I’m more than half way into my stay here in China, and I’ve lost track of time. During the first couple weeks of our trip, a time of excitement and adjustment, I could recite from the top of my head exactly how many days had passed since we had left America, our home, and entered the confusion and combustion that is China. Now, weeks later, when faced with the question of just how long I’ve been in this foreign place, I have to sift through calendars to find the answer.
Perhaps my hardship in finding an answer to this question, however, lies within the question itself. After months of living here, China has morphed from foreign to comfortable. Customs and qualities that I found strange, maybe even comical upon my arrival are now a part of my daily life. I am no longer surprised when I see a man peeing on the side of a busy street, or when my grandmother spits mucus onto the marble floor of my lobby. I’ve adapted to my life as a student enrolled in a Chinese high school and as an older sister and daughter to the members a Chinese family. Just as I don’t number my days in Brookline, I don’t number my days in China. This trip is no longer a vacation, but instead has become a life experience.
With this said, it would be utterly disrespectful and ignorant to say that in only a few months I've gained a complete understanding of China's culture, backed up by over 3,500 years of history. Though my eyes, skin, and voice will never look or sound Chinese, for the time being I am as close as I will ever get to being a part of this amazing, complex culture. My ancestors never kowtowed to emperors, had their feet bound, or protested at Tiananmen Sq, but through becoming a partial member of a Chinese family, I've gained an understanding for who the people of China are and the lives that they lead. I will never fully know or understand the country surrounding me, but feel that this exchange program, the wonderful opportunity that it is, gives me a chance to try.
Though I no longer regard China as a foreign country, I realize that the people of China still regard me as a foreign person. I am now able to turn my head and look beyond the bewildered stares of the people I pass by on the street, but know that they remain. While I’d like to think that I am now a part of the “Chinese lifestyle”, no matter where I go in this entire country, I will be picked out of the population of over 1 billion as the American. I am different, and though I may resent it, the dissimilarities between my appearance and thinking and that of the Chinese people are what make me who I am. In the back of my mind I know that my time here is limited- that in only a couple of weeks I will return to my home in America, filled with American ideals and customs. There will be no more men peeing on streets and no more mucus filled lobbies. I will no longer be stared out or looked at as an outsider, and I will blend in with those surrounding me. It’s disheartening that I’ll have to leave the little life that I’ve created here for myself, but I’m starting to understand that that’s the way things are meant to be. Just as the Chinese have their own culture, I have mine. We can’t change who we are, and in adapting to life here I’ve come to understand my own culture and roots- the story of a first generation Ethiopian parent, a name change at Ellis Island, and thousands of years of both European and African tradition. Being in China has given me a better grasp for the importance of both my family and country’s history. They make up who I am, and will always have a place in my identity, no matter which continent I may be living in.

Friday April 10th, 2009, 7:00 p.m.
I sit on a couch in an apartment located in the modern complex of Feng Ye Xin Du Shi. The chest of the baby I hold in my lap rises and falls as the lungs it contains grasp for a breath of cool, refreshing air. A series of short, raspy coughs pierce the silence every ten seconds, arising from the throats of the fifteen other babies that surround me. The life I hold in my hands is that of Nick, an adorable baby boy who arrived at the orphanage one week ago. Although he is already two months old, he weighs as much as a premature newborn, and has the heart problems of a seventy-year old living off a diet of french-fries and hamburgers. A fold sprouting from his top lip, rising up through his nose, makes feeding him a grueling task; formula creates a river down his chin and onto his periwinkle onsie.
Nick looks up at me. Despite the grief they’ve witnessed, his eyes are the epitome innocence and purity. His pencil thin fingers wrap around my thumb like boa constrictors, and although he has one of the softest touches, he locks me into this moment.
I lift him up and into his bed as he drifts to sleep. His shaven head has left a pool of sweat in the inside of my elbow; Nick’s fever is spiking.
Friday April 10th, 2009, 9:00 p.m.
I sit on a couch in an apartment located in the modern complex of Feng Ye Xin Du Shi. The chest of the baby I hold in my lap rises and falls as the lungs in contains take a break from laughter in order to inhale a breath of cool, refreshing air. This is my host sister Xin Xin, and this brief moment of tranquility is broken by a scream. “Maya!” arises from her vocal cords, ands rings through my ears. Although her face is only six inches away from my own, she proceeds to speak to me as if I’m at the other side of the apartment. I play along, slapping my hands together during hand games and singing along to songs that play on the fifty-seven inch flat-screen TV.
We stand up and begin dancing, marking the beginning of Xin Xin’s pesky antics. Our hands and hips bounce to the lighthearted beating of drums, and when I look down at my feet I notice a splotch of liquid spreading from my toes to the arch of my foot. Xin Xin has spit on me, one of her new favorite activities, and begins chasing me around the house, her mouth like a gun to my newly washed clothes. “Huai!” I repeat over and over as I dodge the balls of saliva that fly through the air like grenades. She is enthralled with our little game of cat and mouse, but after about three minutes gets bored, and decides to start throwing calendars at me.
* * *
Being in Xi’an for the past two months, I’ve become immersed in the lives of young children around me. When I’m not playing with my younger sister, I’m feeding and changing babies at the orphanage, both rewarding and special in their own way. At the same time, the two worlds of the children I play with clash. I often find myself resentful of the spoiled life that Xin Xin leads, surrounded by any toy she could ever want, and all the family members she could ever need. She throws tantrums when her parents say no to the simplest things, but I’ve found that her tears yield little sympathy for me. Contrasting with this is the life of the children at the orphanage, who have next to nothing, but remain calm and content. When they cry I know that it is because they are truly suffering, and I cry with them on the inside.
To Xin Xin’s defense, under her tantrums and pesky antics lies a girl I have become attached to, a girl who I know will grow up to be caring and generous. Sometimes though, during her frequent tantrums, I want to grasp Xin Xin by the arms and drag her to that other couch in that other apartment in Feng Ye Xin Du Shi.

