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.