness?

I'm sort of leaving China and my Chinese students, but not all of China, not everything Chinese.  I'll be bringing some of China home with me, wherever home is. And just what do my students want me to bring home?

Invitations to come visit China!

A desire for peaceful relations.

Hope that people will be curious about China's delicious cuisines--maybe enough to view the documentary "A Bite of China."

Students from Xinjiang, Tibet, and other autonomous regions want people to know that everything isn't Han and their cultures have just as much to offer.

Some students express hope that Americans may take an interest in China's emerging film industry, just as China has long been devoted to Hollywood. Others want to introduce their mythologies, their ancient Chinese stories. Dragon stories.

Over and over I hear variations of this "If you come, you will be welcome! We want to meet you!"

Most of all, I hear my Chinese students wanting to be understood. One student says "Perhaps in most people's minds our thoughts and ideas are limited or somewhat closed. However, even though we have little limited ways to get information, the fact is we are interested in getting new knowledge, in accepting different views. We are open, too!"

The lunch crowd on Africa

My first hike through campus two years ago exposed me to tens of thousands of Chinese--and one African, whose eyes caught mine that fine morning. Those eyes seemed to suggest we were already connected, perhaps as two honorary members in a Society of Outsiders. Once I started taking Chinese classes, I got to know some other Africans--Evanio and Agilcio, both from Guinea Bissau, and a doctor from the Congo. A woman from Malawi. Sometimes on Wednesday afternoons we would sit around a bowl of peanuts in my apartment and stammer through our Chinese lessons--unable to easily drift off into our native languages, since we spoke Portuguese, French and English respectively. Chinese was our common language. I at least had the benefit of Chinese-English dictionaries and books. Not so easy for them.

It was in those days that I started thinking about the Sino-African relationship. My radar was up, and I started noticing things in the news and
in book reviews about China's growing presence in Africa. Today, for instance, there is buzz about Monday's Second Forum on China-Africa Media Cooperation.

My classmate from the Congo already is a doctor, a gynecologist, but hopes to pursue further study here in China if he passes the HSK language exam. The two from Guinea Bissau aspire to be doctors, and sweet ones they will be if all goes well. They like China's mix of Western and Eastern practices and they value what they believe China has done for them at home.

I sense that some Africans embrace  China's less-Western values and are willing to overlook occasional abuses--no country is above them.  If nothing else, China and most African countries have developing economies, and they're all just trying to make the best of it. Why not cooperate?

Today a different collection of individuals, my Tuesday lunch crowd minus Shi Jun, huddled over tofu, vegetables and rice in the school cafeteria and talked about China's presence in Africa. These three Chinese people--my linguist buddy, a friend of her daughter's, and a stray academic who has taken to joining our weekly conversations--were each eager to dissuade me from seeing China's growing presence in Africa as a re-run of European imperialism, but each for different reasons.

The older two, who often see big gaps between government theory and practice, between professed motives and real intentions, were less critical than usual of the government and were focused more on the individuals who have migrated from China to Africa. Why not go to Africa? Life is just so hard for so many Chinese people, and there is so much competition for too few good jobs. Pollution is a problem--rivers are bad, cancer rates are skyrocketing (so one of them said). And they painted a picture of immigration not unlike that of any other diaspora, where people who have suffered seek more opportunity in a new place. And the Chinese are well known for their capacity to go on, to work hard, and to endure.

But one of them felt that the Chinese government has misplaced priorities and should be doing more for these very people (before they emigrate) and less for people abroad, possibly Africans. Should a mother give food to others if two of her own children are hungry? That one also felt that China actually has decent environmental regulations but is hesitant to enforce them, partly because it has too cozy a relationship with the tax-paying companies it is supposed to regulate.

But the youngest one thought that the Chinese government, however self-interested it might be in making business deals in Africa and elsewhere, has no choice. In the long run, China's poor will benefit from the relationships China is currying abroad. China needs to make deals for food. She argued that food security is a mind-boggling issue and that the government must do whatever it can to make allies and plan for the future, even if some of it is on the backs of working people. She didn't deny that many workers are getting a lousy deal--whether Chinese or African--and that some mineral extraction is almost stealing (her word) and some farm laborers are treated almost as slaves, but she thought the larger picture is entirely justifiable. Of course, China must look out for itself. What country doesn't? Moreover, she argued that what we're witnessing in both China and Africa--with high pollution and low working conditions--is an inevitable stage in  becoming a more developed economy. She compared China to England during the Industrial Revolution--and thought that it must go through a dirty phase on its way to economic well being--and China might as well take a number of African countries with it.

The older two were much less inclined to take an ends-justify-the-means perspective and yet one of them felt nothing good can happen until there is a little more widespread economic well being in China. One of them was quick to criticize the poor, who will do anything to survive, he felt; the other pointed fingers at the government, which is more interested in protecting Party members than in protecting China as a whole. These two obviously aren't nationalistic, but they are deeply patriotic--they love their homeland, no matter how flawed its policies and individuals might be.

I have no idea how representative this trio's views are of the general population's, but one thing is clear: Chinese people don't all think alike about the daunting issues facing their government.

Another thing is this: my experience as a foreigner is complex. I'm a foreigner who shares outsider status with other foreigners in a part of China that still tends to stare at anyone who is not a Han; and yet many of the other foreigners at this university, like our Chinese hosts, are non-Westerners who may be seeking decidedly non-Western paths.

We may be witnessing not just the emergence of China as a growing power, but the emergence of a collective energy that is decidedly non-Western.

* * * * *

As my brother's friend MEB points out, a book some people might find interesting is Howard French's China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa.

The class monitor

Echo and Arabella were chatting during my office hours, just practicing their English and letting the conversation flow loosely. Somehow the subject of "class monitor" came up, the designated person who acts both as teacher's assistant in the classroom and house mom in the dormitory.

Being a class monitor, by the way, is an intense responsibility. A "class" of students in a Chinese university is like a class in my junior high, where the same body of students goes from math class, to history class and so on. In my high school, it was different: completely different students populated my math class and history class, and certainly that was the case in my college classes. But here in China, university students live together as a "class" (body of students) in the same dormitory; they take all their courses together, semester after semester for eight semesters; and they are looked after by the same monitor. The monitor is kind of a mom or pop in both administrative ways and personal ways--and keeps the class on track.

