Living in a completely different country is bound to teach you some lessons. Some might be of a more practical nature, applicable anywhere. Study the language and embrace the culture. Make friends with locals. Avoid death. Other lessons will, of course, be more specific to the country. Never travel by train during the Spring, National, or May holidays and always make reservations, even at that quaint little hostel you think no one else knows about. Take all vegetable-flavored ice cream and candy seriously. Avoid death by illegal car service to Beijing. Finally, you have the grand lessons. You know--the life-lessons that will make you a better person as you head off on your way, filled with a nice dose of feel-goodery and enlightened appreciation for your global neighbor. So what do I say? That I learned every culture is unique and beautiful and rich? That the intricate fabric of our humanity weaves us closer together than the rifts that separate us?
Junk.
Often true, but still junk. I didn't live and think and grow for a year in China to spew out trite sentiment. You can get that on Lifetime.
There are plenty of easy answers to give you. It's certainly easy enough to say something fuzzy and clichéd, like living a year in China taught me to be more patient and more flexible. Of course it did. Things in China are constantly changing and happening, often without warning or perceptible logic. If I don't learn these two basic things, I'm done. Maybe I could say I learned just how fortunate I am: to be an American and enjoy the freedoms and opportunities I've had, to have the loving and supportive family that I do, to have so much more money and possessions than the overwhelming majority of the world. So it really took living in a different country to figure that out? Then this has to be something different, something better than a dollar store answer.
And therein lies the problem. How does one go about conveying such a thing? The real lessons--the ones you piece together only after significant time and thought--are much more elusive, to grasp and to share with others. Some things were just not meant to be easy. Maybe some reverse engineering is in order--starting with the ultimate take-away from my first year in China and then working backwards to parse apart the various reasons that have come together to give me that particular take-away. So here it is, my ultimate lesson from China, my big take-away, the sound-bite I would tell you if I had to say just one thing: I belong here; there is simply no place else that I can be, at least for now.
I like to think that living in China has helped me get my priorities straight. In the U.S., I was busy. Always busy. So busy that I neglected the things that matter most: reading the Good Book daily, speaking with the Father many times throughout each day, enjoying the pleasure of a good meal or a good conversation with good company, devoting my time and love to others, enjoying the moment. And it felt pretty empty, all this busyness. I wasn't busy following my passions or meeting the needs of others. I was busy waiting for 5:00 to come, busy waiting for the weekend, busy thinking about the next movie I'd watch. Stupid busy. Selfish busy.
I have a simple job that requires no more than 22-23 hours of my time in an average week. I am afforded a wealth of time, and I have no trouble spending it well. I am busy, but this time I am good busy. I'm busy meeting with students: to eat, to play basketball and ping pong, to have good conversations, to cook Chinese food, to share my life. I'm busy learning to speak Mandarin so that I can really get to know this country (i.e., know the hearts and minds of the Chinese people--only truly accessed through their language). I'm busy reading (books and blogs and articles) about China, talking about China, and thinking about China so that I can learn how to love this place, these people even more--and then share that with others. Spending time this way is wonderful. Won't you try it?
So now there is this ability to organize my life in some important ways. No longer confined by the struggles of my American life, I can embrace my Chinese one where I joyfully spend time following the passions of my heart (i.e., China and the Chinese people). Being here gives me this clarity about what matters, but perhaps more importantly, about what doesn't matter: my "precious" rights, my entitlements, my self. Me. What remains, then, is relatively simple: 1) Follow the Father first; 2) Shut up and stop complaining; 3) it's not about me; 4) shut up already and stop complaining.
I am especially hard on myself in regards to points two and four for two reasons, the first being that coming from the country I do, the background I do, I have no place to gripe or complain. None. The US is not perfect, my family is not perfect, but they are immeasurably better than the hand that the vast majority of Chinese have been dealt. Second, I've spend a lot of my life stewing over things that just don't matter. Standing on the bus next to one of China's 200 million migrant workers (who is away from his wife and two children 50 weeks a year to make 800RMB per month [about $123]), who am I to complain when I can't afford to backpack in Europe like I'd dream to? When I see pictures of children like these, who am I to complain that there aren't many restaurants I like in the town where my parents live? When my students ride 18 hours through the night in a packed standing-room-only train every time they travel between their home and school, who am I to complain that it took six hours instead of the usual three to get to Beijing in a private car?
