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.

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