Comfort for all

Perhaps the point of all of this is redefining comfort. Not just for myself, but for my students, my colleagues, the vendors I buy fruit from, the ladies who sweep the stairs, the guards who patrol the halls, even the people I casually pass on the street. Of course I’m going to feel uncomfortable, being the foreigner. I’m going to flounder through language mistakes and get off at the wrong bus stop and drop chopsticks and sweat buckets and go through innumerable awkward moments - hours, even. That’s a given. But pushing the comfort levels of other people, the people who live here, simply by being present? I never expected that.
The window of my apartment overlooks the main hub of campus, right by the cafeteria and the track, where just about every single student passes every day. I can watch the campus thrive from here. I see students walking to class, chatting with one another, teasing each other, bouncing a basket ball back and forth, jogging to class late. I see them from here and they look perfectly content, going about their business. Then I leave my apartment and walk down the stairs and join them, adding myself to the mix, and the whole scene goes to pot. The basketballs stop bouncing, the teasing ceases, the jogger’s step falters.
A little wake of discomfort follows me everywhere I go. Last week, at my favorite noodle shop, I heard the waiters arguing over who was going to help me. They weren’t arguing because they both wanted to take my order, they were arguing because neither of them wanted to. This was the first time it hit me. I make people uncomfortable for no other reason than being foreign. I’ve since been back several times and, though they’re very friendly, there’s always a hint of tension in the air, not just from the staff, but from the other customers, too. Like I might burst into flames at any moment, right in front of their eyes, so they better keep glancing over as not to miss anything.
I wonder if Chinese people who go to America feel disappointed when they arrive and no one stares at them, nor shouts “ni hao!” at them every few minutes. Diversity is one of America’s greatest strengths and something I’ve been taking for granted my entire life. At what point does a person, or a group of people, become comfortable with being around someone who does not have the same traits as them, to the degree that skin tone becomes invisible, hair color melts away, and blue eyes, green eyes, brown eyes all have the same exact function? I’m looking forward to the day when the scene outside my window will not be spoiled by my presence, and the waiters won’t think twice about jotting down my jaozi order, and everyone can just be themselves.

I'm lovin' it

It started about a year ago, with one innocent visit. I was with a friend in Bucharest and she decided to get a coffee at Starbucks. I was just going to go in and look around and chuckle at how the chain really does not vary in appearance no matter where in the world you are, but then I decided oh what the heck, and bought a coffee for myself. 19 lei worth. It brought back a lot of memories. Good memories. Coffee shop memories. Non-Starbucks coffee shop memories.
We sat at a table with comfy chairs and chatted, warming our hands around our mugs, just like I used to do at my old favorite coffee shops. Up until then, I hadn’t had a Starbucks coffee in a very long time. Years. Up until then, I had done a very decent job of cutting a company I had somewhere along the line deemed unworthy out of my life. That’s where it started. Or, you could say, that’s where it ended. At a Starbucks in Bucharest, my long-term avoidance of corporate America and fast food nation ended.
What followed was a sad downward spiral into some of the horrible places I had taken measures to avoid for years. Dinner at Pizza Hut, followed by a McFlurry at Mickey D’s. Wake up to a scone and a latte at Starbucks. Repeat. I soothed my feelings of treachery by telling myself it was only while I was in Bucharest, which was once every other month or so. But a nagging guilt tainted each sip and every bite. I remember the first few times I went abroad and snorted at the other American tourists eating in places like TGI Friday’s or Ruby Tuesdays or McDonald’s. Why on earth travel if those are the places you are going to eat? Silly American tourists.
Back then it never would have occurred to me that maybe those Americans weren’t tourists. Maybe they lived there and maybe that was their occasional treat to themselves. A treat that made them feel guilty and weak and ashamed, but gave them a few glimpses of a comfortable place far, far away. It might not be the restaurant or the coffee shop they would have picked if they were in America, but because it’s the only option for something some-what familiar, they went with it. To those American diners who I snorted at years ago, I am sorry.
And now that not one, but two Starbucks shops are only an hour-long bus ride away, tempting me every day I have off, I have to put myself in check and rationalize the glee I’ve started feeling every time I know that a Starbucks is near. There is a part of me that still, deeply and possibly irrationally, dislikes the chain and I will never go to a Starbucks in America. I will spend the extra 30 minutes and dollar to hunt down a local coffee shop. That’s because those local coffee shops exist in America, where here, Starbucks is the coffee monopoly and I have not found another option that provides both decent coffee and a comfortable place to drink it. The day I find Chongqing’s version of Bibo, I will be there in a heart beat, thankful for no longer having to feel the guilt I now associate with drinking coffee, a habit I have found impossible to shake.
All of this has been coming about in my head because there’s a WalMart in Chongqing. It’s only 15 minutes away from my campus. I’m going there tomorrow and, this is the worst thing I’ve ever said in my life, I’m excited about it. I’m excited to go to WalMart. Good gracious, what has happened to me? It’s such a strange feeling, being excited about going to a place that I loathe. Starbucks is one thing, but WalMart? I am a horrible let-down of a human being. A traitor no longer eligible for the title semi-cool. Good night.