How are these monitors chosen, I wondered aloud? Most of my monitors have been fabulous--smart, savvy, usually sensitive leaders. The tiniest little monitor can shout out orders and everybody falls in line. They're given authority and they use it, but usually in very responsible ways. Students seem to just accept their authority--and their help. And monitors, in turn, seem to accept the privileges that go with the position and the faint promise of more good favors down the road. So, how are they chosen? Grades, my students think. They're not sure--it's not clear. Teachers choose them. Do they need to be Party members? Well, maybe not at first, but most are invited to be members. After all, the really best students tend to be invited to be Party members. Echo and Arabella thought it worked like this: The monitors are usually invited to take the class that prepares them for the exam that must be taken before applying to be a Party member.  That led to a whole 'nother conversation, but it cycled back to monitors.

How are monitors chosen in my country, Echo and Arabella wondered?  Well, we don't have class monitors in the US, at least not on a university level. But from what I can tell, both countries do have little models of their respective governments embedded in the school system. In most US high schools, there's a student council, president, other officers, and so on, and the council members are elected. Likewise, to some degree, in most US universities. Democracy of sorts, never pure.

And here the monitor system links to the larger Chinese government, and indeed the monitors are being groomed for it. But it's not so much communism I see at play as it is paternalism. (In fact, I see very little communism in the Chinese government.) If anything, it seems more Confucian than communist--with "harmony" in the collective body maintained through a prescribed system of superiors and subordinates. I see paternalism and the family metaphor everywhere. There is an authority figure responsible for monitoring and protecting a large group, that authority figure is chosen in ways that are not entirely transparent, there is extensive monitoring--and also protecting, and the larger group fairly obediently accepts the authority of that figure. Or so it seems to me.

At its best, this paternalism works for the common good and fosters a stable and harmonious family; at its worst, it is autocratic, patriarchal, and self-serving, creating a dysfunctional family. It's a paternalism that seems to maximize order and efficiency but possibly by keeping the larger population in a somewhat childlike state of dependency. I see paternalism everywhere--in the government, in households, in the university, in organizations, and even in the social life of the classroom. Generally, it's the more benign kind of paternalism and it often works, but there is still widespread passivity in the face of authority. Some might say that passivity in the general population might be better understood as a practical acceptance of the trade-offs needed for stability and order, rather than childlike dependency. The net effect, though, is the same: deferring to the authority for decision making and not questioning the decisions.

Echo and Arabella said nothing about paternalism per se--rather they ranged all over the map in their opinions about this and that--but as I listened to them, these thoughts ran through my mind.

And it's a curious thing in a university. One thing about paternalism--and the stability and order it fosters--is this: it may stifle creativity and independent thinking which, some might say, are at the heart of academic research. Questioning is at the heart of learning. In China, every department is governed not only by deans, but also by party secretaries. (I have fabulous deans--smart, progressive, visionary.) However, as far as I can tell neither the deans nor the faculty enjoy a Western standard of "academic freedom," not that the ideal of independent research is unsullied in the West--the reality is far from perfect. And several friends who are Chinese academics have tried to set me straight on what "peer review" means in China. Whatever it is, it might be different from that in the West--although, again, "peer review" in the West often falls short of the ideal of independent review.

The glue in the family system in China seems to be "guanxi"--connections, relationships, special favors. But those relationships exist in a system monitored by authorities whose rulings largely go unquestioned.

The Chinese system of monitoring and protecting is a paternalism with which I'm not entirely comfortable (not that the US is innocent of excessive monitoring in the name of protectionism). But if my smart, savvy class monitors are the future of China, I do have hope.

One down (almost)

One down, the rest to go

The spring semester in China starts late by Western standards—late February—and also ends late—early July. This, of course, accommodates the Chinese New Year activities, which last for almost two weeks earlier in the winter. It also provides a good balance—the winter and summer breaks aren’t quite equal, but are close to it—six weeks, give or take a little. So! What does this mean? Most of my classes don’t finish for another month. The one exception is my news class, a short class that meets for only ten weeks. It is a foreign language class—English—and the students enrolled in it are all double majors, some graduating with physics degrees, some with environmental science degrees, all different kinds of degrees. Our exam is Friday, the 6^th.

So it is a curious thing. What do I teach in a class like this? What should I focus on the first week in June? As I write, it is actually two days before the 6^th of June, a day that is not insignificant in the history of China. Even though this class is not my main preparation, I have loved teaching it—partly because I’m a news junkie, I suppose—partly because teaching news literacy is one of the best ways I know to teach critical thinking. It is also of paramount importance in the digital age, a time when we find ourselves swimming in information—but—just what kind of information? Reader beware! No matter what country we might live in, the burden is on us as readers more than ever to read thoughtfully and critically.  That’s true for all of us all around the globe.

So what am I thinking about this week? And what am I allowed to say? My own organization, Peace Corps, follows the “when in Rome do as the Romans do” philosophy and forbids us Peace Corps volunteers to make reference to any of the “three T’s”—so that is something I bear in mind when teaching this class. One of my colleagues, an American contract teacher who is not a Peace Corps volunteer, was just reprimanded and had a job reassignment because he did get in a discussion with some students about one of them, arguably the least controversial.

One thing that is natural to do in a news class such as this is to compare news coverage on any given day—what is the BBC saying? The Guardian? China Daily? Al Jazeera? Der Spiegel? The New York Times? And so on. This enables us to ask questions not only about accuracy and truthfulness, but also about the rhetorical situation—Who is the author? Who is the audience? What is included, excluded, and for what purpose, in what the context? How are the sources handled? Not only how many—but what kind? Can they be checked? And so on. Below is a screen shot of the front pages of several newspapers. 

I would not be allowed to focus on the front page of some of these papers today (say the WSJ)  because Peace Corps would not allow me to mention some of the top stories. So I don’t. I don’t try to touch on every possible issue—and I don’t meet my next class until June 6^th, anyway, which will have different stories.

We spend lots of time looking at news from cross-cultural perspectives—and anyone’s own country almost always looks awful through the lens of another country. That’s because what is considered “news” usually isn’t pretty—especially any “news” that jumps oceans and national borders. Another way to put it is that our own countries tend to demonize others—not that we are untruthful, but we selectively focus on the negative. I think the coverage of China in the NYT is unrelentlingly harsh.

My students have had lots to say about US spying on China and elsewhere. They have lots of opinions about Snowden. They have not read—in fact, most have no clue—about stories of some other major countries that have been called on the carpet for spying, but we have discussed in the abstract general principles about both privacy and transparency.