Last Couple of Days...

Last weekend was the national Qingming festival, a time when people pay homage to their deceased ancestors. We had a three day weekend, and my family and I went to Yan'an, the site of the end of the Long March of 1934- about a 4 hour drive from Xi'an. The trip was overall very fun, besides the lack of indoor plumbing and the fact that my family decided Yan'ans food is bu hao chi (not delicious), resulting in us not eating a real meal for three days.

I tried talking to my host mom about the Tiananmen Square massacre. She denied that anyone died, then immediately changed the subject, asking if America was in a "national crisis".

Apparantly in China the numbers 8 and 4 are unlucky, so if you have either of them in your phone number, you get money from the phone company each month.

I've taken a lot of pictures but have been too lazy to update them to picasa...

Life in a Chinese classroom

Sitting in the back row of classroom six at Gao Xin No. 1 high school, a silent ocean of blue and white cotton separates me from the teacher who stands on a podium at the front of the classroom. Slowly, I notice that the ripples in the cotton are outlines of bodies. The ocean has morphed into a group of sixty students, all sitting attentively and writing furiously as their teacher lectures them on ancient Chinese literature. A thick black ponytail distinguishes girls from boys, but otherwise everyone appears to be the same. Clearly communism has worked its magic in China’s school systems; the students have lost their identities and have become one.
I feel like an outsider. My tight jeans, leather boots, and ruffled shirt look like a Halloween costume next to the baggy jumpsuits of my classmates. I feel as if my shoulder-length brown curly hair reaches down to my toes, whose red nails burn through my heavy socks. I am tall and gangly next to my female classmates, whose short legs scuttle around the aisles during our five-minute breaks. 120 eyes glance in my direction.
As I stare off into space, unable to understand the characters written on board and our teacher’s rapid speech, I notice the boy sitting in front of me glance down into his lap. I straighten up in my seat and stretch my neck forward; what I discover is priceless. In his hands lays a portable play station; Donkey Kong and his teeny car zoom across the screen. A smile spreads across my face.
The next day, a petite, pony-tailed classmate of mine approaches me, and begins to speak the same broken English that I encounter every day. I nod and smile as I have the same conversation I had with another student yesterday, and will probably have with yet another student tomorrow. As she begins to ask me about American music, I notice a shiny piece of plastic poke out from the nape of her standard blue and white sweater. That plastic slowly reveals itself, and becomes a pink necklace embedded with rhinestones.
One week later, I’m reading a book under my desk when I hear the boy sitting next to me whisper to the girl directly in front of him. She hands him her exercise book, which is overflowing with notes and completed fill-in-the-blanks, and returns to her own work. His stubby fingers slip up and down the pencil as he quickly copies down the girl’s answers into his own spotless exercise book. He types a series of characters in his electronic Chinese-English translator and slides it into my desk. “I copy,” the translator reads. He proceeds by asking me to do his English homework.
Our fourth week here I’m moved up to the front row of the classroom. Here the teacher is more imposing, the pens scribble faster, and the smiles are fewer. The girl on my right takes a break from her notes to tell me that she’s ranked number three in the class. I learn that sitting next to her is number two, and on my right is number one. I hear a series of snickers and snorts from the rows behind me.
It’s our sixth week here and I’ve returned to the back row of classroom six. When I raise my eyes and gaze ahead, I see the class clown, the goof, the nerd, the slacker, and the “cool” girl. The ocean has turned into a roomful of people, who have the same quirks as teenagers in high schools across the U.S. The jumpsuits, ponytails, and lack of chatter have hindered the visibility of individual personality traits, but have failed to make them invisible.

