Pearls, Pots, and Peace Corps

 

Some volunteers from more remote places in China had to travel 30-plus hours by train to get here to Peace Corps headquarters at Sichuan University and are still recalling the ten awful things they’d rather do than sit another minute on a crowded hard seater. My train ride, only two hours long, was a relative delight—cushy seats with lots of leg room. At 160 kpm, we zoomed in and out of tunnels through one terraced mountain after another.

Here in gray Chengdu the weather is mild, almost springlike, and the 125-some volunteers gathered for our mid-winter training scurry back and forth between two different hotels at each end of campus. Bicycle taxis line the roads, waiting for service, but most of us hoof it. Sessions for me and the other second-year volunteers focus on language, although we have the option of attending other sessions targeted for the first-year volunteers.

One of the sessions I chose to attend was facilitated by Kandice, one of our all-female medical team. It was Kandice, not the topic, that drew me, for I’ve always enjoyed her down to earth humor and her perspective on life in China. Her subject, though, was anything but humorous. She opened with a slide of a pearl, something like the screen shot below, which was her metaphor for the growth that sometimes comes from adversity—but not always. China, where competition is fierce and pressure to excel is intense, is no stranger to suicide, but suicide usually goes unreported. Here at Sichuan University, there were 14 suicides in one year just a while back and the university took the bold step of reporting it, risking loss of face, because it wanted to do something about it. But what? One of the foundations for counseling—patient confidentiality—doesn’t really exist, and there is still a huge stigma attached to getting any kind of psychological service. People endure their suffering quietly; some would rather die than admit there is a problem or consider that there might be a solution. What should volunteers do—when confronted with students showing suicidal symptoms? Kandice made clear in so many words that 25 year olds newly arrived from the US shouldn’t pretend they understand China and have all the answers, but she did provide lots of evidence for the benefits of letting people talk, maybe over and over. She also suggested that it’s our responsibility, however old we are, to report suicidal behavior, even if we know that the consequence will usually be sending the student home. That’s what most universities do. Draconian as that seems, it may be the best bet if no real services are available. The Chinese members of the medical staff were present, too, and it was widely understood that these issues are not unique to China—and that the situation in the US wasn’t so different all that long ago.

I have to say—clichéd as the pearl metaphor might be, it was apt in Kandice’s talk (which was anything but clichéd ) and subsequently in my own life. Nick’s facing some adversity that I hope might be turned into a pearl of sorts—and nineteen of us volunteers who had plans to go to Thailand after winter training (beautiful and relatively cheap) received the last minute axe. None of us were surprised, given the simmering political situation in Thailand, but many of us had been assured by various Thais as well as travel advisories that things would be okay if we avoided downtown Bangkok. However, the state of emergency declaration and the subsequent ban left nineteen of us scuttling to make new plans.  Bummed though I initially was, I find that my Plan B may indeed turn out to be better than Plan A. Very possibly a pearl.

The sun was somewhere behind the gray haze hanging over the city, and we continued on about our week. We’ve been fortunate to be put up at two classy  hotels, although yesterday we discovered we were without water. Not only the hotels, but this whole part of the city. Restrooms—private and public—got increasingly smelly. Not just hot showers but any kind of shower was out of question. On the main drag between the two hotels was a water faucet, and people lined up with tea pots, cooking pots, plastic buckets, and the like, patiently waiting for a little bit of water to take home. Is this possibly an omen of things to come—not only in China, but in California, Colorado, and you name it? Whether it is or not, thirty some hours later the water came back on.

With and without water, I found myself trudging up and down three flights of stairs across the way for my five or six hours of language lessons each day. Heading down a dark hall, I’d hear the sound of clicking tiles coming from each of a half dozen or so little rooms with mahjong tables. On the other side of a large sitting room with beautiful wooden screens and windows, was another dark hall where our classes were held. It was easy to forget our desks were really mahjong tables until the teacher accidentally put a pen in the wrong place and the volcano-like center erupted with a few tiles and around the four sides tiles shot up in neatly stacked rows. It was amazing, almost as amazing as the language lesson about the names of various Chinese dishes. I don’t know if anyone can outdo the Chinese with imaginative names for dishes, no matter what the ingredients are. . . Buddha Jumps Over the Wall; Chicken without a Sex Life; Crossing the Bridge Noodles; Ants Climbing a Tree. And more.