Although I do think the NYT is unrelentingly harsh, it is a news organization with admirable journalistic standards and understandably won’t be quiet about certain issues that are of great concern to journalists. One of the issues in a news literacy class is “what makes a journalist?” and “what makes a good citizen journalist?” How much is the journalist a watch dog—for governments and other institutions? We use criteria that have been widely discussed among some of the world’s leading journalists.  I can’t always get the articles I want on this and other topics—this week my computer keeps shutting down; it is unbearably slow. But it is always slow, for layers and layers of reasons.

The issues here I believe are of paramount importance in any country, and I don’t know how successful I’ve been as a teacher. But my goal has not been to cover every possible story. My goal has simply been to ask questions.

It’s not fish, but fishing I’m after.

A hundred bowls of dumplings

A hundred bowls of dumplings. I'm a bit overwhelmed thinking about it--hosting three different oral English classes on three different evenings for three different jiaozi (dumpling) extravaganzas in my fourth-floor apartment, a stone's throw from the university.

But who could turn down these enthusiastic cooks?

The first crowd waited for me at the foot of the hill, some holding bags of extra groceries, half of them dressed like they were going to a prom. A few like me figured blue jeans were okay on a Saturday night, but I did a quick change when I saw the finery most were sporting. Another class, on another night, met me at Gate Two of the university, all of them wearing matching white T-shirts. It was easy to keep track of them as we traipsed on down Tiansheng Road.

Three times on three different nights we made thirty some bowls of dumplings--and various other favorite dishes from home. Whether really fabulous or just first-time cooks, they immediately dived in to the activity,

and nobody left before at least trying to clean up and mop the floors. 

What would they be doing otherwise? My students say that most but not all would be in their dorms with their three (girls) to five (guys) roommates, and in their rooms some would be surfing the web or playing video games. Most, though, would be studying. That's what they do on weekends. They study a lot. Even on vacations.

And when these students aren't studying, they're working, eating, or doing other things together. They're together almost 24-7 for four years. They might not have brothers and sisters, but they have thirty-some classmates who might as well be.

This study-around-the-clock culture certainly comes with a price and the exam culture has some unintended negative consequences, and yet, I think the West might do well to look East. Others are, including Andrea Orr who wrote The United States Can Learn from High School Students in India, China and Chen Huabin in Parents' Attitudes and Expectations. It's not that the schools are better in the East--I don't think that's the case--but the priorities in the larger culture support what's going on in the schools. Learning and teachers are privileged in the culture, and home-life supports learning from the earliest age. Students grow up with an expectation to hold some personal desires in check for the sake of a long-term goal.                                                        

My students this semester are scholarship students who hale from all over the country, and they'll return to their home provinces to teach English for at least ten years. That's the deal. And do they mind? Well, most do want to be teachers but, even if they aren't smitten by the idea, they are pragmatic. They take precious little for granted. They know there are millions of Chinese twenty-somethings competing to fill the untaken spots, wherever they are. 

In the meantime, they're thrilled when they have a little reprieve--something so simple as making dumplings at a teacher's place.

Two Feathers in China

Who knew what I'd find at the Chongqing North train station--huffing through the double doors just as the last call was being made to board the train to Chengdu. I needed to make another journey through the beautiful terraced mountains of Sichuan to do routine Peace Corps business in Chengdu, "close of service" tasks that every volunteer must do. And there, as I was debating whether to board the train alone or not, came Two Feathers in her huge bright turquoise T-shirt and baggy below the knee denim shorts. Her white roots proudly peeked through her brown hair, pulled back in a long, long braid. Nothing about Two Feathers is normal in China, where even the petite street sweepers and construction workers wear their hair in tidy buns with glittering hair clips. Nothing about Two Feathers is the least bit normal here, and yet she is beloved.

Why was a bit of a puzzle to me, at least at first, because I've certainly witnessed foreigners whose ways were so odd, so removed from Chinese reality, that they just didn't succeed in establishing much rapport. Not the case with Two Feathers, whose students at Chongqing Medical University look after her and take her everywhere--and yet learn from her, find her an amazing eye opener.

Two Feathers is a volunteer, a year behind me, also serving in the municipality (think province) of Chongqing. When she heard I was going to Chengdu, she decided to go with me so that together we could pay a visit to the host family who took each of us in when we first arrived in China. In the summer of 2012 during "pre-service training" I lived with Li Ying and her husband Peng Laoshi. Then, in the summer of 2013 while I was traipsing around China, Two Feathers lived with them, her first summer in China. My Chinese is not the best (a masterpiece of understatement), but Two Feathers was dependent on me--so I did all the negotiations in train stations, buses, taxis, foreign student dormitory, and so on--I was the one to carry the conversation with Li Ying and Peng Laoshi.

It was absolutely wonderful to see them and to taste again some of Li Ying's fabulous cooking, including an incredible catfish dish. I'd never seen Li Ying so radiant, so happy--possibly because her pregnant daughter was visiting. We saw pictures of their recent travels and heard about plans to visit relatives in San Diego.

Now Two Feathers hasn't always used her Native American name--in fact, she had to stage a silent protest at Rutgers to be allowed to have it called out at graduation. Her protest involved wearing a mask in keeping with her Apache traditions, but a mask that also had some red, white, and blue because she was a Vietnam veteran who had served in the military until retirement. That service was her ticket to an education, which she got only later in life--none of her eleven older siblings had degrees.

If she grew up poor and an object of discrimination in all the complex ways that race, class, gender, and ethnicity are bound together, she hasn't let any of that deflate her spirit. In a husky contralto, she talks non-stop and just charges ahead. She has 180 students--not altogether but in just one of her speaking classes--which for Two Feathers is no problem. She adapts a group plan until it works, gets them all talking, keeps them all accountable, and spares them nothing. She gets them on fire. None of her stories are censored and she elicits from them all kinds of stories and testimonies that I find utterly amazing. She keeps her ear close to their needs, finding all things medical for her medical students and tapping video clips of contemporary pop stars for her undergraduates. She meets them where they are and seems to find them.

There's nothing standard about this person--not her English, not her appearance, not her manners, not her approach to anything. And yet driving all of it seems to be a will to make the best of it, and that is deeply Chinese. She just goes, ever resourceful in her attempts to connect, to help, to teach. By all accounts, she reaches them, with students crowding into her classroom, into her apartment, onto QQ, and offering to take her anywhere, protecting her, helping her.

