100 Words: Neighbors

The neighbor who befriended me after playing badminton together likes to touch my shoulder. The other day, I thought she maybe just liked the feel of my jacket. But this morning, when she touched my shoulder, I was wearing a T-shirt. The other neighbor who lives below us will only speak to me in English. He made it clear that he wants me to speak English with his daughter as well, who is 12. I feel annoyed with his request. I ask him if he had his breakfast? “Breakfast” he repeats slowly and confusedly. “Zaofan” I say in Chinese. He understands and responds in Chinese that he had noodles.

100 Words

I took this idea from a fellow blogger who wrote about a variety of topics using only 100 words. Starting after this colon, here are some thoughts on my morning jog:

Most mornings, I go jogging. This morning, there’s a dirty white dog lying on the side of the road; his mouth is slightly open. I wonder if he’s just sleeping. On my return jog, he’s still there. His body lies right in front of their elementary school. Children with backpacks and morning bread stroll past him. A motorbike goes by with a dead pig carcass strapped on the back of the bike. The carcass looks like a fleshy blanket draping both sides of the bike. Smoke from burning trash rises up. Death is heavy in the air today.

Fall Musings

10/25/09
Something about the fall, especially beautiful fall days, bring back memory after memory of growing up in rural South Dakota. I close my eyes, and I pretend I am back in our old house. It’s after school, and there’s nothing I want to do more than go out to our wood swing-set in the back yard. Sometimes, I would convince Nick to join me, but even if it was just me, I was completely content. I would swing, talk to myself, sing, look at the hay, and daydream about the future. But there are no swing sets here, and even if there were, I can’t swing and daydream in the same way.

Younger brother, Shane, daydreaming on the swingset in the backyard

Shane, Nick and Author "helping" at the car wash

Along with fall comes a deep loneliness too. To me, fall in the Midwest is one of the best places to be. It’s Sunday, so there’s a good chance mom would have made a delicious apple pie for the noon meal. In attempts to surpass time and space, I try to make apple bread here in my kitchen. Still unable to master the settings of my oven, I scorch the top of the bread and fossilize the bottom. Maybe I can just light an apple candle. Thinking about family also has me wondering how I can make it another 8 months without seeing them. Their faces are already starting to become blurry. I feel the loneliness settle in the same way the final curtain closes after a play or musical. You want to join the happy characters in their colorful lives. You want them to give you just one more scene or act. But it’s impossible—the play only lives on only in the capacity that you are able to remember it in your mind. This analogy is by no means perfect but somewhat reflects the distance I feel between our worlds.

Any flavor of pie will do :)

Badminton 101 & 102

Badminton 101:
I have a new lover. Its name is Badminton. Although it has not fully revealed its feelings for me, I can’t help but being completed infatuated with it. I started flirting with badminton 3 weeks ago, shortly after I bought a set of rackets and a few birdies. Since then, I have played four times. The first two times were with other foreigners. Together, we were not that good. This week, however, I had a date with one of my former students. Let’s just say that if they had a badminton team here at our University, she would be the captain of it.

We meet on a Wednesday afternoon; she waits for me after my office hour. Another student from the office time asks if she can play too. We agree. We head over to the gym on campus. The gym is dimly lit with only a hand-full of people inside. This level of the gym consists of 2 weight machines, a row of about 4 ping pong tables, and three courts for playing badminton. My student and I take the court closest to the door. We play the best out of five before the other person rotates in. At first, I am unbeatable. Playing the best out of five, I have already beaten the two students, or so I think. But, then the former student, (badminton professional) puts on her game face, and I know the winds are changing. She explains a few rules that I have been breaking when I serve. She starts to play as though competing for a spot on the Olympic team. As she whips that birdie at me, I realize how difficult badminton really is. She doesn’t let up. I am hot and sweaty, sometimes whacking at the air, sometimes jumping up to hit the birdie that hovers a few inches above my racket. “You need more exercise” my former student counsels me. “I don’t need more exercise,” I huff. “It has nothing to do with exercise; it has to do with skill.” I whack the birdie in annoyance. Slowly, I start to get the hang of it. I have to use my arm almost in a whipping motion. And I can’t stay so far back on the court or the pro will gently tap the birdie and it will fall right behind the net. By the end of the hour, I have made great progress.
An older professor approaches us and gives me some more random advice about how to hold the racket. (This professor quite oddly resembles one of my American girlfriends.) He asks if I can tutor his son English in exchange for him teaching me how to write Chinese calligraphy. “I don’t have that kind of free time” I tell him realizing how pathetic this excuse sounds as I clearly have free time to play badminton. Oh well. We play a little longer, and then I ask if we can leave—scared to be asked for more tutoring help. We make an appointment to play next week. I have potential with badminton; I don’t need to be tall, skinny, or have amazing dexterity. Badminton just might be my game.

