the proudest moment

The theme for this week’s lessons was, fittingly, New Years. In one of the classes, we did a little mini summary of the highlights from 2010, like what is your best memory of 2010, what was the most difficult thing you did, what was your proudest moment, etc. All of the answers involved going to college, studying for the exams and taking the tests to get here. There’s only one girl in my mechanics class of 23. She rarely speaks, but her English is surprisingly good. I asked her what her proudest moment of 2010 was and she replied, in perfect English, “My proudest moment was leaving the countryside and coming here to study.”
I have to remind myself of that sometimes. There are three tiers of universities here. The first is the top, where the students with the highest test scores coming out of high school go, then there’s the middle tier where students with average test scores go, then there’s the third tier, where students who did not do so well on their exams go. My school is a third tier school, more like a vocational school than a university. My students are studying automobile design, mechanics, hotel management and logistics. They tell me readily every day that their English is very poor. And, for the most part, it is.
It’s a challenge every class to be understood. It’s a game of figuring out how many different ways I can say “describe a trip you would like to take” and knowing whether they really understand what to do or if they’re just saying ok to get me off their backs. It’s a puzzle of deciphering what English words they could possibly be struggling so intently to say. It’s a miniature show of gesticulations and crude drawings as I try to describe Santa and his eight tiny reindeer. Every class takes all of my effort to understand and to be understood. Every class comes with many silences of 30 or more seconds while Nick or Nancy or Bruce or Jim wrench the sentence “I want to travel to Beijing by plane first, then to Sydney by boat” from the recesses of their brain. And many of them have been studying English for 6 years.
At first I wondered why a school like this needed native English speakers to teach, especially because most of the students are going into professions that don’t need English to get by. Most volunteers are working with students who are majoring in English and who will one day be English teachers and who really really want to practice their English. That makes sense to me - giving future English teachers new teaching methods and improving their English skills at the same time. Benefits all around.
But here? Where the students often consider English a thorn in their side, where the students would rather hear me speak Chinese than practice their English, where even the English teachers seem uninterested in the language. Why here? In one short, sweet answer – Because the government says so. My school is directly tied to the government and because they want Peace Corps volunteers here and it’s a delicate relationship that needs to be maintained, they get them. That’s in a nutshell formed from my shoddy understanding of things.
This became a grudge in my mind and for a while it was difficult to not feel angry about being placed here, and slightly shafted. I hear about other volunteers holding debates with their students and teaching them about art and discussing politics (delicately) with them, getting invited to lunch every day by different students, not getting to practice Chinese because everyone wants to speak English, and I question what good I’m doing way out here, on the edge of town, with my hundred or so students who tell me every day that their English is very poor. And, for the most part, it is.
Then I find out that some of my students are coming from the country side, where education might not be top priority. Where a student feels proud to leave. A place that produces students with lower test scores, but students who are nonetheless intelligent. Students who can write sweet notes on Christmas. Take, for example, the following, which accompanied an apple:
“Dear Arien, Apple stands for peace, safe and well in China. Though you can’t celebrate with your family, you can celebrate this holiday with us. May your holidays be bright. Happy New Year, Merry Christmas  Yours, A.”
It’s not much, but I’ll take it. And I’ll take the 40 or so other equally kind-hearted notes I got, and the endless badminton matches and the numerous performances that are suddenly popping up and the little band of student friends I’ve acquired over the past month. We might not be able to say a whole lot to each other yet, but we can definitely play a mean round of badminton.
As 2010 ends and 2011 begins, I will keep it in mind every time I want to question why I’m at this school that coming here was, for some of my students, their proudest moment. And I think the best way to look at it is to be proud of being a part of somebody else’s proudest moment.

Happy New Year.

A Little Dash of Pride

It’s official. My students have won me over. At least one class of them. A couple of students approached me last week about attending a show they were putting on and I, possibly a bit too enthusiastically, said I would be there in a heart beat. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Thank you for inviting me. I’ve been dying to be invited to something, and here you are finally inviting me! Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!
So the event happened tonight, but I got a sneak peak yesterday, when, before class, I asked them what they were going to do during the show. Before I knew it, the entire class was singing a Chinese song. They got really into it…clapping the beat and swaying and all. A couple even stood up. And they’re all men, except for one. I have a tough time imagining a whole class of American eighteen and nineteen year old mechanic students serenading their teacher before class, so I’ll count myself fortunate.
They were the last group to perform tonight, of about 10 other freshmen performances. I must say, though all the acts were interesting and funny (as little as I could understand), the best was certainly saved for last. Who knew that my little class of mechanics is filled with natural talent? I’m all jazzed up now to start a drama club again and work with the students on more creative stuff. After the show they all clamored around my sitemate and I to get our feedback and all I could do was beam.