Utterly amazing Two Feathers (left).

Chicken bones

Who knew that a little chicken bone might eclipse the excitement of pulling off what Wu Dan insists was China's first writing-across-the-curriculum conference. Wu Dan had come to Beibei from Xi'an to help me facilitate what was to be a bilingual workshop for several dozen folks (our maximum capacity), some coming from as faraway as Beijing and Hainan. We were relieved to have it behind us, winding down at a little outdoor cafe when Wu Dan introduced me to a dish I'd never had before and will never have again--Xinjiang Da Pan Ji--meaning "Xinjiang big dish chicken." Don't misunderstand--I love food from Xinjiang and this was delicious--but never again will I risk eating little bits of chicken with even littler bits of bone hidden inside.

Xinjiang Da Pan Ji (photo credit way below)

As soon as I realized something wasn't going down, I excused myself in search of an out-of-the-way trash can where I could spit. But I couldn't really spit--instead half gagged, half coughed until I nearly wet my pants, with volumes of glue-like spit swinging from my fingertips. As I tried to dodge the crowd on my way back to Wu Dan, I was approached by "Daisy" and her sister, two kind women I have bumped into on repeated occasions. They magically produced some tissue for me to use, but I couldn't speak to thank them. Back in my apartment, things calmed down a bit--eventually I could talk, had stopped coughing up volumes of that viscous stuff and could even take about half an ml of water. Wu Dan and I thought it safe to skip ER and see if the damned thing would resolve itself by morning.

It didn't. I shooed Wu Dan on her way, her early morning flight to Xi'an, and called the Peace Corps medical staff in Chengdu. Beat it to the ER, they advised. So, at Gate 2 of the university I met my dear friend Xiaodan who accompanied me to not one but three hospitals before the day was done, each one a little better than the previous one, all packed with people squeezing into examination rooms whether it was their turn or not.

Although I could swallow a drop or two of water successfully before I went to bed the night before, that was no longer the case. I couldn't swallow my own saliva--let alone anything to eat or drink--and surreptitiously spit into a steel water bottle every other minute, dumping it whenever I found a good bush. What had been mid-throat now seemed to have lodged near the base of my throat, too low for the ENT at the first hospital to see and too high for the gastroenterologist to do an endoscopy, he said. Nonsense, said the Chinese Peace Corps doctors who were monitoring things by phone. Ditch that place and go to Southwest Hospital in Chongqing.

An hour or two later, Xiaodan and I found ourselves in a labyrinth of gigantic buildings--a massive hospital complex with beautiful outdoor courtyards and fountains and impressive statues inside. We zigzagged back and forth, following different folks' directions, before we finally found the ER, where blue capped nurses doubled as receptionists, both taking your blood pressure and checking your passports at the check-in counter. Less dingy than the last hospital, this one was just as packed. People, some with big baskets of vegetables on their backs, squeezed into elevators--sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, twenty people--creating shouts of dismay from people in the back.

The ENT department was in a clean, spacious area, and we found the ENT surfing the web in a room like a college computer lab. He directed us to another office--high ceiling-ed and mostly empty except for a little desk, an examination chair and a doctor. The round mirror strapped to the second doctor's forehead reflected bright light down my throat but, alas, he could see nothing. That meant we needed an endoscopy, but, that would be impossible before the next day. The first doctor was solicitous but waited patiently while we consulted our Peace Corps doctors. Given that they would fly to Chongqing to be with me unless I came to Chengdu, where they were, I hoofed it to the train station where I found myself standing behind a humpback about 4 and a half feet tall. When someone tried to cut in front of him, the woman behind me started a row that drew in about half a dozen voices before things calmed down. I booked the next train to Chengdu, enjoying a beautiful two hour journey through western China's terraced mountains, listening to my seatmate drown out the children's songs on the other side of him with an English movie that he put on pause and replayed every few lines, sometimes repeating a turn of conversation ten times before moving on.

The Peace Corps staff was out in full order awaiting my arrival. When I stepped from the train onto the platform, Cheng Dang called to say he was waiting for me, and indeed by the time I got to the bottom of the stairs, there he was. He sped me to what is perhaps the best hospital in southwest China, where Dr. Gao pulled up on her bicycle and Dr. Bing was waiting inside--along with half of China, some in their pajamas. Every hall was teaming with people, many from far flung areas.

Even after living in China for almost 22 months, I still find myself amazed by the scale of everything. The sheer number of people. An ordinary day in a Chinese hospital is like December 23rd in a big-city department store in the US. You simply can't see the floor.

Hospital gurneys with patients in waiting, many in colorful ethnic clothing, were surrounded by family members--extended families, it seemed--many of whom went freely in and out of nearby conference rooms where other patients were being seen. So it was in the IV room where I spent the night along with two dozen others, most snugly tucked in under colorful blankets from home. Having not even a toothbrush, let alone a blanket, I was ready to just chill in every respect, but Dr. Gao noticed, pedaled home, and returned to cover me. Husbands patiently washed wives' foreheads, daughters repositioned fathers--one even changed the man's underpants. The teenager seated next to me seemed to be dying of pneumonia, his lungs rattling when he wasn't spitting into our little shared wastebasket. His sister changed his socks, his brother with long hair neatly held back with a headband looked on solicitously, and his father tended him all night. If I actually snoozed off for a few minutes, I'd awake to see his father staring at me with gentle curiosity, softer than the stares I get all day long on the street.

The Peace Corps medical staff had to wait in the hall but they checked on me regularly, and both doctors were there in the morning to accompany me to another building. Plan A was to have an ENT slither an endoscope down my throat to get those bones hiding down at the base; Plan B was general anesthesia and surgery. I was ushered into a room where the last patient was still collecting his things and was placed on my side on a table. Staring at cutting edge imaging machines, the specialist skillfully guided the thing down my throat (no anesthesia), roaming around while I tried not to gag. Ah! She got a piece and tried to withdraw it. Four more times. The end of her scope had a bright light doubling as camera and she shot pictures of our four prizes inches away from my drooling mouth. No need for Plan B, although I'd still have to hang out in Chengdu at Peace Corps headquarters until my throat was healed enough to take liquids and a tiny bit of soft food. I revisited old haunts on Sichuan University campus, where Peace Corps China headquarters is, and read up on things in the library, having nothing with me from home, certainly not a laptop.

