So what are the ups and downs of the last several weeks in China?
I am reminded that I need to write this because I have missed the last several weekly requirements that I should have submitted to my Field Director. Well, here it is...enjoy the rampage!
China is down when the weather is down. The weather in Changsha can be so abusively depressing that you could hang yourself from a ceiling fan in your classroom. EVERYTHING IS GRAY. The sky, the walls, the desks, the floors. Not to mention it can get bone-chillingly cold and numb and awful here. Just awful. But then....drumroll...
God can shine down on this place and whisk it away into a beautiful 78 degree day with birds, and a light breeze, and a refreshing afternoon shower or midnight thunderstorm, that reminds me of Florida.
Then, down again, when the KIDS JUST DON'T WANT TO FUCKING LEARN ANYTHING! They don't care, they never, never, never stop talking. Now, I repeat, repeat, repeat myself. I feel like I have almost busted my spleen from speaking so loudly in class...my tummy aches because I have to use such big attentive statements for the whole class to hear me....and then...
China is up again, because you can act like a complete fool in front of 60 students and IT WORKS! They love you. They love you and THEY LEARN. They want to learn. You've got them hooked...then....
China is down again because you can be intensely, INTENSELY LONELY...and then its...
Back up, because random neighbors will buy your dinner and take you fishing or feed you for free 3 nights in a row....and then
It is back down, because it takes a long time to get anywhere in this city....but then it's...
Back up, because you get there, and there is always something new....then it can
Pull you down because your liaison or school administration just doesn't really care about you, or the fact that you are 10,000 miles away from your home, or that you actually have a soul....then you can
Be uplifted at the fact that maybe you have made an impact and then you can be...
Disappointed at the fact that maybe no one cares when you leave...but you can
Always have faith that you have been blessed to walk here, in these crowded, dirty streets, and experience a cataclysm of emotion and feel...feel like you are free and living your life.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Up Next...
Who can blame the artist for trying to live his life in that dark room. Full of nothing but a love for his work. He paints and sculpts and scribbles his words on paper for the world to know.
The artist could be anyone. After all, we are all artists of our lives. We gauge and craft and slide our fingers over the molding clay of our destinies. We laugh and cry and what a beautiful thing either of them can be, because it means we are alive and feeling, really feeling life around us.
Our only choice is to stop or rise up and keep going. Not everyone's feelings are mutual and not everyone's playing fields are the same. I am reminded of the beauty of this when my friend and our are fishing on the outskirts of Changsha. He, in his mid-40's, 5'7", typical sculpt of a middle-aged Chinese man. Teeth slightly blackened, but skin smooth, unwrinkled and seemingly timeless. As if, he might look that way 20 years from now.
He sings a song (in English) about love and I am reminded that even though I do not know him well, he is singing to the world. Putting his heart on display. Making a choice to live in the moment, because that is all that exists. Expressing himself in a way that has been done for generations in China.
Much like the American slave, the Chinese sing, and sing, and sing. For people so timid in the English classroom, constantly speaking while looking down, covering their mouths for fear of retribution, shuttling pass you as if not to disturb. They break into song out of a way to express their innermost feelings. It is another language, scripted on the wind of the world, and most people do not notice.
To live in China, is to experience both the past and the present. The best and the worst. It is exceedingly calm and ultra-climactic. It is the future, the now and the then. It is everything you want for mankind, and everything you hope will never become status quo. It is children saying "hello...bye bye", wrapped in layers of wool clothing. It is grandmas throwing sewage on plants cultivated into impossible gardens that seem to be sprouting everywhere there is a patch of land. It is electric saws and cranes and dust, and men in business suits digging ditches at 3am in the morning. It is lonely and it is despair. It is bliss and it is happiness. It is a good life. It is a choice to see it that way.
As I come to the end of my first year as a WorldTeach volunteer, I feel a tremendous deal of remorse. I feel ashamed that I could not become a better speaker of the language or do more for the temporary community where I called home. However, I am reminded that I am just a part of something bigger. I am not the solution. I do not have the solution. I only have the education to share. The perspective. It is up to them to create, sustain and build. To take what I have offered, and make it their own.
I am only now getting my feet wet. I am only now beginning to see patterns in the language and understanding the differences in dialect. Only now do I see the impact that people have had on me. I begin to wonder, if it is okay to be uncertain about things, like my future. How everything now seems so foolish. How back home, people are clamoring for money and 401k's and stocks and homes that are exceedingly too big for their needs and SUV's that kill our planet and drugs that run our streets. How complacency has killed a middle class. How CEO's have robbed our banks and how a former Vice President raped our treasury.
How back home, my country is ran by graduates of Harvard and Yale Law and PR spinsters that sell presidents like Pepsi. How we have so many problems related to the American definition of "success" that our young people begin killing themselves before they even know it. How, back there, we have influenced a whole world with people like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Kobe Bryant, and that these are only role models in the sense that they are accomplished in their passions, but not because of their money, fame or bodies.
