Justification...and Halloween!

Well, first off, my Mom asked me after reading the last post what all the complaining was about. What's my problem with China? I've complained a few times in posts, but I guess I keep a lot of the complaining here in China with Lindsey and the rest of the Peace Corp crew. Lindsey tends to tell people more of the problems she has faced here and the fact that her family has visited China lets them understand a lot more about this crazy place. Yet, after my Mom asked me why I was complaining...I had to sit back and ask myself the same thing..."What was my problem?" Is it just me? So, here is a little something that I wrote to try and explain China, my problems, and my disillusionment:

I didn'’t come to China to help people. My humanitarian beliefs are not what brought me to this place or into the Peace Corps. The reasons I joined the Peace Corps and then came to China were for the most part, selfish. The thing I wanted most was a departure, a new outlook, something beautiful, simple, and it seemed that that 'thing', that '‘something'’ is sold to us, as shown in the literature, or has somehow through the years morphed into the concept of: The Peace Corps Experience. I did want to live in a mudhut. I did want to eat bugs. I wanted to be cold in the winter and hot in the summer. More than anything, I wanted passion. I wanted it to be real.

China is a place that is passionless. It is a country whose college students favorite past-times are watching Qing Dynasty era soap operas, playing video games, and sleeping. Asking my students what they love, what they like to do, and knowing, before asking any of these questions what answers I will get, is painful. Do any of you like to read for fun? Do any of you like to paint? Do you like to write? Do any of you hate television? No.

The real question is this: What is it about this country that makes people feel like their souls are being stolen? Lindsey sees China as a place that is home to a population with no beliefs bigger then themselves, with no aspirations other then hedonism and monetary wealth. While the outside world may see China as a Buddhist country, anyone living here knows that this label is liberally applied with no meaning attached, just as fair-weather (Christmas-Easter) Catholics are not influenced by their label. While I feel this lack of a faith plays a role in defining China, I think the most basic problem is the sheer lack of beauty, or any appreciation of it.

If you spend the least amount of money as brashly as possible for construction projects, they look like it. If you allocate minimal funds for the maintenance of recently finished public works, they start to degrade. This is China'’s story, a story that is unfolding more and more rapidly as industrialization and modernization spread to every city, town, and hamlet across the country. The old is quickly tossed away in place of the new and everything is seen as better for it. China is moving forward quickly, but it's doing so without any reflection of the reasons for it's development. While China is a 'real' place, something I mentioned wanting during my experience in the Peace Corp, it is a place that takes no time to think and reflect upon itself and what it's doing, or the rest of the world. It takes no time to question, and therefore, has no time to see what its deficiences, needs, and loves are.

To counter all the negativity, I would just like to list some of the things that I love about China: I love the fact that I can buy fresh vegetables and fruit, merely a minutes walk from my house. I love how the elementary school children yell "hello" to me on their way to class, and then awkwardly think over what else they could possibly say. I love a lot of my students. I love the fact that I, and most everyone else in China never flinches when the power goes out, and stays out all day. I love walking and taking the bus everywhere. I love long train rides through a countryside that still seems timeless amid the roaring industrialization. I love how the eye's on the old women who picks through the garbage light up, as if it were Christmas morning when I give her a couple of bottles. I love peanut milk, soymilk, and these big round cookies that taste just like animal crackers for only $.20 a package. I love Chinese BBQ and these little oranges that you can peel in seconds. I love working 16 hours a week and using all that extra time to complain about it. There are things that I love here, a lot of them I guess, but it sure is easier to dwell on the bad. Oh, but I still hate the beer.

In closing, I threw a Halloween party for one of my classes on Halloween night. There was no power so the whole classroom was full of candles, which was awesome. A lot of the students dressed up, we bobbed for apples, I gave them candy corn, and I think that everyone had a pretty good time. I love Halloween back in the States and it actually felt like I was able to celebrate one of my favorite holidays here in China. I dressed up as Lindsey in a typical last second dash, and Lindsey donned my hat and went as me.