Back to China

"So, how was your trip to China? Tell me about it." A simple enough request. Still, I don't quite know what to say.

I experienced something that was so different culturally and sensually (sights, sounds, smells, tastes) that it was a little overwhelming. Everything was new and exciting and exotic at first. (Sorry I couldn't post more stories and observations then; I was limited by time and spotty access to a computer). It was all Fantastic and Fabulous! What an Adventure life in China is!

But over the course of the three weeks, my senses began to reattach themselves to my brain. I started to get tiny glimpses into the reality of life in rural China. I began to recognize that I had been experiencing things on a Disney level (not good for an NPR gal).

For example, when I first saw how they spread out the grain on the streets of Xi Zhou, I thought it was quaint and I took lots of pictures. The grain dries there as people walk over it and vehicles drive over it, which aids in the threshing process. Ingenious.

But as I started to travel certain roads daily, I saw the same people there, beating the piles with wooden implements, over and over and over (and over and over...). It gets less quaint each time, as you begin to see the effort involved in cultivating a small amount of food.


And it was later still that I noticed how weather-beaten and how old some of the people were that were doing the work. They've been on the hot street, sweeping and whacking and sifting grain for untold years.

No wonder they looked at us quizzically as we snapped endless photos of them doing these things. It would be like someone shooting pictures of me cleaning my brushes for the thousandth time and thinking, "How quaint."

So, when people ask me to tell them about China, I'm a bit reluctant because I know how little I know. I want to tell the truth, but I only know a little bit of it. I will continue to share what I experienced if you promise not to extrapolate too far and think that "that's how things are" in China. China is HUGE and varied and fascinating.

Look to the Hamster

There's a reason the old saying is "Go west, young man!" Going west results in exciting discoveries, the taming of unexplored territories, challenges that are met and fears that are conquered. It is the stuff of which legends are made.

Going east results in discovering that you can't remember your own name, the turning of familiar places into unrecognized territories, challenges that are met with a whimper and fears that you will never again think clearly.

Going east results in jet lag.

I had such an easy time adjusting to China that I naively thought I would have little trouble readjusting to Chicago time. Wrong-o! It seems that traveling east disrupts our circadian rhythm in ways that traveling west does not. I was barely functional for three days, and entirely uninteresting for several more.

Had I but submitted myself to Scripture, I would have had an easier time of it. There is a verse which says,"Look to the hamster, thou sluggard" (not a word-for-word translation). Apparently, studies have shown that hamsters who use Viagra have a 50% faster recovery rate from jet lag-like symptoms than those who don't.* (A follow-up study is being planned to determine any corollary incidence of hamster participation in The Mile High Club).

It is clear from the content of this posting that I am still a bit loopy. I probably should have taken Viagra and I definitely should have refrained from posting for a couple more days...

*this is considered an "off-label use" by the drug's manufacturers. I'm sure it's the only one...

Fuzzy

I'm home. I'm tired. I'm fuzzy.

Yesterday, I woke up in China at 4:30 AM. Twenty-seven hours later (26 of which I was awake for; I didn't want to miss any of the discomfort of airplane seats...) I was in my own bed. Bliss! I fell asleep at 7:30 PM, fully expecting to sleep through until morning. Not so. I awoke at 1:00 AM. Wide awake. Get-up-and-do-stuff awake.

I'm hungry, but I don't know whether to eat breakfast or dinner. (If I were still in China it wouldn't matter, I'd just eat some rice and eggs).

Even though I am home, I will continue to post to the blog for a while longer, so keep checking it. I'll add photos and tell you a few more stories.

Not today, though. Today I am boring.

Line up for Autographs

Two great things happened yesterday.

Event #1: I became a TV star. (As a result, I'm not actually posting this myself; I have people for that now...)

What? You hadn't heard? I'm everywhere, absolutely everywhere! Okay, maybe not everywhere. In fact, it's likely that I am on the cutting room floor (or trapped inside that little trash can icon on a computer screen in Beijing. Please recycle me).

A crew from China TV came to Xi Zhou and filmed us painting in the courtyard of the Linden Centre. Do you know how hard it is to "act natural?"

I'm staring intently at my painting. Am I frowning too much while I'm staring? I'm squinting into the distance. Do I look serious, or like I'm still adjusting to my progressive lenses? I just smiled at something Ned said. Oh no, do the photographers think I'm trying to pose for the camera? I want to look at Marci's painting, but the photographer might be over there and I don't want to appear to be camera-hungry. Just. Act. Natural.