The fact is I can't. I have led a ridiculously privileged life, and living here is a daily lesson in humility. I am humbled by what ordinary Chinese have endured in their painful history and what they continue to endure today. I don't feel guilty for what I have been given, but be darn sure that I won't take it for granted anymore.
For many, coming to live in China is a chance to run away, to have a big, fat adventure, to add more to their repertoire of cocktail party anecdotes. A person with those motives might be prone to say many things about their place in China, but I'd venture a guess to say that they wouldn't claim they belong here. I think often of Buechner's words on the subject of calling and vocation. He said, "The place the Father calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Could there be a more perfect appraisal of my time, my purpose in China?
Junk.
Often true, but still junk. I didn't live and think and grow for a year in China to spew out trite sentiment. You can get that on Lifetime.
There are plenty of easy answers to give you. It's certainly easy enough to say something fuzzy and clichéd, like living a year in China taught me to be more patient and more flexible. Of course it did. Things in China are constantly changing and happening, often without warning or perceptible logic. If I don't learn these two basic things, I'm done. Maybe I could say I learned just how fortunate I am: to be an American and enjoy the freedoms and opportunities I've had, to have the loving and supportive family that I do, to have so much more money and possessions than the overwhelming majority of the world. So it really took living in a different country to figure that out? Then this has to be something different, something better than a dollar store answer.
And therein lies the problem. How does one go about conveying such a thing? The real lessons--the ones you piece together only after significant time and thought--are much more elusive, to grasp and to share with others. Some things were just not meant to be easy. Maybe some reverse engineering is in order--starting with the ultimate take-away from my first year in China and then working backwards to parse apart the various reasons that have come together to give me that particular take-away. So here it is, my ultimate lesson from China, my big take-away, the sound-bite I would tell you if I had to say just one thing: I belong here; there is simply no place else that I can be, at least for now.
I like to think that living in China has helped me get my priorities straight. In the U.S., I was busy. Always busy. So busy that I neglected the things that matter most: reading the Good Book daily, speaking with the Father many times throughout each day, enjoying the pleasure of a good meal or a good conversation with good company, devoting my time and love to others, enjoying the moment. And it felt pretty empty, all this busyness. I wasn't busy following my passions or meeting the needs of others. I was busy waiting for 5:00 to come, busy waiting for the weekend, busy thinking about the next movie I'd watch. Stupid busy. Selfish busy.
I have a simple job that requires no more than 22-23 hours of my time in an average week. I am afforded a wealth of time, and I have no trouble spending it well. I am busy, but this time I am good busy. I'm busy meeting with students: to eat, to play basketball and ping pong, to have good conversations, to cook Chinese food, to share my life. I'm busy learning to speak Mandarin so that I can really get to know this country (i.e., know the hearts and minds of the Chinese people--only truly accessed through their language). I'm busy reading (books and blogs and articles) about China, talking about China, and thinking about China so that I can learn how to love this place, these people even more--and then share that with others. Spending time this way is wonderful. Won't you try it?
So now there is this ability to organize my life in some important ways. No longer confined by the struggles of my American life, I can embrace my Chinese one where I joyfully spend time following the passions of my heart (i.e., China and the Chinese people). Being here gives me this clarity about what matters, but perhaps more importantly, about what doesn't matter: my "precious" rights, my entitlements, my self. Me. What remains, then, is relatively simple: 1) Follow the Father first; 2) Shut up and stop complaining; 3) it's not about me; 4) shut up already and stop complaining.
I am especially hard on myself in regards to points two and four for two reasons, the first being that coming from the country I do, the background I do, I have no place to gripe or complain. None. The US is not perfect, my family is not perfect, but they are immeasurably better than the hand that the vast majority of Chinese have been dealt. Second, I've spend a lot of my life stewing over things that just don't matter. Standing on the bus next to one of China's 200 million migrant workers (who is away from his wife and two children 50 weeks a year to make 800RMB per month [about $123]), who am I to complain when I can't afford to backpack in Europe like I'd dream to? When I see pictures of children like these, who am I to complain that there aren't many restaurants I like in the town where my parents live? When my students ride 18 hours through the night in a packed standing-room-only train every time they travel between their home and school, who am I to complain that it took six hours instead of the usual three to get to Beijing in a private car?
The fact is I can't. I have led a ridiculously privileged life, and living here is a daily lesson in humility. I am humbled by what ordinary Chinese have endured in their painful history and what they continue to endure today. I don't feel guilty for what I have been given, but be darn sure that I won't take it for granted anymore.
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