I have had phenomenal medical care my whole life, but the China Peace Corps medical staff is just the tops. Smart. Humane. Pro-active. Spunky. Up to date. They're amazing. Thanks, Drs. Gao and Bing--Kandice and others. Li Li.

Well, my reputation for hospitality is at a low ebb. My sister Mary learned that if you go to China to visit me, you might end up spending half the time at the police station; my friend Wu Dan learned that a visit here isn't complete without lots of spit and chicken bones.


PS I know a surgeon and a nurse anesthetist at home I can't wait to see!

Xinjiang Da Pan Ji photo credit: https://www.google.com/search?q=da+pan+ji&client=firefox-a&hs=YlW&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=RPpxU8zfNtG1yAT5n4Ag&ved=0CDQQsAQ&biw=1188&bih=648#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=bR9wz9QiDh3G7M%253A%3BScz7xOp2yViQJM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fdevelopingcityblog.files.wordpress.com%252F2013%252F02%252Fxinjiang-da-pan-ji.png%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fdevelopingcity.net%252F2013%252F02%252F17%252Fbest-xinjiang-food-in-shanghai-2%252F%3B701%3B396

Botched job in Oklahoma

Stuart changed things. I could hear  something disturbing in the next classroom, a cane zinging through the air, striking some unfortunate soul. Stuart changed the way I heard all that. He could see that I was aghast and quickly whispered, "We have corporal punishment, but we don't have capital punishment." That was many years ago when I was an exchange student in New Zealand.

Perhaps I've told you this story before, so transformative was it. I didn't become a fan of corporal punishment, but I never thought about capital punishment the same way again. Before that whispered conversation in my biology class, I'd never even thought about capital punishment. I just didn't know at the time how few "developed" countries still had capital punishment. Most had outlawed it a long time ago and along with it an "eye for an eye" morality. What was "normal" in my country had ceased to be acceptable in most European countries and many other places. New Zealand.

Most of my adult life I lived in Missouri, a state that ranks right up there with Texas and Florida in its zeal for executions. China. Iraq. Some Missouri executions have been botched, just like the inexcusable situation with Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma last week. In Missouri, I expressed my dissent, usually silently at vigils outside the governor's mansion the night before an execution. Nobody noticed much or cared, aside from a cub reporter for the university newspaper desperate for a story to cover.

Alas, I might be confused about rats (as James and Emma made clear in the comments), but I'm clear about this: Human beings are not rats. No human being is a rat, not even Clayton Lockett. I fear that the most upright, law-abiding human beings can allow themselves to commit unspeakable atrocities IF they first allow themselves to think of the "other" (whoever it is, innocent Jews or not so innocent Locketts) as something other than human.

I'm living now in a country that shares with the US a horrific history of executions. My sense is that few Chinese people question the appropriateness and practicality of them. I hope that changes, that both  the US and China can step into the modern age before too long. We can leave "an eye for an eye" morality behind us.

(I realize I've lost all credibility among some of my readers. I got a pretty good drubbing last week and may be in for another this week. . . I intimate that I value a human's life more than a non-human's, even if my point is something else.  That's probably going to get me in more trouble.)

Rats!

The first peculiar thing was finding one of my favorite socks, a little Smartwool sock, stuffed between that bathroom pipe and the window, about four or five feet up from the floor. How the hell did it get there? Can't see the sock in this photo, but you can imagine that this pipe is not a place that even the most absentminded of us might leave a sock.

 

My suspicions were loosely confirmed a morning or two later when I saw something scurrying along the window sill. But just what was it? A small rat? A big mouse? It almost flew--in fact, when I first saw it I thought it was a bird. I'm not sure which one of us was more startled. Next day a critter (same one?) almost made eye contact with me before flying off the edge of the ledge separating my little study from the kitchen. I'm guessing that the fella likes apples and peanuts, given the clutter left in two little porcelain bowls. When I told Mrs. Niu about my visitor, she immediately brought me some traps, the sticky-glue type. I had no idea if they had D-Con or anything else in the little cups in the center of the sticky traps. With a squinched up face, I opened one of them.

Well, the next morning I stopped on my way to the hot water pot. Poor little fella! There was somebody about five inches long (not counting the tail) on the stick-em, determined to get away but stuck. What a cruel, slow death he was facing.  I just couldn't stand knowing that little fellow was struggling on a glue pad, and I finally just put the wok over the whole thing so I didn't have to see it. What a coward, eh? 

My pity was pretty shallow—given that I think nothing of the fate of most rodents when they're not dying on my kitchen counter, and given that what I really wanted was a cup of coffee and couldn't quite get to my coffee pot. Believe me, I have no fans among rats, since once upon a time I was the executioner for hundreds of soft, fat little vitamin D deficient rats, all of whom were sacrificed in the name of medical research.

Shallow though my pity was, I did have some, and I found myself marveling at whatever life force was still in that little kicker, desperately trying to save his life. I found myself thinking of my father, who was no vegetarian but was, well,  an unusual gardener. He had a little non-lethal trap, and he'd take his never-ending supply of prisoners up to the top of the hill and let them out. My father was a pretty smart man—a chemical engineer who knew what the odds were of those prisoners running right back down the hill. He knew. But he didn't have the heart to kill them.

Meanwhile, I'm guessing my visitors are Sichuan Jumping Mice, and I found myself reading a bit about these sweet little forest dwellers (although I haven't seen the belly of one of these fellows to see if the telltale Y marks are there). I'm still not sure if my they're rats or mice, because I have also spotted some rat photos that look just like my uninvited roommates. So, my day turned to night, and before going to bed I looked at the wok hiding one now-quiet little critter's body. My dreams were laced with thoughts about cruelty to animals. I thought more about being an all out vegetarian instead of an almost vegetarian. (My vegetarian-leanings have more to do with energy management and resources than with killing animals, but still I'm no fan of concentrated animal feeding operations--CAFOs--and such things.)

In the morning, I summoned the courage to lift the wok and just take care of business. There the little guy was, still as anything and covered with scraps of paper and cardboard from the rat trap. I turned away for a second, putting the wok in the sink. I was just reaching for materials to bag the rest of it when I looked again.

Gone!

Rats! I already confessed that my pity was rather shallow. Now, I'll have to confess that I'm a little bit fickle, too. What now?  I looked with mixed feelings at the other trap, still empty. Just exactly what did I want? 