Event#2 - The Linden Centre acquired a puppy, the best puppy ever. Eight weeks of cuteness in one little body. His feet have hardly touched the ground since he arrived. We haven't come to blows over him... but we will.

These two events may seem to be unrelated, but not to the media savvy. I think there is an extremely good chance I will appear on national Chinese television. The crew shot a good bit of footage of me holding the puppy, me playing with the puppy, me carrying the puppy around to look at everyone's paintings. If they don't crop in too closely on the puppy... I'm a STAR!

Highlight

I spoke too soon when I wrote that meeting the old gentleman calligrapher would be the highlight of my trip. Yesterday, something even more wonderful happened:

I was able to buy M&Ms.

To market, to market

As an American, it is easy to forget that food actually comes from somewhere! (Who knew?)

One of the best parts about eating here is that the food is fresh. We saw women picking beans in the fields outside our compound, and the next night we had them for dinner.

All that tea we drink? It is mostly cultivated by hand on the steep mountainsides. We've traveled over 1000 miles and have yet to see any sort of farm machinery. Almost all of the work is done with a hoe. Occasionally we've seen a water buffalo being used, but even that has been rare. Both men and women work the fields (in fact, the women are considered to be the harder workers; they do the same physical labor, as well as care for the family. It's not unusual to see men sitting around smoking, playing cards, while the women around them are working).

Rice? Again, cultivated by hand on a small scale.

Everything must be transported from the fields to the market. Much of this is done on people's backs. They carry unbelievably large loads. (Even in the city, the porters at the train station carried 4 suitcases at a time, hanging from poles across their shoulders).

Warning: If you are a vegetarian, do not read the rest of this post. Use the time to call your mother.

No one has refrigerators in these small towns and villages, so grocery shopping is a daily affair. Every morning the sellers stake out their territory and spread out their goods. The market is divided into sections. My favorite is where they sell live chickens.

There are several ways that the live chickens are transported. The simplest is the clump of chickens held upside down by their feet. I love it when they start flapping. (I'm secretly hoping they'll achieve lift-off and I'll see a vendor floating several feet above the ground). You can also see chickens-on-wheels. Vendors lash huge wire cages to the backs of their bicycles and take the birds for a spin. My favorite of all, though, is the sack of chickens. The vendor puts all his chickens in the sack and then cuts individual holes for their heads to stick out.


The reality, though, is that this is the last trip for these birds. People look over the chickens, pick the ones that look tasty (how do you tell?) and they are killed. (Vegetarians, I warned you...) Ducks and fish also come to market alive. There is a whole row of butchers who primarily sell pork. While the pigs are slaughtered at home, they are brought to market mostly whole.

Why am I writing about this? I have no idea. Maybe because it is so different from home, and it is an integral part of daily life here. You are close to the source of your food. You see the person who planted it or picked it or raised it. There's no plastic packaging. It's not pre-plucked or pre-washed. You see it in its living state. It seems like a more honest relationship with the food. (So honest, that several of our group are ready to become vegetarians. Not me - I love meat).

I hope that I will remember all of the labor that goes into the food that I so conveniently buy in the grocery store. I hope that I will appreciate having a refrigerator. I hope that I will win the lottery so I can hire a Chinese cook.

Same/Different

We were painting the outdoor market in a neighboring village when school let out for lunch. Several hundred elementary school children passed through the square. The girls walked in small clusters, sometimes holding hands, lots of giggling. The boys, well... they were boys! Running around, making loud noises, jumping off of things. One boy jabbed his finger into a pile of white paint and ran off. (His mother is not going to be pleased when she tries to get oil paint out of his clothes). Could have been outside of any school in America.

At the beginning of the trip we felt a little funny because we were staring at people and taking their pictures while they were going about their everyday lives. Not any more. I think what turned the tide was the day I was taking a picture of a family and suddenly another family member came outside with HIS camera and started taking pictures of me. We have learned that we are exotic! (Wow, I may never come home. If I do, will you please ease my transition by staring at me and snapping photos? Thanks).

One of the other painters experienced this in a big way. She was painting in a small village. A man came up to her easel to watch. He stayed for almost 4 hours. Even more amazing was the fact that he never once looked at the painting she was working on; he spent the entire time staring at her.

Gotta go paint now...