Travel photos

Deep Thought, just one

I'm entering the season in my life that I dramatically call, "I am a middle aged adult living with my parents." For the next 2 months, I'll be mostly staying with my parents in the Midwest. Summer is always a fun time to see friends, family, and visit old places. It's also usually a difficult time for me mentally. A time when I can stand back, breathe, and ask myself, "What are you doing with your life? Where is your little country house with the squeaky wood floors? Where is your farmer Joe husband? How about some offspring?" or sometimes my thoughts go a different direction "Where is your career? How about adding some initials to the beginning of your name? Where is your money? Do you have a car? How about actually writing a book or submitting an article for publication?" and then pretty soon all these unanswerable questions make me feel like a worthless human being.

Nonetheless, thinking through these questions can also be good and helpful for growth and maturity. Should I really base my success in life from the standards this society has created? Probably not. While my society might not hold me in high esteem, it ultimately doesn't matter. I know this to be true; now how do I change my thinking so that I don't even ask these questions because I don't even care?

A Shout out to Dad!!

Today is Father's Day in China, or at least it is to us westerners living in China. I'd like to publicly proclaim, that I think I might have one of the coolest fathers in the world. Here are some of the things I appreciate about him the most:

1. His sense of humor...cheesy Strasser jokes we call them. They might be cheese, but rest assured they are clean and funny.

2. His patience with the women in his life, mainly myself, mom, and his coworkers.

3. His interest and desire to learn. He keeps a tablet where he writes down something new he learns everyday. He's always doing the little mind / word puzzles in the paper, and he's usually reading a historical fiction book.

4. His passion for justice and helping the under privileged.

4. His generosity with time and money.

5. His devotion to church, the greater church community, and his love for the Father.

Blessed to call you my dad. I'm so proud of you!

Parent's Visit: a reflection

After about 10 days of non-stop chaos and go, my mind can finally unwind. I can finally take a deep breath in and know that no one is expecting me to do anything or organize anything. It feels great!

It was about 12 days ago now, that I first greeted my parents from the airport and welcomed them into China via the cushion of the modern, civilized city of Hong Kong. Although they were still a little on edge because of all the people in Hong Kong, in general, my parents loved Hong Kong. And what’s not to love? A convenient subway line that can take you to most areas in the city, double decker buses, English street signs and maps, big juicy hamburgers, starbucks on every other corner. The land of milk and honey where you can get your milk skim and your honey vitamin-enriched.

After 2 days of playing in Hong Kong, I took my parents on about 6 hours of travel inland to Hengyang, our little city in the spicy province of Hunan. After being in Hong Kong, Hengyang might have been a little bit of a shock to my parents. As soon as we got off the high speed train, my parents noticed the differences in this city. Our taxi driver, a little enamored to have 3 foreigners in her car drove quite cautiously and slow…no air conditioning. I could see my mom cheeks flushing with heat as sweat beads popped out on her forehead. But, the driver was kind and chatty and eventually we did make it to our destination, my humble abode.

My parents liked my place and by the end of their 5 days in Hengyang even mentioned that walking into my apartment really did feel like coming home. They helped enhance this feeling of “home” by giving the place a good scrubbing and rearranging the furniture.

Our normal days in Hengyang went something like this: go to class, go out to eat at a small restaurant, visit an interesting place in the city (the welfare center, the supermarket, the market, a coffee shop, etc.), visit with friends. The evening would end with Portia preparing things for class the next day and looking for things she misplaced.

Here are some of my highlights from my parents’ visit:
1. A local person telling me that dad looked like a movie star, Mr. Bean.
2. My parents’ infatuation with tofu. I think I was also in awe of the stuff at first, amazed that something that looks so unappetizing can be turned into something so delicious.
3. Dad’s pronunciation of a few select Chinese cities (Guangchai—still can’t find it on the map).
4. Mom speaking English to local people.
5. Mom tripping after a small team of hostesses in a fancy restaurant told us in Chinese to “go slowly.”
6. Dad and mom’s ability to have conversations with my students and friends.
7. Dad’s enthusiasm to try street food.
8. Mom’s excitement at discovering that the saltine crackers and 7Up here are even better than they are in America.
9. Dad and mom’s energy despite having jet lag and culture shock.
10. And finally, dad and mom’s curiosity into so many aspects of Chinese culture and life that I no longer even think about and quite truthfully that I don’t even know how to answer.

I am a Snob.

I am a snob.
It might be hard to believe that friendly, smiley Portia could be considered a snob, but it’s true. Mostly these moments of snobbery and rudeness happen on trains or in the supermarket. I feel a little guilty about it, so I will confront it here to ease my conscience a bit. It happens when a stranger rudely says “hello” in the middle of my conversation with someone else. It rears its ugly head when the boy next to me wants to spend the entire train ride talking about trivial topics he has recently studied in English. It happens when I’m approached in our school’s neighborhood by a random student who seems so surprised to meet foreign teachers and persists to ask us his questions about Toefel exams. It happens when a stranger follows me off the bus and asks me if they can accompany me to buy groceries. Strange, don’t people realize that these are strange and a little forward behaviors?

Happy Birthday Bro!

Tomorrow, my eldest brother celebrates his 30 something Birthday. I'm so thankful for his life and his friendship. Exactly two years ago at this time, my brother was visiting me in China. We went to Beijing and Hengyang, and he loved it. You can imagine that my students and friends loved having him visit too. (Can I just say that in this picture, I was going through a fashion slump that I later coined "completely homesick and bad Chinese haircut.")


Exactly one year ago, my brother married a beautiful woman named Joy. I'm so thankful to now not only have a great brother, but also an amazing sister.


This year, my brother is a family man with the addition of their little baby girl Kenzie Grace. Today, I miss my brother and all the fun times we shared growing up, but I'm celebrating with him in spirit. I'm thankful for his family and for the way that he will continue to shape lives.


In closing, I don't think my brother reads this blog, so I could take this chance to write something embarrassing about him, but I'll be nice.

Home-town Snack

About one month ago, one of my former students excitedly called me up: "I'm back from my home-town, and I've brought some local snacks for you." "Sweet!" I think; I love snacks. But, when she gives me a bag of raw sausage and smoked meat, I feel slightly less excited. As she explains to me how to prepare the meat, my eyes glaze over: "Why don't you come over to help me cook it, and we can eat it together." Her eyes brighten and the date is set.

As soon as we start to cook the meat, I know it's going to be a difficult dinner for me. The "meat" is like a ying yang of equal parts fat and meat. The special sausage that you see in the picture, reminds me of fingers. I did my best to eat the "meat" and the sausage, but there are some dining experiences that I don't hope to relive anytime soon.