Funny Translations...

Yunnan Trip

I just got back from Yunnan at 2am this morning. Here's a journal I wrote for Ms. F- pictures will be up on picasa in the next couple of days.

From the second we land in Kunming until we depart one week later, we are surrounded. Hoards of Chinese, some wrinkled, others caked in makeup and almond-colored from the sun, close in on us and seem to glue themselves to our sides. They push us down stairs as we visit the same hotspots, get in the way of our pictures, and stare at us in bewilderment as we eat our rice. Even the shortest rests are interrupted; in their eyes, our periods of relaxation are their best opportunities to get a photo taken with us. Nighttime becomes a sanctuary, for our hotel rooms are the only place we are able to escape to. Before the sun rises their screams wake us up; “Fu Yuan!” rings through the hotel halls.
I could easily continue on about our trip Yunnan in this fashion. Everything about what I’ve just described is true; each push, shove, grunt, and stare could undoubtedly yield pages of complaint. As the ten of us, eight students and two teachers, spent each day together, I witnessed each of us, including myself, roll our eyes or issue a comment of dissatisfaction regarding our aggravation towards our fellow tourists. After reflecting back on our trip, however, I’ve decided to take a different stance.
From the second we land in Kunming until we depart one week later, we are surrounded. A countless number of mountains, some lush with bushy trees, others speckled with new snow, form a ring around us, their beauty impossible to avoid no matter where we choose to look. During the day we cruise through spindly roads, slowly climbing higher and higher into the fresh, crisp air. The sun seems closer here, and its rays tickle our skin. We buy fresh fruit from local stands at breakfast and lunch; the mangoes are juicy and the apples tart and refreshing. When visiting the Stone Forest, we are in a maze of gigantic raggedy rocks. They seem to sprout from the ground like the wispy grass they are atop of, and peer at us as we try to identify shapes in their formations. We grab onto some of the rocks for balance as we walk; they are soft as baby’s skin from years of being rubbed for good luck. At the top of a staircase, standing tiptoes and looking above the heads of fellow tourists, I believe the rolling hills and tree-like stones to be never-ending. Later we watch the Naxi people, dressed in hides and furs, perform a traditional song and dance. Their only scenery is the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, powerful and almighty. A sole Naxi man sits on his small horse, a string of high notes flowing like water out of his mouth. He is on top of the world, and so am I.
I’ve come to discover that in traveling to Yunnan, it is incredibly easy for one to drown in their own frustration. The crowds, rudeness, and obnoxiousness are exceedingly apparent, and after awhile begin to taint one’s mind with negative thoughts. While it is difficult to avoid these thoughts, it is not impossible. With a simple tiptoe, and maybe even a push or a shove of one’s own, Yunnan reveals its undeniable beauty. In the end, how one sees this southern province is a complete choice. After careful thought, I choose to forget the crowds and see Yunnan for what is was made to be: stunning, unique, and a much-needed breath of fresh air.