I wasn't sure. I thought about just getting rid of the damned sticky trap but didn't--I was in a hurry to meet Haixia. A few hours later I found myself back in my apartment, and I can't say exactly what I felt when I saw the other trap with some quarry. Was this the original fighter, the one who had gotten away?

Back. . .

Chinese breakfast

Breakfast: the highlight of my week in Chengdu. Yes! Not because the "Close of Service" conference I was required to attend this week in Chengdu wasn't any good. To the contrary, it was just fine--perfectly tailored to the needs of most Peace Corps volunteers and it was a beautiful two-hour train-ride away from Chongqing.

There at the KeHuaYuan Hotel on the edge of Sichuan University in Chengdu, we learned how to plow through the thicket of bureaucracy awaiting us at the final "Close of Service" event that is now just a few months off, and most volunteers had a chance to brush up on resume writing and job seeking skills, as well as learning about "non-competitive eligibility" and myriad other things relevant to seeking a federal job.

But. I'm not seeking a federal job, nor am I wanting to brush up on my resume writing skills. Tailored though this conference was for most people's needs, not for mine.

That noted, in addition to meeting up with dear friends and Peace Corps staff, it was delightful to be there one more time at the KeHuaYuan Hotel, with its out-of-sight breakfasts. Cheerios weren't on the menu.

Chinese breakfasts, at least hotel breakfasts, tend to be like this: a huge, healthy buffet of the most interesting dishes, most vegetable-centered. They're hot, they're tasty, they're varied.

How to make vegetables interesting? Go to China and find out--but you chop them up tiny and mix several together and season them with interesting flavors. You have variety--but not too much variety--within each dish and then again among the many dishes on the table. These breakfast buffets are out of this world.

 Of course, most Chinese don't begin the day in a hotel, but most do begin the day with a hot, healthy breakfast, usually interesting and varied--probably without either coffee or tea. Skipping breakfast just isn't common as far as I can tell, and breakfast on the run is likely to be baozi (the ubiquitous steamed bun with a meat and vegetable filling--easy to get on the street for about 15 cents) and a carton of soy milk.

For anyone who is worried about US tax dollars, let me assure you that Peace Corps volunteers hardly live lives of luxury, even if we have enjoyed a few unforgettable breakfasts in our two-year tours of duty.

Strange spring

Beibei is teeming with life. . . flowers and leaves are bursting out everywhere. Even rundown alleys sport little gardens around the edges of refuse. And yet, the lanes are lined with leaves . . . as if it were autumn.

April 12th

This strange spring has nothing to do with the curious shifts in weather patterns occurring in so many parts of the world--this is perfectly normal for Beibei. But for me, it is strange and speaks to so many sights and feelings that are so oddly familiar and curiously different. Nothing is quite the way I usually think of it--and, yet, there it is, whatever "it" is. Spring. Old and new, loss and growth all mixed together.

Heightening this strange feeling of loss and growth all mixed together is the awareness that I have fewer than 100 days left. I've loved Beibei--and will bring some of "Beibei" home with me. Once home, will I find myself altered enough that the springs of my homeland will feel just a bit strange? Hard to say, maybe every new spring will feel a bit strange in one way or another, but no matter the season, no matter the strangeness, this I can say with certainty--I will be overjoyed to see my beloveds. Mama, daughter, dear friends. Sibs, sons, and tebie de pengyou.

Qing Ming

Qing Ming, a newly reinstated public holiday in mainland China, came with a twist this year for the Chinese relatives of the passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. As of this post, there is some evidence that Flight 370 met its end somewhere in the depths of the Indian Ocean, but the uncertainty surrounding the case must make grieving all that much more difficult. Qing Ming is a Chinese Memorial Day of sorts, and this year it may offer those grieving relatives who are familiar with the holiday a frame or a medium to process what seems to be a mind-boggling tragedy.

So many questions remain--including how long can an expensive search continue in the face of finite resources? When is it "long enough"? The 1972 plane crash in the Andes reminds us that sometimes there are survivors, even under unimaginable circumstances. The 16 survivors of the crash in the Andes were found over two months later, only because of their persistence long after the search for them had been called off.

But what is Qing Ming Jie? Sometimes called Tomb Sweeping Day, it is an ancient tradition that was discontinued in 1949 in mainland China, along with many other traditions associated with religion, but was reinstated a half dozen years ago. According to Wikipedia, Qing Ming Jie means "Pure Brightness Festival" or "Clear and Bright Festival" and suggests "a time for people to go outside and enjoy the greenery of springtime . . . but it is mostly noted for it connection with Chinese ancestral veneration and the tending of the family grave."

Spring has arrived in Beibei:
Wisteria dripping from the lattices.

Indeed, spring is in full throttle in Beibei, with wisteria dripping from the lattices of the shelters in the park below my apartment, primroses spilling over stone walls up and down Tiansheng Road, and signs of new life everywhere, even up and around the tombs on nearby JinYun Mountain.

Even though most cultures have something similar to Memorial Day, I've been struck the nature of Qing Ming and "remembering the dead" in China. Some degree of ancestor worship seems alive and well--not everywhere, of course--but in many places. Filial piety, for some people, is not simply a matter of respecting your parents and elders in life, but also is in death. Death does not erase their presence. While this is hardly an unusual thought, some Chinese people who believe in the literal presence of their ancestors hold no other religious beliefs. Some are committed rationalists who still see the extended human organism in much more collectivist terms than most Westerners do. They offer much to ponder.

The Wikipedia article also suggests that the "holiday is often marked by people paying respects to those who died in events considered sensitive . .  and all public mention of such events is taboo." If this is true, I was previously unaware of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingming_Festival

Qing Ming (April 7th this year) was a national--and therefore school--holiday, so I took no Chinese classes and taught no English classes. However, the clock in my camera is a half-day behind Chinese time and says the picture below (of my Chinese class) was taken on April 7th.
The majority of my classmates are from Vietnam, Thailand or Russia, although one classmate is from Kazakhstan (he's wearing a mask because of a cold). Our former classmates from Suriname, Guinea Bissau, the Congo, Korea, India and Malawi have moved on. It has been very interesting seeing China through their eyes. Most of them live and study together upstairs (above the classrooms) in the foreign student dormitory.

Date on photo is April 7th--Qing Ming--although
that's only because my camera's clock hasn't adjusted to China-time.