Messy

What does it take before a person’s life is considered a mess? Is it generally addiction related, relationship related, incompetence related, or what? If a person knew only the following things about me and nothing else, what would the conclusions be? I’m just shy of 30 and rarely live in one place for more than a year. I haven’t held down a full time job for more than a year and a half and have had a smattering of random part time jobs. I have two bachelor’s degrees, neither of which I’m actually putting to use, both of which took me seven years to earn. Most of my closest friends I see less than once a year and I often forget to wish them a happy birthday or a merry Christmas. My mom has been taking care of my dog for the past 10 years and I kind of question my ability to properly care for a pet anymore. My little brothers are more used to talking to me on a computer than in person. I have zero savings, no house, no car, no career, no marriage, no kids, no nothing. All I’ve accumulated are experiences and gigabytes upon gigabytes of pictures. To some, I’m sure, my life is a mess. I’ve never thought about it until today, for some reason. I’ve never thought about what it takes to consider a person’s life a mess. I don’t know quite yet if I should label this life of mine a mess, or just a convoluted maze. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been told I’m young and have all the time in the world to figure things out, but some day not too far away, people are going to stop saying that, and all the time in the world will start to run short.
I start teaching full time tomorrow and I damn well better like it.

New Campus

My university changes every day. When I came for the site visit about two months ago, it was unlivable. Only the skeletons of buildings existed and not an ounce of green could be found on campus, which is strange for here. Now the teaching buildings are complete enough to hold classes all week long, the student dorms are abuzz with life (6 lives per tiny dorm room, to be exact), the soccer field is thickly coated in Astroturf and little oases exist in the most unexpected places. Despite the construction noise that has become the soundtrack to my life, the plethora of bottomless pits waiting to be stumbled into and the red dust hanging in the air and coating EVERYTHING, watching a campus spring up around me is pretty cool. CQIPC used to be in the heart of Chongqing, right across the street from the Olympic stadium and minutes by foot from a monorail stop. Downtown, in all of its skyscraping glory, was only a 15 minute monorail ride away. Now, at the new campus, it takes two hours by two different buses to wind up in downtown. We are literally at the end of the city. Beyond this campus, there is nothing but gently rolling green hills. And I think I’m growing to love it. Across the street from the university is what I would call a village, even though it’s still considered Chongqing. There, chickens run through the streets, which are too narrow with too many stairs to allow for cars, and people sit in front of their houses playing mahjong and chatting. Little kids run around pant-less and gardens are interspersed between the run down houses. I walk through there and I feel much more foreign, but some how much more right, than I ever do when I walk through downtown. I thought I would hate being in a huge city and far away from all the attractions, but who needs another towering skyscraper with a starbucks? My attractions come in the form of clucking chickens and counting stairs. I’m a little worried about my village, though. Future plans for this university include taking over the area across the street and turning it into a shopping district for the campus. I hope those plans include leaving the chickens, pant-less kids and mahjong players alone. We shall see.

