Reaching

"Between the finite limitations of the five senses
    and the endless yearnings of man for the
    beyond the people hold to the humdrum
    bidding of work and food while reaching
    out when it comes their way for lights
    beyond the prisms of the five senses,
for keepsakes lasting beyond any hunger or death.
    This reaching is alive.
The panderers and liars have violated and
    smutted it.
Yet this reaching is alive yet
for lights and keepsakes."
         ----Carl Sandburg

Cafeteria moments

A couple of days ago, the nearest cafeteria to our building (the "er shi tang" or "second canteen") opened its doors for the new semester. We were excited to have cheap, fast, and filling food once again. Yesterday we met some students for dinner and one of my fellow teachers exclaimed, "I was so glad to come back to cafeteria food." Our students gasped in disbelief. "You will never hear anyone else say that! Cafeteria food...ugh!" A moment later I was gasping in disbelief as I watched a man on a motorbike ride into the cafeteria and zoom in between the tables, bold as you please. Maybe he, too, was excited to get a meal at the canteen. We wondered if he was in for some genuine "fast food".

Today, I ordered noodles at one of the small food stalls/kitchens in the "second canteen". This little place specializes in "la mian", a kind of noodle made by pulling, stretching, and separating the dough by hand. As I waited for my dish of noodles, I noticed that two little boys, (one or both sons of one of the cooks) were kneeling on a bench, looking into the kitchen through the open window space, both dressed in matching green sweaters. Their cuteness was magnified when I heard what one of the little boy was repeating: "Oppa gangnam style!" he would say softly, watching his mom deftly work the noodle dough. I just had to take a picture. Some days, China just makes me smile.

Swapping "home"

The last few days life has been quiet and lazy on campus because the students aren't back yet. I've been curled up inside my cozy apartment, unwilling to venture out into the dreary cold, especially since the only cafeteria that has been open is a twenty minute walk away. My phone has been virtually silent for days. But today things came back to life! I received a text from a returning student: "Dear Sarah, can I come over and take a shower at your place? There is no hot water in our entire dormitory." Yes, yes! No self-respecting girl should be forced to forgo a shower. Then another text from her roommate, "Can I come too? And shower?" Once they arrived, I heard that another classmate had arrived three days earlier to a dark, cold dorm room with no electricity or drinking water, and no hot water in the shower room. She was still waiting for her shower! (I told them to tell her to high-tail it over here.) Each time a girl showed up, she brought "special food" from her hometown as a gift for me. Peanuts coated in sweetener and fried, dried tofu in a package, dried pork, various beautifully boxed crackers, and large, thin, crispy disks of  baked flatbread sprinkled with sesame seeds. This "bringing back food from my hometown" is a Chinese tradition which ensures that classmates, roommates, and other friends get a taste of snacks and delicacies from all over the country. Tasting food from a friend's home invites you to share in a small part of his inner, familiar experience. Moreover, giving food to someone or eating food with someone is an integral part of building and maintaining relationships here. You don't carry mom's home fried sugar-coated peanuts or grandma's hand-wrapped zhongzi on a 12 hour train ride to give to a cursory acquaintance. You bring it for your friends. Come to think of it, I don't usually want some out-of-the-circle acquaintance using my shower. But me and my girls felt gladness in swapping out "a little bit of home" today. I guess that's a two-culture meter that reads "friends".  Privileged to love and be loved in a faraway place.

Food from three provinces!

Oh, yeah. Just remembered. When I was a little girl wearing handmade aprons over my dresses, living at various times in a bus, a travel trailer, and a formerly abandoned house with no hot water, I used a lot of other people's showers. Thanks, y'all, for caring enough to share "home" like that.

Amazing Grace

Every time I watch Amazing Grace, I love it more.

Living a life of meaning and purpose is not always easy. Its not steady. At times, inspiration surges through your gut and you feel as though you have found your calling. And then, frustrations, disappointments, and heartbreak conspire to cloud the purpose that caused you to chose this path.  Purposeful living forces you to face the roughness and rawness of the side of life that we like to pretend doesn't exist. In the movie, John Newton challenges William Wilberforce to plunge into the fight against slavery. But he also gives him a sound warning: "You won't come away from those streets clean, Wilbur. You'll get filthy with it, you'll dream it, see it in broad daylight." Sometimes I get tired of that part. Many times in the deep part of my heart I just want to run away and live in a cabin in the woods. But watching Amazing Grace with my students, I was hit with the inspiring part of purposeful living once again. Although purposeful living is not confined by location or occupation,  it forces you to connect with the brokenness of your own soul, and the brokenness of those around you. "You won't come away from those streets clean." You won't come away un-shattered, unchanged. You won't come away naive and full of pious platitudes. As some people like to say, you will be "ruined for the ordinary." Wilberforce's story just reminds me that it's worth it.


Dedicated to my China-comrade, sidekick, pal, chum, and forever friend: Christine Malarich