Badminton 102:
I hope you don’t tire of hearing about my romance with badminton because the romance lives on. This Friday, I had another date. I had just finished my tutor time. I check my watch…4:30, enough time to walk my tutor to the back gate, and rush back for a game of badminton. For some reason, there are only some times during the day when it’s appropriate to play badminton..one of them being in the early morning and the other being before dinner. I take a chance on this date…I grab my racket and run upstairs to my neighbors’ apartment. Sai, the Japanese wife of the Japanese professor answers the door. She’s wearing some flannel pants and looks as though she’s been inside all day. I motion to the racket, then point to her, then to myself, and make a thumbs up. She smiles real big and motions that she needs to change. I say in Chinese that I will wait for her in my apartment. We’re not sure how to communicate with each other yet, but we’ll figure it out. We go right outside our apartment. The weather is perfect, a lot of the neighbors are also getting home from work. Some of them watch us. I motion to Sai that I want to switch arms and try hitting it with my left arm. She does the same. At first, it seems impossible, and then we get the hang of it.

Some of the neighbors watching us ask if we’re from the same country. They ask us how we communicate with each other. “We also don’t know” I tell them. Another neighbor gives me advice on how to hit the birdie when it flies directly at my chest. “You have to quickly back up and then hit it,” she says. She asks to join. I hand her my racket. Although she’s still in high heels from work, she puts both Sai and I to shame. She’s clearly had some practice before. Sai and I play a little bit longer and then I say that I’m tired. It’s true. I don’t want to overdo it on our first badminton date. Sai thanks me in Japanese and says in English, “I’m very happy today.”

Japanese Pipe Dream

I have a dream to learn Japanese. Originally, I thought I would have time to study Japanese this year at school. In hopes of achieving this dream, I attended one of the Japanese classes on campus yesterday. The Junior and Senior English majors at our University have to study two years of Japanese so it’s very convenient to sit in on one of their classes. However, I had no idea that Japanese was so difficult. The teacher in this classroom is Japanese, Masato. He and his wife live directly above me. While Masato and I can speak pretty easily using Chinese, his wife can’t speak Chinese or English. Every time I see her, I feel so helpless as to how to communicate. So, I figured the best way to overcome this language barrier was to “pick up” some Japanese. Hmm, it appears Japanese is not easily “picked up.” One look at their textbook and the three alphabets that they use and I knew that I simply won’t have enough time to learn Japanese this semester.

Today, the Japanese teacher knocked on the door of my apartment. “Portia, I have some questions to ask you about yesterday’s class,” he said in Chinese. In fact, his Chinese is pretty amazing especially for having taught himself Chinese after arriving in Hengyang three years ago. Furthermore, he uses Chinese to teach Japanese to the Chinese students. But, teaching has not been without its struggles, and I wonder if sometimes they are confused by the switching of languages. “Could you understand my class?” he asks me. Hmm, ”Yes, I could understand the meaning of the three sentences you wrote on the board.” However, I explained that my Japanese level was 0 and that I didn’t even know the Japanese alphabet so it was a little difficult for me to reproduce the sentences he wrote on the board.

Some of his lower level students say they don’t understand what he’s saying when he reads out a simple sentence even though they understand the individual words that make up that sentence. When he asks them what they don’t understand, they simply say, “I don’t know.” After he asked me for suggestions, I pointed out that he was doing a great job and if the students couldn’t explain (even in Chinese) what they didn’t understand, then how was he supposed to help them. I also suggested he make seating charts in his classes and place the higher level students beside the lower level students. He politely thanked me for the idea. I begrudgingly told him that I wouldn’t be able to study Japanese this semester, but that I still wanted to befriend his wife. He understood and told me that his wife was always at home (right upstairs) and I could stop in anytime. I think I’ll invite her to play badminton and we’ll just have to resort to body language to communicate.