Inna's view

Inna sat two seats away from me, at the end of some tables crowded together in Olga's apartment last night, where Russian voices fell and rose around us. It had been forty days since Olga lost her grandma, and we were gathered to remember her--"we" being about a dozen Russians who are teaching or studying in Beibei; a Chinese teacher who speaks fluent Russian; Keri Ann, another Peace Corps volunteer, and me. Inna told me in English to first take a tablespoon of the special rice dish, then a little pancake and dribble some honey on it, and then we could have the bowl of special noodles or any of other dishes. Potato salad, stuffed peppers, fruit salads. All sorts of things. Olga, ordinarily a fireball of energy, was brought to tears when she helped herself to the rice dish. There were no speeches--rather, there seemed to be pauses, moments of silence, while the various personalities let the weight of the moment sink in.

Amazing to me, though, squished together in the little apartment, were how handsome and how varied all of the faces were. I think "Russian" and I tend to forget how big Russia is and how many different countries it borders. At the other end of the table, a fellow with a light beard and heavy dark brows kept swishing his girlfriend's long hair back over her shoulder. Siberians, both of them. Another was from near Kyrgyzstan. One individual looked somewhat Chinese to me, and two others looked Persian. I've long thought that Garrison Keillor, the American humorist, is on to something with Lake Wobegon, where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." Every face before me was interesting, a face I would enjoy drawing.

Sitting next to Inna was another Olga, the Olga who sits in Chinese class with me every morning for three hours. At the beginning of the semester, I was helping her--for her, the Chinese language was brand new. Now she patiently helps me, the "laoren" in the class.

Three of them, including Inna, occasionally visit my English classes--where I'm the teacher, not the student--because they plan to teach English later on and are interested in observing different approaches.

And today Inna will visit my "News Class," an English class for double-majors, most of whom are also majoring in one of the sciences. Lately we've been looking at news stories about Crimea--from the New York Times, from the Chinese Daily, and from the Moscow Times. Even though these papers are from different regions, they're all in English and are pitched somewhat to an ex-pat audience. My Chinese students were impressed by the relative neutrality of the Chinese Daily, even though the main source it quoted was Yanukovich, with his blistering comments about the West. We look at who is quoted, what assumptions they seem to be making, whose views are not represented and so on. What might be between the lines as well as in the lines. We distinguish between our observations and inferences and hold our inferences open to re-interpretation with more information. My role is not to make political judgments on any of the issues we examine, but, of course, I am posing some of the questions. We are also evaluating standards of journalism.

The article we looked at most closely today is a now-dated NYT article with the opening line "In the first barometer of global condemnation of Russia's annexation of Crimea, Ukraine and its Western backers persuaded a large majority of countries in the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday to dismiss the annexation as illegal, even as Russia sought to rally world support for the idea of self-determination." We look at the language. We look at what comes first, and what is tucked away late in the article, for example "The United States routinely ignores the General Assembly's condemnations of its positions on the Palestinian issue . . . ."

I have Ukrainian friends at home in the US, but none here in China, and Inna will be speaking alone today, giving a Russian view (not that there is only one) of the NYT article. I have some other Russian friends here who are no fans of Putin but who nonetheless celebrate the annexation as a very fitting thing, as the way it should be. My Chinese students and I are very curious about what Inna will say.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Location_Ukraine_Europe.png

A peek at The Three Inch Golden Lotus

Michael reminded me that The Three Inch Golden Lotus was translated by someone we knew. Had I read it? Not yet. My Chinese friend Xiao Kairong, himself an expert on translation, encouraged me to read it--a book that had made a big splash in China when Feng Jicai first published it.

Here's a peek. It's well worth a longer look, reading the whole thing. The narrator opens with this in "Some Idle Talk Before the Story":

"Some people say that a portion of Chinese history lies concealed in the bound feet of Chinese women. That's preposterous! These stunted human feet, three inches long, a bit longer than a cigarette, eternally suffocated in bindings--what could be hidden there except for the smell?"

Only a few pages away, we witness Granny sitting down on a stool, getting ready for a big job.

"With red, swollen eyes Fragrant Lotus begged, 'Granny, just one more day. Tomorrow. I promise you you, tomorrow!'

"Granny did not hear a word. Sitting facing Fragrant Lotus, she pulled the two roosters to the ground between her and her granddaughter. She held the necks of the roosters together and stepped on them with one foot. With her other foot she stepped on the roosters' feet. Her hands quickly plucked several clumps of feathers from the roosters' breasts, and with the cleaver she sliced the breasts open. Before the blood could begin to flow, Granny grabbed Fragrant Lotus' feet and pressed them--first one, then the other--into the roosters' stomachs. The hot, burning, sticky sensations and convulsions of the dying roosters so shocked Fragrant Lotus that she tried to pull her feet back. But Granny screamed madly, 'Don't move!'

"Fragrant Lotus had never heard such a tone frm Granny, and she froze. She just watched as Granny pressed her feet into the roosters. Granny's own feet stood hard on the two roosters to hold them down. Fragrant Lotus shuddered; the roosters heaved; and granny's arms and legs shook from exhaustion. They all trembled as one. As she pressed even harder, Granny's hips rose from the stool, and Fragrant Lotus feared Granny could not hold this position and might fall forward and crash into her. In a short while Granny relaxed her grip and pulled out Fragrant Lotus' feet. The roosters' blood flowed freely and her feet were covered with it, scarlet and sticky. Granny flung the two roosters aside; one stiffed and died immediately, the other flapped weakly toward its death. She pulled over a wooden basin, washed and dried her granddaughter's feet, and placed them on her knees. The binding was to begin. Fragrant Lotus was so confused she wondered whether she should cry or beg or throw a fit, but all she did was watch Granny, who grabbed her feet--first the right and then the left. She left the big toe alone, and she pressed the other four toes downward and back, at a slight angle, toward the arch. With a muted crack, the bones in the toes broke and gave way. Fragrant Lotus cried out, mostly in surprise. Granny had already shaken loose a roll of bandage and tied the four toes securely down. Fragrant Lotus saw the new shape of her feet, and even before she felt the pain, she began to cry."

This is only the beginning. In the days and weeks to come, more happens to those little feet.

But that Granny! And Fragrant Lotus herself! And a whole parade of colorful characters--wits and dolts, clowns and bores. Such liars and scholars and humble servants. And what stories flew around and about those bound feet--but what should we believe? And whom? Feng Jicai makes us wonder.