Other than the possible demise of the village, I can’t wait to see how my campus develops over the next two years. It’s nice to be a part of it from the beginning, when a lot of things are just as new to everyone else as they are to me. We briefly visited the old campus during the site visit and it is puny in comparison to this place. Many universities are doing exactly what CQIPC is doing – selling their old downtown campus and building a new suburb one – because they need to modernize and to accommodate for an increasing student population. It’s hard right now because all of the teachers live near the old campus, so they’re doing that two hour commute every day, twice. But the monorail will eventually come all the way here and our campus will have its very own stop. I have the feeling the stop will open on the day I leave, but it’s still exciting to think that some day getting to downtown from here will be an hour long coast on the swanky monorail. Until then, I’ll savor walks through my chicken-lined village and venture into the overwhelming depths of downtown sparingly.

Training

Before anyone can begin their higher education as a college student, they must complete military training. The universities provide the training to all incoming freshmen and it's during the first 2 or 3 weeks of the semester. Currently, my school is on day 3, even though it's Saturday. My apartment overlooks the field where all of the training occurs and I've spent many minutes over the past few days observing the drills. Mostly what I've seen has been a lot of organized standing and sitting and walking around with lots of shouting. At all hours of the day, and many hours of the night, there's shouting. It sounds to me like they're yelling "Wheel! Of! Fortune!!" but I'm pretty sure they're just counting to four (yi! er! san! si!) as they do some sort of exercise. I don't know how they do it. It's been over 40/100 degrees the past 3 days and they're dressed in full camouflage suits standing or sitting still in the open sun. Granted, I am a pansy when it comes to heat, but it's got to be awfully sweaty out on that field. For a couple of days last week, my site mate and I contemplated asking our supervisor if we could join in the training, especially since there's very little for us to do right now because nearly all of our students are freshmen. Luckily we didn't pursue the idea. I've been hunkering down in my gloriously air conditioned apartment and getting some lesson planning and studying done. On Wednesday, the high is supposed to dip to 27/80 and I am counting down the days. Oh, to walk outside and be comfortable.

When I do toughen up and get outside, I experience a roller coaster of thoughts, especially when I'm alone. I'm trying to figure out the best way to handle being stared at and/or called to. Even though I'm in a huge city with lots of foreigners, we are still few and far between and I'm on the outskirts of the city. As I walk, I feel my hackles go up as a hand full of faces turn. I see a girl glance at me and whisper something to her friend, who immediately turns to look at me. She turns back to her friend and they both start giggling and whispering to each other. Maybe they were talking about the building behind me, who knows. I shrug and walk on, feeling confused and slyly checking my fly. A group of boys walks by. They stare, but smile, so I smile back. Okay. That was okay. A few minutes later, I walk by a building that's under construction. From within, I hear someone shout "Hello! Hello!!", but I see no one. I continue walking as another Hello rings out, followed by some string of Chinese that I can't understand. Whatever. I can't even see the dude and he's yelling at me. I give no response and ignore the subsequent hellos. My walk continues. I pass several people who seem to be purposefully not looking at me, though the side-ways glances are still noticeable. Thanks, I guess. Next a girl walks briskly past me. As she does, she smiles brightly and says “hello!” I smile back, a little surprised, and say hi. Well, she was nice. I hope I seemed nice. Huh. What next. I approach an old man who's carrying two heavy baskets that are slung over his shoulders with a thick bamboo rod. As we pass each other, I look to see if he's staring at me. He is. I match his stare. Despite his obviously heavy load, we nearly turn around backwards to stare at each other as we walk. Finally, he turns back and I breathe a sigh of relief. I know. I look weird. I dress weird. I sweat a lot. I know us foreigners are very very foreign here. I know. I get it. You're curious. You're surprised. You're happy I'm here or you’re not. You want me to feel welcome here or you want to make fun of me. Okay. So why can't I just deal and not let it get to me? Do I try to respond to all the hellos? Do I stare back? Do I smile at the giggles? Do I walk with head down and eyes glued to the side walk? I can’t figure it out. Each time I go for a walk, I feel humiliated, annoyed, rude, awkward, surprised and happy at some point. Every single time. It’s not just a walk anymore. It’s a parade. I’ll be here on this campus for two years and I’m going to make it a goal that I will one day go for a walk and feel nothing but happy. All we need is to get used to each other.