Office Times

It’s 9:00 a.m. and as I approach the English building, I see students up on the balcony of the 8th floor, looking down, waiting for their foreign teacher to arrive. I take the elevator to the top floor. At first, only a few students are there. They are freshman; they timidly wait in the stairwell until I coax them into our vacuous office. They sit nervously beside each other even though there are spots right beside me. A few of the more vocal students from another class arrive. These students sit down directly beside me; they have no fear. “What should we talk about today?” they ask.

“Do you have a topic you want to discuss?” I ask.

They don’t, so I pull out my list of questions and choose one. The students don’t want to share their opinions at first. The topic is whether or not it is culturally acceptable to help someone who falls down or drops something. They said you shouldn’t worry about it because if you go to help the person, that person will lose face.

Then, predictably, a student asks about my home-town. This student had missed the first class where I introduced myself. I ask the other students if they remember where I am from in the States. They don’t. Feeling tired of talking, I walk to the chalk board and draw a map of the Midwest. The students like the map and can see how close South Dakota is in relation to Canada. (It’s a little confusing for them still because of the “South” in South Dakota…shouldn’t it technically be in the “south” part of the country?)

One of the students has a 21st Century English newspaper in her hand. On the cover is a big picture of Beyonce in a flashy low-cut, red dress. I ask them if they know what Beyonce sings. They don’t—I mention her song, “IF I were a Boy.” Randomly, one of the students has this song downloaded on her cell phone—we all listen to the music and enjoy the soothing rhythm and revealing lyrics. Another article in the newspaper talks about “introversion.” We talk about what it means to be an introvert and an extrovert. I think of one student’s notecard who wrote, “I prefer for people to leave me alone when I’m studying or reading.” I wonder how introverted students do it in China when they share a dorm room with as many as 8 students.

One of the outgoing students mentions that their other morning classes were cancelled so they can stay in the office all morning and talk. “Oh dear” I say. “I have something to do and cannot stay.” I love being able to say “I have something to do” so freely in China. You don’t have to say what you have to do…the phrase is one that’s above questioning. In the same way, when my Chinese friend says she has “something to do,” I also don’t ask. It’s what you say when you don’t want to be specific. It’s very convenient.

Moving Speeches

This week in class, the sophomore students gave short speeches about their prized possessions. While the majority of the speeches were about cellphones, bracelets, and notebooks, there were a few speeches that stood out. Hearing about one’s students’ early brush with rejection, and her most deeply treasured possession, a sweater, deeply jolted me and reminded me of hardships I can only imagine:

“I have two elder sisters. But my parents like a boy much more than a girl, they don’t like me very much. What’s worse, my mother didn’t want to raise me, and she wanted to send me to others. Fortunately, my grandma decided to bring me up, and then she took me to my aunt’s home. My aunt took good care of me, and her children treated me very friendly. We got on well with. I stayed in my aunt’s home with happiness, meanwhile, I owned a wonderful and meaningful childhood. I regarded my aunt as my mother. When I was five, because of certain reasons, I can’t stay with my aunt any longer. My aunt sent me to my grandmother’s home and gave me a sweater as a present. At the same time, she told me that I must study hard so that I could have a better education in the future. No matter when I meet the difficulties, I should try to overcome them. Don’t draw back. Where there is a will, there is a way. I kept these words in my mind and reminded of them now and then. The sweater was my favorite. I liked wearing it very much at that time.
Now I keep it in the drawer in my bedroom, besides, I keep a good memory. Thanks to my aunt’s courage and sweater, I work very hard so that I can enter the university. After I entered the college, my parents like me and they’re proud of me. I’m grateful to my aunt and her sweater.”

The most creative speech was about a pair of shoes. It goes like this:
“I regard a pair of green high-heeled shoes as my treasured possession. When I graduated from high school, I wanted to change something to make me look like a lady not a girl. So I decided to buy the high-heeled shoes. In my opinion, a person who wears high-heeled shoes makes her become more attractive and dignified.