Later, Fragrant Lotus amazes us with feats that no Olympic athlete could pull off, all on her cigarette-sized feet. Schooled by Aunt Pan, she'd studied Yuan-dynasty wood-block print tables like this one . . . describing the standard measurements for a 2.9 inch foot. But don't let Aunt Pan's numbers frighten you . . . this story is anything but tedious and dull.

I wish I had known David Wakefield better before his untimely death. What a masterpiece, this translation.

Daytime stars

The assistant dean set his tea on the table and sighed, “I think I’m getting old. I don’t understand why they’re so critical,” referring to a mindset in Chinese youth that, in his mind, could be compared to the counter-culture in the West a half century ago. THAT comparison is worth unpacking, but his comment resonated with me for another reason, simply his feeling apart. He isn’t old, but he misses something. He no longer finds in the world around him something about a world he had known and loved.

In my case, it’s not that I don’t love the world I’m in—and that I don’t feel deeply connected to my beloveds at home. I feel new growth since the trauma of 2008. I no longer feel hopeless, on the outer edge of sanity. Even here in Beibei, far from home, there’s so much to savor and enjoy. I like it here. I’m happy. But. My existence is still radically altered—it’s somehow not the world I knew.

I don’t quite understand it. So it’s this I’ve come to wrestle with. So it’s not the world I knew? So what is here in this “other” world, one that was unknown to a younger me? What doors might I open here? What might I find here in this “other” place that the very sunniness of my previous existence blinded me to? What daytime stars didn’t I see—that maybe now I can?

Can I turn the not-ness of the moment—it’s not the pre-lapsarian world I once knew—into presence?

I think I can—with intention, with desire, with a little mind over matter. But I’m waiting for the feeling to catch up, the feeling of being fully human, fully alive, fully present.

www.space.com


With debts to Wendell Berry

Coloring the panda red

Haixia wanted to celebrate International Women's Day by walking down to the Jialing River. I didn't realize she planned to take a swim, but then Haixia has never been one to shy away from jumping in and making ripples. She's unafraid of chilly water.

One path was closed to us, so we walked along sewer pipes, past the riverside gardens nestled along a tiny tributary to get there.

Once there, we saw the rocks sprinkled with Beibei residents, most still wearing down coats, some doing laundry at the water's edge, bamboo baskets behind them. Haixia changed clothes under her cape, discreet but in full view. Her daughter tells me the capes are common--everyone has one, men and women.

Tough as she is, Haixia wasn't about to jump in without warming up. Who cares if the other revelers think it's strange? Her daughter "Ariel" looked on, while reminiscing aloud about a picture of a panda she ("Ariel") had colored in school. That picture had brought her to tears when her primary school teacher had reprimanded her for coloring the panda red. "Ariel" had had no black crayon, so her mother had encouraged her to pick another color--why not red? After all, there are red pandas. The teacher  had scolded "Ariel" for insulting China's national symbol and  also for failing to follow directions.

Haixia thought differently, fitting enough for a woman who could be the poster person for International Women's Day--which by the way is an official holiday in many communist countries. Doing her push ups on the rocks, she didn't look to me like the sixty-something newly retired professor that she is.

She stepped gingerly into the water and then suddenly swooped off and away, creating soft ripples.

Heading back the other way, we passed by the riverboats, reminding me a bit of home. I often think of the similarities: Just as the Missouri River flows into the Mississippi at St. Louis, the Jialing flows into the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) at Chongqing. My old college town Columbia is upriver on (almost)  the Missouri, just as my new college town Beibei is upriver on the Jialing.

Hospitality

"Hospitality" isn't the first word to pop into mind whenever I find myself tilting my head just enough to look past one of the unbroken stares regularly directed my way.  I might be balancing myself in the aisle of a crowded bus, I might be dodging the street sweepers on Tiansheng Road, I might be passing three arm-in-arm college students, whose six eyes all fix on me as their conversation goes unabated. I might even be perching on one of those ubiquitous foot-high, blue plastic stools in a crowded little restaurant.

I was in just such a place eating dumplings with "Angel" when an older woman stopped by our table.  She stood, transfixed, and stared at me for a good ten minutes, not moving on until the waiter came to take my money.

But those are strangers, and strangers who might not be particularly accustomed to seeing foreigners in western China. Bring on someone with a connection, even the slightest of connections, and I can tell you a different story.

Students, for example: the one who went an hour out of her way to help me mail my ballot, another who went to great trouble to help me find a wifi connection, my own students who regularly do the kindest things. One just brought me many pounds of smoked pork,  all home prepared; another whose mother (thinking we have things in common) just sent me some homemade red wine with an invitation to visit in the faraway northeast; and two others gave me long-stemmed roses for "Girl's Day" today because I'm a girl at heart.

University faculty and staff, for example: Xiao Kairong, among other teaching colleagues, and Peng ChuanZhong, among Peace Corps support staff--I could go on. Short little Mrs. Niu, who carried a ladder all the way down the hill to my apartment and up four flights of stairs to read my electric meter. (Now that I've caught her doing that, I can spare her the trouble in the future--but the thing is she was trying to spare me trouble.) Before Spring Festival, she invited another foreign teacher and me to join her family for a delicious homecoming dinner for her daughter. Dinner is the wrong word--it was a feast. Any Chinese hostess plies the guest with more delicious food than even a Patton could possibly eat, but this was very special. And it was one of many feasts with this family, and this family is just one of many Chinese families that have been equally hospitable.

For example, last night, the dean treated all of the foreign teachers to another banquet at a most regal, upscale restaurant--one of many banquets he has hosted on our behalf. He made the rounds, toasting each and every single one of us. I didn't count the dishes, but each dish was a masterpiece, and there were scores of them. Scores. Professor Mu sitting next to me thought I'd like to try one dish that had whizzed by too fast on the lazy Susan, and as is not uncommon, she served me with her chopsticks.  When all was done, she linked arms in the Chinese way and we left the chandeliered room.

For whatever reason, the university decided to upgrade my furniture. It's certainly not what a Peace Corps volunteer would expect. New windows, doors, drapes, wardrobe, bed, desk, end tables, stool, couch, coffee table, more. ( The pieces are immense. And, Mary, there's a new mattress.)

I wonder how the typical Chinese visitor feels when living abroad.