I am scared that China is becoming too capitalist, because I see it in the faces of the students. Dead tired at 5pm, after a long day of class...constant memorization....constant drilling. All I want is for them to feel some sense of release in my class. To let their minds think freely, to break the trend.
I see it in their parents. Who now, in their new houses and better lives, feel the stresses of the modern world. Paying mortgages, car payments, investing, etc.
Why are the poorest people of the world, always the happiest? I've seen it the Dominican Republic, Cambodia and now China. Maybe it is because they are free from the constraint of modernization. No, maybe it is because of community. That, I think is the answer.
We are a communal animal. We long for touch and response, for love and adoration. We strive to be accepted, and learn to accept others. We value tolerance and diversity and individual choice, but we cannot do this alone.
We all have a choice in this world. To live with purpose or live without. It has taken China to awaken this in me. It has allowed me to question and solve, to become confused and mesmerized. It has allowed me to grow. I think that is all that you can ever hope for. If you are constantly learning, something good will happen.
The artist could be anyone. After all, we are all artists of our lives. We gauge and craft and slide our fingers over the molding clay of our destinies. We laugh and cry and what a beautiful thing either of them can be, because it means we are alive and feeling, really feeling life around us.
Our only choice is to stop or rise up and keep going. Not everyone's feelings are mutual and not everyone's playing fields are the same. I am reminded of the beauty of this when my friend and our are fishing on the outskirts of Changsha. He, in his mid-40's, 5'7", typical sculpt of a middle-aged Chinese man. Teeth slightly blackened, but skin smooth, unwrinkled and seemingly timeless. As if, he might look that way 20 years from now.
He sings a song (in English) about love and I am reminded that even though I do not know him well, he is singing to the world. Putting his heart on display. Making a choice to live in the moment, because that is all that exists. Expressing himself in a way that has been done for generations in China.
Much like the American slave, the Chinese sing, and sing, and sing. For people so timid in the English classroom, constantly speaking while looking down, covering their mouths for fear of retribution, shuttling pass you as if not to disturb. They break into song out of a way to express their innermost feelings. It is another language, scripted on the wind of the world, and most people do not notice.
To live in China, is to experience both the past and the present. The best and the worst. It is exceedingly calm and ultra-climactic. It is the future, the now and the then. It is everything you want for mankind, and everything you hope will never become status quo. It is children saying "hello...bye bye", wrapped in layers of wool clothing. It is grandmas throwing sewage on plants cultivated into impossible gardens that seem to be sprouting everywhere there is a patch of land. It is electric saws and cranes and dust, and men in business suits digging ditches at 3am in the morning. It is lonely and it is despair. It is bliss and it is happiness. It is a good life. It is a choice to see it that way.
As I come to the end of my first year as a WorldTeach volunteer, I feel a tremendous deal of remorse. I feel ashamed that I could not become a better speaker of the language or do more for the temporary community where I called home. However, I am reminded that I am just a part of something bigger. I am not the solution. I do not have the solution. I only have the education to share. The perspective. It is up to them to create, sustain and build. To take what I have offered, and make it their own.
I am only now getting my feet wet. I am only now beginning to see patterns in the language and understanding the differences in dialect. Only now do I see the impact that people have had on me. I begin to wonder, if it is okay to be uncertain about things, like my future. How everything now seems so foolish. How back home, people are clamoring for money and 401k's and stocks and homes that are exceedingly too big for their needs and SUV's that kill our planet and drugs that run our streets. How complacency has killed a middle class. How CEO's have robbed our banks and how a former Vice President raped our treasury.
How back home, my country is ran by graduates of Harvard and Yale Law and PR spinsters that sell presidents like Pepsi. How we have so many problems related to the American definition of "success" that our young people begin killing themselves before they even know it. How, back there, we have influenced a whole world with people like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Kobe Bryant, and that these are only role models in the sense that they are accomplished in their passions, but not because of their money, fame or bodies.
I am scared that China is becoming too capitalist, because I see it in the faces of the students. Dead tired at 5pm, after a long day of class...constant memorization....constant drilling. All I want is for them to feel some sense of release in my class. To let their minds think freely, to break the trend.
I see it in their parents. Who now, in their new houses and better lives, feel the stresses of the modern world. Paying mortgages, car payments, investing, etc.
Why are the poorest people of the world, always the happiest? I've seen it the Dominican Republic, Cambodia and now China. Maybe it is because they are free from the constraint of modernization. No, maybe it is because of community. That, I think is the answer.
We are a communal animal. We long for touch and response, for love and adoration. We strive to be accepted, and learn to accept others. We value tolerance and diversity and individual choice, but we cannot do this alone.
We all have a choice in this world. To live with purpose or live without. It has taken China to awaken this in me. It has allowed me to question and solve, to become confused and mesmerized. It has allowed me to grow. I think that is all that you can ever hope for. If you are constantly learning, something good will happen.
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