On a side note, after the show, we went to the little supermarket here on campus. I saw one of my best students, and being all jazzed up as I was, I went over and lightly punched him on the shoulder and said hi. Of course, when he turned around, I realized it wasn’t my student at all. It was someone I had never seen before. He just stared, wide-eyed. That’s what we giant, pale Americans do. Go around punching random people on the shoulder. Yup.

An Ode to Luggage

In every volunteer’s home, there is a constant reminder of the day that will eventually arrive. Sometimes it’s incorporated into the living room as furniture, covered with a pretty piece of fabric and passed off as an oddly balanced end table, or shoved into the bottom of the closet and used as a shoe rack, or tucked carefully into a corner, uncovered, but as hidden as possible, such as my own. It carried our lives here, balanced on our backs or tugged along behind us, and it will eventually carry our lives away. It’s the only thing we’re guaranteed to take back with us, in one form or another.
And in my opinion, it’s rather underappreciated. In many cases, even abused. On my first trip abroad, my big red roller bag blindly followed me, its brand new little wheels getting all scraped up and bruised, throughout the streets of London. I was careful at first. I avoided puddles and gently lowered it down any steps, and never tugged at its handle too gruffly. From my window seat before take-off, I looked on in horror as the airport baggage handlers yanked bag after bag from the truck and threw them menacingly through the air and onto the plane’s conveyor belt, where they slammed and crashed into one another, looking broken and sad. As I saw my big red roller bag appear, I turned away and fidgeted with the seat-back tray in front of me, telling myself it was just a suitcase. It couldn’t feel the pain the baggage handlers ruthlessly doled out.
At London Heathrow, my heart caught in my throat in anticipation each time a piece of luggage popped out of the airport bowels and slid onto the baggage claim belt, where onlookers either admired or questioned its owner’s sense of travel style. Where was my bag? A black, oddly shaped trash bag, tied at the top with red rope, slid by, causing several murmurs and raising a few eyebrows, until a man with a tiny boy by his side grabbed the bag, untied it, and unleashed, to the child’s delight, a stroller. The crowd returned its attention to the carousel. Bag after bag plopped onto the conveyer belt, which ran endless laps around and around, showing off its goods.
Soon the crowd had plucked out most of the items, leaving just a few tattered and crumpled unclaimed duffels, and it was clear that baggage claiming for my flight was coming to a close. By this time, my palms were itching and my throat had gone dry at the prospect of spending two weeks in a foreign land with nothing other than my puny, pointless little carryon backpack. Just as the last of the passengers picked up their things to leave, a thud came from within the carousel, causing heads to turn, and seconds later my big red roller bag raised itself up and out of the airport bowels, then it turned casually onto its side and slid gracefully down to the belt. For an almost imperceptible second, the remaining crowd hesitated, drawn by the appearance of such a fine looking bag so late in the claiming game. They looked on in what I believe was envy as I proudly, yet carefully, claimed my big red roller bag.
Such was the beginning of my love for the big red roller bag. A love which has bloomed over the years to produce adventures and wanderings, stories and photographs, experiences and friendships. And today, ten years after that first trip, I find myself worried about the big red roller bag. It has been stuffed well beyond capacity, then thrown ruthlessly to the ground (not by my own hands, of course), or hurriedly dragged down dozens of steps, or yanked up stairs, or sat upon, or left to topple over onto itself (all of which I feel horribly about), and all of that abuse is starting to show. There’s a hole in the seam on the side, the color is no longer bright, the wheels wobble feebly under even the most modest of weight, an audible groan can be heard each time I try to zip it up.
Yet there it sits, patiently in the corner, with neither complaint nor hostility, a friendly presence, waiting till I’m once again ready. Ready to stuff it to the gills, roll it from this room and into a plane and on to whatever is to come next. I know it’s silly to love an object, but I love you, big red roller bag, and I hope you can see me through till the end of what has turned out to be a rather long adventure. After this, you will take an extremely well earned vacation. I promise.

The Year Book

Thank you, kind goat herder, for answering my grammatically bizarre questions about your little herd of baby goats in a way that I could understand. Thank you for letting me stare at them with you for a while yesterday and for treating me like anyone else you had met that day. I think you’re my favorite stranger ever.

Thank you, little noodle shop boy and tea shop girl. You’re both very young, but you seem more mature than the majority of my students. Thank you for always giving me a smile, listening so patiently to my choppy order, and providing food and drink advice for free. You might not know it, but I buy stuff from you as an excuse to hang out with you, no matter how briefly.