Twenty-four days. Twenty-four days. I keep repeating this phrase to myself, trying to get a grasp for just how long we’ve been in China. I’m right, it has been exactly twenty-four days since we zoomed over the top of the earth, leaving behind the familiar, but what I’ve come to discover, is that I don’t know what twenty-four days mean.
Rewind to two months ago. I’m in Boston, and in the past twenty-four days, I’ve done the same things I’ll do in the next twenty-four days. I’ve taken my dog on twenty-four walks, studied for two math tests, gotten an extra rotation on my backspin, and gone to a birthday party. Maybe we’ve had a snowstorm, or I’ve moved my bed to a different side of my room, but for the most part, things are the same as they’ve always been. If asked, I can recite my schedule for the next week, maybe even predicting what I’ll eat at each meal.
Stop, fast forward, and return to the present. To tell what I’ve done in the past twenty-four days would require hundreds of pages and dozens of pens. I’ve become a daughter to a new set of parents, a granddaughter to a woman half my size, and the older sister to some of the cutest, sweetest girls I’ve ever met. I’ve learned a new language/culture, been the new girl at school, embarrassed myself in front of hundreds of watchful eyes, battled my way through three colds, and have gotten used to sleeping on the thickest, hardest mattress I’ve ever encountered.
Volunteering in an orphanage, I’ve held hands, fed, and laughed with some of the smallest babies I’ve ever seen, seemingly perfect in every way besides the small fold in their lips. Baby formula’s sweet smell has wandered into my nose, its warm liquid has been spit up onto my jeans, and its nutrients have flown from my hands to the mouths of quivering bodies. I’ve seen coughs resembling small earthquakes shake chests the size of a deck of cards, and have believed my presence to be more important than ever before.
In the past twenty-four days, my life has become a complete jumble of East and West. The Motrin I take for my colds is washed down with a drink of boiled coke and ginger, and for breakfast I eat rice porridge with imported Swiss yogurt. Next to my Marc Jacobs sweater hangs a traditional Chinese chipao, and under my Rubix cube is a book of Mao Zedong’s quotes, published in 1967.
What I’ve come to discover is that twenty-four days means nothing when it comes to time. Most of what I’ve accomplished in Xi’an would have been next to impossible to accomplish in Boston- even in a period of twenty-four years. I truly believe my life has changed, something that would take hundreds of snowstorms, dog walks, and math tests had I remained at home. If all of this can happen during a twenty-four day stay in Xi’an, I predict that a four-month trip may very well turn into a lifetime.

A Few Observations About China

1. Pedestrians never have the right of way. When crossing the street, make sure to run because if you are in the way of a car, they will run you over.
2. When describing a conversation with a Chinese person, always add "or something" to the end of the description; you can never be sure what was ACTUALLY being talked about.
3. Everyone gossips. Expect to hear your host sister's friend's mom telling her husband what YOU ate for dinner last night.
4. Eating cold food will cause a stomach ache which can be cured by drinking boiled coke with ginger (theoretically).
5. Stay away from cafeteria food...it's the same no matter where you are in the world.
6. Toilets are not toilets, but holes in the ground (I thought it was a joke before I arrived).
7. Tissue paper serves multiple purposes and is absolutely necessary to have at all times.
8. Talent shows on school buses are completely normal.
9. When trying to get a waiter's attention at a restaurant, it is completely acceptable to belt, "Fu Yen" (waiter in Chinese) until they come.
10. You can buy American movies that are still in theaters for only $1.50, but a small latte at Starbucks is nearly $6.
11. At least 10 times a day you hear yourself saying, "Only in China".

I never realized how hard it was to feed a baby with a cleft lip until today.
On Sunday, my host sister Lily took me to one of the high rises neighboring our own, telling me that we were going to the house of a woman named Amanda. This woman, she told me, had nine children. As I walked through the door to what looked like every other apartment I've seen since my arrival, I quickly discovered that I was in a very different place. As it turns out, Amanda has about 25 infants, none of which are her own. This seemingly normal apartment is, in actuality, a tiny orphanage for children with health problems. Their ages range from one month to four years, and their health issues from cleft pallets to down syndrome (and I had thought that the zoo was heartbreaking).
Despite its small size, the orphanage is horribly understaffed, and after speaking to Amanda, who is European, I discovered they are willing to take any help they can get. I went back today after school, and was immediately handed a baby with a cleft lip to feed. She was lighter than a bottle of water and her mouth struggled to grip the nipple of the baby bottle. Body shaking coughs arose from her throat nearly every time she managed to get a drop of formula between her lips. I now find myself both fascinated and upset by what I've seen, and fully intend on going back to help as often as I can.
I was told before I came here that each of us, the exchange students, would find at least one thing that would intrigue us like nothing before. In the fifth floor of a building in Feng Ye Xin Du Shi, I have found that one thing.

Last night a group of us, becoming increasingly tired of Chinese food, attempted to cook an American(ish) feast. Anika's mom took us on the 30 minute drive to Metro, the international food store. We must have spent at least an hour in the store searching for cheddar cheese, butter, and brown sugar, three ingredients that are apparently very scarce in China. We finally made our way out successfully; we had purchased everything we needed (minus baking soda for cookies) all for a total of 800 yuan (a crazy amount to spend on groceries in China).
The hard time we had shopping was nothing compared to the even harder time we had with the actual cooking. For three hours the six of us, about half of which had never even cooked pasta, bustled around the kitchen, never without a knife/spoon/pot in our hands. After curdling the milk for our chicken-broccoli alfredo and nearly melting a pot in the oven, we were finished. Our efforts had resulted in: surprisingly good quesadillas (homemade tortillas!), rigatoni broccoli and chicken alfredo, apple crisp (really just apples with oatmeal and brown sugar mixed in-we had many difficulties), and oatmeal raisin cookies/globs. While maybe not the best looking food I've had, it certainly was American: messy, filling, and a much needed taste of home.