An Xue

I was almost a Stephanie. The top two picks on a pretty long list of possible baby names came down to Erin and Stephanie. We still have the list somewhere. It was written before my parents knew I was a girl and on the backside a few boy's names are scrawled. If I had been born with a Y chromosome, I'd be Anthony right now. I wonder what he'd be like. I'm not sure how Erin beat out Stephanie, or Anthony for that matter, maybe it was a coin toss, or my quarter of Irish blood taking charge, but I'm glad she won. I don't know how much really depends on name, but I'm pretty sure the Stephanie me would be an entirely different me.
I now have another name. When I arrived in China, my Chinese name was ready and waiting for me. An Xue, pronounced more like On Shoe-ay, was given to me by our training site language teachers, who all sat down with our pictures and our English names and decided what would suit each of the 23 of us best. Like in Romania, names are said family name first, then given name. An is my family name, meaning peaceful, and Xue is my given name and means snow, so my Chinese name is Peaceful Snow. All pale jokes aside, I like my name. During training, I was called by this name by all of the teachers, my host family and many of my fellow trainees. It has become part of who I am and I can feel An Xue taking on a life of her own. I hope I can cultivate her life into something unique and meaningful. I've spent 29 years turning into Erin, good and bad, and I hope I'm able to do something halfway respectable for An Xue over the next two years. It's a little intimidating, a clean slate. A name waiting for its history to start.
So far, An Xue has eaten hundreds of kilos of rice and has developed strong cravings for the grain when it's not eaten at least once a day. She has also acquired a taste for spicy food, which was previously seen as an impossible feat. She can use chopsticks to eat peanuts, noodles, eggs, pork, oatmeal, cow tongue, cow tail, banana, apple, pig lips AND spinach. She can also spit fish bones directly on the table without thinking too much about it. She can haggle for prices, even though her language skills are laughable (literally), and she will eventually figure out how to get from A to B, be it by bus, by foot, by train, by monorail or by taxi. She's got squatting down to an art and rarely misses. She can strike up elementary conversations with strangers, though those conversations don't go very far. Yet. Basically, she can survive. Now it's time to get the real story started. Teaching starts next week, just one class for now, but hopefully it will get the life of An Xue rolling a bit faster.

Peace Corps, Part Two

In December, a friend of mine told me about her plans to transfer from Romania to the Peace Corps Nicaragua program, an idea which had never occurred to me. I had considered extending my service in Romania or transferring to the TEFL program there, but my enthusiasm for staying in Romania, as much as I love it, eventually waned and was replaced with the desire to experience something new. I talked with our country director about transfer options and China's TEFL program quickly rooted itself into my brain and I applied to transfer. And was accepted. So here I sit after being home for one month and getting reacquainted with all the glorious things that I love about Nevada, those dusty hills and that dry sage breeze and all my family and friends, knowing that in one more month, I'll be back on a plane heading even farther away. To Chengdu for another round of PST and then to who knows where for two years of teaching English to university students. Why am I doing this all over again? I certainly went through some rough and low times, but now that Romania is in the past, those bad times pale in comparison to the good times. The mean people have been nearly forgotten and the kind ones bring my memories to life and make me smile. The government's corruption can no longer compete with the people's compassion. And I don't want this challenge to be over yet. I'm not ready to be an RPCV and to find that elusive next thing to do and to decide what my long term future entails. I still don't know what I want to do, so I'll continue with this temporary thing that is changing who I am and making me love life and breaking my heart all at the same time, over and over again. Put me back on the roller coaster, I'm not done yet.