“The heel of the shoes is only 3 cm, but, for me I really feel uncomfortable at first time. I remembered clearly the day I wore the shoes to buy tickets. There were so many people, I waited in the line almost one hour. I had no feeling in my feet. I even did not know how I got back. When I returned home, I took off my shoes and found that my feet were out of shape. All I got at that time was pain. Tears fell down. The pain lasted for several days. After this time, I think I can wear them walking naturally.

“Now the shoes were broken, lying under my table. When I met with some difficult problems or new things that I did not know how to deal with, I would look at the shoes. I cherish the shoes because I learned a lot from the experience. I realized a person who wants to change something, he or she must have a try and pay for something. Maybe the first time, like me, was not satisfied. But if you try, how can you know it.”

A lot of the girls wrote speeches about meaningful notebooks that they shared with their friends. Here’s an example from one student.

“A notebook is ordinary, however, when filled with memory between two friends, it becomes meaningful and special. To tell you the truth, I have one that belongs to my friend and I. In my eyes, the notebook is my most treasured possession.
It was on her 20th birthday that I finished my writing in the notebook. Half of the notebook remained empty. When my 20th birthday arrived, she sent back the notebook to me, whose pages were filled with her best wishes and secret stories, we completed the notebook together. In the notebook, we shared our own life experience with each other. Reading every word on the page, I had never felt so close to her deep heart like this before. Those stories written in the notebook remind me of every treasured moment we had experienced together. When I am down, and the world seems dark and empty, she lift me up in spirits and makes that dark and empty world suddenly seem bright and full. She get me through the hard times, the sad times, and the confused times. I placed the notebook in my drawer, and I keep our friendship in my deep heart. If I died one day, I will take it to the tomb with me.”

In fact, a lot of students ended their speeches with this rather dramatic and unrealistic sentiment, “If I die, I’ll pass it on,” or “If I die, I’ll pass it on to my child.” The “if” part of this sentence is the part that I find unrealistic. Of course, we’re all going to die. Is the problem with their understanding of life or a misunderstanding of how to use the “if” clause.

Home Sweet Home

Peace like laundry overflows

When I see laundry hanging up in my apartment, a wave of peace and calm washes over me—I can just look at that laundry hanging there and feel strangely as though my life is put together. This laundry induced peace has also created in me perhaps an excessive amount of laundry washing. Recently, I’ve been averaging one load a day. For now, it’s okay because I’m slowly unpacking and rediscovering my winter clothes; most of them smell like rice bags and are in need of a wash anyways.

Noodle Man Part 2

The other day, I had been doing a lot of errands, walking to and fro my apartment to the back street at least 3 times in 3 hours. I was finally on my last trip home for the day, when the noodle lady noticed that I had been running back and forth and invited me to stay awhile and drink some corn starch porridge. Under the effects of the kind lady, and the generosity of a simple bowl of corn starch porridge, I sat down and opened up to the kind auntie. At first, I just talked about the different friends who had come to visit me during the 8 day break. Then, the auntie asked me where my “dui” (my boyfriend) was. For what felt like the third time, I explained to her that he doesn’t exist, that he’s only in my dreams. She seemed to be confused and also doubted that I was telling the truth. Her flirty husband thought this would be a good time to join the conversation, so he added in disbelief, how could such a pretty girl like me not have a boyfriend? I rejected their compliments in traditional Chinese fashion and explained my most recent guy frustrations. That’s when the husband explained to me what my problem was: “Si Wen” he said (my Chinese name), “your problem is that boys are looking for someone who is a little below them in quality. If he can find someone who is a little lower than him in character, he will be happy.” I think I was feeling a little witty from the cornstarch porridge, so I asked him why his wife wasn’t lower than him in quality. I heard a few students who were eavesdropping at the next table stifle their laughter—I had made a joke…perhaps a rude one, but I didn’t care. Noodle man pretended to ignore my comment. I looked over at his wife; her back was turned and she was diligently chopping vegetables. Feeling awkward and rude, I figured I should probably go. As I left, the wife came over to me with a big smile and a warm farewell, and I knew she had heard the compliment. And her and I both know the truth—she is a notch above.