Thank you, dear student T, for walking and talking with me, inviting me to different events, coming to my office hours, going out of your way to help me, and for not once making me feel like an exotic beast on display at the zoo.

You, too, little students O and L. You’re very different from the others, but in a good way. Thank you for showing me that this place can have variety and a longing for the outside world. Your quirkiness and your ideas are gorgeous treasures that I hope you never lose.

Finally, thank you teacher N, for understanding so much. I appreciate your open mind and your honest words. You’ve made life here much more bearable and I really can’t imagine being here without you.

I hope this list only grows.

Lost

There are countless ways to get lost in China, or at least in Chongqing. You can get lost outside, navigating through the winding mazes of narrow streets, beeping bikes, tall buildings, shouting vendors and steep stairs, or you can get lost on a full-beyond-capacity bus by missing your stop and ending up in a part of town you’ve never been to before, even though it looks exactly like where you wanted to go. Everywhere looks like where you wanted to go. Or you can get lost inside, wandering around a many-storied, multi-escalatored mega-mall that connects to four other many-storied, multi-escalatored mega-malls.
The malls here confound me. And the fact that I can spend an entire day exploring the many layered bowels of just one frightens me. And I didn’t even see the whole thing, nor did I go into most of the stores. I just walked. Around and around, up and up. I’m convinced this mall itself never ended, but I eventually had to give up on the endeavor. Especially when I reached the top floor and there, magically, was an exit. To the street level. I was on the sixth floor of the mall, thinking I had long ago left the option to easily exit behind, on the first floor, where I had entered. But there I was, on the top floor, blinking at the light streaming through giant glass doors and the cars zooming by outside.
At first I thought it was a trick of some sort. Beyond the doors lie another section of the mall and a gigantic movie screen showing images meant to make the shoppers feel like they’re on the first floor, giving them the impression that they can leave at any time. But surprise! You’ve found the coat check and you now have to spend another 4 hours finding the exit on the first floor. Haha, gotcha! Well, I wouldn’t let them fool me. I kept my hopes low and gingerly approached the trick exit. Expecting resistance, looking for any sign of a giant movie screen, which is entirely plausible in Chongqing, I pushed on the doors. They swung heavily open and a stream of smoggy air brushed past me and dissipated into the mall. It was real. Real smoggy air. I took a few steps. I was really outside. The cars weren’t actors in a movie, they were real. Real smoggy cars. Huh.
I turned around to look back at the now shut glass doors, reflecting my confused image. I looked lost. And tired. And really, really, unnaturally tall. I’m not sure how long I stared at my giant, mutated reflection, while cars darted to and fro behind me. Something had melted down in my brain and was taking its time to recover rational thought. Finally, my image was swiped away by two young women emerging from the mall, shopping bags dangling at their wrists. They giggled and chattered and glanced at me a million times until I forced myself into motion and launched back into the mall, as much as I disliked it. That sixth-floor outside world, though real, could not be comprehended, nor navigated, by me. Perhaps next time.
Retracing my steps as quickly and accurately as possible, I fled. I flew down escalators, brushed by meandering shoppers, ignored hullo!s left and right, resisted the draw of numerous cafes, stopped only once to eye a comfy looking sweater, and just forty minutes later, I was staring at the exact same scene I had seen on the 6th floor. But I was now on the first floor. Wasn’t I? Giant glass doors. Cars zooming by outside. The doors swung open and a gust of smoggy air entered the mall. Real smoggy air.
I walked out and this time I resisted the urge to glance back at the glass doors with their confused foreigner staring out. I didn’t let myself think about how strange this place is. I just walked until I found my bus stop. That’s the craziest thing. No matter how lost I feel here, I never am. I’ll be approaching absolute certainty that I’m miles away from where I want to be, and then the bus I’m looking for blares its horn at me as it drives by and, without thinking, I run to catch it. All anxiety dissipates. Easy as pie.

From Home

I sort of forgot about how much I love receiving stuff from home until yesterday. My mom sent me a letter over a month ago and a small package about 2 weeks ago and I picked them both up yesterday. The package smelled like cinnamon and chocolate and home. I've grown deeply attached to the USPS flat rate box. Its presence means presents. And tasty treats. And sweet little notes written on everything. Thank you, Mom and Ozzie. You guys are so thoughtful.
If you ever feel like stopping by to say hi, or want to send a little letter or package my way, please feel free to do so using the address below. You need to use both the Chinese and the English, so it's probably easiest to just copy and paste the below into a word document and print it out. Bonus cookies if you copy it by hand :)

重庆市渝北空港桃源大道1000号
Erin Aldrich / An Xue
1000 Tao Yuan Avenue
Konggang Yubei Dist.
Chongqing China 401120

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.