Our trip to Zhouzi this weekend was the perfect end to a weekend. Xi'an is a compilation of high-rise residential complexes and wide streets filled with crazy drivers. Coal burns throughout the city, creating a disturbing haze. I still haven't gotten used to the air here, and neither have my classmates, four of which are becoming increasingly ill. As we left the bubble that is Xi'an, the air seemed lighten, and the skies brightened. Being around mountains and lakes, even if only for a couple of hours, felt like a much needed retreat.

The town of Zhouzi is extremely small. There is one main street lined with stoors and food stands. As more and more stares came our way while my group of exchange students walked down the road, it became clear that some of the people around us had never seen foreigners before. The culture and ways of these people was so apparant in everything they were doing, vastly different from the industrial, westernized Xi'an. We even got a glimpse of twins! (a very rare thing in China)

My Host Family

New Blog!

This past weekend we went to the rural Zhouzi No. 4 High School. A group of students from this school had been studying this past week at the Gao Xin School, and in an effort to integrate the three groups of students (Zhouzi, Gao Xin, and Brookline), we were all taken to the countryside for a visit. Surrounding the school was a town much different than Xi'an. The streets were lined with people selling food, playing mahjong, and fixing cars. Dirty faces peered at our group as we roamed the dusty roads, taking pictures of everything in sight. I wrote the following journal entry for Ms. Francescon about our trip.

As we made our way to the Zhouzi High School, it was clear that we were headed to a place far different from the city of Xi’an. The high rises that each of us goes home to at night slowly morphed into small houses, then into shacks with tin roofs. The sea of city-dwellers trickled into puddles of farmers working in moss-green grassy fields. Yet, surprisingly, as the quality of the houses worsened and the people became fewer, the scenery became more beautiful the further we ventured from our homes. In what seemed like an instant, towering mountains jumped from the pancake-flat land that is Xi’an, and the sun gave us a glimpse of its rays for the first time since our arrival. It seemed we had emerged from the haze and journeyed into territory unharmed by the yells and honks of the city.
In the midst of this astounding landscape lies the Zhouzi No. 4 High School. As I expected, it is not nearly as modern as Gao Xin. Where there are heaters and cafeterias at Gao Xin, there are small coal burners and outdoor pavilions without seating at Zhouzi. After reading the journals of the exchange students from last year, I expected that the Gao Xin kids would have an air of arrogance towards the poorer Zhouzi students. In my mind I pictured them walking through the school wearing their stark white uniform and sneers on their faces, disgusted by the dusty desks and unwashed chalk boards. I braced myself for the rude comments I would hear, but as I listened, I heard nothing of the sort. Besides the few baby wipes I saw being passed around, there was no sign that the Gao Xin kids didn’t feel comfortable in this completely different environment.
Standing in the top floor music room of the high school, I got a breath-taking view. The mountains that stood proudly before me seemed to spread like a blanket over the entire earth. Their power seemed endless- unstoppable. As amazing as they were, my eyes were focused on something else. Right in front of those incredible mountains, was another astounding sight. Below me was a field of blue and white uniforms, North-Face jackets, and hand made t-shirts. All woven together, it became hard to tell who was who, but this much was clear: all of us, the Gao Xin, Brookline High, and Zhouzi students had come together. Basketballs were being passed, kites were flying through the air, and hands were being held. The money, oceans, and city walls that separate us normally had vanished before my eyes. Our differences had been left behind with the high rises, and suddenly we were all the same.
Just before heading back onto our warm, cushioned seat-filled bus, we said goodbye to the Zhouzi students who had been attending Gao Xin high school the previous week. As I watched, I saw the Gao Xin and Zhouzi students embrace each other in some of the longest hugs I’ve witnessed. These embraces were followed by leaks of tears and down-turned mouths. Slowly, the Gao Xin students crept back into the bus, and were returned to a school filled with heaters and cafeterias.
The Gao Xin students have surprised me more than I could have imagined in the past week, first with their eagerness towards us, then with their acceptance of the poorer Zhouzi students. While our moment of togetherness was brief, and despite the fact that our differences will soon pull us apart, I’m glad to know that I have found the possibility of a friendship that can plow through the strength of boundaries.